Oolite Bulletins

I have played oolite for about a week. Discovered the 'telescope.oxz' which opened a lot more than that--military laser, injector,scoop as well as great nav stuff. However, i bought a mining laser as well. How can I switch between the two, or is that automatic when I target a ship?
This game is an achievement alright, even now in this era of core 7s and 2gig graphic cards. I feel lucky to have come across it. When is the best time to go on IRC #oolite? I have tried several times and the place is dead.
Thanks.

You can't switch between normal and mining laser on the same mount. Unless you use an OXP, which name I forgot.

And if you installed the mining laser on your front, you'd better earn some money quick, install a proper laser on the front and mining on the side.

Hi Fluxxx, and welcome.
You have four laser mounts (assuming you are flying the Cobra Mk III), and one laser can be fitted to each. They are Fore, Aft and one each side. The normal advice is to work up to Military lasers fore and aft (for combat), then mount the Mining laser on one of the side mounts. You switch between them by selecting the appropriate view (F1=fore,F2=aft and the two sides are on F3 and F4).
The chatroom is a bit quiet at the moment . Several of us are on throughout the day, but do not have the channel open on the desktop. If you look in, say something and if anyone is around they should get an alert that a post has been made, and can respond. If you just log on and do nothing we may not know you are there.

Thanks for the info. Apparently I got a refund so I got a new military laser and plonked it on the back.

Zireael wrote:

You can't switch between normal and mining laser on the same mount. Unless you use an OXP, which name I forgot.

[wiki]Weapon_Rotator[/wiki]

Thanks Norby. Could you just run through what I do with the OXP. I extracted it to addons, but I still cannot select it. Is it because it's in its own folder now?

Make sure the folder ending with .oxp is directly in AddOns and not within an other folder.
Good:
AddOns/Weapon-Rotator_0.3.2_2013-03-30.oxp
Bad:
AddOns/Weapon-Rotator_0.3.2_2013-03-30/Weapon-Rotator_0.3.2_2013-03-30.oxp

There is a requires.plist within this .oxp folder which set the limit of the max. usable Oolite version to 1.78, but this is simply not true, will work in 1.81 also, so you should edit, rename or even delete this file.

You will not see this manually installed oxp in the expansion manager but this is not a problem, the oxp is working and listed in the Latest.log.

You should see the "Bore & Ratter Weapon Rotator" equipment in F3 screen of stations in systems at least tech level 8. Buy it, launch and press Shift+N until you prime this, then press n for rotate.

You must have a ship with four weapon mounts else you will lose all of your weapons during the first rotate.

Well, I am at the proverbial wits end. The OXP folder is in addons alright: but when I extracted the oxp I saw that it contained sub folders with no way to get rid of the sub folders . I cannot think what to do next. Sorry.

Move the files and folders until you see the followings:

AddOns/Weapon-Rotator_0.3.2_2013-03-30.oxp:
Config
Scripts
Sounds
Info.plist
Weapon-Rotator_License.txt
Weapon-Rotator_ReadMe.txt

AddOns/Weapon-Rotator_0.3.2_2013-03-30.oxp/Config:
equipment.plist
weapon-rotator-xhairs-la.plist
weapon-rotator-xhairs-l.plist
weapon-rotator-xhairs-ra.plist
weapon-rotator-xhairs-r.plist
world-scripts.plist

AddOns/Weapon-Rotator_0.3.2_2013-03-30.oxp/Scripts:
WeaponRotator-AutoRotatorEquipment.js
WeaponRotator-AutoRotator.js
WeaponRotator-Common.js
WeaponRotator-HighQualityEquipment.js
WeaponRotator-LowBudgetEquipment.js
WeaponRotator-Main.js

AddOns/Weapon-Rotator_0.3.2_2013-03-30.oxp/Sounds:
weapon-rotator-hq-finish.ogg
weapon-rotator-hq-loop.ogg
weapon-rotator-hq-start.ogg
weapon-rotator-lb-finish.ogg
weapon-rotator-lb-loop.ogg
weapon-rotator-lb-start.ogg

I see all files. Just noticed that it is not compatible with 1.80. Need to update. Than you for your trouble. It is much appreciated.

This oxp is compatible with 1.80 also (I tested) but you must remove the requires.plist file which cause a false alarm message and prevent running in any version over 1.78.

Ah! And you mentioned that before. Takes me awhile to get things. Again Norby, my gratitude.

Hi,

how do I change "Forward" to an other side when buying a new laser? I can only press Return so that it's installed to the front (forward); how can I select left/right/rear?

See attached pic. ...

Hi MacApple, and welcome.
What ship are you flying? Does it have more than one weapons mount?

Oh, I'm a Oolite noob and tried the "fast money" strategy and changed the Cobra (110k) to a 70k ship. Seems it has only one laser place (front). Right? ^^ I'll try the "slow money" way and stay with the Cobra...

Thanks ...

P.S.: I played C64 Elite in the 80s and made it to "dangerous", but that's quite long ago.^^