Oolite screensaver mode or zero player mode

[Bugbear]

So this is an idea that pops up in my head from time to time, and admittedly I first saw a similar concept mulled on the Limit Theory forum.

Oolite Zero-player mode - where the game plays itself. It would be a great screensaver (although as far as screensavers go, it would probably still demand a lot of juice from your computer's power supply).

Follow the adventures of a wet-behind-the-ears Jameson as he makes his first flight. Watch him jump to Reorte and see if he's lucky enough to make it to station.

I think the existing AI would be sufficient for handling flight - just have a role assigned and let the AI do its thing. Trickier, I think would be teaching the computer how to trade, how to handle parcel, passenger and cargo contracts, how to plot routes, when to upgrade equipment.

Anyway, not expecting this to be created but it would be fun to see...

[Diziet Sma]

Very interesting idea.. I'd love to see this even partially implemented.

[aegidian]

Oh I like this!

Reminds me of when I was coding an automatic, follow-what's-interesting camera mode for Redline.

Here's how I'd see implementing it. You'd need a follow-cam mode for the viewpoint on each ship in a system, not too difficult because the exhaust trails use a sort of follow-mode anyway. As each ship in a system goes about its business they would have a degree-of-how-interestingness based on how engaging what they are doing currently is, that value would slowly degrade over time, but would be bumped up by stuff like firing weapons, taking fire, scooping cargo, beginning a docking sequence, etc. etc. The viewpoint then uses the follow-cam of whichever ship in a system is most interesting at any given time. If the most-interesting ship changes, a swooping 3 or 4s interpolating transition between the viewpoints would be dramatic and fun. If the most-interesting ship exits the system and enters a new one it would carry its degree of interestingness with it (so the viewpoint doesn't switch too fast after a jump.)

The spectator mode would have to be activated from the start screen.

[cbr]

- and a drone camera giving an circle around the ship(s).
- and flyby the planets.
- following a viper from main station to a offender.
- extreme view angles
- landings on a asteroid

This would be real nice

[Diziet Sma]

Reminds me of when I was coding an automatic, follow-what's-interesting camera mode for Redline.

Redline, the post-apocalyptic FPS by Accolade, or Redline, the OSX racing sim?

[aegidian]

Reminds me of when I was coding an automatic, follow-what's-interesting camera mode for Redline.

Redline, the post-apocalyptic FPS by Accolade, or Redline, the OSX racing sim?

The racing sim, I was working on the seecrit-squirrel Redline Legacy.

[Thargoid]

The  Tracker Camera OXP I wrote could be a basis for at least part of this. Currently it is stationary and focuses on the player, rotating to keep the ship in the screen centre, but there's no reason that with a bit of tweaking it could be made to move and keep pace with the target ship, and to have a different target than the player ship.

The OXP is currently up for adoption if anyone wants to use it and extend it to something like this (or use the concept out-of-gameplay).