Oolite Bulletins

I've been working on an attempt to implement some of what was discussed in this BB thread, in particular the concepts of equipment space and equipment weight. It doesn't take long for whatever ship you're flying to become filled with equipment: lasers, bombs, scanners, energy units, shields, ECM's, Ore Processors, you name it, your ship has got it. You switch from pirate to miner just by turning your ship around. The player ship ends up being the most kitted out ship in the galaxy. If you were in the camp that didn't want those changes mentioned in that thread in the core game, and/or you prefer to have a ship that is packed to the gunnels with kit, then look away now - this OXP will most likely not be for you!

Here's a sneak peak of what I've come up with so far:



This is the configuration screen, showing the current state of your ship at the top: how much equipment space is used, and the total amount available in brackets; how much cargo space has been allocated for equipment, with the total amount that can be allocated in brackets; and the current weight of all installed equipment and cargo. Then on the right side are details of how your ship is likely to perform with the current weight profile. The numbers in brackets here are the manufacturer's baseline figures, essentially showing you if your ship is under or over performing with the current configuration.

Below that are the various sections you can configure. Each section has multiple options, with different power, weight and space characteristics. Here's a sample of the engine configuration options:



The green item is the one that's currently installed. The light grey items can be installed, but they are one step above the current engine power coupling, so if they're installed there's a risk of electrical bus overload during fighting.

You can also sell most equipment items if you want to save space or weight. Here's a screeny, showing what happens after you buy something that puts you over your ship equipment space limit:



Notice that the "Return" option is disabled - I have to remove something in order to continue. Also note that while it's possible to uninstall the "Naval Energy Grid", the "Naval Energy Unit" (on which the "Naval Energy Grid" is dependent) is not - if a piece of equipment has something that is dependent on it, the dependent items must be uninstalled first.

To balance all of this, all NPC ships have the same weight penalties as the player. So every ship will have it's top speed reduced if they're loaded down with equipment or cargo.

I've tried to make this work with all equipment OXP's, so you should be able to install it and have all equipment correctly categorised. If I've missed some equipment items (because I didn't get to all of them), if you go to the F4 interface screen and select "View equipment specifications" you should get some notes in your log file that will help me track them down and add them to the lists.

As for the ship space and power-to-weight ratios, hopefully my default calculations will work for most ships. I've included info in the readme.txt file on how to override the calculations.

I think what this really needs is tweaking. Space settings, ship settings, lots of little changes to make it all balance properly. If someone has a better name, that would be good too! I also need some help in working out the best equipment rig for each of the standard roles in the game. So for instance, a pirate Python - how would they set their ship up? What about pirate escorts? Traders? Assassins? It would be really great if some intrepid players could have a look through the different options and put forward some suggestions on preferred kit. Once I've got a bit of a matrix mapping the different options to roles I'll add in the code to adjust NPC's to suite. At the moment they're just getting default kit.

How is this different to (a) Equipment By Ship Class by Redspear, or (b) Frontier Style Equipment by Zireael, or (c) Equipment Space by Ngalo? Well, I think in each of those cases OXP equipment has effectively been ignored, so it takes up no space or weight. I have attempted to cover both core and OXP equipment items, without needing to make changes to all the core equipment items or any OXP package. Hopefully, there is no need for OXP authors to do anything to have their equipment modules take up a suitable amount of space and weight. I guess what I'm saying is that I have tried to look at all equipment, regardless of source, and work out a methodology that works for everything. It should work with current and future equipment items.

What's not in here: Power management. There are a few problems I see with an implementation of true power management: (a) at the moment there is no "Off" state for equipment - it's either damaged or it's on; (b) the current UI methods available for controlling OXP equipment (that being: 1. prime with Shift-N, mode select with B and and activate with N sequence, or 2. Set as pylon mount and launch like a missile) don't lend themselves to fast and/or complex power management. The last thing you'd want to have to do is fiddle around with Shift-N to get the power module, pressing B to find the right mode, and then finally pressing N to re-activate your shields when you get attacked by pirates; and (c) it's going to be difficult simulating the same power management struggles with NPC's. For them their equipment is always going to be on, so it would be a bit unfair if the player was the only entity that had to worry about turning power on/off to various systems.

For those who are interested, you can download version 1.0.0 here:
ShipConfiguration.oxz. For this file, just put it in your AddOns folder.
ShipConfiguration.zip. For this file, you'll need to extract the "ShipConfiguration.oxp" folder from the ZIP file, plonk it in your AddOns folder, and restart Oolite holding the Shift key down. If you use this on an existing save game, make sure you take a backup!

There's a lot (and I mean a lot!) of stuff in this OXP. So rather than try to detail all the changes in a mega-long post, I'll stop here and as questions come up I can answer them directly. The  Ship Configuration wiki page or the readme.txt file has a lot of additional info. I might post some other screenshots if I think they'll help.

Note: Because of what I'm trying to achieve here I've incorporated most of Capt Murphy's Breakable equipment OXP's, specifically Breakable Energy Unit, Breakable Engines, Breakable Shield Generators, Breakable Witchdrive and Breakable Torus Drive. So those OXP's are flagged as incompatible with this one.

yay... for stuff to meddle with Can't check but will for sure when I'm back home.

What I really like is the NPC penalty., it's adds to the feeling of not being something special in the galaxy.
Does it handle OXP ships as well, or do I have to "enable" it for them.

Yes, oxp ships should be included. Only exception will be ships that have auto weapons set to false.

Nice
Just had a quick look, will give it a proper go later.
One small bug I found - Class4 Aft shields cost is wrong 1250.0Cr instead of 12500.0Cr.

Ok - big bug
On launch all energy banks are instantly drained and does not regenerate. Does it with a new ship and established ones. Happens in 1.82 & trunk.

Congrats for your another big project!
My suggestions:
-The data display should be self-explain, like used equipment space 40 of 46t and reallocated cargo space 0 of 6t.
-Would be only one mass cloumn, plus a flag for external equipments which mean 0 allocated space.
-Thrust changes should be much larger: +10% is almost unnoticeable, I think up to +100% and down to -50% would be better.
-The best hyperdrive could jump after 5s, this is the core limitation.
-Shield additions sounds better if "rounded" to +64 and +128.

Very very interesting.
My two cents: I think this is a very big change to a player Ooniverse, so to converge to a mature version of this oxp, what is most needed is lots of tests and lots of player reviews. You may want to polish first what happens when a player installs this oxp on his beloved main savefile.
Does it generate problems ? If the player uninstall the oxp, is there any problem ? If he installs it back, is there any problem ? What happens when modifying a full-loaded ship ? Once players are sure they're not damaging their main savefile or their main ship, they might let this oxp installed, and progressively give more and more reviews.

I mean, I fear using a copy of the main savefile and testing for 20 minutes won't allow to refine the different numbers quickly enough.

Tried a miner start with this. Default setup had me drained of energy / no regen. I cheated some credits, bought some upgrades. Increased energy banks fixed the energy problem but all my parts stack (3 engines 2 Energy banks) and I have no way to sell any upgrades? so I maxed out on space quick... oh my E banks started at 2 then in next system I turned weapons off and they jump up to 5 which is the upgrade I bought so even tho the parts stack doesn't seem to give both amounts at once... like shouldn't I have had 7 E banks with the standard and upgrade installed and taking up space?

Anyways, love the idea and been hoping for something like this.

Decided to try this out on my trunk version of game. I have a lot less oxz's installed. Default Cobbie start launched without a hitch... just cheated some creds... and the changing of engines and energy banks etc,... works perfectly no stacking just swaps out for the upgrade you want... Just added start choices and tried miner start. Launched without hitch. will slowly add things and hope I can find clashing oxz I guess as I have time.

@Devium: Thanks for that. I've got some fixes in the works that (fingers crossed) should solve the energy depletion issue, but if you can identify the actual conflict that would help enormously! Thanks for testing!

@Day: Yes, it's a big change. The only thing that might potentially happen with an existing game is cargo may be removed to make space for equipment, if your ship has a lot of equipment installed. In the next version I'm refunding the player as well as removing the cargo. Removing the OXP will disable all the changes, so the only thing you might potentially lose is some cargo. Therefore, for the benefit of future testers: Be aware that cargo may be lost after installing this OXP. If you want to try it out please make sure you back up your save game before installing.

@Norby: Thanks for those suggestions. I've implemented them all, although for the thrust issue, rather than upscale the numbers too radically, I've just doubled them for the moment. I'll do some tests tonight and if those numbers don't make an appreciable difference I'll double them again.

For the next version I'm turning off the need to actually purchase any upgrade, so players can feel free to try out all sorts of configurations without needing to hack some credits. Also in the next version is a scaling factor on the prices, so a Class 7 engine for a Boa costs more than a Class 7 engine for a Worm.

I'll update this post once I have a new version available.

So far I run into the energy problem with Ironhide Armour and Naval Energy Unit Next, but not Naval Energy Unit. *Edit* heh Beer Cooler causes it as well...

Devium wrote:

Beer Cooler causes it as well...

Well, that's odd! indeed. I can understand the Naval Grid Next - I'm testing that one now. IronHide shouldn't have an impact, as none of it's code is shield or energy related... hmm... <wanders off to start rummaging through OXP script files>

Quite odd indeed. Beer Cooler only has some script for its uninstall IIRC.

APRIL Pylon Reloader - Audible Docking Clearance - Bounty Informer - Auto Dock - Cargo Scanner - Camera Drones - Cargo Spotter - Commanders Log - Cup of Tea
Duplex Fuel Tank - Email System - Energy Equipment - Extra Fuel Tanks - Flight Log

Had to run and get some work done but got some more testing in after and all of these cause the energy error for me as well. I have not yet encountered the stackable Engine / Energy Banks error but there is a lot to go through still... might be worth mentioning equipment that has worked for me so far.
Naval Grid - Fuel Collector - ETT Homing Beacon - Cargo Shepherd - Towbar

Hold fire on more testing. A lot of those OXP won't have any relationship (eg EmailSystem - I should know! ) , but Energy Equipment might. I have a new version I'm polishing up, which should be ready in the next hour. Might be worth waiting for that one.