Oolite Bulletins

Imperfections in thrusters and mass imbalances within the ship are normally automatically corrected by the flight control software. However, at very high speeds, those corrections are no longer effective. The ship starts to "shake" and has a tendency to "steer" in a some direction, and becomes harder to control securely. For this reason, the flight control software automatically disengage the Torus drive when it detects a significant mass nearby; a security commonly known as a "mass lock".

Inspired (and code stolen) from Wildeblood's "Bullet Drive"

Beta version, feedback welcome.

Oh, and since it's my first OXP, you'd better make a copy of your save files etc.

Get (OXZ package):

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7mL1 ... ldoaHFyTlU

(Use the download symbol at the top and save in the ManagedAddOns folder).

I like the theory in the quote box.

Will give this a try at some point. Thanks.

Nice first OXP, welcome to the dark side.
A minor thing: better if download_url and file_size are left out from the manifest.plist file zipped into the oxz. These are needed in the manifest entry in oxz admin page only.

Norby wrote:

Nice first OXP, welcome to the dark side.
A minor thing: better if download_url and file_size are left out from the manifest.plist file zipped into the oxz. These are needed in the manifest entry in oxz admin page only.

Thanks for the tip!

To expand a bit on what the OXP does: the "shaking" is actually a semi-random small rotation on the three axes of the ship.

"Semi-random" because there are two components:
- a "dynamic" component: a new one is picked for every new frame
- a "static" component, which is picked on launch only

As a result, among the random shaking the ship has a tendency to rotate in a certain way. This is somewhat similar to what happens when you damage your car or your plane in racing or flight simulators. It requires more or less constant correction depending on the draw you got at launch.
If you try it and get a very strong "steer" when using the Torus, it might be that you were a bit "unlucky" at launch (or rather, those bloody dockers at Xexedi really should learn how to load a ship properly; I can't believe I paid 8Cr docking fee for this).

Updated version 0.0.2:
- Decreased a little bit the shaking effect.
- The shaking/drifting effect won't happen at maximum injector speed any more.

I decreased the effect a bit because it could become really unpleasant if one gets a very bad draw at launch time. The "dynamic" shaking was a bit hard on the eyes, especially on long trips (I play with distant suns and a modified Extra Planets OXP that sets the planets 2 or 3 times further away; so 4 minutes Torus runs are not rare for me).

I was undecided on whether or not the effect should happen when using the injectors at first; then I got chased a couple of times. The drift makes it quite hard to hit the chasers with the rear laser, and its "dodging" side effect isn't worth it in my opinion (especially when you don't have to because you have a mil aft laser and the chasers don't).

I made this mostly to make Torus runs more "interesting". However, it makes the game slightly more difficult because it's harder to visually identify distant ships and asteroids (especially if you play with a low gamma setting). It also has the side effect of making Torus runs a little bit longer, because you don't fly a straight line any more.

In start game - manifest.plist is not valid (1.82 and 1.83)

Rustem wrote:

In start game - manifest.plist is not valid (1.82 and 1.83)

The very first version had this problem (I forgot a semicolon or two in the manifest), but I fixed it within the our announcing it. I've just downloaded version 0.0.2, tested it in 1.82 and it looks fine. Maybe you caught the early broken version 0.0.1?

This is excellent news! I hope it looks as good as it sounds. A similar idea was on my to-do list for years; if I ever get back into Oolite, this will be the first OXZ I download.

Hey, I hope you like it. I'm in good terms with the Torus drive now.

Version 1.0.0 available from the download manager.