EDIT2: By the way, the Lambda Shuttle is too big to dock. Does perhaps bigships.oxp reset the AI of a trader to the one in shipdata, if it can't assign the appropriate bigshipsAI?
No.
Bigships provides an AI which may be used for ships that are too large to dock, but it does not actively change anything on any ship that is already installed.
Any usage of the bigShipsAI is by the OXP author. It's just provided as a service to anyone who may want it.
EDIT: now I'm confused. According to autoAImap.plist any trader gets route1traderAI, just like every shuttle gets fallingShuttleAI if auto_AI is true, which is the case with the Lambda Shuttle. So I don't see how the AI defined in shipdata could ever be used. There shouldn't be an error.
I just downloaded the oxp. It only uses a "shuttle" and "trader" role so it will never use the shuttleAI. However, because of the way ships are initialised, Oolite always tries to load the AI in shipdata first. And because it can't find the given AI, it generates an error. Only after the ship has been set up, Oolite looks if it needs a special AI file and changes it accordingly.
So, despite the error in the log, the ship will end up using the right AI for trader or shuttle. And as McLane noted: its to big for a docking port resulting in buggy looking launches/docking. Next Oolite versions will deny such ships docking/launching rights.
So, despite the error in the log, the ship will end up using the right AI for trader or shuttle.
In my test I didn't get any error, so that is still the part that puzzles me. Or will the error only be visible with some more logging feature activated, which OSH may have done?
There will need to be special cases for the rare stations with larger docking ports, so the slightly bigger ships can at least dock/launch from them.
Currently all stations used as main stations have the same, standard-sized docking bay.
If I understand the new handling of ship sizes vs. dock sizes correctly, the code will check those two before each launch, so stations with bigger docks will launch bigger ships (up to dock size) without any problem, and these ships will be able to dock without a problem.
However, usually traders are going for the main station, not just any station. And the main station docks are size limited.
Currently all stations used as main stations have the same, standard-sized docking bay.
Except the one in Aqualina, if you have Aquatics installed. The dock there is big enough to launch almost anything (it can handle HammerHeads, by design)
I'd love to reskin these ships properly, but with no guidelines on the texture .pngs I've little to go on! I managed ok with the wonderful B-Wing but with the rest it's impossible to tell what goes where except by trial and error. Has anyone got the maps?
The "maps" are the dat-files which you find in the Models-folder.
With a conversion tool, for instance DatToObj.py, or—if you're on a Mac—with DryDock you can convert them to obj-files which are readable by your favorite 3d modelling tool, for instance Wings3d.
I'd love to reskin these ships properly, but with no guidelines on the texture .pngs I've little to go on! I managed ok with the wonderful B-Wing but with the rest it's impossible to tell what goes where except by trial and error. Has anyone got the maps?
When you mean the obj files you can get it here. It are obj and wings3d files. It should be easy to see than what goes were.
I'm afraid I'm hopelessy uncomputerate - I'd have no idea how to convert a dat file into a blank .png with just the guidelines on (what's that even called? Only the Dragon OXP actually provides these for the redoubtable Dragon ships) What I can do is use Photoshop and paint the skin, is about all.
For my own purposes I have done this to all the Dragons, the Starbelly, Baracuda and the really massive cargo cruiser, and have modified a lot more to tone down over garish colours or add details/effects. Usually the existing .png provides most of the panel shapes, but the Star Wars ships are mostly blank and not much help. I did reskin the B-Wing, but mostly by laying a general "busy" pattern down and hoping for the best. In this case it kind of worked anyway and looks quite nice in my opinion
But I could do much better with a .png that shows the guidelines.
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