Oolite Bulletins

New wiki page: Guide to Ambience OXPs (partial)

I'm trying to put together a wiki-page introduction for these which would give a useful summary for neophytes.

Attempts to contact the various authors seem to have driven them out of this galaxy, so I would be grateful for any corrections etc.



There are 7 Ambience .oxp standalones or suites for more realistic solar systems:

The most recent are: Knotty’s, Wildeblood’s, Rustem’s & Stranger’s.

•Keeper1st’s KeeperSky
(Ron O’Dell) inspired by Frontier/FFE (before 2016)


•Wildeblood’s Sensible Sun
before 2011


•Kaks farsun
Simple (March 2008)
Just the one .oxp


•Knotty’s Realistic Stars
(Richard Knott; July 2012)
Affects look of galaxy, star colour, corona size and distances. Constant size for sun coronas.
Just the one .oxp. (RealisticStars & Realistic Stars SSC seem identical)


•Wildeblood’s Distant Suns
Simple (July 2014).
Keeps the same basic distance between the planet and sun but varies it according to sun colour/star type.
Just the one .oxp


•Rustem’s Distant Stars
Later (Oct 2017)
Combines with cim’s Sunspots.oxp

As for Wildeblood, but adds variable corona flares, local economy correlated with star type and with observed reality etc.

Partly done in collaboration with Wildeblood, Stranger & cim.


•Stranger’s Sun Gear
Most recent (July 2020 - but started in 2013)

Requires Stranger’s Habitable Planets.oxp which moves planets further out to a more realistic distance.
You may need Stranger’s Hard Way.oxp to allow refuel skimming from Solar Winds as sun-skimming may now be suicidal. You may also need his SW_HUD_CAI .oxp whose revised altimeter is essential for landing without crashing on Habitable Planet surfaces.

Varies distances yet again according to star type. Star types correlated with observed reality.
Also varies star radius and luminosity.
Includes solar flares and solar winds.

An Advanced (Solar) System Data MFD displays 2 pages with data on sun & planets (Lock Advanced Space Compass onto sun or planet and then cycle through your MFD modes).

Partly done in collaboration with Wildeblood, Rustem, & 6 others.

Stranger’s Hard Way features
• Collapsible Shields interacting with Fuel Consumption (Torus Drive use becomes much more risky!)
• Gravity Wells (can cause malfunctions - you may also need Stranger’s custom SW_HUD_CAI with a more refined altimeter - his DAI has the regular altimeter)
• Solar Wind Scoop
• Warp Drive (amplifies Torus drive capability - but is degraded by time since last maintenance)

You may need his TrafficLights.oxp which gives priority to those whose fuel is almost gone due to Hard Way's revised fuel consumption.

Hard Way Conflicts with the Torus to Sun and with Fuel Collector .oxps

Stranger’s Here Be Dragons features exploration and is independent of this suite of .oxps.

Just some notes for clarity.

Habitable Planets don't moves main planets further out to a more realistic distance. It redefines planet radii. Distance to sun is redefined in Sun Gear.

SW HUD CAI is not essential for safe landing. It is just optional mod providing useful functionality. You can fly and landing safely using any HUD.

Warp drive in Hard Way is not affected by maintenance directly. Service level affects ship speed. Torus drive speed and warp drive speed are proportional to ship speed on full thrust.

Thank you!

There is a serious gap in logic regarding the realism of these sun-distancing .oxp's within Oolite.

I've now experimented with using several of these over the past few months. If one waltzes over to the sun, now a very extended procedure (even with a souped-up Torus Drive) one encounters myriads of pirates, the occasional hermit with accompanying asteroids, even more occasional traders ... and that's jolly well it. No lone asteroids, no unoccupied asteroid fields, no mysterious entities...

Massive flocks of pirates (what is the collective noun for a bevy of pirates?) without prey make very little sense. They should be somewhere that they can more easily earn a living. Without a widely-known hermit on the solar trek, nobody outside a SLAPU or ZGF-endowed communist system is ever going to bother visiting the sun - it is far too far away.

I would respectfully suggest that either the in-game population of these pirates needs a severe culling - or that a reason needs to be evident as to why people would wish to visit the sun in sufficient numbers to explain the otherwise perverse piratical demographics. Perhaps convoys of quirium farmers (assuming that Fuel Collector and Hard Way are not included in one's in-game OXP collection) could make regular solar runs ... but with the prevalence of the pirates, prices would need to increase dramatically, even if minute quantities of quirium are used for a 7ly witch-space jump - unless massive quantities are used elsewhere ... what on earth for?). But then these convoys would need to be provided for the game.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2020 11:00 pm

what is the collective noun for a bevy of pirates?

Not 100% sure, but a "mutiny of pirates" sounds good.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2020 11:00 pm

what is the collective noun for a bevy of pirates?

Murder, maybe? Or a gaggle, perhaps.

A Yo-ho-ho of pirates?

Next Topic!!


Am I correct in presuming that we have 7 different suites of textures for planets/moons?


1 The deprecated System Redux fully mapped out both every system (with planets, moons and stellar environment).
2 The deprecated System Demux gave an assortment of 30 planetary textures and 30 lunar textures to choose from.
3 DeepHorizon Systems (unfinished) had 40 different textures to choose planets & moons from.
4 Povray Planets with Povray Sets (?) and Famous Planets (descriptions).
5 Additional Planets (SR) adds random textures to extra planets/moons only
6 BPlanets for system 1.90 - quite unsure what this actually does, other than look nice!
7 Habitable Planets & Moons (Strangers World) - maps out every System's main planet, rest is random.


Am I correct in presuming that of these only System Redux, Povray Planets & SW fully map out the individual systems in the first galaxy?

And that BPlanets is nothing other than a set of textures for the Vanilla Game and other OXPs to choose from.

And that DeepHorizon Systems is now deprecated?

Which of these map out the galaxy as seen from that system? Just System Redux?

Habitable Main Planets - unique textures for ALL 2048 main planets. Using planetinfo.plist settings for procedural generated textures, so it is lite. Just less than 1 MB, not several GB.
Planetary Systems - generates and paints additional planets. 12 texture subsets, 5 textures each - 60 in sum. Alas, I haven't know way to use procedural generated textures based on planetinfo.plist for additional planets - seems it works well for main planet only.
Moons - only 6 unique textures: 2 for moons of main planet and 4 for Jovian moons. I was limited with availability of high-res texture maps. Most moons in our Solar Systems still has no full high-res coverage. Again, procedural generation approach will not work with moons.

stranger wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 12:00 am

Habitable Main Planets - unique textures for ALL 2048 main planets. Using planetinfo.plist settings for procedural generated textures, so it is lite. Just less than 1 MB, not several GB.
Planetary Systems - generates and paints additional planets. 12 texture subsets, 5 textures each - 60 in sum. Alas, I haven't know way to use procedural generated textures based on planetinfo.plist for additional planets - seems it works well for main planet only.
Moons - only 6 unique textures: 2 for moons of main planet and 4 for Jovian moons. I was limited with availability of high-res texture maps. Most moons in our Solar Systems still has no full high-res coverage. Again, procedural generation approach will not work with moons.

Great work anyway. The game looks very nice with your textures.

commander_STyx2909 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:51 am

Great work anyway. The game looks very nice with your textures.

Thank you and happy New Year!