Metafiction: Dialogues on the Lore of Xlite

[Cody]

Xexor/Hikan who provide the standard hyperspace transit drives knew a marketing ploy when they saw one.

Jumping intergalactically back and forth costs 2 galactic hyperdrives but circling back costs 8.
The employee who suggested it gets quickly promoted.
Meanwhile the scientists who can write the paper spouting any old guff about safety or galactic vortices find their work suddenly has funding.
Joe Public of course, is non the wiser.

Like it!

[Redspear]

Someone give me a tough one this time

[user2357]

Someone give me a tough one this time

Where is Cirag?

[Cholmondely]

Where is Cirag?

Rather more to the point, in 20 years nobody ever came out with a Raxxla OXP.



How about it?

Wildeblood has come up with some relevant ideas. Or maybe we could add in some worlds to the east of Ascension (would actually this be doable in Oolite?)





References:

Raxxla
Ascension

Wildeblood's ideas - 3 OXPs - bottom of top section

[Wildeblood]

Or maybe we could add in some worlds to the east of Ascension (would actually this be doable in Oolite?)

Adding chart real estate to the right/east was the sort of thing that could be done back when people were experimenting with 9-16 galaxies, different jump ranges instead of 7ly, etc. That was in the era before the zoomable chart. I suspect the code is much less amenable to such experiments nowadays.

As I've said, the obvious way forward now is at OXP level, manipulating the charts via the ability to conceal some systems completely. All of these solutions necessarily involve playing on charts with fewer than 256 systems at a time, but really, have you ever actually counted them to be sure there really are 256 showing? Adding to those suggestions I've already given, here's another concept.

Divide each chart into two lists of 128 systems each. Conceal half the stars on the chart. Make eight Galactic(tm) jumps. When the player returns to chart 1, label it chart 9, reveal the other half instead of those shown the first time. Now you have faked 16 chart Oolite at OXP level, without touching the core game's code. Downsides: (1) It still totals to 2048 systems - real Oolite 16 had 4096 systems. (2) The underlying charts, even though they look different when thinned out, use the same familiar topography. You won't see the really challenging charts that were possible with different seeds.

Also, this would allow several various routes through the charts, as leaving chart 1 the player could go to either chart 2 or chart 10. (It still wouldn't allow backtracking, though. Which is still ridiculous.) So, a player's progress through the charts could be, e.g.

1 -> 10 -> 3 -. 4 -> 13 -> 6 -> 15 -> 16 -> 1 -> 10 -> 3 -> 12...

[Redspear]

Someone give me a tough one this time

Where is Cirag?

It's in interstellar space silly

I thought that one was answered in the fiction?
Do you mean why can't it be found in game?

I've discussed doing similar, specifically with rock hermits in the controversy corner thread. So interstellar space needn't just be... interstellar space.

If you want a star to show up as well then I suspect that would tend to make it very visible to GalCop and they'd therefore be keen to exploit register it.

I've been thinking of making a nebula that resembles a (somewhat distant) star but I'd need to restrict it to interstellar space.

I've also been experimenting with inner and outer planetary systems (which requires quite a bit of tweaking of planetinfo.plist).

Outer planets are less likely to be habitable and therefore why not gas giants and the like. And if they're not suitable for agriculture then why not make them the industrial world's.

I'd have to read the dark wheel again to properly answer your question I suppose.

[Redspear]

in 20 years nobody ever came out with a Raxxla OXP.

How about it?

It was the iconic elite mystery. The Dark Wheel had Raxxla anf the elite manual had its space dredgers and generation ships.
We do have the latter of course but they are a bit... antclimactic, don't you think?

The trouble with mysteries is that it's easier to set up the promise than it is the pay-off.
Furthermore, upon delivering that pay-off it can be easier to wish you still had the mystery instead.

So it has long been on peoples' 'Wouldn't it be cool if...' lists without necessarily being a good idea.

You'd need an 'answer' to the mystery that prevents it becoming both mundane and irrelevant to the player experience.
Oh and it likley shouldn't interfere too much with gameplay and yet also be entertaining. As someone who's seldom short of ideas, the best idea that I have in this regard is to leave it well alone. My memory of it from the book was, unfortunately, largely that I didn't like the name.

Throw snippety clues all over the place if you wish but Raxxla itself might even work best as a game-ending event and do we really want that in a game of oolite's nature?

I suppose that witchspace misjumps could have been seen as a mystery even if they both made it into the original elite and delivered a simple pay-off. I think it's a bit harder to do that with a 'planet' unless it's a planet that isn't always there...

So finding it would not just be a matter of where but also when.
OK, so why would it be worth visiting? High tech, all ships available, best prices? Not particularly appealing is it?

Special missions? Maybe...

Could we put a planet in interstellar space? On the route between two particular planets? Then it would both have a location but be off the map(s).

But even then, so what?

Hey, I decoded that Rosetta Stone thing.
You did? Oh my God!
Yeah, we can totally read hieroglyphics now
Brillant!... Wait. We have a copy of the Book of the Dead here.
Oh yeah, I've already decoded it.
You have?!... Well?... What does it say man? What does it say?
Jim loves Sue.
What?
Yeah, that's pretty much it.

We need a what I think.

[Cholmondely]

in 20 years nobody ever came out with a Raxxla OXP.

How about it?

It was the iconic elite mystery. The Dark Wheel had Raxxla anf the elite manual had its space dredgers and generation ships.
We do have the latter of course but they are a bit... antclimactic, don't you think?

The trouble with mysteries is that it's easier to set up the promise than it is the pay-off.
Furthermore, upon delivering that pay-off it can be easier to wish you still had the mystery instead.

So it has long been on peoples' 'Wouldn't it be cool if...' lists without necessarily being a good idea.

You'd need an 'answer' to the mystery that prevents it becoming both mundane and irrelevant to the player experience.
Oh and it likley shouldn't interfere too much with gameplay and yet also be entertaining. As someone who's seldom short of ideas, the best idea that I have in this regard is to leave it well alone. My memory of it from the book was, unfortunately, largely that I didn't like the name.

Throw snippety clues all over the place if you wish but Raxxla itself might even work best as a game-ending event and do we really want that in a game of oolite's nature?

I suppose that witchspace misjumps could have been seen as a mystery even if they both made it into the original elite and delivered a simple pay-off. I think it's a bit harder to do that with a 'planet' unless it's a planet that isn't always there...

So finding it would not just be a matter of where but also when.
OK, so why would it be worth visiting? High tech, all ships available, best prices? Not particularly appealing is it?

Special missions? Maybe...

Could we put a planet in interstellar space? On the route between two particular planets? Then it would both have a location but be off the map(s).

But even then, so what?

Hey, I decoded that Rosetta Stone thing.
You did? Oh my God!
Yeah, we can totally read hieroglyphics now
Brillant!... Wait. We have a copy of the Book of the Dead here.
Oh yeah, I've already decoded it.
You have?!... Well?... What does it say man? What does it say?
Jim loves Sue.
What?
Yeah, that's pretty much it.

We need a what I think.

1) Hieroglyphs are a darn sight more complicated than that. And so are the various Books of the Dead. If you want a lecture on all this, I can happily bore you rigid on the subject! (As can DGill, and possibly even Disembodied).

2) Good point about Raxxla - it would need to offer something special & interesting - not just goodies for sale. Any suggestions?

3) Intrigued about your thoughts on what Deep Space Dredgers should be like. Just negative on what we have - or there any ideas about we could/should have? We speculated on Generation Ships previously, as you'll recall.

Reference:
Ideas for making more of the Generation Ships. Parts 1 - 3 (over a couple of pages with Redspear's views interwoven).

As regards my ideas, thanks to Phkb we now have external docking (Part 3). And thanks to Massively Locked's work on Life in the Frontier, there is a better understanding of how LitF introduces a role-playing scheme into Oolite (character health etc.) which is usable by other OXPs.

[Redspear]

1) Hieroglyphs are a darn sight more complicated than that. And so are the various Books of the Dead. If you want a lecture on all this, I can happily bore you rigid on the subject! (As can DGill, and possibly even Disembodied).

Yet again, I fail to make myself clear...

It was a hypothetical situation. I'm actualy quite familiar with that text, not to mention that the decoding of that stone essentially led to the decoding of many, many other texts.

Rather my point was that: imagine after all of that mystery, the hint of millenia of history, knowledge and myth, that all we got was 'Jim loves Sue'.
Of course we didn't but the reward for decoding the stone really was something. What do we have for finding Raxxla?

We need a what and ideally we need it to unlock/enable/embelish something that is both significant but not game unbalancing.
That, I would suggest, is a tall order and furtermore that the mystery we do have is currently better (in a game sense) than any solution I've thus far seen suggested.

Did I really come across as seriously suggesting that TBotD boiled down to little more than 'Jim loves Sue' ?

Just who exactly taught me English and where can I get a refund?

3) Intrigued about your thoughts on what Deep Space Dredgers should be like. Just negative on what we have - or there any ideas about we could/should have? We speculated on Generation Ships previously, as you'll recall.

I'm not against them, I see them as a start. I'd love to see something that better fits the description in the manual however.

They did have some gameplay associated with them I believe: the 'towing' of derelicts. The implementation wan't overwhelmingluy good IMHO but anything that opens doors for others to move forward with (or illustrates a valid proof of concept) earns some repect from me.

[Cholmondely]

... but anything that opens doors for others to move forward with (or illustrates a valid proof of concept) earns some respect from me.

Couldn't agree more.

[Cholmondely]

Where... ...?

Thy eschatological excellence!

With Phkb's new version of PlanetFall, would you be interested in helping out with naming planetary sites (for a new version of Famous Planets)?



If you are reading this but are not user2357 and are interested, let me know!



I've so far got the following:

Lave
City: Ashoria
Other City (Leisure?): Port Arcadia
Factory: Shipyards: Cowell & MgRath Shipyards
Leisure: 4th continent (Suther): Daphne Project (conservation, leonids & tree-grubs)

Lave's Moon (Basta)
moon_dome: Imperial Palace


Tianve (tongue-in cheek)
City: Tianvilus
Other City: Wagarville
Other City: Drewston
Leisure: Pillars of Tiaxus (Xootian Desert)
Leisure: Mount Alioth
Factory: Acid Lake City


I've a feeling that Drew had more going on the Lave's moon (Quirium distilleries?), but don't know where to track it down.



My hope is to come up with landing sites just for the Famous Planets' main planets and to add in gubbins from the wiki's Rough Guide.

I'm unsure about whether to omit planets where there is too little information to come up with something decent (eg: "7 18" ={description = "The Human colonials of this planet have an annoying habit of repeating everything they say. They have a saying ‘If it is not worth saying twice it is not worth saying’. They are also a fun-loving people but have a disturbing love of all types of gambling and as such they are mildly known for their Hoopy Casinos.";};)



Would you be interested in either adding in some of this gubbins - or even just checking over what I come up with?



I'm working on the denuded Famous Planets already in the Expansions Manager (denuded? - it has lost the music, and also lost the planetary textures which are now in Povray Planets which is not on the Expansions Manager. I'm not working on Stranger's superior "Famous Planets Overhaul" suite of 5 OXPs which isn't on the Expansions Manager either).

[user2357]

Greetings of hale be unto thee, Commander Cholmondely!

Thy eschatological excellence!

With Phkb's new version of PlanetFall, would you be interested in helping out with naming planetary sites (for a new version of Famous Planets)?

This is not really my field of study at the moment, but I'll give it a think, and drop you a line when something comes bubbling up from the depths of my memory. For instance, from The Dark Wheel, p. 5:

Lave
Geographical Feature: Paluberion Sea
Continent: FirstFall

Other than that, I guess I'll have to take a look at The Dark Wheel, Imprint and The Virtuous Misfortune again, sometime.

Would you be interested in either adding in some of this gubbins - or even just checking over what I come up with?

Where shall I find such gubbins which thou hast createdteth? ...that I may check whether I could be of any assistance in checking said gubbins.

Kindest and expediency unto thee
user

[Cholmondely]

Greetings of hale be unto thee, Commander Cholmondely!

Thy eschatological excellence!

With Phkb's new version of PlanetFall, would you be interested in helping out with naming planetary sites (for a new version of Famous Planets)?

This is not really my field of study at the moment, but I'll give it a think, and drop you a line when something comes bubbling up from the depths of my memory. For instance, from The Dark Wheel, p. 5:

Lave
Geographical Feature: Paluberion Sea
Continent: FirstFall

Other than that, I guess I'll have to take a look at The Dark Wheel, Imprint and The Virtuous Misfortune again, sometime.

Would you be interested in either adding in some of this gubbins - or even just checking over what I come up with?

Where shall I find such gubbins which thou hast createdteth? ...that I may check whether I could be of any assistance in checking said gubbins.

Kindest and expediency unto thee
user

So far, there's just the stuff in my post above. And it's only looking at the systems in the Famous Planets OXP (60 or so in G1, 30 in G2, 1 each in G5 & G7, 20 in G8). I doubt I'll bother with those systems for which there are no clues in the text.