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History of the game of Oolite
Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2021 12:38 pm
by Cholmondely
Query #1: Ahruman
1) What did Ahruman actually do to the Oolite game? What changes did he usher in?
2) Was he in charge for all of the various 1.7 versions (2007-2013?)?
3) Who were his main helpers - or did he just do things on his tod as Aegidian seems (to me, 14 years later) to have done?
4) I understand that this was the period that Lestradae was working on Realistic Shipyards & Oolite Extended, but presume that this was somewhat independent of what Ahruman was up to. How many .oxp's were in existence at the time - 200?
Re: History of the game of Oolite
Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2021 12:52 pm
by Cody
It might be better to call him Jens (or JensAyton). There were reasons for his change of username (as there were with mine).
Aside from the usual dev stuff, Jens was working on Oolite 2.0 (which he eventually abandoned).
Re: History of the game of Oolite
Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2021 1:38 pm
by another_commander
Check out the Progress thread in the Discussion subforum. This contains all the main bullet points of what Jens contributed and is a nice summary of development - warning: prepare to read a lot.
Re: History of the game of Oolite
Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2021 1:51 pm
by Cody
<chortles> Progress - one of the big three threads. It does make for interesting reading though.
Re: History of the game of Oolite
Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2021 8:09 pm
by Cholmondely
Cody wrote: ↑Thu Jan 07, 2021 1:51 pm
<chortles> Progress - one of the big three threads. It does make for interesting reading though.
I dipped my toes in ... too much jargon for my current state of ignorance.
My current synopsis of Jens is the following:
Jens introduced '''shaders''', for better visual effects. He also brought in '''JavaScript''' for OXPs, allowing more sophistication. And he was a fearsome partisan for Yaw in the [[Roll vs Yaw crusades]], and oversaw its introduction into Oolite.
Am I missing anything important?
Re: History of the game of Oolite
Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2021 8:19 pm
by another_commander
Cholmondely wrote: ↑Tue Feb 09, 2021 8:09 pm
Am I missing anything important?
He refactored nearly all of Oolite's code inherited from aegidian and effectively redesigned the game's entire architecture, making it 21st century ready and causing massive improvements in pretty much everything from performance to graphics to gameplay and so on. He wasn't just another programmer in the project, he was THE programmer in the project.
Re: History of the game of Oolite
Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2021 8:22 pm
by Cholmondely
another_commander wrote: ↑Tue Feb 09, 2021 8:19 pm
Cholmondely wrote: ↑Tue Feb 09, 2021 8:09 pm
Am I missing anything important?
He refactored nearly all of Oolite's code inherited from aegidian and effectively redesigned the game's entire architecture, making it 21st century ready and causing massive improvements in pretty much everything from performance to graphics to gameplay and so on. He wasn't just another programmer in the project, he was THE programmer in the project.
Ahah!
Thank you!
Re: History of the game of Oolite
Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2021 3:12 am
by Commander_X
Cholmondely wrote: ↑Tue Feb 09, 2021 8:09 pm
Cody wrote: ↑Thu Jan 07, 2021 1:51 pm
<chortles> Progress - one of the big three threads. [...]
Wild guess: Progress, Screenshots and Science Fiction Trivia ?
Cholmondely wrote: ↑Tue Feb 09, 2021 8:09 pm
[...]
My current synopsis of Jens is the following:
[...] fearsome partisan for Yaw in the [[Roll vs Yaw crusades]] [...]
<chuckles while hearing Cody <sniggering> next room> 
Re: History of the game of Oolite
Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2021 11:52 am
by Cody
Commander_X wrote: ↑Wed Feb 10, 2021 3:12 am
Wild guess: Progress, Screenshots and Science Fiction Trivia ?
<nods>
Commander_X wrote: ↑Wed Feb 10, 2021 3:12 am<chuckles while hearing Cody <sniggering> next room>
<cachinnates> There were three things I loved about Elite Dangerous: the eye-candy; docking at stations (especially at outposts); and the flight model (FA on or off). Sweet was the sound of yawners wailing and gnashing their teeth!
Re: History of the game of Oolite
Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2021 3:17 pm
by Commander_X
Cody wrote: ↑Wed Feb 10, 2021 11:52 am
[...] Sweet was the sound of yawners wailing and gnashing their teeth!
Hah, no denture damage here! As a non-religious yaw user myself, I had to adapt to FD's vision of favouring pitch/roll over pitch/yaw. Luckily, my keyboard/mouse setup integrates quite nicely pitch/yaw with the mouse, and roll from keys (together with the horizontal/vertical strafe, which I'm quite sure we all agree is a must for docking, right?).
Even in Oolite I'm doing keyboard roll for eye candy, but the lack of up/down cameras for the ships, makes roll flying more visual unappealing than yaw, e.g. after spotting the station on the side, and keeping it visible during/after a nice yaw turn (yes, I'm talking mostly about non-ASC stages of the game; but even with ASC, it's faster to just eyeball your direction than waste the extra action(s) to get a target in ASC). Roll/pitch turn is less predictable than simple yaw, at least when "keyboarded":)
Re: History of the game of Oolite
Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2021 11:16 pm
by Cody
another_commander wrote: ↑Tue Feb 09, 2021 8:19 pm... he was THE programmer in the project.
JensAyton wrote: ↑Sun Jan 09, 2011 1:52 pmI spent a lot of time in the sun in Swaziland before being bitten by a vampire computer.