Page 1 of 1

Stranger's Roolite Essay #1 (adding flavour & depth to Galaxy 1)

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2021 8:25 pm
by Cholmondely
Stranger has produced a more recent and improved translation of this essay. See here. Since this translation is in my post, I've added emphasis where I feel it is important - specifically Stranger's comments about breaking away from procedural generation to creating a more flavoursome and meaningful ooniverse.

The brainstorming posts beneath his essay are still relevant though...
The endless game world sandpit, in which the gamer is free to choose the path, sounds great, but nowadays it is already slightly worn out. And this journey began in boundless space - yes, you guessed it, it was with the legendary Elite. Let the wire graphics - but the 3D world without barriers, fly wherever you want. And there was somewhere to fly, 8 cards of 256 systems, any of which could become a bright adventure for the evening. The descriptions of these systems were arranged according to the in-built template, but the then gamer, who was still living in the era of text-based adventures, had a vivid imagination and knew how to entertain himself on his own. As one of the old-school gamers recalled at the Elite Veterans Forum: he flew in, unloaded at the station, saved himself and went to bed. And in the passport of the system, a tropical rain forest is mentioned - and now a person, falling asleep, imagines how this forest looks, sounds and smells and how great it would be to fly there on a shuttle. When processors were eight-bit, programmers were heedful of every byte of memory. When I first encountered Elite, I was shocked and fascinated: how the hell did they manage to do this? Just think how many kilobytes a complete catalog of all 2048 systems should take? Let's take at least Diso with her

This planet is mildly noted for its ancient Ouza tulip plantations but ravaged by frequent earthquakes.

I will not bore you with calculations, but according to estimates, it turns out something like 128 bytes for the system and 256 KB for the entire directory. Unbearably huge for a tiny 42 K memory of the Spectrum an array of information.

Procedural generation is the secret.

The entire vast world of the Elite is essentially grown from a tiny six-byte seed, and what looks like a game database is a shell that transforms the bits of the seed into many unique playable locations according to certain rules. 6 bytes is actually a lot, it is 2 ^ 48 unique keys, each of which creates a unique map at the output. In total, there is potential not just 8 maps with 256 systems in each, but 281,474,976,710,656 unique maps, among which there is a map with the planet ASSHOLE (there is one in my working archives!). But the legendary planet RAXXLA in this boundless ocean of probable worlds is not and cannot be - the algorithm for generating the name of the system precludes such a combination.

Nowadays, procedurally generated space will surprise no one, but the situation has turned inside out. Three decades ago, a procedural generator was used to dynamically fill a memory space with content that was too small for manually created and customized game worlds. Now game universes created on the server side can already take up terabytes of memory. Filling such colossal amounts of memory with meaningful content manually is a hopeless task. The current procedural generation algorithms no longer just create unique configurations of solar systems in general terms. They are used to generate unique planets with their own relief, climate and unique biota. Amazing progress ... and mostly pointless. In the truest sense of the word. No Man's Sky. Space, in which a person, by and large, has nothing to do.

I don’t mean to say that procedural generation is a waste of time. It creates the foundation of the world, freeing the game coders from the unbearable volumes of monotonous technical work. But procedural generation only sets the stage for meaningful content. Plot, history, cultural layer, lore - call it what you want, without this there is no game. And it is precisely the persistent misunderstanding of this fact that is the reason for the fiasco of the Parallel Reality 002 project. Some kind of motivation is needed to stimulate the gamer to wander purposefully, not just at random no matter where.

What was the motivation for the gamer in the canonical Elite besides a set of kills, bringing him closer to the coveted legendary rating? Well, at first, the gamer was simply not up to global reflections about the meaning of life, the Universe and everything else. Having grasped the basic rule "we take electronics in the industrial world, we sell in the agricultural world, we collect alcohol or furs, we fly to the industrial world, profit!" the gamer was busy looking for the best route with the optimal balance of profit and risk. Basically, this part of the game was learned quickly by trial and error. Having pumped the ship up to be an “iron ass”, the gamer set off on a free journey. Well, then, in the exciting anticipation of the missions that were legendary (very few people knew at least approximately how many there are in the game, what they would be, where and when they were given!), Whoever could fill the time as best he could. For example, why not cross the entire map diagonally from corner to corner before jumping to the next one? Or even cross all four corners. There is a goal, there is a choice of a route to it, each game session moves you towards its achievement. Of course, no discoveries were expected on the way of the gamer: no matter what system you take, in fact they were not much different. The only sun with a single planet, and even that was interesting only insofar as it was necessary to look for the solitary station of the system next to it. This did not prevent the gamers from filling this world with meaningful content on their own: people were looking for the legendary planet RAXXLA and even an analogue of the Earth, they discussed vague rumors about meetings with generation ships in deep space and wondered where the thargoid home nest was, and undertook ultra-long-distance expeditions, trying to check whether it is possible to get from one system to another through ordinary space, and not through a wormhole.


And what about Oolite? What can the explorer's game do?

Oolite no longer needs the old procedural generator to create a game universe from a six-byte seed. Information about systems is stored in a huge planetinfo.plist, which can be supplemented and edited to the best of your ability. But in the default vanilla game, the first impression is the same as in the old Elite: the sun with a single planet and a single station. For a novice who has looked into Oolite from the outside, such asceticism is discouraging. The base game provides only a skeleton, which the gamer completes with loadable .oxp modules and customizes to his liking. The concept of a constructor world is designed for a gamer who loves and knows how to come up with tasks for himself. Not everyone is willing to understand and accept this approach. And if you look at this ecosystem as a whole, the game plus half a thousand add-ons, you get a potentially rich world. Each of the 2048 Ooniversum systems is no longer just a sun with a single planet and a single station, but a fully-fledged model of the solar system with planets, moons and stations, which now opens up an additional dimension to the gamer - interplanetary flights. The game engine technically allows these systems to be as spacious as you like, and the procedural generator is unique. The question is still how to fill this procedurally generated kaleidoscope of locations with interesting meaningful activity. The procedural generator by itself, as we noted above, cannot do this.

Designing all these 2048 systems by hand, customizing them individually, saturating them with meaning and plot - well, you know, this is far too ambitious not only for a lone amateur, but also for a team of game developers. But the good news is that you don't need to meticulously design all 2048 systems. Cosmic wonders do not have to come across at every step. Interesting hand-sculpted locations, separated by routine procedurally generated intermediate points - why not? Let's drop it offhand. 16 individually configured systems on the map, maybe even only 8 systems - this is already enough to stimulate long-distance flights within the sector. And it will be a completely meaningful game goal as opposed to the meaningless infinity of No Man's Sky, where it doesn't matter where one flies.

Let's face it, the potential of this open world is poorly realized. And here the criticisms are not directed against the developers of the game, but against the community of addon oxp developers.
At first, addon developers drew inspiration from the lore that grew out of Holdstock's Dark Wheel. In Ooniversum, in addition to the hermit asteroids, which are in the default game, there are deep space dredgers, generation ships, thargoid craft - all these legends of the old Elite have been brought to life. If anything, now, the legendary planet RAXXLA can be technically created - of course, linking its search with a non-trivial plot. There is a legendary space graveyard in the Tionisla system, there are three more systems with individual settings, and finally, there is a promising, but alas, abandoned project The Famous Planets. There are finally some epic missions like Trident Down. Alas, this is practically everything that now exists and almost all of this has become so outdated that it urgently needs at least a cosmetic update. Ooniversum is not attracted by the concept of world-exploration. The first meeting with the colossal Generation Ship, of course, is impressive, but only just - I saw it, took a screenshot as a souvenir, unloaded it into the gallery and forgot. This meeting gives neither answers to old secrets, nor ties to new plots. The pulsar in the Tianve system, the orbital cemetery in the Tionisla system - the same issue. The first time one looks it is interesting, but nothing more. There are no storylines for these locations.

Commander Vasig might remind us: well, since we are talking about Tionisla, the mission of Tionisla Reporter is connected with this system. Right. There are other missions that start when the gamer enters a certain system. But the fact is that in Tionisla herself there is absolutely nothing unique, anything unique which makes it possible to receive the mission only there - except that it is system number 124 in the First Sector. Now imagine that it is possible to get and pass a mission not just by being in the desired location, but by collecting and analyzing a bunch of information in order to catch a pattern and calculate this location.

The default Ooniversum is an interesting world for a fighter or an athlete-traveler. To be registered visiting all the Famous Planets or even all 2048 systems is quite a goal for yourself. But the researcher in this world, by and large, has almost nothing to do. There are mysteries in the Ooniversum, but there is no mystery in it. What mystery can there be if Ooniversum is a densely populated world in which everyone knows about everyone? Gamers do not need to go on long expeditions to unexplored areas of the map to find high-tech worlds in which to upgrade or purchase a new ship. There are no unexplored areas of the map in Ooniversum - the entire map is revealed immediately. All high-tech systems of 13+ gaming level, all agricultural systems that need electronics, all anarchic pirate-infested systems - all this a gamer can discover right away without leaving Lave, and without any navigational database upgrades.

I do not mean to say that Ooniversum is boring and does not provide food for the mind. Due to the stochastic behavior of the popularizer, even a routine trade trip in a well-known system can turn into a bright adventure, and, on occasion, an unplanned profit or loss, it’s as lucky. But skirmishes with pirates and raids of thargoids also become routine over time.


Could there be any terra incognita in this densely populated cosmos?

Why not? At the very least, there is a spacious solar system outside the well-trodden path of the entrance lighthouse - the planet, and in this spacious solar system you can place a lot of things, even while remaining within the canon. Ships and stations of aliens somewhere on the distant outskirts (other aliens, not thargoids), planets and moons, potentially suitable for industrial development and even for terraforming, and maybe even with their own xenobiology.

There was a definite movement in this direction. Interesting planets and moons for the explorer, however, never appeared, but Smivs, with the help of other developers, was noted for his interesting packages Aliens and Star-jelly, in which there really are mysterious alien ships (possibly of organic nature) and huge organisms - inhabitants of open space ... Alas, the potential of these packages has not been developed.

What's wrong with these packages? Yes, in principle, the same thing as with dredgers and with the generation ships: meeting with these seemingly unique creatures is in no way tied to certain locations that a gamer needs to calculate, find and explore. A meeting with them does not portend any secret, but remains a pure whim of roulette.

I think the time has come, from grumbling “this is all wrong,” to finally move on to a concrete conversation: how, at least approximately, do I imagine the world of exploration?

And at least something like in the Star Trek universe. Something about the destination system is known, but only in general terms. There is information about the spectral class of the star and, possibly, about the presence of planets in it. It may be known that this system has a station or colony on the planet, but contact with it will need to be established upon arrival. The gamer arrives at the system, scans it in general terms, approaches the planet and scans it remotely. Launches drones for additional reconnaissance on the planet and finally lands himself (yes, I know, in Star Trek, the budget was poorly allocated for drones and planetary shuttles and we had to invent quantum teleportation, but the train of thought is clear).

And here the scope of imagination runs into tough reality. The problem is not even that such a scenario is far beyond the scope of Oolite's lore. Much worse is the fact that full-fledged development in Oolite occurs only in space. Landing on the surface of the planet as such, or going into outer space, the Oolite engine will not dare to process any of this - instead, a temporary port is created and the gamer's ship is docked with it. So, alas, no trips on an all-terrain vehicle and hiking with a geological hammer or tricorder, no survey of abandoned alien objects, no contact with local flora and fauna. All that can be done is to schematically illustrate the landing process with a package of pre-prepared pictures.

With the generation of beautiful cryptic graphs, diagrams and something similar to the computer interfaces that captivate Hollywood scriptwriters, it is also a complete ambush. But scientific reports in the form of texts and even in the form of tables can be created completely. Of course, they will look archaic, but why not give the gamer an extended passport of the planet, which he will see after exploring it? Not just the radius of the planet, but its equilibrium temperature, gravity on the surface, density and composition of the atmosphere, composition of the soil, the presence of water, the index of vitality.
References:
From Roolite: Roolite in Google Translate
And look here: Strangers World wiki page: see bottom of page with Roolite screen shot and button revealing his translated essay

Re: Stranger's Roolite Essay

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2021 8:32 pm
by Cholmondely
Brainstorming: Making geography more relevant

I like the idea of developing the first galaxy. Specifically, developing some dozen worlds or so to make them interesting in gameplay.

Apropos of the chunk of Stranger's Roolite essay reproduced above: some adventures or whatever giving purpose to various worlds. We have "anywhere" mission oxp's which fail to mark out places as special (eg. in RRS, Galactic Navy, GalCop Missions, Taxi Galactica, Random Hits... ). We have location oxp's which provide impressive ambience for various locations: Lave, Tionisla, Tianve, Lerelace etc.

The following call out for something more dramatic, in my humble estimation:
  • Lave (Monument, Lave Academy, the moon Basta, the planet)
  • Tionisla (TOGY)
  • Scandal-ridden Onrira (Obnoxicorp)
  • Larais's industrial orange haze (what lies hidden there?).
  • Tianve (Pulsar)
  • Teorge Home of the clones (The Dark Wheel), the Shulth dynasty (Oofiction) & 3.3 Billion (tedious) Black Bony Lobsters (Elite description)
  • The relationship between Lave and Zadies (both homes to significant bits of GalCop).
  • Ceesxe vs backwards Lave & Zadies
  • Xexedi vs Laenin (home of the Comoonin) - and its three chums (Terea, Oresri & Xeoner)
  • Communist Vetitice & Inonri vs a locally pathetic system
  • Stuff about some of the more colourful famous planets (eg Aesbion's invasion of Aronar).
Ideally one wants more than a mere mission. Something special which keeps one coming back, and marks out the system as special in some way.
  • Special price for a commodity (New Cargoes - mission involves picking it up and then one returns with more of it)?
  • Special servicing for some piece of equipment, which can only be done there?
  • Something building on phkb's Home System or on Feudal States which gives one a stake on the planet. Politics (... Diplomancy).
  • Romance?
How about first using this as a brainstorming thread - and then see what is actually feasible and does not take centuries of programming?

Edited to add Teorge

Re: Stranger's Roolite Essay

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2021 7:28 pm
by Cholmondely
Brainstorming: Making geography more relevant

Romance: if the romantic interest stays on the planet, that is a reason to return there. The RI's family could provide incentives too - missions, better prices for certain commodities etc.

Family: I suspect that this might go against the grain of what is out there (Oolite seems to presuppose that one has divorced one's family and run away to space - even Diplomancy requires one to buy citizenship of a system, rather than automatically getting citizenship of where one was born). But family, and messages from dying parents or siblings getting married, would add some flavour to one's homeworld. Especially if one starts getting recognised as one gains in Elite Ranking (tweaking Phkb's Home System .oxp)

Vendettas: an enemy. Imprint depicts a vendetta which develops over the course of time. Is this doable in Oolite (game code needs to remember the enemy. Need for credible escape when defeated. And is it possible to develop the enemies skills over time)? If the enemy is based in a particular system, then again, that system is marked out as special (to visit or to avoid).

Cause: for example, joining Amnesty InterGalactic, and fighting against slavery. The HQ thus becomes a place to visit for mission details, get cheap repairs, etc. Or joining the Bounty Hunter Guild to fight against pirates, etc. If there was one specific cantina/bar where one had to report, then again, there would be a geographical focus for the player.

Political Involvement: if one got politically involved with a system (along the lines of Feudal States or Home System, say, but with a bit more to it).

I'm unsure to what extent Vendettas are doable within the game code as it stands. The rest seems oxp'able to me.

References
The Seven Basic Plots

Re: Stranger's Roolite Essay on Oolite

Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2022 5:06 pm
by Cholmondely
Phantorgorth sent me this in a pm which he seems happy for me to share:
What Stranger wrote is related to why I started the Visas OXP to try and break the homogenous nature of Ooniverse. One of the ideas to use it was to make places such as a whole system out of bounds unless you met some criteria. E.g. a religious colony or xenophobic system, or a military base, etc. Another idea, though not so great given COVID, was a Pandemics OXP which would use Visas to quarantine systems, planets or stations

One way to make individual worlds stand out is to make certain powerful or specialist equipment only available in a handful of places.

Unless things have changed over the last ten years the limited trade good types is an issue for this. If we had a multitude of goods to trade and pickup we could have a crafting system to convert certain goods to other goods but only at certain places.

Another idea is to create named NPCs with personality (certain AI behaviours) that only hang about certain regions of a map. Great for bandits with massive bounties, or those that come along and help you out in battles, etc.

Also they would be good to have you become persona non grata in certain places either a fugitive in the eyes of a specific system or one the named NPCs, I mentioned above, could take a grudge against you.

Some simple things could be make certain station models only occur in certain systems or regions.

Another idea to create sports leagues (zero-g hockey anyone?) And have reported match results and have stadia and more ships in systems on match days and more for teams higher in the leagues and billboards cheering teams on, etc.

Another way is to make AIs tweaked based on region. You would need reasons for this which could be recent Thargoid attacks, or cultural reasons such as prevalence of certain species or religions in that region.

Just a few ideas.

Phantor Gorth
Reference:
Permit systems and system permits (2009-10)
Visas.oxp never emerged. But Diplomancy has a much simpler Visas mechanism (and also introduces "war" although no real war happens unless the player is a citizen of an enemy system and there are local vipers present!).

Re: Stranger's Roolite Essay #1 (adding flavour & depth to Galaxy 1)

Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:10 pm
by Cholmondely
Switeck wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:20 pm
There needs to be more and more complex+long stories to tell.
1) Do Here be Dragons & Buyable map run on your computer?

2) It strikes me that the obvious ways to add more depth (nothing to do with exploration, but well...!) are to make more of

a) Murgh's Lave oxp - as well as Lave Academy & Monument
b) Tionisla (with 4 super .oxp's adding ambience but nothing else)
c) Tianve (badly needs retextures, I think)
d) Riredi
e) Lerelace (Taranis corp)

and then add in some more worlds.

What could we add to them?

Lave: could we make more of the graduation from Lave? Maybe an old chum from the course who want into engineering and could offer a discount on the F3 page? Or a lover who ended up on the planetary surface in a job with relevance (a courier company or some such).

TCA could have a special F3 market - communication equipment at a discount. It would make sense to graft the Tionisla Reporter mission in here somehow. Maybe pick up the mission at the orbital, and then have to visit the TCA to get the full details and to have the equipment fitted? And then have to return to the TCA with the camera - or have to send the pictures by courier to the TCA?

TOGY should have some sort of interior - say a museum - with exhibits about the battles in which some of the dead perished. And more stuff based on the Dark Wheel description:

Tethered below this vast, rotating mausoleum is the dodecahedral shape of a 'Dodo' class space station, the home of the Cemetery Authorites. Here you go through security checks and get your visitor's visa. And as you stand in the queue, staring up through the translucent ceiling of the Customs Hall, you can see the battered, broken ships of many of the dead, still attached to the silent tomb that contains the body.

What does the visitor's visa allow one to do? Can one approach the cemetery without one?

Re: Stranger's Roolite Essay #1 (adding flavour & depth to Galaxy 1)

Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:50 pm
by LittleBear
Lave, Zadies and quite a few of the above feature if you feel like helping out Petty Scribe Dors Venabili. ;-)

Re: Stranger's Roolite Essay #1 (adding flavour & depth to Galaxy 1)

Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2022 4:23 pm
by Cholmondely
LittleBear wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:50 pm
Lave, Zadies and quite a few of the above feature if you feel like helping out Petty Scribe Dors Venabili. ;-)
How can I do that?

But it's not a case of writing lore about stuff, is it? It is a case of making Lave special inside someone's game, with things to do, places to go and situations to encounter...

Like TOGY - it looks superb, but there is not much to do there. Or Generation Ships. One needs interesting interactions to bring all of these to life.

Re: Stranger's Roolite Essay #1 (adding flavour & depth to Galaxy 1)

Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2022 8:05 pm
by Killer Wolf
seems to me a lot of potential is wrapped up in scripts, and that rules me out. i can just about put a model together and texture it, but beyond a simple "spawn test ship when launching from station" script, i flounder. all my HUD and external missile stuff was provided by others. i'd like to get into doing missions, i'm working on something to add to my Damage, Inc. story stuff that would be cool to have a storyline/mission attached to it, but my time is pretty limited and needs to be shared between many things, so beyond shipbuilding, i doubt i'll get to it.

maybe a set of cut/paste script chunks that people could take and assemble into bigger/fuller stories would be possible? say, "if ship reaches xxyyzz, spawn n shiptypes, broadcast message <exposition/clue>" and if successful set a variable that could be used in another chunk to trigger the next bit of the plot?

Re: Stranger's Roolite Essay #1 (adding flavour & depth to Galaxy 1)

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2022 7:07 am
by LittleBear
@Cholmondely

Just travel about a bit. Shortly after you watch a news broadcast mentioning a bungled investigation by the Tionisla Chronicle, you will receive an email from the Scribe asking you to meet him at the Zadies main station. (Requires the Galactic Almanac V0.7 and GNN News to be installed). There are no kill count requirements as the missions do not feature combat, but do require you to interact with various people and organisations across Chart 1.

Re: Stranger's Roolite Essay #1 (adding flavour & depth to Galaxy 1)

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2022 11:17 am
by Switeck
One of the things I liked about Galactic Navy OXP was repeatability -- you never get a "You win! You're done!" and then have nothing left to do.
There's occasional bigger rewards for your efforts and even a remote chance of a special mission or 2 that may or may not be 1-time.

If someone puts a bounty on Thargoids or is collecting Thargons, but you have to go to a specific place (where they are) to collect the rewards, that likewise can be repeatable and not terribly imbalancing.

There might even be some value in working Thargoid drives gained from another OXP...which would make doing 1 mission turn into needing to do more.

The important part in making it all interesting is why "they" want you to do these missions -- whether for fame, to study Thargoid technology, etc.
"A few more and maybe we'll have some breakthrough!"

Re: Stranger's Roolite Essay #1 (adding flavour & depth to Galaxy 1)

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2022 11:23 am
by Cholmondely
LittleBear wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 7:07 am
@Cholmondely

Just travel about a bit. Shortly after you watch a news broadcast mentioning a bungled investigation by the Tionisla Chronicle, you will receive an email from the Scribe asking you to meet him at the Zadies main station. (Requires the Galactic Almanac V0.7 and GNN News to be installed). There are no kill count requirements as the missions do not feature combat, but do require you to interact with various people and organisations across Chart 1.
Brilliant! Looking forwards!

I'd actually started a new Jameson for your new Almanac version - he's now finally bought his Militaries in Biarge (Weapon Laws) and is ready to start exploring!

Re: Stranger's Roolite Essay #1 (adding flavour & depth to Galaxy 1)

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2022 12:05 pm
by Cholmondely
Switeck wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 11:17 am
One of the things I liked about Galactic Navy OXP was repeatability -- you never get a "You win! You're done!" and then have nothing left to do.
There's occasional bigger rewards for your efforts and even a remote chance of a special mission or 2 that may or may not be 1-time.

If someone puts a bounty on Thargoids or is collecting Thargons, but you have to go to a specific place (where they are) to collect the rewards, that likewise can be repeatable and not terribly imbalancing.

There might even be some value in working Thargoid drives gained from another OXP...which would make doing 1 mission turn into needing to do more.

The important part in making it all interesting is why "they" want you to do these missions -- whether for fame, to study Thargoid technology, etc.
"A few more and maybe we'll have some breakthrough!"
I do think that Galactic Navy was one of the great OXP's. The entire project was well thought through (but I do take on board Cody's comments about how it was also a money-spinner) - I really enjoy the docking experience at the Sector Bases, although I never got enough kills to enlist. Some day, maybe (I've been busily beavering away at the blessed tutorial - no idea yet how to handle the Krait with the beam laser, but I no longer get marmalised by the unarmed Krait at the beginning!).