Oolite Bulletins

atticusedwards wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 1:45 am

Hello everybody,

I first played Oolite in about 2010 but for reasons I can't remember I stopped playing after a couple of years.
I've now decided that I want to get back into it again and I can't get over how much it has changed since I last saw it.

If it's not too much trouble I'd like some recommendations for some OXPs to install. Primarily I'd like it to look really nice now that I have a decent computer to play it on.

Hopefully I'll be around for some time.

Thanks in advance!!!

Welcome back!

The vanilla game has changed since 2012. Cim and his team rejigged quite a lot (Oolite v.1.80 & 1.82) and another_commander has been massively improving the graphics ever since. Quite a few of the older oxp's have been updated for the new game (ie: comprising many of the new oxz's in the in-game Expansions Manager).

There is a talk-through for some recommended OXP's here.

You can put the list of oxz's in date order like this

Recent OXP's from just the past 2 years (not since 2012!) include:
Oolite Multiplayer: Nexus (under development)
Navy: Her Imperial Majesty's Space Navy,
Activities: Hermitage (run your own rock hermit), Diplomancy (major updates)
Economics rejigs: Demand Driven Economy & SW Economy (quite different),
Ambience: Griff's Glowroids
Music: Contextual Jukebox
Dockables: Nephthys & Nuit stations,
Equipment: Galactic Almanac (originally started off naming stations and gre-e-e-ew!), Target System Plugins
Official update for ship textures (not yet part of vanilla game): Oolite v1.88 Base Shipset Normal and Specular/Gloss Maps
Retextures: Iron Ass
Ships: Enhanced Vipers, Chrysopelea MK-I
HUDs: Vimana

Quite a few by Redspear not listed above: (Weapon Laws, Jane's Galactic Shipset, Paddling Pool etc.)

There is now also a page of 150 new or overlooked OXP's: Guide to Unlisted OXPs

There are several suites of oxp's which quite rejig the entire game: Strangers World (astronomy/physics), Elite Trader (trade) & SOTL

You should find the wiki's listings helpful, and there are a number of "Guide to" pages as well as essays on Career Options, Oolite Tactics, Oolite Trading, Economics, Exploration, Geography, Galaxy Seeds, Cheating (all with guides to relevant OXP's).

What was your original "log-in" name here?

Welcome aboard, Commander!

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 9:16 am

You can put the list of oxz's in date order like this

Or sort it alphabetically by Category, then the second bunch will be Ambience. Plenty of eye-candy etc in there.

I recommend Superhub station for ambiance at very high tech systems. Easiest station to dock with too.

atticusedwards wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 1:45 am

Primarily I'd like it to look really nice now that I have a decent computer to play it on.

As regards looks, (not quite my area, but others will correct me):

Ships: try the retextures listed above. Griff's multifarious other offerings, & Gsagostinho's retextures. Is Odyssey your sort of thing? Have you seen RX Software?

Stations: Griff again (stations packs) & Killer Wolf

Suns, Planets etc: see Guide to Ambience OXPs and the pictures on the individual oxp pages

Asteroids: see Asteroid (Oolite)

Tetrahedron depot (one of Griff's small system stations, 2014)


Odyssey (maaarcooose, 2013)


One of Gsagsotinho's Fer-de-Lances (2017-ish)


Spara produced new textures for the Galactic Navy OXP, too. (2014)



I would hope that you have a fair amount of fun trying it all out!

Oh! ...and since you actually played back in the old days, load up both Galactic Almanac and GNN and then watch the news broadcasts assiduously!

How goes it thus far? (Did you note that pirates now travel from anarchies to the safer local systems? ...and that their fire is more accurate?) Have you found any changes you hate? ...and, contrariwise, have you found anything you love? Any views on the oxp's you've tried out so far?

Personally, I like complexity. I really like what Diplomancy, Weapon Laws, the various political systems oxp's (commies, anarchies, feudal states etc) and the Stranger's World suite do to my game. I know that Diplomancy is not quite finished and that Stranger's World moves SLAPUs out from solar orbit to the middle of nowhere, but it's all fixable (if I had the skills...) and I can easily live with the minor negatives.

atticusedwards wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 1:45 am

If it's not too much trouble I'd like some recommendations for some OXPs to install. Primarily I'd like it to look really nice now that I have a decent computer to play it on.

I don't see it listed yet so for system main planet beauty, PovrayPlanets OXP which isn't in the Extensions Manager, and then for all other bodies the Additional Planets suite which is found in the EM.

Old Murgh,

If and when you get a very 'iron-ass' ship, you might want to try my Interstellar Tweaks OXP, and force misjumps into interstellar space, and then get obliterated have fun.

UK_Eliter wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 11:56 pm

If and when you get a very 'iron-ass' ship, you might want to try my Interstellar Tweaks OXP, and force misjumps into interstellar space, and then get obliterated have fun.

I both dread and look forward to it. Still honing my joystick skills, but one day, hopefully soon, I will be man enough to try that sort of combat. I just don't want to set any "quickest ever death"-records.

If you find yourself in interstellar space by accident rather than design, look out for interstellar rescue.

Right. But let me add (ahem - advertising - ahem) that the interstellar scenarios that my OXP can yield include the following.

- Empty space (or at least empty space nearby . .).
- Navy and nothing else (which is fine if you have no price on your head and . . so long as nothing else hyperspaces in).
- Wreckage and nothing else. (This scenario is fairly rare.)
- Asteroids and - if you are lucky - either miners or nothing else. (But the asteroid scenario is rare.)
- Bounty hunters (which is fine if, again, you have no price on your head and if there are no thargoids or other nasties around; also - again, this scenario is rare).
- My OXP adds a chance that if you jettison in interstellar space, and when no friendly carrier is around, one might arrive and pick you up.

Does this mean that really one is safer in interstellar space with my OXP than without my OXP? I have not actually checked that. I suspect that an answer would have to take into account the following. On the one hand, my OXP does increase the chance that in interstellar space nothing will try to kill you. On the other hand, my OXP does provide various new or accelerated ways to kick the bucket. Still, my Fer-de-Lance 3G OXP will add some interstellar knights in shining armour. I note also that, somewhat, my OXP inflects danger levels by player rank.