Oolite Bulletins

phkb wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 4:58 am

Which one of stranger's OXP's is moving all the secondary stations? It's not clear from the Expansion Manager which OXP of his is involved. Unless it's not actually on the Expansion Manager.

Strangers World does really need an update though, and I'd suggest that for the Wiki Page System Redux is listed as the stable Planet's adding OXZ. I really like the layout of the system with Stranger's World installed, but it does break almost every other OXZ in the game as it does not make any tests to see if another OXZ is making a mod to a system. This is a big problem with a Meta OXZ which changes literally every system in the game and it was something I really had to work around when writing the Almanac. These are the issues with it:-

1) It breaks OXZ such as Torus Stations and Riredi OXP which add custom Main Stations to particular worlds. Stranger's world replaces Main Stations with KOS Orbitals without checking that another OXZ has already done so. I really like Thargoids Kiota stations and he has 8 varieties. However, Thargoid also replaces main stations (but with a check) and so with both OXZs installed KOS Stations are very common and you lose the flavour of having particular stations at particular worlds. Cholmondelistic Note: Riredi, Mandotech, etc all appear in my game.

2) It breaks almost every mission OXZ which relied on Stations or ships where the author put them. The F4 Screen GalCop missions are mostly unplayable as the targets are no longer where the mission describes them as being. The Investigate Unknown Beacon mission still works (since it has a beacon you can still find it), but all other missions are unplayable as the object of the mission won't be where the text describes it as being.

3) It breaks Assassins and other OXZs such as Diso which add planets or moons. Stranger's World makes no checks that another OXZ has added moons or planets. This is why you got the three suns issue at Riredi. All other OXZs including very old ones such as Lave, Diso and Riredi add planets / moons on start up. On launching Strangers World adds its own moons / planets and moves them, but makes no checks for existing OXZ added planets or moons. It can therefore move a planet to a space occupied by an existing planet or moon. Oolite won't let two objects occupy the same space, so the moon or planet added by another OXZ is destroyed, but its beacon remains as a 'Ghost'. I worked round this in the Almanac by naming broken beacons "Cosmic Strings" and then excluding them from the ASC, F4 Screen and MFD. This fixes the problem, but moons and planets added by other OXZs are still removed from the game. That is quite a major problem when missions have been scripted to add targets near a planet or moon. The ships will still appear at the co-ordinates, but as the mission text refers to a planet which no longer exists the player has no way to find the ship and no idea where to look.

4) It breaks OXZ such as Commies, Kiota Solar and any OXZ which adds stations by relative co-ordinates. As the sun has been moved stations such as SLAPUs and Kiota Solar which should be near the sun are flung out into deep space.

5) It moves stations even when they are not orbiting a planet. The Kiota stations in particular are now so far out it can take 20 minutes of real time game play to reach them even at Torus Speed. That effectively takes them out of the game as it is too much of a chore to reach them. This is a shame, as these stations have tweaked markets meaning you can normally do a bit of in-system trading.

6) It breaks In System Taxi and In System trading. Planets and moons where you may be told to take your fare (or stations orbiting planets or moons) are now so far away that either you cannot actually get there within the time limit, or you can, but it takes so long that gameplay-wise it isn't worth taking the missions.

7) There isn't a reason why the texture packs from System Redux (if installed) could not be used giving a much greater variety to planets and moons. Strangers World declares itself as incompatible with them. However, it could just allow the player to install the texture packs and then do a test for the pack being present. If it isn't then it just uses the planetary systems textures. If it is, then with an small addition to the code it could include the System Redux textures on its texture list giving a much greater variety to graphics for planets and moons encountered.

There is very little variety in its extra stations as it only adds the KOS Stations. System Redux however does a test to see what station packs the player has installed. If none are installed then all extra stations are native stations. But if packs are installed then it adds Super Hubs, Globes, Torus Stations etc giving much more variety to the stations you encounter. Every single extra station being a Kiota station does get a bit old.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:25 am

It seems to me that either Planetary Systems (based on Orbits) or Sun Gear would be the oxp which lays out the solar system in a way which Commies etc have issues with.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:16 pm

Either by transmogrifying the presumable "absolute" Commie co-ordinates to relative ones (would that be Eurocommunism?) or else by devising new absolutes for Strangers World.

But if Stranger's World regularly changes its relativity, then it would seem that such absolution is potentially problematic.

if (!worldScripts.station_validator || worldScripts.station_validator.$deaths("comslapu").length === 0) {
	var posSlapu = Vector3D(0, 0.40, 2.6).fromCoordinateSystem("sps"); // <-- You need to change the calculation of this variable
	system.setPopulator("commies_slapu", {
		location: "COORDINATES",
		coordinates: posSlapu,
		deterministic: true,
		callback: function(pos) {
			var sla = system.addShips("comslapu", 1, pos, 0)[0];
			if ((!sla || sla.length === 0) && worldScripts.communist_population._debug === true) log("commies.populator", "OOPS! No slapu's spawned");
		}}
	);
}

var posSlapu = Vector3D(0, 0.20, 1.3).fromCoordinateSystem("pss");

 this wiki article

Alnivel wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 2:41 pm

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:16 pm

Either by transmogrifying the presumable "absolute" Commie co-ordinates to relative ones (would that be Eurocommunism?) or else by devising new absolutes for Strangers World.

But if Stranger's World regularly changes its relativity, then it would seem that such absolution is potentially problematic.

Commies use a relative coordinate system, for example, slapu are located at a distance of 2.6 solar radii from the sun in the direction of the planet, but this just pales in comparison to about 34 times the standard distance from the sun to the planet.

Spawn positions can be tweaked in the /Scripts/commies.js file in the systemWillPopulate handler. I will use the slapu as example:

Code: Select all

if (!worldScripts.station_validator || worldScripts.station_validator.$deaths("comslapu").length === 0) {
	var posSlapu = Vector3D(0, 0.40, 2.6).fromCoordinateSystem("sps"); // <-- You need to change the calculation of this variable
	system.setPopulator("commies_slapu", {
		location: "COORDINATES",
		coordinates: posSlapu,
		deterministic: true,
		callback: function(pos) {
			var sla = system.addShips("comslapu", 1, pos, 0)[0];
			if ((!sla || sla.length === 0) && worldScripts.communist_population._debug === true) log("commies.populator", "OOPS! No slapu's spawned");
		}}
	);
}

I think the easiest way to make those space objects more achievable is to simply flip the coordinate system in the opposite direction and reduce the coordinate values by, say, a factor of two - so the slapu will be located at a distance of 1.3 solar radii from the planet in the direction of the sun and 0.2 solar radii above below the sun-planet-witchpoint plane.

Code: Select all

var posSlapu = Vector3D(0, 0.20, 1.3).fromCoordinateSystem("pss");

It's still a long distance, but at least it's not a 5 minute flight now. Probably still need to play with the values, but I think that this will be enough to understand the general principle.

How to work with coordinate systems is well described in  this wiki article.

For the other OXPs that use relative coordinates, you can apply the same approach: find the place in the code where they spawn, probably in systemWillPopulate or shipWillExitWitchspace and adjust the position and coordinate system to the desired ones. For those that use absolute ones, they will most likely have to understand on what basis these coordinates were chosen and turn them into relative ones.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 1:14 pm

HIMSN actually uses a totally different system to locate things.

Instead of Commies' location: "COORDINATES", HIMSN uses location: "STAR_ORBIT",

From Oolite System Populator under "Named regions":

STAR_ORBIT, STAR_ORBIT_HIGH, STAR_ORBIT_LOW : A position less than 1 radii from the system star's surface (low orbit), between 1 and 3 radii (orbit), or between 3 and 7 radii (high orbit)

Can anybody tell me what the following actually means? (lifted from himsn.main.js) - and how much of it do I really need in relocating a SLAPU?

priority: 200,
location: "STAR_ORBIT",
locationSeed: 67812,
groupCount: 1,
callback: this._addNavySystemBase,
deterministic: true

How important is priority?
How does the location seed work? Do I need to change it for low orbit/orbit/high orbit?
What on Digebiti is a groupCount?
What on Lave is a callback?
And what does deterministic refer to?

 Oolite_System_Populator

stranger wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 10:52 pm

IMHO using relative coordinates is preferable way to make multiple OXPs compatible. Using relative coordinates you have only one free parameter - scale factor.

stranger wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 10:52 pm

In case of Sun Gear and Planetary Systems (based on Orbits) <...>

stranger wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 10:52 pm

Regarding stations

I think it will be nice to have list of stations sorted onto three categories.

A. Safe stations - right relative positions.
B. Technically safe, but a bit weird relative positions.
C. Unsafe stations - high risk of collision with positions of other entities.

these stations end up thrown into the middle of nowhere

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 3:25 pm

Dybal - thanks for the response!

SLAPU's & CZGF's are supposed to be in very close to the star (using its solar power for their manufacturing/production duties). And outside of Strangers World, that is where they are. In SW they are a long way away from the sun, in deep space, where there is little solar energy and their placement makes little sense.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 3:25 pm

Code: Select all

	}
    if (system.techLevel > 6 && system.techLevel < 10) {
		if (!worldScripts.station_validator || worldScripts.station_validator.$deaths("comczgf").length === 0) {
//			var posFct = Vector3D(0, 0.40, 2.6).fromCoordinateSystem("sps");
//			system.setPopulator("commies_comczgf", {
//				location: "COORDINATES",
//				coordinates: posFct,
//This old stuff has been blanked out - new location follows:
			priority: 200,
			location: "STAR_ORBIT_HIGH",
			locationSeed: 67777,
			groupCount: 1,	
			deterministic: true,// and now back to the original
			callback: function(pos) {
					var fct = system.addShips("comczgf", 1, pos, 0)[0];
					if ((!fct || fct.length === 0) && worldScripts.communist_population._debug === true) log("commies.populator", "OOPS! No factories spawned");
				}}
			);
		}

	}
    if (system.techLevel > 6 && system.techLevel < 10) {
		if (!worldScripts.station_validator || worldScripts.station_validator.$deaths("comczgf").length === 0) {
//			var posFct = Vector3D(0, 0.40, 2.6).fromCoordinateSystem("sps");
			system.setPopulator("commies_comczgf", {
//				location: "COORDINATES",
//				coordinates: posFct,
//This old stuff has been blanked out - new location follows:
			priority: 200,
			location: "STAR_ORBIT_HIGH",
			locationSeed: 67777,
			groupCount: 1,	
			deterministic: true,// and now back to the original
			callback: function(pos) {
					var fct = system.addShips("comczgf", 1, pos, 0)[0];
					if ((!fct || fct.length === 0) && worldScripts.communist_population._debug === true) log("commies.populator", "OOPS! No factories spawned");
				}}
			);
		}