Oolite Bulletins

I'd like to get some feedback about the pros and cons of allowing mission screens in flight. I can certainly understand there are some things that shouldn't be allowed (eg uninterruptible screens, screens with ship models, etc), and there would undoubtedly be a miriad of ways for an OXP to downright irritate and annoy a player by having too many screens pop up. But there are some good things that could be added, handy utility screens, that are worth any effort required.

To be clear, I'm not proposing anything at this time. I just want to clearly understand all the opinions and concerns there are around this concept.

I also appreciate that MFD's largely came out of a desire to show OXP-related information to the player without needing a full mission screen. However, there are limitations with those elements that make them unsuitable in a lot of situations.

So, please let me know what your take is.

How about mission screens that were announced rather than imposed?

I'm imagining a flashing console message (e.g. "new mission info received") that persists until the player has time to access whatever screen is necessary (f9 perhaps? where it could even persist if there wasn't enought time to absorb it all in one reading).

Then the player can finish a fight or be interrupted by one without losing any relevant info. Ship models could also be used without confusion.

If such messages are desired in the thick of combat, docking or some other focussed action then shouldn't they be little more than console messages (or prioritised HUD elements) anyway?

More examples (from anyone) of how this idea could be used might be helpful.

Redspear wrote: ↑Sat Jul 29, 2023 7:36 am

How about mission screens that were announced rather than imposed?

I think that this is a good idea.

Also (if possible) to allow those with more than the one monitor to view the mission screen on the other.

phkb wrote: ↑Sat Jul 29, 2023 6:52 am

I'd like to get some feedback about the pros and cons of allowing mission screens in flight. I can certainly understand there are some things that shouldn't be allowed (eg uninterruptible screens, screens with ship models, etc), and there would undoubtedly be a miriad of ways for an OXP to downright irritate and annoy a player by having too many screens pop up. But there are some good things that could be added, handy utility screens, that are worth any effort required.

I believe every ship has a ship computer, and at least one terminal to access it. This terminal is available not only in the station but also in-flight as it is part of the ship, not the docking bay. Thus it should be the pilot's decision whether he wants to turn to the computer terminal or the flight controls.

At this time I am not imposing anything, but likely the flight should not get paused for the pilot to lookup stuff.
I am also not imposing how the pilot should receive hints that new data is visible on the terminal while he is at flight control, or vice versa.

I was expecting a larger number of opinions on this, but no matter, I'll forge ahead and see where we end up.

So, in my view I feel a mission screen in flight would be acceptable/permissible under the following circumstances:

1. The user has to perform a function in order to bring the screen up. ie it does not popup unexpectedly and without interaction.
2. The mission screen always allows the pilot to press F1 and get back to flying. Thus using the allowInterrupt: false would generate an exception.

I'm hesitant to add "The mission screen must not use a model", because we can have our ship model on the F5 page right now, and that seems to work ok. But there might be other reasons to limit the use of models on a mission screen in flight. Anyone who has some insights into this please chime in!

What do we think?

phkb wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 3:10 am

I was expecting a larger number of opinions on this, but no matter, I'll forge ahead and see where we end up.

So, in my view I feel a mission screen in flight would be acceptable/permissible under the following circumstances:

1. The user has to perform a function in order to bring the screen up. ie it does not popup unexpectedly and without interaction.
2. The mission screen always allows the pilot to press F1 and get back to flying. Thus using the allowInterrupt: false would generate an exception.

I'm hesitant to add "The mission screen must not use a model", because we can have our ship model on the F5 page right now, and that seems to work ok. But there might be other reasons to limit the use of models on a mission screen in flight. Anyone who has some insights into this please chime in!

What do we think?

I can't see any reason not to use a model. But I'm no expert in this!

But presumably the "missions screens in flight" would only be added by OXPs, so those who hate them can avoid those OXPS. And the authors of those OXPs would be deciding to include a model.

And in any event, those OXPs could also be made tweakable via Library.oxp...

As with so many things in Oolite, the options seem endless.

phkb wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 3:10 am

I'm hesitant to add "The mission screen must not use a model", because we can have our ship model on the F5 page right now, and that seems to work ok. But there might be other reasons to limit the use of models on a mission screen in flight. Anyone who has some insights into this please chime in!

What do we think?

The risk is that the model be mistaken for a 'real' and present ship, right?

If so, we just need it to be immediately clear that it is an 'in-game' model rather than an 'in-game' ship.
So, how to do?

• Some possibilities
  • Present it as a wireframe or 'ghost' ship
  • Frame it, place it over a square, coloured background and/or overlap it with text or some other marker e.g. 'WANTED'
  • Have it appear as if scrolling down and/or keeping it surrounded by text, word-wrap style.
  • Have it appear in a monochrome green/cyan/whatever