Planetfall 2.0 (probably)

[Nite Owl]

Please alleviate a bit of confusion, with the understanding that this is still in the beta/experimental stages of development. The travel from one Planetary Landing site to another is done by some other means of transportation but your ship travels with you? Far too much Handwavium in that scenario. Since the H.U.D. pops up (barring a work around for that) why not use it. Why not a scenario where the player is flying his ship within the atmosphere to the other landing site instead of launching all the way back into space. This could be accompanied by an image of that other landing site (of which there are already many to choose from) or by an image of some sort of shaky, turbulence, clouds, atmospheric sort of a thing.

This scenario does lead to the next question of how atmospherically flight worthy are the Oolite ships. The larger ships in particular pop into mind. It could be a bit distressing thinking of a Boa Mark II making such a flight. However, if we employ a bit more Handwavium then it might be possible to imagine it. We could look to scenarios from other medium. In Star Wars even the biggest of Star Destroyers are seen parked on a planet's surface as well as traveling close to that surface. Some Star Trek ships behave in a similar manner and could hardly be considered aerodynamic. If Witchspace travel between the stars has been mastered then could we not imagine some sort of anti-gravity system that would allow even the least aerodynamic of ships to travel through an atmosphere once within that atmosphere. The transition from space into an atmosphere is an entirely other matter that is already handled exceptionally well by this OXZ.

The remaining question would be one of cost, if any. We could go with some anti-gravity equipment being needed to accomplish this, additional atmospheric shielding, hull upgrades, Service Level degradation. The possibilities are endless, or could be ignored entirely by thinking that this is a possibility with the ships already so configured.

Just throwing out ideas here. Feel free to discuss, discredit, or otherwise disregard.

[Cody]

In the game-in-my-head, whatever powers the mysterious ship drives (the torus engine?) provides shipboard AG. I see no reason why that AG couldn't be extended (handwaved?) to assist with atmospheric flight (with some limits on ship size, perhaps).

"The Anaconda hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

[phkb]

Please alleviate a bit of confusion, with the understanding that this is still in the beta/experimental stages of development.

Very much so.

The travel from one Planetary Landing site to another is done by some other means of transportation but your ship travels with you?

Well, kind of. From Oolite's point of view, yes, definitely. You ship is always where you are, no exceptions.

However, in my current code base, the original landing site is recorded. You can then travel to another planetary landing site on that planet. You *can* then launch (because I can't stop it), but it will incur a penalty, which is currently 200cr and 2 hours of time is added. I'm open to suggestions on what the cost and time penalties should be.

Since the H.U.D. pops up

I've since fixed this issue. It's now pretty seamless, I think.

And because not everyone will want this, I will of course be adding it to the growing list of options that can be turned off.

[cbr]

And because not everyone will want this, I will of course be adding it to the growing list of options that can be turned off.

Lol, we all like (the) options ;P

[Cholmondely]

However, in my current code base, the original landing site is recorded. You can then travel to another planetary landing site on that planet. You *can* then launch (because I can't stop it)

Is this really true?

When I'm in (for example) LitF and bouncing around the interior of the Coriolis, I can press "1" until I'm blue in the face and nothing happens. Not until I make my way back to the docks, hobble over to the hanger and get back inside my Cobra Mk.3

Same thing if I'm gazing at the pages of my P.A.D. - or the accounts of the Ship's Accountant OXP. Can't launch at all.

Why do not do something similar in Planetfall 2.0 (just make sure that one can add options from inside Feudal States or whatever).

[phkb]

However, in my current code base, the original landing site is recorded. You can then travel to another planetary landing site on that planet. You *can* then launch (because I can't stop it)

Is this really true?

When I'm in (for example) LitF and bouncing around the interior of the Coriolis, I can press "1" until I'm blue in the face and nothing happens. Not until I make my way back to the docks, hobble over to the hanger and get back inside my Cobra Mk.3

That's because you're on a mission screen with the "allowInterrupt" option set to false. Yes, I could load up a mission screen in a similar way, but there would be no F3/F4/F5/F6/F7/F8 screens at the destination. I would have to manually recreate the functionality of all those screens in order to keep the player on a mission screen and prevent the F1 key from triggering a launch.

[Cholmondely]

However, in my current code base, the original landing site is recorded. You can then travel to another planetary landing site on that planet. You *can* then launch (because I can't stop it)

Is this really true?

When I'm in (for example) LitF and bouncing around the interior of the Coriolis, I can press "1" until I'm blue in the face and nothing happens. Not until I make my way back to the docks, hobble over to the hanger and get back inside my Cobra Mk.3

That's because you're on a mission screen with the "allowInterrupt" option set to false. Yes, I could load up a mission screen in a similar way, but there would be no F3/F4/F5/F6/F7/F8 screens at the destination. I would have to manually recreate the functionality of all those screens in order to keep the player on a mission screen and prevent the F1 key from triggering a launch.

So.

Access the F3/4/5/6/7/8 while at the Spaceport in the ship.

But select to leave the ship on the F4 and then there is no longer access to any of those - which seems fair enough if relevant stuff can be replicated.

What would one wish to do?

Sight seeing? Meeting People? Dicker over contracts?

Does any of this really need access to F3/4/5/6/7/8?

[hiran]

Our dogma (dates back at least to Commander McLane c.2007) is that the main orbital space station is not owned by the planet. It is owned and managed by GalCop.

Meanwhile I learned a dogma is only a dogma if it gets broken in one point or two. We need exceptions.

The local system government pays some money towards GalCop for it - and contributes to the cost of policing.

Anarchies have no government to give GalCop anything - not even a bent farthing. So Anarchy Corioli are run at a loss, with GalCop trying to claw back every penny it can of the costs. Hence the pathetic police patrols, hence the dominance of the pirates.

Feudals are not much better. They give a bit of dosh for the station and slightly improved policing. The money pouring into GalCops coffers (and the level of police protection) increases until one arrives at the Corporates who are reeking of the stuff - and who get the fanciest stations - and the best police patrols.



That is why the local orbital station obeys the dictates of GalCop on illegal trade. And on criminals. Explaining TL variation is more difficult, but examples of Handwavium do exist (just ask Redspear, our current Lord High Poobah of such matters!).

As the system pays more and more into the GalCop coffers, it presumably gets a bigger say in the running of the station (and Icohedra/Dodecahedra/Superhubs, etc.). See the proposals for LitF's orbital station design here.

And that is why the other stations in a system are either GalCop-aligned or are independent in some way (reference: https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolit ... allegiance). I'm unsure about how Commie SLAPUs and Dictatorial Imperial Astrofactories really differ from GalCop Main Orbitals in their behaviour. Perhaps local government alignment should have been given as another station allegiance. And I'm unsure as to the extent that vanilla Oolite code distinguished between GalCop police and local government police (eg Vipers <> Dictatorial Junta Enforcers <> Commie Thought Police). I'm sure that all this can probably be built in (if we can ever produce an OXP detailing the breakdown of GalCop we'll need to... maybe there is something useful in Ramirez's Resistance Commander OXP?).

Thank you for that verbose explanation. Hmmm, would that mean that all of ooniverse - speak: all eight galaxies - are under GalCop controlled stations? There is no security service around other than GalCop? How credible is that? We even have other species in there, but only one security organisation.
And only one counterpart: Thargoids.

Should these not be an alternative security organisation, just playing by different rules? That could be the story for an OXP I guess...

[Cholmondely]

Thank you for that verbose explanation. Hmmm, would that mean that all of ooniverse - speak: all eight galaxies - are under GalCop controlled stations? There is no security service around other than GalCop? How credible is that? We even have other species in there, but only one security organisation.
And only one counterpart: Thargoids.

Should these not be an alternative security organisation, just playing by different rules? That could be the story for an OXP I guess...

Depends which OXPs you have loaded. No OXPs - then just GalCop cops (Vipers - 3 varieties). That's it. Versus the Thargoids and the Pirates.

Various OXPs such as Enhanced Vipers beef up the GalCop police

Commies and Dictatorships (Juntas & Imperials) add in their own police forces.

The navy OXPS add in either:
Galactic Navy (massive and domineering) who combat both Thargoids and Pirates.
or HIMSN (smaller and almost invisible unless you know where to look for them) who ignore the pirates

There is also the Jaguar Company (also almost invisible) who aid the GN providing reservists in some of the nastier systems
And 249th Naval Reserve Wing who have a large selection of reserves

And then there are the missions. Don't know them all, but
Resistance Commander pits you against the G3 Biesmaanian dictator who has invaded a neighbour, Zabe.
The Assassins Guild creates new forces in G7: GalCop Special Branch, The Quandixeian Mafia, The Eszausveian Dictatorship etc.
Iron Raven builds up G8 with the KSR (Kosmicheskikh Slyushba Razvedki), the League of Anarchists and the Sirius Corporation



Reference: https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Category:Navies

[phkb]

Does any of this really need access to F3/4/5/6/7/8?

Probably not. But from a technical standpoint, by not providing access to at least the F4 screen, means that any other OXP that might want to engage with the player on the F4 screen won't be able to. And because we've locked the player into a mission screen that doesn't end, no other mission screen will be able to open, because the "missionScreenOpportunity" event will never fire. Which means, if I were to pursue this angle, I'd need to implement some other system OXP's could utilise to enable their missions to open. And then gracefully hand control back to the "master" mission screen so the player can't launch. Given how hard it is to write mission screens now, putting another system into the mix sounds doomed to fail.

The one screen I didn't mention is F2. If the player is locked on a mission screen, then they can't save their game either.

The F3 and F8 screens should be locked out if you're not in the same location as your ship, which is simple enough. F4/F5/F6/F7 though, there is no reason to lock out the player from these.

Part of this all comes down to the "why". Why is the player on the planet surface in the first place? Missions are an obvious candidate, which you rightly mention. But right now, we don't have anything, other than Feudal States (and possible Aquatics), that makes use of planetary locations. So, again speaking from the technical standpoint, it makes more sense to continue to use, as much as possible, the native screens and events and methods, so that it is future-proofed for those hoped-for missions.

[Nite Owl]

From a purely personal point of view (as mentioned previously) the main reason for my landing on Planets and Moons is to buy stuff when the Stations in a system are too few to fill my cargo hold. If traveling, via whatever method, from one Landing Site to another while Planetside precludes access to the F8 Trading Screen then launching back into space and landing at another site would be the only method to give such access. This could become a tedious process considering that my ship has already landed. Not an ideal situation but acceptable in terms of the ends justifying the means.

If the method in my last post is non desirable (Atmospheric Flying of one's ship from one Landing Site to another) how about something along these lines. Use whatever transport method can be agreed upon to get from one Landing Site to another but still have the F8 Trading Screen be accessible away from wherever your ship is parked. Cargo can therefore still be bought and sold. The price for doing so while away from your ship can then include Shipping Costs either to or from your ship. This additional Shipping Cost could either be added to the price of the goods on the F8 Trading Screen or be an additional fee once the goods have been brought; Price per weight unit, Shipping Insurance, Armed Guards, Containment Units, etc. In either case this would probably be a coding nightmare so lets call this one a vague possibility at best. Still an idea is an idea for whatever it is worth.

[phkb]

I was thinking of simply added an F4 interface for “Transfer ship to current location” (or words to that effect), so if you want to trade, you can get your ship moved for you, with a fee and time penalty. The benefit is it’s much simpler to implement and understand, and doesn’t require a lot of fiddling on the F8 screen.

[Nite Owl]

That works. There is a slight tendency to over complicate things once my brain gets working. “Simplify, simplify.” - Henry David Thoreau.

[Cholmondely]

Would all this be solved if it were possible to "remove various choices" from the various F1-F8 GUI screens?

[phkb]

Would all this be solved if it were possible to "remove various choices" from the various F1-F8 GUI screens?

Not sure what you mean here. If the F1-F8 options were removed after using the transit system, the only option left to the player is to return to their original landing site (using whatever mission screen interface cooked up for it), launch, fly to the spot they want to conduct business, and then land again. Is that what you meant?