Oolite Bulletins

Giles, please tell me if this is okay or no.
I always have loved airships and zeppelins. Unfortunately, the gaming world is lacking in this department. Project Zeppelite is a goal to make an Oolite mod with Airships, in a Floating-island world. I will need some people to help a little, but most mods shoud be possible for me. I am putting out a call to anyone else interested in helping. Don't expect much, but I am hoping for a miracle!

Current Affairs:
-Change models
-Change background (clouds)
-Change Roll. Not roll on Z, but turn on Y. This is so that sips don't go topsy turvy. Also, up&down are no longer tilt. They will simply be to raise or lower altitude. If that's posible.(I need help on this. A lot of help.)
-Change stations to islands.
-Change docking slot to a gantry. Ships dissappear when they dock.


I need a lot of help. Giles, if you object to this, let me know soon! I'd hate to waste time.

Sincerely,
An old pilot, dreaming of better days.

OoBlimp...

(I know, blimps are not zeppelins, heehee...)

These won't all be zeppelins. Some will be strange hybrids. Once I get bck to my MAC i'll make a draft model. I've already made some sketches. One's kinda cool: Imagine a small Zeppelin-type hull, maybe only 12 feet long, maybe less, with a sling underneath for a pilot. The engines are like so:

#----#
---0
#----#

#=engine(propeller)
0= Hull.
-= Nothing

Each one is a one-man fighter. Probably a small ship, like an Adder, only smaller.

Another ship is the Exodus (name till in making), a plane sorta thng with a zeppelin hull instead of a fuselage, and wings. Wings like a P-58 Lightning.
Pardon the errrs, keybord sucks bd.
Rxke, if you know a way to help, please do!

Another type of ship will be Ironclads. These are FF VII style ships, made of steel. (see FF4 for a PERFECT example.)

Galactic systems will become island groups.

Yes, I do realize this is insane. On the other hand, so am I.

Third-person views will be used do to a slower pace. Small fighters will maintain a first person view as well.

Input welcome!

I see some problems with all this...

The Oolie game-engine is in space, the Zeps will be over land...

I don't think that's very straightforward to do, maybe put a huuuuuuge 'slab-like' 2-dimensional object in space, extending very far, so it looks like 'ground' (skin it with an Earth or sea-texture... But it won't look very good, texture extremely stretched.... )

Still, you then have to put your 'islands' on top of these: collision problem... You'd have to make them 'float' just above the surface, really close, but again, will it look good enough?

as for the steering adaption, that's coding stuff, in Obj-C I guess, nothing I'm comfortable with... (understatement, I used to know the basics of C in the 80's but memory and skills have vapourized since then, heh)

'Clouds' won't be a problem, that's already scriptable...

Also the NPC AI's are made for 3D space, not to hover over a surface etc etc...

OTOH.... I think it would be kinda cool, a very slow game, not at all like Oolite (though you could use the racing rings for sure, heh)

No, no land... should have been more clear... There is no land. Just the Below, where no-one goes. Islands are floating. Really, imagine sailboats, but zeppelins, and in the air, and they can go up and down, too. Oh, damn. Does this mean all the AI will have to be remade? I guess it's just a dream then.Aegidian HEEEELLLLLLLP!

no land but sea, then? That's the same thing, or do you plan them to be able to go 'under' the islands, like they're floating?

In hindsight, the AI's might be able to cope okay... if you can make a way to prevent them to 'somersault' (or don't you have a problem with zeps flying upside-down?

I'm sorry - I'm not in a position to help much with this ATM.

I'm working on a number of new technologies for v1.66, plus its the School Hols and I'm my kids' primary caregiver, plus I go on holiday in a week's time.

My advice:

Do what you can with Oolite as it is. Model the Zep's you want, and the Islands and play with planetinfo.plist to set up the backgrounds as best you can. The WIKI has a wealth of information on modding OOlite and examining the current code in the SVN repository will also help you understand how to improve on this.

I do wish you luck, airships are a secret pleasure of mine too (since modelling the Graf Zeppelin in Quake 1).

I'd say:

-create the blimps,

-create the asteroid-like islands
(kinda cool, I'm always planning to do these).

-make the planet huge and have the islands hover just above the atmosphere. ( so there is a dangerous below)
Or have them close to the sun. Nicely big and dangerous, not scriptable yet though.
also cool or rather: hot.

(location plotting will be hell untill Giles implements a choosable coordinate system, currently the system for planets is fixed at default WPM)

-have nice cloudy nebulae in your system.
-force all other non-blimp NPC-shops outta there.

-create a station with some blimps attached as subentities, they will look nice, but only show.

-maybe have a background image, when docked, of your blimps docked at the station. (the inside of stations can be huge)

This is a nice idea, but I think will need some modifications in the Oolite's code...

I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but are you trying to make
something like "Last Exile" ?

If it's what are you planning to do, I wish you very luck! Should be amazing to see a "Last Exile" action-style game!

Regards,

More like Skies of Arcadia I think.

Thank you, yes. I have some amazing Wings work, but can't code for beans.