Oolite Bulletins

Has anyone heard of an on line version that was in the pipeline but never
worked. Could oolite be made in to an on line game?
Maybe have a small amount of planets or a system that everyone can play on, could have pirates hunting in groups from planet to planet, even drone ships controlled by computer to add more ships. Keep the trading part going so you can still develop your ship and skills.
The whole on line game could be online and hosted on a dedicated server or hosted on someones computer in a special version of oolite or the next version.

This has been discussed a lot!

I guess technically, it would be possible to have a deathmatch version (Halo / Half-life style), join a server limited to say 16 players and you are plunged into a system with other players.

But even this would require sombody to code some massive exe, the codeing on a par with writing Oolite in the first place.

What we'd really want (flying around and maybe that blip on the scanner is another player - preferable with some ID target the ship and Oolite shows - "Imperial Courier (LittleBear)"!!! - or maybe just a computer generated ship, is way beyond even commerical game writers at the moment. Eve on Line is close, but the gameplay is limited to point and click rather than true free flight.

Even if it could be done, you'd have to have every OXP in for it to work. If my Commander crossed your path and you didn't have the imperial courier OXP installed then your version of Oolite would crash, as you set up coudn't display my ship.

Missions would be another problem. Eg you and I are in the same system, you are after the Constrictor but I've already got him! Difficult to see how players at different stages of the different missions could occupy the same "ooniverse" !

Yeah the death match would be fun but I suppose the game play of oolite will not shine through.
In the future it might be on the wish list for Elite 4 or 5

XPilot does freeflight in 2D. No reason we couldn't do it in 3D. Trading wouldn't even be too difficult.

OXPs would be a problem. We could always limit the OXPs you're allowed to play online, and automatically download the ones that are being used.

But you're right, doing missions would be a pain. I suppose we could take you out of the online universe while you completed the mission. Or eliminate missions altogether. Or make several versions of the online game to handle different universe states -- like a Nova and Non-Nova version, where you move seamlessly from one to the other. Or have missions respawn the objective whenever necessary.

Even making the decisions is a pain.

I read one of the threads on this a little while back. I recall that it was suggested that OXPs for a multiplayer version should be on the server.

ok! if it will be publicated on server, just call everyone...

about the Elite 4 or 5: that's will be a fronteur versions, but I (as for me) like to play an old-style Elite... and now only Oolite can gives me all I want

P.S. for everyone who don't know... I'm from little Russian town and my english may be realy horrible. just ask me what I mean, if you can't understand what I trying to say