Oolite Bulletins

I have just begun to work on my first real OXP, a set of interlinked missions in the lower right corner of Galaxy 3. It is going to be not so much a (one) storyline, but a series of storylines between which the player can switch back and forth, joining (and changing) factions, influencing the development and the outcome of a conflict between some planets in that corner.

It's still in its VERY first stages of development, even the plot(s) is/are not yet finished.

But before I continue working on it, I want to announce this plan in order to make sure I don't step onto somebody else's lawn here. AFAIK there are no existing OXPs doing anything in this part of Galaxy 3, roughly between Teriar and Esleusbe. But if I should be wrong with this, or if anybody else is planning anything there, please let me know. Then I would find another setting for my OXP (it doesn't even have a name right now). The 8 Galaxies are a vast space, there should be enough room for all of us out there!

Also in later stages of development I might turn to all you ship developers and ask for your help, to give it some graphical kick, because I know nothing about that kind of stuff. As of now I am happy to use the existing ships etc. I don't want to bother anybody until I am sure enough that this really goes somewhere.

Good luck on your project

@Cmdr McL - go for it. It might be worth implementing dajt's suggestion of have a global mission variable that others can check for in their own follow on oxps - this will help with future missions and/or Mission Screen potential clashes. I'd find the thread but I've only got a v. short lunch break today. (it was either my Snoopes thread and/or dajt's javascript scripting thread I think). Perhaps somebody could dig out the link in the meantime? TIA. DH

The native Thargoid Plans takes place in G3, so to be sure of there being no mission briefing screen clash, you could set it to start after Thargoid Plans is completed (just add to the conditions to trigger the mission: "mission_thargplans equal MISSION_COMPLETE"). Could even work this into the plot. Having delivered the plans, the Navy now want you to test some new experimental missiles against the Bugs!

As a relative newcomer to the boards I was wondering if there is a table outhtere that lists the missons and their approximate locations or even start requirements (ie it makes no sense to load Ionics unless you are in Galaxy 2 and enough kills under your belt).

I have to admit my search for this list has not been exhaustive, but I think it should garner a conspicuous location on the boards (a sticky).

If no list does yet exist, I would be happy to create one. I WILL ask for help as I go along (again the noob stuff).

A list of the Missions is here on the Wikki:-

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolite_Missions

Not all the links on the page work but all the missions are available on Oosat1 or 2. Just have to scroll manually through the list.

Some background on some of the Powers & Organisations added by some of the Mission OXPs can be found here:-

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Powers ... anisations

@ LB and reills - I've just done a quickie update to the Oolite Missions entry on the Wiki with a warning that the versions linked to (on Oosat One) might be betas or so on.

Captain Hesperus
"How's that for catering for the masses. And not a whiff of Goat Soup."

Thanks to all for the encouragement! I'm trying to get on with the OXP.

Right now I've got two questions.

1) In my OXP there is a Solar Research Station orbiting the sun of a planet. To make things easy in the beginning I used a modified Coriolis Station to do that job. The modifications should be easily doable with the like_ship-command in shipdata, so I'd have to change only the specs I'd need to be different. The entry in my shipdata.plist looked like this:
Suprisingly this didn't work. There was a station - looking like a Coriolis and named "Solar Research Station" - in the desired place, but (a) it didn't rotate and (b) I couldn't dock with it, I just bumped into the rear wall of the docking bay. It also constantly produced this message in my logfile:

***** Solar Research Station 210 does not respond to decreaseAlertLevel

My fix was not to use the like_ship-command, but instead to copy the whole Coriolis-entry together with its subentities, rename it and change the desired specs. And it's working perfectly.

Now my question: What is wrong with the like_ship-command? Has anybody else had problems with it? Or had I done something wrong?

2) I'm using mission briefings that exceed the length of one screen. Is there a way to have more than one screen displayed without a YES/NO-question each time? In other words: Is there a way to forcibly use PRESS SPACE COMMANDER in a script and wait until the key is pressed?

In order to make Oolite recognise the Station as a dockable entry, it needs these roles added:-

<key>roles</key>
<string>solarresearch rotating-station station(0.0001)</string>

Your like_shiping is fine, but what like_ship does is say "This ship is the same except where I set out differently." As you put in a new entry for role, the station was missing "rotating-station" and "station" as roles.

Suspect the reason for the not responding bug, was that this AI command (I think) is one that it only valid for a station and Oolite didn't recognise the ship as being a station.

You can put a pause in mission briefings. Using mission_choices, but only giving 1 choice of "Press ENTER to Contuinue Commander" like this:-

Define your first page of the briefing as mybrief1 (or whatever).

Then have this code to put up page1:-
Now in missiontext, define missile_wait_yes like this:-
To show the next page, have the next entry in script do this:-
The 2nd page will end with the normal Press Space Commander. If you had more than 2 pages then you'd use the mission_choices bit again to get another "Press ENTER to Continue Commander.", using the same code but this time having the conditions as "mission_missiles equal page2_shown" etc.

Sorry, yesterday I didn't have enough internet-time to answer your comments and suggestions. But here I am now:

LittleBear wrote:

The native Thargoid Plans takes place in G3, so to be sure of there being no mission briefing screen clash, you could set it to start after Thargoid Plans is completed

Thanks, LittleBear. I am aware of the Thargoid Plans Mission and I have already implemented the condition that my mission only starts afterward. The missions wouldn't affect each other anyway, because I'm not going to do anything with Ceerdi or Birera. And I guess no one would go from the first to the latter via the south-eastern corner of the galaxy, especially not with all those Thargoid ships following him in every system.

So the only possible clash would be if a pilot jumps into the galaxy and first lands on the planet where my OXP starts and thereby triggers both missions at one time with the known consequences for the mission briefings. In order to avoid that however unlikely scenario my OXP will start only after Thargoid Plans.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

It might be worth implementing dajt's suggestion of have a global mission variable that others can check for in their own follow on oxps - this will help with future missions and/or Mission Screen potential clashes.

Thanks, DaddyHoggy. I have implemented a variable "mission_mymission_running", that will be "RUNNING" as long as the OXP does anything, and "undefined" again when it is finished. I guess you mean something like that. (And it's only "mymission" until that baby gets a name of its own, which it still doesn't have.)

Commander McLane wrote:

I'm using mission briefings that exceed the length of one screen. Is there a way to have more than one screen displayed without a YES/NO-question each time? In other words: Is there a way to forcibly use PRESS SPACE COMMANDER in a script and wait until the key is pressed?

Thanks, LittleBear, for the reply. After posting the question I found this work-around myself - having a "setMissionChoices" with only one choice. Works fine.

LittleBear wrote:

In order to make Oolite recognise the Station as a dockable entry, it needs these roles added:-

<key>roles</key>
<string>solarresearch rotating-station station(0.0001)</string>

As far as the station and its roles are concerned: As I wrote I ended up not using the "like_ship"-command, but copying the whole coriolis entry and changing all the values I wanted to change. I gave it the roles "solar-research station" which works fine. So in fact it doesn't need the role "rotating-station". The "rotating"-command is enough. But thank you for the suggestion to give it only a small chance to be called by the game as a station. I implemented that. (Also because it's strange that from time to time there are main stations with the name "Tionisla Orbital Graveyard". I have come across them a few times. Selezen had given it just the role "station" without a chance of appearance, so it often replaces the normal dodec station, at least in the version I have installed.)[/quote]

Another two questions:

1) I have placed my Research-Station behind the sun as seen from the planet by using the psm system (coordinates 0 0 1000530), which means that the z-axis runs from the planet to the sun. Now IIRC the docking bay is placed along the z-axis, isn't it? So it should be in line with planet and sun, facing either towards the sun or the opposite direction. But it doesn't. Instead it is facing in some angle, as far as I can see not 90 degrees from the z-axis, so none of the other axis. How can I correct this and have the docking bay faced to the planet?

2) Is it possible to toggle the coordinate-system from pwm to another one in the SHIFT-F view? Then I wouldn't have to recalculate coordinates from let's say pwm to psm, which of course is possible, but not very convenient.

Thanks for any hints!

Hi

You may want to take a look at Griff's work with facing direction in this thread:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t= ... c&start=75

Thanks, Dr. Nil. I'll give it a try.

Will the "spawnShip: " go with the ship's role or with its name? I guess I'll find the answer in the wiki or just try.

What I'm more concerned about right now is LittleBear's information from that thread concerning the positions of planet and sun and their changes over time. Is that definitive? Because that would mean that my station at point (psm 0 0 1000530) would be very close to the sun at the in-game-time I am playtesting at, but perhaps within the sun at another time. Oops, no good!

Unless otherwise noted in the Wiki, I'd say go with the role.

And yes there can easily be problems with placing it at the same spm coordinates if you use it in different systems.

They change with time (and with System) in relation to pwm co-ordinates, but your OK if you use the other co-ordinates systems as these (eg AddSystemShips ROLE [number] 1.0) add ships relative to the sun, planet or w/s beacon.

So if you add a ship to pwm xxx yyy zzz at Lave the ship will always be in the same point in the Lave system, but if you added it at the same pwm co-ordinates at Zanoce (say) it would be in a different position.

As long as you use the other systems co-ordinate though its ok. AddSystemShips adds the ships in a plane between the w/s and the planet where 0.0 is near the beacon and 1.0 is near the Main Station.

If you want to ensure your station is in a certain place relative to the sun then you use swu. Check the Doc's sunskimmers.oxp script to see how its done.