Oolite Bulletins

Hi, first time poster - long time listener

I've just installed Black Monks oxp for the first time and have encountered a Monastery at Ensoreus in Galaxy 1. My problem is that I can't seem to dock with it...

Perhaps I'm going at this wrongly, so advice would be appreciated.

I approach the monastery from the rear and aim for the large bay (?) in the middle. On getting inside nothing happens, including one occasion where i sat turning my ship for a good 5 minutes.

Any ideas?

Arh yes. You have to dust off your docking skills from orginal Elite.

The bay is between the 4 guns and is marked with red / green lights and hatchings. However, the Station has no Navigation Beacon to line up with. You have to be lined up properly with the docking bay and go in dead slow. If you have a docking computer, target the Monastary with your ID computer and over fly it. Then hit SHIFT and C together. Your 'puter will take you in.

Basically, the station is no harder (or easier) to dock with than a normal station, but you have to line up manually rather than being able to orintate your self into the right position using the Nav Beacon.

If your ship is in the bay but the docking rings haven't appered, bump the speed up a notch. You won't die if you hit the back of the bay. Sometimes through you have to be right at the back wall of the bay before Oolite "relises" that you are inside the model and therefore docked. Very occasionally you have to go through the wall at the back of the bay before Oolite recognises you as docked. Don't worry, you won't die by hitting the back wall.

Thanks for getting back to me, but I'm wondering whether its a glitch rather than a docking issue. Literally, I fly straight into the bay and nothing happens. As I said before, I even sat inside the bay rotating with the station for about five minutes before I flipped and flew back out - no easy task in itself .

Hmm - I'll try the docking computers tip though and if I get time to reinstall Fraps I'll post the footage up on youtube.

It is a clitch. (The bay is slightly too big).

The way Oolite works (I think) is it says to self "The players co-ordinates are inside a model and he is not dead this means he's docked."

Sometimes you have to actually fly through the back wall of the bay before Oolite recognises you as docked. If you stay in the bay rotating with the station you haven't gone deep enough into the bay for the game to recognise you as being docked. If you get stuck like this, just keep going forward. When under computer control this dosen't happen, just under manual it crops up occasionally.

Brilliant - I'll give it a try, thankyou

Just out of interest - as I'm new to oxps - is there any you would particulary reccommend?

Personally I'd say all the Station OXPs are must haves (Torus, Militray, Trans-Hab, Globe etc) along with Custom Sounds. These OXPs make the Ooniverse prettier and improve the sound effects without adding new ships. I'd also reckomend the "flavour" OXPs (Dictators, Commies, Preachers, busy ports, anarchies, pirate coves, pirate traps etc) as these add a lot to the background and variety. I play with all OXPs installed as this gives a great variety to the ships (200 plus). Even if your happy with your current ship, its nice to see lots of different ones in the space lanes. Most OXP ship builders are carfull to stay within the power range of the Classic Ships. Also if you can buy a ship, so can pirates! I really like missions (by rude to reckomed my own). But if you install all the mission OXPs then you'll have 50 odd to do (in different Galaxies and at different stages of the game).

I'd put 'em all in. But install a few and check Oolite runs ok (don't just put them all in one go). There are not "problem OXPs" as such. Its just that if you play with them all in, your going from asking Oolite to load maybe 20 M into RAM to 200M. Can be a problem for older systems.

Mr Bear - thats some great information you've given me there and it'll be the first thing I do when I get home.

Thanks very much.

If you havent already found it. Have a look at the Oolite Wikki. Its pretty well laid out and gives lots of background (fun nerdy reading)! and info about OXPs with links to download them.

Follow this link to the wikki:-

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

Yep, discovered that and am busy downloading as I type. Some nice looking items and I only wish I had the time free to mess about with my own oxps but unfortunately I work on a text based browser game outside of my own job (I shan't mention which one for fear of being labelled a spammer!) and just play this in my free time.

And btw - Just managed to dock with the Black Monks following your initial advice of just ploughing further into the back of the bay. Not sure why though, as I'm a little scared of their interest rates.

LittleBear wrote:

busy ports

Where can I get this one from?

Griffs put it up on his own site for playtesting and its WIP. Theres a download link on the 48 niners thread here (with some screenies in the thead:- Stations, ships robots and stuff. Nice!

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=45

Griff has his own site! personally Griff is my favourite OXPer, the stuff Littlebear does is actually the worst thing about Oolite, in fact it brings a bad name to Oolite, in fact I thing we should get Littlebear banned from this forum, in fact we should get Littlebear banned from the UK

I'll check out Griff's site, i take it there's a link on his signature

Just a box link!

Not on Oosat or his sig. he put a link in one of the posts in his thread. Suspect he's still fiddling with it, so havnet put it on Oosat yet.

LB, sorry i meant to send you the version of the blackmonks station with the docking bay at the same scale as the usual stations which seems to help loads when oolite needs to decide if you've docked or not, trouble was for some reason i hadn't been naming my files properly and i couldn't find the .obj version of the station i need to load into wings , just the .dat version! anyway, i've tracked down the .obj now, so i just need to add some turrets to the sides of the station and i'll get it emailed over to you.

The busyports & the Autominer .oxp aren't much more than a bunch of odd ships that just appear and don't do much else at the moment, i really need to get back to having a look at what on earth i was up to back then, btw if anybody want to use any of the models etc for their own ideas feel free to grab them

Don't worry. It my fault. I realeased it!

In mitigation, I playtested flying an Annacona on the basis ifd I could fit this mother into the port any ship would fit.

I playtested using SHIFT C and turning the docking over to the AI.

Oolite is an evoviling entity. Thats what makes it fun!