Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Wed Mar 28, 2007 7:41 pm**

OK, I usually don't enjoy the planet descriptions that much, but at least this one made me chuckle:

Maises (Galaxy 1)

"Maises is reasonably notable for its fabulous Maisesian lethal water but beset by lethal disease."

Posted: **Wed Mar 28, 2007 7:50 pm**

Alright, I'm on a roll finding these so how about this one:

Arexe (Galaxy 1)

"The world Arexe is fabled for its exciting sit coms and its inhabitants' ancient loathing of sit coms."

Who wrote the logic for these things??

Posted: **Wed Mar 28, 2007 8:24 pm**

tadster wrote:
Alright, I'm on a roll finding these so how about this one:

Arexe (Galaxy 1)

"The world Arexe is fabled for its exciting sit coms and its inhabitants' ancient loathing of sit coms."

Who wrote the logic for these things??

Who said the sit coms were for the inhabitants?

Posted: **Wed Mar 28, 2007 8:54 pm**

Check this out to find out how these descriptions are generated. Look at paragraphs 13 and 14.

http://www.frontier.co.uk/games/elite/faq.html

Logic has no place here

Posted: **Wed Mar 28, 2007 9:07 pm**

tadster wrote:
Who wrote the logic for these things??

Messrs. Bell and Braben, quite a while ago. Since you ask so nicely, it works like this:

The game starts with the string (piece of text) “[14] is [22].”
For each bracketed number in the string, it makes a selection from a table. Each entry in the table is a list of five strings. One of these is chosen in a semi-random way.
The process is repeated until there are no bracketed numbers.
Finally, each occurence of the text ”%H” is replaced with the name of the system, each occurence of “%I” with the name of the system followed by “ian” (e.g., “%I” for Lave produces Laveian), and each occurence of “%R” is replaced with a nonsense word generated in the same way as a planet name.

The “semi-random” bit involves using a psuedo-random number generator – a function which takes a number and produces a different number that appears to be unconnected to the first – using the planet number and a “galaxy seed” as the initial value.

The complete substitution table is:

Code: Select all

 0:  fabled, notable, "well known", famous, noted
 1:  very, mildly, most, reasonably, ""
 2:  ancient, "[20]", great, vast, pink
 3:  "[29] [28] plantations", mountains, "[27]", "[19] forests", oceans
 4:  shyness, silliness, "mating traditions", "loathing of [5]", "love for [5]"
 5:  "food blenders", tourists, poetry, discos, "[13]"
 6:  "talking tree", crab, bat, lobst, "%R"
 7:  beset, plagued, ravaged, cursed, scourged
 8:  "[21] civil war", "[26] [23] [24]s", "[26] disease", "[21] earthquakes", "[21] solar activity"
 9:  "its [2] [3]", "the %I [23] [24]", "its inhabitants' [25] [4]", "[32]", "its [12] [13]"
10:  juice, brandy, water, brew, "gargle blasters"
11:  "%R", "%I [24]", "%I %R", "%I [26]", "[26] %R"
12:  fabulous, exotic, hoopy, unusual, exciting
13:  cuisine, "night life", casinos, "sit coms", "[32]"
14:  "%H", "The planet %H", "The world %H", "This planet", "This world"
15:  "n unremarkable", " boring", " dull", " tedious", " revolting"
16:  planet, world, place, "little planet", dump
17:  wasp, moth, grub, ant, "%R"
18:  poet, "arts graduate", yak, snail, slug
19:  tropical, dense, rain, impenetrable, exuberant
20:  funny, weird, unusual, strange, peculiar
21:  frequent, occasional, unpredictable, dreadful, deadly
22:  "[1] [0] for [9]", "[1] [0] for [9] and [9]", "[7] by [8]", "[1] [0] for [9] but [7] by [8]", "a[15] [16]"
23:  "[26]", mountain, edible, tree, spotted
24:  "[30]", "[31]", "[6]oid", "[18]", "[17]"
25:  ancient, exceptional, eccentric, ingrained, "[20]"
26:  killer, deadly, evil, lethal, vicious
27:  "parking meters", "dust clouds", "ice bergs", "rock formations", volcanoes
28:  plant, tulip, banana, corn, "%Rweed"
29:  "%R", "%I %R", "%I [26]", inhabitant, "%I %R"
30:  shrew, beast, bison, snake, wolf
31:  leopard, cat, monkey, goat, fish
32:  "[11] [10]", "%I [30] [33]", "its [12] [31] [33]", "[34] [35]", "[11] [10]"
33:  meat, cutlet, steak, burgers, soup
34:  ice, mud, "Zero-G", vacuum, "%I ultra"
35:  hockey, cricket, karate, polo, tennis

Now you can make up your own planet descriptions – there are many more than the 2048 used by the game in this function, although I have no interest in working out exactly how many.

Posted: **Wed Mar 28, 2007 10:12 pm**

I make it:- 18,889,465,931,478,580,854,784

Which is about my annual salary in Rubles.

Posted: **Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:04 pm**

thanks for the great info. I wonder if they realized that their pseudo random system was going to cause some hilarity but that was inevitable because the low storage and memory capabilities of the time necessitated such a system.

Posted: **Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:43 pm**

They did realize it, once they started testing, but they thought it was funny and kept it. I read that somewhere in an interview, I think, but I can't be bothered to find the source now.

It has also been one of the reasons why Elite has gained such cult status

.

-Oz

Posted: **Thu Mar 29, 2007 6:44 pm**

They also had to check carefully that the planet name generation, did not produce any offensive words. there is an oft quoted but incorrect assertion that there is a planet Arse, but unfortrunately it does not exist......yet!! Someone's bound to produce an OXP with a gas giant.....

Oolite Bulletins

Hilarious planet description

Hilarious planet description