Oolite Bulletins

Griff's wireframe Cobra in the Shader's Outpost thread was quite nice wasn't it? I thought it would give a very nice retro look to Oolite if we could generally display ships wireframed, just like in the 80's, when Elite came out. Poked a bit with the code, and guess what, there is an unused function to enable wireframe rendering! So, I thought of adding a new debug key, 'w' while paused, which activates wireframe mode. Here are the results:


All graphics are see-through, you can see stars behind them. This is not intentional, but I think that was the case also with the original.

superb!

another_commander wrote:

All graphics are see-through, you can see stars behind them. This is not intentional, but I think that was the case also with the original.

One of the many clever things about Elite was that all the ships were designed with [some geometric feature] to make hidden line removal trivial. There weren't any stars, but 'star dust', which was how you judged your speed.
But yes, love the concept. Perhaps as an option for Strict Oolite play?

Wiggy wrote:

One of the many clever things about Elite was that all the ships were designed with [some geometric feature] to make hidden line removal trivial.

Convexity.

i think you've just made Commander McLane very happy indeed!

Very cool! Might I be correct in thinking that will also increase the framerate? Might make Oolite playable on my old laptop...

Cheers,

Drew.

Excellent, I'm surprised that the lines aren't green though.

TGHC wrote:

Excellent, I'm surprised that the lines aren't green though.

The mode exists for debugging, not retrotude. But the lines are textured, so you can make them any colour you like.

drew wrote:

Very cool! Might I be correct in thinking that will also increase the framerate? Might make Oolite playable on my old laptop...

At this stage, unfortunately no. Due to the fact that planets and ships are rendered wireframe, while everything else is not, the graphics card has to continuously change polygon render modes, which costs in performance. There has to be a way to optimize it, but I don't know if I have what it takes to do it (not that I will not try it, though).

Still, it is playable and, since people seem to like it, I made it into a game option, accessible from the F2 screen.

Hmm. Since you’re so savvy with that GUI screen stuff, how about splitting off a separate display configuration screen? I’ll be adding at least one option (Shaders off/low detail/full detail), and it’s getting crowded. The following items would go on the second screen:

• Fullscreen mode
• Fullscreen toggle (GNUstep only, although having it there as well on OS X probably wouldn’t hurt)
• Reduced Detail toggle
• Wireframe toggle
• Shader detail toggle

The main menu would then have (with some reordering and language tweaks):

• Quick Save
• Save Commander
• Load Commander
• Begin New Game
• Game Options: caption, or possibly separating space
• Sound Volume
• Display Options…
• Joystick Configuration (GNUstep only)
• Separating space
• Reset to strict gameplay
• Separating space
• Exit Game

Alternatively, sound and joystick options could be moved as well, and it’d just be an Options screen. Hmm, I think I like that better.

Edit: added to task tracker

I guess I could give it a try. It might take some time, though...

Griff wrote:

i think you've just made Commander McLane very happy indeed!

First of all, thanks for caring for my happyness!

But seriously, that would be a misunderstanding. I am not into strict play, not at all. In fact I never even tried strict mode.

And I don't love the wireframe Cobra because it's "original" in the sense of "like back in 1984". I love it because it's "original" in the sense of "an original thought", "fresh thinking". Like I said, I find it an ingenious idea to have something like this "ghost-ship" (not to be mixed up with the buggy ghost-ships, of course), that you can see occasionally (and I mean, very occasionally; I'll have to tune down its occurence drastically on my computer (as soon as I understand how that JS-script works )) while travelling through the Ooniverse. To me it's (others apparently had similar thoughts) like the tale of the Flying Dutchman: a rumour in shady bars. And suddenly, one day, you don't trust your eyes, as you see this menacing and ghostly ship... It definitively needs an AI of its own and some odd characteristics, like e.g. immunity to laser fire, or impossibility to lock a missile on it. It should be a spooky encounter for the player.

To make it short: I can easily imagine this ship to be an easter-egg in the game.

This also means that I am far from wanting all ships to be wire-frame. That would very much destroy the whole idea I layed out above.

Let me try again to explain my point: My point is not nostalgia. My point is: With all the efforts to re-design old ships and to design new ships, the example that really struck me is not one of the pumped-up, detail-rich, testosterone-overladen ships (really, no offense meant!, I'm just trying to be descriptive and clear), but this (comparably) very simple idea and design.

As far as I am concerned this one idea and ship adds more to the game than all Griff's, Selezen's and others' efforts to re-design and pump up the classical ships together. That's my whole point.

And as I've said before: I don't expect everybody to agree with me. But perhaps some of you can understand my point: I am interested in ideas, features, unexpected ingenuities that expand the Ooniverse, and I believe the wireframe CobraIII is exactly one of these (like the text-adventure in Assassins, to give another example). I am not at all interested in making the game's graphics look like any first-person-shooter I don't have, never have played and never would want to play. You may do that. I'm just not interested. That's all.

I think a ghost ship -- one that hardly ever appears (maybe even one that is restricted to one lonely system?) -- is a fantastic idea. It could even broadcast an eerie message. It wouldn't have to mean anything: just something that might get under a player's skin and drive them nuts trying to work out what it was all about -- like

"Falkenburg! Falkenburg!"

or

"Thirteen light years in thirteen hours... thirteen light years in thirteen hours..."

You could call it The Hesperus

TGHC wrote:

You could call it The Hesperus

I just love that I invoke such fear and loathing unjustified hatred felinicidal wrath love and adoration from you all....

Captain Hesperus