Oolite Bulletins

Some places like rock hermits seem like they could have escape pods, and certainly highly populated things like stations (not the main one, which we know cannot be killed) should maybe have an exodus if things start to look real bad.

What do people think? Is there a good reason why not?

OK, I thought of a reason myself, I think the escape pod might just head back to the station it was launched from. If this does not happen, or can be prevented from happening, does it make sense for dockable things like rock hermits to be able to escape?

I guess it is already possible, the oxp just needs to set a crew, and maybe a pod type or something?

Hmmm, you could have a new 'super escape pod' capable of holding hundreds, and set it to go towards system.mainStation.

Shouldn't be too hard to add to the present oxps...

Apart from creating a super escape pod, you don't need to do anything with existing OXPs. Just copy the rock-hermit entry from the built-in shipdata.plist, add the two lines that give it an escape pod (see Shipdata.plist in wiki), and put in a a small OXP of its own. There you are; the new shipdata.plist entry will overwrite Oolite's own, giving all Rock Hermits an escape pod.

And by the way: As Rock Hermits are hermits (by definition living alone), there is no need for an escape pod carrying hundreds of people.

what about pirate coves (one of my favourite OXPs!), they'd be able to make use of a big escape pod.

Hoopy wrote:

what about pirate coves (one of my favourite OXPs!), they'd be able to make use of a big escape pod.

Just give'm one in their shipdata.

I've always thought that the large ships like Boa's and Anaconda's (and stations) should launch multiple escape pods instead of just one. I wanted them to launch from several places, however, not just a stream from the aft eject position. Is it possible to have a sub-entity launch\spawn an escape pod? If so, they could be placed up and down the hull and operate in a more realist way with an awesome visual effect.

What you can definitely do from javascript is to check all your subentities, and launch pod(s) from the appropriate position along the hull, if one subentity is gone.

Plus, it would be awesome - and fairly easy to do via javascript - to have a sequence of escape pods leaving a big military vessel after abandon ship!

I think Dr Nill in the commissar limousine (commies) has implemented something like this (but I am not 100% sure)

Ark wrote:

I think Dr Nill in the commissar limousine (commies) has implemented something like this (but I am not 100% sure)

He has, I shot one down a few nights ago and it dropped (I think) about three escape pods.
I'd like to see, as you say, big ships dropping escape pods. If you do a search in the Dream Team OXP thread in the Expansion packs, ramon even went as far as modelling escape pod 'mountings' along the sides of his Anaconda redo:


Captain Hesperus

Mmm, the Dream Team Anaconda. I wanna see that with a specularity map.

Ahruman wrote:

Mmm, the Dream Team Anaconda. I wanna see that with a specularity map.

I wanna see it *released*

Captain Hesperus

That too, that too.

*looks at pictures again* When I’ve finished this camera and lighting stuff, I really need to get normal mapping working.

must... not drool... on... work's keyboard!