@ Lestradae: I really don't know where your anger comes from. I can't imagine it's from what I have written. And I unfortunately don't know which sinister interpretation you're giving to it. What seems clear to me, is that you're not getting my point.
There is a short answer and a long answer following. The short answer is around your post. The long answer explains my point of view.
Lestradae wrote:I also want an Ooniverse that is still recognisable as Elite. But we have already established that there is a core version - the build 1.65 or 1.70, perhaps - that is the smallest consensus we can all have.
No. The "core version" includes the canonical information
around the game. Things like "The Dark Wheel". And it has nothing to do with the game's version number or a specific build. It has everything to do with the
background of the game, which remains the same in all builds.
Lestradae wrote:But I am definitely and ultimately against starting any attempt to put limitations on OXPs.
Sorry for you, but this is not thought through. Technically it is possible to script an OXP in which Galaxies 1 to 8 would not be GalCop territory, but federal or imperial, half of the planets would be inhabited by races from StarWars/StarTrek and GalCop would never even have existed. But this would not be an OXP (Oolite eXpansion Pack = something that expands Oolite as it is), but a total conversion. Doable, but it wouldn't be Elite anymore. If talking about OXPs, I assume that we
are still talking about Elite. So there are some natural restrictions.
Lestradae wrote:If you, Commander McLane, want your only personal Oolite game which contains exactly what you want and what you don`t want, make one.
No. It is you who constructs your personal Oolite which contains whatever you want, disregarding the logic framework of it, the thing that has been called he "spirit of Elite". What I want is quite the opposite: Maintaining the spirit of Elite by openly debating here on the board what is in this spirit and what is not. And it is by far not me making this decision. There are voices weighing far more than mine. I want to consult and consider them. You don't. You are the one who thinks his personal taste, opinion and wishes rule.
*****
I am a scripter myself, long before you came in here. One major OXP of mine, Anarchies, is released. Others are WIP and won't see the light of the day soon. So it is completely besides the point to put me in the "strict play"-corner. I'm not advocating strict play, I've in fact never enabled strict mode in my game.
And of course the point of OXPs is to introduce something new into the Ooniverse. New stations, new ships, new missions, new twists, new powers and organisations etc. etc. I'm not opposed to that. Not the slightest little bit. What I am advocating is that these alterations and modifications of the Ooniverse are done
sensibly. That they are somehow in-line with what we already knew about the Ooniverse before.
And there is - or at least there was in the past - a common sense on this board that there should nothing be introduced into the Ooniverse that openly contradicts (a) the
Elite Flight Manual and (b) the
"Dark Wheel". These are - or have been to this point - considered as "canonical" for Oolite, setting the stage that in its fundamentals cannot be altered without clearly saying "this isn't the Elite-universe anymore". Many of us would, as far as Oolite is concerned, add (c)
"Status Quo" to the canonical works, some of us also (d) the
timelines Selezen has worked out and probably some other material. But these latter ones are not unanimously accepted. I for myself would also like to include the agreed-upon Wiki-facts into the "canonic" realm, which - as far as I understand - is a minority position. Anyway, I do think the wiki provides very useful information about the Ooniverse, and many of its facts are in fact derived from the canonic works, either directly or by interpolation.
Have I missed the point in time when a majority here decided to throw all of these overboard? I don't think so.
Am I witnessing the point in time when Lestradae decides not to care about all of these? Maybe.
You feel angered by my objection to your wonderful OXP. I can understand that. You have created something (with a lot of help from the comOonity, by the way), you are proud of it, and you want other people to like it. I understand that. And I
do like it, at least partially. I have told you that I appreciate the work you have put into the formula for price calculation. And I have told you that I think this formula is a great tool. We do not agree in the point that it should be made compulsory for everyone, which is what your OXP wants to do, but, hey, the Ooniverse has room enough for both of us. We don't need to agree on everything, and fortunately I don't need to install your OXP. I don't see a problem so far. Do you?
You haven't stopped there, though. You had another great idea: Why not make all the ships which until now haven't been on the market, available as well. Including the Thargoid Carrier. Now, as you have finally understood how shipyard.plist works, and even shipdata.plist (again with a lot of help from others, by the way), you can do it. So you do it, just because you can. And again you want everybody to be proud of you.
And here am I and have an objection. The big Lestradae has created something, and I dare not to praise it. My guess is that this is where your anger comes from. And I can't help you with it. Because the simple truth is that you're not as big as you perhaps feel now. There are people here around Oolite who are way bigger than you. Without the patience LittleBear, Kaks and others showed in answering your rather stupid questions about shipyard.plist, shipdata.plist and the way the wiki works, you wouldn't even have accomplished what you did. And the true giants here are the people who have all this made possible in the first place, starting with Giles. And I also count those who created the other aspects that define the Ooniverse among them, like our novelists. And I think all of us, who are populating their creation, bringing it to life and enriching it with our ideas, are obliged to respect them and their creation. I do. But I have to say I'm missing this respect in your work. And this is the point where I feel that
I (and everybody else) would have the right to be upset.
You come here and have far-reaching ideas. Fine. For a start you have very little knowledge of how to implement them, so you ask other people for help. Fine. In case of your planetary systems idea it was me who took the time to think it through and give a long and - I think - quite comprehensive answer on what may be doable, and in what way, and what may be impossible, and what the implications of your idea are. In the present case there were a lot of people helping you out. You take their help. Fine. But you are not prepared to take their opinion and advice as well. And this is
not fine, at least not with me.
As mentioned I am a scripter, too. The biggest finished work of mine so far is Anarchies.oxp. One of the main features of this OXP is a profound alteration of how the legal system in Oolite works. (So it is rubbish to accuse me of being opposed to changes as such.) But this OXP didn't come out of my head only. At its very beginning was a discussion here on the board that wasn't even started by me. Many people shared their views on the subject before I even started scripting, so there already was some sort of a common sense about it. It took me almost a year to bring it to the polished version it is now, and I announced, discussed and consulted about every single step of it here on the board.
Before it was released. If people had a reasonable objection against any detail I was planning, I took it into consideration, and in many cases changed things according to the objection. The main point is: There was a debate here on the board, and everybody was invited to be a part of it, to shape the OXP while it was in the making. I think this way of OXPing is very much in the spirit of the comOonity-based project Oolite is. And many of the other scripters work on their scripts in a very similar way. Just read through the endless pages of posts concerning Assassins, or Your Ad Here, which literally lives from the contributions by the public.
Not so with you. You don't take contributions from others. You just exploit their knowledge. And you don't respect the framework developed by B&B, Holdstock, Giles, and others. You think it's a cool idea to make a Thargoid Carrier available for players, so you do it. You don't care whether other people think of it as a good idea, you don't raise it as a question (and it could have been a good question to ask here). You don't care whether it makes sense. You do it simply because you can, and the Ooniverse is meant to turn around you anyway, isn't it?
I hold up my argument, because it is a valid point, or at least was a valid point at the time. I am referring to the documentation in the wiki and what it says about Thargoids. Like in the
Thargoid Warship (Oolite) page:
It is also believed that the insectoid crew of a Thargoid warship has had their fear glands removed - the warships consistently fight to the death, and will not allow a human craft to flee.
There is also an entry on the
Thargon page:
As dead Thargons can be scooped, many of them have found their way to GalCop's research facilities, like the naval research and development complex on Ribilebi. There they are torn apart and examined carefully. It is from scrutinizing these derelict fighter drones that most of the knowledge about Thargoids and their technology actually stems from. Naturally during the research they have become the best understood part of Thargoid technology. Their energy system is fairly well understood, and can be compared to human technology, in which it would rank as having 2 energy banks, which recharge at a medium speed. Also their laser system poses no major questions to researchers. It is also well understood that the distictive green laser colour is due to some specifications of Thargoid laser configuration.
If the scale is magnified in an appropriate way, Thargon research may also give important clues as to the composition and features of the Thargoid warships themselves. None of those has ever been examined, as Thargoids inevitably fight to death, resulting in the complete destruction of their motherships.
There is, however, in order to be fair and to draw the complete picture, also this paragraph on the
Thargoids page, indicating that in fact some Thargoid ship wrecks have been recovered, although it seems the information retrieved from their examination does not extend to technological details above the mere blueprint of the ship's interior:
Based on the study of some wrecked ships, Thargoids as a race seem to have a very spartan approach to furnishing and belongings. Crew quarters are practically devoid of posessions other than those necessary for military crewmen. All belongings are functional and necessary.
Anyway, as these are wrecked ships, I don't think it's very likely that they may be repaired, made to fly and sold on the open market again. And even if so, then certainly not with the working original technology, but with ordinary GalCop technology instead, as far as drives and weaponry are concerned. Which means (1) they most certainly would get an exhaust plume, (2) their specifications, most notably speed and manoeuverability, would be downgraded, compared to real Thargoid ships, and (3) quite likely they would be marked somehow, in order not to be confused with the real deal.
Now you are telling us that you have in fact given it a background story. Okay,
if it is in-line with the basics of the Ooniverse and doesn't break the canon, then I have no objections. And I would have loved to find that out. But you hadn't mentioned it in your first post. Therefore at the time my objection was justified.
, but I think your point of view is grossly unfair, and I don`t want it to spread. If Oolite became something where people voted or decided on what MAY be in it and what not INCLUDING OXPs I would be out of it in a minute - and it would go the way of the new kind, if you catch my drift.
