Oolite Bulletins

I noticed that when looking in the save game files some things are stored like the jumps you made and such. Is is difficult to make a little option to have a sort of logbook? Or a longer storage of all communication messages?

How about a logbook of kills. ie curious as to how many ships of the various types I have vapourised.


D.

I would like this. I support this. I want this. It would add more fun and realism to the game.

Don't panic: FSOneblin

A Kill-Log would be cool.

What, Where, and When...

I would like a logbook that records all kills, jumps and com messages.

I also would like a systemwide communication channel. This channel just informs the player what happens in a system (not where)



Like:


-----------Teread System Monitor----------

---current-- safety level (based on incidents)
Average

Number of incidents in last 30 minutes: 6

-----------------------------------------------------
Adder killed
Escape capsule launch deteced
Teread Galcop local database center submits: Bounty 20 credits
missle launch detected
ECM use detected
missle explosion detected
Hyperspace entry detected
Witchspace jump detected
Wormhole created
Greenline Coriolis launch in progress
------------------------------------------------------etc..

I don't know how you want to display this, but wouldn't it pretty much flood the screen? It seems we just have got rid of the sticky messages, so it would not cause permanent damage, but I guess that long and/or many screen messages might get annoying for the player.

The original question in this thread was whether it's possible to write something into a textfile, so nothing would be visible in-game.

A system information log would have to be visible in-game. Putting it in a textfile most players don't know of wouldn't make much sense. So at this point the above question of feasibility arises.

And let me make a suggestion right away: We already have the JavaScript console window. So in principle it is possible that the game engine prints information in a seperate window, not the game-window itself. Therefore, if we go for an extended in-game communication, I would vote for seperating the commsMessage-window (which is now a pop-up inlay within the game-window) and directing all commsMessages into a seperate window. The player could place it at a convenient location on his desktop, and even scroll up to past messages, which is impossible in the current commsMessage-inlay.

However, I already hear Ahruman say: A major overhaul of the communications-handling is a post-MNSR issue.

Commander McLane wrote:

And let me make a suggestion right away: We already have the JavaScript console window. So in principle it is possible that the game engine prints information in a seperate window, not the game-window itself.

Trivial on OS X, effectively impossible to do in a cross-platform way.

Commander McLane wrote:

Therefore, if we go for an extended in-game communication, I would vote for seperating the commsMessage-window (which is now a pop-up inlay within the game-window) and directing all commsMessages into a seperate window. The player could place it at a convenient location on his desktop, and even scroll up to past messages, which is impossible in the current commsMessage-inlay.

Wouldn't that effectively cripple play in fullscreen mode?

Commander McLane wrote:

Putting it in a textfile most players don't know of wouldn't make much sense.

I found the folder to put the OXP's in. Somebody told me where it was. Maybe we could tell people where the text log is too. ':roll:'

another_commander wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

Therefore, if we go for an extended in-game communication, I would vote for seperating the commsMessage-window (which is now a pop-up inlay within the game-window) and directing all commsMessages into a seperate window. The player could place it at a convenient location on his desktop, and even scroll up to past messages, which is impossible in the current commsMessage-inlay.

Wouldn't that effectively cripple play in fullscreen mode?

Yes, I guess it would. I'm not playing full-screen, so I wasn't too concerned with it. Perhaps, if we would want to go this way, we should start with a poll to find out how many of us play full-screen.

I play fullscreen and windowed pretty randomly, so I would not like crippling either one of them.

A log file written into a file or into some sort of a "pilot's log" inside the game doesn't seem to serve much purpose to me. The only situations in which it _would_ be helpful is long missions (one tends to forget what was happening, if the gap between game sessions is very long).

Also, an in-game "Pilot's Log" with kill counters might be a nice bonus, but nothing that should take precedence over other, more important functionality (such as better navigation (with mouse?) between all the F1-F10 screens and their sub pages, which is a very confusing mix to a new player (having to click on one key several times to see all optional screens)).

Slightly off-topic, regarding mouse usage: You can already use the mouse for selecting options in the GUI screens by doubleclicking. As far as I recall, the only time when you actually have to press enter to make the selection is when buying ships in the shipyard. Load/save screens, options, market/contracts screens, local and long range charts already accept doubleclicks. This improves the control interface substantially and it is sort of a "hidden feature" since 1.70, I think.

Now you know

another_commander wrote:

Slightly off-topic, regarding mouse usage: You can already use the mouse for selecting options in the GUI screens by doubleclicking. As far as I recall, the only time when you actually have to press enter to make the selection is when buying ships in the shipyard. Load/save screens, options, market/contracts screens, local and long range charts already accept doubleclicks. This improves the control interface substantially and it is sort of a "hidden feature" since 1.70, I think.

Now you know

use it all the time

Jar wrote:

I found the folder to put the OXP's in. Somebody told me where it was. Maybe we could tell people where the text log is too. ':roll:'

The answer to that is, “it depends”. :-/

About a pliots log:

The Pilots log is indeed a luxury feature. But it's more for bringing back the good memories how you shot 8 pirates at planet .........
In my opinion it should never be in the main screen but as an extension to the pilot screen (F5).

About a system wide comm channel

It gives a commander more info. It sometimes happens to me that I enter a multi Government world which is (on paper) save but then meet a group of 8 pirates.

When you are warned about all sorts of 'incidents' happen it should warn a pilot or at least enhance situational awareness. Yeah, I know that you can see explosions from far away (and I find such things great!) but it should be fun if you read what happened in the system wide communication channel. The idea comes from reading Status Quo. In this e-book also narrow and wideband comm channels are mentioned.