Oolite Bulletins

I know it's been talked about before and been dismissed as redundant based on everyone having an internet connection but I still think it would be nice to have some kind of encyclopedia within the game.

The reason I say this is because I don't always play the game while in places with an internet connection and it would save on downloading page upon page of the Wiki onto my PC.

A simple solution would be to have an extension of the ship ID system whereby you could have the option (once ID has been made) to press another button (or R once more) to bring up basic data on the ship type ie. Ship name, dimensions, max speed, cargo hold size etc. Possible also a basic pic of ship. Would that be an easy OXP to create?

Also, I like the fact that it is possible, in combination with OXP's, to create an Oolite that covers all the previous Elite versions. The encyclopedia was a part of Elite A so it would be simply in keeping with the Elite history.

Might be OXPable with JS to get some of this information. But it would have to be displayed by text comming up (which rather gets in the way). You could have a console message (ie the same way Oolite warns of Incoming Missile and such like) giving this sort of thing, but putting this somewhere other than text on the console would need major changes to the core game rather than an OXP. Or you could add it to the text that comes up with the target box (you'd need already own the existing Scanner Enhanchment), as Frame does with the Bounty Scanner, but again its a lot of text in the middle of the action rather than somewhere to the side of the screen.

Step 1: Ask Winston to install the PDFBook extension into the Wiki. This allows a user to export a category to a PDF file.

Step 1: Extract the Oolite Ships category to that PDF.

Step 2: Print off PDF.

Step 3: Draw a cover that says Encyclopedia Galactica.

Step 4: Go to local printing house and get book bound.

Ta daaaa!

Alternative solution:

Zappa, feel free to update the Oolite Reference Sheet, which has been around forever and contains exactly the information you are looking for, just not for all ships, because it is so old and hasn't been updated for ages.

And to your question whether it is easily doable via OXP: Nothing that involves a new keypress-command is doable in an OXP at all.

Commander McLane wrote:

And to your question whether it is easily doable via OXP: Nothing that involves a new keypress-command is doable in an OXP at all.

I'm not so sure about that. If I remember right there was something like this possible in v1.70 and at that time I've made some tests. It was working - sometimes.

But I would agree that this shouldn't be a good idea to open that for oxps. We would simply run out of keys very fast :-)

Commander McLane wrote:

Zappa, feel free to update the Oolite Reference Sheet, which has been around forever and contains exactly the information you are looking for, just not for all ships, because it is so old and hasn't been updated for ages.

Now that would be really useful, it was my bible in the early 1.65 days, and it would also answer a lot of FAQ's

TGHC wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

Zappa, feel free to update the Oolite Reference Sheet, which has been around forever and contains exactly the information you are looking for, just not for all ships, because it is so old and hasn't been updated for ages.

Now that would be really useful, it was my bible in the early 1.65 days, and it would also answer a lot of FAQ's

Now, wouldn't that be a nice opportunity for a senior member of the comOonity to contribute something? You know, sitting back in an arm-chair, carefully collecting data from incredibly weird sources, comparing them, weighing them, cleaning them up, and finally bringing them into a new and shiny state. And all of that without moving anywhere, always staying close to nursie?

In regard to modifying text, for example the bounty scanner...

I Already tested line feeds, but these are ignored by the draw target text function..

This means we cant write beneath the first line, therefore it would just become an extraordinary long line of text, if you included the mass, speed, energy and so on of the ship...

And it wouldn't be bullet proof to ships of "unknown" origin, therefore the ship computer would not carry the data, however the system(Javascript) will know, therefore it would be rather unbelievable that the modified scanner would pick values like max energy and max speed, as these would have to be unknown... like for example McLanes Ghost Cobra MK III... While a bounty can be gotten from another source, namely the Gal Corp Offender register...

Of course we could add an extra unique role to make the modified scanner, not show the values, by detecting that very role....

But it is unlikely that everybody would know of the modified scanner or will forget and therefore forget adding the unique role..

What someone, you or me, need to figure out is a way of obtaining this information, and taking into account the possibility of “unknown” ships into account, design a method to filter these “unknown” ships from the scanner... one obvious way would be to name the ship “unknown configuration”,or simply to check for the word unknown it in its name...

yes sometimes I ramble my way to a solution... lol...

I amaze even myself sometimes...

The next logical step is to make a mission screen appear in flight, however, there is no way of detecting a key press in Oolite Javascript, I know, since I tested this... you can detect certain states of screens... whereby you can have the mission screen kick in once, pr targeted ship... the way all this would work, would need to disable view of the stats, after the first time you view it, per ship... or else you wouldn't be able to see F key screen used to detect when to bring up the mission screen, showing the ships statistics. Next target, will activate the ability once more... or deactivate target will do the same trick as since if there is no target.. no stats to show naturally, then proceed to F key screen...

Cheers Frame..

Commander McLane wrote:

TGHC wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

Zappa, feel free to update the Oolite Reference Sheet, which has been around forever and contains exactly the information you are looking for, just not for all ships, because it is so old and hasn't been updated for ages.

Now that would be really useful, it was my bible in the early 1.65 days, and it would also answer a lot of FAQ's

Now, wouldn't that be a nice opportunity for a senior member of the comOonity to contribute something? You know, sitting back in an arm-chair, carefully collecting data from incredibly weird sources, comparing them, weighing them, cleaning them up, and finally bringing them into a new and shiny state. And all of that without moving anywhere, always staying close to nursie?

I Have just submitted my company accounts, so I do have a little free time now, I don't mind having a go, can anyone recommend a free PDF writer, that's very very simple and easy to use?

Openoffice?

Micha beat me to it - irrespective of what OS you use too - write as normal - export as PDF - makes a pretty good job of it too (although I've had some minor issues when Drew changed to OO3 recently - but that's probably more to do with my ageing Win98 non-Adobe based PDF reader)

I was hoping for something a tad smaller than 142Mb, but if that's the only option.....

TGHC wrote:

I was hoping for something a tad smaller than 142Mb, but if that's the only option.....

You don't need to install all of it though. If you just want the 'writer' just install that. The pdf export is a single button press. I use Word and Adobe at work, and it's far slower, more heavy and less user friendly! OO rules.

Cheers,

Drew.

TGHC wrote:

I was hoping for something a tad smaller than 142Mb, but if that's the only option.....

What OS? There's various 'pdf printers' out there so just write in whatever app you've got then 'print to pdf'.