Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Tue Dec 30, 2008 11:57 pm**

New Conceptual release v 0.02

download here

http://www.box.net/shared/2fx7o1ztoq

features..

new jump gate
a station is now added near the extra planet
jump gate near the extra station
gas giant is smaller

gas giant station has a nav buoy look for the dictator symbol on the space compass...

without much further do, i copy paste here from the readme file...

Download version 0.01 here

http://www.box.net/shared/x2q7zx7y1j

READ THIS::: IMPORTANT:::

This is a beta release...

as such it offers no other functionality than showcasing how it is going to work
There are no custom stations or complete solar systems generated yet

There is only one planet, from which you can fly to
and you can fly back from....

this "conceptual" release is made to catch any unforeseen errors or conflicts...

Only compatible with Oolite version 1.72.1 until version 1.73...

I´m greatly appreciating anybody who is testing this, testing or not
testing or looking at how i done it

Feel free to copy my methods to create your own OXPs...

How this works...

first time you launch from any planet there is a jumpgate near the station to the right...
first time you enter a Jump gate you are propelled to the only custom planet added
to get back, enter the jumpgate that are at the "jumpgate point" where you "jump out" the first time..

NOT compatible with system.redux extra planets... set that to 0 if you wish to test this...
fully compatible with system.redux moons...
fully compatible with famous planets...
NOT compatible with far sun...
fully compatible with planetfall 1.10

Warning: do not save your commander file while having made use of a jumpgate...
Cheers.... Frame..

Posted: **Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:25 am**

Hi Frame,

<report.1>

kept to your instructions, but have bad news

I tried to fly through the jumpgate with different ships. It is very small. Any ship that has a somehow extravagant form is destroyed.

As I use Sung's textures (they are part of RS), inside the jumpgate the blue standard docking bay appears, which doesn't look good. I guess that's cosmetics that can be ironed out, but any user with Sung textures or RS in will probably get this graphics glitch.

And, worst: The game simply crashes on me if I attempt to fly through. I get the docking rings and sound of the jumpgate, but that's it - RAM consumption jumps from about 900MB (my usual with my Oolite install) to 1.4GB, gets stuck and then Vista tells me there is a problem and Oolite is being shut down.

</report>

L

Posted: **Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:41 pm**

Sounds very odd the crash, I'm not adding anything... just moving everything back and forth... only thing i´m adding is the jump gate, that i made have NPC traffic just to add a little action...

Regarding the jump gate.. oh yeah forgot to mention, it is for small ships only... this will get larger in time..

Posted: **Wed Dec 31, 2008 4:13 pm**

Hi Frame,

<report.2>

Success! No idea why. First tried an alternate Oolite AddOns setting with only a very few select oxps in, it worked to get to the second planet, and back again via jumpgate. Then it suddenly worked with my usual settings.

Two notes. One, when coming back, I was at a distance to planet one about witchpoint distance, no longer in orbit or near the main station.

Two, the sun is just too far away in this concept study for the second planet, and there should be some sort of solution imo that the "main" planet is not always number one and closest to the sun. That would be not so immersive.

Well, I know it's a first proof-of-concept, so.

</report>

L

PS: Go, Frame, go

Posted: **Wed Dec 31, 2008 6:23 pm**

Thanks, as always your reports are much appreciated..

Now celebrate the new years coming and the old one´s farewell...

in other words, get a tiny bit drunk.. but no driving

Posted: **Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:09 pm**

Firstly you can also add:

Fully compatible with PlanetFall version 1.1 (which I'll be releasing next week).

Cos I've just made it so

I will of course double-check once the full version is out, as I'm not sure how it will go on a set-up without a moon nearby (when the enteringPlanetaryVicinity trigger doesn't kick).

But some other comments:

As Lestradae says, the gate looks odd with the re-textured dock. But some kind of indication of the dock orientation is needed if manual docking is to be done (rather than by docking computer). As the gate is radially symmetrical around 8 directions something is needed to say "this way up!"
The radius of the gas giant means it mass locks at a huge distance. To get between mass lock and the surface on injectors takes most of a full tank (just FYI, as I had to check the landing blocking).
It might be nice to re-orient the player towards the main planet when leaving the jump gate? (or orient the jump gate exit that way if you prefer).
I don't know if it's a coincidence or something else but I keep bumping into deep space dredgers near the GG.

Editted to add - the lack of the enteringPlanetaryVicinity is a pain. I think I may have to implement the "home-made" timer check version as in Fuel Collector.[/color]

Posted: **Sat Jan 03, 2009 9:13 pm**

One other comment. As the jump gates are dockable entities, I keep seeing NPC ships trying to "dock" with them and crashing (quite spectacularly in some cases).

As an alternative, might a look at the old Racing Rings OXP and the use of a similar concept to those hoops be better than docking (or does the scripting require the docking event?).

Posted: **Sat Jan 03, 2009 10:17 pm**

Thargoid wrote:
One other comment. As the jump gates are dockable entities, I keep seeing NPC ships trying to "dock" with them and crashing (quite spectacularly in some cases).

As an alternative, might a look at the old Racing Rings OXP and the use of a similar concept to those hoops be better than docking (or does the scripting require the docking event?).

hmm never knew about traverse z positive and close contact, I suppose I could send a script event from the AI. Suits better for my the upcoming design..

The jump gates are not going to be stations i´m going to set them to have no traffic...

I plan for having ships using them, but then only ships with a special AI. I plan for having the jump gate scan the vicinity for ships bound for witchspace, switch their AI, and make them bound for the jump-gate instead... A scan at random intervals, 30,60,90... so that we do not hit the system to much...

Also the jump gate you are seeing are concept only, and far to small,, my current jump gate is very large I can inject into it without fear of crashing.

furthermore, I'm going to split it down into smaller sub entities, as smaller sub entities reduces the collision area

But being me i Remembered an old cool design for a jump gate.. Gamma Draconis is all I can say in that matter...

Anyway here is a pic of the current jump gate.

at the moment I'm fiddling with stations, and vectors orientations, and nasty quaternions atm aligning everything up...

got that function down, its amazing how fast you can go no-where fast...

Posted: **Sat Jan 03, 2009 10:32 pm**

Looks cool.

Posted: **Sat Jan 03, 2009 11:56 pm**

I would find it to look good if you mounted some, perhaps light blue, big flashers to the ends of the spokes of your jumpgate-wheels. Just saying.

And: Go, Frame, go!

Posted: **Sun Jan 04, 2009 1:28 pm**

Does indeed look good - perhaps you could but the Babyloon 5 Tetrascreen from YAH in close proximity...

Posted: **Sun Jan 04, 2009 1:54 pm**

There will be flashers... will look at the Tetrascreen

in the mean time, I wonder if it would be to bold to do this

Infact i think it requires an OXP on its own... for custom beacon signs... so there is one OXP where all custom beacon drawings are included. I think there are yet about 16 open slots... incl my showcase...

I modified the oolite-font.png file to do this... and saved it in the textures map of this OXP... but of course, any other OXP that starts with a letter higher than SO would overwrite this if it used the same method

I wouldn't use it for the jump-gate though... since this is always in close proximity to the station... its more likely that i would use it for custom beacons... used to pinpoint the jumpgate point where you are jumping out...

this picture is only to showcase what could be done.. Allthough i prefer if it would be in another OXP where all future custom beacon drawings would be included, but of course there is only about 14/16 open slots...

each drawing can be 64 by 64 pixels large...

Edit: In hindsight.. it would be better to Seperate the oolite-font.png from the beacon signs... maintain the W N R and what else is used... not sure how complex that would be though.. This will have to be hard-coded though...

Posted: **Sun Jan 04, 2009 2:58 pm**

JumpGate design Gamma Draconis...

Click picture, to see a video of how it is going to move

it is the socalled

benefits.. It will not be so noticable at range

it spans for 1000 meters... more than enough for even the largest ships

Posted: **Sun Jan 04, 2009 3:01 pm**

Frame wrote:
Infact i think it requires an OXP on its own... for custom beacon signs... so there is one OXP where all custom beacon drawings are included. I think there are yet about 16 open slots... incl my showcase...

The Oolite team reserves the right to use those slots in future.

Posted: **Sun Jan 04, 2009 3:10 pm**

Ahruman wrote:
Frame wrote:
Infact i think it requires an OXP on its own... for custom beacon signs... so there is one OXP where all custom beacon drawings are included. I think there are yet about 16 open slots... incl my showcase...
The Oolite team reserves the right to use those slots in future.

Ok... but couldn't we split the font to one used by the beacons then ?

like this in shipdata.plist

Code: Select all

beacon_image = "JumpGateBeaconImage.png"

that points to a 64 by 64 large image

And still preserve the old way of doing it ?

it would also solve the problem of people having to scan through threads and everything to find letters not used...

Oolite Bulletins

Solar OXP Conceptual Test-Release... beta 0.02

Solar OXP Conceptual Test-Release... beta 0.02

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