Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Fri Jan 23, 2009 12:49 am**

Alright, I'm satisfied I have achieved my goals, it looks free of major bugs, and I'm satisfied with it's ingame performance. So I serve it up hot and fresh to you, the Comoonity.

Xarik Spaceplane
By Wyvern
----------------
Hybrid transatmospheric, lifting-body/airfoil, single-stage-to-orbit vehicle, offers high adaptability, and good capability/survivability in all roles.

Energy banks: 6 (Three per wing)
Recharge: 5.0
Yaw: 1.0
Pitch: 1.0
Roll: 2.0
Speed: .360 LS
Thrust: 50
Atmospheric capability: Yes
- Flight control is a full fly-by-wire system, controlled via digital input to an RTAM-FCS2 computer. Atmosphere-space transition is seamless to the pilot.
- Craft powered by four Lemars Corp "Prossett Jr" sublight thrusters; each unit is a miniaturized version of the Prossett ThruSpace model.

Cargo: 18
Expansion: 12
Total: 30
- To maximize hull space, energy condensors and fuel is stored in the wings.

Weapons Loadout
Laser mount points: 4 (Front, Rear, Left, Right) (Recommended lasers: Military front and rear, Beam left and right.)
- Laser mounts have been carefully adjusted for pinpoint precision accuracy. No more having to aim slightly high and/or slightly low. Sniper's paradise!
Missile pylons: 10 (Six pylons on fuselage, four under wings. Extra pylons provided for drop tanks and other pylon-mounted kit.)
Shield booster: Yes
Shield enhancement: Yes
EEU/NEU: Yes
E-Bomb: Yes
Scoop: Yes (She scoops good. She scoops real good! No really, scooping spacejunk is a breeze.)
Injectors: Yes
Autoturrets: Yes - Four Browning DPC1925A with Class B fire control computer, interlinked with FoF radar and targetting system. (Top, bottom, left, right; power 15)
- Autoturrets carefully adjusted to perform best in a defencive/assistive flak cannon role.
They are deliberately weak, and only inflict pulse-laser level damage; in combat, it's best to forget the turrets and concentrate on fighting with your lasers & missiles. Although using a side laser has the benefit of the side turret adding it's fire to yours.

Price: 155000 Cr, available at TL 6 +

Crew: 1 or 2. Nominal 2

NPCs: Traders, Hunters, Pirates, the very rare, potentially very hard "Evil Twin" pirate, and iron-assed Police Vice Detectives

Shaders?: Yes
- "Quicksilver" metallic specular hull effect
- Running lights glow effect
- Variable engine heat glow effect (Switch to external view and engage docking computer, or play with the throttle! Not bad for my first attempt with shaders, I must say. Thnx Griff)

Autoturrets and shader effects require Oolite 1.71 or better to function correctly. OXP flight-tested in Oolite 1.72.2 on WinXP with shaders switched to 'full' mode.

Now available at a ship dealer near you.

Posted: **Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:47 am**

Bumpity

Posted: **Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:56 am**

Hmmm, appears I'm the only one awake to taste this little morsel...
I suppose I could stay out of my cryo unit one more half hour..

...Eyes blearing...must...try..

Posted: **Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:57 pm**

ZygoUgo wrote:
Hmmm, appears I'm the only one awake to taste this little morsel...
I suppose I could stay out of my cryo unit one more half hour..
...Eyes blearing...must...try..

So how do you like it, Zygo? I hope you found it worth missing out on statis for.
One commander PM'd me about it with a positive vote.

Posted: **Wed Jan 28, 2009 10:29 am**

Does sound good, but of course, it takes time to find one to buy, fly it about, and see how it really is.

Hopefully I can have a go tonight

Posted: **Wed Jan 28, 2009 5:08 pm**

Cmdr James wrote:
Does sound good, but of course, it takes time to find one to buy, fly it about, and see how it really is.

True that, especially with vice police buying them up.

Hopefully I can have a go tonight

I made this one easily modifiable, so the player can 'season to taste' and learn about plist hack-fu in the process.

Often trying to corral and stomp bugs in a game-breaking oxp plist is a pain in the tail experience, as I find many plists in a chaotic mess. Folks, a bit of order goes a long way.

Posted: **Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:53 pm**

It looks like a nice combo of stats, but I still won't replace my courier: It's far scarier...

Posted: **Wed Jan 28, 2009 10:14 pm**

Hi Cmdr Wyvern,

just encountered this line in my log:

[shipData.load.error]: ***** ERROR: the shipdata.plist entry "xarik-police" has unresolved subentity xarikturret-police.

I assume that's of interest to you.

BTW, wanted to put in my 0.2Cr about the ship's pricing: Imho it's much too cheap. Don't know if you're interested, but the new OSE.oxp calculation would price it at 385.000 Cr.

Reasons: A bit less cargo bay, a bit faster, noticably stronger reactor (energy banks/recharge) and actually massive weaponry (4 guns + 4 turrets + 10 missiles)

I don't think it's overpowered - but too cheap for those stats.

Cheers (looking forward to testfly this one)

L

Posted: **Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:05 am**

Lestradae wrote:
Hi Cmdr Wyvern,

just encountered this line in my log:

[shipData.load.error]: ***** ERROR: the shipdata.plist entry "xarik-police" has unresolved subentity xarikturret-police.
I assume that's of interest to you.

Good catch, L! I'm not sure how that one got past me.

Here's the bug in shipdata:

Code: Select all

	</dict>
	<key>xarikturret-police</key>
		<key>like_ship</key>
		<string>xarikturret</string>
		<key>laser_color</key>
		<string>magentaColor</string>
	<dict>
	</dict>

...And the fix:

Code: Select all

	<key>xarikturret-police</key>
	<dict>
		<key>like_ship</key>
		<string>xarikturret</string>
		<key>laser_color</key>
		<string>magentaColor</string>
	</dict>

I'll put up a fixed shipdata as a drop-in.

BTW, wanted to put in my 0.2Cr about the ship's pricing: Imho it's much too cheap. Don't know if you're interested, but the new OSE.oxp calculation would price it at 385.000 Cr.

Reasons: A bit less cargo bay, a bit faster, noticably stronger reactor (energy banks/recharge) and actually massive weaponry (4 guns + 4 turrets + 10 missiles)

I don't think it's overpowered - but too cheap for those stats.

Cheers (looking forward to testfly this one)

L

I respect that, but I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree there. The reasons for it being so cheap is that it's made on the cheap.
- The thrusters are the same model as used on the Sidewinder. By themselves, not very powerful because they're so small, so they're ganged into a 4-pack and overtuned on the Xarik.
- The turrets are also cheap units, and very weak. Not very effective weapons, they can weaken the shields on a small fighter or batter an already severely damaged ship to death (or at least keep it from recharging while you burn it with a side laser), but that's about the extent of their capability. By no means are they the military grade blasters mounted on the Dragon M. The pilot shouldn't rely on the turrets to get kills, and that's the point.
- Like the Cobby, the standard customer model comes with zilch but a puny front pulse laser. And the turrets, of course. But, it's a bit rarer than the Cobby.
- It doesn't use a reactor. Instead, the engines have simple and cheap thermal conversion generators bolted-on, and mass-produced solar collectors are installed along the wings and fuselage.
- Missile pylons are machined cheaply as well. But why so many? Extras are always good if you want to load a couple of drop tanks, emergency repair units or other pylon-mounted gear, and still want to have a few missiles to fight with.

Posted: **Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:12 am**

Hi Cmdr Wyvern,

Good catch, L! I'm not sure how that one got past me.

Typos ... they just happen. Short time ago a typo was found in Behemoth.oxp that Aegidian seems to have planted himself - and it lead to a graphics glitch in that oxp, glaringly obvious and for three years no one seems to have noticed

I use this here, btw:

http://validator.w3.org/#validate_by_input

... I would have gone mad without it. Erm

Even more so, I mean. It catches all XML typos and even tells you the line where it is and what it is. It can take up to 20.000 lines of XML at once.

...And the fix:

Thanks, found it and fixed it for my AddOns ...

I respect that, but I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree there.

Sure, no problem, just saying.

Good n8

L

Posted: **Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:18 am**

wackyman465 wrote:
It looks like a nice combo of stats, but I still won't replace my courier: It's far scarier...

Your Courier is a wimp. I lost count of how many of those things I gunned down. Outboard engines make very tempting targets....

Posted: **Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:19 am**

It's on! My courier versus your dragon ship thingy.

Oh wait, what dragon ship thingy? It's gone already!

Posted: **Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:35 am**

Here's the fixed shipdata.
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?tmnjamjznjj

Posted: **Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:42 am**

@Wacky:
I roll and hard turn, punching the injectors. You miss. I swing around, get a bead, and fire. Oops, there goes your port thruster! I turn, and look for more challenging targets.

Have fun dodging the Vipers on half power, youngster.

Posted: **Thu Jan 29, 2009 1:40 am**

Latest photograph from the What Ship review mag.

Oolite Bulletins

Xarik multirole spaceplane OXP released

Xarik multirole spaceplane OXP released

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