Oolite Bulletins

I've been looking through the Flight Manual available on Ian Bell's website and a few things have caught my attention.

THE CARGO HOLD fills the bulk of the mid-space area, and the cargo bay doors open downwards. The capacity in an unmodified Cobra is 20 1-tonne canisters. Extra cargo space may be acquired by extending the cargo bay, which does not affect maneuverability. Tonne canisters (TC) attach magnetically to the cargo arms within the bay, and 2 AutoShuttles occupy the central space.

What do you think is meant by AutoShuttles and what do you think they are used for?

The Galactic Co-operative is only one - although the largest - of several planetary federations, and maintains trade and diplomatic links with over 2000 planets spread throughout 8 galaxies.

This is interesting from a Elite/Frontier historical continuity perspective.

(Personally, I consider Elite and Frontier to be in two different timelines, but that's just me.)

The information shown is distance, type of main life form, degree of agricultural or industrial development, with industrial and technological level displayed on a scale of 1-12.

This is interesting as Oolite goes from 1 to 15, with the possibility of OXPs going beyond that. When did this change and why? I'm asking out of curiosity.

Every world registered with the Galactic Co-operative has several Coriolis space stations in orbit at various altitudes. Coriolis stations are "neutral" territory, controlled equally by GalCop and the Planetary Government.

This is very interesting. While I know that both unmodified Oolite and Elite have only one station in actual practice, this has potential for both fiction and OXPs.

They are invariably of combat rating: DEADLY or ELITE.

It would nice if a pilot's Elite rating could be displayed and their actions and equipment vary depending on it.

Additionally, most Thargoid battle ships carry several small, remote- controlled "thargons", killer-craft each equipped with a single, but highly advanced, pulse-laser. The Galactic Navy are developing their own deep- space RemCraft, and pay a large bounty for any thargon craft that are brought to them.

(N.B. Bounty on Thargoid invasion craft destroyed is very high. Thargoid battle-cruisers believed to be able to "hover" in Witch-Space (hyperspace) and destroy through-coming craft).

Here's where the term Thargon came from, for those interested.

More interesting is the second paragraph. I think that this is where the practice of calling the space you land in after a misjump Witchspace.

Slaves are measured by the tonne in galactic trading. This may seem a little strange, but it includes the cryogenic suspension system necessary to keep them alive during space travel.

This makes quite a bit of sense. I wonder why they didn't reuse that excuse in Frontier. It would have eliminated the need for the Cargo Bay Life Support System.

A quick question for those veterans of Classic Elite. Is docking easier in Oolite than in Classic Elite? If so, why do you think that is?

Docking in Oolite? It's a piece of cake, it really is. For me, the reasons it was far more difficult in Elite are two:
1) No nav buoys in Elite. You really had to work to face the station port. Your only indication of what's happening was the knowledge that the port always faces the planet, so your only reference was basically a huge circle (representing planet) and little else. You were meant to have this circle in front of you, then fine tune the alignment to what you thought it would be OK for the port to appear on the right spot upon passing in front of the station. More often than not, one had to dock at 30 degrees angles or even more.

2) Docking at 60fps (Oolite) is far more pleasant than docking at 10fps (approximately the render speed of the fast machines of the time). Keyboard responses are much more fluid and immediate. This means that you generally do not overshoot when you are manoeuvering, while in Elite you did. A lot.

another_commander wrote:

Docking in Oolite? It's a piece of cake, it really is. For me, the reasons it was far more difficult in Elite are two:

- old style joysticks simply had on-off switches for directions, while modern joysticks do have support for all those values in between
- oolite now features yaw control, making things much easier

Screet

Screet wrote:

another_commander wrote:

Docking in Oolite? It's a piece of cake, it really is. For me, the reasons it was far more difficult in Elite are two:

- old style joysticks simply had on-off switches for directions, while modern joysticks do have support for all those values in between
- oolite now features yaw control, making things much easier

Screet

Actually the BBC joysticks were analogue sticks. Although they weren't self-centring - we used elastic bands for that.

aegidian wrote:

Actually the BBC joysticks were analogue sticks. Although they weren't self-centring - we used elastic bands for that.

Quite true, Giles. And nice to see you still lurk on occasion .

But some of us played Elite on a C64 with button-binary joysticks..

Best wishes,
Oscar

Apple IIc - Analog and Self-centering joystick...
Moo-ha-ha-ha! (Evil Cow Laugh)

another_commander wrote:

Docking in Oolite? It's a piece of cake, it really is. For me, the reasons it was far more difficult in Elite are two:
1) No nav buoys in Elite. You really had to work to face the station port. Your only indication of what's happening was the knowledge that the port always faces the planet, so your only reference was basically a huge circle (representing planet) and little else. You were meant to have this circle in front of you, then fine tune the alignment to what you thought it would be OK for the port to appear on the right spot upon passing in front of the station. More often than not, one had to dock at 30 degrees angles or even more.

I remember how it was a real challenge to align you ship with the station and planet.. so that they where in a 90 degree fashion relative to your ship... so you could look out the left/right view and place your ship exactly the right place.. However it was a real bummer when the station decieded to launch a shuttle in the midst of it all... anyway it was the day of fantasy,...

when you saw 5-6 ships around the station, you felt the universe was alive...

One nice feature of the original Acorn versions was the auto centring toggle key for keyboard controls. Hitting the [/] would stop the automatic cancellation of a ships pitch or roll which was a real boon when trying to match the rotation of a station's docking bay. Hit [/] again and you fly like a normal 'aerospace' fighter.
Who needed a joysticks, which were pretty damn rare for Acorns, when you had that.

Of course there was a way with some classic elites to make docking REALLY fast and easy...

You could launch from you current station, come to a stand still, turn 180 degrees set your target system initiate the jump sequence and dock manually (should be dead in line and just need to match rotation) if the hyper space counter was still going whilst you were docking then you "landed" at your target system somehow, skipping the whole flying in towards the station and lining up with the target station etc. This did nothing for your combat rating though I seem to remember it was actually referenced in the original manual there was a screen shot with a jameson with a lot of credits and a harmless rating and the subtitle said something about how it was odd that he had so many credits with no combat rating

I seem to remember on the Einstein version (identical to spectrum version) I had a trick for manual docking without using that cheat, something that avoided having to find the right face and a lot of messing around. I seem to remember it required carefull watching of the planet \ station tracker and I think it had some thing to do with flying over the of the station from behind or something, maybe alinging the station and the planet then flying over it or something like that, I remember that once I developed this method I could get my self lined up perfectly with the door right from first approach at the station first time every time. Unfortunately I really cant remember the whole procedure , but it made it every bit as easy as having the nav bouy.

I had a BBC Model B and docking was always a hit-and-miss affair (pun intended), with the keyboard or with the joystick. Oolite is much friendlier, and I think the game is better for it.

No amount of googling can find a picture of the joystick I had. But I remember it being very cool - it had 12 programmable buttons, three in red, and the rest in a cream colour. The joystick was also self-centring. Apart from when the little centring springs snapped, which they often did. Then it was off to get dad's screwdriver and pliers and make some repairs.

Going back to the OP, I always imagined Auto Shuttles to be the mechanism for loading and unloading cargo cannisters, and moving them around in the cargo bay.

The Galactic Navy are developing their own deep- space RemCraft, and pay a large bounty for any thargon craft that are brought to them.

I've noticed in Oolite that you don't get much for Alien Items (about 40-50c) and you get a lot more for shooting them. I think scooping them should give you more money than shooting them.

ramon wrote:

The Galactic Navy are developing their own deep- space RemCraft, and pay a large bounty for any thargon craft that are brought to them.

I've noticed in Oolite that you don't get much for Alien Items (about 40-50c) and you get a lot more for shooting them. I think scooping them should give you more money than shooting them.

I thought that was kinda weird too..

ramon wrote:

The Galactic Navy are developing their own deep- space RemCraft, and pay a large bounty for any thargon craft that are brought to them.

I've noticed in Oolite that you don't get much for Alien Items (about 40-50c) and you get a lot more for shooting them. I think scooping them should give you more money than shooting them.

Agreed I've always thought that not only a higher price for scooping them, but the value per unit should increase the more of the same wing you disable.

My logic being that since they are launched and controlled from the same warship, getting more them give a better understanding of the coordination system that makes such a threat.

Ifnfan I think you're right about the Auto Shuttles. I'd always pictured them to a like the self piloting shipping container cargo grabs like the ones you see at the ports.

ramon wrote:

The Galactic Navy are developing their own deep- space RemCraft, and pay a large bounty for any thargon craft that are brought to them.

I've noticed in Oolite that you don't get much for Alien Items (about 40-50c) and you get a lot more for shooting them. I think scooping them should give you more money than shooting them.

Its the Galactic Navy that pays a lot for the targlets, not the civilian stations. Try installing Galactic Navy.oxp. (There is yesterday a new version released of this oxp from Matt, improved by Nemoricus). When docking on a Navy Seccom station they pay 85 credits on average.

The information shown is distance, type of main life form, degree of agricultural or industrial development, with industrial and technological level displayed on a scale of 1-12.

This is interesting as Oolite goes from 1 to 15, with the possibility of OXPs going beyond that. When did this change and why? I'm asking out of curiosity.

Original Elite also went TL 1 to 15. Manual was wrong, TL's above 12 are quite rare hence not that obvious.

Complete aside, did you notice the manual quotes ship dimensions in feet but Oolite uses meters?

Every world registered with the Galactic Co-operative has several Coriolis space stations in orbit at various altitudes. Coriolis stations are "neutral" territory, controlled equally by GalCop and the Planetary Government.

This is very interesting. While I know that both unmodified Oolite and Elite have only one station in actual practice, this has potential for both fiction and OXPs.

In Elite if you flew away from one space station, lost it on the compass, carried on flying tangential to the planet for a while then another space station would be acquired by the compass, usually at a different altitude.

A quick question for those veterans of Classic Elite. Is docking easier in Oolite than in Classic Elite? If so, why do you think that is?

In addition to other comments posted Elite was more difficult as you can't see the inside of the docking bay once close enough, its just black, hence lose track of rotation. Also slight errors in rotation algorithm so things didnt stay centered.