Oolite Bulletins

Maybe these are already in, maybe they've been mentioned before, maybe they're just too heretical....

1. Some indication of remaining 'hit points' of opponents

2. An indication on the scanner of what is currently targetted (maybe like the comms 'brackets'). When there are 3 cobras behind and I've spent ages pummeling one I'd like to know which it is!

3. How can pilots in escape pods be scooped up and returned alive if I've got no cabin space/life support? (Slaves in cargo pods I like to think of as slaves of the destroyed ship in self-contained slave 'pods'). Shouldn't these pilots appear in the manifest also?? Maybe as a corpse for less insurance?!

4. Is there or will there be an option to put console messages somewhere into the HUD? I don't much like 'disembodied' messages, I'd prefer them on a little screen in the HUD or in the comms only. Or at least an option to alter the font size??

5 A 'sell all' key - not the enter key sell all of an item but a 'sell all cargo' key

6 Wouldn't 'Hyperspace Target' make more sense than 'Hyperspace System' on the commander screen?

More stuff that I've forgotten so need to go for another blast

1. If you're in a battle in space, just how would you be able to know the remaining shield-strength of your opponent(s)? That would be an unknown quantity until such time as they failed.

2. I too would like a visual identification on the scanner of which ship I currently have targeted.

3. The escape capsule has its own life-support... what would be the point of having one if it couldn't keep you alive?

4. Good idea.

5. Ditto

6. Ditto

Flashheart wrote:

Maybe these are already in, maybe they've been mentioned before, maybe they're just too heretical....

1. Some indication of remaining 'hit points' of opponents

No. One of the Rules of The Game is "Do not make it too arcade-like".

2. An indication on the scanner of what is currently targetted (maybe like the comms 'brackets'). When there are 3 cobras behind and I've spent ages pummeling one I'd like to know which it is!

There is the Target Memory Expansion, which allows you to cycle through previously targetted ships using "+" and "-". Also, there is the little arrow on the reticle when you have the scanner targetting enhancement, that allows you to see where you must point your ship in order to bring the target in front of you. I don't think that at this point there is anything additional in the schedule.

4. Is there or will there be an option to put console messages somewhere into the HUD? I don't much like 'disembodied' messages, I'd prefer them on a little screen in the HUD or in the comms only. Or at least an option to alter the font size??

There are no plans for changing appearance of console messages that I am aware of.

5 A 'sell all' key - not the enter key sell all of an item but a 'sell all cargo' key

You got lucky here. This is one of the new features in 1.73.

6 Wouldn't 'Hyperspace Target' make more sense than 'Hyperspace System' on the commander screen?

Hyperspace System is what was on Elite. But if you have to change it, you can open up descriptions.plist, find the key "status-hyperspace-system" and change the corresponding string to your preference. All strings in the game can be changed (or nullified if you define them as "") this way.

1. When an enemy ship starts venting globs of plasma from its engines, it's low on hit points ...

2. Use the Advanced Space Compass: you can set it to track your target.

3. Pilots in escape pods are scooped, still inside their pods, straight into the cargo bay, assuming you've got room. There they sit, using the life support from their escape pod, until you dock and clear them out. They appear in your cargo manifest as "slaves", regardless of their legal status, because the basic cargo scanner in your scoop just registers them as a pod with living beings inside it.

4. I take that personally!

5. Not a bad idea ...

6. Mibbies aye, mibbies naw .. depends what you're used to, I suppose!

Oo, a Friday afternoon conversation.

1. You know when someone's nearly dead because of the sparks... otherwise I think the element of experience of similar ship encounters and guessing how many hits you got in is important part of the current game balance... don't you think it would be too easy to make "fight or flight" decisions if you had exact indication of what was left?

2. An indication on the scanner of what is currently targetted (maybe like the comms 'brackets'). When there are 3 cobras behind and I've spent ages pummeling one I'd like to know which it is!

Doesn't the "Enhanced scanner" doohickey already do this? Or have I acquired that from an OXP without realising?

3. How can pilots in escape pods be scooped up and returned alive if I've got no cabin space/life support? (Slaves in cargo pods I like to think of as slaves of the destroyed ship in self-contained slave 'pods'). Shouldn't these pilots appear in the manifest also?? Maybe as a corpse for less insurance?!

If you eject "Slaves" just after you have scooped up an escape pod, you'll find that an escape pod is jettisoned again... thereby implying that the pod just sits in your hold. It will therefore continue to provide life support in the vacuum of your cargo bay rather than the vacuum of interplanetary space. Seems consistent enough! And it does tell you who you have scooped up when you collect the pod, although you're right, would be cool if this was in the manifest.

(I always feel a bit unclean if I total a ship for bounty and then claim the rescue insurance too!)

4. Is there or will there be an option to put console messages somewhere into the HUD? I don't much like 'disembodied' messages, I'd prefer them on a little screen in the HUD or in the comms only. Or at least an option to alter the font size??

Yeah I keep thinking that but I don't think we should fool with the GUI further until we have a stable release out. I dunno if this could be done in a HUD OXP... maybe - in which case we could have a go now...

5 A 'sell all' key - not the enter key sell all of an item but a 'sell all cargo' key

All sorts of that kind of thing coming in next release, let's see what we get in that... I -think- this is in there. If not then an easy patch to submit to the version AFTER the stable release...

To pick up on some of the above....

I wouldn't want to make it more 'arcade-like' but if we're shooting (haha) for more realism the ships ought to show damage. We could know the strength of an opponents shields in the same we we can know their legal status.. in fact I'd say it was more logical (their shield would maybe have some electromagnetic 'strength'). I guess the ship could also be electronically flagged as belonging to a fugitive (or 'stolen' or whatever) - numberplate recognition in sapce eh?

Oh, if we had the means to create shields surely we'd have the means to detect them


I got the target memory expansion and can follow the target direction indicator but if all three enemy are on my 'six' (while I run away to regen shields ) I'd prefer to know which is the actual target .

Escape pods/life support... yes, silly me!

Not sure I'd want to customise any/all of the strings for fear of them being overwritten by a future install (if that happens I know not).

I've just thought of some questions to ask.....

Flashheart wrote:

To pick up on some of the above....

I wouldn't want to make it more 'arcade-like' but if we're shooting (haha) for more realism the ships ought to show damage. We could know the strength of an opponents shields in the same we we can know their legal status.. in fact I'd say it was more logical (their shield would maybe have some electromagnetic 'strength'). I guess the ship could also be electronically flagged as belonging to a fugitive (or 'stolen' or whatever) - numberplate recognition in sapce eh?

Oh, if we had the means to create shields surely we'd have the means to detect them


I got the target memory expansion and can follow the target direction indicator but if all three enemy are on my 'six' (while I run away to regen shields ) I'd prefer to know which is the actual target .

Escape pods/life support... yes, silly me!

Not sure I'd want to customise any/all of the strings for fear of them being overwritten by a future install (if that happens I know not).

I've just thought of some questions to ask.....

Some of the newer ships do show damage.. you can shoot bits off 'em!

We know a ships legal status because every ship has a (theoretically) tamper-proof ID transmitter.. but who in their right mind would want to broadcast their shield status?

Agree with you on the scanner indicator.. I have the memory expansion and target indicator too, but something on the scanner would help to relate which dot was which ship in a much faster and more intuitive way.

Any .plist you modify should be saved in Addons/Config, rather than overwriting the original.. that way you don't lose the original version if you mess up, and you can be sure it will over-ride the built-in version.

Flashheart wrote:

To pick up on some of the above....

I wouldn't want to make it more 'arcade-like' but if we're shooting (haha) for more realism the ships ought to show damage. We could know the strength of an opponents shields in the same we we can know their legal status.. in fact I'd say it was more logical (their shield would maybe have some electromagnetic 'strength'). I guess the ship could also be electronically flagged as belonging to a fugitive (or 'stolen' or whatever) - numberplate recognition in sapce eh?

Oh, if we had the means to create shields surely we'd have the means to detect them

Depends what shields are ... I can't see how an electromagnetic field could help absorb damage from a laser. Still, it might be possible to create an OXP which displays a targeted ship's remaining energy in the HUD.

Flashheart wrote:

I got the target memory expansion and can follow the target direction indicator but if all three enemy are on my 'six' (while I run away to regen shields ) I'd prefer to know which is the actual target .

It should be the one with the big box around it, surely? Okay, it doesn't show as anything different on the long-range scanner, but take a peek out the back window (where you should be lining up your rear-view laser, anyway) and the current target will, if you own a Scanner Tageting Enhancement, be highlighted there.

Should be easy, the data is avilable to javascript, and in fact can be seen using the debug features (debug oxp I think).

Same code really as Frame's bounty scanner. So you could by OXPing have a Shield Scanner where you'd see your target's shield strength when targeted after the Ships Name. By dividing the current level by the max_energy you could also display a percentage, so you see "Cobra Mk III (100% Shield)". Nice!

Dont forget though, that players have 2 shields (for and aft), and energy, whereas NPCs just have energy, so by sticking this up on the HUD you are creating a constant reminder of an implememntation oddity.

LittleBear wrote:

.... so you see "Cobra Mk III (100% Shield)". Nice!

Perfect. Is all the necessary stuff available to javascript? If only the wiki was better organised I could maybe answer that myself!

Yep. I think you could probabley just nick Frame's code wholesale and just change the variable being displayed as his code already adds the bounty of a ship targeted by the player automaticaly after its name. Basicaly exactly the same code except you need to change the string to +"(" target.shield.value "%)" and a line of js to do the calcualtion from a raw number to a percentage.

zevans wrote:

...(I always feel a bit unclean if I total a ship for bounty and then claim the rescue insurance too!)
...

I don't.

It seems logical to me.