Oolite Bulletins

Greetings fellow Commanders,

I have recently rediscovered Oolite (I played TNK and may have even played Oolite many lifetimes ago). And have really got into it that I am going a bit mad on the old OXP installs to make this already great game even better.

How ever I have a small problem. I have recently become a switcher! Ditching my faulty PC for a new shiny iMac. Now I am loving my new found technology and unsure why I have not found them sooner. But I am still a complete newbie when it comes to using it and still grasping how it does things. Which is the reason I have a problem.

I wish to remove several of the ships from the Realistic Shipyards (most fantastic add on btw) OXP. Now I found a fantastic post explaining how to do this by editing the shiplist.plist and the shipyard list as well. But upon looking in the Oolite add on folder the only file I have is the single .oxp file.

I also noticed there is a read me text file in the downloaded folder for textures which also points to a directory structure that I do not have in my Oolite folder.

Can somebody just point me in the right direction about how to edit this list that appears to be missing? And just confirm that my missing directory structures are not really missing but are maybe PC based and are buried deep inside the RS.oxp.

Thanks for stopping by and smirking at the Apple newbie.

Cheers,
Cmdr Telengo

Hi Telengo, and welcome to the forum! You need to right-click on the OXP icon and choose "Show package contents" to bring up all the various plists etc. inside.

Not sure about the directory structure though! I don't have RS (and in fact I'm currently at work ...).

Arh fantastic!

Wonderful I suddenly have more files to view. iPhoto confused me that way as well, I just expect files and directories to be "normal" but they are a little different.

I have just fixed my directories actually straight after writing, always the case. I installed just the beta 1.72 version which does not come with extra files. But upon examining the 1.65 DMG file I located the missing folder and copied it over. I feel a bit daft now about that.

Thank you for your quick response.

Hi, Telengo, and first of all welcome to the boards and of course to this great game!

Don't be afraid of Mac architecture. Once you've got used to it, you will wonder why you ever have done it any other way.

Yes, you're right that the current 1.72.2 test version (like all test versions) doesn't come with a couple of extras which were part of the latest official release 1.65. And it is completely safe to continue using the old extras. However, some of them have in the meantime been updated and are available on their own, like the Oolite Reference Sheet, the Mac ReadMe, and the useful Oolite Keymapper.

And yes, the concept of "packages" is a little confusing at first. You may imagine a package like a folder which for the normal user, who isn't interested in the intestines of his software, appear like one single file. But opening its context menu (right-click on the "file") reveals its true nature, and lets you fiddle with its content, if you wish so.

A little warning: Usually you shouldn't do that, because if you for instance right-click on iPhoto and change contents inside the package, you are of course changing the program itself, which can be dangerous (in the worst case it could stop working altogether). Also as far as Oolite itself is concerned, we usually discourage changing anything inside it, if you don't know exactly what you're doing.

And usually it isn't necessary at all to fiddle with packages. iPhoto, to stay with that example, doesn't store files inside itself. Instead your photos go into a directory-structure within the "My Pictures"-directory. And preferences are stored under user/library/. And they can be changed (as can the default photo location) from within the application itself, while running iPhoto (usually preferences are available in the menu under the name of the program, therefore iPhoto/preferences...).

Anyway, as far as OXPs are concerned, I can perhaps tell you how I handle them: I've created a "Downloads" folder inside my main Oolite folder (the one where the Oolite-package resides next to "AddOns", "Pilots", "Extras" etc.). All downloaded OXPs go unchanged into this "Download" folder. The ones I like to install in my game I copy and paste into the "AddOns" folder. And then I can start to open and manipulate them to my liking. But the original in the "Download" folder stays untouched. So if I mess up anything in my personal copy, I can easily throw it away and restore the original, without having to download it again.

So the only thing left to say is: Have fun playing and fiddling!

Right On, Commander!

(And if you have any further questions, feel free to ask. You will very likely get an answer on this Friendliest Board This Side Of Riedquat™.)

Unless you ask about trumbles. We don't talk about those here.
:p

Thank you very much for all that information. My reason for fiddling with iPhoto was I was after where all my picture went when they were imported. I was trying to decide whether I needed to keep a copy on the HD or not. That is how I discovered the Package contents, and then forgot about it come OXP.

I wouldn't normally mess around with these great addon's but I just had to remove the Star Wars ships. Now don't get me wrong you won't find a bigger fan of SW but it was just wrong to be shot at by Y-Wings. But all sorted and everything seems to be working correctly. I am trading my little butt off to get a larger ship to make more money before I get going and try lots of these missions out.

I do like your filing structure, and I think I will take that away and use something similar to keep everything sorted.

Thanks again everybody.

yeah I don't really like the starwars oxp's either... I think the ships are a little too overpowered, as well as unrealistic and big.

I'm currently flying one heavily modified b-wing and that is one small ship. Tie-s are also small. The only big star wars ship is Lambda shuttle. And falcon is also little bigger but that's different pack.

I think they're a little too rigged, though.. hard to hit (fast).

They all seem quite fast and have small profiles I think anyway. And just feel out of place a little with all the large ships flying around.

even the y-wing (which is technically an anti cap-ship bomber) has pitch and roll of something like 3.0, comparable to a sidewinder.