Oolite Bulletins

Hi,
first let me congratulate you on on such a fine game ! I tried oolite a couple of years ago and it was not really usable, great to see that it has come on a lot since then and I am now hooked !

I used to play the original Elite on my school BBC micros during lunch breaks, so I guess that makes me an oldie. Officially we weren't allowed to play games, so if anyone asked, we told them it was an economic simulation

First of all I wanted to share a link which should be interesting to all of you:

http://gizmodo.com/5426453/the-physics-of-space-battles
Moderator: approved link

Second, a question - I am running oolite 1.7.3 and I have installed quite a few OXPs. However some of the equipment mods aren't appearing - for example the target sensitive reticule, nuclear missiles and the missile analyser, even though I am visiting high tech worlds (tech 14+). Is this a bug with those addons or is there something I am missing ?

Also I have the Torus add on installed, but I can't seem to find the torus in the Isinor system - any hints ?


I am also a programmer so I hope to contribute with some OXPs shortly. Here are a few ideas I had:

- autopilot : after jumping in system, it would automatically face you towards the nav beacon, set speed to max and jump if possible. If you are mass locked it would pilot you away from the other ships, and if you are attacked it would initiate evasive manouvers.

- adding deep space stations : is it possible to add a new "planet" at given coordinates ? For example, I noticed from the charts that galaxy sector 7 seems to be divided into two parts - so it would be logical to construct a deep space station connecting the two islands. This could be a simple as just a fuelling station, or a more complex structure like a torus station, or perhaps even a pirate base.

- newtonian physics : how hard would it be to make the ships movements Newtonian - so maximum velocity becomes maximum thrust, and to add in reverse thrusters ?

- 3D sector maps : I think it would be interesting to replace the current flat sector maps with 3 dimensional sectors. I guess this is beyond the capabilites of an OXP though



Another thing - has anybody tried using Blender to design ships or other objects ? I've not really used that program much, but for me it would be the logical choice for creating 3d objects.

Cheers for now,
Salsaman.

I should have mentioned - the other OXP's I have installed are working, except for the ones I mentioned. Also I have seen Torus stations in other systems, just not in Isinor.

Hi salsaman, and welcome to 'the friendliest boards this side of Riedquat'.

I can't help with OXP problems as I don't really use them.
Which version are you running? 1.73.4 is the latest.

As to your other points... some old discussions there.

Anyway, someone will be along soon to offer advice.

Regards

salsaman wrote:

- autopilot : after jumping in system, it would automatically face you towards the nav beacon, set speed to max and jump if possible. If you are mass locked it would pilot you away from the other ships, and if you are attacked it would initiate evasive manoeuvres.

Scripts can’t pilot the player ship, or make it use an AI. You can directly set its position and orientation, but scripts can’t run more than four times a second on a timer, so that would be problematic.

- adding deep space stations : is it possible to add a new "planet" at given coordinates ? For example, I noticed from the charts that galaxy sector 7 seems to be divided into two parts - so it would be logical to construct a deep space station connecting the two islands.

Nope. (There are three links between the two halves of G7, incidentally.)

- newtonian physics : how hard would it be to make the ships movements Newtonian - so maximum velocity becomes maximum thrust, and to add in reverse thrusters?

Quite hard. The current “physics” code applies thrust directly to position, with no intermediate velocity (there is a velocity term used for collision/blast response, but it isn’t exposed to scripts). There is no concept of off-axis thrust. There would also be significant vocal resistance from the players. :-)

- 3D sector maps : I think it would be interesting to replace the current flat sector maps with 3 dimensional sectors. I guess this is beyond the capabilites of an OXP though

Very much so, and it also goes beyond the scope of the game… although it might actually be possible to interpret the differences between the low-accuracy distance calculations used to recreate Elite’s maps and the “real” distances as slight offsets from the plane. Hmm…

Another thing - has anybody tried using Blender to design ships or other objects ? I've not really used that program much, but for me it would be the logical choice for creating 3d objects.

I think so, but it wasn’t me.

Welcome to the Oolite forums.

Ahruman wrote:

salsaman wrote:

- adding deep space stations : is it possible to add a new "planet" at given coordinates ? For example, I noticed from the charts that galaxy sector 7 seems to be divided into two parts - so it would be logical to construct a deep space station connecting the two islands.

Nope. (There are three links between the two halves of Galaxy 7, incidentally.)

That link for Galaxy 7 includes a map of jump routes, as you say there are 3 links between the two main halves. But what about the area to the south west? The map doesn't show any way to it?

Not having been to G7 since about 1985, I can't remember!!

Oh, that one? I guess it fell into my blind spot. Um.

Anyway, there is now support for scripting access to such areas with the galactic hyperdrive. Come on, someone, there’s got to be a story here. :-)

Ahruman wrote:

Oh, that one? I guess it fell into my blind spot. Um.

Anyway, there is now support for scripting access to such areas with the galactic hyperdrive. Come on, someone, there’s got to be a story here.

Isn't the story already written by Drew?

From the oxp side, there's also at least one which does require to visit such a zone

Screet

I had a quick look at the scripting, and it appears like you can add a planet in interstellar space between two other systems. How does that work in practice ?

Err, the planet is added to interstellar space?

The thing is, to reach a specific interstellar space location, you need to have a hyperspace drive malfunction. You need to select a proper destination (7 ly limit and all that) and if you have a malfunction, you'll end up exactly half way between your intended destination and your starting point.

You can either specify which halfway point gets populated using planetinfo.plist(easier thing to do if there's only 1 place you want to add the extra planet / station) or you can use a mixture of javascript an plist information to determine where the predefined planet is going to appear (the approach taken by system redux for the various moons it adds to Oolite).

Your question was a bit vague, I hopw this answer was somewhat useful to you!

Yes, that is useful to know. So maybe that would be a way to do it - add a "planet" on the witch space route between two existing planets, and then make a script which always forces a mis-jump between the two systems. Then model the planet so it is less planet like and more space station like ?

salsaman wrote:

Yes, that is useful to know. So maybe that would be a way to do it - add a "planet" on the witch space route between two existing planets, and then make a script which always forces a mis-jump between the two systems. Then model the planet so it is less planet like and more space station like ?

I don't think this would work. As Kaks mentioned earlier, the two systems between which you would want to script the misjump should be within 7LY to begin with. If they are, for example, 8 LY away from each other, then you cannot initiate a hyperspace jump from one to the other, therefore there can be no misjump, therefore there can be no intermediate scripted system. Such a system can be added only after executing the misjump, given that there is only one universe in memory at any time, namely the one corresponding to the system the player is in. I think the only possible way to reach normally unreachable systems is by adjusting galactic hyperspace parameters.

It’s conceptually possible to jump to a system up to 7.8 ly from its nearest neighbour using a misjump, if you can refuel without docking in interstellar space. The solution is the same as the puzzle of how to cross a moat with two planks that are slightly too short:



I don’t know whether the full range is achievable taking the witchspace distance rounding into account, or whether there is any suitable arrangement of systems in the usual galaxies.

Someone mentioned this a while back… Eric Walch maybe, in a thread about Fuel Collector OXP, I think.

Midway between Maedrebe and Tiared in G7. A jump from there would reach Riareror across the Great Rift.

It should probably be mentioned that it’s a one-way trip. :-)