More comprehensive ship data

captain122 · Post by **captain122** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 6:51 pm

Whenever I decide to buy a new ship in Oolite, I always have to open up the wiki and search on each ship option to find information not given in game (If it is even on the wiki!) such as missile pylons, roll and pitch, witchspace capability, etc. All the screen in game shows is speed and cargo. Would it be very difficult to add this information the the ship-buying screen?

JazHaz · Post by **JazHaz** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 9:11 pm

Yeah this would be good. I'm currently flying a standard Python, but am currently thinking about getting a different ship. The Python only has two missile pylons, but the Wiki doesn't always state how many pylons ships have.

Website · Post by **Cody** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 10:00 pm

JazHaz wrote:
but the Wiki doesn't always state how many pylons ships have.

The reference sheet in the Oolite folder does as well as all the other ship specs.

JazHaz · Post by **JazHaz** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:46 pm

El Viejo wrote:
JazHaz wrote:
but the Wiki doesn't always state how many pylons ships have.
The reference sheet in the Oolite folder does as well as all the other ship specs.

Not for OXP ships it doesn't!

captain122 · Post by **captain122** » Thu Dec 24, 2009 3:09 am

The reference sheet does tell the data - for the built-in ships, but it does not solve the problem of being able to know specs in game. The wiki does not even have data for all of the ships (see how big this list is! http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Catego ... ship_stubs ). Wouldn't it be fairly easy to implement? All that is is needed is a few extra lines on the buy screen telling the rest of the information.

Killer Wolf · Post by **Killer Wolf** » Thu Dec 24, 2009 7:31 am

i think it'd be pretty nice the main screen had a "more info" button. that could take you to a new page w/ a bigger spinny ship (or one you could rotate using the arrow keys??) and a page of ship info ~ this would add more colour to the game, you could include the gen from the original game manuals etc, or stuff creators made up for their OXPs, little back histories of the ship, or a pimpy sales pitch etc

Diziet Sma · Post by **Diziet Sma** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 6:41 am

Killer Wolf wrote:
iyou could include the gen from the original game manuals etc,

Maybe not this bit, too much chance for copyright dramas, I suspect, but I'm in favour of the other ideas in this thread.. it would add to the immersion, IMO.

CheeseRedux · Post by **CheeseRedux** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 7:09 am

Personally, in my I'm-not-the-one-doing-any-of-the-work opinion, the way to do this is to create an algorithm, subroutine, or whatever-fancy-programmer-name-you-wanna-call-it that simply pulls the specs from the shipdata.plist.

That way,

1) there would be no work needed on any of the OXP ships (I'm not sure how the built-in set is handled, so I'll leave those out of the statement), so that the ships whose creators don't want the extra work (or who simply aren't around anymore) will also benefit from this.

2) if there's an extra 'descriptive' category added, those OXP makers who do want their ships to have a nice in-game blurb added, could just put it in the .plist and update the download.

And it is a veryveryvery good idea, methinks.

Post by **Kaks** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:16 am

I do like the idea! Post MNSR of course!

Killer Wolf · Post by **Killer Wolf** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:50 am

that shipdata thing is actually a very cool and elegant solution. there could simply be a <shipblurb> parameter for descriptive text ~ would/should there be a length limit?
ooh - there could aslo be a sales blurb randomly generated like "nice little runner", "cargo extension needs attention", "one careless feline owner" etc.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 12:18 pm

As I recall, this already exists. The descriptive text is generated, it just isn’t shown anywhere…

scaseman · Post by **scaseman** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 3:06 pm

How about more information about a targeted ship. It would be useful to see a percentage figure indicating its remaining strength.

Post by **another_commander** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 3:14 pm

scaseman wrote:
How about more information about a targeted ship. It would be useful to see a percentage figure indicating its remaining strength.

Disagree. This is too arcade. Plus, it can be done with scripting.

scaseman · Post by **scaseman** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 3:33 pm

Well as I have not got a clue about scripting maybe someone else fancies a go. I thought maybe it could be added to the Scanner Targeting Enhancement.

Post by **Cmdr James** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 3:39 pm

I also disagree. Some indication is give by their behaviour, and also by ships being on fire when they are heavily damaged. Also they will launch an escape capsule just before they are finished (often, not always).