Oolite Bulletins

Far Arm ships OXP is now available!

Overview:

This OXP adds variety to Ooniverse: traders, pirates, hunters, navy/police ships and aliens, in form of 10 different ships of which 5 have at least one variant in addition to the basic model.

In the pic below is one example of each ship, roughly in scale (v 1.0).
Some v 2.0 screenshots here: https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=4494&start=2062




Difficulty:
Easy to medium.
The ships should be in the power range of the original Oolite ship set, but some encounters can be too much for even a fairly well-equipped Cobra.

Additional info:
I made a simple web page (http://koti.mbnet.fi/jouniku/Oolite/ZOoliteOPXs.html) to offer info on my OXPs, download links are in the OXP info page.

Wiki page:
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Far_Arm_ships

Alternatively, here are direct links to the download:

v 1.0 in my webspace

and

v 2.0 in Box.net

v 3.0 beta4 in Box.com

License:
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Nice! Well done!

Will you be needing them adding to the Wiki? My rates are reasonable!

JazHaz wrote:

Nice! Well done!

Will you be needing them adding to the Wiki? My rates are reasonable!

Thanks!

and:
Yes please! (Might take a while to obtain access to the wiki for myself?)

Zieman wrote:

Yes please! (Might take a while to obtain access to the wiki for myself?)

Will knock something up later. Can you PM me some details on the ship specs?


EDIT: don't worry just seen the specs on your site!

Hey Great. Also nice info on the webpage. You should place it on the Wiki too. Downloading

It's up on the Wiki too now. See here: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Far_Arm_Ships

Nice, Zieman. I'll give it a go tonight.

@JazHaz: Right on, commander. Thanks also for fixing typos and frickling with the OXP list.

Svengali wrote:

@JazHaz: Right on, commander. Thanks also for fixing typos and frickling with the OXP list.

You're welcome!

I figured that as I'm too thick to work on development or OXPs, I'd better contribute in other ways!

And I still managed to fly about 50 lightyears this evening!

Well done, great background, lovely designs and really well balanced ships. Fantastic stuff!

Thanks for the compliments!

And now a weird addition to the lot: Baakili far Trader.

Baakili Far Trader OXP now available!

Overview:

This OXP adds one more bit of variety in Far Arm theme to the Ooniverse: possibility to encounter a big trader (yes, Big Ships OXP can summon the Baakili) almost anywhere.

If you have an Advanced Space Compass, Baakili Nav Buoy is shown as 'U'.
To initiate trade procedure, approach from behind - when you're close enough, you'll be transported to the trading area.

Difficulty:
Beginner.
The Baakili Far Trader poses no threat whatsoever, unless you decide to attack it.

Additional info:
My web page (http://koti.mbnet.fi/jouniku/Oolite/ZOoliteOPXs.html) offers info on my OXPs, download links are in the OXP info page.

Wiki page:
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Baakili_Far_Trader

Alternatively, here are direct links to the download:

My webspace

and

Box.net

License:
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Zieman wrote:

To initiate trade procedure, approach from behind....

Cough! Choke!

Zieman wrote:

If you have an Advanced Space Compass, Baakili Nav Buoy is shown as 'U'.

Honest question: If it is a ship (as opposed to a station), does it really need a nav beacon?

In my opinion we should be extremely stingy with assigning beacon codes to entities, only doing so if it is absolutely necessary (e.g. for a station far out in the system which would be impossible to find otherwise). But each OXPer should think thrice before giving a beacon code to a ship the player would stumble across anyway on his journey between witchpoint and planet. My reason is that I find it annoying to scroll through eight or more symbols in my advanced scanner (EDIT: compass, of course) before I arrive at the one I actually need right now.

Example from my own OXPs: The Hacker Outpost has got a beacon code ("H"), because it is spawned at a random location somewhere at the outer rim of a system and would be impossible to find without a beacon. The Salvage Gang on the other hand does not have a beacon code, because it is located in the middle of the corridor and you couldn't miss it anyway. Another example: if I had scripted those OXPs, I would have given neither the Black Monks nor the Seedy Space Bars a beacon code, for the very same reason: the player will fly by them anyway, and they are also big enough to be seen from quite a distance, so there is really no danger of missing either of them.

Sorry for the rant. But I hope my point is understandable.

Aye, I see your point Commander.

My reasoning to give the Baakili a beacon:
- its own script spawns it to a quite random place in the system
- it is not very common sight (less than 6% chance to have one in the system, and 5% chance for it to be picked by the Big Ships populator)
- I thought it would be too easy to miss without the beacon

On a positive note: you can always delete the beacon -line from the shipdata.plist, and no one stops anyone from removing the bigTrader role from it too .

More opinions on the beacon issue and the ship's occurring frequency are welcome - might result in a re-release before I learn the (basics of) art of normal mapping.

Added the Baakili Far Trader OXP to the Wiki.

Also fixed and added some stuff for the Far Arm ships OXP in the Wiki.