Oolite Bulletins

Hi

not sure if this is do-able, or even if people would want it, but....

how would you guys feel about having a career type page which basically lists the missions you have completed BUT

better than just having text, you could have a small medal for each mission done.
If it was properly included in the mission oxp it could be a unique medal identifier, but then, if there is nothing otherwise there, a generic one could be included.

also on this "medals" page it could have a list of ratings from the various governments on your trading status etc, and any military career rankings.

as well as a medal for each of your elite rankings gained (mostly harmless, poor, average, above average, competent, dangerous, deadly and elite.

so basically a complete career history on 1 page. Aside from giving you a warm feeling inside, it would also be a handy record for if you forget what you have done and not done in the game.

would this be do-able? sadly i am inept when it comes to coding, so am just putting the idea out there.



cheers

M.

I am generally for the idea.

I am better at coding then when I first started; though I am not sure I would be up to it; I am not completely sure but *I think* that this might be able to be done via an OXP.

Study the Trumbles "mission" script, there is an example of loading an image (the "TrumbleBox").

Basically, I think this might be handled as a kind of "Mission OXP". I am not sure how it would be "triggered" in-game though. Maybe via a selection/choice on the F5 (cargo / contracts screen); which when invoked will take you to the "mission", which just displays the medals and mission record.

At the bottom of that page would be a choice that takes you back to the F5 screen.

I don't think the "Trumbles 'mission'" should count.


The native missions Constrictor Hunt, Thargoid Plans and Nova should lend themselves well to medals. Nova even has some kind of "rating" in the script: "Nova Hero". I haven't done that mission yet... the only ones I've encountered are "Trumbles" and Constrictor Hunt (I've recently started over with a new game... again...).

I don't think that "Cloaking Device" is really medal-worthy though. So for Trumbles and Cloaking device, perhaps there should be *entries*.

So... entries for every mission / encounter. This fulfills bigmike20vt's wish to "keep track of what you've done". I would envision *simple, short entries*. If possible, entries short enough for maybe two columns of text (to allow for expansion... other OXP's... etc).

Medals for the Combat Rating, and for the native missions Contrictor Hunt, Thargoid Plans, and Nova. Medals at the bottom of the page.

To allow for expansion, for other OXPs that might have these rewards, provision for multiple pages. A choice at the bottom takes you to the next page; or if at the last page takes you back to F5. Or maybe < previous and next > pages, with a choice to exit this and go back to F5.

The OXP should be *easy to modify*. People could make their own PNG images for medals. Expand its "database" of rewards from other OXPs, etc.

=====

And/Or, if the developers want to code this up as a game feature for future versions, that's good too (better). It might be easier to manage, and for OXP authors to "plug in to" as they create / modify OXPs for medals and mission entries.

So there is "my two cents".

Check out "Snoopers", it's effectively (amongst other things) I direct injection system for mission screens - words, images, music, other oxp variables, text can be displayed too...

thanks for reading guys. i shall get hold of the snoopers oxp and have a look.

i take it as it currently stands i am not suggesting re-inventing the wheel?

ie at the moment is there already a way of knowing what mission oxp's are fully completed

cheers

Note, however, that you only can set up a mission screen, not an additional medals screen (that would have to be hard-coded). Which brings you to the question of how and when you would display this mission screen.

On every docking? That could become quite annoying after a while.

Triggered by a keypress? Would again need hard-coding, therefore impossible via OXP.

Triggered by a pre-screen on every docking, which first asks you whether you want to have your medals displayed? Even more annoying than the first variant.

By the way: the Thargoid Wars.oxp has always had a couple of medals to earn. Problem again: You are shown them once, when you earned them. There is currently no sensible way of re-displaying them at will.

A text-only solution – although one that might carry its own issues – could be to award the medals as special items of equipment. There would need to be some way of transferring these from one ship to another, and it would be important not to let them affect the resale value of a ship, but I think this could be done for the built-in missions at least, based on various mission variables.

The Local Hero OXP awards medals, as you progress through the missions.

shame it would need to be hard coded....... the equipment idea sounds like a reasonable interim idea, effectively you get a piece of equipment with negligible value which doesn't do anything other than act as a trophy.

not quite as "cool" however

I'm not really convinced that it would HAVE to be hard coded. I think it COULD display medals whenever you want (NOT just when you first recieve them), and as an OXP, it "would always be active" (but only invokable when docked, I would think... or "whenever" if thats what people want.... that is, always available... )

This is the part that I am unsure of: Triggering. When docked, on the F5 screen, isn't there a way of injecting a simple choice menu at the bottom? Maybe I am wrong about this... and I haven't checked out "Snoopers", maybe there are easy coding solutions to be found there...

... this is what I am picturing now.... ; on the F5 screen. The usual cargo, passengers and contracts at the upper left... followed by whatever OXP-specific stuff, as in the recent "Display Reputation" OXP and RandomHits.

Then at the bottom of the text area, maybe " History-> "

At this point, you don't HAVE to invoke it. It works just like " More -> " or " <- Back " on some screens. You can press F2 without invoking "History" to save your game, press F3 to go to the shipyard...

When " History -> " is invoked, then, maybe entries line-by-line, time coded and selectable. Example:

2084008:12:34:17 Trumbles
2084138:22:08:48 Constrictor
2084298:00:12:14 Thargoid Plans
2084312:09:48:10 (some other OXP...)

... you can scroll down the list... if you select "Trumbles", then all you see is the date time and maybe a translation of the current trumble variable. So in mission variable in the savegame, the last trumble status timecode is stored, and the last trumble state is already there, so NOT_NOW might display as:

208400812:34:17
Trumbles offer turned down.

(with no medal)

If
2084138:22:08:48 Constrictor
was selected:

2084138:22:08:48
Constrictor destroyed in Orwhata System, Galaxy 2.
GalCop Navy awarded Commander Kudo the Nemesis medal.
(png of "The Nemesis Medal")

... so every history entry has it's own page. At the bottom of any given history entry page, a " <- Back " or " History -> " takes you back to the History entries selection page.

But at any given time, you could, say, press F8 to buy and sell cargo.

Do - able?

If not do - able, oh well... just throwing ideas, then. Maybe it could be coded into a future version of the game.

First, it's the F5-F5 screen you're talking about, or the Ship's Manifest screen.

Second, how would you add a choice(!) and a completely new category of things to it without hard-coding it? The very nature of these things means very obviously "hard-coding". Oolite's code so far does not accomodate adding a new category of things to the F5-F5 screen, and it doesn't accomodate enabling the player to make choices on the F5-F5 screen. If the code doesn't accomodate these things and you still want to add them, you obviously have to change the code.

Snoopers works by randomly calling a Mission Information screen, which is the only kind of screen Oolite's code allows you to fill with whatever you want, and the only kind of screen Oolite's code allows you to put choices on. As far as using and triggering it is concerned, I have already wrote everything in my previous post.

well thanks people for your thoughts on this.

whilst at the moment it maybe isnt do-able via an oxp its nice to think that a few others think it may also be a good idea.

not sure if the powers that be would be interested in hardcoding the ability to add a couple of extra screens which could be altered via an oxp.

At the very least at least everyone hasnt replied with "what a stupid idea, go away!"

bigmike20vt wrote:

not sure if the powers that be would be interested in hardcoding the ability to add a couple of extra screens

Well, you could always line up for the (yet non-existing) F4-screen. Caution, the waiting room is quite crowded.

I like this idea, kind of like an "Achievements" system.

Some medals that could be done:
One for every "Elite" rank
Millionare Badge, for getting 1000000Cr
Purple Heart, for using an escape pod.
Thargoid tour of service badge, for killng X amount of thargoids

... the possibilities are endless

I would like to see awards made by in game organisations, so medals for military or police missions etc.

I would not like to see generic achievements which I see as rather too arcadey.

the achievement system, as 1st use by the xbox is a bit of a marmite thing.

certainly when done well, they are superb, as they can force you to explore really enjoyable parts of games which you would otherwise ignore and oolite is actually a game where this can work better than most games....... there are so many systems in the game which normally there is no real incentive to go to, but, by building missions based around these planets and recording the ones completed, all of a sudden, it IS worth me traveling to the far edge of galaxy 8, even if it is miles from anywhere and is going to be really hard to do it. Having the oxp missions already helps with this but having a record sheet works even better imo......

BUT

I do agree that if done badly achievemnts, can end up spoiling a game as you kind of end up doing really dull stuff, ad infinitum just to get an achievement, and before you know it you hate the game!!.

overall however personally i see them as a good thing and would be very pleased to see them, but i think is a slightly (though related) thing to having a record of missions completed in your oolite career (which aside from looking shiny, i think more importantly lets you see at a glance where you are up to with the available missions.. (no point spending a fortune going back round to galaxy 1 just becasue you forgot whether or not you did "the long way round" or what ever.

in a way, at a very basic level, you could say that elite actually is possibly the 1st time an in game achievement system was ever used.... you could argue that each ranking is in itsself an achivement.

Not sure how I feel about medals (in the military sense) to be honest. Always assumed that you were a private citizen going about your business. However, a services to the Ooniverse (like the honours system in the UK) would be interesting

e.g. Order of the Elite (for being awesome in combat), Order of Fair Trading (for never having traded in illegal goods) and so on.

Cheers