Commander, that thing is back on the scanner ...
Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 11:44 am
My ship is shedding parts, venting plasma and atmosphere, running at a quarter speed, but inside a sentient organism yet lives. Hard for me to believe that I haven't posted here since July of 2008. Had a noisy but brief one-month run on this forum that summer, going from a clueless Jameson to a still-clueless but swaggering journeyman, arguing game balance and coding my own OXPs. Then some very bad RL things took over and I dropped off, but now I'm back, and I hope for longer this time. Unless you guys run me off at laserpoint! 
I see a lot of familiar faces still posting, and many new ones. The game has also progressed in some interesting and delightful ways. Great to see the program and its community so active and thriving! Makes me glad I thought to give it a look last week. You guys have something amazing going on here, but you know that by now.
Back when I left, the whole brouhaha with Lestradae and Realistic Shipyards was simmering but hadn't really begun to boil over yet. I see that it did during my absence, and I'm glad I missed it. I'm seeing bits of debris from it scattered all over the forum. I don't want to re-open old wounds, so I'll just say that I'm sorry it turned acrimonious at any point, and I hope it's all sorted and healed by now. Yes, I know there was a fork, which isn't exactly "healing"; I just meant, I hope everybody is back to being happy now, or at least as happy as they were before it erupted.
Also back then the 1.7x series of oolite was making its debut, and now I'm using 1.73.4 and loving it. The user-visible changes are for the most part subtle, but a lot more stuff seems to "just work" now, instead of being a new experimental shaky feature, and I'm really glad to see that and applaud the efforts of the developers. Overall things just seem to be a lot more solid.
I see a lot of new OXPs, and some old ones that have gone by the wayside. I think I get the biggest chuckle from my new Planetary Info equipment, which often pops up the message "No major pirate activity" just as a series of flashes from exploding ships decorate the background. I assume its messages are useful for telling hunters whether to spend time looking for lots of lane pirates or not, and am just about to the point with my latest commander to start finding that out.
Ramirez, I see you took the idea for Feudals and ran with it, which is great. So far I haven't participated in any of its activities, mostly because I haven't spent much time seeking them out. I did find and dock with a Royal Hunting Lodge once (love the modelling and texturing!) but it was otherwise just another OXP station. Maybe my commander wasn't worthy at the time.
Now for the questions. You knew they were coming, didn't you?
First, I notice the Fuel Station OXP saying that in 1.73.4 it shows up on your space compass as a "fuel pump icon", yet I still see an "F". I saw a thread that suggested that yes it does, no it doesn't, so was wondering what the real story is. I eventually uninstalled the OXP because I couldn't tell the factories from the fuel stations, and at the time I really wanted to find the factories more.
Next, back when the constores were "just boxes", they seldom rotated, at least in my experience. Now, they're these gorgeous neon-encrusted salt shakers (they're fantastic, by the way, just a total visual delight), and every single one I've encountered was spinning just like a coriolis. But, um ... they have no nav buoy. Is that just part of the fun, lining up on them with no buoy? I guess part of my problem is that my el cheapo graphics setup gets juddery when the docking port fills the screen, so I'm prone to lose my normally acceptable piloting skills and make a mess in the parking lot, so to speak. Still, I'd have thought that a "convenience store" would be a bit more, um, convenient.
The mil-spec HUD is even better than before, and I loved it then. When I buy a new ship that comes with its own HUD, I quickly store that sucker in the closet and go back to my beloved sniper dot. But is there a way to turn off the target reticle when you're inside a station? Or preferably, any time you're not seeing an external view. Probably not, but I figured I'd ask.
Also, I recall 1.71 and 1.72 using a relatively minor amount of CPU time when running. Now, though, 1.73.4 uses about 50% continuously, which still doesn't have any visible effect on the rest of my system, but it does wake up my CPU cooling fan to start its roaring. This is on Linux, so I don't expect a lot of ready answers, especially since I've provided almost no details, but I thought I'd ask if anybody else has seen this behavior, on any system. I have a couple other Linux-specific questions, but I'll reserve those for that forum.
I have another question related to uber ships and OXPs and cheating and philosophy and suchlike, but it doesn't seem to fit here, so I'll post it later.
Anyway, it's good to be back, and great to see that you guys are still actively chatting, trading, riding to the rescue, murdering, stealing, setting things on fire, and doing all the other wonderful stuff that make the Ooniverse such an interesting place. Keep it up!
I see a lot of familiar faces still posting, and many new ones. The game has also progressed in some interesting and delightful ways. Great to see the program and its community so active and thriving! Makes me glad I thought to give it a look last week. You guys have something amazing going on here, but you know that by now.
Back when I left, the whole brouhaha with Lestradae and Realistic Shipyards was simmering but hadn't really begun to boil over yet. I see that it did during my absence, and I'm glad I missed it. I'm seeing bits of debris from it scattered all over the forum. I don't want to re-open old wounds, so I'll just say that I'm sorry it turned acrimonious at any point, and I hope it's all sorted and healed by now. Yes, I know there was a fork, which isn't exactly "healing"; I just meant, I hope everybody is back to being happy now, or at least as happy as they were before it erupted.
Also back then the 1.7x series of oolite was making its debut, and now I'm using 1.73.4 and loving it. The user-visible changes are for the most part subtle, but a lot more stuff seems to "just work" now, instead of being a new experimental shaky feature, and I'm really glad to see that and applaud the efforts of the developers. Overall things just seem to be a lot more solid.
I see a lot of new OXPs, and some old ones that have gone by the wayside. I think I get the biggest chuckle from my new Planetary Info equipment, which often pops up the message "No major pirate activity" just as a series of flashes from exploding ships decorate the background. I assume its messages are useful for telling hunters whether to spend time looking for lots of lane pirates or not, and am just about to the point with my latest commander to start finding that out.
Ramirez, I see you took the idea for Feudals and ran with it, which is great. So far I haven't participated in any of its activities, mostly because I haven't spent much time seeking them out. I did find and dock with a Royal Hunting Lodge once (love the modelling and texturing!) but it was otherwise just another OXP station. Maybe my commander wasn't worthy at the time.
Now for the questions. You knew they were coming, didn't you?
First, I notice the Fuel Station OXP saying that in 1.73.4 it shows up on your space compass as a "fuel pump icon", yet I still see an "F". I saw a thread that suggested that yes it does, no it doesn't, so was wondering what the real story is. I eventually uninstalled the OXP because I couldn't tell the factories from the fuel stations, and at the time I really wanted to find the factories more.
Next, back when the constores were "just boxes", they seldom rotated, at least in my experience. Now, they're these gorgeous neon-encrusted salt shakers (they're fantastic, by the way, just a total visual delight), and every single one I've encountered was spinning just like a coriolis. But, um ... they have no nav buoy. Is that just part of the fun, lining up on them with no buoy? I guess part of my problem is that my el cheapo graphics setup gets juddery when the docking port fills the screen, so I'm prone to lose my normally acceptable piloting skills and make a mess in the parking lot, so to speak. Still, I'd have thought that a "convenience store" would be a bit more, um, convenient.
The mil-spec HUD is even better than before, and I loved it then. When I buy a new ship that comes with its own HUD, I quickly store that sucker in the closet and go back to my beloved sniper dot. But is there a way to turn off the target reticle when you're inside a station? Or preferably, any time you're not seeing an external view. Probably not, but I figured I'd ask.
Also, I recall 1.71 and 1.72 using a relatively minor amount of CPU time when running. Now, though, 1.73.4 uses about 50% continuously, which still doesn't have any visible effect on the rest of my system, but it does wake up my CPU cooling fan to start its roaring. This is on Linux, so I don't expect a lot of ready answers, especially since I've provided almost no details, but I thought I'd ask if anybody else has seen this behavior, on any system. I have a couple other Linux-specific questions, but I'll reserve those for that forum.
I have another question related to uber ships and OXPs and cheating and philosophy and suchlike, but it doesn't seem to fit here, so I'll post it later.
Anyway, it's good to be back, and great to see that you guys are still actively chatting, trading, riding to the rescue, murdering, stealing, setting things on fire, and doing all the other wonderful stuff that make the Ooniverse such an interesting place. Keep it up!
)
