Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Thu Jun 24, 2010 7:58 pm**

Following on from an old discussions here about Space Monsters and also because I thought it might be fun to have something different (and I was bored last week), allow me to introduce Stellar Serpents OXP.

A little flavour/sideline mission OXP which gives the player something to look out for and on occasion even take on a little (very) big game hunting. These creatures can appear randomly in any of the 8 galaxies and wander from system to system annoying traders, attacking ships and generally getting in the way. They use jumping ships wormholes to move between systems and are a pest, so they need to be hunted down and eliminated. The 500 credit bounty awarded for the successful killing of one is nothing compared to finding somewhere large enough to mount the skull of one of these monsters.

Official notification is given on docking with the main station when a serpent is sighted within the current galaxy, and when it is killed by someone else (you're not the only snake-hunter in the Ooniverse!). You can also keep track of where any serpent currently in the galaxy is via the manifest (F5-F5) screen. They show up randomly, but are highly territorial so you'll never see more than one around.

Requires 1.74, and is basically just a little bit of fun to add to the variety of the game...

- = = Download Stellar Serpents OXP = = -

Posted: **Thu Jun 24, 2010 9:16 pm**

Downloading now! Will try this out in my next flight.

Posted: **Thu Jun 24, 2010 9:27 pm**

Your creativity is unbeatable. Get bored more often

Cheers

L

Posted: **Thu Jun 24, 2010 10:41 pm**

This sounds like fun...just downloaded

Posted: **Thu Jun 24, 2010 11:59 pm**

Oooh, sounds like my favourite film, Snakes On A SpacePlane!

Posted: **Fri Jun 25, 2010 4:43 am**

(Joke)

Oy! When I loaded this OXP and found a stellar serpent, I was waylaid by a craft called the "Space Shepherd", whose mission was to "protect the gentle denziens of space from marauding space hunters"!

Posted: **Fri Jun 25, 2010 6:16 am**

does the F5 just say "here be dragons"?

sounds cool, my new OXP is going to be in the same stable as this kinda thing.

Posted: **Fri Jun 25, 2010 6:48 am**

No, although the message that gets sent when you arrive at a system with a serpent in it might just have to be altered a little bit with that thought

Posted: **Fri Jun 25, 2010 7:16 am**

What game was it.. had big space whales in it. Was really cool, they sang and stuff when you were in their vicinity. Was very peaceful just flying near a pod of them - completely at odds of the violent war that was happening!

That's it! Star Glider 2. Awesome.
I wonder.. would the Oolite game engine allow for animated 3D shapes like that?

Posted: **Fri Jun 25, 2010 7:35 am**

"eye of the storm" had whales too. sadly, i don't think animation is possible. if someone would implement the spawn/respawn of subentities it ould be spoofed via a script tho, i think ~ certain effects, anyway.

Posted: **Fri Jun 25, 2010 8:01 am**

If you want a demo of what can be done look at the serpents themselves.

It is a bit crude and rather limited, but until there's a game mechanism to make an entity fly sideways (ie not in the direction it's pointing) then it'll have to do. This is of course without shaders. I'm sure there all sorts of additional things could be possible.

But the stellar serpents aren't static models, they slither. And a whale's tail just goes up and down in a similar fashion...

Posted: **Fri Jun 25, 2010 12:45 pm**

"Where Galactic Snakes Live" – from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

JPL-Caltech wrote:
The snake is located about 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.

Posted: **Fri Jun 25, 2010 1:07 pm**

Someone pointed out on another forum (digitalspy i think) that it looks like the crack in space & time from the current Dr Who series

The World ends tomorrow!!

Posted: **Fri Jun 25, 2010 2:07 pm**

Tsk ... now I wish I hadn't opened that savings account.

Posted: **Fri Jun 25, 2010 2:38 pm**

Awww and I just bought my winning Lottery ticket.........