Oolite Bulletins

A small blue-skinned humanoid approaches the podium in front of the assembled members of the press. After scanning the room, he begins reading aloud from his notes...

"I'd like to thank you all for coming today. Deep Horizon Industries is proud to announce the immediate availability of four new product lines and of our new website. This project has been well over a year in development, has stalled at times, but we are happy to share this with our customers. As an innovator in the environmental control, large-scale agricultural machinery and now terraforming industries, we are constantly looking to improve our communications with our customers. Please visit us at:
Deep Horizon Industries
Thank you. I will now open the floor to questions..."

Out of Character
I am proud to announce the availability of the first true Meta-OXP (that I am aware of) for Oolite.
(quietly wait for the horrified screams and calls for his blood to die down)

Put down the pitchforks, please? Thank you. I wish to re-define 'Meta-OXP'. Previously, this term was used in conjunction with Lestradae's project. I never liked the term associated with it because that project was a 'Compilation OXP' to me. A 'Meta-OXP' would be something different. So, I set about making what I felt a 'Meta-OXP' should be - An oxp that is not contained within a singluar folder, holding all of it's resources within itself, and simply copied and pasted into place. A 'Meta-OXP' would stem from the old quote from Aristole, "The whole is greater than the sum of it's part." It is an OXP that is formed by the presence of numerous other OXP's that interact and expand upon each other. In this instance, the idea is to have numerous small OXP's (some that can stand alone, others that require other parts of Deep Horizon) that when together create a unique experience within Oolite. Because everyone will not necessarily want all of the pieces, they can be mixed and matched. The more elements of Deep Horizon that are present, the more features it enables.

With that in mind, I am proud to announce the availablity of the following:
Deep Horizon - System Redux 2 (Beta)
This is a stand-alone module. This is an expansion / update to the classic System Redux by Capt. Kev. It currently features 10 moon textures, 20 textures for extra planets, and 7 for main planets. As I finish more textures, they will be made available. I am only releasing the first 7 because it will take me a long while to complete the number I wish to, and do not want to delay the project based on the constraints of my RL schedule.

Deep Horizon - Pirate Ambushes
This OXP creates opportunities for pirates to ambush a player upon exit from witchspace. It requires Deep Horizon - System Redux 2.

Deep Horizon - Gas Giant Skimming
The Road to Riches or the Elevator to Hell? Skimming gas giants to refuel a ship or mining one for rare minerals is not an easy task. But it is one that some pilots utilize to reduce their fuel costs, and a lucky (or foolhardey) few fill their holds with compressed exotic gases and other rarities. This OXP requires Ore Processor by Eric Walch and is recommended (but does not require) Deep Horizon - System Redux 2.

Deep Horizon - Lights Down
Deep Horizon - Lights Down is a stand-alone OXP, not requiring any of the other members of the Deep Horizon family. It lowers the ambient light within a system to give a more natural feel to the planets and ships encountered in the game. It also increases the background star-count, and increases the intensite of the nebula that appear in the background to give a more cinematic feel.

Sounds good. Pity that System Redux is not working properly on my system with 1.74+!

SR2 or SR1?

If SR2 - Did you download the texture pack as it says to in the License.txt? OXP's that re-texture don't tend to work too good if you don't download the textures...

You have been a busy little bee!

I do believe Thargoid has already got a few oxps that would qualify as meta-oxp in the same sense as you're using it, though...

I like the corporate site, pretty professional looking!

Very nice Cheyd... just installed and had a quick look. Love the corporate web site as well.
Many thanks.

Kaks wrote:

You have been a busy little bee!

I do believe Thargoid has already got a few oxps that would qualify as meta-oxp in the same sense as you're using it, though...

I like the corporate site, pretty professional looking!

I wasn't going to mention that by this definition Planetfall has been a meta-OXP for ages

But in any case it's always nice to see new OXPs, especially new broad concept ones like this.

Very nice OXP effort. I really like the fact that OXPs seem to evolve together with Oolite. Nowadays, they are not just a bunch of files thrown together, they seem to be evolving into entire alternative games, complete with professional presentation (websites, extensive documentation etc.) , even own APIs for smooth integration with other OXPs. Really impressive. Keep it up guys!

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

JazHaz wrote:

Sounds good. Pity that System Redux is not working properly on my system with 1.74+!

SR2 or SR1?

If SR2 - Did you download the texture pack as it says to in the License.txt? OXP's that re-texture don't tend to work too good if you don't download the textures...

SR1. Where do I get SR2? It's not on the wiki...?

EDIT: ignore me, I thought that you were saying SR2 was separate to this Deep Horizon OXP.

Very very nice, I like the looks a lot! I have a few minor suggestions for improving it further:

• * When I leave a system and go back to it later the planet texture has changed, can you assign textures to planets (maybe in a way similar to how system names are created)?
  * The overall look is very dark now. At first, I played with the Lights Down OXP but then planets and moons were so dark that I almost could only recognize them because I couldn't see the stars that are hidden behind them. But even without Lights Down it is still very dark.
  * The message "the sensors detected n planets and m moons" seems very much like a debugging message to me. I would turn it off.
  * When I enter witch space I hear the sound, then it takes 1 or 2 seconds, and only then I get the tunnel visual. Before installing system redux 2 sound and visuals were in sync.

maik wrote:

• * When I enter witch space I hear the sound, then it takes 1 or 2 seconds, and only then I get the tunnel visual. Before installing system redux 2 sound and visuals were in sync.

This is normally a symptom of a slow PC, like mine.

JazHaz wrote:

maik wrote:

• * When I enter witch space I hear the sound, then it takes 1 or 2 seconds, and only then I get the tunnel visual. Before installing system redux 2 sound and visuals were in sync.

This is normally a symptom of a slow PC, like mine.

Mmmh, maybe it's too much now. I'm playing on a MacPro with a 2.66 GHz Xeon Quad-Core and 3GB RAM.

maik wrote:

When I leave a system and go back to it later the planet texture has changed,

Seems okay on mine... witchspace out, jump back and the texture is the same.
Off for more 'testing'.

maik wrote:

JazHaz wrote:

maik wrote:

• * When I enter witch space I hear the sound, then it takes 1 or 2 seconds, and only then I get the tunnel visual. Before installing system redux 2 sound and visuals were in sync.

This is normally a symptom of a slow PC, like mine.

Mmmh, maybe it's too much now. I'm playing on a MacPro with a 2.66 GHz Xeon Quad-Core and 3GB RAM.

Actually its more about a slow graphics card rather than the main processor.

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

Did you download the texture pack as it says to in the License.txt? OXP's that re-texture don't tend to work too good if you don't download the textures...

Have downloaded the standard texture pack. Will probably need to get the low res one when you have finished it though. Assume you will announce it in this thread?