Oolite Bulletins

8/18/2010 - Name Change
The name of this project has been changed in order to avoid confusion with other yet-to-be-released projects. While the name of the actual scripts is not yet changed, they will be changed in the next development release.

7/6/2010 - v.0.5.1
Updated planet and moon object names for better cross-oxp compatibility. Fix compatibility issue with Thargoid's Planetfall.OXP.

Also Available is a new Low-Resolution Texture Pack.
If you use the low resolution pack, I would like to hear back from you to verify quality of the textures and if the sizes are appropriate / reasonable.

Available from the Deep Horizon Industries website.

Does this fix the "main planet is a gas giant" thing?
That particular glitch is my only peeve with this oxp; it doesn't compute that the inhabitants would try to live on a gas giant... Oh well. A lot of things in the ooniverse don't quite add up.

Other than that, fan-damn-tastic job. This + Lights Down makes for some great looking systems.

Yes, it fixes it. Somewhat...

Gas Giants are still going to appear as main planets - This is and has always been intended by me. Right now, the gas giants appear more frequently than I want, but that is due to they representative sample within the available pool of textures. Their use as main planets will make more sense as more of my oxp's make their way out of development and become part of the DHI meta-OXP. You guys didn't think these 4 were all there were, did you? :twisted:

What was fixed is the issue with Planetfall where non-gas giant SR2 textures were being treated as gas giants by Planetfall. Long story short - Thargoid and I had agreed on a property to use, but hadn't discussed HOW it was used. He was using the property as a present / non-present, and I was using it as always present storing a true/false value. I adapted to his method.

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

Gas Giants are still going to appear as main planets - This is and has always been intended by me.

This doesn't make any sense to me. No way should a gas giant be the main planet in a system. They should be secondary planets.

JazHaz wrote:

This doesn't make any sense to me. No way should a gas giant be the main planet in a system. They should be secondary planets.

Well, I choose to disagree, and since it's my OXP... And since you ignored the most important sentence in the explanation, I'll quote myself:

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

Their use as main planets will make more sense as more of my oxp's make their way out of development and become part of the DHI meta-OXP.

So, for now, can you take it on a little faith?

Just recently downloaded this one, and I must say: WOW! Nice job, this is magnificent!

There is one technical issue I'd like to bring up (you MAY already be aware of it, I guess, and I don't even know whether anything can actually be done - it's probably simply a function of the added complexity.) Often when I witch-jump, the sound and the even of it go out of synch, and I see the Windows "waiting" cursor briefly (as though the program is not responding for a second.) At this time, Oolite loses focus. The effects of this are that the gam keys become inoperable, and my Logitech joystick profiler loses its "connection", so to speak (so custom bindings go out the window, as do, more critically, dead-zone definitions.) I was getting exctly the same problem with Orbits OXP, and seeing as the two do similar things in some regards, I imagine the issue is related.

I run quite a beefy PC (Core i7-920 always overclocked, gaming-grade triple-channel DDR3, GeForce 9800, 7200rpm drive), so it's quite disconcerting to see such a performance issue (and I wonder what more basic systems might feel.) Anyway, as I said, it may well be that nothing can be done, but I thought I'd bring it to your attention, in any case. That said, I'm willing to put up with it - visually, this OXP is worth it! [For reference, I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, latest version of Oolite, 3 monitors, and TONS of OXPs - probably a contributor to the problem!]

Now for a couple of ideas/suggestions/ignorables

- I like the subtle changes done to the stars' coronas. How about sunspots? I think this may be tricky to implement, and if done right may well be a machine-killer, but there it is in case it interests you

- In my personal opinion, the systems tend to be a little too crowded - I know that some of the numbers can be tweaked inside the scripts (I'm always afraid I'll break something! heheh), but what do you think of spreading the bodies a bit further apart? I know talking about "realism" in the context of a space trading/combat game with starships etc is rather farcical, but at present the systems, though gorgeous, look a tad unbelievable (as in "hard to believe" hhehe)

Anyhow, fantastic job so far, and keep it up, and best of luck!

My lord if your system's struggling with this OXP then my poor old 2800+ Athlon and 6600GT are going to choke!

Re: Sunspots - as far as I know Suns are still flat disks rather than spheres (they don't show up as 3D objects even in Wireframe mode) - I think sunspots have been mentioned before, and I think it wasn't possible.

Well, perhaps just as well - I think they'd be quite tricky to get right in any case, especially consider that we often sail rather close to the solar wind

DaddyHoggy wrote:

My lord if your system's struggling with this OXP then my poor old 2800+ Athlon and 6600GT are going to choke!

In truth, I've had some folks run it on that level and lower hardware, DH, with no problems. I'm unsure what is causing the issues encountered by m.R. I'd say try it before you completely discount it.

As for your actual issue myst.Raven - Since it happens with both DH-SR2 and with Orbits, I imagine the problem is related to core code and the addition of added planets/moons. This is what causes the witch-jump to become out-of-sync. I'll bring it up with the devs.

The sun spots are a cool idea, but not possible at this time for the reasons DH commented.

As for the crowding, if someone who is reasonably familiar with the positioning systems would be willing to lend a hand, I'm open to the changes. Most of those are where they are because I was randomly changing values, not out of any genuine plan or knowledge.

And thank you for the compliments on the OXP.

Just so you know, despite the weird witch-jump thing going on (I sometimes briefly see my desktop, even!), I'm keeping this on - it looks amazing And the planets are out of this world (ummm... heheh)

Oh, and as for gas giants being main planets - I see no problem with that at all. For example, a system might have been colonized purely because of the gas riches of its gas giant, and so the main colony would be an orbital base facilitating harvesting... Your OXP forbids landing on GGs, which addresses any plausibility issues.

As for main planets being gas giants, it could be possible in systems with high enough TLs, that it's colonized by setting up floating "cloud cities" in the upper atmosphere of the planet

Of course, the population could be on an arable world elsewhere in the system, and decided to install stations around an otherwise useless gas giant, so as not to be disturbed by those unruly spacers.

That also works

Or... the upper-atmosphere base might be there as a first stage in terraforming the ball - the bulk of the population would be employees of the terraforming institute/corporation, while the balance provide infrastructure and commerce.

Or... a settlement could be primarily academic (other than the infrastructure and commerce), and the whole thing be a university of some sort, or a facility for researching the conditions in a gas giant.

Or... I could go to bed already, as it's been a ridiculously long day!

Further to the problems with Gas Giants, on a few occasions I have found a Gas Giant in the space lane. IE: between the witchpoint and the main planet. This can't be right, can it?

That would be an issue, JazHaz. And one that I never encountered or had reported during testing... So - If you would - I need a screen shot, a log file (I need to know what other OXP's you have), the system and galaxy it happens in, and to know if you're willing to do some testing.

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

JazHaz wrote:

Further to the problems with Gas Giants, on a few occasions I have found a Gas Giant in the space lane. IE: between the witchpoint and the main planet. This can't be right, can it?

That would be an issue, JazHaz. And one that I never encountered or had reported during testing... So - If you would - I need a screen shot, a log file (I need to know what other OXP's you have), the system and galaxy it happens in, and to know if you're willing to do some testing.

Don't think I saw anything in the log. Just this great ball of a planet as seen from the witchpoint. I had to fly around it, and change direction when level with it so I could head towards the main planet. However it may just be a clash between SR2 and Assassins as I'm in G7.

Not played Oolite much recently (I've managed to do my ankle in and its been too hot and sticky to use the computer much). But if I see it again, will get some screenshots.