Oolite Bulletins

So. I decided to type this up while my cobra was.. slowly...making its way to the nearest station. (Somewhere in.. ah! Ensoreus.)

Ive come full circle. My first space sim being Oolite, and from there on to various other games that while enjoyable, didn't keep my interest. (I never seem to run across random encounters with traders and pirates duking it out in other games. One thing that will always keep me coming back.) I even tried FE2 and FFE. Lastly, I found a DS version of Elite AGB.

While playing that, I noticed that transit times where MUCH quicker. Its been brought up before, but I REALLY would like to bring it up again. Why are the transit times in Oolite so LONG. Even if I avoid the space lanes entirely, the time from me arcing downwards to the station. (Which is happening right now. unpaused as I type.) I'm looking at a good 5 to ten minutes of simply staring at my ship INCH towards the station.

Yeah, Injectors are nice, but the original Elite didn't need them, and getting from spawn point, to station was MUCH quicker.

So why the gameplay change? I can safely say that even with docking computers, Injectors and all that stuff, its still a ...long trip.

What about the Torus drive ('J')? It takes about one minute or so to get from witchpoint to station if no traffic is encountered. What about time acceleration? I can get to the planet in even less time if I go at x16 TAF.

I'm sorry! I use J. It helps me avoid the space lanes.

The time acceleration is new to me. (I have been away for a while.) Is that where you pause the game, and speed it up manually? Or is there some new hotkey I don't know about?

OneoftheLost wrote:

The time acceleration is new to me. (I have been away for a while.) Is that where you pause the game, and speed it up manually? Or is there some new hotkey I don't know about?

Yes, that's it. Hotkeys could be added with the upcoming version of the game, but for now it's manual.

For fun, I timed a trip from witchspace to station. Have a look at the time taken. I used all the tricks, i.e. avoid the tradelane, Torus and TAF at x16, insta-dock at end of trip:

Latest.log wrote:

23:18:52.156 [jstest.witchSpace.arrive]: Player is exiting witchspace.
23:18:54.468 [jstest.witchSpace.complete]: Player exited witchspace into galaxy 4, planet 37 ("Edrebi"), govt = 0 (Anarchy), economy = 6 (Average Agricultural), tech level = 4
23:18:54.484 [jstest.alert]: Player alert condition changed to green (1) (clear) from 2
23:19:16.484 [jstest.alert]: Player alert condition changed to yellow (2) (mass locked) from 1
23:19:27.328 [jstest.dock.begin]: Player is docking.
23:19:29.859 [jstest.dock.complete]: Player docked at Coriolis Station, which is the system's main station.
23:19:30.203 [jstest.alert]: Player alert condition changed to docked (0) (mass locked) from 2

About 37 seconds. Not bad for an old commander, eh?

Eheh.

Well. Now that I've been schooled on timing, I forgot to bring up something else that bothered me for a bit. Elite. Naturally, I want it. Badly. I'd like to do it, to where its an accomplishment. Now, I can never be on that list of elite players (or get the cool pin.)

but under what circumstances could I get as close as possible to the conditions required?

That probably doesn't make any sense, so let me clarify. Several players have hinted at a mission or two, that adds quite a bit to your elite rating as a reward for completing said mission. I would like to earn that elite rating the old fashioned way. If I say.. destroyed asteroids would that add? I remember seeing an excellent list covering the true Elite C64 type elite rating, and the differences Oolite presents. Can't seem to find it now, but it would be nice.

Another thing that replaying the old elite gave me an idea for, was the background. Now, Oolite has a very pretty background, but I'd like to see space as it really is. Black, with stars. Something that has the nebulae's and such, be more rare. Would this be moddable in an OXP like a different image file, or is the background hard-coded?

Oh, and thanks for your responses! I must have come off as rather... new.

another_commander wrote:

About 37 seconds. Not bad for an old commander, eh?

Yeah, not bad… without the TAF, using only the torus drive and the right arc, with a touch of injectors in station space, you can do witchpoint to station slot in seventy seconds (or less), measured by the shipclock.

OneoftheLost wrote:

Another thing that replaying the old elite gave me an idea for, was the background. Now, Oolite has a very pretty background, but I'd like to see space as it really is. Black, with stars. Something that has the nebulae's and such, be more rare. Would this be moddable in an OXP like a different image file, or is the background hard-coded?

Oolite is fully customizable in that regard and the only limit is your system's performance. You can use planetinfo.plist and add the sky_n_stars and sky_n_blobs entries in the universal section (or you can do this on a per-planet basis using its galaxy number and ID). Alternatively, you can use the star_count_multiplier and nebula_count_multiplier entries, which basically multiply whatever number of stars and nebulae the system originally has with the value you use. Have a look at the v1.74.2 planetinfo.plist and you will find them there,with default values of 2 for stars and 1 for nebulae.

Below are two piccies (click to enlarge): The same planet as it appears on the default settings and after I have edited the star count multiplier to be 20 instead of 2 and the nebula one to be 0 instead of 1, which should be closer to what you prefer.


More info about all this fun  here.

Oh very cool! I was unaware of the pl list data. I will definately give that a shot. Thanks for the heads up! Looks like I need to do ALOT more research before I start throwing around complaints.

Thanks for setting me straight.

So many features and things I didn't realize about Oolite's customizability. (I don't think thats a word.)

Thanks again. Gonna give that a shot.

doesn't the 'clearskies.oxp' get rid of the background colours?

Sad thread, I remember when it wasn't about the destination, but the getting there that mattered. But in those days the Cobra Mk 3 only did 0.3LM and we didn't have injectors. <monty_python_yorkshire_men>I also had to work 26 hours a day down mine and lick road clean wi' tongue before breakfast </monty_python_yorkshire_men>

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Sad thread, I remember when it wasn't about the destination, but the getting there that mattered. But in those days the Cobra Mk 3 only did 0.3LM and we didn't have injectors. <monty_python_yorkshire_men>I also had to work 26 hours a day down mine and lick road clean wi' tongue before breakfast </monty_python_yorkshire_men>

Luxury!

I Remember; when we ever miss jumped a witch tunnel, we had to get out and push. I lost 15 sisters, 24 brothers and a leg to tu't thargoid raider, whilst we were pushing fathers ship through tu't witch tunnel! That was before breakfast and we were lucky.

In my day, we remembered that the “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch was originally written for At Last the 1948 Show. ;-)

I remember when engines hadn't been invented yet. We had to fire a missile out the aft of the ship to get some momentum and then lean out the aft window and blow. Lot of good men got scuppered by those missiles, lot of good men...

We had it easy. My mate Fartyarseblast just ate lots of beans and we'd sit him at the back of the ship with the tailgate open.