Oolite Bulletins

Mauiby de Fug wrote:

I originally started the oxp as a way of getting to grips with Oolite scripting

This quote from Mauiby (on another thread) got me thinking. There are probably all sorts of reasons people write OXPs and I thought it might be interesting to hear some of the stories behind them.
Each of mine have a 'history'. For example my largest work by far, Smivs'Shipset, started after I'd finished Boa Clipper, and I just wanted all the other ships in my Ooniverse to have the same general 'look' to them! Some might say that putting what probably amounted to thousands of hours of work into such a simple desire is crazy, but that's what I did.
Some OXPs are not meant to be taken too seriously....Cmd McLane's 'Killit' is perhaps the best example, and my YellOo Cabs is another.
During discussions regarding the Contractor, it was asked why it had a 5T hold when some people thought a ship of this type should either have no hold or just 1-2T. I stated that I had given the Contractor a 5T hold to allow it to pick-up escape capsules or fit a passenger berth to allow the owner to take on passenger contracts. Now of course using a Contractor as a Taxi is a crazy idea....or is it? I got to thinking what an excellent Taxi a toned-down version of the Contractor would be, and this eventually led to the development and release of the YellOo Cabs. It started as a throw-away comment, and was really done almost as a jokey 'proof-of-concept'. This hasn't stopped over 70 people downloading it! And why not....it's a pretty little thing.

So come on OXP-ers, let's hear how some of your OXP ideas came about, and what made you create them.

Most of the pseudo-OXPs I make are proof-of-concept ideas only.

Nullgate v0.1 OXP for instance was my hack of a jump gate to other systems. It is a complete failure in the sense that it's completely random which system it jumps you to, doesn't cost anything to use, and didn't do what I wanted it to...BUT is potentially a starting point bigger and better things.

OMEGA.oxp ...Started out as a basic player-usable Constrictor and quickly got hacked to the point where it vastly outclasses its parent ship. It is strictly a cheat which I use for testing other things. A fast "eyeball" (with lasers and missiles!) that can cloak and look around to see that the system and various NPC ships are behaving as they should.

ShipSpawner v0.1.oxp is something I consolidated recently from various other ideas. It creates NPC ships "on demand" for testing, since I don't use console. It's very simple, but I copied some of the framework from Deep Space Pirates OXP to make it work. It's what allowed me to test my mod (below) and discover NPC "jousting" problems.

Switeck_mod_v0.4.oxp ...which I'm currently working on is my attempt to "go beyond" the basic game without adding any new ships (or currently, any new .js scripts). It has enhanced AI behavior not seen in the original game, though v1.75 is catching up somewhat in that regard. If anything, much of what's in this mod is what I wish was in the basic game. You may be hearing more about this in the near future on my message thread for it.

Smivs wrote:

Some OXPs are not meant to be taken too seriously....Cmd McLane's 'Killit' is perhaps the best example,

Note that at the time it was meant to be taken seriously. Just not as an OXP, but as a statement against the uberization-trend, by taking this trend to its ridiculous extremes, and making the ludicrousness as obvious as possible.

Just yesterday I made an argument against what I perceived as an attitude of "everything which can be done by scripting is therefore automatically okay", and cited Killit as an example. So perhaps it should still be taken seriously.

In short, this adds another (and perhaps rather unexpected) motive for OXP writing to your list: I wrote this OXP in order to make a point in a debate on the OoliteBB.

Smivs wrote:

So come on OXP-ers, let's hear how some of your OXP ideas came about, and what made you create them.

Murgh isn't around much anymore but I think I can speak for him to say we did it because Giles said it was possible to write an OXP yourself!


It was all a rough copy/paste job, but it proved Giles' foresight to make this game better and better, the OXP idea is, IMHO, still one of the defining aspects of the game. (that, and its exceedingly friendly BB, of course !! )

I don't publish any OXP yet, but ...

Oolite is so fun that you become addict to it. Then you are so addict to Oolite that you want more fun ... so you write OXP.

I want a more efficient hud with true scanner functions : select target in vicinity by class (hostile, container, ...), support more missiles (only four for a Cobra MKIII ???).
I want more missiles on my big spaceship (already written).
I want equipements and-ons to get my spaceship more efficient : more speed, more maneouvrability, more lot, but still fun to play.
I want more space for Witch-Fuel ( what is this strange limite, is Oolite an arcade game ?)
I want all spaceship named with stranges ones : Blueberry, Wings-of-Furry, Coucou-La-Voila, Hortensia-Taunt, Lord-of-the-Space, Macadam, HHGFG-42, ...
I want global timeline with new ships, new equipments, ship and equipment enhancements during the game, goverment evolution, Thargoïd war evolution, Company war evolution, Great Pirate Saga, ...
I want to fly between (huge) Trees on exoctic planets.
I want Oolite radio talking about my pilot.

I want fun, fun, fun, open-ended fun.

Regards,
B.

Like ('Commander') McDjanoff, I've have been tempted to ventured into OXP writing because I wanted to create - put into the Ooniverse - a ship.

Actually, I've just done it - just made an OXP (so the timing of this thread is fortuitous for me!). But I don't know what I am doing and so I cribbed most things from the author (namely, 'Alien') of another OXP. I've 'pm-ed' him to ask if he's alright with that . . and am awaiting a response.

If the answer is yes, then the Ooniverse will get a 'third-generation' set of Fer-de-Lances (Fer-de-Lances of the fairly uber sort that, it seems to me, they always sort-of-should have been). That said, I've created a 'damaged' version that departs more than do the other models from his (I presume the original author is a 'he') graphics; consequently, the graphics for that version are terrible (because I had to do them myself). So if someone could fix them - or, ideally, do a fancy shaders-and-everything job on the whole of my little ship set - then that would be great. But I am getting ahead of myself. . .

UK_Eliter wrote:

(namely, 'Alien') of another OXP. I've 'pm-ed' him to ask if he's alright with that . . and am awaiting a response.

Alien hasn't logged-in for over five years... you might not get a response.

El Viejo wrote:

UK_Eliter wrote:

(namely, 'Alien') of another OXP. I've 'pm-ed' him to ask if he's alright with that . . and am awaiting a response.

Alien hasn't logged-in for over five years... you might not get a response.

Ah. Well, presuming that I don't get a response, and given that, in the only version of his OXP - 'Ferdelance NG' - that I've ever seen, there's no licensing information, I wonder whether I can make free (whilst giving an acknowledgement)? Incidentally: I've done a quick search of the boards and found nothing by Alien on his oxp. Probably this question - can one make free with 'abandoned' OXPs? - has been discussed before.

UK_Eliter wrote:

- can one make free with 'abandoned' OXPs? - has been discussed before.

In a word, No.
The lack of a license implies that it cannot be used in any way, because there is nothing telling you it can. You need active permission or authority under license to use things.
Sorry! I know that's not what you want to hear.

And to go back onto topic. Unsurprisingly given my catalogue, there are several answers here from me simply due to the number of OXPs involved. Some various reasons include:

• Someone here came up with an interesting idea, and I implemented it.
• Me just feeling bloody-minded and/or mischievous from posts and rants made here.
• In at least one case, just as a dumping ground for various scripting ideas that I'd had that didn't really fit with anything else, or I had two methods of doing something and wanting to bring the second unused one to existence too.
• Seeing something that was missing from the game, or a possibility of how a function could be used creatively (that was how Planetfall came about, from looking at the world script events list and having the nagging thought "there's an OXP in here").

But as mentioned in the other thread, most often just because I have an idea or inspiration, and then getting the pleasure out of writing a script and getting it to actually do what I intended to do. Actually releasing the thing is almost an afterthought (and maintaining the things is more a chore than anything else).

And it also extends to being able to see other people being able to realise their ideas and release some examples of their work more fully with a little help from a script or two of mine - step forward PAGroove, Griff and Killer Wolf for a few examples.[/color]

Smivs wrote:

UK_Eliter wrote:

- can one make free with 'abandoned' OXPs? - has been discussed before.

In a word, No.
The lack of a license implies that it cannot be used in any way, because there is nothing telling you it can. You need active permission or authority under license to use things.
Sorry! I know that's not what you want to hear.

To stick to being off-topic (sorry Thargoid!): oh dear! But I can put out the following appeal. I have a set of stats and roles for some uber-ish ferdelances, I think they're cool, and/so would someone be interested in doing the graphics for them? Smivs yourself? Griff? We could perhaps make only very minor modifications to the existing Smivs or Griff graphics.

I mention only the graphics because, on reflection, I think it is fair to say that, rather that appropriating Alien's code, I learnt a bit of Oolite scripting from that code. After all, the ship-defining parameters are just . . ship-defining parameters. True, I did work up my stats by thinking about the stats of Alien's fedelances, and those of the original ferdelance, but that's not much of a borrowing from him, right?

inspiration or imitation?

I'm attempting to make a ship myself, it's Bl***y hard work, I'm not a programmer or anything, not even artistic in the slightest.

I've taken inspiration from the supercobra and the Dragon ships to make my concept. To 'road test' and ballance the thing (while I try in vain to make a ship) I'm using the super Cobra with the turret from the Dragon 'grafted' onto it. I've got the shipdata done. It's gonna take time to make the model I think, Just wondering, I'm not breaking any rules am I ?

I wanted to know I could get the shipdata right and that the ship was 'workable' before I spend forever trying to make a model.

I'm not intending to release this to the community (or anywhere) it's just my first attempt and a way of learning.

Just to get the license issues off this thread, I'd like to point you to the Licensing OXPs sticky on top of this forum. It contains all the relevant information. Please read first before posting further questions which may have already been answered in that thread.

My first OXP currently in it's pre-alpha stage (ie still in my head) is a mission about searching the galaxies for the Holy Grail.

I can't decide wether to call it The Javaincci Code OXP or the MNSR.OXP