Oolite Bulletins

I'm suffering a bit of information overload here. Having played a bit I am of course interested in changing things to suit myself. Having absolutely no experience with the programming involved here, where can I go to get my bearings? I hesitate to ask people to whip things up, but it is obvious to me that it will be a while before I am confidant enough to be modifying existing OXPs to suit my needs.

The following comments are musings that I have done along and along, not criticisms. I am grateful for the work the various OXP authors have already done and do not wish to be imposing on their time unless they like these ideas and want to run with them. Eventually I would like to be able to do this myself. (BTW Thargoid rocks, even if he is a belligerent, warlike insectoid. )

An advanced Missile Machine, using a "revolver cylinder" concept, capable of constructing up to 3 missiles on one Pylon. Icon would show 4 sections, one permanent to represent the machine it self, with 3 to represent the current load. Would be able to make the standard and hard missiles but also military missiles (perhaps using 1 ton Radioactives, 1 ton alloys, 1 ton computers and X kilos of Gold/Platinum for the special circuitry)

A variant of the advanced Missile Machine that constructs salvage missiles using alloys, computers and machines, possibly gold/platinum/gems, possibly only 2 on a pylon due to size/complexity

Speaking of salvage missiles, modifying it so that before a deep space dredger is created, a check would be performed for a salvage gang in system.

Limiting missile machines to X number of uses before you have to replenish the nanobots with uncorrupted ones from an appropriately high tech station

The long range sensor OXP is interesting but pretty much well into cheat territory. Instead of targeting and instantly turning your ship, it would assign a temporary computerized "beacon" to the target, would require the advanced space compass. Limit the range to a few hundred Km. Remove the jump to features altogether. Remove the time factor changes. Make navigation of the target list much like the equipment / shipyard screens, with forward/back tied to the left/right arrow keys

A reduction of the exploding cargo pods, once in a while I can live with but it's far too common for me at the current settings.

Is it possible to have an upgraded fuel scoop tractor beam that can slow down / pull in targeted cargo pods or escape pods? some get to moving at trans-light speeds.

Is it possible to have an advanced targeting computer that automatically adds all targets in range to the target system memory upgrade, so that you can cycle through targets?

A modification to the IronHide armor showing whether you have the military upgrade or not.

I love the Cargo Shepherd, but the horseshoe magnet look is a wee bit out of character, if highly amusing. I was expecting something technical looking with emmiters and beacons and such. Does not seem very powerfull on the attraction side. or perhaps there should be an advanced model? What I have found myself doing is dropping one when I am in combat and someone has exploded leaving a bunch of cargo pods, as I'm not going to break off and pick them up even if I had an empty bay, not with someone shooting at me.

I suppose I have rambled enough for one post, your tolerance of the preceding is appreciated.

Edit: Clarification: What I am looking for is information on this programing style, not the how to in the FAQ. I need an understanding of the basics.

1. Missile Machine - cool idea, although I don't know if doable
2. BTW what's a Military Missile?
3. Long Range Sensor - I agree on all counts
4. Exploding cargo pods are not vanilla, I think
5. Tractor beam equipment - great idea
6. All targets into memory add-on equipment - even better idea
7. Cargo Shepherd - I agree

1. The Missile Machine is part of the Armory OXP by Thargoid now but uses a dedicated pylon for the machine and up to 3 more for the missiles. In the same OXP are rack mounted missiles, 3 on the same pylon with a 3 part icon.

2. http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Dragon in the download section. A fast missile that when EMPd will target Thargoid or Pirate craft

4. Most of this is from OXPs. This one was from pods by Thargoid. And to quote one evil evil creator out there... "... and one purring Trumble" /Lynch

Thargoid wrote:

The exploding cargo pods (from Pods OXP oddly enough) should already be a fairly low change one. But if it's still too much, the chances can be changed in the shipdata.plist file in the OXP. The numbers in the roles line for each pod is the weighting of the chance of one being picked by the populator.

I guess that the pods are created pseudo-randomly, not truly randomly, and therefore you can be in a system where exploding pods are much more common than their role-weight would suggest.

I had a situation recently where I encountered no less than four(!) exploding pods in one system, amongst a total of less than 50 pods. Obviously way out of their usual weight. But of course even a normal Gauss-distribution may very rarely lead to a mass of rare objects.

For me it was a one-off event. After my next jump exploding pods were as rare as before (one per couple of hundred pods).

"Wile E Coyote is a personal hero of mine"

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/81432290/

Thargoid wrote:

Advanced missile machine - would be possible by merging missile machine and missile racks (both mine, now in Armoury OXP). That said I'm pondering updating missile machine anyway to make it use the new selection key rather than being pylon mounted. But not to produce military missiles, as those are not mine and are from another OXP.

Ditto for the salvage missiles, those too are from another OXP.

The exploding cargo pods (from Pods OXP oddly enough) should already be a fairly low change one. But if it's still too much, the chances can be changed in the shipdata.plist file in the OXP. The numbers in the roles line for each pod is the weighting of the chance of one being picked by the populator.

And yes, the Cargo Shepherd model was something of a tongue-in-cheek joke. Well what can I say, Wile E Coyote is a personal hero of mine And if you think it isn't very powerful, increase it and then get in the way of one of the pods...

Yeah, I know they are from different OXP's, hence my desire to kludge something up. Figured it would not be hard to check for the presence of those items.

As far as exploding pods go, I have yet to stay in one system for any length of time without getting at least one exploding pod, if not more. Damage I don't mind so much with repair available but replacement can really suck hard in anarchic systems.

What is the range of that ACME special, 25 Km aka sensor range?

Spartan wrote:

Yeah, I know they are from different OXP's, hence my desire to kludge something up. Figured it would not be hard to check for the presence of those items.

No it would be quite simple to do, just see if the missile is part of the pool of available equipment, and then change the role of the awarded missile to the appropriate one. You can put something together for your own personal use, but it's not something that I'd be interested in the general release of.

Spartan wrote:

As far as exploding pods go, I have yet to stay in one system for any length of time without getting at least one exploding pod, if not more. Damage I don't mind so much with repair available but replacement can really suck hard in anarchic systems.

Then change the role weight of the exploding pod in the OXP shipdata.plist down to something smaller. Then you will see them less.

Spartan wrote:

What is the range of that ACME special, 25 Km aka sensor range?

Yes, 25.6km.