Oolite Bulletins

Nobody seems to want to discuss this with me on the main board, so I thought I would roll (I'm fat) into this establishment to see if there are any takers here. The question I posted (which is being completely ignored) is, had anyone tried to create any Kzin ships. You know, the big tigers, commonly referred to as ratcats (but never in their presence) that are a main part of the story line of The Man/Kzin Wars series of books. No movies yet, sorry folks. The ships are described in fair detail in the books, and would look pretty neat, and terrifying in the Ooniverse. They could give the Thargoids a run for their money, when it comes to nasty. I don't know how to make up such programs (yet), but was thinking someone pretty handy with it could take a shot at it. I don't know, maybe nobody truely is interested. Too bad, if that's the case.

mandoman

The best advice I can give you is: download a 3D-editor (Wings3D, Blender; there are others as well) and give it a shot.

To answer your question: to my knowledge noone has tried to make Kzin ships for Oolite yet, and personally I have never even heard about Kzin ships, or the books series you mention.

Personally I also have a little reservation against bringing ships from other SF-settings into Oolite, especially if there is the claim that they would kick someone's butt. If there is no clear connection between the Elite universe and the Kzin universe, how would you even be able to compare ships with each other? The physics in both universes are most likely totally different from each other, and the scales for ship specifications (ship size, speed, manoeuverability, fire power, etc.) are totally different as well, to the point where comparing them to each other doesn't make any sense at all. (You can't even meaningfully compare scales of size to each other for different objects within the Oolite universe! There exist at least three different and totally irreconcilable size scales in Oolite, so against which of those would you measure the size of a Kzin ship?)

Ooh, pushy!

Yeah, if you're keen to see them in the game, get a hold of the tools and follow the tutorials on the site to model them yourself. We're always interested in seeing new ships and will provide whatever assistance you need - we are the friendliest board this side of Reidquat, after all.

I know Larry Niven's Kzin from their "kidnap" into the Franz-Joseph sponsored Star Trek continuity. The Star Fleet Battles game materials might be a good source of ship reference images if you need any.

To save you some time, the usual free tools are:

• Wings3D or Blender for 3D modelling (unless you are rich and have payware software)
  GIMP or Inkscape for texturing: if the tutorials are beyond you (as they are to me) some of the other denizens will no doubt be able to help with shaders and stuff if you ask nicely
  Notepad or Notepad++ for scripting
  Plenty of coffee!!

Selezen wrote:

Notepad or Notepad++ for scripting

Just a small correction: that should be "Wordpad or Notepad++". Notepad is what you should specifically not use.

We seem to have two versions of this thread - could they be merged?

Smivs wrote:

We seem to have two versions of this thread - could they be merged?

That's a side-effect of re-posting another thread because of lack of answers in the first one (the other one). It could be locked, or simply be ignored by everybody. Or we just don't care.

IIRC thread-splitting is relatively easy, but thread-merging needs some higher levels of fu, bordering on the impossible.

Besides, come tomorrow this ain't gonna matter anyway.

Commander McLane wrote:

Smivs wrote:

We seem to have two versions of this thread - could they be merged?

That's a side-effect of re-posting another thread because of lack of answers in the first one (the other one). It could be locked, or simply be ignored by everybody. Or we just don't care.

IIRC thread-splitting is relatively easy, but thread-merging needs some higher levels of fu, bordering on the impossible.

Besides, come tomorrow this ain't gonna matter anyway.

As Ahruman once said "Split, or do not split, there is no merge."

If somebody save me the trouble of looking by posting a link to the other thread I'll lock it next time I wander by...

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9884

Two threads down!

Smivs wrote:

We seem to have two versions of this thread - could they be merged?

Yes, by all means. I wasn't sure how to delete the one, and change to the other. It doesn't sound like Kzin ships would be too welcome, for the most part. One thing, the Kzin would only have the Witch Drive, as their ships are largely based on reactionless drives. They can turn on a dime in normal space, with little to no effects on the crew, and their ships can reach up to .8 light speed without the Witch drive. Kzin ships come in four main categories. Small fighters, probably similar to an Adder in size, and speed. Fighter carriers, which are huge, and carry from 50 to 100 fighters, as well as several hundred warriors in cold sleep. A battle cruiser, which is a large red sphere, with weapons extruding from gunner bubbles all around the ship, probably the size of one of the biggest Thargoid ships. They also have a medical ship. Kzin ships usually travel in fleets, but they also send out many scout ships, which are a smaller version of the battle cruisers.

It was just a thought. I'm very much enjoying the game as it is. Thanks for the suggestions, Commander McLane, and Selezen, I'll look into it.

I apologize for the split threads. I won't do it again.

mandoman wrote:

I wasn't sure how to delete the one

Done that for you, mandoman... the other thread is gone.

You can delete one of your own posts, providing that it is the last (latest) post in a thread, by using the 'X' button at the bottom right hand corner of the post.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

As Ahruman once said "Split, or do not split, there is no merge."

That was phpBB2. Now it’s just mildly inconvenient due to terrible UI.

I think one problem is that no-one really knows what the Kzin ships look like, other from the descriptions in the novels.
I don't think there's a problem with them as such, and indeed one of the great things about Oolite is the variety of OXP ships.
As was pointed out, they would have to be Oolitified ( ) in terms of size and scale.
Why not try making one....you'll have a lot of fun learning how to use the software, and there is a wealth of knowledge here to be tapped.

Ok, I'm looking into it. The only exposure to actual programing that I can claim is a semester of "Basic" in college......that was 30 years ago. I'll give it a shot, though.

mandoman wrote:

Ok, I'm looking into it. The only exposure to actual programing that I can claim is a semester of "Basic" in college......that was 30 years ago. I'll give it a shot, though.

Don't worry, you're going to pick up the essentials on the way.

And you won't need to do any programming anyway. First, you have to create a 3D-model of a ship and a fitting picture for a texture. No programming at all in involved. In a second step you have to assign some properties to your ship. That's way short of programming, too.

As mentioned above, the Kzin did appear in one episode of the Star Trek animated series: "Slaver Weapon" by Larry Niven (one of his short stories just barely modified to be a Star Trek story) but I can't remember if you see any of their spaceships. They'd be easier than Puppeteer ships anyway as there's no way to do transparent hulls yet...
As far as I'm concerned, re ships from other SF settings: The more the merrier so long as they can be beaten into an Oolite-friendly configuration. I'm happy flying a Star Wars B-wing because it looks cool, but it does bear. little similarity to the ones in the franchise beyond the shape.