Cataclysm v 2.0
===============
by "Commander McLane"

featuring models by "Griff"
and scripting help by "Eric Walch"
Updates by phkb

an Expansion Pack for Oolite by Giles Williams

based on "Elite" by Ian Bell and David Braben

Introduction
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Things aren't looking too good at the Thargoid front. The Thargoids don't confine themselves to intercepting ships in witchspace anymore. Attacks on the space lanes, on main stations, even on planets themselves have become more frequent.

The Galactic Navy has tried to keep on par with the threat. The Behemoth and Leviathan class of capital ships—together with new and capable fighters—have been introduced, new and powerful anti Thargoid weapons have been developed, Navy Sector Commands are sending battle groups on the space lanes and in interstellar space.

But it seems the Thargoids are always one step ahead. The introduction of the Behemoths saw the advent of new classes of Thargoid Battleships, gigantic Thargoid Carriers have started threatening the GalCop worlds, and the Navy Frigates and their battle groups are now being countered by what seems to be a second wave of completely new Thargoid Ships, together with new and fearsome variants of Thargons.

A while ago the Navy had obtained and—with the help of a certain fearless space commander—securely delivered some secret defence plans of the Thargoid Hive Worlds, and Naval Intelligence was confident that these would give the troops the means for a push against the Thargoid home system. But what has come out of that? Nothing seems to have happened since, no news of a main strike against a Thargoid home world have made it to the public. Or did it all end in a disaster, and this new and unprecedentedly angry wave of Thargoid attacks on GalCop worlds was only triggered by a failed invasion attempt on their space? The Tionisla Chronicle does certainly not know.

But now we are on the very brink of new and important developments. The atmosphere is highly charged with anxiety and anticipation, and somehow it is going to discharge violently. Veteran spacefarers can sense a cataclysmic event at the horizon. The future of the Galactic Co-operative of Worlds is at stake. Something has to happen, ... and indeed something has happened.

It all starts when—after a particularly vicious wave of Thargoid attacks in the middle of Galaxy 1—a well known officer of Her Imperial Majesty's Space Navy contacts a certain fearless space commander, and asks for help. Captain Curruthers has made a rapid career and become Rear Admiral since the Constrictor incident, and he hasn't forgotten who got him out of the trouble with the stolen prototype. Nor have Captain Fortesque and Agent Blake—their unaltered ranks perhaps indicating that the Thargoid Plans plan didn't turn out as a huge success. But this new thing has all the prospect to become one...

Technical Overview
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Cataclysm.oxp is a mission OXP that takes up the threads of the native Constrictor Hunt and Thargoid Plans missions, and sends you on a mission far bigger than anything you have done for the Navy so far. It gives you the opportunity to re-visit places you have visited before, and re-meet people you had contact with during these missions. And of course it will let you meet various other people, and lead you to a lot of new places, some of which you probably haven't visited before.

The mission starts in the middle of Galaxy 1, roughly in the area where the first part of the Constrictor Hunt took place. After a ruthless Thargoid attack on a main station, during which you once again excelled in the defence force, it is time for Rear Admiral Curruthers to contact you with an important news. (If you don't excel, you won't be contacted unless you excel.) From there on you are in the service of Her Imperial Majesty's Space Navy again, and soon find yourself on a quest that will lead you through most parts of the known Ooniverse. What are you going to find in the end? Only %R knows!

The mission requires an able commander with an equally able ship. Therefore it is not suited for a beginner. Anyway, you will have to have finished both the Constrictor Hunt and the Thargoid Plans missions, and be in Galaxy 1 in order to get Cataclysm started, which means that you have to have cycled the eight galaxies at least once before you are offered this mission. So you will probably have been ☆ Deadly ☆ for quite a while before the events depicted here start to unfold. The OXP requires you to be 'twice deadly'—having at least 5120 kills—to get started. At the end of it you may well have come close to ★★★ E L I T E ★★★ ...

Minimum Requirements
--------------------
Cataclysm.oxp (v2.0) requires at least Oolite 1.82.

The OXP doesn't require any other OXP for running; however your experience will get more varied, more exciting, and probably more difficult as well, if you play with some other OXPs installed (most of those mentioned in the introduction):

Thorgorn Threat and Second Wave will give you a greater variety of Thargoid ships involved in the action.

If you play with Thargoid Wars installed, the beginning of Cataclysm.oxp will blend naturally into the scenario you are used to from that OXP.

Behemoth and Military Fiasco will at some points add valuable reinforcements on your side.

Missiles and Bombs will give you a greater choice of weaponry.

Asteroid Storm will give you a greater variety in asteroid fields.

Galactic Navy will not be used in any specific way by this OXP, but may add to the atmosphere of being at war with the Thargoids. (Although there seems to be a strange bug in Oolite 1.72.1 that may lead to ships from Cataclysm not being created when Galactic Navy is installed as well. See below.)

Thargoidcarrier will also not interact specifically with this OXP, but may add to the atmosphere as well.

PAGroove_Stations will give you many more stations that look like the added stations in this OXP (because these were ripped off there), thereby unifying the design.

System Redux will just enhance the scenery. (If you usually play with System Redux, you will perhaps notice changes in a couple of systems. This is because the additional planets and moons have been partially disabled by this OXP, in order to prevent possible location clashes.)

Known Problems
--------------
(v1.1) Due to a not-yet-fully-understood bug in either Oolite or some OXPs there are some OXPs that will prevent other scripts from creating additional ships with role 'police'. Cataclysm wants to create a couple of those ships at one point in the story. However, the police ships are not a story necessity. The two OXPs that cause this behaviour on my own system are Commies and Galactic Navy. I hope the developers find and eliminate the problem.

(v2.0) This issue has not been observed as yet, but please let me (phkb) know if you encounter it.

Download Location
-----------------
This OXP is available for download through the Elite Wiki.

Installation
------------
Move or copy the file Cataclysm.oxp from this folder to the AddOns folder inside the Oolite main folder. Restart Oolite.

Acknowledgements
----------------
Thanks to Griff for his willingness to allow me to use his model of a burning station, and other models as well. As always, all his models improve the look and feel of this OXP substantially. Also thanks to another_commander for his very encouraging feedback after looking at a halfway ready preview version of Cataclysm. Of course thanks to Eric Walch for some invaluable help in the early stages of the JS-scripting of this OXP, and for the very enlightening exchange of ideas time and again. And—last but not least—my thanks go to Aegidian, Ahruman, and the development commOonity of Oolite, the people who are making OXPs like this possible in the first place.

(v2.0) Additional thanks to KillerWolf for his marvellous "Wrecked" Coriolis station.

License
-------
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License version 3.0. For more information see the ReadMe of Oolite or the Creative Commons' website.

Practically this means that you may rip it apart and use whatever seems useful to you, as long as you credit the original author. It would be nice—although by no means necessary—to give me a note, if you intend to use parts of it.

History
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version 2.2 (May 30, 2025) (phkb)
- Improved the Galactic Navy overlays (less jaggies)
- Added allegiance to navy stations, changed scan class to military.
- Reformatting of subentities in shipdata.
- Added small integration with HIMSN, allowing Hydra's and Rattlecutters to be used in navy actions.
- Fixed integration with Library PAD where added character data was not being correctly saved between sessions.
- Moved all text into descriptions.plist and missiontext.plist for easier localisation.

version 2.1 (March 9, 2024) (phkb)
- Tweaked text in one of the final mission screens, to ensure it will fit on the screen in all formats.
- Updated Tetier vista image.
- Updated mark/unmark system method, to use latest Oolite standards.
- Updated normal maps for Hydra and Rattlecutter, and added specular maps as well.

version 2.0 (October 20, 2023) (phkb)
- updated to work with the latest version of Oolite.
- updated textures and models, added normal maps for a better alignment with a "Griff-ified" universe. Wolf Mark II taken from Griff's Wolf Mark II. Viper Interceptor taken from Griff's Viper Interceptor. Asp Mark II taken from HIMSN. 
- switched "burning station" model for KillerWolf's "Wrecked" station.
- interaction with "Additional Planets" (ie System Redux) has been updated to use the latest version.
- added characters and events to Library PAD, as they happen.
- fixed some spelling and grammar mistakes.

version 1.1 (January 7th, 2009)
- incorporated two more ships from Military Fiasco, in order to resolve a like_ship error-message

version 1.0 (January 6th, 2009)
- fully functional version
- requires Oolite 1.72.1

TODO:
Check - why do we have to purchase the replica?
