User:Simon B

Neolite Sidewinder

Neolite Adder

Re2dux ships

Simon B's "Behemoth" (in front) - now the Naval Class Carrier

Oolific Princess liner

Arachnid OXP "Wolf" HUD

Simon B has designed entire flotillae of ships for Oolite.

Simon first joined the community in 2008, living in New Zealand

Imagine my delight at finding that Elite is well and thriving as a FOSS project - Free Software no less. But, of course, you don't need to imagine, you've been exactly where I am. Intros: I am an eldritch old-school hacker living on a clifftop overlooking the Pacific. With me is a wifie and three (count-em) cats.

(SimonB)

He had the following suggestions for improving Oolite back when he joined:

All right - some ideas I may get around to:

Ships -

UFO - basically a light or bunch of lights that follows a player (or other ship) around annoying the capt since it blocks the jump drive. Possible they could choose to have an escort role though. IFF name is "Unknown Object".

(Note - it is possible to have a ship with no visible model and just a flasher)

Doomsday machine - big and slow, powerful enough to take out a station or a planet.
(Related: have some systems sans stations/planets.) Would also suit a mission - you follow a trail of destroyed stations and rumour... hit it with lots of nukes...

Berserker - another robot death machine, I know we already have thargons. But but but - berserkers are a sci-fi canon...

Military Anaconda - with turrets. The anaconda is big, slow, and not very manouverable. Turrets are only sensible. Armoring them makes sense too... so it takes a lot of hits to take one out.

Systemships available:
By which I mean - no witchdrive.
This could create another path through the early game for players lucky enough to end up in a system with many dockable objects. One could fly a transport between them and an asteroid field.

Missions:

Rich Tourist - you get a tourist as a passenger. They have no fixed destination and stay with the ship as long as the ride is "interesting". They also pay more for very interesting rides. If you have a cool ship, that helps: "Wait'll my friends hear I rode a Flangewort class Pedant!" Your rep also helps.

The planet descriptions go someplace towards that. But if you become a fugitive... engage in some piracy, get in a firefight, go on a mission... visit the graveyard, pulsar, etc.

The neat thing is that this is a way to make things which are otherwise a bit ho-hum more attractive. Suddenly you care that the blue wingnutoids live on a boring little planet, and you need to remember where the nearest hoopy casino is.

Occasionally pops into the bridge ... "can I fire the lasers? ... whoops... my bad... what does this button do?"


Planetfall...
Script - flying too close to a planet in a witchdrive ship is an offense. Police fly up from the world to shoo you off. But what if you have a permit (like those adders with role: shuttle?) Then - fly close enough and you land... perhaps you have to follow a beacon?


Item:
Thargon Wormhole projector
how do thargons get from place to place - especially considering that they can turn up between stars.

Perhaps thargons have controllable wormholes? A captured generator could trigger a wormhole ahead of the ship - B5 style... but players still cannot control the destination. Uses energy like ECM. Perhaps it displaces cargo?

Some carriers when destroyed could leave a wormhole behind as a death action... or the wormhole projector is on a special ship. Even if the device could not be recovered (as a mission?) this would justify how they appear.


<rant>
Collision boxes - did something happen in 1.7? In 1.69 I was able to fly between the spokes/rings of the torus station. It was a good shortcut to get to witchdrive range.
</rant>

OXP's

Simon B's most famous oxp's are his Neolite series and his Re2dux series. Both are mostly retextures but with new ships added to the mix.

• Neolite Ships is an Oolite ships replacement set. 2012

Neolite Wolfies were an update of Marko Susimetsä's Wolfwood's Variants

Neolite YAH defenders are a retexture of the YAH Security Sidewinders (See under "Alternative Shipset")

• Re2dux Ships is an Oolite ships replacement set. 2011
• Croydon Starsoarer adds a ship that is similar to the Asp in specification (2010) - download link broken
• Oolite Princess is a liner - see Brilliant but broken... under Dockables

You realise that I have already done three complete sets?

Neolite is the major one using shaders, which I did as a feedback and discussion that sort of grew. The Navy just needs a bunch or thargoids/ons/orns whatever to be finished - and bugfixes (sigh).

I did a set of Maori themed ships in the Rangiwaka series that uses more primitive textures. There's a subset of them in the rangitoro and rangipiko oxps (Ed. - Wakatoro & Wakapiko in his Box collections) from my site. This had all the core ships redone with maori names and new models, as well as a bunch of new ships like the taniwha and tuatara.

Then before I first posted I had practised by reskinning all the ships in each oxp I had as well as the classics - all flat textures - which is where I got that knack for making a 2d texture look 3d. (From a 2009 post)

Simon B's contributions to other oxp's

• Old Ships 2010 was shadered by Simon B
• He also contributed to Behemoth

Later oxp's by others

• Simon B's Favorites is a later collection of sb-faves by Spara & Keeper
• Simon B's Ships OXP is a later collection of Neolite ships by CaptSolo
• Cougar ST OXP was based on a Neolite Companion.oxp ship
• Navy Asp was partly based on Simon B's work
• Random Hits OXP contains some of his work

Other Work

• Textures in GIMP (Tutorial, 2009)

Taniwha

UberTharg

Links

• Simon Bridges' re2dux ships collection in Box

Taniwha - (Maori - powerful water-spirit) - good looking ubership (older version in his wakatoro collection below which includes a HUD)

oolific.oxp - the Oolite Princess liner (unfinished with AIs/scripts copied in from liners OXP)

re2dux.oxp - his re2dux shipset (retextures for vanilla game shipset + alloys, barrels, iguanas and variants for Cobras, morays & pythons + Easter Eggs)

sb-navy - carriers & ancillary ships - contains the Navy Class Carrier in Behemoth

wakapiko-redux - (Maori - to bend/to turn; murder/slaughter/massacre) - suite of 3 ships (Namu, Waka & Weta)

sb-faves - suite of 7 ships (aphid, wolf, salamander & 4 cobra variants - clipper, SAR clipper, cutlass & rapier)

re2dux-vipers - suite of 4 ships (pursuit & interceptor, plus cruiser and vigilante)

constrictor - retexture for vanilla game constrictor

sbdestroyer-pre2 - naval destroyer - the navy light destroyer in Galactic Navy Additions

ubertharg-pre1 - retexture for vanilla game Thargoid Warship

katipo - - (Maori - venomous black spider with red spot on back) - based on Fer-de-Lance, with own HUD

• Simon Bridges' neolites ships collection in Box

neotextures - collection of textures, including those for an alien coriolis and alien ships

neolite - retextures for the vanilla game ships

wakatoro - (Maori - to extend/stretch/thrust) - suite of 8 new ships (one with designer HUD) also escape capsules, drones & missiles

wakapiko - (Maori - to bend/to turn; murder/slaughter/massacre) - suite of 9 new ships

typhoon - suite of 4 new ships: appaloosa, cougar, coyote & typhoon

galcop - viper retextures, and adds in military & renegade vipers

blade - variant of the asp

arachnid - suite of 3 ships: avondale, katipo & wolf, each with their own HUD

neolite-concepts - anaconda cruiser with subentities

neolite-companion - different models for Murgh's Old Ships OXP - over a dozen ships

neolite-wolfies - based on Wolfwood's Variants (2006) - 7 ships, each with their own HUD