User:CommonSenseOTB

In the spring of 2011, a new user joined the oolite community with the single purpose of making oolite a better experience by developing oxps through a process of thinking creatively "outside-the-box" to bring near impossible/extremely difficult ideas that have been talked about for a long time from wish to actual fact, and of course to make really long sentences that cannot be finished on one breath.

His belief is that nothing is impossible but simply takes the will to sit down and figure out how to do it, rather than just talk about it, and talk about it, over and over and over for years, wishing someone would do it.

He has no formal computer education and has never done programming commercially. He has been absent from even using computers since the Amiga went under and only got back into things in November of 2009 with an acer netbook. After playing Oolite for a year he started back into scripting in november of 2010 and after many months decided he would like to contribute and joined the oolite community as a member in March under the name CommonSenseOTB. The name was chosen to reflect the combination of reason combined with outside-the-box creativity. It fits him and his personality as well as a name could and gives an indication of what part he wants to play in the development of oxps for oolite.

Shortly after joining and with no idea as to how he would like to contribute, he stumbled onto some old coversations about types of HUD displays people would like to see(in this case pie chart gauges) and after sitting down and thinking about how he would try to create such a display, it just suddenly came to him. From that point on it became obvious that there are a lot of things that can be done in the area of HUDS and other related areas and it was at this point he sort of just ended up specializing in this area as each thing he discovers leads to more discoveries and eureka moments.

The current progression of disoveries is as follows: pie chart gauges==>numeric gauges==>zoomable sniper camera==>gauge morphing==>curved animated bar gauges==>custom missile displays==>?

As of Sept. 1, 2011 he is working on finishing the ChupacabraHUD and an external missiles HUD (workaround for equipment addable missile slots externally/internally for the player) as well as at least 5 secret projects and the delayed needleHUDs and buttonHUDs. Eventually what is learned benefits all types of HUDs and more advanced numeric and pie HUDs will also be forthcoming. Creativity cannot be scheduled however, and new works will be posted as they progress.

OXP Links

Shield Equalizer+Capacitors current version 1.3

Pie Chart Style HUDs current version 2

Numeric Style HUDs current version 1.3.2

Sniper Camera System current version 1.1

Q-Charger current version 1.2

Viewtopics of interest

ChupacabraHUD work-in-progress

ExternalMissilesHUD work-in-progress

SaveAnywhere3.1BrokenOXP do-it-yourself script modification repairs this oxp for use with oolite 1.75+

Animated HUD gauge requests ideas for HUDs and HUD gauges can be posted here

NeedleHUD work-in-progress

Pylon Icons tips on creating missile and compass icons