Oolite - Revision history

Murgh: /* Aegidian (2003-6) */ fix ambig w ref

2021-12-28T12:34:03Z

‎Aegidian (2003-6): fix ambig w ref

Murgh: /* Aegidian (2003-6) */ adds some dates and references

2021-12-19T17:55:47Z

‎Aegidian (2003-6): adds some dates and references

Cholmondely: /* A little History & some important early Versions */ Added query

2021-12-04T17:55:31Z

‎A little History & some important early Versions: Added query

Cholmondely: Added more

2021-11-06T20:17:53Z

Added more

Cholmondely: /* Aegidian (2003-6) */ Oops!

2021-11-05T16:37:52Z

‎Aegidian (2003-6): Oops!

Cholmondely: /* Aegidian (2003-6) */ Added links

2021-11-05T16:37:09Z

‎Aegidian (2003-6): Added links

Cholmondely: /* Cim (2013-5) */ Tweaks

2021-11-05T11:51:46Z

‎Cim (2013-5): Tweaks

Cholmondely: /* A little History & some important early Versions */ Tweaks

2021-11-05T11:32:14Z

‎A little History & some important early Versions: Tweaks

Cholmondely: /* Jens (2007-13) */ More detail

2021-11-05T11:29:24Z

‎Jens (2007-13): More detail

Cholmondely: /* Today */ Added link

2021-11-03T11:04:46Z

‎Today: Added link

@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 == A little History & some important early Versions ==
 === Aegidian (2003-6) ===
-The original Oolite was created by '''[[User:Aegidian|Aegidian, or Giles Williams]]''', who began programming in early April '''2004''', [https://oolite.livejournal.com/2004/05/21/ releasing] the first of a series of alpha test versions on May 23 while simultaneously launching the Oolite Bulletin Board. Quite instantly he was met with enthusiasm and willing testers. The Beta 1.0 was [https://oolite.livejournal.com/2004/07/02/ released] on July 2, and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20040713141601/http://oolite.aegidian.org/ new website] was up on July 12.
+The original Oolite was created by '''[[User:Aegidian|Aegidian, or Giles Williams]]''', who began [https://oolite.livejournal.com/2004/04/07/ logging] his early programming in April '''2004''', [https://oolite.livejournal.com/2004/05/21/ releasing] the first of a series of alpha test versions on May 23 while simultaneously launching the Oolite Bulletin Board. Quite instantly he was met with enthusiasm and willing testers. The Beta 1.0 was [https://oolite.livejournal.com/2004/07/02/ released] on July 2, and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20040713141601/http://oolite.aegidian.org/ new website] was up on July 12.
 He had rewritten it from scratch for the AppleMac. There were a number of changes from [[Classic Elite]] - the speed of the Cobra Mk.III & the Moray, and the introduction of the buoys at the witchpoint and the orbital station - for example. The crucial difference seems to have been the introduction of '''OXPs'''. These enabled the game to be modified to the player's wishes, as they still do today, and used [[Legacy Scripting]]. Giles rewrote the game code to allow new ships & stations to be introduced, new missions, new HUDs, new sounds ''etc''. Some of the early .oxps were published on the various '''Oosat''' websites. The excitement this created in the old Elite gaming community was substantial, and soon others using different platforms started to adapt the AppleMac version for Windows & Linux.

@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 == A little History & some important early Versions ==
 === Aegidian (2003-6) ===
 The first stable release was v1.65 in October '''2006'''. See [[2006 In Review]]. Giles then retired from the fray, passing the baton over to [[User:Ahruman|Ahruman/Jens Ayton]] in Sweden.
-[http://aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?p=121123#p121123 In 2006] there were no space dredgers, no famous planets, no behemoths, no extra weapons, a half finished TOGY (Tionisla Orbital GraveYard), and the coolest ship to own was the SuperCobra. There was no fiction section in the forum, no maps, no ship guide, no oxp guide. There was a single piece of Oolite fan-fic - 'The Virtuous Misfortune' by Dylan Smith on the Oolite wiki. There were no shaders, no wireframe, no javascript... there were more bugs. <br>
+[http://aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?p=121123#p121123 In 2006] there were no space dredgers, no famous planets, <!--no behemoths, no extra weapons,  Well I must disagree, there were ;) -->a half finished TOGY (Tionisla Orbital GraveYard), and the coolest ship to own was the SuperCobra. There was no fiction section in the forum, no maps, no ship guide, no oxp guide. There was a single piece of Oolite fan-fic - 'The Virtuous Misfortune' by Dylan Smith on the Oolite wiki. There were no shaders, no wireframe, no javascript... there were more bugs. <br>
 This had all changed by 2011.
 <br>

@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 == A little History & some important early Versions ==
 === Aegidian (2003-6) ===
-The original Oolite was published by [[User:Aegidian|Aegidian/Giles Williams]] in July '''2004'''. He had rewritten it from scratch for the AppleMac. There were a number of changes from [[Classic Elite]] - the speed of the Cobra Mk.III & the Moray, and the introduction of the buoys at the witchpoint and the orbital station - for example. The crucial difference seems to have been the introduction of '''OXPs'''. These enabled the game to be modified to the player's wishes, as they still do today, and used [[Legacy Scripting]]. Giles rewrote the game code to allow new ships & stations to be introduced, new missions, new HUDs, new sounds ''etc''. Some of the early .oxps were published on the various '''Oosat''' websites. The excitement this created in the old Elite gaming community was substantial, and soon others using different platforms started to adapt the AppleMac version for Windows & Linux.
+The original Oolite was published by [[User:Aegidian|Aegidian/Giles Williams]] in July '''2004''' ([http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1706 finished] 3rd April?). He had rewritten it from scratch for the AppleMac. There were a number of changes from [[Classic Elite]] - the speed of the Cobra Mk.III & the Moray, and the introduction of the buoys at the witchpoint and the orbital station - for example. The crucial difference seems to have been the introduction of '''OXPs'''. These enabled the game to be modified to the player's wishes, as they still do today, and used [[Legacy Scripting]]. Giles rewrote the game code to allow new ships & stations to be introduced, new missions, new HUDs, new sounds ''etc''. Some of the early .oxps were published on the various '''Oosat''' websites. The excitement this created in the old Elite gaming community was substantial, and soon others using different platforms started to adapt the AppleMac version for Windows & Linux.
 The first stable release was v1.65 in October '''2006'''. See [[2006 In Review]]. Giles then retired from the fray, passing the baton over to [[User:Ahruman|Ahruman/Jens Ayton]] in Sweden.

@@ Line 124: / Line 124: @@
 *[http://capnhack.com/hosting/oolite/Oolite/OoSat.html Oosat] oxps should run on the older versions.
 *[[Guide to Unlisted OXPs]] and the [[OXP List]] also contain links to other older OXPs of varying vintage.
 ----

@@ Line 58: / Line 58: @@
 <br>
 '''Loss of History''': There were two important events which led to loss of information/oxp's.
-:When Oosat2 disappeared some years ago ([http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2504 2006] & [http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8596 2010]), the old .oxp's on it were lost. All we have now is an archived first page with dead download links. [[User:LittleBear]] managed to save almost all of the oxp's - but not their ReadMe's.
+:When Oosat2 disappeared some years ago ([http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2504 2006] & [http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8596 2010]), the old .oxp's on it were lost. All we have now is an archived first page with dead download links. [[User:LittleBear|LittleBear]] managed to save almost all of the oxp's - but not their ReadMe's.
 :Many early threads were lost due to the '''Great Deletion''' where threads would be deleted after a period of inactivity. (See: [http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4973 We are losing our collective memory] Aug 2008)
 <br>

@@ Line 77: / Line 77: @@
 Verson 1.82 came out in May '''2015''' with slightly easier pirates due to the continuance of the sustained debate. Around this time cim developed another game using the Oolite mechanics - [[SOTL Exploration|Song of the Labyrinth]] - which worked with v1.83.
 <br>
 <br>
 === Today ===
 Cim faded away from being lead maintainer back into the joys of real life around 2015, leaving ''[[User:Another_commander|Another_commander]]'', ''[[User:getafix|getafix]]'' & ''[[User:phkb|phkb]]'' as the surviving designers. Most of the recent work has been improvements in the field of graphics, although there have been other improvements too.

@@ Line 65: / Line 65: @@
 Jens spent these years reformulating nearly all of Oolite's code and he effectively redesigned the game's entire architecture, making it 21st century ready. This caused massive improvements in pretty much everything from performance to graphics to gameplay and so on. Jens wasn't just another programmer in the project, he was THE programmer in the project. This included introducing '''shaders''', for better visual effects (v.1.67/1.68: 2007). Jens also brought in '''JavaScript''' for OXPs (with v.1.68), allowing more sophistication. And he was a fearsome partisan for '''Yaw''' in the [[Roll vs Yaw crusades‎]], introducing it into Oolite.
-By 2010 there were [http://aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=7483 250+ OXPs]. A year or two earlier, '''Lestradae''' caused much excitement in proposing a mega-OXP unifying all the ship oxps [[Realistic Shipyards]] (RS) and another unifying all OXPs [http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6153 The Oolite Extended Project] (OE). He was hailed as second only to Aegidian & Ahruman in his then impact on the game. Alas, ...
+As well as the emergence of Jens, other people starting doing things too. Such as the [http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2961 dream team] ship modellers who started rejigging the basic ship set for Oolite (as shaders were being introduced), and the rise of Lestradae around 2009. [[User:Lestradae|Lestradae]]] caused much excitement in proposing a mega-OXP unifying all the ship oxps [[Realistic Shipyards]] (RS) and another unifying all OXPs [http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6153 The Oolite Extended Project] (OE). He pushed for the rejigging of elements of the Ooniverse - such as the upgrading of [[Sector1/Sori]] (TL9 Dictatorship) to Ascension - a TL16 Anarchy (and similar tweaks for other Galaxies!). He was hailed as second only to Aegidian & Ahruman in his impact on the game. Alas, ...
 Version 1.76 was an important release, coming out in Dec '''2011''', with a tweak (v1.76.1) the following May. Jens had nick-named it "the MNSR" (''Mythical Next Stable Release'' (after 1.65)), during the long years of development. Some of the then development team at that time (Aegidian, Kaks, Micha and another_commander) even met up in a pub in London with some members of the community, fully equipped with laptops and stuff and did the release from inside the pub in [http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?p=271998#p271998 full celebration]. Versions 1.77/1.771 (2013) were the last of the 'old-style' versions.
 <br>
 <br>
 === Cim (2013-5) ===
 The baton was then taken up by [[User:Cim|Cim/Chris Morris]] whose v1.80 debuted in June '''2014''' (v1.79 was the "nightly" precursor, the earliest versions coming out at the end of 2013). This introduced the [[Expansions Manager]] & the .oxz format - which on the one hand made life much easier for newcomers wishing to add expansions - but deterred the less adept from learning how to modify them! Earlier sustained debate about the feebleness of pirates led to the Great AI Revolution where the pirates were greatly 'beefed-up'. A lot of the core of today's Oolite is cim's work, including the Expansions Manager, the [[Tutorial]], the new Javascript based AI, the incorporation of the new ship models by Griff / Captain Solo, the OpenAL sound support, the multiple lasers, lots of the scripting one finds today and more.