Oolite: An open source open-world space opera | Hacker News Reader

Oolite: An open source open-world space opera

oolite.space

132 pointsdannyobrien10 comments

The main oolite repository is [1] and the repository for the launcher is [2]. Everything, including art assets and configuration files, is under the GNU GPL 2-or-later [3]. You can alternatively use the art assets and config files under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License version 3.0, a proprietary license.

[1] https://github.com/OoliteProject/oolite

[2] https://github.com/HiranChaudhuri/OoliteStarter

[3] https://github.com/OoliteProject/oolite/blob/master/Doc/LICE...

Is there a name for the data format (".dat") oolite uses for its models? Is it specific to oolite, or is it a format used elsewhere as well? Apparently they convert them to/from wavefront OBJ files with some python scripts[1] to modify them, but looking at some of them, you kind of wonder why, since the formats seem pretty similar to one another. Oddly enough, I wrote a parser in C for oolite's .dat files for my own open source space game, though I never ended up using any of the oolite models. I think it's fairly common practice to upgrade all the models from the basic stuff that's in the github repo among the oolite community, or so I gather from perusing the lengthy screenshots thread[2]. Edit: it looks like maybe the forums moved sometime over the years and many screenshots were lost, but recent-ish (last ~10 years) entries have screenshots.

[1] https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Modifying_a_Model [2] https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=4494

> Is there a name for the data format (".dat") oolite uses for its models?

I'd guess not.

> Is it specific to oolite, or is it a format used elsewhere as well?

The .dat format used by Oolite is specific to Oolite [1]. Oolite uses .dat as its own consistent format. (In contrast, the Quake engine used the .dat extension for multiple different kinds of files [2].)

[1] https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/OXP_howto_model

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_formats#Quake_eng...

Webpage design and visuals remind me immediately of Parsec game from late 90's → https://web.archive.org/web/20210629164711/http://www.openpa...

btw: it turns out openparsec is back under active development: https://github.com/OpenParsec/openparsec

Interesting, but I could only find the information I was looking for on the wikipedia page for the game: it's a single-person game, not a multi-player game (like Elite Dangerous).

Btw, an Oolite is a kind of sediment composed of egg-like stones:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oolite

Like a coprolite, but with eggs instead of ... ugh... you know.

Is this an offshoot of Ogame [0]?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OGame

No. From the webpage:

> Oolite is inspired by the 8-bit classic Elite, and many aspects of gameplay will be familiar to players of that game.

Ogame is a very different kind of game.

It doesn't mention anything on the main github page, but this can be installed with:

brew install oolite

Reposting an old comment[1] which may be of interest to Oolite players:

> Elite: "The game that couldn't be written"

> An hour long video essay about the classic game Elite, the BBC Micro, and how Elite was able to deliver an open-world 3D experience in the 1980s. The creator is "Alexander the ok."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC4YLMLar5I

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38479182

Reply on news.ycombinator.com