Gameplay & Setting

• Core Mechanics: Players pilot a spacecraft (starting with the iconic Cobra Mk III) across eight galaxies, engaging in trading, combat, mining, and missions

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• Trade Routes: Beginners often use routes like Isinor-Zaonce or Leesti-Diso to trade goods (e.g., food for machinery)

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• Combat: Pirates roam systems, especially in unstable governments. Players can defend themselves, become bounty hunters, or even turn pirate

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• Flight Model: Uses fly-by-wire mechanics (not Newtonian), with drives like the torus jump drive (fast in-system travel) and witchdrive (7 light-year jumps)

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Moddability & Community

• Highly Expandable: Nearly every aspect (ships, weapons, AI, HUDs) can be modified via OXP (Oolite eXpansion Packs)—over 500 mods exist, from minor tweaks to massive missions

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• Cross-Platform: Available for Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, and SGI IRIX

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• Open Source: Licensed under GPL-2.0-or-later for code and CC BY-NC-SA-3.0 for media

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Legacy & Development

• Faithful to Elite: The vanilla game closely mimics the 1984 original, though enhanced with modern features like shader support and JavaScript mission scripting

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• Community-Driven: After Giles Williams halted development in 2006, the project was relicensed under GPL and revived by Jens Ayton and later contributors

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• Latest Version: As of 2025, the current stable release is v1.90

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Fun Facts

• Thargoids: Insectoid aliens that ambush players via mis-jumps

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• Galactic Navy OXP: Lets players battle Thargoids alongside NPC fleets

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• Hidden Depths: The game’s universe is pseudorandomly generated from a fixed seed, ensuring consistency with fan fiction

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1. Griff’s Shipset / Griff’s Normal-mapped Ships
   Replaces every core ship with high-resolution, PBR-textured versions that look stunning without changing game balance

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   (Category: Retextures – almost every screenshot you see today uses these.)
2. Additional Planets SR
   Adds ringed worlds, atmospheric planets, moons and other celestial eye-candy to every system

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   (Category: Ambience – frequently bundled in “starter packs”.)
3. System Features: Rings
   A lighter-weight alternative that focuses purely on Saturn-style rings; compatible with almost every other OXP

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4. Ship’s Library
   A tiny OXZ that drops an in-game manual, lore books and short stories into your cockpit, giving new players something to read during long super-cruise hops

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5. Fuel Collector
   Lets you scoop fuel from wrecked ships or while cruising on the torus drive; considered almost essential for deep-space explorers

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6. Dangerous HUD (Orange Variant)
   One of the most-downloaded HUD replacements – clean, readable and in Elite-Dangerous orange

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1. Pick Your Scope (5 min)

• Ship – add a new flyable or NPC vessel
• Equipment – new weapons, scanners, cargo, etc.
• Mission – scripted story line with goals, messages, rewards

2. Create the Folder Skeleton (2 min)

MyFirst.oxp/
├── Config/
├── Models/
├── Textures/
├── AIs/
├── Scripts/
└── manifest.plist

3. Build or Borrow Assets (10 min → days)

• Ships: Use the free Wings 3D or Blender exporter to produce .dat + .png files.
• Textures: 2048×2048 PNG (power-of-two) works best; normal & specular maps supported.
• HUD icons: 64×64 PNG.
  Community templates exist—just copy an existing ship OXZ (rename .oxz → .zip) and swap meshes

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4. Write the Logic (15 min → weeks)

<key>my_cool_ship</key>
<dict>
    <key>like_ship</key><string>cobra3-template</string>
    <key>roles</key><string>my_cool_ship trader(0.5)</string>
    <key>model</key><string>my_cool_ship.dat</string>
    <key>materials</key><dict> … </dict>
</dict>

5. Package & Test (3 min)

1. Zip the contents of MyFirst.oxp (not the folder itself).
2. Rename the zip to MyFirst.oxz.
3. Drop it into your Oolite AddOns folder.
4. Launch Oolite → F2 → Expansions Manager → verify it appears and loads

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6. Publish (optional)

Quick Resources

• Wiki hub: OXP Howto – full scripting reference
• Starter templates: wiki.alioth.net/index.php/OXP – downloadable .oxz skeletons
• Tools: Wings 3D, Blender, PlistEdit Pro (macOS), VS Code with JavaScript linting.

1. Where the code lives

• Single script: put script.js (or script.es) in the OXP’s Config/ folder.
• Multiple scripts: list them in Config/world-scripts.plist; the actual .js files go in a Scripts/ sub-folder

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2. The “worldScript” skeleton

this.name        = "My Mini-OXP";
this.version     = "1.0";
this.author      = "Your Name";
this.description = "Does something cool.";

/* 1. Game-wide events */
this.startUp = function() {
    log(this.name, "OXP loaded and ready");
};

/* 2. Player-centric events */
this.shipWillDockWithStation = function(station) {
    player.consoleMessage("Requesting clearance at " + station.name);
};

/* 3. Combat events */
this.shipKilledOther = function(victim, damageType) {
    if (victim.isPirate) {
        player.credits += 500; // instant bounty
    }
};

/* 4. Witch-space events */
this.shipExitedWitchspace = function() {
    player.consoleMessage("Welcome to " + system.name + "!");
};

3. Core objects you touch most

• player – the Player entity (ship, credits, equipment, etc.).
• system – current star system (economy, government, planets).
• worldScripts – dictionary of every loaded world script (easy cross-OXP chat).
• Timer – schedule future callbacks: new Timer(this, this.doSomething, 10);
• Vector3D – 3-D math helper: var v = new Vector3D(1, 0, 0);

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4. Quick cheat-sheet of common events

5. Talking to the GUI

mission.runScreen({
    title: "Secret Delivery",
    message: "Carry the data to Zaonce for 5000 ₢.",
    choices: { "ACCEPT": "accept", "DECLINE": "decline" },
    screenID: "myMissionOffer"
});

6. Live docs & next steps

• Wiki overview: Scripting Oolite with JavaScript
• Class-by-class reference: auto-generated docs at https://ooliteproject.github.io/oolite/