This is in response to the couple of people who are interested in doing art, perhaps even leading the direction it can go in.

For programmers there's a path which involves creating a GitHub account, forking the Pioneer repository, creating branches, configuring remotes, making commits and submitting Pull Requests.

For Artists and scripters there's another way which is hopefully preferrable for everyone!

To follow this "tutorial" you'll need at least a way of creating ".zip" files, on Windows I use the 7-zip program.

This example is being written for Windows but the ideas are broadly transferrable even if the exact file paths and locations aren't.

You can create a "mod" for Pioneer.

There's links to a few existing mods if you follow that link but they're very simple things:

• They're just zip files containing some directories and files,
• Their contents are "Added" to Pioneer unless replace something like a script, ship, texture, etc,
• They use the same directory structure as Pioneer.

The example that most are enthusiastic about is adding a new ship (http://pioneerwiki.c...your_first_ship) which is the first step on the long road to a total conversion!

To start with we want to make this task easy for ourselves so lets try the following to create a "mod" called "myfirstship":

• Go to wherever you've extracted your Pioneer download to,
• Open the folder "data" and look down the folder names as there's two we're interested in,
  • "ships" and "models",
• open the "ships" folder,
  • copy and rename the file "wave.lua" to "myfirstship.lua",
  • open the file in a text editor and change the following lines like so
    • from: name='Wave Heavy Hypersonic Fighter'
    • from: model='wave',
    • To: name='My First Ship Tutorial'
    • To: model='myfirstship',
  • ​save your changes to the "myfirstship.lua" file,
  • now go back up to the data folder,
• open the "models" folder, then the "ships" folder,
  • copy and rename the folder "wave" to "myfirstship",
  • open the "myfirstship" folder,
  • rename the file "wave.model" to "myfirstships.model",
• Now run Pioneer with the parameter "-mv myfirstship" so the command line should look like "pioneer.exe -mv myfirstship" this will open it in the modelviewer mode so you can see if everything has worked.

If you run Pioneer as usual then you should be able to go to the ship yard and buy your very own "My First Ship Tutorial" spaceship. Of course it will look like the Wave heavy Hypersonic Fighter, and it wll handle like it and be like it in every possible way because it's a perfect copy of it

If you want to make it look different so it's easier to spot then a quick thing you can do is edit the texture "wave.png" in your "/data/models/ships/myfirstship/" folder, perhaps just paint the white a bright red or something which will make it easy to tell that you've changed it.

Obviously we're not done turning all this effort into a mod yet, we've just copied a ship definition ("myfirstship.lua") and the model data for it.

So lets open a new folder window (if on Windows) and:

• Create a new folder somewhere you won't lose it, "My Documents" for windows users or the home folder on Linux etc, call it "tutorial" this time (to avoid confusion),
• In this folder create two more called "ships" and "models",
• With the "models" folder create another folder called "ships",
• by now you should have something that looks like:
  • /tutorial/ships/
  • /tutorial/models/ships/
• now you're going to _move_ the "myfirstships.lua" file you edited earlier out of the "/pioneer/data/ships/" into the folder "/tutorial/ships/" folder,
• next you must _move_ the folder "myfirstship" from "/pioneer/data/models/ships/" to "/tutorial/models/ships/",
• now create a "readme.txt" file in the "tutorial" folder and add your name to it for now,
• Add everything inside the "tutorial" folder to a zip archive - to do this with 7-zip just selected everything inside the tutorial folder, right-click, open the 7-zip submenu and choose the "Add to archive",
• Make sure that you choose to use "zip" compression and call the archive "myfirstship.zip".
• Finally, put the file "myfirstship.zip" into the "mods" directory - this IS NOT usually where you extracted the Pioneer download.
  • On Windows it will be in a folder under your "My Documents"/"Documents" directory for example:
    • "/My Documents/Pioneer/mods/"
• Now double check that you really did MOVE the files and folders, i.e; go back to where you first copied the wave files and folders and make sure that there aren't any "myfirsthip" files or folder there because they should now all be inside the zip file (and safely backed up in the "tutorial" folder).
  • The reason this step is important is that you might have made a mistake with the zipping process and the mod is actually now broken, however it will look like it works because the original files are still being found by Pioneer in it's own data directory.
• Finally, the mod should have been packaged up into a zip, it should be in the "mods" directory, and you've made sure the Pioneer data folder is clean.
• Run Pioneer and make sure your mod works.

That's a pretty exhaustive description, including things to double-check and lines to edit.

I've typed it out from memory too so if people could comment and check it for me I'll edit it to make sure that it's correct.

There are many steps that take just a second or two and lots of bits you can skip once you know what you're doing.

You can have as many ships within a single mod as you like, this technique just gives you a copy of the Wave to edit and play with.

You can, and should, replace it with your own mesh and edit the parameters it uses for thrust and equipment etc.

So how does this get my ships into the Pioneer download?

Easy, you create your mod, test it, try it out, share it via this forums download area so that others can play it, respond to criticisms to improve it and then ask the Core Team to include it in the main distribution.

This is basically the same process that we go through for programmers submissions but without having to understand Git and GitHub.

It's also more direct to players and fans of the game who often use several mods together to make Pioneer play how they want it too.

Speaking of criticism, let rip on this please

Andy (aka FluffyFreak)

I want to check if the game is fun at all with some weaker ones.

Also, to practice some lua (and to defocus from exams),  I've started working on a little util which can calculate the stats of the ships, to aid ship desigers, and it is a good testbed for it (i won't release it until the obvious crashing issues are ironed out from it, and in my hope it will be able to read and output ship definition files in the end.)

 example01.png   199.72K   7

So here's a little mod: 

 nerfer.zip   5.46K   2

I propose, let's make some iterations to check if it's even fun.

I only recently allowed myself time to start learning 3D modelling & rendering, and am already creating cool space ship protos I can't wait to export to Kerkithea (if the Kerk. format export plugin is free...I truly can't afford 100's of $'s just now). 

When I think of modelling my own ships (or eerie monoliths adrift etc.!) and placing them in a fairly open online world/universe it stirs a very rare and special place deep in my innards that makes me feel the wonder of life like a younger person used to more often.

When I have a bit of time weekly,.I think this can me the makings of some special memories for me. Thank you for having this. 

I'd been impressed with cult (community ;P) activity behind Freespace mods and TRON, but did not know about these opportunities under this website's MMO subforum.

Thanks for being here; I"m going to look at your materials and search some topics and when my replacement graphics PC arrives next week I'll see if I can begin to contribute in a fashion you would enjoy as much as me.

See you soon

P.S.

I will show you the items to make sure you like them first. I'll probably ask for opinions before uploading/converting. I do need to research what modelling from scratch software (like Sketchup if "Make" will do it) that is free is best to use with Pioneer conversion in mind.

Hello, people!

I have just bought and installed a cloaking device. It makes my ship nearly transparent, I hear the nice "cloaking activated" message, but the enemies can still target and shoot at me. Am I doing something wrong? What's the point of the device, then?

Hi!

My name is Gustav and I have already introduced myself on the Paragon forum but then fluffyfreak contacted me and told me Pioneer is really in need of more art and willing to changes things artistically.

That made me really interested because why I even was interested in helping Paragon was that i thought it as Pioneer but caring about the look of the game too. But now that fluffyfreak explaind to me about Pioneers situation I think I should be here if you now want me. I work allot so if I am going to spend almost all my free time on trying to make Pioneer look better I want to join the team. Would like to change some things out and maybe delete some ships and object so the style is coherent. Of course we discuss everything but just so you know my idea is. Will start too make more things if i get a green light. 

Here some things I threw together today. Thought maybe a background for the main menu and a ship design enjoy!

Couple of new models to go along with Shadmar's work on mining.

Mining Pod;

This is the basic vessel operated by mining corporations, it's a high capacity manned mining ship designed to operate under all conditions. Normally they operate in small groups with the help of small mining support vessels.

Mining Drone;

Designed to execute small scale independent mining operations, these drones can be launched from any ship equipped with a standard drone bay, and are able to operate autonomously for limited periods of time.

*** UPDATED 19.06.2013 ***

Hi,

I have played the game and reached my first visit to the planet Yarent. From then on, I was getting series & series of game crashes like those:

-------------------------------------

Precursors.exe caused an EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION in module vital.dll at 0023:55041852, t_staticmesh::WindowToLocalOrigin()+0018 byte(s)

Registers:
EAX=0018B974  EBX=0018B870  ECX=00004809  EDX=0018B7BC  ESI=00004809
EDI=0018B9D4  EBP=0018B904  ESP=0018B76C  EIP=55041852  FLG=00210206
CS=0023   DS=002B  SS=002B  ES=002B   FS=0053  GS=002B

Call stack:

(...)

-------------------------------------

The cause was:

When running the game, Precursors will write cache files into User\Documents\Precursors\CACHE

These files are updated as soon as you quit the game and may corrupt with new saves after re-installation or moving new content in the SAVE folder.

The solution:

If for whatever reason you want to backup your save files, be sure to backup the WHOLE Precursors folder in Documents, and not only the SAVE folder.

If you encounter game crashes like above and you cannot play further after loading a Quicksave or normal Save, do the following:

- Load your corrupt Quiicksave or normal Save

- Quick save the game immediately before it crashes with F9

- Quit Precursors

- In the Documents\Precursors folder, delete all the files in the CACHE folder

- Delete these 3 files in your game folder Precursors\CACHE\PC:

SHADERCACHE.DAT

SHADER_CODE_CACHE.DAT

LINEARTEXTURES.DAT

After that, load your newly saved game and there should be no constant crashes anymore, except some rare sound driver related crashes. Quicksave your game often!

XenonS

After fixing my savegames (see other thread), I went to a planet, and guess what: The Chase Tutorial came up!

The Chase Mode works

XenonS

Yes it another StarWars Battlefront game although this time it's being done by Dice, little bit about on it RPS  http://www.rockpaper...rs-battlefront/

Kickstarter for tradewars http://www.kickstart...y-mmog?ref=live something strange going on here as they have 24 backer and $33K and still 26 days to go?.

Might be something about in the vid as I did not watch it.

Hi!

My name is Gustav Beije and I must say Paragon really looks like a lovely project and i have been following it with high interest the last couple of weeks. I love pioneer but can't stand the incoherent art style and Paragon seems to fix that. 

I would love to join the development team on this project because it exactly the kind of game i would like to help making.

I am a 3d artist so I threw together a ship yesterday so you can see my style. If like it I would love to join and then I could spend more serious time on my ships to make them look better.

So yesterday I was wondering around Game looking at their very small selection of PC games when I notice that they now have the Ouya on pre-oder.

http://www.ouya.tv/discover/

Any-one thinking of getting one, no good for me as it's a download only console, see that their is a couple of space games in the games list including a version of vendetta.