Notifications
Clear all

Phoenix

Page 1 / 3

Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

This guy leaves out no opportunity to advert for his tard.

No.
I just like to let the old thread in "Pioneer" die, most likely i would like to open a own topic. But i will ask for such yet before i started to modify the source. As long as "Phoenix" is a unaltered "alpha 31" this is as good as.
Problematic is abit the blog style here and it would make sense to have several threads under the the topic "Phoenix" instead to post all in one endless thread.

Not much to post, i just liked to open it, next will be the importing of vuzz's collection into "Phoenix" and some old ships which lurk around on my hd.

usually i don't use them mixed, either the scripted only from Phoenix, the FFE ships (scripted or "solid"), or the SW mod or any other pack with ships that fit to each other or other small modifications.

Personally i don't like all mixed like it was in Genesia. SW doesn't fits to FE2 and Phoenix won't fit to either, Tom Morton's original ships will work with the content of Phoenix but won't fit to SW or FE2 just from the style of ships.

Personally even if i started that many years ago the SW ships are most senseless. It might work as a complete mod changing almost everything even the scripted systems and the home system. Of course it won't be SW, it neither is FE2 or anything else that's one of the great features of original Pioneer to be flexible as a rubber and imho far to much is already depending on the developers ideas, "do it as i demand or forget it" imho it was never ment to be this way. We still spend a lot of effort in details and there is dstill no game to play - vice versa would be far better.

Of course most time i spend with my models, that's what i can do easy the rest is hard work.


Quote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

So here's the first update to "Phoenix" in this new thread.

Mayor changes:
- replaced the scripted buildings with wavefront versions for better performance
- added 17 ships from former Pioneer releases
- removed the amiga modules tunes to publish them as "mod" to respect the licensing of "Pioneer". (the tunes would be PD)
- removed all translations except "english" from the modules because i don't like to keep all languages updated to my changes to the modules.
(it should work otherwise to but strangewisely it failed for the "delivery" missions when i changed only the english translation thus i decided to remove all translations to stay on the safe side and to spare me a lot of boring work).

Minor changes
- refinement of the "deliver package" an "scout" mission timespan (interplanetary, for the extraplanetary missions i still don't know exactly how to solve this).
- changed the "delivery" missions cargo from "rubbish" to "consumer goods".
- added info for the mission cargo weight
- "deliveries" will check for free cargo space and report if error.
- "deliveries will show local missions distance in AU in the mission details screen (have to implement this to "scout" to)
- proper adding, removing and reporting of failed mission for mission cargo status

Perspective (short timespan)
- adding distance in AU to the adverts of local deliveries, either in the advert titles or the advert details.
- probably adding of possible mission weight to the advert details (i'm not sure if i should do this, on the other hand you will know after a couple of missions how much thir possible cargo will weight because it's always the same mass for the same choice, i thought about to give the "moving home" a random mass from 1 to 10, i could do the same for the other choices from to 0 to 1 ton (except for "documents") then it would make sense to show the weight in the details because you won't know it else)
- adding a secret mission to "deliveries" which will only rarely pop up when you accept a mission and it will offer you a illegal deal (idea from "Ports of Call", a crate with weapons for 100'000 bucks with the risk of a quarantaine delay because of rats on board, one day late in PoC is easy fined with 100'000 and you can still risk to be fined for the smuggling but sometimes he offers you a million this happens only if you always say "no thanks". the idea is good such little things relly can make a difference)
That mustn't be weapons it can be anything from a table of possible illegal goods and they will be fined as usually or probably i let the player be intercepted by police already if he enters the system with the illegal goods by a certain chance. probably this good is always illegal because of the type of mission (even if i.e. firearms are legal illegal owning, selling, smuggling isn't). in future i like to let such depend also on the character and not only on lawlessness of a system, though if lawlessness is low you probably still can smuggle undetected if you don't repeat this to often (even a undetected smuggling can lower your character, you can gain by good serving or donate some millions. this is something the player mustn't see, either you know by yourself if you are good or not). it will rarely happen probably twice in a hundret times.

- adding more delivery choices? (gimme a hint - got one, what about "live animals" though it would only work if you have a cargo by life support. the shuttles have unlike the fighters the possibility to fit one, they have 10 tons extra space for equipment but it will have a big hit on performance and fuel consumption if you last out the possible capacity of the shuttles)

besides, the "abuse" of "capacity" for equipment mass has some small drawbacks, not all scripts respect this fully, usually you would check in a simple way for free carg and this will be the free capacity but if "cargo" and "capacity" aren't the same it will return the wrong value if you request this like i did for the mission weigth, thus i had to use a bit more detailed way to request the free cargo space and not the free capacity of the ship. i know it isn't intended to use it this way, but i alway wondered why we have two values if they have to be the same. if abused in this way it adds extra capacity only for equipment it can't be used for cargo.
i added this as standard behave of my ships especially under a total mass of 100 tons and added the drives mass to the capacity in the sense of that the drive has a reserved space in the ship and lasting a ships cargo capacity out will result in a performance and fuel consumption hit.

i experienced that large ships are very hard to handle and refined a little the angular thrust and lowered fuel consumption, they need to be tried out, usually i play and never made enough money to buy me a ship above 100 tons capacity. and just to check them with a cheated game isn't the same as if you use a ship in a career, only this will show you the exact performance.

must be because i don't like the large transporters, i have to find something to make them attractive in the game, even in FE2/FFE i rarely used them or only at the very beginning a hundered years ago when i liked to fly every ship of the game. a lot of virtual credits won't make me happy, not even the real ones make me really happy. a mission like "deliver whales from a to b", do something good or evil with the 1000 tons cargo capacity and not only sell 1000 tons of whatever.

but as first step i'm happy i can add the "secret mission", it will be not that exclusive yet and happen more often because i have to test it.
probably (this went right now to my mind) it would be a good idea to add this also to the "taxi" missions.


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

As first the updated "Phoenix"

Phoenix 20190319

(i moved the stuff to my one drive because i have a lot more space there as on drop box. i hope you have no troubles downloading it)


Geraldine liked
ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

A lot of music which apart from not being CC-BY-SA 3.0. compliant they will boost uselessly the games size (some additional 500MB) .

Mod Music Amiga

(plus some midi tracks,
the mod could be used also in a recent pioneer if the "music player" module would be fitted to the new genre "intro" which simply plays some suitable intro music when you start the game by default "pioneer 1" and "pioneer 2" it could be used otherwise as well but won't play the intro music)


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

Finally some problematic vertical aligned ships to use by choice
(Atomic, Comet, Stardust)

Mod Retro Ships 20190319

the "Orion" i removed recently completly, this ship has for a unknown reason a very bad performance and results in a extreme low framerate already in the modelviewer, the reason isn't to clear to me, probably the many animated billboard lights.


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

The rest of ships which was part of former Pioneer release or Genesia:

Mod Ships Pioneer 20190319


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

The list of ships which are new to "Phoenix" and which i moved to the "Pioneer Ships" mod

http://spacesimcentral.com/forums/topic/genesia-ship-models-for-phoenix/#post-112766


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

The first fix in the new thread.

I've overseen a misspelling in the "Bloodrunner" skript which prevents it from running proper in the game. As soon as you like to fit a "radar mapper" the game will halt because of the non existing sub-model "antenna" which i renamed to "mapper".

I know Notepad++ would offer me the possibility to check for this and change it in all files in a directory or even in the sub directories.
I didn't like to use it to heavy, i used it quite often to fit the models to my new project last autumn but ran into a dangerous error. An image can contain a path under certain circumstances a part of the path can reflect the word you like to change in all files present. The program simply runs through all data and searches for the entered string if found it will be changed to what you gave advice to. this could be unfortunately also an image and a lost quite an amount of images due to such, the images was all corrupted after the proggy stupidly changed all entries even those in images or any filetype.
Because i rate this now as dangerous and don't like to use it if possible. such can easy corrupt all files in the whole project.

However here's the fixed "Phoenix"

edit: not yet 😉

There is no warranty that it won't contain more such tiny bugs and of course i will appreciate it much if you report them. The quite large amount of ships i added in this short timespan can easy contain still some bugs.


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

Here it is 🙂

Phoenix 20190320b

Phoenix has now a sort of branding for the ships, it's not as cool as the one in Pioneer, itfrom the models side and i have to attach the brands for each ship seperately neither this is reflected in the game, but i liked to have a brand for the ships which will tell who was the creator of the model.
SolCommand has no image yet
Tom Morton is symbolized with what walterar chose for it, the Lion i covered from the


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

Ishtar Gate

I'm not sure where he got it from but i used the Lion when i communicated with Tom via e-mail as border artwork. And well i don't know who else can know that it has a relation to Tom as Tom himself.

But probaly it was me and i forgot this fact.

Dan's creations show what i formerly named as ACME the flying lady in front of the heart.

My own creations simply show the recent Phoenix badge.

SolCommand as designer has certainly his own badge or symbol, i will look out for it.


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

Little news to post

Like i assumed it was the "Turner Class" which prevents the FFE ships mod from running proper. After i used a diff. drive (class5 common) the problem has vanished.

Recently i'm working on the FFE ships mod to extend it to the FFE mod i had once, including the factions & systems from FFE. Of course it can't be identical but as close as possible.

Further i started to collect the existing FFE ships i have in wavefront format (adder, cobra, sidie, courier etc) in a seperated ship mod to add to the FFE mod.
They will replace the relevant ships in the FFE mod with higher detailed ones or simply FFED3D conversions, they still could be made very quick if one likes. You can take the direct-x mesh for "Pioneer" you just have to sclae it up 10 times which is quite quick done if you open such a mesh in text format. The top level frame contains a string like this:
1.000, 0.000, 0.000, 1.000
0.000, -1.000, 0.000, 1.000
0.000, 0.000, -1.000, 1.000

if you change this to
10.000, 0.000, 0.000, 1.000
0.000, -10.000, 0.000, 1.000
0.000, 0.000, 10.000, 1.000
then it's scaled 10 times up
should be

depending on how the animation is made this must be changed to
because if the scale in the anim points to 1 it will be scaled by 1.
but usually one can erase the scale value of the animation data because we don't need it. It depends how it was exportet (some scaled parts with the anim then you lost), most export scripts blatantly export all keys for pos,rot,scale, some like the one i had for blender 1.49 only the channels you set, which is cleverer imho (one of the never replaced and never reached user skripts of 1.49, the x. exporter for "idiots" which never fails to do exactly what you commandet).
Just you can only use one material for FFED3D models, first because they use only one, second Pioneers importer doesn't respects materials of .x meshes. does and doesn't, i guess it works in text format but not for binary meshes. I'm not sure that's a bit a tohouwabohou in release 31, likewise that it didn't respects truely the material library files of wavefront, it only respects the textures for LMR while it has worked once, it does it halfaways for SGM (but the names of the materials could be taken from the .obj file itself only for this, if you don't respect the material setting in the lib it makes no sense to use it, using it only half for the textures and to specify only the material in the .model file makes neither sense. either one, either matlib and i don't ave to care in the .model or only .model and i don't need the crippled used matlib),

and there was this mistake to take the material ID instead of the Name for collada in 31 (which means that i have to edit the export for pioneer31 so it will even work in the recent release with the same .model file), and even if i use the latest blender version the collada export of blender leaks a lot, means it doesn't exports the materials at all if i didn't export it first wrong "textures" instead "materials" then if i export it a second time setting "materials" the materials are listed in the exported mesh, argh.

Added the cargo to the delivery missions advert so you see now how much it weights if (assumed you read the mission text). Next will be the interplanetary distance in AU, i guess it can be useful to know this in advance.

ah yes i noticed a little mistake in the new Sidewinder i made for Geraldine.
I missed a material thus it will leak of one, nearly not to notice but since i know it i have to fix it.

that's because i converted it back to use for LMR and while i was disassembling the mesh based on the materials i noticed that one material isn't assigned. it doesn't differs much to the skripted one i made but differs much to the far simpler version i made this winter and i liked to see if i can gain a few fps, but for ships it isn't that relevant as for buildings as i thought already. It still needs at least a landing gear and this costs most of the fps, in fact more as to exchange a skin dynamically and the respective geometry. It's because a landing gear consists of multiple sub-models and even an unanimated static called sub-model has a higher impact as a 1000 dynamic drawed tris.

imo this shouldn't be but i experienced that.


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

further i noticed that if i dump the models using gl-xtractor i get two collision meshes out of one, that's weird/wrong.
(if i dump only the collision mesh)
gl-extractor dumps the screen no matter what it is if it runs through open gl. i can even dump a 3dfx game if i use a open gl driver for the virtual card.
looks a bit weird (the scene of streets i.e. is in 2D, you only get the sides exported facing to you and they are all on the same plane) but it just dumps what is drawn to the screen. I assume this doubled collision mesh must be an error of Pioneer31.


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

some news

i signed to frontier.forums (again).

phoenix' first thread is here:
who is me and why i lurk around here


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

TWO YEARS!

 

And nothing happened 🙂

Which isn't true, i worked a lot on useless DOS stuff, a whole DOS(Box) games environment.

But recently i picked up the remnants of "Phoenix" and...

screenshot 20201110 235835

...fixed the Space-Station and added a torus. As next i will build a third version on this basic space-station, it will have four domes instead of the torus.

I noticed my Courier was lost in deep space so i picked up that ship to and prepped it for the use in "Phoenix". Most Wavefront based models i partially lost in general i haven't much interest to use them in "Phoenix", FFE ships for the FFE mod will be rebuild as scripted geometry for "Phoenix" also the Imperial Courier / Trader.

screenshot 20201103 102847

Recently the Courier has again red/blue glowing tips if you rather like the acid green ones (or have a diff. idea) let me know. The body color is variable in the FFE hull colors i use for fighters (steel, blue-steel, green-steel, red-steel, gold, copper) instead of just "silver" or "gold" (the fighter colors don't vary to much it's all steel-grey more or less). This Courier will stay as a mod and won't be part of "Phoenix" since i still have the idea not to use a single wavefront object or any other sort of mesh except scripted geometry for "Phoenix" (still the pilot is an wavefront object but i already planned how to build the head 😉 )

 

Else not much has changed for "Phoenix" and recently i'm up to make a demo clip to show off what differs to "Pioneer" respectively how you start a career in "Phoenix" or to reach the goal to return to sol which is the recent plot for "Phoenix", make some cash, buy an autopilot, make more cash, buy a better ship which gets you out of the far off system, make again some cash and fight down some fugitives or pirates (i have the idea to distract the player from the general mission to find his way to sol, means i don't have to you will distract yourself, it's a long way home). In contrary to "Pioneer" you won't need a co-pilot to fight the enemy ships, the lowering of the ship specs will help you (i kept all in a reasonable range between 5G and 12G when fully loaded which makes all ships less agile but will give you a little advantage over the AI, the vice versa to let the ships accelerate with "i don't know what kind of acceleration" 24 - 30 - 40 G is not only useless it hinders you from having any chance against the AI). I fought down a couple of fugitives and i won each battle, sometimes quite easy. SO in "Phoenix" you will fight and not an AI co-pilot against the AI offender which is in my humble opinion just lame (you still can hire a co-pilot but it isn't really needed)

 

The Space-Station is not completely tested out, i have no idea if it already works if a dock is occupied and still sometimes ships (can) hang in the entry resp. when they leave the station, i assume the aren't fueled or they can't enter because it's occupied but states "port free". Unfortunately a lot of sliders have been disabled in the release of the modelviewer i use and i can't check any other ports animation as "port 1" (same for the models all sliders was disabled except "scanner", why i still can't understand, let's assume "someone slipped" (before i have to assume it was done willingly 8 years ago to give me headaches)

I planned a new city (recently it's still in my nut) which, as i hope, will fit to both "outdoor" and "rocky" worlds.

 

Ach ja

A new logo, while i'm not fully satisfied with it

phoenix b l

At least it differs more to "Pioneer" as the one before.

An old comrade

2020 10 24 173527

Geraldine liked
ReplyQuote
Geraldine
(@geraldine)
Rear Admiral Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 3446
 

Gernoooooooooot!!!!!! Great to see you back! Hope you are keeping well my friend! 🤗 

Sputnik in Pioneer? Why not? Braben put in the Voyager probes, along with a few others, in ED


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

Really? (confound these ancestors.... they've stolen our best ideas!)

Something i like to do with it, repair? perhaps, the Sputnik is tiny enough to be scooped (50cm diameter, longest extension 3m).

Or i can hide the "probes" (i have once planned to create more) in a range of a couple of sectors to the player and lead the player with hints to the system where the "artefact" is to find. But this is future music, as very first i still like to have interplanetary taxi missions, this will speed up the gameplay at start when you need to gain the money for an autopilot. Recently in a "good" system (where the distance is around 1000AU between two stations) you can gain up to ¢1000 with one flight this is quite OK, but in other systems if the distance is blelow 100AU you will need 10 to 20 postal service missions to make the cash for an autopilot or a radar-mapper to pick scout missions. The "scout" and "postal" missions i altered already to respect the varying interplanetary distances because it has no use to add a fixed value like 40 days, for some systems this will be far to less for others far to much time, the recent calculation is based on the "Shuttle" that it should be possible with most other ship to reach it in shorter time (by subtracting a gaining amount of time as longer the distance is, longer distances need relatively less time as a short hop).

If you have the autopilot you will need again a boring 20 - 50 missions until you have the cash for a better ship which can bring you out of the far off system you are in. Interplanetary taxi and perhaps additional scout missions should help to shorten that. Maybe you remember the "Shyrkay" (that bird like thing) still lurks around unused, i had in mind to use it as "space-animal" which should orbit gasgiants, in general the idea is NOT to shoot this animal, but it's to guess of a high profit therefore a high impact on character or a high chance for crime, otherwise it probably could be done vice-versa and you will have protect it from being shot wherefore you would receive a reward.

But that is really future music, to be honest i have some problems with mission scripting, it's damned complicated. I miss the early mission scripting system which was far easier, more limited but that wouldn't matter. As more complicated it got as less chance there is to chain missions to a longer task.


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  
Spoiler
Bla bla bla :)

While i'm waiting for an upload...

screenshot 20191126 021849

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cwu48imrulmhzho/HOLST_PLANETS-2-II_VENUS.mp3?dl=0

The track is a MIDI sequenced by "anonymous" and it was converted to mp3/ogg using "Fatboy" soundfont and a special GM@MT version on Munt (MT-32 emulator)

The MIDI (complete "Planets") plus a special DOS player (using "Bristlehog"'s "PX" player which is based on Miles AIL2 drivers used in general in the period '90 - '93) i will link to a clip of mine or post in a diff. forum. It will look like this:

2020 11 11 032340

The player (DOS resp. DOSBox) can play the MIDI using various sound-fonts or emulator(s);

2020 11 11 032402

All what you see here is possible with "DOSBox ECE" which has "Fluidsynth" (supporting sound-fonts) and Munt (MT-32 emulator) implemented, alternative you still can specify "win32" and use any external virtual MIDI synth (i.e. Virtual MIDI Synth) or Emulator (i.e. Munt standalone). The wrapper will check for present sound-fonts and lists only the ones he finds (in a given directory). In general "Fatboy" is to prefer but one might like a different.

Using DOSBox and PX you have the "advantage" to listen to your MIDI on an emulated OPL3 chip, if one likes that, this is rather exclusive and mostly only possible due to "PX" and the AIL2 drivers as they was used for DOS games. It includes A sysex to program the MT-32 to General MIDI specifications and a little extra i found in SimCity, a ready to use driver which emulates GM on a MT-32 it has a slightly different sound as when you use the GM@MT sysex. The MT-32 is a pre GM standard MIDI device but fully programmable and was often used up to '93 for games. One of them is Frontier (if you ever wondered why the music sounds wrong in FE2) which of course uses the same player as you see here (just with different images, but the player is meant for all my games MIDI and other as well, it is even possible to load any playlist to the already running player it will also change the graphics and probably even the used sfx - for all this i needed so much time i guess i have a repo of at least 500 sfx, from "beep" to "zock" most i made once for my GACK projects). I also use Munt often to listen because it has a unique very saturated sound even when the instruments sound sometimes a bit artificial. Besides the vice-versa to play a MT-32 (SMF, Standard Midi File) on a GM compatible synthesizer is nearly not possible, a) you can't program a GM/GS synth. b) the instrument set differs to much, many instruments are not present in the GM set, in principles you would need for each file a special emulation, GUS MegaEm can play SMF of course it can't reproduce the programmed sfx (if) but dynamically assigns the proper instruments to the GUS to play a SMF. Unfortunately it won't work with FE2 because this game needs all the DOS resources and kicks out any TSR which runs in background (almost any). Besides if you ever wondered, it is not uncommon that SMF had the suffix .ROL (like for FE2), in this case .ROL doesn't means an AdLib .ROL file it labels a SMF file which is exactly like any .MID with the difference of the used instruments (the annoying "Tinkle Bell" in the FE2 intro is in fact a "Timpani" already this is a extreme difference and instead of a bell where it doesn't belongs you will hear a fat drum, the "Saxophone" is in fact a "Trumpet", Strings stay mostly Strings, "Seashore" which isn't to hear at all turns to "Orchestra Hit"). You can identify a SMF by a probably present system exclusive command starting with "Manufacturer = Roland data ..." (41 10 16 12 7F 00 00 01 F7 is the reset command for the MT-32) If a file doesn't contains this then a captured MIDI from the game will for sure if it's a SMF because the MT-32 needs to be reset and awaits then a programming or MIDI data. If it doesn't contains this or "Roland SCC-1" (41 10 42 12 40 00 7F 00 41 F7 is the GS reset) then it's GM/GS. Many games you might have never thought the MIDI are meant for the MT-32, i.e. "Lotus III" which also sounds completely stupid on a GM/GS synth. Often the files itself do not contain any system exclusive data, it will be send only once at start of the game to the synthesizer thus it's not needed to have them on top of each MIDI but they will be present in a with DOSBox captured MIDI stream. In case for FE2 that is this little: "Manufacturer = Roland data ..." the reset, "Roland MT-32, write to 100016 ..." the reverb "on, 2" setting.

Perhaps i open here on SSC a thread with DOS wrappers for a handful of space related games (only the wrapper with the extracted MIDI but without game, this everyone should find for himself). The wrapper is set up to run from an USB drive or any other external drive or directory you will it unpack to. The wrappers have the general advantage that you can select in advance with which sound you like to play the game, in case for FE2 i have even created a set of GM MIDI while of course without MT-32 no sfx and only stupid instrument chords as sfx (you should hear the engine on the MT-32 it's a very loud sound).

 

Here's a uncut, undescribed and uncommented first mission in "Phoenix" (about 1hr):

 


ReplyQuote
Cody
 Cody
(@cody)
Captain Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1953
 

Hey Gernot - ça va?

 

Oolite Naval Attaché


ReplyQuote
Geraldine
(@geraldine)
Rear Admiral Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 3446
 

Great to see, what I call, a classic build of Pioneer based on the Alpha 31. Thanks also for the "Venus track", that was really well done. My guess would be that whomever did it was a "sceaner" back in the day as they often did their takes on classical music like The Planets.

 

A nicely executed series of manual burns there Gernot, you have not lost your FE2 touch! Also really liked how the "Hair Dryer" was drawn into the hangar at Chayyam's End. Your station designs were always cool. 😎 

Oh! That reminds me, didnt Marcel do some code for landing lights some years back. If I remember right, the lights would sequential towards the center of the landing pad. That's about the only improvement I could suggest to add to your great Phoenix build here.

This post was modified 3 years ago by Geraldine

ReplyQuote
Pinback
(@pinback)
99 Star General Site Moderator
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 9066
 

Welcome back Gernot66, it's been a while.


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  
snapshot20201111135909

 

ça va chouia 🙂

http://spacesimcentral.com/community/postid/58649/


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

Oh! That reminds me, didnt Marcel do some code for landing lights some years back. If I remember right, the lights would sequential towards the center of the landing pad. That's about the only improvement I could suggest to add to your great Phoenix build here.

Similar to the lights on the orbiter? it's possible, in fact a sneeze. For groundstations i have to be more cautious about framerate as for an orbiter which is the single object in a wide range to display, groundstations come with a city and this lowers the framerate already. But a couple of lights should be no problem. The recent orbiter model lowers the framrate already in the modelviewer by 50%, it's caused by the repetitive use of the segments for the torus, the station itself hasn't so many polys but the torus segments are a treat. I couldn't or didn't liked to use a lathe like for "big crappy" because this i can't texture well and i can't place windows in a reasonable manner on the torus, the centrifugal force works to the outside of the torus, that means the artificial gravity works to the outside and rooms and everything will follow this, that's also why the "forest" (or what is meant as) looks towards the inside of the torus. A third orbiter will follow which has instead a torus four domes at the end of the spokes. A tube station like i made a couple of years ago i won't redo, it was to large. Somewhere is a clipping limit, this i found out when i rebuildet the "orbital city" from FE2 the station didn't worked and i had to remove the collision mesh from the large bulks of the "city" (since this change even s20dans "artificial hollow world" even won't work anymore - changes which limit possibilities and clamp ideas which i never really understood, i always felt like: "we don't like so we restrict because we can" but i don't know).

"Chayyam's End" (names can easy vary, just one little change and it's no longer "Chayyam" and becomes "Jameson" or whatever) is the Dome station, i could guess of something better as to "magically slide the ship in". Right yesterday i was guessing if a little tractor wouldn't make it more reasonable (or something like a treadmill). But indeed this type of groundstation could make use of additional landing fires. The dome if you remember was a "notgedrungenes" a design of necessity, i just followed the idea to have a station which can be on any hostile or outdoor planet.the height of the dome is to high, i planned it back then to hold even an upright standing rocket, but since i have no more such ships in "Phoenix" the height makes no sense anymore. A cube of 120x120x120 is in general my limit and 100x100x100 is also the limit for space-ships. A spherical ship like the recently abandoned "Galactical Cruiser" in this size can hold easy 1000 tons. Abandoned it is because it's still untextured, bad to texture (spheres and i can only project and not unfold the mesh), uses to many polygons and has a certain impact on framerate, it is to large also for the needs in "Phoenix", in the end and in the way the game is transporters are the least you like to buy.

BUT, i have planned a new sort of transporter, easy build like the FE2 transporter and modular like the shuttle-hairdryer-sightseeing, sorta counsel i can use for let's say three different sized transporters.

Since i still can't differ buildings for hostile and outdoor worlds i have the urge to change all buildings and leave only the hostile-port for all while the buildings will change from skyscrapers, offices and industrial buildings to something more futuristic, domes and similar which makes some reason on both type of worlds, i hate to see skyscrapers on a moon or planetoid. On the other hand the recent buildings look quite orderly, and i optimized that already a bit by giving them similar sized collision meshes (floor only, the floor marks the space it will use in "Pioneer" and there are some limits or classes of sizes one can say). This forces the buidings to have mostly the same distance to each other and this lets the city look more orderly as if every building has a different size and uses a different spacing. What i elaborated here i can use in a future city, i know now which distances work, that i can give them the same distance to each and i could even connect buildings to a larger area. Similar to my experiment i made years ago i could also size the ground plate up and connect them to a city level where you won't see the planetary ground, but for outdoor worlds i'm quite satisfied with what i got. I wrote i found a new inspiration "R. Buckminster Fuller" idiot as i am i haven't known him before but he is a very interesting architect and visionary.

No, it won't be all lost i can still use the skyscrapers for FFED3D, i just haven't yet but will do so because FFED3D leaks of many buildings and when i peeped into the game right now i felt they don't have to reflect the original ones. FFED3D buildings (like the ships) are inconsistent in size, the size is chosen by optic and not by reason (and by the fact that all meshes are build with integer numbers only and scaled afterwards to something close to reasonable). When you use some of my buildings there is one a small tower with two domes, this building is "in reality" quite high, about 80m (in SC2K where i use a rendering of this building it uses the complete height i have for buildings - yeah i know Gernot renders buildings for SC2K in the size of 128 pixels and less, it's a good starting point for a own unique building design which looks somehow better as a drawn one) but it looks like a dwarf compared to the FFE buildings, they are all oversized and have sometimes an imagined floor height of above 20 meters or windows which are 20 meters high. It looks all in all reasonable in FFE but if you compare sizes you see it's inconsistent and mostly far to large. But i like to keep a reasonable scale and floor height should be around 3 meters, for industrial and commercial this can be extended to 10 meters but for sure no 20 meter high windows.

 

Operating manual for the space ship earth:

http://www.bfi.org/about-bucky/resources/books/operating-manual-spaceship-earth/chapter-1-comprehensive-propensities


ReplyQuote
Geraldine
(@geraldine)
Rear Admiral Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 3446
 

@gernot66

The first person I thought of when I saw the domes in FE2 back in the day was Buckminster Fuller. I guess Braben was a fan too eh Gernot? 😉 

And don't concern yourself over the lights as good framerates are always more preferable. The stations, and landing pads, still look great without them.


ReplyQuote
Gernot66
(@gernot66)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 522
Topic starter  

It won't have a big impact Geraldine.

Recently i discovered that Tom Morton still has his old project in several states on GitHub, the oldest version reaches 12 years back. That is when i moved in.

"What's the purpose?" one might ask, the purpose is that i can get rid of certain dislikes i have, it looks (i can't tell exactly actually) like i can restart at alpha10. The recent mission scripting exceeds my capabilities in the state it is (as well alpha31). It is to blown up to chain a couple of missions to a larger mission and it's horrible to script or alter just a bit, further i don't need to have 200 transcriptions in other languages, Phoenix is played in English 'cause English will be the only remaining language in 3200, pretty much it will be (i never played FE2/FFE in German, FE2-Pioneer-Phoenix isn't very complicated to understand and the used sentences are simple, must be to be generated if i can achieve this, there in lies also the problem with languages, it's quite easy to construct with English and a possible generation of sentences would 100% fail in a different language, just such nitpicking things as the article which has no gender). Also other functions which have been thrown out due to the neglect of the LMR, i often stumble over things which was possible but aren't anymore because the team prepared the remove of the LMR a long time before it was definitely removed. I really can't tell right now if that will help me or what i will use. Perhaps i restart at the earliest release i can obtain. It would be also somewhat fair and differ Phoenix more from the recent Pioneer. Sure i will lose tons of things which was developed since then, but i always liked to step back you know it. I will lose the face generation most probably and return to the noise in the screen, but i always had something a bit different in mind as the cluttered faces even if i like them. I will lose much of how the planets surface looks now, that has not only drawbacks sometimes i dislike the repetitive appearance they have, nine ciphers to generate them but only about 10 results with slight variations, but of the spiky asteroids we don't got rid, they still exist. I don't like to criticize s20dans work on them it's just that i think they are to repetitive. I will resurrect some old bugs but will avoid a couple of which later appeared. It will mean that i would have to review all of my model and function scripts on the other hand i get rid of the wrong mirrored "Z" projection plane which was altered due to a misunderstanding of right handed and left handed coordinate system. This error, this willingly implemented error, has always annoyed me - theoretically more - three years ago when i wrote the functions to texture automated it became a monster bug in reality and it happened what i promised, it's wrong as wrong can be and in this way i can't rotate an objects projection. to explain i don't need to rotate dynamical, but for perfection of the "texture projection function" i need to be able to tell with the 3x3 matrix from which angle i like to project, this is blocked because the Z plane works now inverted to the other two (what is + becomes -) and this prevents from a equal behave which i need to project from a given angle, especially i only like to enter "dimension, position, projection angle" and the object should be textured, it works but it only works as long as i don't project in angles, as soon as i like to tilt the projection angle it doesn't works anymore because one plane is inverted. This i elaborated when i made the function and started to use for this a cube and this texture:

test

When everything is proper the "0" position must meet in one vector of the cube, it doesn't do this if i use for all projections the same positive values, Z plane is negative. Recently in alpha31 and for all the rest it is wrong, it's just one won't recognize this and guess, and this was the fault, because blender uses the texture inverted to Pioneer, but blender has a right handed Pioneer a left handed coordinate system and the texture must be mirrored, also the models point in the "wrong" direction, in fact the model is inverted, quasi inside out thus the texture obviously has to be inverted to, due to the fact that they only inverted the Z plane the texture appears now to be right in blender but it stays wrong for the theory and not only for this it will be wrong as wrong if you start to use this theory in praxis. Well perhaps to peep in a old old explanation from the '70s about coordinate system, planes and texture UV would have helped (as i did when i started the texture calculator) but they never felt to listen to little me. A small nit picking thing with a high impact on the LMR, since it's no "stupid CAD". The stupidity i have to write myself, e.g. the texture calc, or rotation helpers but for this everything must reflect the theory and most of all the same coordinate system and not flip for one plane to the inverted coordinate system just because it appears wrong in the mirrored coordinate system, already the idea makes me angry, you don't change something vital which is rooted in the way we display meshes. Further i don't guess it can be made better as it was planned a long time ago, in fact there are no changes allowed to this. Cartesian coordinate system and the projection planes are a law and no suggestion.

 

So far for the lamento.

Unrelated to this i dig out a rather old project (at least three years old) and this it how it looks:

screenshot 20201118 150609
screenshot 20201118 150658

It leaks of a landing gear anim (in work) and a cockpit, what for do i have to mind about transporters, when i have one in the box?

It covers the by me intended max. bounding radius of 100m (slightly more) and has recently a capacity of 600tons (the hull is damaged because the hull mass and capacity was far lower when i saved the "test game" as when i reloaded it).

The only thing which is missing now is a team mate 🙂

But at least i have Geraldine who supports me.

---

Links:

I found interesting things in the web while i was looking for Tom's old website (it seems to be down now).

https://www.goodolddays.net/game/id%2C255/Frontier-Elite-2.html

(cool, my clips got somewhere else posted)

and this

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/12/06/back-to-frontier-pioneer/

Which brings back good and not so good memories.

---

screenshot 20201118 153216

Your suggestion for the landing pad firing has lead to a new idea i thought of to make a (in reality rather impractical as i've read) landing pad from hexagonal tiles, most will be lookalikes and a few will be lit (the '80s disco pad). Impractical because attempts to make a solar power road strip in such a manner clearly failed, the tiles are to fragile for such, under lit tiles will/would have the same weakness but it is 3200 and apart from antigravity everything works (even this if you look at my not to serious meant shuttles with poop deck, soda machine and coin-op, but in general i like to avoid the idea of "magical devices", thrusters should maneuver the ship not antigravity, else i don't need any thruster if i could make advantage of antigravity and the ship would fly in any direction with exactly the same acceleration. I i have antigravity i won't need rotating space stations with a ring, the rotation is only for the purpose of artificial gravity, the design was brought to paper almost a century ago. (while von Braun's wheel is very tiny, the center of the wheel is about the size of a manned capsule. It has the attitude to be realizable not like giant artificial moons of which we have no idea how long it would take to construct them and how and from where to get the material needed, already a station in the size as on my picture above would need a giant effort to build and is impractical in reality, at least to us).

Worst i have seen in an old game i dig out for the MIDI music, "Millennia".

Pardon me the questionable game is "Far Gate", it shows ships that crawl like a doo-dah through space, they wind their body to the left and the ship moves to the left, ridiculous, the ship would still move straight no matter where the rotational head points to. A total abstinence of any physics, looks like a fish which dives in the sea, it might look somehow good but it's impossible. Like for most, no near to all space games the ships have giant main thrusters and that's it, how they maneuver no one knows. One could imagine an antigravity device but this makes thrusters obsolete, but anyway it won't point his head in direction if the course to maneuver, not at all, such a ship could accelerate in any direction the same no matter which end or side points in which direction.

Pardon me Millennia is the rather Elite type of both:

ecgame 000

(The shot is titled "ecgame" because it runs in DOSBox ECE and not because it's an "ec" (easy) game).

The plot of Millennia is, as far as i understood that, to build up certain things for the alien race then they will let you go home. I haven't played it yet but it looks like a combination of strategy and space shooter.

It was the strategic game "Far Gate" with the winding ships, recently i can't show a screenshot of it because i need the CD-ROM or an image of it to run it.

The music of Millennia is quite good, space related MIDI with a own sound, a bit short because the tracks are loops. Wherefore the score of "Far Gate" is stereotype marching music no matter CD audio.

The cockpit of Millennia is inspiring, not as much the holographic alien as the fact that it rotates for each purpose, navigation, communication, battle panel all is in a different direction in a thought sphere, you actually see how the spherical cockpit rotates around you, really a good idea.

 

This post was modified 3 years ago 3 times by Gernot66

ReplyQuote
CaptainKal
(@captainkal)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 749
 

Millennia : Altered Destinies

 

https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/millennia-altered-destinies


ReplyQuote
Page 1 / 3