@brianetta

yes, yes, it's understood, no problem, it was ment as a hint for those who like to get some of them back already.

didn't we have a "realistic" space game already, what's the name of it? 😉

of course your'e right, but white and silver is boring imo (sorry), one of the reasons why i prefered frontier to (m)any other, coloured ships (at least a little bit of individuality). perhaps not very realistic (perhaps it's realistic who knows, some special cooling device?), but "cool" (visually).

it's a game and imo if you like realistic (almost) spaceships, well i guess i (we) have to turn everything upside down and a fighter would have at least the size of a "defender" (remember?) and had left only a few tonnes space for goods.

i guess "not to take the whole thing to serious" (or the balance between), separates good old fe2 from many other games we had in this genre.

i mean, small fighters which can carry a hyperspace engine and you survive that travel and topmost of all you arrive at the set target (but who can tell?), that's already a lot of fantasy...

or acceleration far above 10g in a common pressure suit... (let's discover the feeling of two dimensions) 😆

analogue instruments/displays (gauges) aren't realistic neither...

but i LOVE them

i guess that's a sci-fi related problem at all.

each decade in the past century and even now we imagine future technology from the pov of the decade.

in each decade we was guessing it could match, but none will imo.

respecting this (none will match), it doesn't matters what degree of technology i use (visually).

it was discussed often and perhaps spaceships in 3200 will be controlled without any visible device, at least we can imagine such since quite a while...

but not very funny to look at a ship build to conditions of space. a fighter shape isn't needed nor practical, i guess spheres or discs will make the match or ships that will look more like a space-station rather then a "airplane".

at least very limited in design...

imagine a movie like SW with realistic ships and realistic conditions...

would you have watched that movie?

would it had become a milestone in sci-fi?

there are other like kubricks 2001, but that's a complete different thing and you will agree that many find this movie extremely boring (i like it, i like the aspects of realism in this movie, but particulary for this movie/story).

kubrick found it risky to show extraterrestrial life, it was discussed and part of a manuscript for the movie, but has been cancelled (some kind of water-world, check for the screenplay versions, it's available as paperback). not realizable, not realistic in any way, how ever we imagine a inhabited extrasolar world.

@luomu

well i see it has changed a lot...

it runs but fails on loading sounds? (Error:Vorbis could not open data/sounds/interface/OK.ogg)

back to topic

viper_ch_nov2011_1.zip

police version would work to, but i have to remap the model, the texture is mirrored, seems like i didn't noticed it before...

anyway to get a cool police ship it must be separated e.g. the "static_ship" type.

what i did before (alpha11), was to name the ship called as police "POLICE" (internally) and specified the model "static_ship", while disabling all ships lower then 100t hull mass for the bulk ship module (and similar).

that's not the proper solution, but at least i had a (working) police ship and it never appeared in the shipyard.

[/hr]

something to put a smile on everybodys face

KlingHiFi.ogg

unfortunately i had to disable the local time... 🙁

...but still a lot of fun

i only miss the "sparklers" on this one 😆

bloodrunner_nov2011_1.zip

one thing i wonder,

was there a (good) reason to remove the textures from textures folder; poslight.png,beacon.png,null.png,smoke.png (cloud).

1st i miss them

2nd i had to remove (change) all old calls for them

3rd i miss the null.png, even if your's have no idea what it should be good for, i know what it's good for (just to trick a quasi light with "billboard" into a cockpit which has, doesn't need no local lighting. i can use "smoke.png" of course, but it needs no size neither a real texture or material).

[/hr]

now let's put all i have made so far together.

i even renamed the "pilot" folder so you can simply copy the folders over the existing ones (i'm a nube on the MAC, but it seems, unlike windows, it always replaces folders when pasting a folder over a existing. many folders contain only a updated scripts and no textures nor models, you will have to paste the scripts separate to the associated folder(s).

already posted models

hullcutter1_and_model_fixes_alpha15.zip, no renaming needed, it should run "out of the box".

courier_new_nov2011.zip

shift1.zip

viper_ch_nov2011_1.zip, almost the same as s20dans version, both models are named different. you can run both and decide later which you like to keep. Police version temporary disabled.

bld_ind_p66.zip, adds a small and a big terrestrial scanner model and some kind of industrial buildings, i've disabled some buildings in this script.

updated models:

- viper x, some small fixes, uses new pilot model (likewise all ships i posted now, pilot and other submodels in "Hullcutter" download)

viper_x_nov2011_1.zip

- ground station, new station model, little freaky train to carry some cargo, disabled my big torus monorail.

the ground station needs to be overhauled, some stuff isn't working yet (doors), but it's difficult actually to work on the models (no useful editor by now, modelviewer via wineskin is very lame). further it's planned to rewrite much as possible as scripted geometry, it will prevent from making .obj for each lod and keeps a better framerate anyway.

- "big crappy" , less doubled geometry, new texture, fixed labels and nav-lights (lights need testing, i had to remove os.clock(), now i'm not sure if all light's work proper, mainly the "running light" on the spokes, it's a very sensitive expression and if the clock isn't 100% precise it won't work proper. to explain this a bit, the distance and frequency is related to each other. it WAS made that it starts and ends always at the same point on the spoke and kept the same distance, synchronized to the frequency of the flashing lights).

ground_stations_p66_nov2011_1.zip

after all i feel the lighting has changed much, the "big crappy" wasn't that dark when i worked on the model using alpha11.

[/hr]

unfortunately i had to remove the "Bloodrunner", i didn't noticed before, especially because the author left no note in the model, it's under a "Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 ", means conversion and altering prohibited (why so ever, i checked the sketchup catalogue and noticed this now). but i don't like to act bad, pehaps i can ask him but he left neither no profile (hides from what?).

anyway, i thought to rebuild the model as a scripted geometry, actually i found some good resources on which i can use to build the model from scratch.

therefore i can freely add the "Planet Express" this modeler wasn't that eager to put a licence on a work which is neither his (imo).

planet_express_nov2011_1.zip

[/hr]

need some inspiration?

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/286589/top_75_spaceships_in_movies_and_tv.html

You're right, the big_crappy looks too dark in the picture. Much more realistic though. I've downloaded it and will test it out after work. Can't wait to see how those lights work. 😎

p.s. Cool spacecraft site! I couldn't check it out at home because it took too long to load, but at work I've got some speed, (and a crappy monitor). 🙂

planet express ......I HAVE GOTS TO GET ME ONE OF THOSE lol

Sorry potsmoke66, but I can't get it to run. I downloaded the ground_stations and bld_ind files and I get messages saying that ter_scanner and var_scanner_r are missing. What am I missing? Is there something else I must download?

it should, i tried on a maiden alpha15.

but you need to download the "Hullcutter" model to, it contains the new scanner models, they are used partwisely for ships and/or for buildings.

some might like to replace the old scanner model on their ships to perhaps.

sorry from me to, i thought it's offens, after i declared that most new submodels are in the "Hullcutter" download.

only the ones needed exclusively for the stations are included in the "Groundstation" zip.

it should run, but will leave a few doubled scripts and overwrite the spacestation.lua with a empty file, and moves the new spacestation.lua into the "spacestations" folder where the needed textures are.

Thanks, I'll install the Hullcutter tonight.

i have tried all of these .....i have to say they are awesome ........i can see the same as oolite and celestia happening here ......with people creating stuff from their fave sci fi shows to put into the game (cybertron in pioneer anyone lol) im not saying its a bad thing ..im saying its an awesome thing lol

Ok, installed Hullcutter and started a new game on earth. I got a good look at your ground station. I love the train! The elevator needs a cable, I think, and the train seems to pass through a solid wall in the center on my video card that doesn't do shaders. Very nice work! I launched from Mexico City and set the autopilot for Gates. When I got near Pioneer crashed saying it can't find hull_1.png. I hate to be a bother, but could you please tell me where that file is supposed to be and in which download it should be found? (I'm using a stock copy of alpha15, btw)

There's a 3D model of that using Google Sketchup 🙂

Not sure how we'd get it into the terrain engine though 😆

lol ..me either ......especialy if you go the whole hog and have unicrons head as a moon 😆

marcel, i'm happy at least someone found something that didn't works 😉

did you tried to clear the model_cache?

i know the wall (fence) is a unsolved problem and will stay unsolved, especially when i rebuild the model as a scripted geometry.

btw, i have a depth problem to now, but i expect this is from the wrapper i use.

[/hr]

yes, of course the "Planet Express" is from sketchup, i guess i note that.

i guess he will like it, he enforces people to use it, i like that habit, especially if it's a model based on a movie or tv-series.

the idea is what counts imo, you can put as much effort in it as you like, it will never be your own creation.

but i respect if someone didn't likes when his models get altered and spread in the web, that's why i removed the "Bloodrunner" (Dr. Zarkovs Ship). i noticed to late that he didn't likes his model to be used somewhere else (which i really don't understand in this case).

but, it's a rather simple model and will be no big thing to make a scripted one from scratch in "no time".

however, it's rather a fun thing then a "real ship", just like the "planet express", i don't expect to see such in any pioneer release.

neither i would mind to remove my FE2 transcriptions from pioneer, when we have enough unique ship models.

in fact i would like to see a pioneer only with unique pioneer ships.

no need to cry 😉 they will be still available somewhere.

and yes, brianetta a set of "realistic" space vessels would be for sure a nice thing.... (with realistic accel. to?, no > 10g, relation between main thrust and lateral in a realistic range? !).

Problem is, no continious acceleration beyond anywhere than maybe a few mili-Gees is really in any range to be counted as realistic(TM). And you need a bloody NASA-grade autopilot to navigate at such low accelerations, so I wouldn't say that we should go too realistic with ship designs. It would completely alter the game's dynamics (apart from driving the devs crazy).

I'm kind of divided on the Frontier-ports issue. Pioneer would get more of its own flavour having only original ships, but on the other hand the Frontier vessels have a wide fan-base and people are already familiar with them. And we already have a lot of them. Add to that that most of the frontier vessels are more kind of re-imaginations, since their originals only provided siluettes, and the rest is original content by the modeller (I mean, compare Steve Tylers Viper with the original Viper... It really isn't quite the same ship, is it?), and I think there's enough grounds to build on the Frontier verse.

Indeed, the real question is if Pioneer should be a re-imagination of the Frontier verse (factions, background story, etc). If yes, then we can't do without the old vessels. If no, they shouldn't be in it.

i remember the timewhen pioneer was looked at as a frontier remake/re imagining .............. .......if that is still the case than to not re imagine the ships and storyline/factions would be insulting to fans of frontier since your already using the same interface and controlls/game physics engine

i think if you were gonna create a game of your own out of this you should start from scratch .......but as this game stands now you are already appealing to the frontier crowd so their is no harm in re imaging these other things to make them your own (that way they become yours).......im sure if i was david braben i would be honoured by this and it wouldnt have a problem

btw ........can i just state somthing here ...on the case of realism vs not

i am a physics and realism fan .......but not to the point where it detracts from gameplay .......its all to easy as a sci fi fan to pick holes in ANY form of sci fi film .....saying that coloured ships wouldnt be realistic .....

but im more the kind of guy to say that i dont care if somthing isnt realistic ......as long as its just fucking cool

to me the whole idea that humans will be able to colonise space in the way we do pioneer is bloody stupid in the first place (its going to be a military thing TBH)..........but im not moaning about it because im a sci fi guy over a realist any day and im only a realist when it comes to the tiniest of details ...not the bigger picture

i say space is dirty .....not because its real ....but because it makes spaceships look the shit .....used over sparkling any day i say

i say space is like the sea ....not because its full of space whales ....but because its full of ships, and is as unknown to us as the ocean once was, and because these ships would still need a command structure similar to the navy to be run properly ......so yeah ....having a galactic NAVY and colonial MARINES (even though their is nothing marine like about space) makes sence

i say its like firefly .......a new frontier to be tamed ....like the USA once was during cowboy times

i say we will form alliances with other races in exploration and war like star trek.......because its just what we would seek to do as a race (i dont care that we cant get along with our nearest neighbours ....... i know that if extra terrestrial life existed we would form one single council representative to deal with them and come together to approach them)

i say that even though space is 3 dimentional ....we will still only have ships that have the one front end and back end ........because thats what we do (i dont care if its wrong to look at it that way .......its just what we would do)

i even dont care that ships wouldnt have a top and bottom .....if ships existed in a artificial gravity well so people could walk around not float ....they most certainly would ......i dont care that its not real .....i care that its fun to think of these things ..........simply because i dont want to quibble about weather it is realistic for someone to just be able to simply take a shit in space

in short ....i dont think it hurts to be real ...but i think its better to just let your imagination rule you so that a game or film you make is fun ......otherwise its not science fiction ....its just science ....and science as a whole is interesting to me (to the point i like reading the cold hard facts) .........but boring as hell to use as a fun element of your life (game wise for example)

if i want facts ..i play about with celestia

if i want fun .....i play frontier 😆

All i tried to do with the viper was take the old form (the angles of the sides, the shape and proportion is basically identical to the old model) and make it look like something that was really being manufactured, and add details to perhaps make it more functional, as well as hopefully pleasing to the eye without making it a totally new ship.... To Slightly resculpt it to make it more realistic in the context of a 'HD' version of FFE - Remember the model was actually made for FFED3D and not pioneer. (I had nothing to do with its conversion to pioneer, or its unfortunate rescaling (it was designed for the larger scale used in FFE, i had nothing to do with adding that pilot model or giving it stats that basically made it the worst ship in the game - certainly in its class... last time i looked anyway. The poor thing has been quite abused by the pioneer devs. 😆 )

I see nothing wrong (for what its worth) with having reimagined classics alongside newer designs, the game will always be an homage to frontier, and has those elements simply resculpted in a more modern way - alongside newer stuff, so the philosophy should be the same with the ships.

As for me, i had more stuff in mind but i'm done with this anyway, since the few things i've developed for the game have never been added to an official release I don't really see the point. Also there's a huge number of models that are in now -, unfortunately most of them look terrible, but i feel if i were to replace some of them that i perhaps wouldn't be supported by anyone - i.e. they'd never make it into an official branch because they'd be displacing someone elses model (which to be honest i don't want to do either - i don't want to ruin anyones fun or overwrite their models) or perhaps just because its me making them. I'd like to make a really awesome Cobra or Asp and i could probably execute those models better than anyone else here, but they've already been done...

(I'm also not trying to piss anyone off or sound like i dislike anyone personally or suggest any deliberate persecution, I am not trolling as one or two other posters around here appear to be (whether or not their opinions are valid, there's no need to be unpleasant). i think my comments might be more cutting for one or two individuals and i don't like to feel that i'm doing that. It's why I don't comment here much either, i often feel if i'm being honest, its about stuff that people just don't want to hear, i'm not really interested in being too chummy with anyone on the (fairly small clique of a) dev team so I feel very much like i've always been on the outside looking in on a galaxy where coder is king and i think that has an effect on how i'm related to - Funny how i've made the odd suggestion in the past, it gets dismissed completely at the time (either the problem i'm talking about doesn't exist or its irrelevent or something) and months later i'll try a new alpha and see that my suggestion had been quietly implemented.:D)

Maybe thats the same for everyone else too, but its a shame there's no one with more graphics experience in that core group. Unfortunately graphics on the whole for the models its like a bunch of stuff thats been thrown in there as quickly as possible, and it shows. Stop referencing 10+ year old games for graphics ideas, modelling standards, etc. Perhaps don't even look at todays games, go and look at movies, at high detail models and high end concept art and try and convert that standard to a realtime model instead. Get as close as you can to the source... not the interpretations... All those 20 triangle models and wireframes from the old games were not a literal form imho, they were an interpretation of something that looked a lot better and as far as the player was concerned a jumping off point for the imagination.. because you really had to use your imagination and allow the suspension of disbelief to take hold.. those 16 triangles suddenly became a far more interesting, living ship - for me anyway.. at the age of 12.

But ya know it's still early days, I can see pioneer being developed for a *VERY* long time I hope that when I come back to pioneer in a couple of years then we'll see things done to a more consistently high standard perhaps more talent will come along and be granted a little more status and listened to a bit more. And if its well enough executed it doesn't matter if its entirely new or an homage to the old, as far as the ships go I just dislike the cheap conversions that are little more than the old model with new textures. I think the actual simulation of the ship needs to be looked into a lot more.. working cargo areas, 3d interior models, clickable cockpits (a bitmap overlay is so lame) and really make it the living breathing ship that forms the core experience of pioneer.. the ships are really the most important part.. they are your way of interacting with the galaxy.. and even if we can leave the ships and free-roam at some point, the ships are still the important part.. I hope we can one day free roam inside the ships and operate the doors etc... as you can inside the normandy in mass effect for example.

@Coolhand

Why haven't we gotten any of your work into the game?

I'd like to help with getting any of those, or other, ships into the game!

What would you need/like me to do?

Andy

That's pretty sad. I wasn't aware of that, the only things I saw from you for pioneer were the Viper (which is in) and the Sasquash, which is understandable that it didn't get implemented, since there's no place for ground vehicles. I didn't know that you did some other stuff, then again, I'm only lurking here from time to time and am currently more active because I want to experiment around with some playable content I would like to see added to the game.

I was hoping from time to time that you'd donate a few more models. The current models range from excellent (your Viper) over solid medium down to bearable and finally to downright unaxceptable, or at least far from finished. The problem I could see with someone of your caliber contributing more is that it will be difficult to get a consistant quallity into the game. I simply don't think there are lots of people that could live up to the high standards, so that some models just would stick out too much. After all, you can't do all of them. Still, I think it's not a good idea to discourage such a potentially invaluable asset to the project like you.

That's always the trouble when you have no clearly defined project leader (or at least designated areas of responsibility among the leaders) that says what goes and what doesn't. I think personal pride of contributors wouldn't be an issue when quality standards are clearly defined. Then again, to get a project like this on the road the devs have to rely on it that a lot of people will contribute some content, and if the quality requirements are too high, it will be difficult to get anything added to the game...

For what it's worth, I wouldn't mind if my model would get replaced with something more shiny...

As nice as that sounds, I think it's also allways important to keep track of what takes how much effort and how much it contributes to the playing expierience. Having really good ship models is certainly worth the effort, as the ship is basically your Avatar in the game. Having detailed interiors... probably not so much, considering the effort needed for it. The Normandy was just ONE ship, after all.

Who did you approach to have your work included? If you just posted it to the forum, it won't ever be put into the game. We don't go around the forum looking or content.

All content included with Pioneer must be released under a GPLv2 compatible license. We don't assume that work showcased in the forum is licensed that way. We can't make such an assumption.

The best chance you have of getting work into the game is to create an issue on the issue tracker on Github. Nothing on the issue tracker is ignored.

+1 from me too. Steve, you are a super talented guy. I recall on the Frontier forum when you first posted your Viper and thought at the time, "that's a beautiful render". When I later found out you could actually fly it in FFE, I nearly fell off my chair! 😮 If that wasnt enough, there was that wonderful cockpit you made too. Stunning stunning work.

Please reconsider withdrawing from the project Steve. It really needs people like you involved. You have the vision, you have the talent and I think I can safely say the admiration of the Elite community for the great models you have made so far. As for the variable quality of the existing models, everyone needs a benchmark to aim for. You could provide that benchmark and in so doing, raise the overall quality. Steve, I am very saddened to think those ships in your post above will never be seen in the game, they are beautiful 😥

Please reconsider. You help to make my dreams of Elite real

This forum is not a reliable way to get hold of the devs and offer contributions. If you want something included, make an issue on the issue tracker or contact someone (me) directly, who will do that for you. Everything on the issue tracker gets remembered and reconsidered every so often. If you don't do this, then you're trusting that someone will pick up your work.

For your stuff in particular, I have two of your contributions in my branches right now - some updated laser textures, and a mesh that could replace the laser point sprites. (issues #148 and #149 respectively). Those issues are still open, which means they're not forgotten. They're just waiting for someone with the time and inclination to implement them.

If you've done other stuff then either it got lost in the forum, or its on the issue tracker and I just don't remember right now. If it is on the issue tracker, go and check that the issue is still open. Give it a bump if you like so the appropriate people are reminded of it.

Something that does happen from time to time is that an idea comes up and doesn't seem like something that will work, but later when we're approaching a problem from a different angle someone will remember something someone said once and it turns out to be a good solution. I don't know specifically what you're referring to, but that has happened before. Its not bad thing.

Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but it sounds like you want to have lots of input into the game without the effort and responsibility that goes into that. Its just not possible. There are several people, myself included, who throw hours a day into managing and working on Pioneer - writing code, making models, discussing and fleshing out ideas, working the issue tracker and responding to feedback. Because these people are active and involved their voices are stronger than someone that makes the occasional forum post.

The vast majority of the discussion happens in the IRC channel. We welcome anyone that wants to get involved to join and contribute. I can understand that from the outside it might seem like a bit of a black box but at least its a black box that everyone can get inside. I can guarantee you that if you were in there regularly prodding people to implement something you need or asking for feedback, you'd get it quickly and your work would end up being merged. If you're not visible though then you get forgotten. Its that simple.

@Coolhand, I don't think you have to worry about stepping on anybody's toes if you redo the Cobra. 😆

Seriously, please stick around. I know the GitHub thing is rather bureaucratic and counter-intuitive, but if you have something you want added, I'm sure you can make an 'issue' of it. Didn't you do that cool panel upgrade that got lost in the aether a while back? I'd like to see that in the game too. As for quality standards, I'm a total amateur at this stuff. For me this is a challenging and rewarding hobby. I'm learning as I go along, and if you leave and come back in a couple of years, I hope you'll find my stuff to be marginally acceptable. 😉 Tomm threw together some models for Pioneer so he could have something to work with, hoping that some real modelers would step up and provide content.

@potsmoke66, I opened spacestations.lua and --ed all the texture calls to hull_1, deleted the cache again and still get the same error, img load: couldn't open data/models/hull_1.png. Is there a bad texture call in a sub model somewhere? The texture is in the stations folder.

@spike1984, Have you flown to Gates spaceport? If you have, I may have installed this wrong, and should erase it and start over.

I'm going to put this aside for now 'cause I want to get back to upgrading Philbywhizz's pad station. (almost done!)

In what way? That's a serious question - if you have a better suggestion as to how we can track requests, patches, etc without things getting lost, we're interested.