Crikey that's a lot of changes!

This totally caught me by surprise! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_redface.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':oops:' /> Anyways great news as always Robn to see a new Alpha! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//curtsey.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':curtsey:' /> (and my internet is back also, so I will have no problems updating ModDB with the new Alpha). Going to download ASAP <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//girl_crazy.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':girlcrazy:' />

EDIT: Just ran the game there, there seems to be an issue with the views in the game. I cant activate rear view on any ship and front view seems centred in the middle of the ship model instead of the cockpit or bridge. Also, I cant rotate either the sidereal or external views. I am sure it's nothing serious, but I will hold off uploading to ModDB for now until the issue is figured out.

Great news! Thx for this new version, but i have a problem... I cant play <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//fie.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':fie:' /> .

Most of the time Pioneer crash if i click "New Game". Sometimes it starts, but the planet is not visible. I have tested various graphical settings, but it fail. Is there anything i can do to get it work?

[EDIT]

This is the earth from above. Is it supposed to be to look like that?

If i move the mouse, Pioneer crash instantly.

I downloaded Alpha 27, I am running Elementary OS on my computer. I have previously had Alpha 26 running no problem, it took me a few days to figure out, being new to Linux. I made sure and downloaded the 64 bit version, as my OS is 64 bit, and all the dependencies are there too. As I said, Alpha 26 ran no problem, full screen max everything. I unpacked Alpha 27, fired up a terminal window, and typed the command ./pioneer, and it didn't run.

couldn't open string file 'lang/English.txt'

Aborted (core dumped)

I did notice that the download was only 175mb whereas I am sure the website said it should be around 184mb?

So, anyone able to help me? newbie to both Pioneer and Linux, so please explain in simple steps.

Cheers, Karl

I downloaded Alpha 27 (Windows version) and find that after a second or two in space it hangs and crashes. I had no problems with Alpha 26 using the same settings. I've tried playing about with the graphics settings but it makes no difference.

Nonetheless I only just found this and I think the developers have done an amazing job (at least based on Version 26!)

Second Friday of the month. Mark it on your calendar <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

There's now only one "internal" camera. Use Shift+1-8 to change it. 1-6 are centred on the ship model, 7+8 (the new "cockpit" cameras) are centred on the cockpit (where defined for the ship).

The numeric keypad is now the way to control this. Adjust your keybindings.

Yes, these are both unintuitive changes. The feedback we get will help us decide what kind of defaults we should have.

The 64-bit Linux build is broken - its folder structure got screwed up somehow. I'm preparing a replacement build right now.

To save you the hassle of re-downloading, do this:

The website & Sourceforge use 1000-bytes to the kb etc, whereas ls uses 1024-bytes. The MD5 sum is the most important thing. If they match, then your download is intact.

Everyone else having problems; we're testing now.

New linux64 build is up.

The win32 build is totally broken right now, due to a compiler bug that I thought was fixed but is not. I'm working on a rebuild right now but its going to take a few hours - compilers take a while to put together.

Thanks robn, I got mine working now!

New win32 build uploaded - that was faster than I thought! The whole win32 archive is updated, but if you already have that and don't want to grab the whole lot again, you can just get this replacement executable: http://eatenbyagrue.org/f/pioneer/pioneer-alpha27.exe

Hopefully that's the end of that! Thank you all for your patience!

Dear fellow OSX users,

Alpha27 for OSX has now been uploaded. <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

Thank you... It works now! One question: The executable is 56 MB... what are you compiling into it? Is it a debug build?

Yes I can confirm it's all working for me too! Thanks!!

No, it's just full of awesome <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_biggrin.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />

... and statically linked libs <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

Thats really true! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//preved.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':preved:' />

Would'nt be better to link dynamically and reduce the downloadsize? The librarys do not change as often.

What is the reason for this approach?

I can't answer that question specifically for Windows, but on OSX I bundle all the required libraries and 'exe' into a single application bundle.

That way people can just download and 'just play' without having to mess around with downloading the correct libraries, installing them, making sure they are the right version, etc..

I suspect the rationale is the same on other platforms.

Oddly, my vc2012 build is just 6.99MB including the DLLs

Thanks for that Robn <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//girl_crazy.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':girlcrazy:' />

ModDB updated (with fixed exe)! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//curtsey.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':curtsey:' />

Well we'd still have to ship the libraries, because you don't have them! Static linking is much more convenient for the user and much easier for me to build too.

Right now these are full debug builds, because it gets us more useful information in the event of a crash. An eventual "official" release will be much smaller.

It was recently pointed out that there was an issue with the OSX build of Alpha27 ( https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/issues/1592).

For those where are having trouble, you would be pleased to know that I've found the problem and have re-uploaded a fixed alpha27 for OSX.

Enjoy (and thanks for the bug reports - keep em coming!).

hi, folks, "the angry cat" is back <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

no, i can't say a word about alpha27...

but i have to give some praises for alpha26, or to say it right for some enhancements i had to find out myself.

that's mainly this one

cool that you've solved the texture islands problem, this allows now things like this little hut in front, each brick is textured sole on a smoothened surface, that's great news and i missed a notification <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' /> i only noticed it occasionally.

second cool new thing of alpha26, even not reported is the possibility to use now 8bit textures, i like it, i was asking for long ago and i think it's really a enhancement.

yes it lowers the depth of the textures and one could think they would look less good, but in fact it's vice versa most will get crispier, it will give some problems for some textures, because i never respected 8bit depth, whatfor you should keep the texture best tone in tone.

nonetheless it's convincing.

now for some or at least one small dislike, of which i'm not sure how long it is actually that ways, but hmm it's annoying.

now when you look at this picture do you notice that is something wrong?

it's that the buildings are lt now from view angle instead real lightsource direction, i know buildings lit from underneath at night are neither realistic, but this is worse imo, sometimes they really start to "glow" and it looks.... well i spare this word out here.

i'm not sure what was the idea behind but.. hä-äh (no no), this looks worse even when they are properly unlit at night, sorry.

im not sure if there is a proper solution to get real night shade, if not i would stay to what we had, this is not good, imo.

yes, i noticed you're up to change the shaders, ok then please keep this in mind, thanks in advance.

but apart from that, i'm satisfied much.

to the case of the small alpha27 hit, if i where you i would promise to fix it next alpha, i'm sure your's are buisy enough and personally i feel to wait a month, respectively to play one month the last working release won't hurt. (on the other hand if it burns under your fingernails, i understand, i know this feeling well)

or does it folks?

not really no?

just to show off my opinion to that, that's all,

thanks anyway.

besides i would have more ideas, but hmm, somehow i got a little insecure to show off all my thoughts... sorry.

<waves at 'the angry cat'>

ahh, rolling thunder again... love, peace and harmony!

actually i listen to "Azteca" (santana#1 without santana)

"... you can't be funky, boy, no, you tried to, but you can't be funky..."

---

i'm really grateful for the mods folder, it was one of the best ideas that have been released.

also i'm very happy about the decision to identify ships by the models name, all this opens many doors.

as example, few years ago Tomm asked me if i couldn't think of a better idea as to select the different versions dynamic.

well i could have, but two conditions was missing, first my skill with LUA, second, i would have need exactly this, ships get called by the models name and not by the "shipname". i've changed already some to that new possibility. i.e. "Coolhands Viper". in fact i have 5 models now, but all appear under the name (except for the police viper) "Viper Defense Craft".

that's super! superfine! great! and i don't know what superlative

further the "Heavywear" version could be made less good or reliable in specifications, but you won't notice except by experience, that's even a fantastic possibility it opens also some doors.

i'm up already, that's why i'm so busy, to change all, pilots will lose dynamic selection, ships will loose dynamic selection, but it's a lot of work to do so.

in the end i guess we can get rid of the selector function i wrote once and use only some random selections for materials, this doesn't harms so much as exchanging models, textures or geometry randomly.

for the pilots i'm up to make all static, what i have in mind is you select once a "character", i.e. "i like the redhaired woman with the green dress as pilot" and this decision will change the rest, not randomly only by "shifting positions" in a table.

actually it depends on a little table where you enter your choices, but i hope one day it could be implemented to the game? together with a faction you choose or whatever decision you made for your pilots character.

calling of the pilot isn't longer a model, it's a little function where you simply specify a additional index, and a style fitting to the ship (helmet, no helmet, etc)

i guess some will like what i did, but it's still under construction...

it works in my setup of pioneer, it will as mod together with my ships, but it's far from being perfect.

it's still a bit lumpy now and actually all "single" pilots will have the same character as your preselected style/character.

on the other hand, you won't often look so close on a opposite "eagle" to notice this for real.

but anyway i would like to determine once if the ship is flight by AI or player, just to solve this little issue.

busy, really busy... textures have to be combined models new scripted... uff!

and all has started because marcel wasn't satisfied with the "vanishing" thrusters on the courier <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

now every model needs to be revisited and if i do so i will do it right! right? right!

"wirklich ich versuche meine hausaufagaben gut zu machen, jungs"

in other words i have set my models on a diet.

---

oh yes, let me know your thoughts to that shader problem i showed in the previous post, personally i strongly dislike the "glowing" buildings.

they look totally "flat" now due to this sort of "environmental lighting".

it's to wish that they will not receive light from the opposite side at night, but if such is the only solution, i would keep my hands off it.

better they are lit "wrong" from the underside at night as if they start to "glow" at daytime and have no shading.

first i really was wondering why everything looks so flat, then i noticed, "hey they aren't shaded anymore, lit always from all sides or at least always from view direction".

a "mix" i mean some "quasi environmental" lighting will be ok, but i guess as long as we can't say "it's night they should be all dark - it's daytime all should receive light from direction of lightsource" i prefere the former situation when they received light even at night from direction of the lightsource.

(of course it's annoying to have "wrong" lit buildings at night, something it has always annoyed me in FE2 or FFE, personally i worked around this in FFED3D around this for at least the floors or streets by removing simply the normals, in FFED3D this works halfaways, means the roads are then unlit always as example, or in other words unshaded like the buildings now are in pioneer, i did this also because in FFED3D you have only a glossy material and glossy ground or streets look stupid. but to remove the lighting from all buildings i would have never done.)

but let's say i uttered this in advance, because i noticed robn stated he's up to rewrite the shaders.

Hi everyone... sorry I've been away for a bit... crazy stuff happening lately here!

Just grabbed v27 here and it works great! My desktop runs the win32 version in WINE beautifully and my laptop runs it (same setup) OK if you aren't too near a planet.

Not much progress with my ship models lately, but I've had a few more half baked ideas I'd like to play with once I get things set up here on my laptop <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

you made some models?

show off, please!

don't feel ashame, everybody knows i don't criticise modeler skills

(critics are ok. as long as you get profit of it, but only to demoralise one is evil).

because i feel everyone has it's own style and ideas and to me this counts much more as skill or experience.

further, if you have question to the quite complicated LUA stuff, feel free to ask me, i should be able to help you a little bit with that.

because i know animating things proper is for most a sealed book, but it isn't as hard as it seems in the beginning, you just have to follow a few principles.

looks like we got quite good reception this year, i like that.

wait...

you use a MAC?

why don't run the MAC version, i know it works with wine, but???

hint: lower city details, that helps still best to save framerate.

if you don't mind to much about cities anyway, i recommend to revive Tomm's original buildings.

tell me if you don't know how, then i pack this in a mod which will simply override the installed buildings and leaves only the basic ones.

also what is actually running uses still textures even for LOD1 and this is still a killer.

it helps much to have no textures for LOD1 and for (many) buildings it's possible to shift LOD1 slightly to a visible size without noticing a real difference.

simplified said: grey is just grey from far.