first, devs

please take a brief look at this

http://spacesimcentr...ssc/#entry33044

and let me know your thoughts about that.

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now to the ASP, can't see that problem with my recent models <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

my recommandation:

wait for the "minimal build" (link above) and the "complete mods" (not yet finished and of course a WIP, it will take me one or two days to make both ready to use),

one will be a "FE2/FFE mod" which will contain a for sure a proper working ASP! (it would give me a big headake if it would be broken, especially because it's not my model and for all i leaned out from friends, i take double care).

the other will be a "Pioneer mod", which contains the more recent looking fine ships and buildings we have (and containing the new ASP, actually named "ASP scout" even fixed, no fear).

differences will be slightly more as only the models,

i.e. systems in the FE2/FFE mod are closer to FE2/FFE,

unlike the "Pioneer mod" which is basically what we have in the stock alpha28 build, only with the absence of all FE2 ships.

factions are a bit different for both, while again the "Pioneer mod" reflects the stock alpha28.

music will differ, again the "FE2/FFE mod" uses the ripped mp3's from FFED3D, though all the original FFE tracks plus some additional stuff from me.

while the "Pioneer mod" will contain again only what is present in the recent build.

the reason for the "broken" ASP is neither clear to me, but i can check it if you really like, otherwise like i said my version didn't shows this problem. (besides i really can't imagine it's bound to transparent material, sorry (also the new one uses far less such tricks), if anything at all sinks in has a wrong height or whatever, it's bound to the collision mesh (either of the model or the landing pad) and nothing else.

if you like i can make a tube clear as glass for you which wil work for 100% fine. besides does this model uses really so much of them? i can't remember quite well, yes it has used a semi-transparent layer for some parts of the ship which had to be a "mix" of the colorvariable material below and a overlayed "grey" to keep certain parts looking like steel and not get colored, i solved this now different and the semi-transparent layer has been removed, therefore it uses a few more polys) i guess i have right now a idea what could probably the reason.

the original FFED3D model is 1:10 in scale, since FFE's scale is 1:10, if i remeber right i left the mesh scaled original and scaled the final model up.

what could further be, any collision mesh that wil be in any sort probably dynamic, won't work anymore since a while.

simplyfied said, i assume the collision mesh is either scaled still 1:10 or not present at all.

that the ship sinks in on the landing pad until "y 0" shows exactly this, no collision mesh is present, "ship_aabb" which requests the size of the collision mesh will return 0, "-y 0" : 2 = 0 <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

the "dynamic" use of the collision mesh isn't really dynamic, but since... anyway it's probably called dynamic with the whole model as version of the model and "boing" the collision mesh is lost even if it's not truely used dynamic.

this i experienced as example with the collision mesh for the cargo scoop, because until this had changed i used it together with the model of the scoop. like this, if a scoop is mounted place the scoop and the collision mesh for the cargo scoop was build with the scoops model.

now since a while this won't work and unfortunately i have to mount the scoops collision mesh "fixed" to the ship if it's used or not, besides from some other drawbacks of this change. this leads in general to ships which will stand even higher above the surface as they already did and when such goes on finally they might get placed anywhere...

but never forget i'm only "gernötli" the construction worker...

---

"mein name ist hase ich weiss von nichts"

or probably "Tomcat" and i get sometimes upset.

but actually not, all leaves just a broad smile on "gernötli's" face.

---

one stupid question: "what has one to do to find out the limits of something (no matter what thematic it is) ?"

answer this to yourself.

"i'm really stupid, because i only believe my eyes and my own experience"

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probably i'm wrong with the collision mesh, by a second look on it it looks like a "missing" material.

BUT the invisible part, or what is missing isn't set semitransparent, at least i don't remember this, but it's not the first of my models which has been destroyed (while this isn't even mine so you don't hurt me with that, you will hurt "Sparks").

i have been get angry and upset about this far to much, actually i simply don't mind and tell myself: "shut your mouth "gernötli" and just offer the working models to the community and it will be fine".

what can i do else? i can argue and talk but won't get heard by some, if you ever experience such, well better redraw and leave it up to them...

this is my method i learned on the construction site, if one didn't like to cooperate, well then let him do the stuff alone until he reaches his limits and will come as a beggar to you, then you can laugh and say: "didn't i told you?"

many have been get angry with me because of such, but what can one do if the other didn't likes to listen?

let him run into the wall...

i have lost a job once because of this, because my partner wouldn't like to listen to the elder worker (me), but i was only hired as helper, so he wen't to his boss and discredited me and i lost the job. well some people want to play bad, what can i do? (stay upright that's all you can do).

he should have taken the chance and learn from me instead, how to build without a "laser limiter" i don't need and in the end what i do is in perfect alignment, measured by the eye and not a stupid tool which can't see nor think.

i know otherwise our "stupid" system or communities prefere people who play bad and you will actually even get honored for "whistle blowing"

well, to us fellows it was always the meanest in most miserable thing one can do...

this kind of "labour" will destroy all real work, but again i redrawn and actually i simply wait until the whole world get sick of this, then people like me can come in front and pull the wagon out of the mud, but before it's useless to talk.

and a "corner case" it is in no case.

i examined "Beetle Buggin's" models not to long ago, of course not a recent game some old win98/XP game (from XPiral which is a french daughter of MS). they use transparent layers for the models compared to that i'm a "friendly guy", everything is "cheated" from the wheels to the driver. but of course if i do such then it is a "corner case".

- the wheels are "cutouts"

- the windows are "cutouts"

- the decals are "layers"

and so on

but well, it isn't the same if one does it or the other i know, it's a old story.

and why have they done it in this way?

because it's a shitty method?

or because DX or OpenGL didn't allow or support such? (they must know very well what DX allows or not i guess)

or simply,

it was win98 and every saved poly was a good poly.

but of course if i use the same method, for what reason ever, then it's a "corner case" to use a textures alpha channel, to use semi-transparent material, to get the most out of a minimum.

it's true my models aren't "state of the art" mostly, might be because i orient myself on older games, but ask NV themself, what was "limit" or "good" it's still "limit" or "good", that hasn't changed, only the machines have get faster and allow much more as 10 or 20 years ago.

but if a method has saved framerate 10 years ago, it will still help to save framerate today, "state of the art" or not.

and if i can get rid of 100tris with a transparent layer and use only 2 therefore, it's still a good thing if you don't see the difference.

let's really do a timewarp and look at FFE's geometry and textures, all textures input is "orthologic", no projection and of course no per face texturing. it leads to some ugly issues, i guess you know them if you know FFE, but that was '95 and any else would have killed those poor machines. not that they could have thought of something better but the CPU and especially GPU was extremely weak compared to now.

but still this sort of geometry and texturing is what the machine likes most, any else is "hard" to do.

at least that was what i have read last year on NV's site and history of GPU's.

you might see this from a different point of view as i, but that's how i look at it.

if a company like NVIDIA tells me what is "good" or not, why shouldn't i believe them?

and what to the hell could be wrong if i orient myself on what was important 20 years ago, it's still important.

this bring me back to the example of my "comrade" with the laser limiter, buildings are build still with bricks and plaster or concrete, that won't change in a 1000 years, tools get better and handier yes, but the principles are still the same as when the romans buid their colosseum, laser limiter or a piece of cord that makes no difference.

and i swear by my life, the one who can work precise with a piece of cord is the better worker.

further, to compare modelling even more with construction, i feel some should learn first to work with the piece of cord, that's always a good start.

if you start with the laser limiter, you will never understand why certain things can't workout well.

if some can't handle basic stuff like our scripted models it's not the fault of the LMR, it's their fault not to be educated from ground up.

this is what a craftsman thinks, first learn the basics, then you get master (perhaps this takes a long time and needs a lot of patience, but is it important to be master tomorrow or to be a good master?), and not get trained at school with the most modern tools and think you can do everything.

in case for modelling and especially when it comes to programming i'm a "idiot" one can say, that's true and that's what i feel myself often.

but i can learn to get better.

and I AM very grateful for the LMR, even when i have to say bye, bye, to it, from this i learned the basics, and from nothing else.

the swiss education system is damned hard, learn it from ground up, learn first the basics then you can get master.

you might not wear a batchelors hat after, but worth you are ten times more as any of them.

for many years you have to do the shit at work, but this makes you to a professional and nothing else.

it's like in those chinese shaolin fighter movies, learn to be servant first. our society has unfortunately forgot all this principles, and many guess they can leave this torturing part out, but you can see the results of this on every corner in th world.

not that i would have been different when i was young, i wanted everything already yesterday, that's the quality of youth and common and it's also good.

but exactly that's why it's best when elder hold the younger back and teach them the torture, teach them to get patient, theach them understatement.

this builds the character, that's why a fighter has to be slave first, to get the real character of a human.

this can't be baught, neither it's a talent humans have, it has to be learned in a (life-) long run and not a short one.

back to sci-fi,

a small part of this philosophy is reflected in SW and that's why anakin turned to a evil character.

this is the part of SW i like most, the parallels between jedi and shaolin.

even if i prefer to play the evil one in a game, it's more fun as being a hero.

this is the ASP how it appears to me (of course not in stock alpha28, it's what runs since a while in my mods or updates, and in the actual "FFE mod" i made).

Apologies for the slow reply. I loaded up the game to check this and - guess what - the mouse control was fine! Must've been some other process running which fouled things up.

Computers eh?

topic: Factions

"small" dislike i like to show off here, it's what i posted also somewhere else before, here some screenshots.

sorry i can't care actually about a lot things, i have to work the whole week, i will be back on weekend.

the problem or what annoyes me a little is that there is no collective Faction (yet, i also don't know if you already cared about that, if so, then forgive me, time is extremely short now).

as example a system very close to Lave,

[attachment=1500:Bildschirmfoto 2012-11-21 um 22.47.19.png]

[attachment=1501:Bildschirmfoto 2012-11-21 um 22.47.41.png]

[attachment=1502:Bildschirmfoto 2012-11-21 um 22.47.57.png]

i guess you can see it's a "Federal Colony" but appears (obviousely) as a independend system.

now i wrote before that i "joined" the Factions for myself, in general it has worked more or less, means in the way i did i had "federal colonies" as "standard federal faction" while the "federal military dictatorship" and "federal" systems would have to be placed.

that has worked with the exception of far out systems. there again it has appeared in the way shown above (while the shots are from "common" setup 4 factions, because in my modded version it would have been 8 in total)

i feel this as a bit sad to have "CIS" "fed" and "imperial" spread all over the independent systems.

somehow i miss either a lower levelled "master faction" or a way to i.e. tell in the factions script which political systems (more as one!) belong to one faction.

else i assume this will persist.

personally i would appreciate the latter, to have the possibility to tell simply which political systemS belong to a faction, instead to define just one per faction. reason is offense, we have: 3 federal political fractions, 2 CIS fractions, 2 imperial fractions.

and i'm right if i say a federal colony shoould belong to federal, no?

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just that someone has cared about it at all, thanks in advance.

There's already been some work done on this so that factions can have multiple political groups. It's just not been merged yet due to some issues (I think).

I've just prodded the topic on the issues list so we'll see if it makes it in for alpha29

does it work using windows7 64bit?

Yes, very much so <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

The Barnard's Star issue should be fixed in @robn's latest nightly, and should be in Alpha 29 when it is released. For how it's now done, see below.

The work for this @fluffyfreak mentioned earlier in the thread should also be in the latest nightly, and also appear in Alpha 29 when it's ready.

Here's an example of how it's done from the newest faction defintion file for the Federation:

f:govtype_weight('EARTHDEMOC', 60)

f:govtype_weight('EARTHCOLONIAL', 40)

...the numbers are weightings for the chance that government type will be selectd when a system in that Faction is genrated. In this case you should get 'Earth Democracy' as the main government type within the Federation, but a lot of 'Earth Colonial Government' worlds as well.

We've also changed the code that used to assign custom systems to factions based on government type. Instead you can assign a custom system to a Faction directly, and their government type is now independent of the Faction setting. For example here's part of the Lua script now defining Barnard's Star:

local s = CustomSystem:new('Barnard's star',{ 'STAR_M' })

:faction('Federation')

:govtype('EARTHCOLONIAL')

:short_desc('Earth Federation prison colony')

...this means that Barnard's star will always be a Federation system with an 'Earth Colonical Government'.

I have a newbie question.

But first, congratulations to developers, It s really a great simulator.

the question is: is it possible to land on unsettled planets? I tried but I crashed.

It would be very nice to add some "build on planets" option.

For example, to build my own minig or research facility on an empty planet or moon.

Arrakkh

You can land on a lot of places.  I've even landed on a gas giant (smallish one), although that was back a version or so, maybe its been fixed.

But you just need to come down gentle and horizontal. Oh... and don't forget to lower the landing gear!!!

 

 

But you just need to come down gentle and horizontal. 

This is what I'm absolutely unable to do 🙂 even going slowly, the planet itself seems to accelerate towards my ship.

Hi folks

ModDB is running the Indie Game of the year awards 2012, Pioneer already has picked up a few votes, but could do with a lot more, so please vote for it on the Mod DB page!

http://www.moddb.com/games/pioneer

"This is what I'm absolutely unable to do 🙂 even going slowly, the planet itself seems to accelerate towards my ship."

What are you landing on? A typical planet? Are you able to land on the moon for example but not at the station just land on the ground?

This is what I'm absolutely unable to do 🙂 even going slowly, the planet itself seems to accelerate towards my ship.

Yes, gravity will pull you towards the planet at an increasing rate until you go splat.

The default keys for controlling your thrusters are "U", "I", "O", "J", "K", "L" with "U" being the one for the thrusters beneath your ship.

By pressing F5 you can also cycle through the ship control modes to the "set your speed" mode. Then you increase or decrease that value by pressing "Return" to increase, or "right-shift" to decrease it. Now the ship will control it's speed relative to the planet so you can get low more slowly, then set it to zero to stop, extend your landing wheels, and slow descend to the surface using only the thrusters.

It's the easiest way I've found of doing it.

Andy

This may have been posted already but the if you fire your weapons near a station you get repeated illegal weapon discharge notifications meaning you cant really use your scanner.

Why do you need to fire your weapons to use your scanner? o_O

Well I would use the scanner to find enemy ships. Once you fire your weapon, you cant use the scanner.

I was able to land on Phobos. But it was easier, low gravity.

A question; Where are asteroids? how to find them? In sol sistem asteroid belt is not available as autopilot target, I didn t see any in other sistems.

There are several asteroids that are selectable around Sol.  They are just like small planets, moons, but smaller and are listed as being Asteroids.

There are no asteroid bets though at this time.

"Well I would use the scanner to find enemy ships. Once you fire your weapon, you cant use the scanner."

OK I learned how to land on planets. And now? There's nothing i can do on the planet except look at nice views.

It seems there's few action in this universe, not enemies to fight like pirates or aliens. i can only do some trade and bring some cargo form a place to another.

Hit ctrl+F12 alot and you'll be busy 🙂

Hit ctrl+F12 alot and you'll be busy 🙂

lol I didn't know.

It would be nice to have a complete list of keyboard commands.

It would be nice to have a complete list of keyboard commands.

http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Keyboard_and_mouse_controls

:prankster: