was denn so? (what exactly)

elite-games.ru has a Pioneer thread (somewhat like)

http://www.elite-games.ru/conference/viewtopic.php?p=2614606#2614606

i hope you guys don't turn pioneer into something like "free space", else i'm off... 😉

not because of the fee they take, that's ok. but the game is exactly that unrealistic how i don't like it.

blast ships sized like a station with three shots from a fighter?

shots seem to go allways to target, like remote controlled?

massive nebulae everywhere?

please keep Pioneer as it was intented by tomm.

keep it close to the original espacially the reliability, even if some think fighters don't belong to hyperspace.

i hope we see soon a new build, because i can't follow you guys on github no more, or i'm not willing maybe.

it costs me to much time.

but it seems like the artist has been pushed overboard?

lend him a plank!

nah, somewhat i'm responsible myself, i guess i made the loud noise, now i'm surprised that i'm staying offside.

like to emit some (loud) noise?

i wish the times back when i and tomm had agreement about how it should be.

now lot of things g(r)oing to fast, while my voice gets less heard (because i don't stay with you on github? that should be no reason).

not so long ago i was really frustrated and i wished my models back.

no, i won't do such, but hey, it's a part of what people attracts and i swear once you've seen the worlds of pioneer (i allready have seen a lot),

at a point gameplay will be more important.

allready i didn't play often, because of the lack of fights, i never met a enemy and if, then they act like cowards and it's impossible to follow them once you lost their trail.

i guess you've seen the clips i posted from alpha6, that was the pioneer i played often (daily).

can i have that back it's not funny making models without using them.

and you can see on my clips i never had problems with the so called "jousting" in pioneer, it's a question of how you fight and how you think to get over the top of a enemy ship.

i will post them here again and i hope i can emerge some interest with them

the clips are named "suicide" because i have a alpha6 savegame entitled the same ready in the shown situation with a adder attacked by a courier and a lanner (i should have some more such saved situations).

i chose PIONEER because of Frontier, if you leave the track i don't know if i will follow...

i know younger generation has a different imagination of a space sim, but let pioneer be pioneer, there many other projects that follow more the broad public.

something i would like to see, working backfiring lasers, no more unarmed ships no matter how small (i altered the pirates.lua for alpha6 to emerge such situations, ships are > 80t i guess).

and if you think what cost me so much time, guess how it would be if you would work for a german project, hard no?

so have some pity with the "purple cow" from central europe and don't forget i was (am) no student in a common way, i teach it all myself, but that costs time.

see, i can't work for two projects, but if i'm not longer wanted i will change back to FFED3D and get on with some model hacks, where i stopped last year.

at least not many will follow that trail...

q. what else?

yes exactly that's what i feel sometimes, it has become a monocracy.

one can post some snippets of code and another fills the game with models, still i'm no one.

that's why i guessed to "take them back", let's see how Pioneer looks without them.

odd?

and let's see if one can handle them as i do...

Oligarchy.

OK, I must admit to being utterly bewildered by potsmoke66's post. I'd cancel all our plans for nebulae, remote controlled guns and the ability to blast station-sized ships with three shots, except that there have never been any such plans. I simply don't know why you think there ever were.

As for Pioneer as intended by Tomm? Well, Tomm still pops by and chats with us about the direction in which the game is going. He certainly doesn't seem as horrified by what he's seen as potsmoke66.

The lack of fights, and never meeting an enemy, has more to do with the fact that the game isn't yet finished. The Lua system for scripting NPC ships is still being written, and in some cases rewritten. He's expecting a playable game when the web page says, quite plainly, "Pioneer isn't ready to play yet."

Perhaps we misunderstand you, potsmoke66. Your English isn't particularly strong, and you seem quick to take offence very easily.

When you deleted your github account, you took with it a lot of issue history that was important, including any discussions that were on an issue that you started. That's all gone for good now. Can't say I'm particularly happy about that, but we'll just have to move on without it.

time for a rebellion then 😛

junge, you moved "lately" to pioneer, watch the clips, alpha6 battles are not the best but neither the worst.

and don't repeat things i have read a "thousend times", i know this, maybe better then anyone else (or as good as).

but sorry, oligarchy, to mee it seems more like nepotism.

You licensed your models under the GPL by submitting them for inclusion with the project, is my understanding. That's a perpetual license, meaning that "taking them back" would not be possible. If you didn't license them that way, then you were in breach of the GPL yourself, for your use of the rest of the project code.

Aside from that, Pioneer is free software. You can fork it with a single click at Github, or clone it to any other git repository on the planet. You're free to take our code, and use it within the terms of the GPL. If you like Alpha 6 so much, it's still available.

P66, We are all curious to know exactly what your issue is with the project? You have yet to actually formulate a factual response.

Just exactly what recent change do you feel might turn Pioneer into Freespace, as you fear?

like i said i wouldn't do such, that would be stupid, really stupid (take 'em back).

no, still i'm pleased to make some models and utter my thoughts.

still i believe it's a valuable part of pioneer,

but if i'm getting pushed out only because i offered no code...

but that's what i feel allready, yours have build up some sort of "clan", which it seems i don't belong to (who ever chose that).

so it might be better for me now to leave the project, before we get in serious troubles,

it seems artists have no voice and no room in this "oligarchy".

then i guess i offer my models to people who respects the work behind.

i guess FFED3D needs some new ships...

fixed internal models to suit the ships better...

and some other funny things i will let come into my mind.

there are for shure some that can't await my results.

i would miss pioneer, it gave me full freedom with my models.

i liked to get a bit deeper in development, but like i said, actually it grows very fast.

that's ok and i'm responsible for that to. who's got the loudest voice and posted on every sci-fi related page a link to pioneer?

---

no, i won't say it turns actually to "freespace", it was more a omen, it was a wish and no statement.

---

yes, i could stay with alpha6 (would be a bit odd), but only for the dogfights.

Again I ask the question; What exactly has been changed or created that you feel detracts from the over-all experience?

I prefer to think of it as a meritocracy (like most open source projects). The people with the greatest influence are the ones that do the most of work.

That sounds rather brutal, but think about it. If, for example, someone you've never heard of before wanders in off the street and loudly talks about all their great ideas for the terrain engine, and s20dan wants to go in a different direction, then who is going to win? s20dan, because he writes the code. If on the other hand someone proposes an idea, writes some code, shares it, discusses it, accepts feedback, and so forth, its highly likely their ideas will be implemented, and they'll be taken seriously in the future.

Right now, there isn't a great deal in the way of goals for this project. There's a few specific things that specific people want to see happen (eg me with the mission interfaces), but very few large game-changing goals.

Some of the recent changes to flight systems etc have come from one or two people playing the game a lot and providing feedback on things they didn't like or would find better, and then being willing to work with someone to get the code implemented. A great example is the new target direction indicators. Brianetta did a lot of experimenting and testing, flying, orbiting, all that stuff. He suggested some improvements. Now I have close to zero interest in spaceflight physics and orbits and such, but he's a friendly guy, made his needs and wants very clear, and helped me work through it. So I implemented it, he liked it, there were no significant objections from anyone, so the code was merged. That process is pretty much how Pioneer development works right now.

A lot of discussion currently happens in IRC. I recognise that many people find IRC difficult for whatever reason, and that can appear to show a lack of transparency. Consider however the alternative. One or more of the very small number of volunteer developers could take the time to post on the forums about what's happening or similar. Doing that takes away our time and motivation. I hate writing documentation; I like writing code. I'm happier if I'm writing code. You'll get more from me if you let me go.

We have facilities available for you to find out what's happening. The code is there. This forum is here. The nightly builds are there for this very reason. If you want or need more than that, you're going to have to fish a little bit. You don't need to do much - just post a question on the forum, or open an issue, or whatever is the most appropriate. We're not secretive, we're just spending our effort where its most useful and interesting for us personally. I'm not sure how this can be improved without significant time cost. If you know how, then let me know. Even better, why not volunteer to do a "weekly news" type post that summarises what's happening?

Gernot, your models are technically excellent and your understanding of what the current model system is capable of is probably better than anyone else. It would be a huge shame to lose that experience. At the moment however, you are making many sweeping claims that don't make sense or simply aren't true. I acknowledge there is a language barrier that may be complicating matters, but I don't believe that's all of it. You are very welcome here. Your guidance in your areas of expertise are needed. You should understand though that you do not have a power of veto. You are a voice among many, and you must be willing to listen, discuss and compromise. Others within this project are doing that every day, and you are no different. Naturally, it is your choice how you want to proceed.

I hope that all makes sense to everyone.

Cheers,

Rob.

Yeah, nobody chose the members of some sort of "clan." I don't offer code either, unless you could two trivial commits and some game data. I hesitate to call it art, but it was design work. I'm not excluded in any way, and neither were you. When you deleted your git account, the biggest reaction was surprise, followed by a certain amount of confusion. The question most asked was, "Why? What was all that about?" We're still not sure.

Being an artist has nothing to do with your voice. What you say, and how you say it, is far more important. Like any project, people who engage more will be listened to more, but that's just a matter of familiarity and the investment of time in social interaction.

FFED3D looks like a fine project. I can't be sure, because I don't do Windows stuff, but if that's what you want to concentrate on, there's nothing we can do to stop you.

well the biggest **** about the web is you can't see in the eyes of your opposite (usually, and that green one didn't helps much 😆 ).

many things could have prevented then.

well sometimes it's good to HAVE a loud voice (and you can imagine i have), positions are more clear now, to me at least.

can't tell you what exactly got to my mind then, i must have been angry (i'm very often). i guess i cancelled my account because mainly i didn't used it.

i guess it was a bad choice, but nothing that can't be reverted.

language isn't a big problem, only slows down that's all, when i wrote a few sentences 3 posts have allready been past... (additionally i read my stuff several times and change a lot in a post).

fortunately no one argues about my bad english, like it was a few years ago (certainly not here). 😉

but i guess a puff of a pipe would have deserved as well.

"one puff of your pipe in the morning is as strong as ten camels in the backyard"

Gernot, if you want a challenge try fighting the Eagle in the 'Debug Startpoint'. He's only at half difficulty and he kicks most of our butts 😀

Gernot, you night like to read this: IRC for people without IRC

ok, ok, ok,

have some threads open (i guess three), must answer one, have made a big upload and must link it...

btw, pioneer is discussed on elite-games.ru (frequently).

http://www.elite-games.ru/conference/vi ... 06#2614606

must be because i once requested why they have no Pioneer branch on elite-games 😉

resume of the broken translation,

some gave it no chance, will last not 'til autumn (a laughter, a loud one)

some look forward to see a complete game...

i guess the should try instead of speculating.

i have a question and dunno where else to post it

name = 'Constrictor',

forward_thrust = -259e5,

reverse_thrust = 118e5,

up_thrust = 6e6,

down_thrust = -6e6,

left_thrust = -6e6,

right_thrust = 6e6,

angular_thrust = 90e6,

forget the whole thing it was only the 90e6 that was confusing me, must be a mistake.

12e6 i suggested, 9e6 that would be fine, with 90e6 i would use the angular thrust to move forward (triple of my fwd thrust, wow!) 😉

if this persists (i mean the balanced values) through all ships, i'm satisfied.

the lateral thrust was set rather high by me and can be reduced to 4e6 which would give a realistic thrust for the conny and limits it's capabilities a bit, else i guess it would be the far best ship (it is allready).

most experiences i made with my Star War models, since i made a whole bunch of them i could relatively good tweak the specs and make my experiences with it.

so i came to this "rule" which this ship follows in my original setup (not far from this).

100% for fwwd

30-70% for rev, depending on the class

10-30% for lateral

60-100% for angular, am i right when i say that get's divided by 3?

that's just a raw guideline, but helps much to find useful values.

of course i imagined to give ships with a exceeding high fwd thrust very little rev. and lateral thrust, they will be still excellent fighters (ADC-44, Tie-Fighter) if you can handle this.

while others like the conny or the sidie should be more multipurposal and freighters like a LYNX* should be reasonably lame.

*the lynx has been removed from players ships choice? sad, ok i know very large, but that's why i made my spaceport so big, should be able to hold i.e. a lynx, btw the lynx is downsized in tonnes and size, maybe i should give it the original size/mass, since it's abandonned now, further the animation won't make no more sense.

somehow it's sad, maybe we can do later something useful with the lynx. btw, you know that you only have to unlock it from FE2 (of course you know) to use it, price, crew and everything is specced unlike for the LRC (can you iomagine how long you wait for 20 (i guess) crew members, that's when i thought, ok it's not documented but somewhere in the savegame must be the crew, i had a LYNX with 20 "John Does" as crew 😀 , the crew roster completely overflows, but it works. (btw, to enable the lynx i didn't hacked the program, i simply hacked the object to my savegame, that was no real lynx then, so i wen't to the shipyard (that's where the case of a bad parked lynx comes from)

sold and rebought the LYNX, ready.

further i'm still thinking of a size downscaling, means i would like to make bigger ships relatively smaller as they are, this is done in FE2, even if the scale there didn't fits to all ships and i guess the conny as example is still far to big.

if i lay a fe2 conny over a fe2 asp, the conny is nearly double in size but is holds only 90t while the asp holds 120t cargo. so in fact the asp should be bigger as the conny.

but this persists through the whole fe2, some ships simply loose the scale compared to others, FFE ships are all a mess and it seems there is no consistent scale.

usually you wont reckognize that in the game, only if you place two close together or if you overlay the export (model or text) one over the other.

try buffet and you will see how funny sometimes the scale varies in FFE.

that scaling problem has started allready a year ago with FE2's Viper and still i say this ship is far to large for 50 tonnes, additionally if you overlay the model output of FFED3D, you see it's one of the stray ships.

this video shows exactly why fighting bores me now, you can stay in space like a idiot but he didn't get's you (wouldn't have happened before).

usually the ships are to far to reach you and to far to get reached, cowards i say, they stay allways away from you (only to prevent the jousting? it was miles better).

if i would have stayed there i guess he would have rarely hit me. i can't say i like it and i can't say i like that crosshair and the additional info it gives me, which i don't need.

i can see velocity and angle of the ship better without that "bar" (if he would come in range, but he didn't comes, so we will be fighting for hours and never get a result).

usually i depend on my eyes and if i see the ship then usually it's in range. stays away to far, accelerates to much, he never gets me (he has hitted me as soon as i started to move, but else...).

btw, i didn't tried for real, it was only a test to see how he will beat me.

the ship never comes close enough to see what ship it is, neither can i match his speed no matter how long i trie (a cheat?).

usually it was possible to match the speed of larger ships after you tried to accel. decel. often enough and when you stayed on the curse of your enemy, small fighters of course are nearly impossible to match the speed, but at least you could get some less rel. speed to him.

i miss the typical Courier Kamikaze attacks, they was exactly like i remembered them from FE2 (since that ship hits you often with the engine pods at flyby, check the alpha5 suicide1, you will see when he touches me).

the whole thing looks like your enemy is orbiting you in some way. flies far off and turns by very early when approaching, to early imho, so it will stay away. it's like we would be homopolar.

it's a bit a longer one (7mins) but take your time to watch what it doesn't do.

Which version is that? If I sit still like that I receive massive hull damage and then explode, but I'm using the current development version.

John's actively writing the AI code at the moment. He can beat it, but the rest of the devs and testers tend to get killed by it really quickly. It was actually toned down slightly, because it was a lethal sharp-shooter earlier this week.

Yes, Gernot you really should try the latest development version as this should all be fixed (I think)

Last night the only way I could win was by using missiles...

What are the chances of adding a lead indicator to the combat computer?

It does already have one of a sort, you just have to fire a little short of the red cross.

Is that what that supposed to be? It's not that intuitive, or very helpful for that matter. Something a little more obvious maybe?

I'm not sure if its helpful or not. I'm inclined to say not, because in spite of its presence nobody is able to kill a damn thing. But it doesn't seem to hurt either, so I don't know. It might be worth us adding some HUD options, and making the lead indicator optional.

What I really think we need though is people to spend a lot of time in combat (even just playing the debug point over and over) and figure out how to do it, and tell the devs what's needed to make it work. That might be more info in the HUD; it might be dumbing down or modifying the combat AI to make it easier in some way, it might be something else. All ideas will be very welcome.

So why not ask John how to do it?

Pardon me if this sounds facetious but each time I've tried combat it has been a) hard/impossible, and b) different from the last time I tried. For each implementation of the AI there is probably a different set of approaches. So why not inform us a bit about changes and suggested tactics, and give us some hints from the horse's mouth as it were.

I'm looking forward to giving it another go tomorrow, it's been a while!

He's a ninja with the reflexes of a spider, apparently. "I can even kill them left handed" is one piece of advice he gave. He's given actual tips, too, but despite attempting to follow the advice, I still get creamed.