Thanks impaktor, I'll give this a try out over the festive season. 👍 

I've been falling through space for a good while now and by the beard of my great aunt... where do I start?! In the DevForum I don't know where to post my feedback appropriately, but for the bugreports, GitHUB is clear to me.

The question is, where do you want the feedback to go? 

The general area is fine for that.

Posted by: @arfa

Runs now but crashes when I save a game at OPLI Pax in the Barnards Star system. Saving at other locations has so far worked correctly.

Yeah, it's a (now fixed) bug in the sold out module, basically: if you try to save the game after leaving a system where there was a sold out advert on the BBS, the game will (probably) crash. Sorry about that.

Please all: replace that file with this ASAP, or you might get crash on save: data/modules/SoldOut/SoldOut.lua

@crux_72 for feedback on changes / bugs in this specific release, you can post them here in this thread, or/and if you have a lot of general beginner question, you can start a new topic.

@impaktor

All right.... I'll try to summarise the most important things and put them here. 

Regarding bugs; I have a bug where the player starting ships are loaded on restart with no visible equipment (so can't be sold or replaced). Here I would provide a savegame if necessary. Should I upload it here too or do you not need it at all?

And while we're on the subject - whenever I make even a small change in the Sky Box, the universe shines in all kinds of colours afterwards - this doesn't happen with version 20200203. Any idea what the reason for this could be?

EDIT: I have now replaced the file as indicated above.... now the main menu music plays in an endless loop, in space, on bases... I don't suppose that's how it's meant to be, is it?

Your first bug is known, and reported on our issue tracker. 4803

I'm not sure i understand the skybox thing, what do you mean by "small change"?

The updated soldout.lua doesn't touch the music in any way, so I think your bug is unrelated to it. The main menu music is only supposed to play in the main menu (in endless loop). I thought this was fixed prior to this release with 5061 but seems like it's still there. It would be valuable if you could provide more info here, does this happen every time you start a new game? Or only in a saved game? Can you reproduce it, and if so, how?

Sorry for the late reply.

I'll get to the Skybox later, but first I'd like to say that I don't think I can contribute much to finding bugs or making suggestions. I've had time to read through the Dev Forum a bit more and have also looked through the known bugs - so far everything seems to be known and said. Since I don't have an account on GitHub (and don't want to open one at the moment) I would like to answer your question on GitHub regarding the menu music (if the bug still occurs): Yes, it does, but I am not able to reproduce it specifically. The only thing I notice is that it never happens when I start Pioneer after restarting my computer. Otherwise... I don't know. And since I'm not a coder, I can't come up with any kind of idea what the problem might be. I'm sorry.

One bug I've come across that, as far as I know, hasn't been reported yet is that the 'Flight Log' is sometimes completely deleted after loading a game state. At first I thought it was always the case when I load an _exitsave, but yesterday this also happened to me with a regular savegame. I had run the game for a couple of hours, saved it and after reloading all the logs were gone.

Another bug is that the faces (station manager, police officer etc.) are not persistent. So, after reloading the game, the faces are not the same anymore (but the names are). It's minor, but still.

The lost one from which I think it's not mentioned is that, if you land on earths ground, wather- sound is playing from then on and for... well - ever, even if you launch your ship again. It's like having a whirlpool right behind the pilotes' seat...

As for the skybox; What I mean is this; If you edit the default.dds, no matter how (darken, lighten, replace frames, whatever) the world space becomes 'coloured' after about 5 seconds after starting a new game. In my case, this means that the sky in Bernard's Star, for example, turns purple. As if I am in a fog. This is not the case with the 20200203 release.

By the way, I wanted to mention that some kind of 'bar' is missing so that you have the feeling of really being on shore leave, maybe something like in Privateer or Freelancer. But I've seen that you've already suggested something like that and even worked on it a bit. I suppose it's not that easy to implement, but maybe it would be enough to start by simply moving the BBS to the bar, with the appropriate background and, possibly, music. As a background you could possibly use a kind of 'overlay' where you see a kind of bar in the foreground and the city (or space) behind it through the windows in the background. Perhaps this could be achieved by shifting the camera/viewing angle away from the spaceship when switching to the 'bar tab', so that the illusion exists of being away from the ship?

Another point is that there is no music that only plays when you land. I like the idea of having your own music when you are close to a base, but I personally would like to see an additional distinction between 'landed' and 'not landed'.

The 'Flight Log' also gave me another idea. You had a discussion in the Dev Forum about whether (and how) you could include descriptions for ships and so on. Couldn't you, as a bridge, similar to the flight log, allow the player to make the entries (in the game) himself?

That's it for now. I would like to say that Pioneer, as it is now, is a lot of fun and I don't understand why you still call it 'Alpha' - honestly, that's false modesty.

Maybe one more thing;

Because of the 'no equipment bug' I had the pleasure to work out my first autopilot as well as jump drive manually - in Berndards Star. And you know what? It was the most awesome gaming experience I've had in a long time. What kept it from becoming an endless grind in the end was the thing with the buyer, who buys goods at double the price when stocks are at zero. I think this is a good option. And I think a game start where you start 'with nothing' on earth would be worth considering. My current game state revolves around this and it works flawlessly. And by the way, you are introduced to the game in a natural way. 

Okay, now I've written more than I wanted to and there are hardly any bug reports... I'm sorry. From now on, I'll limit myself to that or open a separate topic for it 😊.

I'd like to say that I don't think I can contribute much to finding bugs or making suggestions.

You've already found several bugs. Windnoise bug after leaving surface was fixed yesterday. Non-persistent faces I think I know the error for, should be trivial fix, for the skybox bug, I'll have to call on @nozmajner and @fluffyfreak

The flight log bug is worrying me, as it sounds like something that would be difficult to debug, (and I guess it's on my slate to maintain that).

As for the bar, yes, it's the main thing I miss from the game at the moment, and your suggestions is how I'd partially like to do it,

I don't understand why you still call it 'Alpha'

We stopped calling our releases that in 2013. Possible the term has survived somewhere on the home page, or where did you see it? Since Pioneer no longer has any end goal (e.g. 1:1 clone of Frontier), but rather, just keep making adding and improving it to be more and better. (Compared to Frontier, I think we're only missing Mining machines, military missions, and bulk ship, and the latter is available as mod; and of course we have a lot of stuff Frontier didn't have, and there will be more of that!)

Posted by: @impaktor

You've already found several bugs. Windnoise bug after leaving surface was fixed yesterday. Non-persistent faces I think I know the error for, should be trivial fix, for the skybox bug, I'll have to call on @nozmajner and @fluffyfreak

Okay, I'm glad if I was able to contribute something - I will continue to do so. Apart from a few CTDs, however, I haven't noticed anything else - that, or I don't recognise it as a bug 😊. And yea, if anyone can tell me what the problem with the skybox is, I'd be grateful, because it's pretty much the only thing that's really bothering me at the moment.

Posted by: @impaktor

We stopped calling our releases that in 2013. Possible the term has survived somewhere on the home page, or where did you see it?

On the one hand in your own FAQ under points 1.1.8 & 1.19 and then here https://sourceforge.net/projects/pioneerspacesim/files/ (all downloads are marked as 'Alpha'). At least that's how I understood it.

Posted by: @impaktor

As for the bar, yes, it's the main thing I miss from the game at the moment, and your suggestions is how I'd partially like to do it,

I see some really good things here, and I think it's a shame that they haven't found their way into the game yet. Too bad I'm not a programmer, otherwise I would offer my help... 

What I don't quite understand about this, though, is why not just include a 'simple' iteration? I mean... Immersion takes place in the head anyway, right? I could imagine a button (like on one of the screenshots) that you press, matching music, a matching background? I think a lot would be done with something as "simple" as;

I land, press the button "Enter base" --> game changes to outside view --> some kind of 'interior' with a window is put over the scene (picture or model), done. At the beginning, siluettes as 'persons' would probably be enough. And as a 'reason' to visit the base, one could have a single mission type that is only given 'face to face'. Something like that. I really don't think that much more would be necessary at the beginning.

@crux_72, I'd really like to see a screenshot, and the modified DDS file, of the skybox problems that you've been having.

It's very difficult to diagnose something like that from a textual description.

@fluffyfreak

Here you go.

It's in Bernard's Star, btw.

@crux_72 I've updated the FAQ now, and removed the mentioning of Alpha. The Sourceforge is our old archive for releases (not updated in 2 years), I guess we'll leave it to gather dust in the corner for now.

I'm curious what you want to do with the skybox? Add nebulaes?

I see some really good things here, and I think it's a shame that they haven't found their way into the game yet. Too bad I'm not a programmer, otherwise I would offer my help...

Sadly, nor am I a programmer. I think every line of code I write that actually works is a small miracle. There are some new icons in the source (e.g. beer glass), that @nozmajner added as we/I hope to use for the bar, initially it would just be a tab like the other tabs in the station (because that's least effort). More hasn't happened on the bar because I don't know where to start, and I have some other pioneer projects I must finish first (where I'm also semi-stuck).

...so this post turned into "confessions from the dev team", it appears.

(I should point out that other devs are also thinking about this)

@impaktor

Hm... so the icon already exists, and adding a tab is probably not such a big deal, I guess? Of course, the question remains what you should be able to show/ do there. I guess, to start with, you could move something that already exists there. Maybe the BBS. Or a kind of 'trading overview' that works like the trading computer - but for a fee? And as background a simple, static background image. Or a 'wait button' that lets the game jump forward one hour and reloads the BBS (in case there are no suitable missions). For a fee, of course... 

Example: I land on a base, refuel and repair the ship as usual via the 'comms menu'. There I check the BBS - oh crap, nothing suitable there. So I press the 'bar button'. Change of scene. On the right the picture of the bartender, on the left a welcome text. Below that, four buttons; BBS, leave bar, have a drink, insider knowledge. I click on 'have a drink'. The game jumps forward an hour, I pay $5. The BBS reloads. Oh, still nothing. Oh well. Then I click on 'insider knowledge'. The bartender offers to give me a 'tip' for $50 where an item is currently sold out in this system (0) and where that is. Lucky and $55 poorer, I switch to the market, load the goods into my ship and fly off - hoping to find an NPC there who will buy the stuff for twice as much. Voila. We have a bar, and an optional extra that also adds something to the game.

Posted by: @impaktor

I'm curious what you want to do with the skybox? Add nebulaes?

The funny thing is, I don't want to add anything - all I want is to get rid of that milky 'streak' or at least darken or colour it... because it bothers me extremely.

EDIT: 

Question. Why is the Sinonatrix more expensive than the Amphiesma? I compare the statistics, but have the impression that it should be the other way round? Or am I missing something?

Nevermind... I got it. It's about pre- fitted Hyperdrives 👍 . 

Yeah, you're describing function of the Bar. I have zero problem thinking about that. It's implementation (writing the code) that is stalling me. I have a 15% finished bar-tab on my computer, it will be text only, as the things you describe are not trivial.

@impaktor

Well, if it were trivial it would probably already be implemented, wouldn't it?
Well... like I said, I'm not a programmer. But I have experience in taking existing structures, adapting them and taking them further, if the basis opens up to me. I don't know... if I can help in any way?

Not sure what's causing that coloration to the skybox. It was rather while ago I worked on it, can't much recall the workflow.

Just a hunch, but maybe there's an alpha channel on it accidentally? EDIT: According to Blender it doesn't have alpha

Another one;

I often have this kind of CTD, this time I was finally able to reproduce it. Simple:

Let the game run for a while (in my case about 4 hours) and then switch on time acceleration.

Done - guaranteed CTD.

Hello. On this new release, I get this error once I open it. On earlier versions this never happened.

@crux_72 Thanks, we have a bug report on it now: #5118

@thediaz Could you please attach your opengl.txt as previous post has done? Pioneer requires OpenGL 3.1. Also, if you have more than one graphics card, make sure it's using the correct one. Ping @fluffyfreak

OK, bug 5118 fixed, anyone playing on the release candidate (2020-12-22), is recommended to update to use this file:

data/libs/SpaceStation.lua

(Or you risk crashing the game as described in 5118 linked in previous post, and not just from DeliverPackage, but other missions are also effected)

@impaktor

Thx - will do so and report back if it isn't.

Another one, but without error message (instant crash)

- Game started
- Jumped to the next day via time acceleration
- Start permission obtained (via F4)
- Gained altitude during take-off with manoeuvre jets
- Landing gear retracted
- Changed control mode
-

CTD

I have noticed crashes like this from time to time, but I can't see any regularity.

@crux_72 sadly, I don't think theres anything we can act on in your description, we need the error message that caused the crash. If you didn't upgrade to the new SpaceStation.lua file, it could have been the 5118 bug.

@impaktor

I have updated the file, so I don't think it is 5118.

As for the error message; since none was/is displayed (just had the same crash again) I can't help with that this time, if the attached .txt is not sufficient - sorry 😕 

Is there some kind of 'dump message file' or something? Otherwise, I can only offer to continue to pay attention to what circumstances prevailed at and shortly before the crash, perhaps you will then be able to narrow it down better.