First of all thank you all for the great job you've done with that project. It looks like a huge amount of work went into that project already. Congratulations. Being a hard core Frontier gamer back then in 1993 it was a great surprise to come across this revival project almost 20 years later. The game is already fully playable even in alpha stage, and it's great to see that so much care seems to be put on the physics of the game which is almost always a major weakness of space simulation games (which I do understand is usually probably the case due to commercial reasons).
As a feedback on the addictive features of the original game, there are mainly two ingredients which got me hooked and which are partly implemented in Pioneer:
- The ranking system of the factions (which I think is implemented now). A great addition would be to gain extra rewards under the form of faction-specific medals / ribbons / achievements.
- The existence of rare or unique features which is the main motivation for spending time exploring. For example:
- Unique space station (geometry)
- Unique big structure / ship (geometry)
- Unique ship / equipment that can be bought only in a given system / planet / station
- Unique mission that is available only in a given system / planet / station
- Unique system / planet features: for example in Frontier I could find the following specific system classifications (just as an example even if the names are not relevant for Pioneer):
- Federation capital: Sol (0,0)
- Federal Naval basis: Eta Cassiopeia (0,2)
- Federal prison: Ross 128 (0,0)
- Scientific research station: Alpha Centauri (0,0)
- Independent dictatorship: Tiliala (-4,1)
- Mining operations and industrial development: Barnards Star (-1,0)
- Borderer system. Small farming and touristic operations: Ackandso (2,-2), Bedaho (-4,2), Exbeur(-3,4)
- World with high population: Anlave (0,3), Arcturus (-2,0), Beta Hydri (0,-2), Tau Ceti (0,0)
- Oceanic and icy world. Tourism, fishing: Edethex (3,-3), Ququve (1,4), Ross 154 (-1,0), 61 Cygni (-1,1)
- Agricultural terraformed world: Delta Pavonis (-1,-2), Epsilon Indi (-1,-1), Formalhaut (-1,0), Ross 986 (2,1), Wolf 630 (-2,-1)
- Forest world. Tourism and agriculture: Altair (-2,1), Aymiay (1,4), Oltiqu (-1,-4), Vega (-3,2), Zeessze (0,3)
- Imperial capital: Achenar (1,-4)
- Imperial Naval basis: Facece (0,-4)
- Imperial industrial and mining colony: Laedla (-4,1)
- Touristic imperial system: Fawaol (2,-3), Quince (-1,5)
- Very rich imperial system with high population: Cemiess (-2,-2), Loququ (3,-4), Tiacan (3,-4)
- Recent imperial systems (2950-3150): Anlaol (1,-6), Aymifia (-2,-5), Candaess (2,-4), Exioce (-1,-3), Olcanze (1,-3)
- Imperial mines: Ackdati (0,-5), Ackzece (-1;-5), Andcefa (2;-3), Aexeth (0;-5), Anacketh (0;-5), Anayeth (-1;-4), Ayfati (-1;-5), Behoqu (2;-4), Cegreeth (-1;-3), Cephiol (-1;-5), Essaa (-1;-5), Exiool (2;-4), Hoarla (-1;-5), Liabeze (2;-4), Milogre (-2;-5), Miphifa (0;-5), Sohoa (0;-4), Soveze (3;-4), Urandol (-1;-5), Urtize (3;-4), Veareth (0;-5) Zelagre (-1;-5)
- Forbidden system (federal interdiction, no known reason): Arayess (4;-7), Ethenbe (8,-6)
- Systems requiring a specific authorisation in order to enter: Ross 128 (0,0) (requires a Federal pass, federal prison), Van Maanens Star (0,1) (independent, requires a pass from the Guardian Order: isolationist religious enclave, sect of the Free Spirit Guardiant), YZ Canis Minoris (2,0) (independent strict communist regime)
- Special systems: Enaness (-5,1) (independent, system of scientific interest, communist system), Exlagre (-5,3) (independent, system of scientific interest, corporate system), Quphieth (-3,0) (independent, system of scientific interest, governed by local Barons)
- Independent systems which are claimed by both Federation and Empire: Zeaex (3;-2), Ackcanphi (-4;-4), Edhoeth (-4;-3),
Liaedin (4;3), Alioth (0;4)
- System-bug (the game crashes when entering that system): Greliain (4,1)
- Dangerous systems: Phekda (2;5), Andsool (4;-7), Riedquat (-3;-6), Exquge (-4;2), Zeayze (9;-7), Veliaze (-2;3), Aenze (3;-6)
- More specific systems classifications, for example "Dangerous" systems in Frontier where you would usually find a lot more pirate ships,
- Hidden things or rumours like e.g. a hidden historical framework (Thargoids or e.g. black holes, class 4 military hyperdrives, class 10 hyperdrives, imperial reflective armour, alien ship, etc.) with eventually even some facts (e.g. some structures / stations very far from Sol, special items, ship, etc.)
Another ingredient that would greatly help finding out the trading process would be to enhance the trading experience depth by showing the trade routes on the star map (as it is the case in Frontier). I guess any trade route should be hard-coded and comply with at least the following rules:
- Trade routes are established between safe systems (i.e. without risk of being attacked by another ship under normal circumstances, i.e. without completing a specific contract)
- Trade routes are established between systems with landing facilities and / or orbital stations
- Trade routes are established between systems with a minimal population number.
- There are more ships travelling on a trade route (higher probability of meeting ships, landing stations are more crowded, etc).
On a side note, below are a few other suggetions. I know this is a volunteer project, and probably most of the points below are already in some wishlist somewhere but not implemented yet due to time constraint. Anyway this is just my feedback on the game as it is now.
- Hyperspace jumps: they take a long time (real time), and I don't understand why the progression of the probability of successful jump slows down close to 100%. A shortcut to skip that sequence would be helpful.
- More shortcuts especially for the time acceleration.
- Documentation (I had to dig out my old Frontier paper manual in order to remember some features of the game).
- After 7 years, my Hyperdrive Class I didn't break out with no maintenance performed at all. As far as I remember, in Frontier it used to break down without maintenance after about 1 year. However in the bulletin board there are some Hyperdrive maintenance services that can be bought. This seems to be useless or an inconsistency if the Hyperdrive never breaks down.
- A flight journal which automatically logs all significant actions (with their date), e.g. docking in a station, performing a hyperjump, accepting a mission, completing a mission, failure to complete a mission, buying a new ship, buying a ship part, buying or selling goods, attacking a ship, being attacked by a ship, landing on a planet, starting mining, etc.
- A bit more detailed vector objects (ships and structures). The quality of 3d models (space stations and ships) looks quite similar to the original Frontier on PC (about 20 years old 3d engine). Moreover the texture of quite a few ships is so dark that the shape can hardly be distinguished on a black background (e.g. when buying a new ship or in space, there should be some artificial ligntning in order to distinguish the ship) - ships were much easier to distinguish in the original game.
- It would be useful if we could know prior to buying a ship if the ship can accept e.g. atmospheric shielding or a fuel scoop.
- Some ships to be bought in the shipyard are too strongly zoomed in the preview window (where there is a rotating animation of the ship) and are therefore not fully displayed (e.g. Cobra MKI).
- Seems to me the requirement to press CTRL in order to override the forced time acceleration is not needed anymore. Indeed the speed already automatically decreases and crashes due to speed acceleration are very rare (even less frequent than in Frontier). Anyone playing the game for a very little bit of time will either get bored due to he fact he doesn't know about the CTRL trick or he'll quickly come to the conclusion that speed acceleration is the way to go and therefore the requirement for CTRL doesn't seem necessary to me.
- Money: after a while doing some trade with the big ships it is possible to collect a huge amount of money. Money is then not an issue anymore and there's no incentive in keeping on performing activities that generate money. In the long term the incentive for trading in the game vanishes. This is something I was worried about also in Frontier. I've always thought there should be some way to invest the huge amount of money you can make in the game in order to keep the interest in trading. Basically these investments opportunities should require huge amounts of money so that it would be almost impossible to have no investing possibility anymore (as in real world: you can always find a way to spend your money whatever the amount is). In all cases there should be a mention on the profile page about these investments (otherwise it is as if the money was lost). A few ideas on how to allow to spend huge amounts of money would be:
- donations should be registered in some way on the profile page, e.g. a ranking system for donations with huge thresholds
- buying shares of stations, of cities, structures, or eventually planets with a mention on the profile page that the player is owner of the following assets
- investing in the enhancement of a space station (would require defining a hierarchy for the type of space stations)
- buying inhabited planets
- accepting financing opportunities like a new station, or new structure, or new facility in the game, or a colonization expedition
- Changing and / or buying a citizenship: would be nice if the player can define a city he is hometown
- Display of amounts: a separator for thousands would be useful in order to better read big amounts (e.g. ship prices). Moreover, for big amounts (e.g. ships) displaying digits seems a bit pointless (better round off these amounts).
- Bigger fluctuations of trading prices.
- More statistical-related in-game information like for example the list of wealthiest citizens (e.g. TOP-10) of a given city (defined by their hometowns), planet, system. Such lists would be available in any station of the given hometown / planet / system. Entries in such lists could be based on random names with pseudo-random wealth (maximum wealth could depend e.g. on the system population (the higher the population, the wealthiest people are), system trading activity, etc).
The very few small bugs and/or glitches I found:
- Selling a ship with individual parts doesn't take into account the value of the individual parts (e.g. autopilot, hyperdrive, etc). The amount of cash obtained from selling a ship should be equal to the amount obtained by selling all parts then the ship itself.
- On very rare occasions the autopilot cannot handle the forced time acceleration: either the hull gets damaged or the ship eventually gets destroyed. For example, over a period of 8 years the ship crashed only once while in forced x1000 speed up mode while trying to approach a Jupiter moon station. On the other hand hull damage happens very frequently while landing on planets especially for some ships (Viper Defense Craft).
- On very rare occasions the game was freezing when going back to cockpit view while in hyperspace mode and exploring the 3d star map at the same time.
- Was stuck on Ross 248 because Hydrogen was out of stock. Hydrogen is a commodity that should never be out of stock, or at least it should be renewed the next day. In my case the stock wasn't renewed after more than 15 days.
- The speed at which goods are bought (left mouse pressed on purchase) doesn't increase and it takes way too much time to buy big amounts (> 100 tons).
Finally, what about considering a donations page for the project? I'm sure there are plenty of people who'd link to thank the team for the great work done and support the project.
Again, thank you very much for all the work put into that game.
Welcome, welcome, welcome! As a fairly new player myself I'm still in awe of what has been done already, but there is still a long way to go!
You will be pleased to know that a majority of the points you raise are actually already planned or being considered. Some of these exist already on the issue tracker (eg: Factions - they are a relatively new feature and are still being developed, one day there should be faction specific missions, ranks, and medals).
And i have also been stung by the out of goods at station and been unable to leave the system. Not a problem if more than one station in a system, but if not, its a definite problem.
I think... perhaps trade ships will arrive and trade goods (something i'm playing with at the moment) although not sure if this actually causes the stock at the station to change.... but this could be a reason a station runs out if it does occur like this. Ship arrives, steals all the hydrogen, leaving you with nothing to buy. Curious about this myself.
Anyway, yes, its a frustration that needs resolving at some point.
As an additional note, feel free to get involved. Any issue you find or feature request, you can raise on the issue tracker.
https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/issues?sort=updated&state=open
Just worth checking before you do to see if there is already an existing issue related to it to save the devs from having to link/close new issues with existing ones.
As an additional note, feel free to get involved. Any issue you find or feature request, you can raise on the issue tracker.
https://github.com/p...ated&state=open
Just worth checking before you do to see if there is already an existing issue related to it to save the devs from having to link/close new issues with existing ones.
Thanks, will do :- )
Ignoring the general stuff (which is either time constrained or has been ruled out, but not ever forgotten) I'm just going to have a look at your specific "other" suggestions. The forum software complained that I used too many quote blocks, so your words are in bold.
Hyperspace jumps: they take a long time (real time), and I don't understand why the progression of the probability of successful jump slows down close to 100%. A shortcut to skip that sequence would be helpful.
The idea behind the lengthy jump and the percentage chance of arrival is to give the player the opportunity to abort the jump at any time. The percentage displayed is the chance that you'll end up in your destination, rather than back at the starting point or some random point. This isn't done yet, obviously. You can cut the jump time down dramatically by making more, smaller jumps - it's proportional, in part, to the square of the distance, and runs at 100,000x real-time.
More shortcuts especially for the time acceleration.
This comes up a lot in discussion, but is generally ruled out on the grounds that the physics timesteps get too big to simulate properly.
Documentation (I had to dig out my old Frontier paper manual in order to remember some features of the game).
Tricky on such a fast-moving target. We tried writing a manual as we went, but it was (unplayably) out of date every week. Once the game settles (and we're beta) wouodl be the time to start game documentation in earnest.
On the positive side, we're keeping things like the Lua API documentation up to date.
After 7 years, my Hyperdrive Class I didn't break out with no maintenance performed at all. As far as I remember, in Frontier it used to break down without maintenance after about 1 year. However in the bulletin board there are some Hyperdrive maintenance services that can be bought. This seems to be useless or an inconsistency if the Hyperdrive never breaks down.
Either you're exceptionally fortunate, or you don't use it very much. I wrote the breakdown code, and I can say with some certainty that your drive will break within 256 hyperjumps after your maintenance has expired, unless you use a mod that changes this behaviour. You can read the code yourself in data/modules/BreakdownServicing/BreakdownServicing.lua. Some players delete this script so that they can go exploring without worrying about breakdowns.
A flight journal which automatically logs all significant actions (with their date), e.g. docking in a station, performing a hyperjump, accepting a mission, completing a mission, failure to complete a mission, buying a new ship, buying a ship part, buying or selling goods, attacking a ship, being attacked by a ship, landing on a planet, starting mining, etc.
There is a flight log. Currently, it logs only your hyperjumps. You can ask it for your recent locations from the Lua console using the API documented here (you need some grasp of Lua). Some sort of interface to this will be written in the future, and it might well start to record other bits and bobs if gameplay requires it.
A bit more detailed vector objects (ships and structures). The quality of 3d models (space stations and ships) looks quite similar to the original Frontier on PC (about 20 years old 3d engine). Moreover the texture of quite a few ships is so dark that the shape can hardly be distinguished on a black background (e.g. when buying a new ship or in space, there should be some artificial ligntning in order to distinguish the ship) - ships were much easier to distinguish in the original game.
Hmm. Hopefully with the introduction of the new modelling system we'll see artwork being contributed by a wider pool of artists.
It would be useful if we could know prior to buying a ship if the ship can accept e.g. atmospheric shielding or a fuel scoop.
You might want to log that one as a feature request on the tracker (see my sig). We're currently re-writing the UI, and input like this is useful.
Some ships to be bought in the shipyard are too strongly zoomed in the preview window (where there is a rotating animation of the ship) and are therefore not fully displayed (e.g. Cobra MKI).
Models are currently a bit of a dark art. The new system is more standard...
Seems to me the requirement to press CTRL in order to override the forced time acceleration is not needed anymore. Indeed the speed already automatically decreases and crashes due to speed acceleration are very rare (even less frequent than in Frontier). Anyone playing the game for a very little bit of time will either get bored due to he fact he doesn't know about the CTRL trick or he'll quickly come to the conclusion that speed acceleration is the way to go and therefore the requirement for CTRL doesn't seem necessary to me.
If I read that right, you have the Ctrl key's job backwards. If the stardreamer switches to a lower setting because you're close to a planet, you can force it to go at your preferred higher setting with Ctrl. The exception to this is if it switches to a low acceleration due to the presence of another ship.
Money
Ah, what to spend it on? Gameplay balance is clearly not at the top of the "it's finished" list. One thing we have ruled out, 100%, no arguments, is the player founding colonies (and related high-level involvement). You will never own a planet. You might one day own a station, but we're not promising anything. You'll never run a faction. These things are outside of the scope of the game. It will probably be possible to mod these things in, but mods are game changers by definition.
The very few small bugs and/or glitches I found:
OK...
Selling a ship with individual parts doesn't take into account the value of the individual parts (e.g. autopilot, hyperdrive, etc). The amount of cash obtained from selling a ship should be equal to the amount obtained by selling all parts then the ship itself.
Equal? No. You should get rewarded for the effort of taking your ship to bits yourself. Perhaps a small increase in value, but not to the whole value of individually available parts.
On very rare occasions the autopilot cannot handle the forced time acceleration: either the hull gets damaged or the ship eventually gets destroyed. For example, over a period of 8 years the ship crashed only once while in forced x1000 speed up mode while trying to approach a Jupiter moon station. On the other hand hull damage happens very frequently while landing on planets especially for some ships (Viper Defense Craft).
This is under active development, but if you can repeatably demonstrate a problem we would ask you to make an issue on the issue tracker (see my sig) and have a saved game handy.
On very rare occasions the game was freezing when going back to cockpit view while in hyperspace mode and exploring the 3d star map at the same time.
We're unaware of this, and it should be added to the issue tracker, along with any steps to repeat it.
Was stuck on Ross 248 because Hydrogen was out of stock. Hydrogen is a commodity that should never be out of stock, or at least it should be renewed the next day. In my case the stock wasn't renewed after more than 15 days.
You should join the fuel club. Their stock is separate. Alternatively, invest in a fuel scoop. We make no guarantees that fuel is available on the market.
The speed at which goods are bought (left mouse pressed on purchase) doesn't increase and it takes way too much time to buy big amounts (> 100 tons).
Yeah, that's something for the issue tracker and for the new UI screens.
Finally, what about considering a donations page for the project? I'm sure there are plenty of people who'd link to thank the team for the great work done and support the project.
To whom would you donate? We're a bunch of volunteers scattered around the globe. Robn pays for the hosting, so you might want to help him out by using the Flattr link in his signature. The best thing to donate is your time, though. We need thorough testers who can write clearly, and you seem fairly capable in that regard.
More shortcuts especially for the time acceleration.
This comes up a lot in discussion, but is generally ruled out on the grounds that the physics timesteps get too big to simulate properly.
I think I might have mis-understood this. If you meant keyboard shortcuts, then there are many - you just don't know them, because Pioneer isn't all that well documented yet. Try Shift-F1 to F5.
Unique system / planet features:
- System-bug (the game crashes when entering that system): Greliain (4,1)
We can certainly replicate that for you <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />
Many thanks for your time going through my post <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//sun_bespectacled.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />
I have added the github issues you have mentioned.
I couldn't reproduce that hyperspace freeze (happened only twice), but I'll add a github issue if I can get more precise contextual information that would help to track the issue.
I think I might have mis-understood this. If you meant keyboard shortcuts, then there are many - you just don't know them, because Pioneer isn't all that well documented yet. Try Shift-F1 to F5.
You're right, that's what I was looking for. Great, thanks.
We can certainly replicate that for you
Lol, indeed :- ) I should have taken this one out ;- )
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