Awesome! 😀 There are people trying to turn Orbiter into Frontier, and people using Pioneer like Orbiter!

😆 Yes quite correct Marcel, perhaps both games will met in the middle someday.

I'd consider trying Orbiter, if I was one of those Windows-types. Alas, I'm not.

Well, I'm rather glad you're not. I'd otherwise be afraid that Orbiter would draw you away from Pioneer like Pioneer drew me away from Orbiter. 😆

perhaps a happy medium

28 April - b14bffa

Today's build has the new Lua mission/module API. The entire module system has been completely rewritten. Mostly its about internal code consistency but portions of it will make it very easy to expose parts of the core to Lua scripts.

For the most parts you'll find no user-visible changes (bugs notwithstanding). For budding mission authors, you'll find a really nice event-driven API that should let you do all sorts of things you couldn't before. I'll be documentation the whole mess so far as soon as I can (in time for alpha 10).

Note that the assassination missions are not currently available, as I haven't rewritten the script yet.

And for people who'd like a nice little incentive to try a new build, here's a nice little script that adds a "body shop" to the bulletin board. For a modest fee, the friendly mechanics will repaint your ship and swap your registration plates. Not sure yet if this will make it into the game proper - it was just a fun thing to write this morning 🙂

BodyShop.lua

the lua mission will it allow changes to planets if u plant colony or do other things that affect system stats or something

The plan is to allow scripts some ability to modify a system. Most likely that will be limited to adding and removing starports and other non-planetary bodies (satellites, other things). The details haven't been figured out yet and implementation is probably a fair way off. We do have some interesting mission ideas that require it, so we're keen to do it.

Last night build and one before this. I can't cheat and increase my money with a new game using Ctrtl-M.

Is this a feature you have now removed form the source code?

Yeah, that's my mistake. I've been playing with the debug compile options and it got left out. I've re-enabled it; the next build will have the money cheat, the ship spawn and the object viewer back.

Wow looks like things are coming along wonderfully! I'm loving the sound of the new features 😀 I'm not able to try any new builds until I get proper internet that doesn't charge me an arm and a leg per mb but I'm proper excited to now. Looks like my asian blokes are slotting together nicely too! 🙂

In the most recent dev builds I can't purchase a new ship without being dropped to the desktop.

Dev build: f2d735f-win 32

Windows Vista32 SP2

Nvidia 9600 m

Error message:

Assertion failed

file: ship.cpp

line 1015

expression f=>type==m_shipflavour.type

Thanks for logging that on the tracker, Sean. It's been confirmed, and will be sorted soon.

I've finally gotten around to messing with 5d61822. Perhaps this comment is a bit out of date, but here it is anyway. I started a new game at Brasilia, bought a Ladybird, 😉 and launched. I set the autopilot for LA when I was near the ground right after launch and it performed flawlessly. I'm really impressed with the Earth, s2odan. Flying over Central America and being able to recognize the Andes and Peru was really cool. Also, the game picked out medium detail for planets and cities for me this time. In 9.1 this would have slowed my aging machine unacceptably, but it runs reasonably well on 5d61822 and looks good! A big pat on the back for everyone involved.

Thanks Marcel 🙂

Im wondering when we're going to be able to kick back in that snazzy new station interior I keep seeing snippets of 😉

So you give me an entire galaxy of beautiful landscapes to explore, but instead you want me to stay inside that grimy docking bay. Sheesh! can't a guy take a little vacation? 🙄

Seriously, thanks. At the rate I'm going it will probably be another couple of weeks before its marginally ready, but if I wait until I've done everything I have in mind it would be like trying to reach the speed of light. I'd never get there.

With each night build that I download and install, is it assumed that night build will be able open previously night build saved games?

If so, and loading these pervious saved games causes error or cashes should I be lodging issue?

Most builds won't break save files, but there's no guarantees. The last build that explicitly broke savefile compatibility was f2d735f on 29 April. There shouldn't be any breakage since then and there's none planned, so feel free to file bugs, and attach the save file. It might be difficult to pin down but we'll try.

to the stations interior, i guess needs some revisiting, i remembered when i docked once using autopilot it slowed down the game extremely, i will porouse it once to see what's the matter, must be some texture that kills framerate completely, could be the door, since it's a animated part and dynamic parts using textures make problems i know. depending on how you use it.

shipflavour is somewhat new..., could be a specific ship that produces this error i guess

you can minimize ships to lanner, ladybird, eagle, (lynx?) the game should still run then in all aspects (i guess to start a game on earth you only need the lanner for title screen and the eagle as default ship.)

if the error didn't happens, slowly add one by one and try to purchase, i'm shure you find the buggy one.

That was reported and fixed a few days ago.

station interiors could be reworked a bit . ANother angle if anyone wants to take up the task, the game is looking pretty good more ppl coming on board a flexible gaming engine. Cant ask for more ( well maybe exploration, colonization, technology realted stuff, perhaps changes in soviegnty over systems - expansion of borders) perhaps npc wars which u can help influence through youre actions etc

I'm working on it. See my avatar. 🙂

Of course you can ask. You might even find that somebody's working on a design for this sort of thing. Not me, I hasten to add.

I forgot to post about this new feature that's been in builds since 30 April: ship alerts.

Its a little like the old Frontier "Warning: Under attack" but with a little more flexibility. The idea behind it is that space is a vast place, so if there's a ship nearby, even if its not hostile, the player will probably want to know about it.

Under normal circumstances, you're in a "all is well" state. When a ship is detected with 100km, you move on to a "ship nearby" alert:

Note the yellow light on the far right of the panel. That indicates the current alert state.

If, while on the "ship nearby" alert, someone starts firing, you move up to a "ship firing" alert:

It doesn't necessarily mean that they're firing at you, just that someone is shooting at something.

If no fire has been seen for 60s, then the alert is downgraded to "ship nearby" again:

And once there's no ships in the 100km radius again, you go back down to "all is well":

There's still a few things to do, but the basics are all there.

ship alerts are good, we could always just scour other similiar games for ideas and ofc if the programming talent is out there and willing to contribute all good. Perhaps a ship technology that gives u a 1000km alert as well ( maybe a alien articafact) or a rare technology find