I have a question, could Alpha 30 be dedicated to the late great Sir Patrick Moore? I know some out there wont know who he was, but in the UK he was regarded as a national treasure and did much to further interest in astronomy both here and abroad. Would you, could you please consider this guys?

That's a nice idea.

Q: Is there a ship editor for pioneer?

http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Model_system

The shape, colour, etc. of a ship is done in a 3D modelling application. Many can do the job.

Stats, capabilities and so forth can be edited in any text editor.

What exactly determines the speed of a hyperspace jump and how exactly?

I know the drive type does, so does the jump distance and the mass of the ship, apparently.

What exactly is the mathematical relationship of those to hyperjump speed, though?

Are there any other important factors?

Also, is it at all profitable or even possible to be a miner in alpha29?

What exactly determines the speed of a hyperspace jump and how exactly?
I know the drive type does, so does the jump distance and the mass of the ship, apparently.
What exactly is the mathematical relationship of those to hyperjump speed, though?
Are there any other important factors?

As you've found, its a function of drive class, mass of ship (including cargo/equipment) and distance to target. This is going to read like crap, but here's the detail (ripped straight from the code):
 

range_max = 400 * class * class / mass
duration = (( dist * dist * 0.45) / range_max * class )) * (60 * 60 * 24 * sqrt(mass))

Yes, that can be simplified mathematically, but this is based on code, where sometimes we need to get max_range separately.

Subject to change, of course 🙂
 

Also, is it at all profitable or even possible to be a miner in alpha29?

Its possible to mine asteroids for stuff. Most of the time you won't get anything other than rubbish, so you probably won't ever make a profit. Its theoretically possible to get precious metals, but its based on the metal composition of the asteroid - just shooting more at an asteroid that's already giving you rubbish is probably just going to give you more rubbish.

As has been noted elsewhere, mining is very underdeveloped.

Interesting.

So the function from mass to jumpspeed is that jumpspeed is multiplied by the 3/2nd power of mass... I'm sure thats nonsense what I just said formally speaking but you get my point lol

And for class, it's the 3rd power of class that factors in.

So basically, since mass factors in for higher than its 1st power, the heavier your ship the more you pay in jumpspeed per ton. Assuming "mass" is simply the total numbers of tonnes of your ship. (Is this correct??)

Seems a bit steep for heavier ships, imho... A lot of the ships that can carry the heavier classes of drives also seem to need them to get like 1/3rd the jump speed of the light weights.

Seems a bit steep for heavier ships, imho... A lot of the ships that can carry the heavier classes of drives also seem to need them to get like 1/3rd the jump speed of the light weights.

The theory is that being heavier costs significantly more than running light, but if you can get it right, several small jumps might get you to your destination faster than one long jump. Its a big balancing act - in your massive cargo ship you're not going to get around very fast, but you'll be selling a lot of cargo. In your light courier you won't carry much cargo, but can take those lucrative delivery missions.

Of course the game isn't balanced yet, but we're finding this particular part of it to be pretty robust so far.

Ok, another thing...

I am having huge issues with the type of spaceport that looks like a huge rotating wheel with huge spokes, the entrance being in the axis, with green lighting on the inside.

Basically, I'm playing without an autopilot because I like the challenge of navigating and maneuvering the ship myself.

However, either this type of station's docking sequence trigger bugs out all the time or it's just extremely arbitrary and fidgety in its conditions. I remember the first time I actually tried to dock one manually I flew into the room in the back of the station. You know where it normally lands you at the end of the docking sequence. I even darn nearly landed my ship there were it not for the fact that pioneer universe's physics doesn't preserve rotation. Just recently I actually clipped through the station and came out the other side.

Oftentimes I find myself just flying through the entrance over and over again hoping it will finally trigger the docking. My best guess as to the necessary conditions for successfully docking is that your ships upside needs to be more or less oriented towards the "upside" of the entrance, which is indicated by the writing by the entrance, so you need to be rotating along with the station, and then at a slow speed fly into more or less (perhaps exactly) the middle of the entrance on a course parallel to the entrance. Also, you need to have clearance. Im not sure if there are any other criteria. But most of the time it doesnt seem to work.

And even then, the writing on this type of station seems to "glitch out" so that it vanishes when you actually get close enough to read it, which would enable you to tell which side is up.

Oh, and I'm also pretty confused about what exactly triggers your ship to take on the targeted object's rotation. I can usually do it by right clicking on a station when I'm closer than 1km but just now Im trying it on this type and its not working. Maybe I brushed by some hotkey that toggles this and I didnt notice. "r" Seems promising judging from the controls menu but it doesnt seem to fix it.

I can imagine this being a known problem, maybe I should report it to the issue tracker or something like that? I mean even if it is possible to dock consistently using some technique, it just seems too counter-intuitive and artificially hard, unless I'm really missing something. And it really gets to you when you have been manually navigating your way from the edge of the system at astronomical speeds to a station only to find you can't complete a passenger mission because, while you can actually simply enter through the door, the universe wont accept this fact.

You need to have your wheels down, and be going slowly (20m/s or so) as you pass the first floating light within the tunnel. Your orientation is irrelevant.

The stations are using our old modelling system, LMR. This is in the process of being completely replaced with a new system, which will involve a bottom-up reworking of all the space stations. It's very likely that these problems will be replaced with brand new ones when that happens.

I am having huge issues with the type of spaceport that looks like a huge rotating wheel with huge spokes, the entrance being in the axis, with green lighting on the inside.

Its name is "big_crappy". We love to hate it 🙂

However, either this type of station's docking sequence trigger bugs out all the time or it's just extremely arbitrary and fidgety in its conditions.

The docking surface is about half way down the central shaft. You have to hit it with your landing gear down, close to head-on, at < 30m/s. When you get it, you'll lose control and the ship control status on the right side of the panel will say "Docking". That's how you know.

Yes, this situation is arbitrary. We know we have to fix it. Its fairly low priority right now.

Ok, I guess I will keep trying, if you are sure its just being fidgety and not technically bugged...

Really though, I am still wondering why I can't seem to match rotation with this station. Usually when I right click a station the way you do to use the mouse to steer your ship, at a distance less than 1km my ship starts to match it's rotation. This station doesnt seem to be doing that. Is this some setting I might have toggled? Or maybe bugged station after all?

ninja edit: Actually, the distance to the station on the target display is going all over the place, oscilating wildly sort of within the 0.5 to 3 km range, indicating that there might be something wrong after all...

The station I'm talking about is Brown Station in the Waas system, 3,-15,-2. I tend to buy a different ship every so often so maybe the type of ship has something to do with it, not sure.

I've been trying for quite some time now, I was getting rather decent at docking/landing, my wheels are down, ... It really seems like a bug of some kind, tbh

btw, the target doesnt seem to be half way the shaft, it's being displayed exactly at the entrace, maybe even a bit out.

The target is not the docking position. They're separate.

Matching rotation isn't something I ever noticed happening, and I fly manually all the time.

A wildly misbehaving distance indicator might be a problem.

Ok, I just now discovered that nothing in this system (its called Waar, not Waas) clips. I can fly through the station, the ship thats hovering in front of it, planets, the smaller one of the twin stars, ... Probably any object thats supposed to be solid. The system map only shows the positively gargantuan red hypergiant star Waar A and nothing else, I guess this has something to do with the bug.

Haunted system, apparently.

Guess I wont be delivering my passenger! He'd probably just float off through the walls into outerspace and die anyways. Isn't there a star trek: the next generation episode where that happens?

Anyways: best stay clear from the Waar system unless you're on a research mission, it's glitched.

wishcraft, if you could add any additional information you find to the following issue on the tracker, I'd be grateful (I've added the system name and coordinates):

https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/issues/1790

It looks like you've found the same problem that bsercombe did, but in another system.

Ok I'll research the system a bit if I find the time, the glitching ditance meter and the messed up f2 - f7 system chart are the only things I can think of now.

However, you mentioned that you never noticed the automatic rotation matching with a station thats <1km distance. Im pretty sure it does do that, seriously. Without autopilot installed that is.

It only didnt happen in the Waar system because of the glitch.

Really, you know when you right click so that you can steer with the mouse, right? try right clicking a station like that just before you dock, when closer than 1km. My ship starts adjusting for rotation of the station every time. You know I used to think the Pioneer universe didnt preserve rotation, but your ship just refuses to accelerate its rotation and when you stop pressing the button it simply rotates in the other direction, canceling it out. Well, when right clicking on a closeby station, it wont adjust rotation to match that of space itself but of the station. I'm absolutely positively sure of this, idk, maybe you thought I was talking about something else...

Nope. It's not doing it for me. In Pioneer, you don't right-click on stuff anyway. Holding right mouse button hides the cursor and lets you steer the ship. It doesn't matter what's under it.

That said, I fly with keys. Far more control.

Hmmm strange, Im sure that I get the rotation matching thing... Maybe I dont actually need to right click.

I'd make a video of it if I had experience with that.

Another thing, I just had a taxi mission to a binary system where the stars were about 100 AU away from each other. I jumped in on a spot about 140 AU away from the destination. I guess it's because I enter near star A and the colony is by star B? Needless to say, my client wasnt very content as I arrived a couple months later than agreed. I should just have checked the destination system beforehand of course...

Is there some way around this? Some way to enter a system closer to the inner system destination?

There used to be, over a year ago. Not any more.

...

Another thing, I just had a taxi mission to a binary system where the stars were about 100 AU away from each other. I jumped in on a spot about 140 AU away from the destination. I guess it's because I enter near star A and the colony is by star B?...

The record so far is 23,319 AU, which takes ~19 months to cross. If you could just charge by the hour... 🙂

https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/issues/1912

The record so far is 23,319 AU, which takes ~19 months to cross. If you could just charge by the hour... 🙂

This is the kind of shenanigans I get up to when I work from home. Don't tell my boss 😉

I wrote this for personal use. I'm not going to push it, and it's not an officially supported script.

https://gist.github.com/4008245

Place the file in data/modules.

Hi Brianetta.

Was just wondering if you could let us know if you ever update this as I would like to use it for as many future releases I can. I have not downloaded Alpha 30 yet but I'll put this file in when I do. Hopefully it will still work. 

As usual..... damn brilliant work to the team. It is going forward in leaps and bounds.

Um, I keep it up to date. Each Gist on Github is a mini git repository, and I push changes whenever they're made.

I don't make announcements, because the changes that I push are often to keep it working with the latest version of master. This can mean that it stops working for an alpha even before that alpha is released. Alphas are old. (-:

If you're on master, and your cheat script stops working, try looking for an updated version. If you're on an alpha, and it stops working, try older versions of the script in the Gist history.

Thank you Brianetta.

Looking forward to helping out in the future when things are more fleshed out. I would like to be involved in writing the manual. Robn said there was no point starting to even writing little guides because things change etc. 🙂

Does someone have an BMP or PNG to hmap converter laying around?

I started working on my own BMP->hmap converter, it's almost working, but the heightmaps gets streched in places it shouldn't.

What is the excpected ratio width/height of a heightmap so it looks correctly, any info would be appreciated.

They're hardcoded, and can be either signed or unsigned depending on the terrain generator used 🙁

I can dig out the values later but be warned the format is going to change to something more sane just as soon as I get time to change it!