No it doesn't affect their flight. There is no "flight model" as it would be called.

Even if there were a flight model it wouldn't work based on the collision mesh and that would be far too complex 🙂

Hello, first post here so a brief intro. I'm from the Netherlands and made some games in the 80's and 90's, just for fun. I am a network engineer, spending my spare time with guitar, art, science and a little 3D modelling and programming. 

I re-discovered Pioneer a few weeks ago and I think you did an excellent job. Elite II has always been a favorite game to me because of its integration of fairly simple maths to accomplish a complex universe. Elite II got me interested in fractals and mathematics.

For years I've been thinking about a space sim somewhat like Elite2. Spaceships with 3D cockpits as in Orbiter, which really adds to the illusion of the vastness of space. Movement of the cockpit like in FSX adds to the illusion of acting g forces. I see huge spaceships to freely move/live in, with all kinds of equipment and devices to do some research on stars and planets. Scanners, analyzers, shuttles, rovers, probes. Data collected scientifically correct, as far as it goes. Of course with a "star log" and a growing ships database. A sim to let the player discover the galaxy, or just fly around, or do all the other things in Elite II and much more. For exploring the galaxy I had something like this in mind: at first only a few star systems are colonized, the player can travel to empty neighbor systems, do some research, and when a certain score is reached the system is ready to be colonized and (automatically) gets its star ports/gas stations. Another hub. Or not, if the system is not interesting. 

On the longer shot I see a multiplayer 24/7 game like that. As more players participate a slightly higher score must be achieved to get a system ready for colonization. Players may move out and pick new worlds as their home planet where they have their own room with a view on board of an orbiter or in their spaceship. Several players could crew a big spaceship doing team work. What has been discovered is accessible to everybody. In order to deal with time differences there would be a universal time to which the local ship time is reset. You don't really have to run a heavy server, clients would be server-clients themselves, a bit like how ARMA II works. Players only see other players in their system. Players occasionally share new entries in their ships database to the server database so the universe is updated to everyone. Semi-multiplayer would also be possible. Discoveries and messages and such in singleplayer uploaded and shared to the rest. 

Anyway, I could go on with shipyards with hundreds of parts o chose from, procedural generation of underground cities, weather, integration of social media, a 'communicator' app on your smart phone to check your character, contests, frequently added actual scientific data from i.e. NASA, expanding the types of bodies and phenomena to visit, players being able to start fractions and set rules and so on. 

I've read some posts on the forum here and it seems to me that Pioneer is meant to be 'just' a modern version of Elite II, which is great. But I'm writing this because I am very impressed to see that the engine of Pioneer seems quite suitable for that more extended sim I have in mind. So basically my question to the developers is, do you want to stick to the pure Elite II idea, like no 3D cockpits/g forces, no walking/driving on terrain, limited number of ship parts, limited data living out there? If so, would it be interesting to think about a spin off? With Alpha30 the planets are breathtaking. Just exploring planets and star systems is addictive on it's own. And every time I'm somewhere I am curious. What's the temperature, what's that liquid, what are those rocks, how old. In a (semi) multiplayer environment I'd want to set beacons for other people "hey check this out!" and visit places others discovered.

Anyay, thanks for your time and thanks for Pioneer.

PS For people who did not know these titles:

Orbiter: a freeware realistic (and difficult) space sim, but fortunately it comes with prerecorded flights: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/

Mandelbulb3D: excellent 3D fractal explorer. Instructions+dowload link here:  http://gemnets.blogspot.nl/search/label/Mandelbulb3D

Et

I've read some posts on the forum here and it seems to me that Pioneer is meant to be 'just' a modern version of Elite II, which is great. But I'm writing this because I am very impressed to see that the engine of Pioneer seems quite suitable for that more extended sim I have in mind. So basically my question to the developers is, do you want to stick to the pure Elite II idea, like no 3D cockpits/g forces, no walking/driving on terrain, limited number of ship parts, limited data living out there? If so, would it be interesting to think about a spin off? With Alpha30 the planets are breathtaking. Just exploring planets and star systems is addictive on it's own. And every time I'm somewhere I am curious. What's the temperature, what's that liquid, what are those rocks, how old. In a (semi) multiplayer environment I'd want to set beacons for other people "hey check this out!" and visit places others discovered.

In concept we're aiming at a modernised version of Frontier. We like to say we're "inspired by" Frontier, because we don't limit ourselves if we have a good idea, but aiming for Frontier does provide some useful constraints (like no multiplayer). Its good to be constrained - we're making a game , not trying to accurately simulate the entire universe and everything in it.

Doing realistic geological analysis (an idea I haven't heard before, well done) requires a very complex simulation that takes a lot of time to write and maintain but doesn't do much to enhance the game. And that's the same reason we push back on things like walking/driving around on planets, EVA, etc. Pioneer is a space game - we can't be all things to all men (or women!).

That said, we're fond of saying "patches welcome". If you or someone else were to turn up with code to implement a good geological model, I doubt you'd find much opposition to including it in the game. But for now, the current devs all have todo lists to last them years, and unless one of them have a particular interest in something weird like this its not ever likely to go anywhere.

Question - Ranks and Medals, is this something that can be awarded through modding missions etc or is it coded in the core game? I was just thinking about walterar's scout mod and wondered if it was possible to add scouting ranks and medals for accomplishing a certain amount of tasks?

That sort of thing would be done through the Character class. It's written in Lua, and is simple to script for.

Indeed. And its also on my list somewhere, though not anywhere near the top 😛

any chance of pointing me in the right direction on how I could fiddle with the ranks and medals awards via a mod. I might as well try to learn lua and see if I can kill two birds with one stone.

if not, I'll leave the investigation till I get more time. I know you guys are busy...

I've relocated my question from the Alpha 30 topic:

In the first couple of Alpha's the mountains where of (how do I describe it right) of another character. They where a bit more extreme and sharp and the snow was mixed with rocks. More fractal noise in the border lines between (for example) snow and rocks.

Also you've had a couple of lonely peaks. Some even 30 km high. For example Alpha Centauri AB had a fantastic planet with some spectacular mountain scenery. In the latest Alpha's I can not find such planets.

On a certain moment the terrain engine was changed to provide more variation. But with that Alpha Centauri and also the rendering of the mountains changed.

First it became more extreme to the extent that you had planets with artificial looking spikes and now everything looks soft and rounded with the exception op canyons. If you can find an early alpha and travel to the Alpha Centauri planet then you see what I mean. Is it possible to get a bit from that character back while maintaining variation?

any chance of pointing me in the right direction on how I could fiddle with the ranks and medals awards via a mod. I might as well try to learn lua and see if I can kill two birds with one stone.
 
if not, I'll leave the investigation till I get more time. I know you guys are busy...

First, you'd have to implement ranks and medals. This would involve an addition to the player info page (written in lua), and any necessary tweaks to the Character class (such as promotion methods, etc) - also in Lua. We have a ranking system for Elite combat rating (not that any of the missions currently demand any sort of rating) but nothing else.

Once you've implemented them, you can tweak them to your heart's content...

Seriously, if you do want to have a look at doing this, you'd probably need some assistance from the devs. The new UI isn't fully documented yet (or at all, in fact) but is understood by a number of us. You'll need a decent working knowledge of Lua, and you'd need to familiarise yourself with the existing libs.

We'd need a design of some sort. Is a rank or a medal something specific to the player, or is it something availabe to any character in the game? You'd need to decide if you want to have some sort of dynamic, extensible medal system (semi-random names for awards from different factions) or a bunch of hard-coded stuff.

It's a lot of work. It's the sort of thing I'd get onto eventually, but if somebody else gets started on it first I'm happy to see that happen.

Do talk to people. Try things out, and be prepared to bin things and start again. Ask specific questions when you have them. Remember that any code you write will be reviewed by other developers, so be ready for the inevitable criticism (we do try to be positive there).

Jump in, though. If you think you could be the one to write it, then there's no need to wait for somebody else. I didn't ! (-:

Guess I misunderstood your " and is simple to script for" meaning the base exists but nothing has been implemented regarding the actual medals and ranks!

I best log back into github and take a copy and have alook at jumping in the deepend!

I fear this may not come to anything, but you don't learn without trying I guess. Thanks for the heads up, I hope I can make sense of it all.

oh and I accept I will be taught many lessons by the devs throughout all of this (-:

@pagroove

It might be possible to get some of that back, but it depends on why it went away.

The terrain system and individual terrains have been rewritten quite a lot since then.

@pagroove

It might be possible to get some of that back, but it depends on why it went away.

The terrain system and individual terrains have been rewritten quite a lot since then.

Ok I understand. I was just pointing it out that the character of the terrain changed in my observation. I lover Pioneer. It is terrific. 

I've been upgrading the interior of my latest mod of the big_crappy_spacestation. I hope to convert it to the new modeling system. I put in 4 docking bays arranged like a Maltese Cross and modified the docking code so the ship would enter, stop, rotate to the pad position, then lower down to the pad. It worked in alpha 29, but in alpha 30 the ship turns and enters the tube backwards and ends up with its nose pointing through the floor, giving the player a rather nice view of the outside. I copied the three new lines from alpha 30 into my spacestations.lua, but I don't understand what they mean. If someone would give me a link to an explanation and/or explain it to me it would be much appreciated. Here's the docking code in case someone wants to look at it.

num_docking_ports = 4,

        parking_distance = 5000.0,

        parking_gap_size = 500.0,

        ship_launch_stage = 3,

        -- for stations where each docking port shares the

        -- same front door, set dock_one_at_a_time_please = true,

        dock_one_at_a_time_please = true,

        dock_anim_stage_duration = { DOCKING_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, 10.0, 5.0, 5.0 },

        undock_anim_stage_duration = { 5.0, 5.0, 10.0 },

        ship_dock_anim = function(port, stage, t, from, ship_aabb)

            local baypos = { v(-220,-350,0), v(0,-350,-220),

                v(220,-350,0), v(0,-350,220) }

            local normal = { v(0,1,0), v(-1,0,0), v(0,-1,0), v(1,0,0) }

            if stage == 2 then

                return { vlerp(t, from, v(0,-350,0)), v(1,0,0), v(0,0,1) }

            elseif stage == 3 then

                return { v(0,-350,0), normal[port], v(0,0,1) }

            elseif stage == 4 then

                return { vlerp(t, v(0,-350,0), baypos[port]), normal[port], v(0,0,1) }

            elseif stage == -1 then

                return { vlerp(t, baypos[port], v(0,-350,0)), normal[port], v(0,0,1) }

            elseif stage == -2 then

                return { v(0,-350,0), v(-1,0,0), v(0,0,-1) }

            elseif stage == -3 then

                return { vlerp(t, v(0,-350,0), v(0,600,0)), v(-1,0,0), v(0,0,-1) }

            end

        end,

        ship_approach_waypoints = function(port, stage)

            if stage == 1 then

                return { v(0,4000,0), v(1,0,0), v(0,0,1) }

            elseif stage == 2 then

                return { v(0,600,0), v(1,0,0), v(0,0,1) }

            end

        end,

    },

I might be a bug, but I can't check it right now as I'm at work. Suspect most people are.

Report it on the GitHub issues list and someone will get to it.

Roger that, fluffyfreak. First, I'm going to check and see if it happens on the other station(s) for me like it does for Vuzz. I'm getting ready to leave for work right now. 🙂

So that's why you've been so productive in Pioneer! I had a nice productive time during my last unemployment too.

How may factions are there in Pioneer as of Alpha 30?

I'm still on a pre-30 version, but in that there are 103 factions.

Are that many being planned to remain long term? 103 factions are a lot of relationships to keep track of? or is 103 just a result of the random generation?

Are that many being planned to remain long term? 103 factions are a lot of relationships to keep track of? or is 103 just a result of the random generation?

103 is a result of random generation. There aren't a lot of plans for factions at this point. We're just experimenting and seeing where things go.

What has changed between Nightly 13th Jan and Nightly 18th Jan that would make bao's Apollo Eagle LEM be instantly out of fuel the moment I hit a thruster or take off?

Even when I click refuel, it fuel indicator fills (but the cargo does not get used up) and the moment you hut a thruster the fuel gauge empties again?

"What has changed between Nightly 13th Jan and Nightly 18th Jan"

Now the Eagle series, (for example) has 2Tn less load capacity, are slower and consume more.

They returned steamships. 

Ok I understand. I was just pointing it out that the character of the terrain changed in my observation. I lover Pioneer. It is terrific. 

Here's an illustration of an old Alpha of Pioneer showing the sort of mountain landscape I can't seem to find in the latest builds. This was the planet in Alpha Centauri.

What has changed between Nightly 13th Jan and Nightly 18th Jan

Here's a tip - use Github to see the differences between two builds. Grab their commit hashes from the nightly filename or menu screen, and plug them into a url like this:

https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/compare/8df2208...1cae2f4

Github will show all the commits between those two. If you click the "Files" tab, you can see the actual file changes, including Changelog.txt

that would make bao's Apollo Eagle LEM be instantly out of fuel the moment I hit a thruster or take off?

So as you can see from the above changes, fuel use has been rebalanced. An old mod will likely require similar changes.

thanks robn, didn't know that about github.

i did notice the change from thruster-use to exhaust velocity and added it earlier today but the same thing happend. what i did not take into account is the increase in fuel tank mass. i thought it was something else that had changed....i'll carry on having a play around with it.

cheers