I am having a devil of a time trying to take off using the MORETOM game save. As soon as I break the surface the ship just flips over and crashes. Did manage to do the old trick I used in Frontier and hyperspace at ground level, but I couldn't control the ship after arrival in another star system, which was a shame as an IC turned up to play! 😥 So I am back using the default ship and managed to pull off a really sweet docking at a space station then the game crashed 😮 So no pictures from me as yet.

Oh well, save, save, save 😀

As for Marcel's concern over being able to see the text, perhaps this could be fixed by raising the control panel a little and placing the text in little black boxes? That would make it easy enough to read

sorry 😳 yes, the thing is you will launch in pioneer exactly the way you've docked before, that's a bit 😥

you will see the ship in proper position in the dock but when launching it tilts to the position it was exactly when docking was engaged, i hope that can be fixed someway, because it's annoying me to especially that you haven't sometimes control about how you dock. i mean you can land properly aligned to horizon but the prog. will tilt your ship due to whatever reason.

(maybe because of the halfways into the dock reaching mountainside, because mostly this happens on such places).

to launch the MORETOM, just have your finger ready on the manual main thrust, and press as soon as the ship gets free, that worked out for me most times, you may catch a little damage of course.

alternatively i can "park" that ship somewhere else on the planet that would help i guess. i didn't thought it would be a big problem for others, maybe a little 😉

fixed the savegames,

starting position on alpha centauri is now at rhodes starport and the ship should start safely.

therefore i removed the naval ecm 😯 because it gives the player to much extra money when removed, imo.

prepped savegames alpha3 01

tip; there is a high risk mission on the board to epsilon indi, time limit feb. 4. actual game time is jan. 17. so that should be to manage (this counts for the alpha centauri savegames of course).

or sell the sidewinder to an odd eagle and get ~6000 credits back 🙄

I found another spectacular mountain rage at Aplha Centauri B-H. It's much like our Karakorum although much higer.

The Highest peak of this range I call simply the Aplha Centauri Tower. It's about 30 km high. Sadly I can reload it because all my savegames on Aplha Centauri B-H don't work. Other planets work. I don't know why.

But enjoy:

Aplha centauri Tower is situated in a large valley I call the Tower Sanctuary.

Here you see the Tower from Sanctuary pass

Aplha Centauri Tower from Tiger pass

Somewhat higher above Tiger pass

Here you can see this is really a spectacular mountain

I can share the savegames if you want so someone can look into why I can't re load the savegames at AC B-H.

In my savegames is also the Giese 825 location

Edit Is it an idea that you can buy locator buoys that you can left at the planet to easier find back your locations. A bit like a location marker in Google Earth?

gliese 825? sector -1,0

use the sector code for location

you can estimate this a bit more precisely, if we use a similar system like it is used for "wormhole" calculations for old FE2.

assuming that the center of each sector represents the integer number (which isn't true i guess, in FE2 internally each sector starts at lower left corner, but it doesn't matter for a "user" location system) so gliese 825 would then be at sector -1.1,-0.1 roundabout (somwhat left from center, somwhat down), but it helps much to find a certain location in the systemmap.

another example alpha centauri would be then -0.4,0.4 or altair -1.4,-1.5 or arario 5.9,0.75, got it? (0.5 in each direction is the grid you see)

to locate a position on a planets surface, hm.....

sadly we havn't no MB4 mining machines to place in pioneer, but there is a possibility if you would compare the data of your actual position in the savegame or in the process memory, that should work, at least it has for me in FE2.

to get the actual pos on a planetside you would need to compare a lot of data in the process memory but once you will get it.

you can use a game geenie or something like that to find the right changing value when you change a position slightly, but it assumes that you have to start the game allways in the same environment, else the adress will change and such programs like game geenie's can't findback the right address in memory then. another possibility is to use a advanced hex editor with which you can explore the process memory, address in the actual process won't change i guess and you can find locations then "easy" but it also affords a lot of comparings to find the right address.

or draw a simple map.

but i don't know if that is at all very useful, might be names and location will still be changed, there was at least one change to that, i recocgnized it while i was looking at the pics in the gallery and wanted to find that system.

i guess it is SC 3034 +5 +0 fortunatly SC systems carry their system sector in the name but unfortunately at +5, 0 i can't find such a system (i looked around close sectors, or changed the not to clearly readable 0 to 8, 6 or 9 and searched negations of it to) there is only one system in this sector Quce, but it's a complete different one, only a single star system while SC3034 must have had at least 3 you can see that at the uppercase C

so i guess before the game is at least allmost complete i wouldn't do such locating for planetsides. the planets in a system you will find or the planets look could change for all systems with a change to the system- or terrain generating code.

Hey guys,

my first post here. i've been following this project for quite a while now and it is so awesome! i did some explorations in a huge number of systems and everytime i am overwhelmed by those planets, they look so beautiful from space.

and that leads directly to my question, if there's anybody here who can answer it: Do you know if tomm is working on those atmospheres? i remember someone mentioned already here that it would be perfect if you had a real blue (or green or red or whatever 😉 ) sky on a planet. You all know that even on pioneer's earth you can see stars during the day and when you look above then you see the black space. it would be so cool if that was different so that you would have the real feeling of being "on a planet" and not just "close to the surface"

I know it is just a graphical thing and not really important for the gameplay, however it would improve the game depth drastically on my opinion.

Yeah I've thought a bit about the problem.

Starlight should also attenuate (get dimmer the further away you are). You don't see stars during the day on earth, but out by the orbit of neptune perhaps a planet with a similar atmosphere would have starry daytimes.

Something about the brightness of the scene needs to be known when the background stars are drawn, which is first in the scene. Doing it this way, stars would still be incorrectly visible through planet atmospheres when viewed near the planet but still 'in space'. When the atmosphere is drawn the alpha blend doesn't know anything about the absolute brightness of the object already drawn to the framebuffer, so can't do it right.

I wonder how the smart people do it (infinity)?

In fact, I think the solution is what is called HDR, which recent cards can do.

So for pioneer v1.0 the answer will be a hack of some kind, since HDR will probably be a bit intrusive while trying to keep opengl 1.4 backward compatibility. Maybe v2.0 🙂

yeah... i guess some sort of fading the star-background texture to the planet's dominant atmosphere color would create some nasty effects if you have a moon or gas giant rising at the horizon (with its black side pointing away from the sun 🙄 ), am i right?

Unfortunately i am not a coder, so i can't help. (however i am a musician, maybe i can contribute something by trying to get the players attention on something else than stars during daytime )

Does anyone want my save games?

Found my new favorite place.

Waedla h1 is a rare outdoor moon around a gas giant. splendid views here

the broken ones?

i don't know, i gave mine up, sometimes that seems to happen, especially savegames right after hyperspacing i have lost some to (alpha2), since then this hasn't happend (mostly because i evade to save my games after hyperspacing or "update" them soon as i'm docked also i use more steps since then to be shure, no. like this, jameson_0_0, jameson_0_1, jameson_0_2 etc., if one get's broken i still have a working one in a close location, it's very wise to save as often as possible and before any new action) but i guess it could still happen.

i can't say if there is a way to fix them, i guess not.

it's strange they have worked i know, but in a different session you can't load them again.

lot's of such "small" bugs are still in the game.

"undockable" starports, you simply have to put them on a black list (such that terminate the game).

starports that make launching impossible by some mishandling of the direction i guess, i.e. altair (-1.4,-1.5) i2 mooney starport. first i thought it was my fault but i checked the dock with different ships and it allways happens the same when docking the ship gets tuned completely to the right side and stands by near on it's "wings", then you will launch exactly in this position, also the camara does a weird roll when outside view is selected.

launching....

(re) docking...

sometimes you cant launch then without getting wrecked!

and this is not the only one that acts this kind.

have seen the cool new pics, while i was writing....

waedla, sector? 😉

i guess i make a special ship which you can launch from the right side 😆

pagroove, you must excuse my couriosity, but what kinda ship is that on your avatar?

Off topic mode on:

That is an Oolite ship (carrier). The Tigershark carrier. It's an OXP in the making. I made this ship together with Griff from the Oolite Forums. Maybe you can ask Griff if he is willing to port his excellent Oolite ships over.

So you can then adapt them (adding landing gears etc). That saves a hell of a lot work for creating nice shipsets.

Here you can find his ships. I suggest you pm him.

http://aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=6586

NOW back on topic

Waedla is sector -7 -3.

on the way you pass by SC 7676-5-2. This planet has the highest mountains I saw until now. Mountian range up to 70 kilomters. Rising directly out of sea. Making the Giese 825 coastlines feel tiny. But Giese is steeper. But SC 7676-5-2

is spectacular. I jumped there from Beur.

yep, thanks, now we can follow your trip

check the alpha3 thread i've made a quick modification to the delivery module....

View from a world orbiting a Blue giant of 13.29 solar masses. Orbiting Gas Giant Daex D at 27 AU from the star. And it still is enormous.

just because i flew by

[attachment=142:2010-08-27_125901.jpg]

[attachment=143:2010-08-27_125946.jpg]

Dafa (3.6,1.45) j1 a moon of a gas giant with indigenous life (haven't seen any 😆 )

this is MY favorite "place" to be...

[attachment=144:2010-08-29_050553.jpg]

some cool fight in space

[attachment=145:2010-08-29_051534.jpg]

asteroids are really spikey

[attachment=146:2010-08-30_021323.jpg]

the only thing i have to know now, how to get that stuff aboard?

the fuel scoop doesn't seem to work for that

btw, the lanner is a "beast" of a ship, often equipped with a 10MW laser or stronger and very agile.

hint, to win a fight in pioneer, don't mark the opponent as target, or remove target after you checked who you face, that helps. else you will allways end up in head to head situations, but if you want to hit him from top or bottom it hinders you, the target selection "leads" your acceleration allways straight to the target, so it's better to unmark the target. sometimes you have to change between both (select - unselect) to get in a good line to the opponent. this way you end up less in "kamikaze" situations.

don't fly to fast, ~300 m/s (or less) are usually a good speed, sometimes you can manage this way to hang at the butt of your opponent and then just press fire...

if you are in such a situation, your speed and course is right, you can select the target again, then it helps to manage the right speed to hang on to him, ladybirds usually fly with a speed of ~50m/s, today i followed a interdictor with ~150m/s.

for docking at spaceports disengage the autopilot as soon as you 100000 - 10000km (it depends on your actual speed) close to the object, turn the ship around to break fast as possible and move "slowly" to the station. 10-50 km/s until you see the station then break facing forwards, needs some experience). you can select a low speed when you're not in a hurry (often i am) and use the time acceleration to your advance.

don't let the autopilot follow the object he's allways to late and it ends up often in a endless circle around the station or you fly straight into it sometimes. if you do it right the station won't tumble so extreme (because it's you that circles around the station and not the station) and you can dock "easy".

save up to 2 days with manual controlled flights! (that's often unevadable to finish transports in time)

😎 i'm rated allready as "poor".... have 15000 creds while starting with 100 and a eagle mk4 from zemieth and a bunch of failed missions due to "killer" starports (kills the game).

So they do have weapons then. I'm going to have to buy some shield generators! 😉 I'm not sure I understand your combat instructions. Are you suggesting using autopilot, or speed control? In FE2 I always used engines off, the equivalent of manual control. I have the save game from the EYE attack, so when I get the chance I'll use it to sharpen my skills. 😈

ment for speed control, manual or "engines off" is no real good idea for a fight in pioneer, imho 😉

anyway i can't understand some feel comfortable in FE2 with engines off (FFE is somewhat different), i feel like a stone then.

i use manual flight mode mostly for the last (100)meters when landing, docking to spaceports works better under speed control.

yes, they do have weapons (sometimes).

Interesting. My technique in FE2/FFE was to face the enemy ship as it approached and hold down the retro key, thus slowing the rate of closing while firing at it. If I kept it centered in my sights I would naturally tend to move out of its direct path so its shots would miss while mine would not. As it passed, I kept it in my sights and fired the main thrusters and kept on its tail. In my favorite ship of the time, an Asp Explorer, I had a 1mw beam laser with a cooling booster fitted in the rear. It would never overheat, and because the Asp was usually faster than the attacker I could keep just beyond the attacker's firing distance while painting it with my laser. It would eat its way through the shields and just about anything eventually. As I said, I'll do some target practice on that EYE and see if it still works. But for now, I have to get to bed...

Edit;

Ok, you're right. Speed control works better in Pioneer. I got in some practice with the EYE savegame. Btw, I got jumped by an armed Courier and an unarmed Sidewinder at Ross 154 today. The Courier's aim was as good as an Imperial Stormtrooper's... fortunately! 😉 It took a lot of hits to bring it down.

Here's some pix from a flyby of Hsiao Starport, Gliese 825 b.[attachment=147:Hsiao3.jpg]

It gets way weirder, but I can only attach 3 pictures, so stand by for more!