I don't think there's any way of accepting donations is there? No-one makes any money from Pioneer it's open source.

If you would like to give something back in thanks then you can always play the game and submit bug reports to the issue tracker or just play it and let us know what you like (definitely do this) and what you don't (do this nicely, we're gentle folk) <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

There's a flattr button on the pioneerspacesim.net website, somebody is paying money out for domain name, server, github fees at least?

I am enjoying the game btw, I was hoping to get involved with the artwork a little further down the line, just starting to get my head around how to submit contributions for now though....

There's a flattr button on the website, yes. I set it up as an experiment to see what would happen. So far its had 2 euros <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

Tomm is still paying for the domain name and server hosting, and I keep meaning to get to grabbing it off him. Even so, its about ten bucks a year - hardly bankbreaking work. Github is free.

If we had a real need for money then I'd start pushing for donations a bit more. If you really desperately want to give some money and the flattr button won't do it for you, let me know and I can tell you where to send the cash. I don't know anything about bitcoins though <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

I also know zilch about Bitcoin... but I wouldn't be trusting it!

Donations are tough in general, just because hardly anyone does it. I had a donate button on SSC for 3+ yrs and in that time I received four. I have received more recently that is only because I bundle a donation as a subscription that offers the user a bit more than the average SSC user. But every little bit helps since I pay a fee every 6mos for the maintenance for the software running the site and of course the hosting/domain fees.

Maybe an incentive for donations to pioneer, is that maybe you get get one of those counter donation bars that show your goal, which could be all the hosting and server costs and when met you could close the donations and maybe list the people that did donate to give them some recognition. I have been trying to figure a good method to prompt more people to donate for a while, its just tough to get people to do it.

Not a bad idea, except our hosting costs (once I wrest control of it from tomm) will literally be US$10 a year, and I'm more than happy to absorb that. (Domain name registration cost, fyi - I already pay for hosting for my personal/vanity projects, so it would cost nothing extra).

If there's ever time where we have a serious online component that requires actual grunt, then the situation might change, and I'll ask for help then.

Of course, if you all want to hire a developer, that can be done. That's 2euro x lots though <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

Hey Robn, remember in the early Alphas when the galaxy map was still (and I suppose still is) being worked out, we had a lot of wacky names for the multitudes of star systems? If you need to raise funds for the project in the future, why not name a random system (not including core or systems that are famous in the Elite Universe) after people who donate? Or even star ports? In reality this is done all the time, eg http://www.starnamer.net/