I used a simpler version of this method in FE2 when I didn't have an autopilot or had to get someplace quickly to meet a deadline. I simply noted the distance to the planet and set my speed to a ridiculous amount, accelerated to half the distance then pointed my tail to the planet and set speed to zero. After doing three times or so I was close enough to cruise in. Of course, I did have to use the rear view, but I was using my main engines the entire time. I posted before how I used a variant of this to outrun three Eagles in an unarmed Adder. I call this the Zorro maneuver. When the enemy ship approaches you point your nose so that the planet is in the upper left corner of the viewscreen. Continue until the ship approaches again then point your nose so the planet is in the upper right of the viewscreen. Next time the lower right, then the lower left, and repeat the pattern, which resembles a Z. When you reach half the distance to the planet point your tail toward the planet and repeat. If you do this, you're using your main engine while the enemy uses their side and top and bottom thrusters to try to track you. They swing away wider and wider each time. The AI in Pioneer is probably better so this technique may not work. Use at you own risk. 😆

The coolest (and most insanely complex) thing to implement would be the fact that light travels at a finite speed. Which would imply that you'll see things where they were some time ago, not where they are. This would make long range scanning more complex because you could only guess where to look for other ships given their last known position and direction and how far (thus how long ago) they were... pretty mad. (for celestial bodies, since they're on fixed orbits, this would be less a problem - you could even say that your computer does the math and put them where they really are anyway...).

EDIT : another fun thing with that would be that travelling at a significant fraction of lightspeed (which would suck up fuel mightily btw) means the others won't see you coming until very late (Idea taken from Ian M. Banks' The Algebraist, a really good read), but aside from hurling asteroids at large targets it wouldn't be practical to attack because slowing down in time would be impossible.

unfortunatly no AI can follow you in pioneer.

braben has "cheated" FE2 to reach that, because if you think then it would be like in pioneer, maybe they could reach you but it would take a long, a very long time and only when you brake down. usually you reach your target long before they have only a glimpse of a chance to reach you, even when you fly a lumpy ip shuttle.

this is (in FE2) the reason why the "missile bug" appears, any ship that uses full time acceleration will be faster as it is when you would fly at normal time. additionally frames in time acceleration in FE2 get updated in very long steps, that's why you can fly through a body at full time acceleration. remeber the strange thing that happens in FE2 when a courier fire a missile at you, right after that they use usually full time accel. and your target is in a wink of the eye .5 AU ahead of you. those (AI) imperial pilots are real cowards, firing a missile at you and leaving to "hyperspeed".

i'm not shure if that should be changed for pioneer, it would mean less realism, but on the other hand more fun to battle when you can't fled.

speed of light, or relativistic speeds would make it impossible to play, fun will be gone completely.

in relativistic speeds it's impossible to reach another one that has a similar speed (remember? you feel that allready at lower speeds and i believe that this is the reason why max. speed in FE2 is that limited).

fact is at speed of light your lasers wouldn't fire! because it's not possible that a lightbeam can leave your ship moving allready at SOL.

it's cool to have realistic physics in a space sim, but a game is for fun mainly.

Perhaps the stardreamer could work on a proximity basis? The closer another hostile ship gets relative to yours, this would trigger the stardreamer to drop a notch in stages until the ship is nearly upon you. Then it would refuse to work until the enemy ship was destroyed or evaded. As it already does this with landing and approaching planetary bodies, perhaps the stardreamer could be tweaked to include intra-system travel too?

The AI is going to be overhauled soon. I've managed to attract a new programmer to the project. He is possibly the most awesome programmer and game designer ever to work on elite-style games, and when I reveal his identity I promise you there will be dancing in the streets of Pioneersville. (He asked me not to until his first work is ready.)

😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Could it be? 😯 No, no it wouldn't be HIM................would it? 😕

i guess, allready disabling the stardreamer when in battle would help a lot, still you could fled but it would be boring, so you're forced to fight.

but first we must get rid of the unarmed ships, they carry everything they can have but have no weapons, especially every ship under 100t.

personally i think (thought) because we have rear weapons but they didn't work (and when a AI fits occasionally a rear gun he has no weapons that will work).

but we have now since alpha7 a working single gun setup, still the smaller ships come unarmed, allready i was hooraying "cool i can have single gun setup", but i found out that didn't helps the AI.

really i have to laugh out loud sometimes reading, "you will regret dealing with potsmoke bonglee!" and then they can't fire at you, not even a tomato or a brick.

at least the should crawl out of their machines and attack you with a knife or a stick, hurling a stone after you, whatever.

sometimes they have missiles, but it seems they have no guns, a missile released by AI i havn't seen anyway.

so please before we got all the graphical enhancements that are up to come, we (i) need armed enemies, armed to the teeth, ready to kill you wherever and whenever they can. evil as evil can be for a AI.

you must know i'm the "i show no mercy" kinda pilot, each ship i see is a target for me.

but blasting "ateroids" is no big fun, i need challenge.

vay' DaghIjlaHchugh bIHoSghaj 😈

I still think we need a super baddie, "something" to install fear when they show up.

there are two no three candidates coming to my mind

JJAGGED BBANNER?

"i (un)scrambled FE2"?

and

Mr. impossible mission?

or one we would never expect? pops? (no impossible).

😆

HIM HIM surley not HIM but if it is HIM awesome whoever HIM is.

well you should know HIM, whoever HIM is...

---

a super baddie, kinda vader?

or bring back the supreme race of thargoids.

could be named something else

personally i don't believe we would ever find such in reality, but for a game it suits.

yes, i would like to see/meet several alien races why not?

give them stupid stereotype characters, that's sci-fi.

this only describes in which small boundaries we humans think, because they characterize us in the end.

who wouldn't like to be part of such a balanced race as humans are in star-trek.

but we arn't, we are everything else between klingons and ferengi.

well some might say that's "kitsch", i like it anyway else i wouldn't like sci-fi.

I dare not speak HIS name.............I mean it can't be.........HIM, it's just wishful thinking on my part 🙄 I will just wait until Tomm makes his announcement, I am sure if Tomm thinks (whoever it is), is that good, they will make a wonderful addition to the Pioneer team. 🙂

As for the super baddie, in my view it is good that players are left with a little uncertainty when they go looking in unexplored systems within the game. Stops them being too complacent! 😈

i think one baddie is to bland.

So far we have earth

Earth colonies

Indepdant worlds

Corparate worlds

Dictatorships

Earth Colonies could be further divided into factions

Indepedant worlds could have their own (random faction police force name)

Corparate worlds could have mercaneries and privateers to intercept non corparate shipping

Pirate factions ( based around star system name - faction) or multi system groups ( even their own hidden bases)

Alien factions - u could make a unlimited amount and new ship types

U could have new factions generated as space opens up.