Data/models/ships/shipname/shipname.lua

The info you want is under ship-defs

i guess, you need a "key" to them

check Defining_ship_types_for_models from the pioneer developers wiki.

yes, yes, well, well, only got started just and allready need better ship specs 😆

that won't mean it's not allowed to, do it, but do it wisely. i know a lot of ships need better specs, better doesn't mean stronger in this case, better fitting ones maybe.

usually we modellers have our guessings if we setup a ship with certain limits, it makes more fun rather a perfect ship.

my suggestion is to make them as different as possible, compare to a boxer maybe, one is strong but has low stamina next maybe isn't that strong looking but hard to beat, another could have average powers in all categories while next is a specialist in a certain "profession".

usually i think of what i would feel if i would play the model without having any idea of models, programs or scripts.

just what i feel, how i like the model when it moves, does that look reasonable at least? isn't the bottom thruster to strong.

take the "Tie Fighter" as example for one extreme, one short pressing of the knob to accel. ffffwwwd your'e ashes. but thats ok for a hull mass of 2tons and a enormous main thrust of 30g, but only main, reverse is only 4g and directional and lateral thrust only 2g. that's a real extreme setup, but fair, you are extremely fast, the fastest, but you have to handle the low reverse and lateral thrust. for manual flights no problem, you only have to keep in mind to allways turn the ship around for a successful breaking, in a fight that means "flip" the ship at best allways by 180°. i'm not bad piloting the Tie (stay clear of any shot 2tons are really not much hull more a skin*), but AI get's confused i guess and that why i replaced it in the SW mod with the escort shuttle for police and gave the ship some outstanding specs to give the cops a glimpse of a chance at least.(the same problem goes to the missiles, they hit nothing except occasionally your own ship, it blast's your ship in one shot even a 600t freighter).

the other extreme is maybe a ship like the sirius interdictor, average to good accel. values and a rather heavy hull, not the fastest but has good lateral thrust, you can see by how the AI flips the ship in a attack, but due to his mass a bit lame

and when once accelerated hard to change course, that's why the ship hits you often frontal, they simply didn't managed it to get the curve.

one ship the AI likes is the EYE i guess, i set up this as police in common pioneer, it's the only one that hits you sometimes as a police vessel, that is mainly because of a balanced thrust, not very powerful but nearly the same in all directions. that the mass distribution is in centre will help additionally i guess.

interesting how a game respecting physics, leads to real spaceship designs, a sphere not only looks reasonable, it has some advantages. these are, mass distribution in centre, acts to all directional movements in the same manner, less hull for a max. capacity, less surface where you can get hit.

if it would be only me, i would make a fleet of spheres and saucer shaped, but they don't look as cool as a X-Wing or a Merlin.

if you like to get more fun out of pioneer keep this in mind, setup your ships in a way you will forget 2 days later

no, in a way every ship has it's dis- & advantages.

really not every ship (mainly SW-XWA) is tested in fight or even only in a test flight, i only quickly checked if everything is working as i lliked it to

bottom thruster test for death defying pilots:

climb to 10'000m

turn off engines (set speed to 0, if reached change from speed control to manual flight)

let the ship fall down to ~5'000m

level ship horizontally and break only with the bottom thrusters.

if you nearly don't touch the ground, it's ok

if you crash, you need more power

if you break before you reached 2000m, your'e to strong

of course this test depends on gravity, so don't do that on Epsilon Indi d, it's thought for a gravital force of 1.

not all ships will find that's a good thing, some like the Tie aren't simply made for atmosphere flights or planetside landing, there only for stingy attacks in spacebattles.

you like to reach FTL in no time, but didn't wan't to cheat the specs?

no problem,

make a sling shot, best take a star with a very high mass.

set course to the star

go to toilet or kitchen, whatever, don't change the course, no stay i guess you like to watch it.

lower maybe screens luminiscence, or put on sunglasses 😉

wait until you got accelerated by the star until you're fast enough that the vessel can fled from gravity.

that can need (lead to) sometimes multiple loops.

at least on one occasion i was accelerated in the last loop to a incredible speed and a second later i reached the outer boundaries of the system (without time accel. that didn't works so close to a object).

somewhere must be a small or not so small, misbehave of physics in pioneer, i'm not shure but i didn't think sling shots are such a easy thing, because i never touchrd the surface of a star. usually when i get caught by the gravity of a star i think "ok, game over", but not so in pioneer.

* i had some real hard fights with my Tie, sadly you can't make a clip while actually playing (still i suggest input recording),

once i got hit just a bit by another ship, usually your Tie's a piece of crap then, but this one only touched me and i got hurled steerless for quite a while, i quickly imagined how that would look from a fixed point (3rd person), just like a scene from the movies, believe me. allready my view is mostly outside behind the ship, i like that, maybe just because to see the model, no i like really.

Potsmoke, thanks for the info (apologies for taking so long to acknowledge your input).

That's precisely what I was looking for!