Which developer in particular? (-:

I don't think if it would be enjoyable to play, although the idea seems nice.

Literally, you can't travel faster than light using your thrust controls. Using ship's hyperdrive takes you somewhere in reasonable time. I didn't have time to count exactly what drive how much faster than light can 'drive' you away.

Travelling on your thrust with speed close or exact to lightspeed would take very long (and I think much longer) to reach next star system, and I am thinking even with use of fast forward game time.

This could be immersive, but not so enjoyable as hyperdrive. Maybe usage of hyperdrive could be made more difficult, maybe some 'course plotting' could be added for hardcore players, dunno...

No plans to add an explicit option, but this is easily faked via a script.

Actually, you can. Pioneer's physics is modelled on Newton's theory, not Einstein's. The speed of light is no limit.

What you can't do is fly to another star system without a hyperdrive.

I thought what he meant was: could we use pioneer without the limitations of fuel and physics etc so that he can just fly around and look at all the planets etc. I.e. Not as a game but just as a universe/galaxy exploration toy.

That's exactly what I was saying...

You see, such an easy question twisted and made it more difficult to understand. It seems they are talking to themselves.

I think I made a mistake posting here. sorry.

Haha, don't worry, it's just easy to get confused on the forum.

I don't think that there are any plans to do what you're asking, but I think you could get pretty close with a bit of cheating.

If you just want a great ship and to play around then you can press Ctrl-M to get more money, then you can jump around the nearer parts of the galaxy with a lot more ease.

You can also try the build from this forum post which has some more powerful military drives so you can carry more fuel etc.

http://www.spacesimcentral.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1579&start=390#p23804

Andy

Perhaps having "unlimited fuel" and "no mechanical degredation" in the main options menu might help players like jtmedina who would like to explore many hundreds of light years out but don't want to worry about running low on fuel or their drive turning to junk. 🙂

Thanks for the help.

I knew about the Ctrl+m cheat to get more money but I think I'd better compile that build.

I really like Pioneer but not specially for the missions but just exploring planets and enjoying the incredible scenery. I know that the main goal of the game is trading but it wouldn't be a bad idea if there would be an easier way to explore the whole Pioneer universe without the limitations of the hyperdrive class or fuel.

Just tweaking a "few lines of code" adding a new option in the main menu...

OK, here's a quick solution.

You can avoid engine breakdowns by deleting data/modules/BreakdownServicing/ and anything in it.

You can have your ship automatically refuel by putting this script into your data/modules/ directory (you can call it anything, but it must end in .lua):

This will add 2 tonnes of hydrogen fuel. If you need a different amount, save the game and quit, then edit the line local amount = 2 to some other amount, then reload.

Got it working. Thanks for the help

a selectable no fuel option would be a great idea /signed

Fair warning this is going to go off on a tangent here.

The fuel thing has always been a sore point to me. 1000 years of development, the colonization of countless worlds, the perfection of hyperspace jumping (not counting the occasional Thargoid) and yet we're still putting around using rocketry. Seriously? That's the best humanity can manage?

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Sadly, if things stay the way they have been the past few decades that will probably be the case. The modern scientific community is packed with Dr Zaius clones who scream and rage and hop up and down going Ook Ook! at anything that violates the sacred laws of known physics. Well that's kind of a problem isn't it? I mean it's hard to do more than refine what you've already got when you're convinced you already know everything. There is example after example where humanity was SURE how something worked, only to be proven wrong later by a crackpot who just didn't care and tried it any way. With any luck I'll live to see Relativity meet a similar fate. Sigh, time to stop before I wear a hole in the paper again.

>END OF LINE_

raithe: As far as we know, the centre of gravity of the entire universe doesn't change. We have no mathematical models that allow for it, and no practical models for propulsion that do not require reaction mass of some sort. It's not fuel; it's the age old problem of needing to throw something away in order to move in the opposite direction. You, and whatever you threw away, keep their common centre of gravity, which doesn't change until other mass interacts with it.

Scientists don't know everything, and don't pretend to. Nothing excites a scientist more than the words, "Well, that can't be right..."

Still, the scientific method works by creating falsifiable hypotheses and then attempting to disprove them. In this respect, falsifiable simply means that an experiment exists that could disprove your hypothesis. Without that, it's not science. By definition, in most circles.

Because of this, we tend to know more about what's not correct than what is. Any new theory of gravity, for example, must still fit all of the observations made to date. If relativity came out with different numbers when describing the path of a falling apple, we'd still be using Newton's model, because we can observe a falling apple and relativity would have been discredited. It was not.

Whatever comes next (and Einstein himself felt that relativity was simply a better model, not The Answer) it will probably involve more complicated maths, and nothing terribly exciting on the space ships front. At least, until the tech and defence companies get their hands on the research and come up with the practical applications.

We can try to guess what the future holds, and we can rule out a bunch of stuff on the grounds that ruling stuff out is literally how we advance our knowledge at all. I suspect that the interesting technology in the future will not resemble anything that pop culture has invented; in other words, Star Trek is no oracle.

Lets not forget that we're trying to build a game here. Regardless of what the actual future may hold, in a game there has to be costs and consequences for actions. I don't care what kind of drive you have, be it rockets, monkeys, slaves with oars or whatever. Someone has pay for the chemicals/bananas/whips that get converted into whatever kind of energy it is that causes your ship to go.

Fair warning this is my favourite reply on the subject of science getting things "wrong" The Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov.

@robn

Completely agree. Games definitely need balancing factors and trade offs, it's just that it's hydrogen fueled rockets that bugs me. Actually in a way it doesn't, it fits nicely in a certain way. I like the game's retro charm factors like the BBS. It just grates on other things which is why I warned there would be a tangent. 😉

I know that true scientific method works on trial and error, proof and theory. My problem is that most scientists now don't seem to think that way. A true scientist should, and many claim they do, but their actions show otherwise. Look at their outrage over Professor Kevin Warwick's experiments. A true scientist would have been fascinated, but a great many of his detractors only whined and moaned that he didn't spend 100 years modeling it all out on the computer down to the last detail before attempting it. That is what science has lost; the drive to experiment just to see. We rarely make leaps forward into the vast unknown anymore, we plod carefully along well defined safe paths. The bad thing about well known paths is they never lead you anywhere new. You may notice things you'd missed before; but you know exactly where you'll end up from the moment you start. They think of ways to gradually improve next years car model to increase sales, rather than a better way to get from A to B in the first place. I'm not saying there aren't people out there doing interesting new things, there are. The people at CERN working with antimatter for example. By and large though our momentum has slowed drastically. We got to the Moon because we were stubborn about it and just kept trying. Now no one seems to care whether or not they mothball the whole space program, so long as the new iphone is a little better than the last.

"we can rule out a bunch of stuff on the grounds that ruling stuff out is literally how we advance our knowledge at all"

I agree with that, but only if ruling out means "Yeah we/someone else thought that might be a solution and tried it; but it didn't work" not "No we don't need to bother to try that because we KNOW it won't work" The first is science, the second is arrogance. Even then if it was tried that doesn't really mean much because it doesn't always work the first, or even 864th time. Look how long it took us to learn to fly.

EDIT:I agree that the future will probably not resemble pop culture, I hope not anyway because the leotards need to go.

EDIT2: @fluffyfreak

I like Asimov but I strongly disagree with

"I had expressed a certain gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the universe straight."

Personally I would think it better to live in a time when no one knew but everyone had lot of ideas and was eager to test them. Pinnacles of learning breed complacency; and that usually leads to either the downfall of a civilization, or at least a lot of boredom.

The Moon shot wasn't about science, so much as politics and engineering.

Frankly, I think you need to meet new scientists if the ones you know aren't being adventurous enough. I don't know which scientists you think were outraged by Warwick, but his awards show that he was no pariah in the scientific world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Warw ... ecognition

As you like, we agree to disagree. Most of the scientists and researchers I know are not what I would classify as the adventurous type when it comes to experimentation, that is true enough. Perhaps I've just met the wrong types due to the fields I study and the type of scientist that puts me in close contact with. In regards to Warwick he was lauded later, but there was a good deal of grumbling and concern at the time he performed his tests on himself. Which isn't all that unusual a trend in human behavior models.

On a different note, outstanding progress on the game so far. This project has given me hope that the day may come when the auto pilot can reliably land me on, rather in, planets. 😉

Raithe, this is not a dig at you, but your comment reminded me of how often I read people wishing for a better autopilot.

People, you do realise that it's possible to get around in Pioneer without an autopilot, don't you? The maths to get from point A to point B can actually be done in your head.

All you need to do is halve the distance you are travelling, accelerate to midpoint, turnaround and decelerate to zero. Repeat about 2 or three times and you should be within a few hundred km of your target.

If you're like me, and you want to be facing your target from start to finish, then the maths is a little bit more complex.

Select your target, thrust your ship until the target relative velocity is near zero.

Get the ratio of your Reverse vs Forward thrust (for the Eagle Long Range Fighter, this is 0.33).

Subtract this ratio from 1 (i.e 1 - 0.33 = 0.67).

Multiply this number by the total distance to travel (km or A.U. ...it doesn't matter) (so for 10.00AU x 0.67 = 6.67AU).

Accelerate until the distance remaining is 6.67AU (or whatever number you came up with in the previous step).

Decelerate back to zero relative velocity to your target.

This second method actually takes longer than the 'fly to midpoint and turnaround' method, but you do get to see where you are going through the front view of your craft.

In my experience, for a 10AU journey, I usually get within 0.5AU for the first calculation, then about 10,000,000km for the second leg, 10,000km for the third, then from that point it's a matter of coasting in...

Back to our scheduled programme... 🙂

EDIT: I should also add that the above calculations don't work when you're travelling through a thick atmosphere - the wind resistance will slow you down dramatically.

@Bugbear1973

Good info. This game and this forum are great, but more documentation on basic game features is needed. I know a little info exists on the wiki, but last I checked there wasn't very much. As new features get added, the developers have been good about adding important info to the readme, but what about some more detailed info to help new players on this forum? Not only would it be useful for new players, but I think it might help your search engine optimization as well.

I have read about the games Pioneer was inspired by, but have no experience actually playing them, and little desire. Pioneer is too pretty to go back to vector graphics.

Anyway, information on approaching planets or suns and not being sucked in would be helpful. Also tips and suggestions for new players, like matching vectors with another ship, detailing how it is done, as well as a basic combat section covering relative speed, the leading box, and missiles.

Sorry to thread jack, but the devs kinda have it covered previously in the thread. Also good info. Bottomless fuel tank and indestructible hyperdrive. Need I say more?

A small bit of advice for approaching suns and other high mass objects would be do not approach head-on, always approach at an angle to insert yourself into an orbit as opposed to a descent 🙂

This should insert you into a highly eliptical orbit, once you have reached the periapsis of your orbit all you have to do is de-accelerate along your current path, perpendicular to the sun.

Like with an aeroplane, always try to exchange altitude for ground speed, or vice-versa. Consider altitude as your distance from the massive body. Ground speed is speed across its surface.

Alternatively, think of your ship as the coin in this video. If you were to roll straight down, you'd get pulled right in. Aim to miss, and you'll swing around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrVdb9027yQ