!! Pioneer Question Time !! - Ask them here

[robn]

SGDominator wrote:
Will we get to play with the 3D Galaxy and Search feature in the next nightly build?
Life is pretty busy at the moment, so I'd say it won't hit the nightlies for at least a week, maybe two.

[ollobrain]

the fact a 3d search and map feature has even gone in is a major step - its not new content but it reorganises content in a more complete way ( map content)

[CreepyStepdad]

Had to register with the site just to say this. Pioneer could be awesome! I really enjoy the autopilot system, and the search feature coming to the map should really help. Many of the models look fantastic. Really impressed, I have now played this more than Oolite. A couple questions:Is your team looking for someone to do documentation on gameplay and how to add new models and missions to the game? I looked around but didn't really find anything.I love the planetary take-off and landing, barring a few bugs. What will planets eventually be host to? I could see being able to pilot drones that collect natural resources like digging up gems, harvesting exotic biologicals, or hunting indigenous species. Being able to "get out" of your ship in some respect would really make the planets come alive, at least giving wealthy players a chance to joyride over different terrains (maybe even different gravities?)in their fancy new rovers, and give bases another form of revenue.There are lots of planets that serve little purpose as far as I can tell, aside from exploring their terrain (which is probably really cool, my pc sucks). Are there plans to make all the planets have some type of commercial resource or have some other purpose? With the variety of different planets and stars I realize this could get complicated, but imho it would add a great deal of gameplay as well as opportunities for all sorts of randomly-generated missions. Even alien races could be generated in much the same way as your character portraits are(another really cool feature), and their economic output generalized as one of the existing trade categories, or perhaps adding a few unique commodities once discovered.Sorry, but your game makes my mind switch into overdrive. Very cool folks, keep up the good work.

[Marcel]

Quote:
Sorry, but your game makes my mind switch into overdrive.
Mine too! There are better qualified people here than I to answer your questions, so I just wanted to say Welcome!

[Brianetta]

CreepyStepdad wrote:
Is your team looking for someone to do documentation on gameplay and how to add new models and missions to the game? I looked around but didn't really find anything.
Yes. Documentation is being written in markdown in this repository. I'm coordinating that, and at the moment i'm the only contributor. Work on that has been waiting for a bit, because seriously, Pioneer is a rapidly moving target. That repository's wiki contains the rendered markdown of the manual. You can see the style of writing I'm looking for (humorous, and reminiscent of the Frontier manual) and you can also see that the graphics are out of date.I'm thinking of leaving out the graphics until right at the end, and just getting all the text in there, with placeholders for screenshots, icons etc.
CreepyStepdad wrote:
There are lots of planets that serve little purpose as far as I can tell
That's just what the universe is like. Space is big and empty. There *will* be enough to do, don't worry. Pioneer is a space game with planets, not a planet game with spaces. Er... whatever. (-:

[numidianian]

So, what about translating the game in other language? I'd like to have a look at the volume of the text data for translation.

[Brianetta]

Кочевник wrote:
So, what about translating the game in other language? I'd like to have a look at the volume of the text data for translation.
This has already been mentioned in other threads here. The translation files live in your data/lang directory. The most recently released English version is available here:https://raw.github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/master/data/lang/English.txtThat file will continually be updated, and will have new strings for the 3D galaxy branch as soon as that comes out.If you wish to become an official translator for Pioneer, tell us. We'll track the language's progress on the issue tracker, and all who are involved can be informed when new translatable strings appear. At the moment there is only one official translator, and that's for the German language. That translator is me, and I'm not even a native speaker. We'd like to see people get involved in all aspects of the game, not just coding.The manual isn't translated yet, but then, it isn't even complete. The Lua missions scripts aren't formally translated yet either (although there is one very enthusiastic Polish copy). Lua missions don't actually have a proper translation mechanism yet; again, people who want to get involved should let us know.

[JoseMaria]

(Alpha 13) That the Imperial Courier can't land on planets city-spaceports (also by Autopilot) and also crash after start if bought on planet-spaceports is ->a) intended? They are only for space-stations ?b) a problem that will be fixed later?c) my Problem ? I don´t know how to fly that ship?

[Marcel]

I think it may be "b". I've found similar problems with the Imperial Trader, a similar ship created by the same person, potsmoke66. It would crash into stations, and sometimes, when approaching a station on autopilot it would point its tail toward the station an use its retro thrusters to accelerate toward it. I suspect these ships may not be alpha 13 compatible.

[robn]

Marcel wrote:
I suspect these ships may not be alpha 13 compatible.
I've not given any thought to the actual problem, but I thought I'd point out that the AI/autopilot has not changed in any significant way since alpha 9, released in March. The actual problem is likely to be far more subtle.

[Marcel]

I wonder if they might still be using the os clock.

[numidianian]

Brianetta wrote:
[url]https://raw.github.com/pioneerspacesim/[/url] ... nglish.txt
Guess, I should not translate lines like: "VID_LINK_ESTABLISHED", but only "Video link established", right? Or should everything be translated?
Brianetta wrote:
If you wish to become an official translator for Pioneer, tell us.
Yep, why not.

[Ziusudra]

Кочевник wrote:


Brianetta wrote:
[url]https://raw.github.com/pioneerspacesim/[/url] ... nglish.txt
Guess, I should not translate lines like: "VID_LINK_ESTABLISHED", but only "Video link established", right? Or should everything be translated?
Correct on the first. VID_LINK_ESTABLISHED is how the game finds the line and must not be changed.

[Brianetta]

Кочевник wrote:


Brianetta wrote:
[url]https://raw.github.com/pioneerspacesim/[/url] ... nglish.txt
Guess, I should not translate lines like: "VID_LINK_ESTABLISHED", but only "Video link established", right? Or should everything be translated?
You're quite right, those lines are the tokens used by Pioneer to find the strings it needs to use.If your translated string contains spaces, it needs to be quoted. The indents at the beginning of each line are removed by the game when it uses them; they're there for clarity. The only escape sequence is \n for a new line. sprintf tokens within the string (%d, %f0.0, %s etc) should be preserved.
Quote:


Brianetta wrote:
If you wish to become an official translator for Pioneer, tell us.
Yep, why not.
Cool. If you're not on Github already, you'll need to be in order to make pull requests containing your translation(s).You will need to create your language file in data/lang and name it after the language's native name (just like English.txt and Deutsch.txt). Add this file to your copy of the Pioneer git repository on Github and make a pull request to the main one; that way, we can automatically put your language into the game. Submit updated languages in exactly the same way.This issue here:https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/issues/381That's the place where developers will let translators know that they have changed something in English.txt. If a translation is not provided for any of the phrases, Pioneer will fall back to the English when needed for that phrase. I'll be using it to open new language issues for all of the languages that we have.If you need any technical assistance with Github or your local git installation, or you have any other questions, ask me here.

[robn]

Brianetta wrote:
If your translated string contains spaces, it needs to be quoted.
Actually it only needs to be quoted if it has leading or trailing spaces that need to be preserved.

[Marcel]

Is it possible to use this to automatically translate adverts? I know they'd have to be re-written to be a background image with text overlaid, and a selection of fonts to make them look good. Is it worth the effort?

[robn]

Marcel wrote:
Is it possible to use this to automatically translate adverts? I know they'd have to be re-written to be a background image with text overlaid, and a selection of fonts to make them look good. Is it worth the effort?
Not possible yet. There's a few things involved - extending the translation system to Lua, extending it further to LMR, working out how to let models choose their fonts, and so on.Now that I think about it though, I wonder if it would be better to not provide translations for ads but rather provided different sets of localised ads. Translations are for the player and really only apply to the UI. In the same way that I wouldn't expect to travel to Berlin and see ads in English, perhaps neither should I expect to travel to New Germany in Pioneer and see English ads there.Of course I rather think its more likely that we'll want sets of ads based on location or faction rather than language. "Join the Empire" or "Outer Rim News" or something.

[Luomu]

Marcel wrote:
Is it worth the effort?

I don't think so... but they could be more diverse by default. Same for ship and location names, they shouldn't be localized but they should include non-English ones. The backstory/setting affects this too, what languages are in use in the year 3200.

[Ripp]

Can anyone help me find the autopilot? Tried every key and nothing.

[Marcel]

When you're flying F4 activates the autopilot. When you're docked F4 communicates with the station. Everybody seems to have difficulty finding this at first.