!! Pioneer Question Time !! - Ask them here

[irigi]

Another question: Is it possible to refuel the ship by hydrogen as it was in Elite 2:Frontier? Or is the fuel for interplanetary travelling independent of any resource and you get your tank refilled at the space station?Thank you!

[irigi]

I already figured that out, I was trying to refuel hydrogen to water-using engine. <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':-)' /> When I bought water, I noticed the refuel button immediately.
'irigi' wrote:
Another question: Is it possible to refuel the ship by hydrogen as it was in Elite 2:Frontier? Or is the fuel for interplanetary travelling independent of any resource and you get your tank refilled at the space station?Thank you!

[fluffyfreak]

@irigi,Some people have asked if the engine could use hydrogen for fuel before, since you've just discovered Pioneer and the different fuel decision yourself would you mind saying what you think about carrying water for fuel and hydrogen/military?

[Brianetta]

Technically, the water is propellant, rather than fuel. It has a couple of features which make it desirable:
It's plentiful
It's a dense fluid
It isn't particularly hazardous
It doubles as a handy solvent for organic life forms like us (by which I mean we can drink it)
It has high specific heat
That last is desirable because you can use it to dispose of unwanted heat from inside the ship.

[irigi]

@fluffyfreakIt's hard to tell, because it is not clear, what is the physical principle of the ship engines. At first, I was thinking that the driving force is fusion 4H -> He, which is quite effective and the fuel can be propelled quickly, which enables reasonable engine thrust. Then the water looks like not that bad decision, since fusion of pure hydrogen in p-p cycle has enormously small cross-section and it it much more desirable using fusion based on CNO-cycle, see Wikipedia:
Quote:
[...] This problem was solved, in principle, according to Dr. Bussard by use of the stellar CNO cycle in which carbon is used as a catalyst to burn hydrogen via the strong nuclear reaction. This cycle occurs in the sun (<4%) and is dominant in higher mass stars. The power improvement over the slow PPI chain is by a factor of 10^16.
So the oxygen from water could be used as a catalyst. (On the other hand you would probably need much less of it that there is in the water.)But if you take seriously the low speed by which the ship burns the fuel, you arrive at quite unrealistic energy gains and most importantly too high specific impulses. (The propellant escape velocity (calculated from conservation of momentum) is simply too big to be generated by fusion, or even antimatter-drive.) So there must be some highly energetic energy source on the ship. In such case, Brianetta's argument sound right - if the water is not used as fuel, its density, abundance and very high heat capacity makes it very good propellant.

[Marcel]

Yeah, there's a bit of handwaveium involved in Pioneer. Chalk it up to technology and physics work-arounds that haven't been discovered yet, like the fact that your exhaust doesn't blast the spaceport into a gigantic smoking crater when you take off, and you aren't squished into a puddle by your acceleration. I like the idea of a zero-point energy reactor myself. Like most science fiction, you just make stuff up when you have to. Also, C isn't the speed limit in the Pioneer universe, it's purely Newtonian. That could explain everything. <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//derisive.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':derisive:' /> Things just need to be plausible and consistent. I was an art major, you do the math. <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//scratch_one-s_head.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':scratchhead:' />I'm getting thirsty, I think I'll go get a glass of propellant...

[irigi]

'Marcel' wrote:
Yeah, there's a bit of handwaveium involved in Pioneer.

Sure there is, as in every science-fiction <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//derisive.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':derisive:' />, too much realism would spoil the fun. But pioneer is nicely realistic in lot of things (it respects the Newtonian physics very well, has atmospheric heating, etc.), which is exactly what I like.
'Marcel' wrote:
Also, C isn't the speed limit in the Pioneer universe, it's purely Newtonian. That could explain everything. <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//derisive.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':derisive:' /> Things just need to be plausible and consistent. I was an art major, you do the math. <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//scratch_one-s_head.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':scratchhead:' />
If you took the idea of (almost) infinite C seriously, it would mean that the the invariant mass m0 = m c2 is also almost infinite and you could squeeze almost infinite amount of energy into antimatter. (Which would then be ideal fuel if you could create it in reasonable amounts.) But once you start discussing such ideas, it necessarily means you would have to rewrite all the particle physics. Fusion and fission would have much higher efficiencies. And not only that. For example you would have no magnetism, since c = 1/sqrt(vacuum permitivity * vacuum permeability), so you would have to have almost zero vacuum permeability and electric currents would induce almost no magnetic field.I personally more like the idea of fusion engines. For the sake of realism, I tried to increase the ship fuel consumption by factor 10, which makes it much more believable. (Eagle Long Range Fighter weights 21 tons and by burning 5 tons of fuel, it ends up with speed 980 km/s, which means the fuel jet velocity is somewhere around thousands of km/s). Unfortunately, this tweak confused autopilots of all non-player ships, which ended up with no fuel soon. Also, in such case, you really need to think about the fuel and all journeys would take longer time since you cannot accelerate all the time. This makes everything a bit harder, but probably not that much. What do you think about this tweak? (I'm quite sure it's probably not proper for the official release, because it makes things rather difficult, I'm only asking for the sake of discussion.)

[Marcel]

I think that a tweak like that would save the spaceports lots of money on rebuilding costs. <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//haha.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':haha:' />Seriously speaking, I think it would move Pioneer more from the game category to the simulator category and would have appeal for some people but not others. If a mod like this were to be made, I 'd certainly try it out and might prefer it. I'm curious, you said it confused the autopilots of all non-player ships. You mean even the non-eagles? I'm wondering how that could happen unless you adjusted all of the ships in the game. Obviously the autopilot would have to be rewritten. Pirates can't intercept the player as it is. If you want to work on that it could benefit the game as a whole.

[irigi]

Thanks. I think I will play a bit with the ships fuel consumption anyway, just because I like simulation, so if I will have to write some additions to the autopilot on the way, so that it would be able to consider it is low on fuel, I could offer these and it might help the game.Btw. just for my information: are there currently any pirates in pioneer that would attack peaceful merchants? <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':-)' /> I haven't met any yet, but maybe I'm only in wrong systems..

[Marcel]

The pirates are there, but as I said the AI can't intercept the player yet. It's one of those things that's being worked on. It's way above my skill set, but you're welcome to improve it.

[Thedestroyer]

I'd like to make a ship in blender. Thing is, I forget where i found tutorial. <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//sad.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' /><img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//moil.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':mole:' />

[walterar]

"[background=rgb(33, 47, 58)]Thing is, I forget where i found tutorial."[/background][url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/topic/2937-potsmokes-texture-uv-tutorial/[/url]

[Thedestroyer]

Okay, Next question: How do I do a kill mission? I tried waiting untill it took off, but it disappeared by the time I launched and it already said failed. Am i supposed to destroy the vessel while its docked? Or is it a bug with me having the enterprise mod, so Its buggy?

[Ripp]

Just wondering about game saves carrying over to the next version update... I realise there can be no guarantees, but do they usually carry over ok? If not, I might wait until the game is complete before spending tons of time on it only to have to start again.

[robn]

'Ripp' wrote:
Just wondering about game saves carrying over to the next version update... I realise there can be no guarantees, but do they usually carry over ok?
Probably about every second month currently. We don't break them lightly, but unfortunately the format is very fragile right now. We are working to stabilise it though.
Quote:
If not, I might wait until the game is complete before spending tons of time on it only to have to start again.
You might be waiting a while (like, years) <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

[Geraldine]

Dont forget there is the money cheat key CTRL M. If you use that you can buy back all the equipment and the ship you had in your old save.

[doomdark64]

Are there plans for explore/planet survey missions and mining/mineral extraction. Also colonies and colony protection etc etc. they would be neat features.

[Thedestroyer]

Excuse me, im trying to find systems like the "Ura" system, but when I search it, it dosent find it. Is there a max scanning range or somthing? <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_razz.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':P' /> I also try entering co-ords, to no sucess.

[Geraldine]

'Thedestroyer' wrote:
Excuse me, im trying to find systems like the "Ura" system, but when I search it, it dosent find it. Is there a max scanning range or somthing? <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_razz.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':-P' /> I also try entering co-ords, to no sucess.
It might help to know if you need to find this system for a mission. If so, where were you when you took the mission as the system cant be far from there. Or did you just like to visit the system?

[Thedestroyer]

I was somewhre areound... Wolf i think, the closest wolf to sol. It was a mission too.