!! Pioneer Question Time !! - Ask them here

[fluffyfreak]

PPS: Hells bells, VS2012.... my poor eyes, what a ghastly interface. You can make it a bit less painful by switching to the Dark Theme, which is easier on the eyes  It's available in the Express Edition too which is what I use. [attachment=2061:VS2012DarkTheme.jpg]

[XenonS]

I'd like to thank again all people above going in-depth to my questions.If I didn't respond it's not because of non-interest, but by responding i would only have spread some further stupid things (stupid in your eyes).By the way, I will soon see the essence in your arguments because I'm trying to make an add-on for The Precursors, but this had plain nothing to do with my postings above. Good job and have fun,XenonS

[fluffyfreak]

@BiomechanoidSo any change or deviation from Frontier is, in your opinion, a bad thing? Even if it's something that was bad in Frontier and is better or more interesting the way that we're trying to do it? Is that what you're saying?

[TheBob]

Dear God, we're still at the same point... and even back in the same thread. Someone draw a line, pleeeease!

[lionheart]

Bio In Another exampleThe transit drive for Paragon, was "performed" by someone who did not understand what was Stardreamer and Targeted Tunnels.Someone thinks Stardreamer is time compression Like Silent Hunter Game, or Microsoft Combat Flight Sim. (my opinion and maybe i´m wrong) I'm not even going to bother taking the poorly aimed insults personally as there seemingly isn't anyone here you haven't in some way maligned or attacked, but you might want to seriously consider why you spend so much time making the same argument over and over and over to people who aren't interested in hearing it. Isn't there something more productive and less unpleasant you could do with your time? Apologies for going off-topic, I don't want to get drawn into an argument.

[fluffyfreak]

Sorry PINBACK, I've been hoping he/they would just come around and play nice eventually but I give up.

[robn]

StardreamerWe call it "time acceleration".TransitDriveThere is no such feature in Pioneer.

[fluffyfreak]

Yes, that quote doesn't go against what Robn said, he said that Paragon had to modify the Pioneer Engine to make the transit drive.Paragon is NOT the same things as Pioneer. It's a different game based on the Pioneer Engine & Technology. Also their reasons for using the Transit Drive are good, intelligent and well considered reasons that suit the Paragon project.

[TheBob]

 Maybe the Bob can help me explain this better, because my english is bad. Actually, I was wondering about that myself. While the Stardreamer is clearly just time acceleration, it was explained as some kind of stasis field in the background story, I.E. something that is actually a part of the game world. This was done frequently in those days in all kinds of games, down to explaining your screen and keyboard as an actually existing magic portal through which you mind-control a character or group of characters in RPGs, but the practice has gone out of fashion for some time. Still, if the time acceleration in Pioneer is a stasis field like the Stardreamer instead of just time acceleration, it would change the economics (which are at this point still very non-existant anyways, so it doesn't really matter yet). 

[fluffyfreak]

I don't think it would change anything regardless of what you call it since the effect is the same. Time moves differently for you than for the wider universe, whether the player "Star Dreams" away that time, or not, it still passes for the ship and the other worlds. In theory anyway.

[TheBob]

 I don't think it would change anything regardless of what you call it since the effect is the same. Time moves differently for you than for the wider universe, whether the player "Star Dreams" away that time, or not, it still passes for the ship and the other worlds. In theory anyway. It would have influences on crew wages, I should wager... (and on life support, but we don't have that anyways). It would definitely have consequences on a more complex economic model, but since currently we have what we have, the point is somewhat moot, yes.

[TheBob]

 But exist a conection Stardreamear with Targeted Tunnels, and response of your ship. No, those effects are exactly the same if it's just time acceleration. It is purely a worldbuilding question, really.

[fluffyfreak]

I understand,but not understand why suggest or mention something like a transitdrive for a MOD SHIP for Pioneer with a name "Last Frontier" Why someone who only wants to change the Ships and Stations, and want to use Pioneer Engine.Robn suggest/mention If the user follow this steps and wants a transitdrive, the game is no more Pioneer!!So why talk about Transit drive in this topic!? "Would like to make Pioneer more beautiful " The transitdrive makes Pioneer more Beautiful!?? Robn mentioned it because it's a limitation of the engine, you can change some things by modding it, but not everything. If you want to make more changes than that - like Paragon did with the Transit Drive - then you can't do it with a Mod. He was just explaining the limitations of what you can do with a mod. There was no reason, or justification, for you to go completely mental about it and start insulting the Paragon developers - that was rude, and it's why people censor you and are hostile towards you, because you are being rude to them and not reading what people are saying even when they try to help you.

[lymantok]

Hi Guys, My question is how does the hyperspace distance (LY) calculation actually work across sectors on the galaxy map? Any insight would be appreciated! Thx! In SectorView.cpp, SectorView::Draw3D() there is the following which appears to calculate the LY distance: if (m_inSystem) { vector3f dv = vector3f(floorf(m_pos.x)-m_current.sectorX, floorf(m_pos.y)-m_current.sectorY, floorf(m_pos.z)-m_current.sectorZ) * Sector::SIZE; m_distanceLabel->SetText(stringf(Lang::DISTANCE_LY, formatarg("distance", dv.Length()))); However, later in SectorView::PutSystemLabels() I see the use of a different distance calculation: // determine if system in hyperjump range or notSector *playerSec = GetCached(m_current.sectorX, m_current.sectorY, m_current.sectorZ);float dist = Sector::DistanceBetween(sec, sysIdx, playerSec, m_current.systemIndex);bool inRange = dist <= m_playerHyperspaceRange; And I see that DistanceBetween is actually from Sector.cpp: float Sector::DistanceBetween(const Sector *a, int sysIdxA, const Sector *b, int sysIdxB){ vector3f dv = a->m_systems[sysIdxA].p - b->m_systems[sysIdxB].p; dv += Sector::SIZE*vector3f(float(a->sx - b->sx), float(a->sy - b->sy), float(a->sz - b->sz)); return dv.Length();}

[fluffyfreak]

Those don't calculate the distance itself, you want the line which has:m_playerHyperspaceRange = Pi::player->GetStats().hyperspace_range; Then to go through and find what calculates hyperspace_range, and that's in Ship.cpp line 461: m_stats.hyperspace_range = Pi::CalcHyperspaceRange(hyperclass, GetMass()/1000, m_equipment.Count(Equip::SLOT_CARGO, fuelType)); Those other calculations are for placing labels or for seeing if a star system is within hyperspace jump range, that's the "bool inRange = dist <= m_playerHyperspaceRange;" bit.

[lymantok]

Thanks Fluffy, That is good to know. However, I was actually interested in understanding the LY distance calculation between the current system and the hyperspace destination system when the distance spans a single sector. Within 1 sector this seems to be the distance between source and target system - not sure why floor is used? vector3f dv = vector3f(floorf(m_pos.x)-m_current.sectorX, floorf(m_pos.y)-m_current.sectorY, floorf(m_pos.z)-m_current.sectorZ) * Sector::SIZE; > 1 sector this seems to be the calc at the sector level? and without the floor inside the sector? vector3f dv = a->m_systems[sysIdxA].p - b->m_systems[sysIdxB].p; dv += Sector::SIZE*vector3f(float(a->sx - b->sx), float(a->sy - b->sy), float(a->sz - b->sz));

[fluffyfreak]

I'm at work so can't check the code right now however the first one is floored because m_pos is the position of the camera which views the sectors, it's not a ship position.So I think it's calculating where it wants to draw something rather than a calculation the affects where you go if you see what I mean. The reason that it's floor'd is so that the green grid and some other things snap to an integer grid instead of moving smoothly with the camera view. The second one, that's actually getting the vector between system A and system B then adding on the internal distance multiplied by the sector size.So it's calculating the whole distance because we store the sectors as whole values (0,0,0) or (-3, 8, 1) etc, then we store the position of the star systems within sectors as local offsets so from (0.0, 0.0, 0.0) to (1.0, 1.0, 1.0).That stops the numbers from getting crazy when you're a long way from the origin (Earth - 0,0,0) and thus avoids numerical precision issues.To calculate the distance in light years you first have to account for the distance between sectors, then add on the distance between star systems within those sectors multiplied up into light years. Erm... that's not the best explanation I've ever given but does it make sense?

[Loki999]

How do i make a non-debug build from VS2012? How would it be best for me to release my changed code to the community for them to look at? Not considering submitting a pull request at this time as I want feedback first. Can i just release a changed EXE or do i have to release a full install? (i understand as time passes this EXE would become outdated compared with the master branch).

[fluffyfreak]

What I've done in the past is zip up the exe and all of the DLLs required (they're in the same folder) and let people download that, then do another zip which is more like a full build with all of the data.Then people can choose which one to grab to test. Just go to the drop down at the top that says "Debug", open it and pick "Release". [attachment=2078:VS2012drop.png] Oh and be aware that the Express Edition might be set to "basic" instead of "Expert" mode which will hide a lot of stuff because... well because MS are morons.

[fluffyfreak]

Oh and you can of course just share a link to your work on GitHub, you don't need to do a Pull Request, just share a link to the branch you're working on. If you're not working on a branch, then now's a good time to learn, it makes life SOOOOO much easier!  Obviously anyone wanting to see it this way needs to grab your code and compile it, but we do that all of the time for testing PR's and helping each other with features.