Alpha 10 released

[Potsmoke66]

isn't that a much more beautiful place rather then brasilia? i mean belo horizonte would be o.k, but brasilia? [attachment=705:2011-05-16_224719.jpg]and compare this picturehey, is pioneer a mirrored globe? doesn't mind, very close to reality, isn't it?brasilia, is as far as i know a "artificial city", it's not grown, they throw it their as capitol, nothing else.at least this is what my friend from belo horizonte told me.why not rio, this would give you the right idea if the orientation of the map is o.kmaybe i throw the city on the airfield in mollis, this i will know like my pocket.

[robn]

potsmoke66 wrote:
i know i tried once to setup a system without a planet, but because i can't get no population there, whatever seed i tried, i pushed this idea over board.i guess the game neither likes it to make runs to a unpopulated system, i never have let it come that far, like i said i couldn't get no population with such a combination so i left the idea aside.
You can't right now. This wasn't fully understood which led to the BB crash that has been fixed in dev. issue #96 is tracking the need to fix this.
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further, personally i guess the short description should be left mostly to the game, for some like a prison colony it will be o.k, but else it gives the player no longer a hint what goods they deserve and what they offer. but with some experience and the short description you will know "mining colony... o.k they need narcotics perhaps or food" and don't have always to check the system info chart.
The short description is not and was never intended to be a trade indicator, even if it could be predicted in the past. At some point in the future the entire trade and commodity system will become dynamic, with scripts able to define new kinds of equipment and cargo and a light economic simulation. You should get used to using the system info view to determine imports and exports as sometime soon that will be the only to tell reliably.
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since it is stated on top of pienums.lua that it should be kept in sync with EquipType.h, i did so,i can't tell you right now if that helps really something, but at least it didn't harms to do so.
It does nothing for the mission API. pienums.lua is now only used by the model system to get equipment types for determining if missiles, scanner dishes, etc should be displayed.

[Potsmoke66]

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The short description is not and was never intended to be a trade indicator, even if it could be predicted in the past. At some point in the future the entire trade and commodity system will become dynamic, with scripts able to define new kinds of equipment and cargo and a light economic simulation. You should get used to using the system info view to determine imports and exports as sometime soon that will be the only to tell reliably.
this will make selecting the right system for trading to a repetitive, go look on the system chart, not really good no?what do you think why frontier has a rough info about economy type, in the sector map? still you have to switch often to the chart to know the exact economy.a rough info is enough, i can decide then if i like to switch to system chart to see proper in and out, but without it will be a treat, imho. i will HAVE to check each and every systems chart.if you haven't any info about economy or population at least, then good night. this will have nothing to do with a fine scale.i wonder if tomm's got the same idea about what the short desc. is good for and where that comes from.play frontier and cover this info... or i can remove it for you from it, if you likeof course neighbor systems i will know the economy of, but only a few sectors away from home you won't know, or do you have a photographic memory?to barnards star, so you rather like to keep it as it is and avoid missions to it?tell that to the people who come as nubes to pioneer."please avoid missions to this and that system because..."while it'stotally easy to change that whenever you like, only a few keystrokes away.a little off topic lamento of minei know you told me once pioneer will be "departed" from frontier once... but that didn't mean that a good idea isn't a good (practical) idea.further, i am not sure what the community thinks about that.we love pioneer BECAUSE it's so close to frontier, it's our personal E4 replacement.not only your goals count, the longings of the players count as well, maybe even more.further it could easy lead to a gap between some long time partners, not only me.it would be really sad if the "shame mouths" of elite-games would became right and pioneer is dedicated to vanish, only because of such misunderstandings.you might be the captains, but we are the wind in the sails.i ask you right here what do you think where and what would be pioneer without the SSC community, geraldine and my little self? (i guess tom knows that very well)there wasn't much people who knew it exists at all.there was and is still no modeler except me who understands the way of pioneers models as i do, i might not be the best choice, but a rare one.of course you can easy change the way how to bind models in pioneer to make it more pleasing for a wider scale of modelers. using perhaps XA models that have animations set up by the CAD, but you will loose the spirit i swear it.i will always keep my feet on the ground, further i have a big talent in keeping a good overview to all, i am not a specialist, more a allrounder, with a wide spectrum of interests and, perhaps a bit rough, knowledge.who was the thriving forces that advertised pioneer everywhere?even to hire developers to help the project starters fulfilling it.we are not the only ones who started a project in this direction.there are others i noticed, have started already something close to what pioneer was when we discovered it.but i leave that up to the community, to the actual and future players of pioneer.that didn't mean i didn't like you or your work, you have done a very good job, no question about that.i don't want to split, i like to join, i am a construction worker, i build, i don't destroy.i didn't think that there is a kind of a conspiracy against me, no. but i really see myself as a important part of pioneer, without being to proud of myself.but sometimes it feels like someones like to take it out of our hands (tom's, JJ's and perhaps mine to precise it).i won't say exactly you, but sometimes i feel we move into a different direction as intended.i must say i didn't know JJ to well, i had more contacts with tom, but i know also that they are long time friends.i know further that tom started it with JJ (or vice versa? didn't matters) as a countering to frontier, to avoid all the leaks and troubles they had with JJFFE and GL-Frontierand of course to have something of their own, better then frontier.i must say i will respect tom always as the "owner" of pioneer, we had always a good contact and a similar way of, let's say, feel for it.he's a careful programmer in my eyes, who likes to go forward in small steps and has listened always to our longings, i never overloaded him with wishes and ideas even if i had a lot in the back of my mind, i guess i am (was?) a careful modeler and partner. carefully we moved together slowly forward.i guess we never wanted it to finish tomorrow, it takes time and already i feel we stuck a little into some kind of mud because of hasting.it can still be sorted out and we can pull that wagon out of the mud, for sure, but only together, players, devs and modelers, one alone won't work.sorry, when i used to get some fun out of pioneer, but it's made for playing...when think about how one will play pioneer, what motivation one has to play pioneer, when i play it often and when i argue often.it was and it is still the frontier community that keeps this game alive.

[robn]

potsmoke66 wrote:
to barnards star, so you rather like to keep it as it is and avoid missions to it?
Its a bug. The bug has a workaround in dev, and we have an open issue to implement a more permanent fix. I don't know how to explain it better than that.
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i know you told me once pioneer will be "departed" from frontier once... but that didn't mean that a good idea isn't a good (practical) idea.further, i am not sure what the community thinks about that.we love pioneer BECAUSE it's so close to frontier, it's our personal E4 replacement.not only your goals count, the longings of the players count as well, maybe even more.
Pioneer is not and never was intended to be a clone of Frontier, merely inspired by it. It will naturally diverge from Frontier as the people involved contribute their own ideas about how the game should be done. If you want to play Frontier, then go and play Frontier.As I and others have repeatedly tried to make clear, everyone may contribute to Pioneer. The code is there, the website is there, the mailing list there, the IRC channel is there. There are myriad ways you can contribute, and we see new people with ideas and code and whatever very regularly. I don't know why you still believe that your's or anyone else's opinion doesn't count.

[ollobrain]

noi i agree this is more than frontier the original idea is but it will go well beyond that, think of it maybe as elite 4 or what it could be if the guys that own it ever do develop it. This is its own beast and lookin good

[Potsmoke66]

i better shut my loose mouth...but until it's fixed?and if i only find that...no i never said, or if so, it was a glitch, that it is a FE2 clone... but one thing i'm sure tomm & JJ started it because of......and the many leaks of......and unsolved things of......and the many bugs of......and the possibilities given now......and perhaps even to "purge" FFED3D, who "stole" JJ's work...it was a fun project, and i guess some see now a possible market for it* and fear copyrights.i have no problems with that (market), but let's tell things by their name. (how you grab a snake, by the tail?)i guess (no, I KNOW) Frontier.dev has less problems with that rather then you or brian.I talked with them about pioneer at completeness of my first model, did you?i am aware that lawyers are not bound to expressions of developers...and even if i'm co-involved, i will be the first who would already spend 10 (no 50) SFr. for Pioneer, believe me!i mean i lay out more for beer or such...*me toi know Frontier was very rigid in the case of frontier (no wonder, the company is named after it), but i guess they have changed their perspective a bit (only a bit) already.are you flexible enough to do the same?they have to exist even tomorrow and such a rigid attitude is bad for the business.i can only WISH that pioneer get's more sole from it, but i never would like to miss certain ideas that stand behind both.if i ever meet DB, i will ask him man to man...i have nothing, absolutely nothing to loose, no job, no money, no (more) wife, no (more) children... the only thing i have is naked me.arabs use to say: a mans a man, whatever happens... (with clothes on or off). that's a final wisdom, what can they take from me life? my faith? no!you can throw me in the deepest darkest hollow, i'm still ME! and i can still do what i'm good in!

[Potsmoke66]

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-I noticed that the clock is now crazy: when it says 0:00 is day and when 9:00 is night!
well it's in the nature of things, when rob has daytime i have nighttime....let's assume the clock is a standard solar time, from which point measured ever, Greenwich? perhaps.as example my above posted picture has also the "wrong" time, but only for GMT+1, for ~6 timezones from there it will fit, unfortunately it can fit only to one timezone, it's in the nature of things...question, when located on epsilon eridani (new hope), which is then the "right" time(zone)?maybe we should invest a standard galactical time. but still this would persist.
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-suggestion: A compass when in surface would be great. The navigation aids are few.orbit infos?
i guess not really needed, but a good question or idea, but read further.orbit infos? explain please, what do you mean by that? height we have already, standard orbit? (where a body stands always above the same location, like a telecoms satellite? ).i guess not really needed, investigate it yourself, take it as a special mission or relative to a assumed meridian? (to get East and West?).we (humans) have greenwich as 0, due to the fact that the world has been measured starting from there, but it could be anywhere else in fact.if i had started to measure the world it would have started in glarus, perhaps, or in the gobi desert.... or even Jerusalem? why not it was in the ancient the so called center of the world (only for mediterranean cultures of course), if rob had started to measure it would start in melbourne, maybe. (leads back to the time zone problem)humans need a given 0 else we can't measure.question, where is 0° meridian on epsilon eridani (new hope)?another question, where is north on epsilon eridani (new hope)?you would need a (the) galactical coordinate system, in space you have no "up" or "down", neither "left" or "right", or north, south, east, west, at least the earthly coordinates won't work. a possibility would be relative to the systems plane, if there is one...else you would have to take the galaxy and assume one, means, let's say from the earthly view referring to the plane of the galaxy. our north is north for the galaxy and our west is west for the galaxy. (take pioneers sector map as a guide and solution to that problem)question, do you think "the little green men" would have then the same coordinate system?well i know a somehow problem for mankind...
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question: I like the new green vector marker in the hud when an object is selected, but I dont know how to interprete it. Any light? ( relative velocity to that object? What about the position?)
the "cross" when a ship is selected? marks exactly what you name it by, the vector of the ship you selected, the direction it goes, relative to you.how i love such basic stuff... and i really do that's no downgrading you, these are common questions everybody had them once.and the answers (or counter questions) are not grown on my turd.

[robn]

Gudadantza wrote:
The HDR has been improved a lot, now I have It turned on a lot of time when in surface, now the advantages are higher, amazing and realistic effects.but it should be tweaked even more on some details like the exaggerated colors of the thrusters or the solid shape of the suns. The rest: effects on the stars, and dynamic bright of the buildings and surface of planets are amazing, tweakable but very good looking.
Interesting. I don't think any significant work was done specifically on HDR during the last development cycle. There was plenty of work done on terrains, atmospheres and the background stars though, so they might be working together to make something extra nice. I'm glad you're enjoying it anyway :)As an aside, which ATI card and driver version are you using? We have a known issue where the rendering breaks with HDR enabled but its only been observed on ATI cards with recent Catalyst drivers. I find it interesting that yours works, and wonder if you've got something different installed. More data will help us track this down!
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On Ati The planet rings, at least saturn, have dissappeared again.
Known issue. We know its not specific to ATI but we haven't been able to find the cause yet.
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I noticed the interesting "mouse over" effect in the planet information screen has been eliminated...
I'm afraid I don't know what you're referring to. Can you describe it in more detail?
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I noticed that the clock is now crazy: when it says 0:00 is day and when 9:00 is night!
Its always midnight somewhere We did deliberately change the Earth start point to a daytime port in the hopes it would be slightly more interesting.
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On epsylon eridani, taking it as example: doesnt mater if low, medium or high level of detail, the framerate is 8-9-10 frames after the loading of the terrain near unplayable when the ship runs at high velocities. Is very very intensive in my computer, I hear it crying.
What kind of computer? Single or multi-core? The terrain engine is generally a bit slower/heavier since alpha 9, but I wouldn't expect that kind of slowdown on low terrain detail settings. Single-core machines however will struggle (though that could be improved with a bit of work.
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Are there plans to improve performance for we poor ati users? Cos I suppose the majority of the comments are ati related... (???) And is a pain because I love this project! is a high performance computer needed? Or is just the Ati GPU?
I'm staring to wonder if perhaps you're a Linux user using the free Radeon drivers. That would explain why HDR is still working for you and why things are going so slow, as the free drivers have not really been optimised yet. I get similar glacial framerates when I use the free drivers, but with FGLRX everything flies along.
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suggestion: A compass when in surface would be great. The navigation aids are few. orbit infos?
Interesting ideas. Please create a feature request.
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question: I like the new green vector marker in the hud when an object is selected, but I dont know how to interprete it. Any light? ( relative velocity to that object? What about the position?)
In short, the green square shows the distance to the target, as does the "Distance to target" value in the panel. The green velocity indicator shows your velocity relative to the target, much as the white velocity indicator shows your velocity relative to the frame (actually it only shows direction of travel relative to the frame, while the speed is shown in the panel. The green indicator shows both).In alpha 9 setting a navigation target would change your frame of reference to that target. It was decided that this wasn't really what was wanted, so it was changed so that the velocity indicator is always locked to the current automatic frame of reference. That produced more intuitive results for set-speed mode, but also meant that valuable information was lost for eg manual flight to a space station where you want to know your velocity relative to the station even though you're outside the station's frame. This led to the introduction of the green cross to show your velocity relative to the current target.Thanks for the great feedback!

[Potsmoke66]

i fixed up a little clip which explains a bit the used markers in the HUD.it was not easy to do so, the annotation system in youtube is a horror, especially for such short clips. but i hope it's a help nonetheless.

[ollobrain]

some improvements on the hud markers are good im liking that direction

[Potsmoke66]

you mean the "targeting tunnel" ?is really something i like to have to, it gives you a feel of speed and distance in manual flight especially with maximum time acceleration.some find it annoying i like it, tastes are different even in this case.and sorry if i assumed you would be a complete nube to space, but the daytime question was misleading my thoughts.first i should HAVE know you by your nick second, next time i took a closer look to the rank :oops:and perhaps i missed again, seems not to be MY day today.

[KingHaggis]

Hi folks,I've been away for a while. Busy at work and enjoying the nice spring weather when I'm home. I hate autumn and winter so those are the seasons in which I usually spend time behind my PC playing games like Pioneer. But I just wanted to say I played the new Alpha 10 for a while yesterday and liked what I saw. The new features are great!! Keep it up!

[Marcel]

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On Ati The planet rings, at least saturn, have dissappeared again.Known issue. We know its not specific to ATI but we haven't been able to find the cause yet.
Well they show up fine on my Radeon 9550. I can't do shaders, perhaps there's a clue there.

[Guest]

Marcel wrote:


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On Ati The planet rings, at least saturn, have dissappeared again.Known issue. We know its not specific to ATI but we haven't been able to find the cause yet.
Well they show up fine on my Radeon 9550. I can't do shaders, perhaps there's a clue there.
Once the planet rings glitch appeared on previous alphas I tried switching shaders on and off but with no luck. I have not tried on alpha 10. I will make a try, thanks.Greetings.

[Feenicks]

Is anyone else experiencing some problems with the autopilot? Specifically setting autopilot to go into orbit.If you choose Low Orbit from the autopilot, sometimes it takes you to the planet then does a couple of routines before it settles and gives you manual control again, but other times it just zooms to the planet then appears to go into a loop where the ship faces away from the planet, gains altitude, levels up with the curvature of the planet and drops the altitude some before suddenly facing away from the planet and repeating the process. It seems to be about 50/50 whether it will go into this loop or not.

[Potsmoke66]

i'm really not sure if i like what is going on hereit seems we had never before such a bad and unstable pioneer,but i forgot we should put that on the issues list and wait for cinderella...

[Guest]

potsmoke66 wrote:
i'm really not sure if i like what is going on hereit seems we had never before such a bad and unstable pioneer,but i forgot we should put that on the issues list and wait for cinderella...
I'm actually a little offended by these comments to be honest. I've spend the past month or so helping out and giving my time and skills to build something that I enjoy doing. I know there are other contributors who have spent far more time than I have who would be disappointed reading those comments. I strongly disagree that this is such a bad and unstable pioneer. I think there are quite some significant improvements, with some new features that have been implemented. While we are working on Alpha11 there are some more things that are slowly being developed on (as well as bugfixes). Yes, there are bugs. Please remember that it is alpha software, it is guaranteed to contain bugs and crashes. The whole point of having these alpha releases is for people to TEST and report to us any bugs or issues. We need to track these issues (which is why we want people to log them on the issues tracker). It isn't helpful if you are mocking the process./rant over

[Marcel]

Alpha 10 seems much more stable than alpha 9 or the dev version. I have yet to see a crash. It seems like the best version yet to me.

[Geraldine]

Philbywhizz wrote:
I'm actually a little offended by these comments to be honest.
I am sure Gernot did not mean to cause you or any of the other devs offence. It could well be a translation error as Gernot is writing in his native German language. Certainly never think that your (or the other dev's) efforts are under-appreciated. I think all of you are doing an amazing job with the not so simple remit of creating one of the best space sims ever. Thinking about cultural differences has given me an idea. Since Pioneer is being created bit by bit by people from around the world, why dont you devs put a little of your own culture into the game? Think about this for a moment. If we as a race ever manage to reach the stars, inevitably some of our culture will be with us on that journey. It would be great if the game reflected this. Also I think it would add a little diversity to the game too.

[s2odan]

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Since Pioneer is being created bit by bit by people from around the world, why dont you devs put a little of your own culture into the game?
Ah like the space shrimp, that you put on your space BBQ.... *silence* ;)Or the fish and chip shop on the bulletin board, voted best chips in the district! The fish aint bad either...Or the royal wedding : all the bulletin board posts are removed because everyone has a day off....Poor jokes aside its a good idea. I suppose to show the world a bit of English culture we would really need a 'Job seeker's fund' in pioneer, if you have trouble getting work they could give you some credits