Alpha 29 released

[Brianetta]

InfoView (F3) rewrite: I miss the possibility of switching between screens with F3, I think it's not very ergonomic to have to cross all the screen with the mouse to click on the tabsZoom out the sector view to see a faction map: awesome! I'm not sure it's consistent with the discovery of hyperspace flight only 400 years before the beginning of the game, but then background story can just be rewrittenEconomical autopilot: is there any way to switch that off? I got stuck at 15000km/s while travelling in a ternary system (more than 380 AU to cross) even though I had prepared extra fuelRefueling now handled by Lua script: how to refuel now? Again, during my travel in the ternary system, I was unable to refuel with the interface, even when my tank got emptyIt's on the list. We aren't planning to deprive you of keyboard shortcuts. We just don't have the keyboard support finished just yet.Speak for yourself - I can travel thousands of light years in a year of game time. In four centuries, we could easily have spread that much.Not at the moment; once we have extended the new UI to the main flight screen, we'll be able to provide greater control.Refuelling works as it did before. You need water in your hold, and then you can use the refuel button on the cargo screen. It just looks different.

[shadmar]

Economical autopilot: is there any way to switch that off? I got stuck at 15000km/s while travelling in a ternary system (more than 380 AU to cross) even though I had prepared extra fuel You could also just turn off autopilot, and maually accelerate til you've burnt 45-40% of your fuel. Then turn on autopilot. You should then have fumes when you arrive.

[funkybibimap]

Refuelling works as it did before. You need water in your hold, and then you can use the refuel button on the cargo screen. It just looks different.Water!? I thought I needed hydrogen, no wonder it did not work... Does it mean that the thrusters are powered by hydrogen + oxygen, obtained from electrolysis? You could also just turn off autopilot, and maually accelerate til you've burnt 45-40% of your fuel. Then turn on autopilot. You should then have fumes when you arrive.What I will do when I need it is to fly manually to half the distance with a constant acceleration, then switch to automatic pilot and let it do the deceleration job. Which makes me think that we don't exactly know when the autopilot is going to throttle.

[Potsmoke66]

hey, loki he's french, i can't speak a word french and i had 3 years french lessons at school, do i need to tell more? --- "Economical autopilot:" i never liked that idea... ...please leave it up to the pilot if he likes to burn his fuel with a autopilot flight, or likes to interrupt it to save fuel, or likes to fly in computer speed control mode. imho, the autopilot should act as "stupid" as possible, it's the same problem to me as advanced armour is, it kills fun, pioneer should be a game no?this is the part where the sim should be more game, things that keep the player from acting and thinking make the game probably (with a high chance) boring. regardless of what would be possible with todays technology already and not to think of 3200. often the reply is you have the alternative to fly manually, never heard of that mankind is lazy by nature?"if i offer a help it will be used".not many players will give up the autopilot for fun, especially not if they are new to this sort of game.that's why i liked the old way we had once, you had to dock manually always, i do really miss that and a switch to manual, sorry no one would do such. but you have to, if there is no other possibilty, you can't be "lazy" then. if you like to do me a favor, program a faulty autopilot with many leaks and things i can't foresee... btw, you need both, hydrogene for the hyperdrive and water for the "impulse drive"...in general i didn't think it's a bad idea. ---

[Brianetta]

Water!? I thought I needed hydrogen, no wonder it did not work... Does it mean that the thrusters are powered by hydrogen + oxygen, obtained from electrolysis?No. Using electrolysis to store energy chemically, and then burning them together again to release that energy, would be very inefficient indeed.Water is used as a reaction mass because, of all the fluids commonly available in the universe, it's one of the densest and safest. While we haven't stated as fact exactly how the water is thrown out of the thruster nozzles, I think it's probably a safe assumption that it's heated to a plasma and accelerated electrically.

[Brianetta]

That's a hydrogen fuel cell.No, this isn't why your ship uses water. Your ship uses water as reaction mass, and only reaction mass. The energy is from another source entirely.

[StarMax]

^ Speaking of water and Drives...where can one read up on the science behind pioneer.

[fluffyfreak]

It's a game, what science?

[Brianetta]

There's not much science. There's a nod toward realism. Conservation of momentum (you get lighter when you throw stuff away to accelerate) and a Newtonian physics model that's good enough for orbits and stuff and nothing colder than absolute zero. As for the rest of it, we make it up as we go along. It's fun.

[Potsmoke66]

nonetheless, any good sci-fi story needs a science behind, even when this "science" is probably absolute "rubbish".

[OSH]

Great!!! Maybe i will find some time to test it...Keep up good work Pioneer-Team!!!

[Geraldine]

A belated thank you for this release Robn. Must get busy updating ModDB with this cracker!

[baobobafet]

I just have to say the feature that is blowing my Xmas socks off right now is playing with the rotational dampeners. Wow, didn't realize it covers ALL 3 axis! ataribaby: This sort of thing seems more common with small ships, since they need to be right in the center of the landing bay's detection zone.Best work-a-round I have found is resorting to an autopilot (if you have one) for docking smaller ships at stations. If you take an external veiw of your ship - and take extreme care to be at center of the bay - this can make all the difference for manual docking.

[Geraldine]

Hey guysAs I already said, I did the updates for ModDB last night and something amazing happened. For the first time ever (at least as far as I have been updating it), Pioneer broke into the top 100 list! It has fallen a little back now (now at position 110), but last night it hit position 92!! I was sooooooooooo proud of you guys! Finally people are starting to notice this wonderful game and thanks to you devs, screenshot contributors and other's spreading the word, it's popularity just gets bigger and bigger. Well done all! :girlcrazy:

[baobobafet]

Got the LEM up and running for alpha29 - up on the wiki now - (nice action with the rotation dampeners off :good: (gave the thrusters a bit more kick too)

[Cosm1cGam3r]

Colision is weird. I launched from earth port and didnt know buttons (I played 14 release as last so I forgot lol) and I droped on platform, bounced and droped under it and by mistake I fired ma lazer Police just went crazy above me and crashed like mad. As in oryginal EF lol. I wonder why they cannot enable hover mode and just aim and shoot but even first thing, why they dont want player to surrender. They just shoot like those american stupid cops :)Ok but the real problem is that when I started again and just picked some delivery missions and on my way I taked another ones then try to deliver them. When I just delivered some of them I checked for new ones on the same station and picked new packages. But when one time I hecked again my missions there was only one! Others dissapear. Then I picked another delivery mission and checked in missions but it didnt appear there instead I had this only one mission which left. Why I always must stick on some bug on new releases that makes me no want to play it anymore

[robn]

Colision is weird. I launched from earth port and didnt know buttons (I played 14 release as last so I forgot lol) and I droped on platform, bounced and droped under it and by mistake I fired ma lazer Police just went crazy above me and crashed like mad. As in oryginal EF lol. I wonder why they cannot enable hover mode and just aim and shoot but even first thing, why they dont want player to surrender. They just shoot like those american stupid cops :)Yes, collisions are a bit broken at the moment. We know this, and its something we're working on but don't have anyone quite interested enough right now. As for the police, yes, they should hover and shoot. Something that is being worked on is turret defences, which should be much more interesting. I don't know when this will be available in releases though - its still early for this feature. Ok but the real problem is that when I started again and just picked some delivery missions and on my way I taked another ones then try to deliver them. When I just delivered some of them I checked for new ones on the same station and picked new packages. But when one time I hecked again my missions there was only one! Others dissapear. Then I picked another delivery mission and checked in missions but it didnt appear there instead I had this only one mission which left. Why I always must stick on some bug on new releases that makes me no want to play it anymore :)Yes, this is a known bug that unfortunately snuck through our testing. Its already been partially fixed in development, and a complete fix will be in alpha 30 (which will be released on 11 Jan).

[Cosm1cGam3r]

Great to hear that this bug is not related only to my case and my bad luck to find bugs that makes games almost unplayable in terms of making progress. As for things that changed in this release and last one which I played (14) Lasers now look better because they are not some big balls. But still it is weird that this is called laser. It looks like projectile or fake laser from star wars. I know that it was already subject of few discussions but I wonder if there is no way to make those weapons as projectiles instead of calling it laser? It would be nice to have 2 groups of weapons. I heard that in Elite Dangerous, Braben wants to make projectile weapons and laser weapons. What you think about making the same thing in pioneer? I miss those laser beams and trying to focus them on my target Projectile weapons are nice to use too. Maybe some benefits would be from using projectile weapons and those laser ones. Maybe lasers would make greater damage to shields and medium damage to hull. And projectile weapons would be almost harmless to shields but devastating for hull. I know that it would be hard to think how to put it in game because of only 1 button available on mouse because second one is for enabling maneuvering. Maybe making keyboard button for enabling cursor mode on off would make 1 button available for second weapon. It is only idea but of course there is other things that needs to be dealt with first. And there is no much people to help. From last time when I was here I learned to make 3D graphic and I am making 3D visualisations of interiors and buildings. I thought that it would be cool to be able to help but game engines uses specific way of making 3D objects so I cant help To bad because I see many spaceships are made very simple and are unfinished. It is less concern for now to have good models as there is many things that need to be work on and I think there is no many programmers to help. Ill try to be game tester for pioneer in free time. Better any help than no help I didn't see any topic for bugs so I assume that topic with name of release is for posting bugs too. I hope that I was not off topic in this post.Good luck in making progress and good luck after end of the world, that is today ;D

[Marcel]

End of the world, yeah. I do know for a fact that it's the Winter Solstice here on my part of the planet, so Happy Solstice to everyone! (even to the Mayans) You may not have heard that Pioneer is changing from lua scripted models to more conventional obj based ones. Hopefully you'll be able to make stuff for the game.  edit: WTF? I didn't create that link! :mad:another edit: And now it's gone!?

[fluffyfreak]

From last time when I was here I learned to make 3D graphic and I am making 3D visualisations of interiors and buildings. I thought that it would be cool to be able to help but game engines uses specific way of making 3D objects so I cant help To bad because I see many spaceships are made very simple and are unfinished. It is less concern for now to have good models as there is many things that need to be work on and I think there is no many programmers to help. Good news then, there's a new model system which is more traditional with the deliberate intent of getting more people like yourself to contribute  Getting some more nice looking ships in the game would be absolutely awesome! So please do contribute.