Phoenix

[Gernot66]

[attach]89[/attach]
ça va chouia
[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/community/postid/58649/[/url]

[Gernot66]

Oh! That reminds me, didnt Marcel do some code for landing lights some years back. If I remember right, the lights would sequential towards the center of the landing pad. That's about the only improvement I could suggest to add to your great Phoenix build here.

Similar to the lights on the orbiter? it's possible, in fact a sneeze. For groundstations i have to be more cautious about framerate as for an orbiter which is the single object in a wide range to display, groundstations come with a city and this lowers the framerate already. But a couple of lights should be no problem. The recent orbiter model lowers the framrate already in the modelviewer by 50%, it's caused by the repetitive use of the segments for the torus, the station itself hasn't so many polys but the torus segments are a treat. I couldn't or didn't liked to use a lathe like for "big crappy" because this i can't texture well and i can't place windows in a reasonable manner on the torus, the centrifugal force works to the outside of the torus, that means the artificial gravity works to the outside and rooms and everything will follow this, that's also why the "forest" (or what is meant as) looks towards the inside of the torus. A third orbiter will follow which has instead a torus four domes at the end of the spokes. A tube station like i made a couple of years ago i won't redo, it was to large. Somewhere is a clipping limit, this i found out when i rebuildet the "orbital city" from FE2 the station didn't worked and i had to remove the collision mesh from the large bulks of the "city" (since this change even s20dans "artificial hollow world" even won't work anymore - changes which limit possibilities and clamp ideas which i never really understood, i always felt like: "we don't like so we restrict because we can" but i don't know).
"Chayyam's End" (names can easy vary, just one little change and it's no longer "Chayyam" and becomes "Jameson" or whatever) is the Dome station, i could guess of something better as to "magically slide the ship in". Right yesterday i was guessing if a little tractor wouldn't make it more reasonable (or something like a treadmill). But indeed this type of groundstation could make use of additional landing fires. The dome if you remember was a "notgedrungenes" a design of necessity, i just followed the idea to have a station which can be on any hostile or outdoor planet.the height of the dome is to high, i planned it back then to hold even an upright standing rocket, but since i have no more such ships in "Phoenix" the height makes no sense anymore. A cube of 120x120x120 is in general my limit and 100x100x100 is also the limit for space-ships. A spherical ship like the recently abandoned "Galactical Cruiser" in this size can hold easy 1000 tons. Abandoned it is because it's still untextured, bad to texture (spheres and i can only project and not unfold the mesh), uses to many polygons and has a certain impact on framerate, it is to large also for the needs in "Phoenix", in the end and in the way the game is transporters are the least you like to buy.
BUT, i have planned a new sort of transporter, easy build like the FE2 transporter and modular like the shuttle-hairdryer-sightseeing, sorta counsel i can use for let's say three different sized transporters.
Since i still can't differ buildings for hostile and outdoor worlds i have the urge to change all buildings and leave only the hostile-port for all while the buildings will change from skyscrapers, offices and industrial buildings to something more futuristic, domes and similar which makes some reason on both type of worlds, i hate to see skyscrapers on a moon or planetoid. On the other hand the recent buildings look quite orderly, and i optimized that already a bit by giving them similar sized collision meshes (floor only, the floor marks the space it will use in "Pioneer" and there are some limits or classes of sizes one can say). This forces the buidings to have mostly the same distance to each other and this lets the city look more orderly as if every building has a different size and uses a different spacing. What i elaborated here i can use in a future city, i know now which distances work, that i can give them the same distance to each and i could even connect buildings to a larger area. Similar to my experiment i made years ago i could also size the ground plate up and connect them to a city level where you won't see the planetary ground, but for outdoor worlds i'm quite satisfied with what i got. I wrote i found a new inspiration "R. Buckminster Fuller" idiot as i am i haven't known him before but he is a very interesting architect and visionary.
No, it won't be all lost i can still use the skyscrapers for FFED3D, i just haven't yet but will do so because FFED3D leaks of many buildings and when i peeped into the game right now i felt they don't have to reflect the original ones. FFED3D buildings (like the ships) are inconsistent in size, the size is chosen by optic and not by reason (and by the fact that all meshes are build with integer numbers only and scaled afterwards to something close to reasonable). When you use some of my buildings there is one a small tower with two domes, this building is "in reality" quite high, about 80m (in SC2K where i use a rendering of this building it uses the complete height i have for buildings - yeah i know Gernot renders buildings for SC2K in the size of 128 pixels and less, it's a good starting point for a own unique building design which looks somehow better as a drawn one) but it looks like a dwarf compared to the FFE buildings, they are all oversized and have sometimes an imagined floor height of above 20 meters or windows which are 20 meters high. It looks all in all reasonable in FFE but if you compare sizes you see it's inconsistent and mostly far to large. But i like to keep a reasonable scale and floor height should be around 3 meters, for industrial and commercial this can be extended to 10 meters but for sure no 20 meter high windows.
Operating manual for the space ship earth:
[url]http://www.bfi.org/about-bucky/resources/books/operating-manual-spaceship-earth/chapter-1-comprehensive-propensities[/url]

[Geraldine]

@gernot66
The first person I thought of when I saw the domes in FE2 back in the day was Buckminster Fuller. I guess Braben was a fan too eh Gernot?
And don't concern yourself over the lights as good framerates are always more preferable. The stations, and landing pads, still look great without them.

[Gernot66]

It won't have a big impact Geraldine.
Recently i discovered that Tom Morton still has his old project in several states on GitHub, the oldest version reaches 12 years back. That is when i moved in.
"What's the purpose?" one might ask, the purpose is that i can get rid of certain dislikes i have, it looks (i can't tell exactly actually) like i can restart at alpha10. The recent mission scripting exceeds my capabilities in the state it is (as well alpha31). It is to blown up to chain a couple of missions to a larger mission and it's horrible to script or alter just a bit, further i don't need to have 200 transcriptions in other languages, Phoenix is played in English 'cause English will be the only remaining language in 3200, pretty much it will be (i never played FE2/FFE in German, FE2-Pioneer-Phoenix isn't very complicated to understand and the used sentences are simple, must be to be generated if i can achieve this, there in lies also the problem with languages, it's quite easy to construct with English and a possible generation of sentences would 100% fail in a different language, just such nitpicking things as the article which has no gender). Also other functions which have been thrown out due to the neglect of the LMR, i often stumble over things which was possible but aren't anymore because the team prepared the remove of the LMR a long time before it was definitely removed. I really can't tell right now if that will help me or what i will use. Perhaps i restart at the earliest release i can obtain. It would be also somewhat fair and differ Phoenix more from the recent Pioneer. Sure i will lose tons of things which was developed since then, but i always liked to step back you know it. I will lose the face generation most probably and return to the noise in the screen, but i always had something a bit different in mind as the cluttered faces even if i like them. I will lose much of how the planets surface looks now, that has not only drawbacks sometimes i dislike the repetitive appearance they have, nine ciphers to generate them but only about 10 results with slight variations, but of the spiky asteroids we don't got rid, they still exist. I don't like to criticize s20dans work on them it's just that i think they are to repetitive. I will resurrect some old bugs but will avoid a couple of which later appeared. It will mean that i would have to review all of my model and function scripts on the other hand i get rid of the wrong mirrored "Z" projection plane which was altered due to a misunderstanding of right handed and left handed coordinate system. This error, this willingly implemented error, has always annoyed me - theoretically more - three years ago when i wrote the functions to texture automated it became a monster bug in reality and it happened what i promised, it's wrong as wrong can be and in this way i can't rotate an objects projection. to explain i don't need to rotate dynamical, but for perfection of the "texture projection function" i need to be able to tell with the 3x3 matrix from which angle i like to project, this is blocked because the Z plane works now inverted to the other two (what is + becomes -) and this prevents from a equal behave which i need to project from a given angle, especially i only like to enter "dimension, position, projection angle" and the object should be textured, it works but it only works as long as i don't project in angles, as soon as i like to tilt the projection angle it doesn't works anymore because one plane is inverted. This i elaborated when i made the function and started to use for this a cube and this texture:
[attach]106[/attach]
When everything is proper the "0" position must meet in one vector of the cube, it doesn't do this if i use for all projections the same positive values, Z plane is negative. Recently in alpha31 and for all the rest it is wrong, it's just one won't recognize this and guess, and this was the fault, because blender uses the texture inverted to Pioneer, but blender has a right handed Pioneer a left handed coordinate system and the texture must be mirrored, also the models point in the "wrong" direction, in fact the model is inverted, quasi inside out thus the texture obviously has to be inverted to, due to the fact that they only inverted the Z plane the texture appears now to be right in blender but it stays wrong for the theory and not only for this it will be wrong as wrong if you start to use this theory in praxis. Well perhaps to peep in a old old explanation from the '70s about coordinate system, planes and texture UV would have helped (as i did when i started the texture calculator) but they never felt to listen to little me. A small nit picking thing with a high impact on the LMR, since it's no "stupid CAD". The stupidity i have to write myself, e.g. the texture calc, or rotation helpers but for this everything must reflect the theory and most of all the same coordinate system and not flip for one plane to the inverted coordinate system just because it appears wrong in the mirrored coordinate system, already the idea makes me angry, you don't change something vital which is rooted in the way we display meshes. Further i don't guess it can be made better as it was planned a long time ago, in fact there are no changes allowed to this. Cartesian coordinate system and the projection planes are a law and no suggestion.
So far for the lamento.
Unrelated to this i dig out a rather old project (at least three years old) and this it how it looks:
[attach]108[/attach]
[attach]107[/attach]
It leaks of a landing gear anim (in work) and a cockpit, what for do i have to mind about transporters, when i have one in the box?
It covers the by me intended max. bounding radius of 100m (slightly more) and has recently a capacity of 600tons (the hull is damaged because the hull mass and capacity was far lower when i saved the "test game" as when i reloaded it).
The only thing which is missing now is a team mate
But at least i have Geraldine who supports me.
---
Links:
I found interesting things in the web while i was looking for Tom's old website (it seems to be down now).
[url]https://www.goodolddays.net/game/id%2C255/Frontier-Elite-2.html[/url]
(cool, my clips got somewhere else posted)
and this
[url]https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/12/06/back-to-frontier-pioneer/[/url]
Which brings back good and not so good memories.
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[attach]109[/attach]
Your suggestion for the landing pad firing has lead to a new idea i thought of to make a (in reality rather impractical as i've read) landing pad from hexagonal tiles, most will be lookalikes and a few will be lit (the '80s disco pad). Impractical because attempts to make a solar power road strip in such a manner clearly failed, the tiles are to fragile for such, under lit tiles will/would have the same weakness but it is 3200 and apart from antigravity everything works (even this if you look at my not to serious meant shuttles with poop deck, soda machine and coin-op, but in general i like to avoid the idea of "magical devices", thrusters should maneuver the ship not antigravity, else i don't need any thruster if i could make advantage of antigravity and the ship would fly in any direction with exactly the same acceleration. I i have antigravity i won't need rotating space stations with a ring, the rotation is only for the purpose of artificial gravity, the design was brought to paper almost a century ago. (while von Braun's wheel is very tiny, the center of the wheel is about the size of a manned capsule. It has the attitude to be realizable not like giant artificial moons of which we have no idea how long it would take to construct them and how and from where to get the material needed, already a station in the size as on my picture above would need a giant effort to build and is impractical in reality, at least to us).
Worst i have seen in an old game i dig out for the MIDI music, "Millennia".
Pardon me the questionable game is "Far Gate", it shows ships that crawl like a doo-dah through space, they wind their body to the left and the ship moves to the left, ridiculous, the ship would still move straight no matter where the rotational head points to. A total abstinence of any physics, looks like a fish which dives in the sea, it might look somehow good but it's impossible. Like for most, no near to all space games the ships have giant main thrusters and that's it, how they maneuver no one knows. One could imagine an antigravity device but this makes thrusters obsolete, but anyway it won't point his head in direction if the course to maneuver, not at all, such a ship could accelerate in any direction the same no matter which end or side points in which direction.
Pardon me Millennia is the rather Elite type of both:
[attach]110[/attach]
(The shot is titled "ecgame" because it runs in DOSBox ECE and not because it's an "ec" (easy) game).
The plot of Millennia is, as far as i understood that, to build up certain things for the alien race then they will let you go home. I haven't played it yet but it looks like a combination of strategy and space shooter.
It was the strategic game "Far Gate" with the winding ships, recently i can't show a screenshot of it because i need the CD-ROM or an image of it to run it.
The music of Millennia is quite good, space related MIDI with a own sound, a bit short because the tracks are loops. Wherefore the score of "Far Gate" is stereotype marching music no matter CD audio.
The cockpit of Millennia is inspiring, not as much the holographic alien as the fact that it rotates for each purpose, navigation, communication, battle panel all is in a different direction in a thought sphere, you actually see how the spherical cockpit rotates around you, really a good idea.

[CaptainKal]

Millennia : Altered Destinies
[url]https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/millennia-altered-destinies[/url]

[Gernot66]

An amigoid, that's fine.
A short intermission, just an undocking scene not more.

---
Dated 2001 "Far Gate" looks worse in quality as FFE, the models look like paper cutouts.

Perhaps you get an impression what i dislike at it (the whole appearance). While you find still very similar strategic space games as browser games as i noticed. The gameplay could be good this i don't know, but music and graphics raise no appetite for this game.
While "Millennia" (even if i neither played it yet) makes appetite from the first sequence on when you find yourself in the alien ship.

[Geraldine]

@gernot66
Dont know how helpful this could be to you Gernot but I uploaded many builds to ModDB over the years, going all the way back to Alpha 7, s20dan uploaded that one, but I did all the others. I thought that, perhaps one day, those old builds might come in handy to someone. Someone like you maybe?
I might even have older builds still on a DvD somewhere. I certainly remember playing Alpha 2 as that was the very first build let loose if I remember correctly. Remember how excited we all were when Tom Morton first announced Pioneer? Great days Gernot! For a time, we took over the Frontier Forum! To this day I am convinced that Oolite, FFE3D and Pioneer finally convinced David to bring out his new Elite game. These 3 kept the Elite dream alive in those barren years and for many, still do!

Anyways, here is that ModDB link. 
[url]https://www.moddb.com/games/pioneer/downloads/page/3#downloadsbrowse[/url]
It was fun reading over those old links. You can still feel the excitement and passion in the posts. FE2 was, and still is, an amazing achievement.
I don't think I ever played Millennia, was it a PC only title? If it was and pre-2000, that would explain it as I only used Amigas back then.

[Gernot66]

In vice-versa order:
Millennia is '98 and i assume PC only.
To the builds, that is very attentive of you it might help somewhat.
I'm rather interested in the source code as i found it on GitHub, i just didn't knew for all the years Tom has it's fork of Pioneer on it. The official Pioneer project on GitHub doesn't keeps track at all of the old versions but fortunately he did so.
It won't reach back to alpha7, probably alpha 9 or 10, neither that Tom kept track of all he just put on GitHub the major release changes up to alpha 24, in fact it is what i was looking for already two years ago (someone told me i will get help here, i mean you didn't literally said this but i thought let's have a view maybe someone who can help me has arrived in the meantime, it wasn't this but the fact that i due to this indirectly found to Tom's fork of Pioneer).
With a build i can do what i did for alpha31 but i can't change certain dislikes or tune certain things, that's why i like to get the source(s). Further, a comparison can help me to change some bits to what i liked in older releases but i can keep (as i hope) what is good.
But for sure it will be fun to play an old release (i had a alpha9 and my first SW-XWA mod on a HD but recently it's out of order). That will be mostly for dogfights, because it was far easier and made a lot more fun. You can win in alpha31 but it's damned hard and you don't get rewarded well with victories.
Future plans Geraldine, recently i stick again with the models i like to change more to wavefront objects the performance hit of the blown up model resource is to big especially for buildings which get drawn multiple times. I can keep it for the ships it was far to much work and creativity i put into it to trash it completely.
(to be continued)

[Gernot66]

One should not forget to press "send"...
The "disco pad", based on your suggestion to better mark the active landing pad. Unlike Marcel i didn't let in a geometry (even if they looked pretty good lens like as i remember) i used a textured overlay and changing material depending on docking state.

As you see i re-used my single-port station, i just sized it up to a standard docking bay size of 100x100x100 meters because i can't determine which ships are allowed to dock, intentionally i liked it to limit the single port to fighters and shuttles but i dispensed this idea it is enough to limit some space-ports to one docking bay so that some mission can't or can't be easy completed (a sand bunker in the fairway). Space-Stations with only one bay i haven't yet, the "orbiter-base" the smallest station has at least two bays, perhaps, i'm not sure how to solve this but i would like a tiny single bay station where you have to dock to instead to land, the docking nose at some ships i made is a remnant of this idea, but it would mean that every ship in Phoenix would need one, which would be in fact reasonable but looks quite stupid on ship designs like fighters). Unlike in FE2 AI ships don't stay very long in a space-station or port, and easiest is if it is occupied and you need to complete a mission to rough land close to the station and set then time acceleration to maximum, it usually only takes a couple of hours or a day until the AI ship leaves. The crash into the dome station is a misbehave which i will solve as soon as i convert the station to wavefront meshes. Unlike Tom i added even for the landing pad a "common" (unflagged) collision mesh because if you use only the flagged one to release the docking sequence inactive pads won't return collision and a probably crashing ship would simply sink in instead to crash. The problem is caused if the flagged collision mesh and the "common" one are on same height, the flagged needs to be a little higher (about 10 cm) and the docking animation must even reflect this, compare it to the behave of the single port, there i can't crash if the pad is active because the flagged collision mesh releases the docking sequence before you can touch the unflagged and as soon as the animation starts the game won't check a collision for this ship anymore, it can be diffucult sometimes AI don't releases the sequence proper and hangs between approach and docking, are sometimes even half rotated and stuck then. Same for undocking but i guess i solved this, it was most probably caused by a not proper refueled ship (always refuel full under any condition might have helped, i will see if it works only in a longer play because this misbehave doesn't happens often, but if it is annoying because an orbital space-station will be almost completely locked if a ship hangs in the dock. You can fly through it mostly because the collision won't or should not be checked it depends on if docking/undocking is released or not, often when you undock you will collide with the hanging ship which is then rated as an act of piracy), the AI hangs then in the dock equal like when you undock without to refuel (which isn't possible in Pioneer for the player but you know this for sure from FE2). Personally i miss this behave a little it's one of the classics of FE2 "damned i again forgot to refuel!". I'm aware that manual refueling isn't reasonable, but nothing manual is reasonable in the year 3200 but to automate all kills the game and we killed already to much of such, Pioneer like FE2 leaks a bit of action and such is no bug or that he simply forgot this it is really a part of the gameplay. To have a ready to use good fighter with everything installed is the clear opposite to this as well as a co-pilot which will do the job for you, can it be more boring? I don't like to watch an animated cut scene - i like to play and playing means do it yourself. Sure the countless and sometimes very long interplanetary cargo runs at start are as boring as in FE2 but that's the game, do it yourself. It is otherwise the most interesting part of Phoenix, you start as a nobody with a nothing as ship, no chance to make your first cash to buy your first upgrade except by a cargo run, best a long profitable one and how proud you are if you have collected your first 1400 credits to buy the autopilot in a manual flight or many manual flights. Step by step, upgrade by upgrade you can make more money, that's the path. If i start with a fully equipped ship i won't have much to do in Pioneer and in no way i will be proud of anything. The ship was a gift, but my ships are no gifts you have to work for them and this releases the pride, the feeling that this is your ship because you worked hard for it. If you are after a long time, about a year or more, wealthy enough to buy a ship with which you can leave the system you are in you won't like to lose or only to sell this ship, it is your ship and no gift. You will certainly buy the cheapest one but you will be dissatisfied with it and will have to buy a better one if you like to win a dog-fight. At start you have only this miserable shuttles, no hyperspace engines and no gun mountings (except for the mining vessel which has a gun mounting, but it is out of the question to buy one at start, it is to think about to fit a mining laser but first i must change the game that you can't sell a pre-mounted equipment to make cash with this at start). However only such a long play will show me hidden misbehaves "did you ever played it?" can you remember this? Yes you will have to and not just a cheated game a full real one to see where the devil resides. Most of the ideas in Phoenix came from such a play, you play and while you play you have new ideas. Pioneer is since a long time a quite good game engine and likewise for "Tower of Mystery" one has "just" to pick up the lose ends to make a real game out of it, but to pick up these lose ends you need to know where they are, what can be made, what would spice up the play. Walter has scripted many fine missions, but each lose by itself they are uninteresting often, they need to be chained or you need a different reward as just credits, most of all you must fail, if you don't fail it is no game. It's that rotten bunker in midst of the fairway exactly set in distance an average golfer can match. "Darn not again!". Seen from this ward the hard to beat AI is good i think it just should grow with the player, depending on shot ships or completed or failed missions, on wrong or right decisions, likewise a good role playing, do it well (don't fight if possible) and you have a easy play do it wrong (murder every living creature) and you will be punished. We don't need many characteristics, some 4 or 5 are far enough but one must use it wise and not make it only possible to have them. Four really can be enough if they reflect my character in the game.
[spoiler title="More mysterial things"]
Think even of "Tower of Mystery" here, this game has only three (probably four) characteristics for a player, magician, warlord, trader, depending on how high is each your character in the game is created and this is far enough, one is the ability to trade, one is the ability to use magic proper and the last is the most simple of all strength and as fourth characteristic probably endurance. This four characteristics measured from 0 to 10 will give a lot of different results for the character of the player - if i use it in the game. Not the amount is important, the use makes the difference. "It's not the size of the waves - it's the size of the ship". Tower uses it wise, the character can range from pure trader, magician, warlord to any shade between these three and the game reflects this well, it is possible to master the Tower as pure trader, you never need to fight - theoretically at least i never managed it, it seems i'm more the "sword in my hand" kind of type, i slaughter all which is just twitching. Just a single victim will change the game from trader to fighter, a single use of a magic potion or spell turns you to a magician, at least to the first level of and this will change the behave of the monsters you face. At least this was the intentional idea for "Tower of Mystery", to make the game running, to finish that beast of procedural generated game it seems (it seems means i'm not sure) they had to use preset characters, i'm really not convinced of this that it was a must but i assume players will feel more comfortable with this as to receive a to the player unknown character, you don't know in "Tower" what you are you will have to find out (in the original "Tower" you need to find out all yourself and worst of all it changes with each game completely, it is a very addictive game even if broken but i could not rest until i mastered the Tower and still it moves me as you can see, i became a victim of the "Tower of Mystery", locked in the vaults of the tower forever, really he was a huge game designer) or know it already by your own behave but you can't check this. Well they had it easy back in those days, no one of the players ever was able to peep into the rom and if they wouldn't have understood any of it. To be fair the programmers back then had a good engine who helped them, the least of them could program in assembler they already used a sort of basic or games construction kit for certain games, it is clear to see in games like "Number Jumble", the game has a feel like it was made with intellivisions never released "Game Factory", simple sprite graphics moved over the screen in the most simple manner, but it won't matter the game is created with a lot of creativity and the final challenge is not to shoot the enemies it is to solve the calculations by the numbers the shot enemies let drop, which range from 1+1 to 4044 / 674, intentionally one should solve the equations without a calculator, nonetheless the original game for the Computer Enhancement of this console offers a second screen with a calculator (the 21th century re-release can be played on any inty without ECS), To release it back then for the ECS was a last minute decision because they needed games for the ECS, it was a promise and in the sates you have this bureau who fines industry if they don't keep promises, or had at least back then, so it was a must to put the ECS on the market and it was a must to release a couple of games for it, in a hurry they altered a few common ones which was ready to release otherwise "here we have the promised palette of games for the ECS (cough)". The development for the ECS took far to long and they promised something similar called "Computer Keyboard" already at start but it never was finished and the "Enhanced Computer System" which has a more boasting name was less as what was planned but they could keep the promise and wasn't fined, "look here it's even better as the Computer Keyboard it's an Enhanced Computer System" but in fact it was less, in general it's just keyboard, it uses exactly the same technology and only enhances the console by a little more ram and the keyborad plus a second three channel synthesizer, which made then six channels in total. Intentionally the "Computer Keyboard should turn the console into a PC with softs like budget planning and not just enhance a couple of games by keyboard use, it was fine for educational games i guess, one i'm much interested in is "Scooby Doo's Maze Chase" it is a crossword puzzle game but you can not only solve crosswords you can even design them, others like "Flintstones" yes again HB they licensed a lot of characters from them are clearly no ECS games you just play and use the number pad which you already have on the controller, And "Rocky & Bullwinkle" is quite good as well but can also be played easy without the ECS, thanks to this game i took notice of the series at all, it is completely unknown in the German speaking part), Back to fumble erm jumble; most important of all you can set hardness for each player separate so a child can win against his parents. Using a calculator isn't wise in this game, time is tight you have to type quite fast if you don't like to lose the reward. I guess i told that already but the one who invented this game was bad in solving arithmetic and he liked to create a shoot 'em up but was ordered to work for the educational department and thus "Number Jumble" happened, a simple shoot em up which fulfills the goal of education. I really like "Number Jumble" it's just sad that no one likes to play this game with me. You can play it alone but it is clearly a competitive game. The dudes on atari age wondered even about other games from the edu dept. "they expected that children should solve this? man that's still hard to me". Unlike many of educational toys or games you see today they wasn't easy or stupid, set the goal high that's the proper manner. Besides Inty, right last week i played some games with an even younger comrade, never say never they can like that old shit if presented right, we played Frog Bog and Shark! Shark!, sure both competitive games a sort of simple games you miss a little in times of online gaming. Sure there exist countless browser releases of both, but none of them you can play against a human and for sure not on a single screen face to face. But Shark! Shark! and Frog Bog are boring to play single they must be played competitive. And even if you can have now AI who will take the part of the second player it stays boring without a human competitor, he won't laugh at you and he never argues, how lame... "I will show you who beats who" that's the spirit of such games. And obviously it was also the topic of our discussion why no more such competitive games exist and certainly not on a single machine/screen even if it would be easy possible.[/spoiler]
Another new model for Phoenix, to return to topic, is the "clover" station (the name i chose today because i liked to differ it from the "dome ground-station", twice a dome is a bit confusing even to me, "Dome Station" and "Orbiter Domes" latter is not very good, "Orbiter Clover":
[attach]111[/attach]
Like i said i reduced my first orbiter two two docking bays which is called now "Orbiter Base" while "Orbiter Wheel" and "Clover" have four docking bays. I guess that covers well the classic FE2 stations, "Diamond", "Wheel" and "Orbital City". A city is to large for Phoenix or at least for Pioneer alpha31. I ran into this problem with my FE2 models mod, the "Orbital City" is that large that it exceeds the maximum radius for objects and the docking animation won't be released, i helped myself with removing of the collision mesh for the station except for the entry which leads to the dislike that you can fly through the station. Recently i'm satisfied with this three types.

[Gernot66]

Addendum (it seems i can't edit my previous post, dunno why)
Unfortunately the subterranean ports leave a patch of terrain visible, this i can solve only from within the engine if at all and such together with different building sets for outdoor, hostile, military would have to be solved ten years ago, it belongs to the bones of the game. It would have needed to be solved before we took respect of anything else, not because of models but because it's a characteristic of this game and because of game play, military buildings and ports would be important for military missions and even with outdoor or hostile you can do something in the game. Sure it's rather a visual thing but a very important one.

[Gernot66]

Kind of like this one:
[attach]112[/attach]
Yep, that's a "flying station" and sure not what i like to have, but it's recently the only picture of a FE2 military station i have.
It happens on Planets with zero gravity, you can reach the station it is possible but it needs a lot of patience. Due to that the Planet has no mass your relative speed is calculated in reference to the next large body, a star or a gas giant. You will have to match speed like if you would like to hang on the tail of a fighter but you can't use time acceleration because then it always jumps away from you then. It needs a very careful slow approach until the station gets in reach for a photo or a bombing. The good thing is enemy fighters can't launch from such a station as soon as they do they will crash with the (for you non existing) surface. You can fly through such a zero-mass object and it will lead to weird geometric effects. A useful object to learn this is Ceres in FE2, it has almost no mass and it needs near to as much patience to land on Ceres in FE2 as to reach a flying station.
Great! I just liked to check if i don't tell rubbish here and then i saw this (i almost forgot what i have made):

It was mainly because of my (new) intro giffy and again i liked to show how well (or not so well, it leaks the same as the adlib SFX, lasers and station sfx sometimes work sometimes not) music and SFX works on the MT-32 for which the music and SFX are meant to be played back.
Yes of course i will offer the wrapper here, i must check it before i do so there is a very complex DOS batch environment behind that. Not only to play FE2 with different sound setups, you can also play the music independent of the game and use the FPG (flight program generator) in a comfortable way to generate a path to follow for you. The FPG is quite clever the routes are profitable but obviously limited to the sectors around sol any else would go to far. Instead to print the course out like it was meant it will be displayed and then either added to an existing FPG text file or to a new one erasing the old. The generated course(s) you can display anytime with a small unix look-a-like text reader. The DOS environment isn't meant for FE2 only it serves all my DOS games and that's why i need to clean it first of a lot of things i tried out but didn't used (e.g. an error message generator which is recently totally broken because i changed so many things meanwhile, it was quite funny and reminds of the guru-meditation, shows a couple of not so meaningless numbers, but meaningless, the numbers show only which SFX was selected for this message, in which frequency it was played, how many seconds and how large the file was, based on the same number a quote is selected and displayed, but of course it will show which batch caused the error, that's what it is for in the end, the rest is gibberish so to say, of course it works the wrong way around, press ok and the error message will be displayed again, press cancel and it vanishes. The main problem is that each batch needs an ID so i can tell which caused the error but since i while i neglected this and the error report produces errors itself, it's a total mess now). The environment i will offer separate to the wrapper so it can always be updated without to change the wrapper for the games (mostly, larger changes i have to respect). All will come preinstalled so you can run it also from an USB stick (or any chosen drive or directory) without any installation or copying of files except to unpack it somewhere, just dbl click on the batch to start and it will run. (with exclusion of the game(s) itself, i can link where to obtain but i don't like to spread them, the MIDI music so far i can spread this is almost as legal, sure it is still copyrighted material but no one has been fined for republishing the MIDI as far as i know. To me most important is to me to "give credits where credits are due", i don't claim Beethovens Symphony is my work).

Now you all know what Gernot was up two the last two years, building a cool DOS environment for old DOS games. Sure i like to advertise also DOSBox ECE with it, it's imho the major release of DOSBox, it offers implemented fluid synth and Munt for MIDI in games, implemented emulated 3DFX, but is by far not as blown up as DOSBox-X and still the same to configure like legal DOSBox unlike "X" which is a beast to handle because of the countless options you have to set up the weirdest DOS machine that ever existed and might that be only to playback a specific demo. There is one dislike and unfortunately it seems they have no interest to solve this as long as no game has problems with that. There is an error or bug in the GUS emulation DOSBox of which "X" is cleaned, it won't play PCM wave files larger as 128kB, it stops after 128kB, no matter stereo or sample frequency or bit depth just 128kB and senza te. Most games i know won't have SFX larger as 128kB because usually they was mono 8bit @ 11kHz which is roundabout 5 seconds for 128kB and rarely a SFX is 5 seconds long. Now i only have to find a game which has such a large SFX to convince them that it is of need Sure there is no difference of GUS digital to SB digital, in fact the GUS part for playback of PCM is piped to the SB emulation they should be the same. Should doesn't means that it is so in fact. To me it has become important because the GUS player for PCM is the best so far, no other DOS player is as good, most are homebrew and their biggest leakage is that all can't play back in 16bit quality (and no the SB player and editor is the biggest rubbish one can imagine, it works only with specific releases of SB, wrong soft, wrong driver, wrong release no. wrong OS wrong wrong wrong it only argues and won't work proper after all if you managed to run it in DOSBox with various hacks on the drivers - it neither supports 16bit even if it's a SB16 release, it's a piece of junk. The SB VOC format on the other hand is quite advanced and respects all needs a game can have, loops at to set positions as often as you tell, possibility to store comments in the VOC file, can be told to play muted passages without actual data stream, but the player-editor is rubbish, one could guess it's not made by the same company. The user has been obviously excluded from having a good software to play and edit VOC files, how stupid), some do alike but downsample it in fact to 8bit, even the latest one i found from '98. 8bit can be very noisy and distorted that's why i whish to have a 16bit player. GUS plays back stereo 16bit, it must do so because the GUS patches can have 16bit stereo quality. It has the cool advantage that you can determine an offset and end which would be very handy for my self created SFX header. In DOSBox-X it works perfect, byte exact i really like this player it's professional made good quality, typical GUS quality, worth the money you spend back then for it, twice as, and was still open to be further developed, Gravis was a brilliant company in my opinion. I've read some feel sorry only to had a GUS, i understand most had only the 256kB RAM minimum release and this is very very little to load the patches for MIDI, sure RAM was expensive but it was no problem to upgrade it step by step to 512kB then 768kB and finally 1MB. But if you leave this aside it was leading to all and no other soundcard was as flexible as the GUS, emulating even the MT-32 in a good manner. Buy one card, play all games with good sound and they didn't gave up to make it better and better. Sometimes it reminds me of an open-source project because of the many ideas they implemented step by step. And best of all, just call it and it runs flawless and never argues about nothing. The GUS does not mind what DOS it is, it just works as expected and instead to exclude the users they advised them to cooperate with Gravis. Tell us your needs and we will see what we can do - respect! These dudes had the heart in their project and not in the wallet. Specific solutions for games was offered to the users and also documented if there are different ways to reach the same. And these updates was free unlike today we get sucked out for every little patch which removes a bug or error not guess about an enhancement.
It was not very user friendly for a non versatile user but they did their best to support the users, and as a positive side effect of that the non versatile became to a versatile user, learned how the shit works. "We like to force you to have deeper interest in computing". You can feel the spirit of the devs.

[Gernot66]

I know you all like this:


It's quite off topic but i hope you will excuse my love for her craft, Nina is a force of nature her creative output is immense and it seems it has no limit. All what she publishes in the web is free, she says: "i live from my work, the art you can buy from me, put in your living room and it only belongs to you then". imagine apart from making giant projects like "Seder Masochism" she still has time to make craft to sell.
But i really like to share "Seder Masochism", it is her billing for her ancestry, she is an atheist, her parents was already but her ancestry is Jewish. She started it because of the many bad critics she received for "Sita Sings the Blues" especially some Hindu felt an American Girl is not allowed to tell a story from the Gita and certainly not in this manner and as simple love story (but it is one in the end, a simple love story). So she thought "Ok i show you that i easy can make a billing for my own ancestry". I'm a little proud that i had a tiny little influence on this movie, i followed her advance in this project and she published snipped by sniped idea by idea advance by advance (i.e. she learned to quilt from some grey grandmothers especially for this movie and out of that again turned a lot of other new stuff). As she published the scene of the plague with the frogs she made two short clips, first was a simple repetition of an animated frog, many frogs marching in a row, then she changed it to a lot of frogs hopping around disorderly. I told her "i think the marching frogs look far more dangerous as the disorderly hopping around ones" and she left the scene part-wise orderly and disorderly. I'm not fully satisfied with all ansd even this i told her once, i would have told the story of the golden calf different, it is ok what she did to put that in consens with a goddess of fertility, it's very close to how it is written even if she turned the sense around in the meaning of the patriarchy has killed the female cult of fertility, has killed mother earth. I see a different sense in this story see i see Moses different in my opinion he was less a man of religion as he liked to tell religion is the opposite of belief. It only abuses it. The Golden Calf to me represents all religions, the always repeating fault to give god my own will. That we create god ourselves in in a manner it pleases us. However sure i like her interpretation and the intro starts with mother nature and my beloved ancient symbols (might be another influence of mine). At start she had a different intro "this land is my land" and everybody slaughters the previous living ones in Palestine, still a good idea.
I have to say that she is now a bit trapped by this ancient religions as i feel, i hope she don't loses her goal. Yes she is a feminist of course, but who could be angry with her, she's just brilliant. Recently she thinks about the meaning of Armageddon, we will see what comes out of this.

Take your time it's a full feature movie.

[Geraldine]

WOW Gernot! Lots to go through here! Ok, The source code for the builds. Yes, I am sorry Gernot, I didnt preserve it. Looking back, the builds were changing so quickly back then when Pioneer first came out, I just didnt think it would have been worthwhile, only the "present build" mattered. I wish I had foreseen this. Maybe s20dan might have some source code from back then? Might be worth sending him a PM?
You got it working! The "Disco Pads"! And with little or no impact on frame rate either! Great work Gernot and they look great too! Hard beginning were always a hallmark of the Elite games. So starting out in a basic shuttle craft is not only reasonable but, like you said, give the player an opportunity to become invested in their ships and equipment. Makes their advancement in the game their own.
The subterranean "flying" spaceports. This was always an issue, going way back to even Elite II itself and yes, local gravity being recognised from the player's point of view seemed to be the cause of it. I "landed" once inside a brown dwarf star because I only got a gravity reference when near the core of it. I passed it off as not really a brown dwarf but a stellar nebular inside with some rocky lumps! Made sense to me at the time!
Watching you play FE2. You forgot the Mars start is the most difficult Gernot. No auto pilot, not hyperdrive. Your going to be stuck in Sol for a time with that yellow eagle! I always thought the "Lave start" was easier and that was always my preference. Making money was not an issue around the old worlds and the Cobra was a great ship to start off in, way better than an Eagle.
I knew you would be keeping yourself busy, you always did Gernot. So you built a new DOS wrapper? Very cool! You mentioned various MIDI emulation. Recently I found myself yearning again for some more upto date Amiga hardware. Was looking at this, the Delfina "Flipper Edition" sound card for the Amiga 1200, it's a Zorro II card but with other options. Seems to have lots of features. I'll think about it if there is any decent software on Aminet for it. Yes, Aminet is still going strong Gernot!
Nina Paley. I recall you posting the "This Land Is Mine" video of hers but thats the first time I ever saw the whole movie. You should know there are parts of it that have been muted or have no sound, around the 50 minute mark. Anyways, a thought provoking movie I must say.

[ChromeDNA]

Salut Gernot.
I have one question about your facegen version in your mod. I've noticed your facegen uses only limit maximal numbers of different "parts" for generating picture while creating face (and backgrounds/accessories as well). For example, eyes, hairs, heads, mouths and noses have only files starting from *0_0 to *0_20 and from *1_0 to *1_20. And, if you want to add some additional files (for ex.: eyes_0_21.png) then your facegen will not use this files while it randomly creates faces. I didn't find some setting for increasing maximum files for randomization in the facegen. So I decided that they are in the main executable file.
Can you increase these maximums for the facegen? Also, I can upload here all of these extra files (~ about 10..30 new facegen files for each section of parts). These new files are very interesting in their art and have good quality.
And... Merci beaucoup pour votre excellent travail de qualité ici!

[Gernot66]

Geraldine really don't worry about that like i said i'm surprised Tom's repo reaches back this far, he preserved more as i expected.
And never tell such to her (about the muting) there is the danger that she will explode, i remember well how she ranted about GEMA taking fee's for "Sita Sings the Blues".
Exactly this is the no-go thing and not to copy in what manner ever as long as you don't claim it's yours, this is plagiarism. And we came to a point since quite while where they even don't have to press a button for, it all works fully automated, the money flows by itself, very practical - cough.
The typical thing was that the singer of the music in "Sita" was forgotten and she found it in the PD of the internet archive a forgotten female blues singer with a betty boop voice. Sure as soon as it was published the rights was bought and fees are theoretically legal, but dammit who will receive them? For sure no one who had anything to do with either one work and claims to have rights just because he has bought a piece of paper. But however it works automated, bot recognizes this and that track, rights (sold to) this and that (wanker), fees and advertises placed automated. Nina as creator of the movie is absolutely right less. Besides i gave up to rant, it has no use and sooner or later it will come to an end.
Right today i watched this "metaphysical" clip:
(metaphysical because it seems we also have to pass a similar phase of "total extinction" not a total and well we are responsible ourselves this time)

It never heard it told so beautiful before, sure the geochemist i watched once (it was a "rated" ted-x clip, you like to know "rated"?) was fascinating but he tells it like a fairy tale.
I hope i can refind that "rated" clip, i really have no idea why it is marked this which would mean yes ok it's a personal opinion and not precise science
he leads himself in with this words, he is just stunned about the exception of life, the coincidences which was needed, a sheer impossibility. I guess at least three times he granted the listeners that he is not a creationist in no way "i'm just stunned". It was as i see it a very very good statement about the rarity and how precious life and earth, this exceptional system in all is. You won't find a Sol system around any corner in the galaxy and only the fact that it needed three supernovae at once in a "close" range to build up enough heavy matter let's you think "ok won't happen at all".
And then the above story the near to endless vanishing of life, the oxidation.
But why to hell or heaven it was marked "rated"?
As next and to be honest last clip of Ted-X i watched a rocket propulsion engineer (hmm... interesting do i missed the date 2020 or 3200?).
I'm not joking he watered the mouths of the possible investors (and now i know the goddamned reason) for his "company" (which so far exists only on a piece of paper or virtually) with prospects like "in 30 years i can give you the tools to reach the end of the universe" i'm really not joking (but i thought he is). You will understand that i felt a little depressed with my miserable space ships in Phoenix
And i do mean universe he didn't claimed to leave the the sol system, no that's beginners stuff we don't care a second for we make the big advance in one single jump - yeah!
It is b.s. from a to z, we like to reach the end of the universe (guessed it was possible) and didn't even know our next neighbor?
This not and the one next door also not.
Besides a clever dude noted "hey you can't reach the end of it, it will be always a bit further as you"
But this isn't rated no this is exact science (science-fiction yes, but of the unfunny sort).
The geochemist is rated because you can't earn a red cent with his opinion how precious life is (and what we should do with the boasters)

[Gernot66]

ChromeDNA
Ok, let's hope i can give a useful answer to your request, i never cared much for face generation and most of all "Phoenix" is still an unaltered "alpha 31".
To be honest i'm not the one to be asked for programming, or to be also honest i guess i fear it, i fear the amount of work it would mean to me.
I'm a somewhat good modeller and i can say i differ by understanding it different, but that's already all.
Mostly i have i head full of ideas and don't know where to start
On the other hand it's nice to have gained a little interest.
O.K. i can't make promises but i take this as the kick in the ass i requested for, let's peep into the source shouldn't be a big deal.
Talking about facegen personally i wish something complete different, i still imagine that it shouldn't be such a big thing to really generate faces.
It i also always said that this is a task who can keep a whole team busy.

[Gernot66]

To the more pleasing part (to me at least)
For what purpose ever i start to "solidify" my scripted models (some like the following shuttles really profited of, not only because of detail but because of performance drop the original have). The shuttle so far will be your only friend for a long time in Phoenix thus it's worth a little attention. It is btw not a very reasonable ship with its wide windows and comfortable cabins. It is what one would wish, sort a GM space van for every John and Henry.
To start the model series (which is now truely one) i have added a lifter to it. Three in fact, i always liked to have this useless ship in Pioneer.
[attach]128[/attach]
[attach]127[/attach]
The smallest lifter and finally the one i added as starting ship is the "Towboat" (precisely Lunar Industries Towboat, which is the chosen brand for the shuttles), it has the immense capacity of twenty tons but no nothing else, obviousely no passenger cabins for a lifter there is simply no space for such, therefore it has the lowest hull mass of all shuttle models, a few tons but they can make a big difference on a 500 or more AU distance. You can load twenty tons, respectively that's the capacity of one container but mount only 5 tons equipment, that is besides more as you can in all have for this ship.
The set is completed with the Tugboat and Lifter with two respectively three cargo containers, but all you can afford is this Towboat.
In fact when i start to make it i chose Tugboat, but then i added the single and three container versions and needed a name for the single one, i'm aware Tugboat is what Towboat is. Lifter I, II, III would be a bit boring.
Sort a prospect, the "Space Taxi", recently still no interplanetary taxi missions, it's what was before Sightseeing boat, now with motel room like cabins for four passengers. The standard dings to bums hopper everyone is in need from time to time.
[attach]129[/attach]
[attach]130[/attach] very obvious this ship is reserved to carry four passenger cabins, similar to the Towboat it is restricted to its purpose as taxi with the vice versa drop that it has the highest hull mass of all shuttles (and now my cursor has vanished and i have to stop typing that's confusing)

[Gernot66]

The Taxi is in fact a crossing between the Sightseeing boat and a much larger shuttle version i started, i liked to have a sort of transporter, useful for the player or not. While i created the shuttles i had the idea to populate the systems with shuttles not a couple of depending on population stinking much up to traffic jams and totally locked up stations due to high traffic. Unlike the far to complex "CargoShip" script script we have the don't need to gain profit or make any sense as to be obstacles which is ten times more sense as a reasonable "for real bought" good which in the end makes as much difference to the player as if a dot is red or green. In general one won't care for the Cargo Ships, shooting them is blatant piracy and any else as of sense, why do they have to trade goods for real that's needless complicating and useless for a linking of missions or events. If i could interact with the traders it would be a different thing but as long as they are just background noise they don't need to carry reasonable goods and have real targets, besides it's a script which often fails, i relatively often receive the error that a spawned ship hasn't found it's destination and poff. For what? for the fact that the background noise takes real contracts and can fail to complete. Damned who cares where they leave to? you won't even see them mostly. It's a little to complex for something like a paper cutout. But dozens of shuttles blocking a spaceport make sense to me. and the won't need to carry any reasonable thing, some random passengers or cargo is as good as "for real traded".
It would change it completely if i would be asked to serve the large interstellar carrier with my shuttle, then they need to trade for real.
What profit do i have of the fact that the Cargo Ships make some profit? OK, I could take their targets as course to gain profit with trading for me but that's already all i can profit out of that. Nope in my opinion we need other changes to make trading more attractive in all. more profit with certain goods reason is less the question as that it should be possible to get fun out of trading, enough profit to keep you going for it.
Or leave this as it is, Phoenix has other things to offer as to simply trade with good xy.
In example to manage to be in time with this piece of rust:
[attach]131[/attach]
[attach]132[/attach] The shuttle shuttle (shuttle!) the basic basic shuttle basic shuttle.
Whopping ten tons of multi purpose ship with the standard standard twenty tons cargo capacity, its 15 tons tara (hull plus fuel) are the base for all shuttles thrust which leads to the slight differences between the models because of slight differences in mass. Slight can be like i said quite a lot, less if it's only 50AU you have to match a lot if it's 1000AU. To get the shitty autopilot you need 1400 bucks this means either 20 times 50AU or one to two times 1000AU spoken in terms of contracts to complete. Delivery contracts can have a mass (still consumer goods, and somehow i like this) main purpose of this is to slow you down the shuttles are weak candidates and every ton can play a role.
Finally the Hair Dryer which lost its ridiculous name (but not the look) and is now simply the Lunar Industries Mining Vessel.
[attach]133[/attach]
Its recently only advantage is that it has a little less hull mass as the interplanetary shuttle. Sure the purpose is asteroid mining with a mining laser and therefore the large cargo scoop is which is overall the complete thing. But unless the laser is a fixed equipment (before such is possible at all) it comes of course without a laser but is the only shuttle which can have one but should be restricted to a mining laser unsuitable for fighting.
All shuttles (in future all ships) have an a and b (with 20 to go until z, no certainly not but more would be possible) version which differs in general for the skin and the performance of the ship, a "normal" and a heavy wear version. Obviously the heavy wear version is lower in price, it is little difference for the shuttles, to much already, the problem is i liked to prevent with trading with the starting shuttles if they differ in price like i did now you can gain the 1400 bucks by bargaining with the ships, on the other hand ok if you are such lame it won't help you much you miserable cheater. You will for sure run in troubles with your autopilot without any else experience.
For the shuttles the difference is little and i really have to see myself first what comes out of this.
---
The former MCU (maneuverable cargo unit) latter Lander i removed from the set of ships, the shuttles much better reflect this and are a cool series of similar ships to start with. Not exactly identical and if i get my finger out of my ass and alter the taxi script to even interplanetary i can give the taxi more purpose, remove passenger cabins from the other shuttle specifications and the taxi will be the weakest but only who could carry passengers. Each has it's own strengths recently not as much as i like but that's the idea.
---
Like i said above while creating the shuttles i liked to have a larger shuttle, the cool thing is in fact all, and i do mean all, models use the same skin (for either a or b) one skin for overall six different models, of course they also use the same layout, well the lunar industries shuttles layout you will see reflected in every Lunar Industries Shuttle, in and outside so to say.
The stretch limousine
[attach]134[/attach]
[attach]136[/attach]
16 luxury cabins in most space-saving compact design! Passengers on the lower deck are a little disadvantaged but you never took a trip until you took one in a Lunar Industries Starboat, made to serve the stars of tomorrow.
And the multipurpose variant which if course was the initial one. The whole Taxi thing followed this one, even the changes i made to the Sightseeing boat (now Space Taxi, "hello taxi" sure you can play this game on the on board MAME cabinet of the taxi it's a long time to go to "Heavens Heaven").
[attach]137[/attach]
Perhaps not the thing for the player but ideal to populate the systems, my intention is to limit traffic to a set of static ships, this special models i can lower much in detail for the traffic, it is only "background noise".
While both large shuttles can have unlike their sister ships a hyperdrive, they are sold without which makes them affordable. The won't have defensive or offensive weapons, shuttles are shuttles. So perhaps it's not the thing to leave a system until you know it's safe to leave it. Same for scout missions, but the AI has the same leakage as in good old FE2 it can't fight close to surface, they always smash in the ground. Thus it's quite easy to finish scout missions even if you get attacked, just land and if you do this before you get noticed you are completely safe and watch perhaps a small firework an asteroid shower of a special sort
Just complete the set the left two lifters Tugboat and Lifter
[attach]138[/attach]
[attach]139[/attach]
I guess these make least sense for the player and was also the spark for the population with shuttles (the lifter in general).
Since they are to well specced as starting ships and to less to buy for a good reason they make most sense as traffic. One might believe it or not and i still don't get it why this models using so many tubes and most tris of all shuttles (except for the stretch limo which is obviously not as good but still good and better as the models they derived from) has the best performance in fps, confusing since all are based on the same in general.
This with the fact that the cargo container is a dynamic model which changes numbers and colors for the containers but it's a simple model i made already i guess two months ago with already the intention to use it for a lifter while i still was working on a space port. One leads to the other the port was the reason to give at least for a large part up the pure scripted geometry, it will stay as example but the wavefront versions are to good in performance to be disregarded. I guess mostly it's texture space, it can explode when you script, but also the use of the many helper functions i added drop a models performance i was for sure aware but it was simply a cool thing to try out. It is on the other hand still cool and it would be quite easy to place a MAME cabinet in the original version in a different location in the shuttle, the whole thing is made from LEGO so to say.
Not as much sub-models as functions which allow you to texture a "something" to a computer desk or whatever else purpose this box shaped thing will have.
Obviously also that this LEGO like look still is reflected in the shuttles but i think that's it, this makes them to the Lunar Industries Shuttles, uniform, standardized.

[Gernot66]

The shuttles turned out to well
[attach]140[/attach]
While i started to convert the scripted models i also started to change names for some and line them more up, brand them like i branded the shuttles. The above which was until Buteo is now named "Sagittarius Venom", Sagittarius is a well by design to recognize brand, and since it is a typical Gernot design since my first attempts it is branded Sagittarius. I really give a shit about zodiac but it sounds somewhat cool.
[attach]142[/attach]
Followed by what was former the Toceh, it is now Sagittarius Virus (pardon me, Venom, Virus and Vampire will follow).
The Vampire is still in work and i have no screenshots yet, it is what the Draco was until with some small changes.
The simplicity of the design is also here rooted in the source but i like it - much.
In general these three ships will be your partners to leave a system for the first time, good ships with good capabilities you won't like to sell for another one. Not the ships to make profit with trading or with taxi missions, typical scout or headhunting ships a bit tight in space and light armed, but one can't have it all.
Gecko or Toceh pretty the same

[Gernot66]

erm yes despite the fact that i finished the Orca just a few month ago as scripted one i made a wavefront model out of it.
Less because of performance this time as because of the fact that it is shit to texture bezier shapes with a simple projection and that i could make better use of the mesh, the bezier shapes are cool and in fact even blender can't serve me with exactly the same, nurbs curves aren't exactly like bezier, but they have the disadvantage that always one half of the shape has convex the other concave quads, but a splitting and mirroring of a half makes them perfect. The hull of the Orca is now like of one mold. For the geometry it would have been possible to reach the same only by quadrupling of used bezier shapes.
[attach]143[/attach]
Perhaps you won't notice much differences but i know them.