Announcement: Lua custom systems will be removed!

[impaktor]

Yes, it is true: custom systems in Lua will be removed, and replaced with our new shiny graphical system editor for interactively designing new custom systems, saved as json, (sorry for the clickbait title). This is the result of much hard work by sturnclaw, triggering a re-write of much of the code for custom systems.
There's a demonstration of it here:

We look forward to contributors submitting their new systems for inclusion in the game.

[sscadmin]

Nice work on the new editor this will definitely open up the possibilities for new content

[impaktor]

@blockromp As far as I know, it's not been used by anyone yet, so we need some testing, and if you care to try it out (before the official annual release on Saturday), you can download a build from here (requires that you're logged in):
[url]https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/actions/runs/7681107365[/url]
...if you find any bugs, please do let us know, preferably as soon as possible. (run the binary file with argument: "editor --system")

[impaktor]

@sarahlison Could you please let us know about any potential issues with the editing tool is, and what "something arises" might be? As this is a new tool, there's probably bugs and things to improve that we do not know about, so we rely on you the users to give us feedback. Also, please make sure you're using the 3.14 release (or master),
For the 3.14 version, you might need to Ctrl+click "load" to force loading/restoring saves from the february version, if need be.

[LucMorizur]

Hi; unfortunately these last months I had not much available time to play with Pioneer . Yet one thing I did was to try to improve Uranus' satellites thanks to the systems editing tool (congratulations and thanks for this work !!), as they currently orbit in the solar system's ecliptic plane, which is not the case in reality, they orbit in Uranus' plane axis, which is around 92° tilted wrt to ecliptic plane.
Well I did not try for much time, but I must say it was no obvious which values I had to modify so to approach reality. Some help would be greatly appreciated, if possible.
Thanks again!

[impaktor]

@lucmorizur sturnclaw (who wrote the tool) says: "we don't really have support at any level for satellite bodies orbiting in a separate ecliptic plane. It's a shortcoming of the procedural generator as well. The best way to mimic that from the system editor is to set the inclination value to ~90 degrees and change the Orbital Offset parameter to line up the planets appropriately with the spin axis of the planet."
Hope it helps.

[impaktor]

@lucmorizur Btw, I forgot to say: good initiative. All our custom systems that are currently in Lua need to be moved to json / e.g. by using the new system editor tool, so there's a job if anyone want to work on it.

[LucMorizur]

Posted by: @impaktor
@lucmorizur sturnclaw (who wrote the tool) says: "we don't really have support at any level for satellite bodies orbiting in a separate ecliptic plane. It's a shortcoming of the procedural generator as well. The best way to mimic that from the system editor is to set the inclination value to ~90 degrees and change the Orbital Offset parameter to line up the planets appropriately with the spin axis of the planet."
Hope it helps.

Many thanks @impaktor (and @marklebeau) for your answers. Well sturnclaw's answer is quite the type I was expecting ! Okay, I'll try to (take the time to ) play with the settings.
By the way another request: if also the display resolution of the Planet Editor could be scalable, it would be great! As on my 4K screen, I need to wear my magnifying glasses and put my face at 20 cm of the screen ! — don't laugh, you shall see when you reach 45 years old ! Well I guess that this is not the most urgent feature, and mainly that the request should be posted in a request thread.

[Crux_72]

@impaktor
So... It's been a few months since you released the new editor and yes, I've had a little time to recreate one or two sectors of my mod with it. A fine thing in itself... but I've already lost interest in the second sector. The reason is quite simple: Why should I go to all this trouble? Even in my mod, in which I gave all the core systems their own identity, the question arises as to why, if the player never visits most of the sectors and the ones he does visit are lost in the sheer mass of inhabited sectors. The fact is: No matter how hard you try, as long as there is no way to set the seed when creating the galaxy so that half the galaxy is not inhabited, it makes no sense. To take my mod as a basis again (me and my roleplaying group use Pioneer to give our adventures a background and over the years we have developed our own ‘lore’ which goes so far as to explain why the planets are only populated by individual cities, no vegetation exists etc); we have defined a ‘red line’ beyond which no player travels - simply to maintain the illusion that the whole thing fits into the setting. Well... In this case, every minute invested in the editor is worth it, because you can be sure that what you have created will not only be seen, but also used. But; if you don't have this red line, again, it just doesn't make much sense.
And at this point I would also like to ask where such topics are best posted? Here, Discord or in your dev-forum?

[impaktor]

@crux_72 I started a branch a wile ago to fix it by exposing those parameters, however, I've not finished it completely.
Discord if you want to discuss, or dev-forum for long term preservation.

[Crux_72]

@impaktor 
Ok... that sounds promising. And I know I've written it several times; since I'm not a coder (my strengths are on the content creation side, lore, graphics, etc.) I can't really help with that; but when it comes to creating content, I'll be very happy to contribute to the project.
Well, then I'll switch to Discord/Forum when it comes to contributing my suggestions/ideas.

[nozmajner]

@crux_72 I've already started expanding on the lore. Only little nuggets here and there, but if you are interested in it, we could collaborate on it.

[impaktor]

@crux_72 The reason we have the GUI systems editor is because we desperately need the players to contribute their own systems. Ideally, grab a system from bright stars-list or local stars-list in data/systems/ that is only defined by coordinates and catalogue name and flesh them out with a full hand made system. We've only heard back from 1-2 users on bugs, there were some, they have been fixed on the master branch a few months ago.
You can chat nozmajner up on discord CET time zone.

[impaktor]

@crux_72 Just merged into master branch the feature to change size of explored bubble. It's undocumented, but when you start pioneer it will generate a galaxy.ini file in your pioneer config home directory (where saves, screenshots, and config.ini lives). You can change min, max size of the distance to explored systems, and how fast they should fall off between the min and max distance. If you want to download it now, there should be a build artefact here (for 2 weeks) or compile from source yourself, or wait until february release.

[Mutos]

Hi @impaktor, hi all,
As I'm currently examining Pioneer for a potential 3D TC on the Hoshikaze 2250 universe, following our current 2D TC from NAEV, I wondered how we could create stellar systems, now I've got the answer, it removes one roadblock from our path...

[impaktor]

@mutos Cool. We have plans to make much more use of the official star catalouges for position, size and name of the stars. At present only stars that are bright (seen from Earth), and local stars are accurate, all others are procedurally generated on the fly.