SpaceSimCentral

Large moons close to orbiting bodies will have lots of tectonic stress and volcanic activity. This can be seen in the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and offer an energy source independant of the sun (very handy when you that far out). Planets and bodies with high masses and densities close to each other will have massive tidal anomalies, and may even tear apart.

Waoo! I really inpresed whit the work what its made in the Pioneer Btw, im a old veteran in Elite2 : Frontier , and i was so surpraised when i find that its working on a modern version of it:) I hope that the programers whill finish the game in a short time ,becos i m so ecsited to try it.... ah, the gloryos days of Elite2 Frontier, shall come again Keep the good work,ppl ... and make us space flyers ,proud

well said Hann!!!

This is shaping up to be pretty amazing :)Heres some cool places I have been to:I can already sit and spend hours playing this and its not even finished

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City in a Valley
:oI frakkin' LOVE this game!!!
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I can already sit and spend hours playing this and its not even finished
So can I!

The terrain looks very similar to an orbiter addon called Orulex. I imiagine there are tonnes of settings for the way terrain is generated, and i also dont see why it wouldnt be possible to mix the random noise with a real heightmap of the earth/moon/mars etc, or any user created one. When i visited the moon, it looked great but it didnt seem to vary too much, and there werent any flat areas i could find to land on.

Personally I think Pioneer should forge its own look with the space craft,station and playersconsole GUI.and not just ape what was done in Frontiers.Maybe some sort of ship installer which can covert DFX,wavefont ect into the format the game can use would be a usefull start.

PINBACK wrote:
Personally I think Pioneer should forge its own look with the space craft,station and playersconsole GUI.and not just ape what was done in Frontiers.Maybe some sort of ship installer which can covert DFX,wavefont ect into the format the game can use would be a usefull start.
Hmmmm. Well that might help it avoid the legal hammers of a certain Mr Braben but if Pioneer is supposed to be a clone of Frontier...I don't know. Perhaps having a whole suite of new ships to fly would be fun but I'd love to see the classic Cobra MKIII flying over one of these planets.

Very true Pinback, it can be Frontiers inspired and just have different ship names and models. With it open source you can really open it up to almost anything.oh btw s20dan that 2nd screenshot is nice :)The terrain engine that is being used is nice and provides some great possibilities for exploration.

Glad you like the shots, I had far too much fun flying round finding the places
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Ezelite:The terrain looks very similar to an orbiter addon called Orulex.
I had that addon for Orbiter, its great. Spent ages playing with the settings to make some nice looking planets.Mars with the heightmap was very impressive.I noticed that in the data folder theres a file called 'earth.hmap', so with any luck the devs have had the same idea as you Ezelite :)Tomm, are you guys taking any suggestions or are you sticking to frontier just for now?Because I have dozens of ideas, some practical some not Heres one Idea/Suggestion: An Autopilot that only really uses the rear engine... Why bother with using the piddly reverse thrusters, use the beast at the back Trips would be faster as at the halfway point, the autopilot would turn the ship round and fire the main engine. It could be an additional upgrade that requires the autopilot maybe, or just a different autopilot.Its seems so simple, yet I dont recall ever seeing it in a game.

Stardreamer wrote:
Hmmmm. Well that might help it avoid the legal hammers of a certain Mr Braben but if Pioneer is supposed to be a clone of Frontier...I don't know. Perhaps having a whole suite of new ships to fly would be fun but I'd love to see the classic Cobra MKIII flying over one of these planets.
Best model to follow would be Oolite,that way anyone could add what they want to the basic game.May be we should start a design of ship thread.

Ezelite wrote:
One thing i noticed is that some of the planets seems to break keplers limits on how large a body can exist so close to another, but it makes for interesting visuals...but i imagine on some worlds this will make landing very difficult, as the gravity must be pulling in several directions.
Yes, moons get generated far too near the primary, and far too close to each other. I'm aware of this but there is so much to code and so little time that I haven't worked on it yet. Actually, the limits your refer to are:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit (innermost limit)andhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere (outermost limit)What do you mean by translational thrusters?

I mean controls to move the ship in the xyz axis, not around its own axis. Its handy when travelling at slow velocity relative to another object, and especially useful for docking. Basically using the rotational thrusters to move the ship left/right and up/down.

BTWEpic Win for the Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, how about a hidden celestial teapot in the middle of the galaxy?

Ezelite wrote:
BTWEpic Win for the Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, how about a hidden celestial teapot in the middle of the galaxy?
Gotta love the Pastafarians!

Ezelite, there are translational thrusters, use the UIOJKL keys

cant believe i missed them! They are fairly powerful, and should be good for manipulating orbits. Are there any plans to put more info on the HUD, such as orientation, ETA, etc? Would it be possible to put a targets velocity vector icon on the screen? This would help in cancelling out relative velocities with other spacecraft or cargo items. Its always been a guessing game with frontier. Its hard to even tell if your ships nose is pointed at 0 deg relative to a planet.

More fabulous shots from my most recent exploration:An Earth type world that was mostly water. This is me flying through the terminator - note the atmospheric shading from the system's four (!) suns! This beautiful gas giant was lit by two starsMy next port of call was this little world shrouded in a sickly-green methane atmosphere. Spooky!To the Devs - the planetary engine you have in place is very nearly perfect. The only jarring illusion breakers I can find are 1) flying within the atmosphere you should only see stars on the night-side of the planet. At the moment the atmospheric effects remain a ring around the horizon - there needs to be a lid over your head (One that still allows you to see in-system stars, moons and planets). 2) There's some break-up in the terrain drawing as you approach the surface - large triangles right at the bottom edge of your screen don't draw quickly enough allowing you to see beneath the surface layer.Those early-alpha niggles aside, I'm pretty much in heaven!

Nice shots,find any crashed alien space craft on that spooky green world. Wonder if they will do the target tunnels.

Cool shots Stardreamer, I like the green world, and the 1st pic almost looks a bit like the Aurora Borealis.
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find any crashed alien space craft on that spooky green world.
It would be great if there were a few things like this dotted about. Ancient ruins, relics, ships ect :)Pinback, I recognise your Avatar pic. What film is that from? Would it be the one where one of the guys from the pic goes mad and kills the others?