SpaceSimCentral

ah you might have noticed on the osprey-x that i removed the "elite" label and replaced it with...
no it's not "Frontier Developments" it just reminds of "Frontier First Encounters" written in the same way. i guess that's only fair.

finally a ship of one can think "easy", true the shape is easy to make, that easy that it needed a lot of enhancemnets to make a ship out of it. i put in this ship far more time as in many other, the lousy transporter and imho it turned out much better as the last i made for FFED3D. It follows a similar idea and due to the reason that we have no turrets in Pioneer i made out of my turret design a counsel.
which imho suits to such a ship, reasonable or not.

here's the game
Phoenix 02 20 2019

and the FFE ships mod
FFE ships 02 20 2019

erm, the osprey and the osprey-x look very similar, but in FFE they are two complete different models, not even the wings are reused. they gave the "X" a slightly larger size for this it needs a different geometry, also the wings even when they look similar are not exactly the same in FFE. for my model i reused the wings of the osprey the difference is very small wherefor the rostrum differs in relations.

WOW Gernot! You really out did yourself here! If you don't mind, and the mods reopen it, I wouldn't mind putting this in the old Pioneer thread over on the Frontier Forums. I've not updated it in over a year so it's gone dormant but this is a great excuse to dust it off again. Some great posts from years back in this by yourself too I might add.

Anyways, great work again Gernot! o7

not much new things, this ship the saker 3 has cost some time, i didn't feel to well (flatulence) and corrupted the module scripts

i started it as it is in FFE (the collision mesh still reflects this) and changed the head and bended quads of the wings to bezier shapes. due to that the top half won't exactly fit on the bottom half caused by the way the beziers "tighten" points when they draw a curve i had to insert a bezier triangle (red, resp. different colors for the diff. skins). it's not perfect the top and bottom shell is to much curved thus the top projection smears heavy on the edges, by changing the points for the shell i could make this better but i decided not because imho it's not perfect but ok. it is quite some work to change this and the skin, when i convert (even if that isn't needed fpor the saker) it to FFED3D or into a SGM model (which i will in one or the other way, probably i make a cheap conversion from the direct-x meshes for FFED3D, i just have to scale the mesh up in the file or i can make them oversized for FFE3D but fitting for Pioneer and scale them down using the model .ini file of FFED3D).

the modules give me headakes, i'm really a lousy scripter
while i have to say and i said this long long ago, the translation didn't makes it easier for a single one to work on them. i still think "the english of the game is such simple a translation isn't needed" and it would make scripting far more easy. i remember that it was rough but very easy in the beginning, this almost everybody can learn. i think making it more complex and especially adding various languages has kept some off (if not some then at least me).

the mean thing is that if one languages is once setup for a module all modules must include this language, you can't simply say i don't need translations, the translator requires the once set up tables for a language, that's a bit stupid in this way you can't simply default to english and bypass the translations.

i managed it due to rearranging the hierarchy in the translator that the adverts choices will default to english but i can't do the same for other sections of the translator script.

imagine there would be no shitty translation - no such shitty useless problems
and really for a game like Pioneer translatiomns aren't needed and neither i will script missions where such could be of need (e.g. the hard coded missions of FFE).

in fact i would like it vice versa as simple as it was this would open other possibilies or bring in a realisable range, to generate missions resp. short careers a few missions in a chain i.e..

and this is certainly more interesting as to have a half dozend of different languages to manage.

but on the other hand i can bybass the translator and put the advert choices in front of the script like in the past and use no translator at all though to bypass also all problems.
because like i said i have to test often if this or that works and if you have to respect many languages this get's hard.
so this will be my future approach for the local taxi missions, i liked to implement it to "Taxi" but that complicates it a lot, produces a lot of errors and didn't fits exactly to the existing "Taxi" missions overall, so they will be a own module using no translator.

things like a proper calculation for the distance of a mission resp. the timelimit is much more of importance as languages. which i guess i achieved now, i only have to implement resp. change the existing taxi missions so they will end in a specific station in the target system and not any station in the target system. such a target system can have a range from 20 AU to 1500 AU (the widest i remember) due to this a fixed value of 4 days won't work for many systems, even if you don't have to dock to a specific port, if it's i.e a tertiary system you will "materialise" in range to the central stars but they mustn't be the one having planets or beeing populated, vice versa it is, often only the third in a group is populated or has planets at all. thus your needed time will be usually far above the given 4 days for interplanetary travel. same for the deliveries here i still even didn't solved this for extra planetary missions.
however i'm quite proud i got that thing with the mission cargo right, recently i added this to the mission roster so you will see how much space a delivery mission will use up.

this gives a lot more troubles as to script any model, i get nowhere in one day with that to be honest.


due to that i'm not sure if the delivery module is working proper i will link here the new script (script only to replace the one in "modules/deliveries"). i guess it contains an error, i forgot to check for the exact "mission.weight" if you are in time and have no "mission.weight" even or because the "mission.weight" is zero the mission isn't completed (i checked for >0 instead >= "mission.weight"). unfortunately if you fail due to missing cargo the contractor will answer with that he's displeased with your late arrival, but usually you won't drop your mission cargo so this addition to the script has a very low priority to me.


what do you think would a random cargo (from a short table of suitable ones) make some sense?
let's say for a "package" or "crate" possibilities from "Rubbish" to "precious metals" for "moving home" simply "consumer goods", probably an item will have the higher value as you gain by the mission and you will like to sell the good instead to deliver, this could be charged with a fine or as future aspect noted in your character.

to make missions which are respecting and altering you character is of much more interest as languages and if that is only one module. guessed you do that for a given times you could be "fined" with less good contracts and vice versa.

the sense of "donate to cranks" is what in FE2?
to push your character a little and not only to waste a lot of money.

a "certificate of valor" after finishing you first manual delivery a second diploma for the first succeeded scout mission (a special one for if you did that manual) is of much more interest as languages (the "shiny things" i talked about, give me a medal even if that is a virtual one, "permissions & medals" who didn't cares for them - i want them all useful or not, complete the first recon mission bad only to get this special medal).
i.e. in old Wing Commander you get a stripe or a medal for every poop you made, they have no use but it's nice to look at them, just like in reality some lametta.

as i see things and as hard it is already for me languages only stand in my way.

interesting thruster setup, forward and down.


geraldine i guess that was again a good idea, perhaps i can gain a little interest in frontier-forums.
if not it's still the right place for the "on the edge" FFE conversions.

i guess pioneer needs a diet and this in alpha31 state not to talk about now, it needs a diet and concentration on the basic gameplay there is the game - just like the LMR FFE ships.
it needs beatable AI to be real fun, just as one aspect, to beat by me else i won't feel pride of what i did.

in despite of that i repeat myself, even with almost no missions it was a lot of fun in alpha9 state to beat up the pirates and to assasinate. i haven't forgot the one of the rare comments to my clips to one of a battle "which version is that?" yeah in which version you can have successful dog fights?
it might be to easy for a veteran, whatever since that i have still only one successful fight to note and i start to feel that this was pure luck.

it's no fun to add pirates close to you if you enter a insecure system, you will be blown to pieces so or so. so you avoid this and they are now spread quite far from you. in pioneer a persuer (you or the ai) can't overhaul thus they usually won't match up with you before you reached a station. the whole shit is "blocked" because of to hard AI. imho it downright destroys the basic gameplay.

it's slighly (but just a tiny little bit) better i feel since i use quite low angular thrust values.
experiences would be welcome, i feel they are ok like i said a ship like the transporter is as clumsy like in FE2. since i use a table with multipliers it's first easy to change that for all ships and second it increases the chances to win a battle against an assasination target because they are usually quite large ships, at least you can win against them if you lose against offending fighters.

it doesn't have to be easy as in FE2/FFE in this games you can hang on a large ships tail when you match speed and course and it can't evade you.

sometimes they are probably to weak, i just copied the thrust values from FFE and used the reverse thrust even as lateral, i noticed some ships can ladden hardly lift.
the "turner class" seems to steady run out of fuel (ands this in a small system), dunno i guees the large capacity and the "military drive 4" are the reason. the fuel consumption is dependant to the fitted default drive. i lowered that to a (quasi) "class 3 military" fueluse but it still runs out of fuel, i have to check this ship. that's maybe a bit mean to make it dependant to the drive class but it's a good way to make larger ships less interesting because as larger the ship as higher the fuelconsumption will be, it will be anyway due to the mass and this boosts it. also this needs experience, the best way is to give a larger fueltank recently i use "half of hullmass" but it seems to be to low for heavy ships.
i guess an expression (like i used for the timelimit) would be the coolest for fueltankmass and fueluse, instead to give each a special fueltankmass or a fueluse based on a table (which is also a method to standardize it).

dunno if that is possible, even better would be if the "cargo ships" (the ones you almost never see except when they are docked) would load some extra fuel like a player has, because i like that the fuelconsunption often exceeds the tanks capacity, you need to plan your missions, also this can make a simple thing a little more interesting, if you can't act blindfolded.
in principles it needs a calculation like i used for the timelimit to get a rough value for the needed fuel for a given distance, however i solve this such a background AI transporter i can also load by default half of it's capacity with water, it doesn't have to make sense you hardly will notice one.
it's posssible to shoot them down i guess, i'm not sure if you will be fined, i never tried.
i guess even if they are slow in a small system like the solar system the distance won't be far enough to overhaul one even if it's a lame transporter. each time you got closer he's further from you, it's really hard in pioneer to match up with a ship on it's way when it's in full flight.

i have to peep into this module to, first they need extra fuel second you will be fined for killing under any condition and/or it will be irreversibly noted.

a further idea for a gameplay (sort of) i had this week, i made a "isosol system" it's in principles a copy of the solar system but in a far out region. when i started to play there i had the idea to put this system named exactly like the solar system on the opposite side of the galaxy (btw, as only "sol" system to start in). that would be
extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeme
far from home
i recognized i can make any system to an "explored" one.
it would mean that i have to create waypoint systems or factions along the way (will someone ever find a single system between thousends?), they could or i guessed they will be in a distance of roundabout one year, the time you need for servicing, that means they will be "i don't know" you won't see them close to you, could be puzzling, to much puzzling.
i thought about to inrease the missions range so i can put the waypoints in this distance then they would occasionally appear as mission locations or i can script some "GNN" news which will lead you there by "rumors" (or even not).

"get home to sol" can be a treat through the half galaxy.
i could lead players to that supergiant blackhole which waits to be used for something.

btw, it isn't that bad to start in sol, that's the background for this idea, when i started in "Isosol" (resp. "Lososi" i mirrored all names) i recognized it's not such a bad place to start in.
the profit isn't high, but 150 bucks from earth to pluto aren't bad and it's to manage without extra fuel, it's quite easy to begin even if the profit isn't that high it took me several flights more to make the cash for the autopilot but therefore they wasn't long or difficult. a very bad idea it's to dock with "Ikarus" (a special station which i placed in solar system) i placed it in closest possible orbit to the sun and the autopilot usually can't handle the suns gravity with such a miserable ship as the ip shuttle, but it's possible to dock manually or half and half, at least you have to bring the ship in a close range and in a not to high acceleration then the autopilot manages it but when he tries to fly itself to the station the autopilot semms to miscalculate the suns gravity and gets faster and faster instead to break what means you are quite quick ashes. yep i'm satisfied with "Ikarus" a little to close to the sun.

pluto even when it looks like a potatoe deceives in its size, yeah he looks like a planetoid but "Pluto is a Planet". you will notice this when you ever fly manual to "pluto research station", it really deceives its size, you guess you are close due to it's irregular shape but you are still far away.

erm yes, i added the "factory names" table to the module(s recently only one) to replace the small table for "deliveries", it's used only in one mission choice but i like to change this, it's makes sense if someone works for this or that company. the companies vary from agricultural to nanotech and use a own surnames table as prefix i.e. "Schrader's Bolts & Nuts". i can make them depending on the station seed though it will be the same companies for a given station or on the system seed and it will be the same companies through the whole system. since i can only use the stations name to generate the adverts using the same tables it's at hand to use the same for the missions so advertises and company names in contracts will be the same. for the modules i could even request the economy type of a system to generate different companies reflecting the economy but i can't do this for the station adverts, which is on the other hand no problem why shouldn't a food company advertise in a mining system, it's the right place to make good profit but companies clients work for should or could reflect the economy.

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i thought a bit about the architectural problems, outdoor/hostile world, if i remeber tom right he said once this won't be possible. at least not like it is now, but i'm not sure what if i use different sets? if i make stations and buildings explicit? that the engine can use only a given set for a given planet type. i know else it's at least throughout the system but i guess there is a way to seperate them. i can name stations different based upon population or temperature (oxygenation is missing) though i guess i can select architecture in a similar way. and even if i have to update this table(s) manually it still would be worth a try.

You've actually made the Saker look kind of good! I remember that I was dissappointed at how ugly the starting ship was in FFE. I'm not sure what you're asking regarding package deliveries, but one thing that could be improved is the description of the package. They take no cargo space so I imagine they would be carried in your cabin. A produce shipment or furniture doesn't make sense. I discussed this with walterar and we made some changes to Scout Plus. I haven't heard from him in quite some time. I wonder how he's doing.

I've been wondering about walterar for quite some time too Marcel. Hope he is ok.

Gernot, would the Genesia ships work in Phoenix? It's just that I recently fired up Vuzz's Genesia and it wont load up anymore, likely to do with drivers updates, but Phoenix looks very close to it as I think both are based on Alpha 31? Worth a try do you think?

Most probably they will work, easiest is if i check this.

If they are lmr models they depend probably on certain scripted tidbits like the random selection which i changed (quite often) in its use. But it's no big deal to check and change this with "notepad++," you can automate such changes for a given directory with files.

The sgm models will work with a few small drawbacks like no proper navlights the sgm model system was quite new then.

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Something else,
I prepped my buildings for the recent Pioneer release as SGM models.
As a "leftover" from this i have the buildings as wavefront .obj with a LUA model script to use them.

They didn't differ much from what is scripted in "Phoenix" but have a quite better performance.

Unfortunately you can't use the binary models which i uploaded for Pioneer in Phoenix.

mod buildings gernot 20190310 lmr

But you can try this sgm version for Phoenix, they aren't animated (the few ones which are, "idle" animations can't be played back by pioneer alpha31).

edit: removed dead link

No matter which mod you use both will disable the existing scripted buildings in Phoenix.

The SGM buildings will be placed less dense due to the larger collision mesh size, but you reach something acceptable at highest density for the cities (still to less, it could be made a little better if the collision meshes from the lmr version are used).

I did that small change but it had also a very small effect, the SGM models are still to far spaced in Phoenix. The following screenshot shows a city at highest density.

the updated file

mod_buildings_gernot_20190310_sgm_alt

Marcel,
To the wherabout of Walterar we must assume the worst i fear.
I have no reply from him even when i write him to his google mail account.

A better description of the items would make sense, that's a "sneeze" (but first i have to get rid of the many languages to keep up to date, one is enough for a single guy).

Personally i guess it's a good idea to give them mass, of course "some documents" have no mass (the could be altered to a set of "some documents" with varying descriptions, "blueprints", "reports", "statistics", but a shipment of "some crates" will have some mass. Intentionally i liked to give them a mass below one ton, theoretically this is possible but it seems it's disregarded for the modules (probably simply minimized to an integer value but you can have a value behind the floating point, it will be regarded by the fuel use i.e. this is calculatet in fractions of tonnes).
However "some crates" of industrial goods will have some mass, recently 1 ton. I doesn't makes sense by thinking of selling the good or something, i just like to use up the rare cargo space and boost the fueluse that's the idea behind. "moving home" uses recently 2 tons and i think to implement this also to the extraplanetary deliveries, probably with a random mass between 1 and 5 tons, moving a home can be a lot of stuff.

That means for the lousy shuttle, FE2 or Phoenix, when you contracted to one mission you probalbly can't contract to a second because you need the space for fuel or it can mean you will use quite some extra fuel for long distances. It can mean that you fail in the mission caused simply by the mass the goods you have to carry, even if that is just one ton, the shuttles aren't very powerful, they lose acceleration soon and boost due to that fueluse much by little extra mass.

I couple of days ago i started in a system 1500 AU wide from one station to the other (lucrative, the rest is about 25 bucks each run). it would make you "rich quick" but i didn't maneged it to get there, not enough space for the needed fuel in the FE2 shuttle, It will work with my Phoenix shuttle and 10 tons of cargo space but the FE2 shuttle offers only 4. these 4 tons of extra fuel are used up like notheing on such a long way but if you don't accelerate most of the way you won't reach the target in time. Probably the Lifter could manage this it offers at least 7 tons of cargo space.

You see, one ton extra and all is lost.

(of course i could reduce the fueluse but that's not the idea)

In the recent version i changed it from "rubbish" to "consumer goods". it won't matter and best would be a hidden item which only uses up cargo space and has no further description or meaning as in the one in the mission itself. which probably will be simply displayed then as "mission cargo" in the ship info screen. It should be droppable, even this can be used for an action.

"you carry goods for xxx? - drop your cargo and i let you live". or don't and fight or drop it and even fight by dice roll.

recently i added the info for the mass of the mission cargo to the mission info screen and display even the distance to the target for interplanetary missions in AU. this could be also part of the Advert itself because i guess you like to know the interplanetary distances, it can be important and it is even more important to know this for extraplanetary missions, because the remote system can be easy one with distances up to 1500 AU, as well as a fixed value of 4 days won't work for this you will like to know in advance how far the interplanetary distance is. Not everything looks like Sol in Pioneer - by far not. How i like to calculate this i'm not sure but i guess already the diameter of the system in AU will give you a idea how far that could be, if it just a short flight of a few AU or one of 300 AU. For interplanetary missions i can print out the exact distance, for extraplanetary i will have to experience how to evaluate that. multiple star systems can be problematic, you materialise in range to the main star or main gravitational point but often this isn't the star which carries planets, for multiple systems you have to calculate different as for single star systems. however i need an idea, something which i can use to calculate the mission time instead to use 4 days. I assume if i take the distance of the targets parent to the central star of the system it will be useful to evaluate the needed travel time.

To be honest, sort of this missions which will lead to a planet 500 or 1000 AU far from the point where you enter the system even fail in FE2. But unlike FE2 we have many many such systems especially in the far out regions which i chose as starting region. One could say this is the common case.

The use of the square root works fantastic for interplanetary missions they are tight in time no matter if near or far but mostly possible, but don't overshoot or decelerate to early you won't have time for this. Missions in a range of 10 to 50 AU can be very tight in time, some hours will make the difference if you failed or succeeded.

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ATTENTION!

My FFE ship mod seems to fail with the "cargo ships" module (most likely).
As soon if i use the "FFE ships mod" the game crashes very often without any warning. The only thing i noticed by now is that it always happens when a cargo ship is spawned.
It never happens when i run the unmodified "Phoenix".

There is a bug in the "FFE ships mod" but i have to find it first.
Some ship might fall through the ship type filter and crashes when it's equipped with something it can't be equipped with - i assume.
I will see, the shit is that it crashes without any output to the screen or output files.

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In future i will post my Phoenix stuff here:

Phoenix