SpaceSimCentral

Found another Scout bug: Red screen of death when a missile explodes too close to your ship, libs/ship.lua In my faster mod I set the missile_object:DistanceTo( self ) to 1000, but this makes missiles not have that zoom in and explode that I would like... 

I found a bug in Genesia. Occasionally the game will crash with the message, "Lua serializer '(null)' tried to serialize an invalid 'SpaceStation' object". This issue (#3852) has been fixed in Pioneer, so I made a patch for Genesia called "Genesia_tradeships_patch_mod.zip" and put it in the downloads area.

Thanks for this Marcel! :)Genesia will always have a place on my hard drive.

Oh rats! I've recently upgraded my system and I have been reinstalling everything, including Genesia, but now I can't get it to run. I know I am missing (read forgot) something as it worked perfectly before. I copied all the .dll files to system 32 but it didnt help. Does it need something from Microsoft? Damn my failing memory!

I still have this problem if anyone can help?

hey vuzz - sad

hey rest of you, i will see if i can keep the models up to date, they will run most probably in "phoenix" what is my personal or not so personal approach of keeping pioneer as it was ment once (as walterar stated).

everything i will keep in my oan chaotic way, i will see what i can use of walterears scout because i strongly assume he can't work on that anymore.

changes on the source are planned but still delayed.

in fact that means i will download genesia see what will run in phoenix, probably change some models to sgm for pioneer and release the results here respectively in a new thread.

besides i guess it would be wise to move the whole Phoenix thread here or to open one here and to let the other dry out.

---

btw, as geraldine reported "Pheonix" runs for her while "Genesia" seems to fail. Both are in general a Pioneer alpha 31 release.

I haven't been able to run Genesia under PlayOnLinux for quite a while, although Phoenix runs albeit slowly. I think there may be a library that I need to install, but I have no idea which. Scout Plus runs fine because it has a Linux executible..

Interestnhg, Geraldine reportet me the same she can't run Genesia anymore, but i have no problems running it on my win10 HP notebook.
but also i have to say it was a fine deal for a lousy 200 bucks.
an overhauled machine with a brand new windows on it, such you won't even find on e-bay.

aha - i see i assumed it already

Genesia is compiled using microsofts Visual C, the filesize is much smaller, a lot of libs it uses are part of windows.

Pioneer and i assume even Scout is compiled using, erm how was it named? an open source compiler, the file contains all needed things and is due to that almost ten times larger in size. (perhaps it's even caused by something else, i found it strange that a lot of data appears identically repetively a lot of times when i examined the file once).

Geraldine assumed it right that she might miss a library.
Which i can't tell.

Most probably the retail version of visual c, the question is which.
I assume 2008
2010 will be on your machine, 2008 probably not.
It is sometimes needed and it's certainly present on my machine.
it's sometimes needed because i run "old crap".
ah, if a software is good and does a good job it won't matter how old it is.
that's why i still use a lot of old crap.

new doesn't equals always to better.

Well and to work on such old games like Sports Car GT (or Streets of SimCity) you need the old softs, there are no new.

It is no problem to have several releases of Visual C on your machine.
the only thing which isn't to recommend is to use the developing kit of visual c if you dont' need to compile programs. one library (i recently forgot the name) acts extremely slower as the retail version to run the programs with.

I suggest to try out visual c 2008 if it's not present on your machine.

Personally i used VC2010 when i started with "Sputnik".
But i know the 2008 source was more experienced and better described how to compile the program (in fact finally you just had to click on the already prepped project)
I just used 2010 because i had a brand new x64 machine.
and with some experience it was no problem to compile pioneer using vc2010. VC especially 2010 supports you in every step you make.
had acces to the web back then so there was no question which couldn't be answered by a mouseclick.

Marcel
it won't help much i guess, but try to exchange the buildings with either the sgm version or the lmr version i linked. i reached almost a doubling of framerate. ok if it's 1 fps it might be 1 3/4 after this change


Note to myself:
install a linux (gosh where on that small hd?, i have a second and a third 1TB but i dare to install them in my notebook, how do i get windows on it? i have no cd or such of it, it's a notebook and has neither a dvd-rom anymore. would have to ask the retailer or windows for support i guess)

could also be caused by Simple Directmedia Layer (SDL)
there are two in general complete different versions
SDL1
and
SDL2

if i rember this right old Pioneer (compiled with vc) depends on SDL1.

[url]https://www.libsdl.org/[/url]

however, even here are both present on my machine because i need them.

to run open source software one could say they are vital, both.

example:
SDL2 i need for the software to use the flashrom for my intellivision.
SDL1 i need to run JJFFE

as example there are many more.

Hi Gernot
Thank you so much for the advice. I tried reinstalling both the x86 and x64 versions of VC2008 and also copied versions 1 and 2 (and also trying the x86 and x64 versions of each) of SDL to the Genesia folder. Version 1 just crashes and version 2 wont run at all reporting a "repeat key" instruction is missing. It was worth a try though. Thanks anyways Gernot.

mmmh ok

i found it a little unconventional to have these in the games directory, but it seems it didn't harms.

where have you placed it?

i use to run all games from C:|games, that's uncomon to because usually windows will install x86 programs in "programsx86" i guess, but i'm not sure, to respect that these are x86 programs and use a certain environment.
I never had good experiences doing so with games thus sonce win7 i place them all in "c:games " and if i have to enable compatibility i do this using then "compatibility manager" to run problematic games in a specific environment.
(or to perform such simple things as to advice the OS to open "Phoenix" always in center of the screen when it runs in windowed mode).

i don't know how much that will influence it, but programs which are in the search path of windows can act different to those which aren't in the searchpath, usually it's ment to run them better but no machine can respect what it don't knows of.

i can test if it still runs if i remove the respective libraries from "genesia" ,
or if i simply move "genesia" to "programs x86" somehow i assume windows bypasses them in my case.

---

However

I fitted almost all ships which are present in "Genesia" for the use in "Phoenix", anyway most are my models and most run in a alpha31 version.

There are some differences mainly how i use the sub-models or certain helper functions like the "navlights" have changed a little.

Most ships (that is most of them excluding the SW-XWA ones and excluding the FE2/FFE ships) i will publish wit "Phoenix" some Ships of which i think they don't fit to well to "Phoenix" i re-publish as a mod for "Phoenix".

The Updated files i will post in "Genesia ship models for Phoenix" and the "Phoenix" thread here.

Hi Gernot. I always kept Genesia on a dedicated drive outside of the main OS. I have also learned that Windows 7 is being killed off next January (2020). So I will have to move over to the awful Windows 10. I so hate that OS as, amongst other things, it's compatibility will not be as good as Windows 7 is for a lot of things.

Thankfully I still have a really old XP based PC I keep in storage so it looks like I will be digging that out again.

Wonderful that you moved many of these great models over to Phoenix . So this fixes the problem but this must have been a lot of work for you Gernot, so thank you so much again, your a star!

One last thing, the Ladybird was created by Marcel back in the day. A sweet little ship it is too. I bet he will be glad to see that flying again!

It's not that aweful - it's even worse
i'm using it if i liked it or not.
Yeah it was a big dislike at start, Win7 is truely "better".

"Better", it depends on the type of user, i watched a clip of a former ms employee ranting about win10, he's certainly right in every point.

But i also commented, "MS is industry like any industry and i like to produce and sell. As an industrial to me is only of interest what the mass of customers will like and they like to b e leaded by the OS. The days that only nerds sat in front of a computer to read out data with a table are definately past. The Mass likes Cortana and the so called AI which is anything as but they believe that this is the long awaited and so often promised AI".

MS came closer to OSX, the machine suggests, i certainly dislike that to and i dislike a lot of other things like that it is still more an OS for a tablet as for a computer. It seems it was worse before but a hybrid is neither a solution imho it would have been better to release two OS's based on the same, one for computers and one for tablets, the tasks aren't the same and no matter what they propagate you can't work really productive with a tablet.
I mean i can't make Models with sliding my fingers over a screen, that has no precision and it's clumsy, it's not like they show off in advertises.
It can be very handy for presentations yes.

He foremost ranted about the no longer by the user to influence behave for installing updates, they will be installed automatically and you neither can set the timepoint. this has raged him up, because he liked to make a presentation and usualy this laptop he said is always online but for this time it wasn't. He started the machine early enough as he thought but exactly now it had to install one of those "security updates" (whatever of bs that is),
so he had to wait until it was installed, at end of the procedure must have went something wrong and the OS performed a rollback, which has ment he couldn't make his presentation in the end because it took the machine hours and it was out of service.

Sure for a pro like him this is the last you like to be dictated by the OS.

But well 10% of "heavy users" doesn't make the sale.

Like i said i like to control the machine and not that the machine controls me.

But the mass likes it, at least i assume that.

I disliked it but yeah had to become a friend of it, had to

It still needs maintainance and i had last week a clip running how to get the last out of it for gaming but he's talking very fast and it's horrible to follow all advices.

So this is the "hard stuff" which is really mean, not to control update behave, and as usual a constant blowing up of the system by the updates, they feed on CPU power, each little proggy in the background needs some power that's the point.

Other is more UI related which i dislike, the startmenu, ah you can't call that anymore a startmenu it's shit. First what i did to clean that off all the junk.
I don't need makro symbols in the startmenu for every shit i don't need to use, so flush it (even if i like big icons, but not in the startmenu).
You can't usually add programs to the startmenu, either the installer does that or not.

I found a way to manage the startmenu myself but that's not intented.
Win10 will argue if you do so even as admin of the machine, and it's not the only protected folder, so again a strong dislike here because that is my machine and i like to maintain it i don't like if certain folders are forbidden for me.

You can add a shortcut to "C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart Menu" usually this is a locked folder but it's possible to assign a shortcut to it and open the folder from the shortcut.
In this way i still can manage myself the content of the startmenu.

Win10 can performs horrible things but you can find a way to get rid of that control from the OS over you.

Maybe not a star but a shooting star.

"One last thing, the Ladybird was created by Marcel back in the day. A sweet little ship it is too. I bet he will be glad to see that flying again!"

Different skin, i will have to dig for it if i still have this.

Nah, erm ummm, i don't know, i came really to the end with XP
you now i was using it until last year, recently the also the powersupply of my old machine quitted service, so it's completely out of order until i fixed that, but i guess - i don't know what i like to run on it, nothing so far.

From this side i can't argue, i run every old shit on my Win10, maybe even better as under Win7.

The thing you need for this is the "Compatibility Administrator" it's even better as the "Compatibility Manager" of Win7 and i can run Programs where i needed before the help of "DXWnd" which intentionally runs fullscreen Direct-X applications in a window as the name suggests, but it has been enhanced to a very helpful program to run old software.
Much better then any virtual machine because you can use the full power of your real machine.
And there is not much which it can't help to run from win1.3 to today.
foremost that is because of the tricked DX versions.
It lets the software believe that it is a former release and even acts like this release, even when it simply uses the recent release on your machine.
"DXWnd" lies a lot, so to say.
You can limit virtually memory if you like or limit the graphics card or most of what could be needed to run an old software.
It has a library of presets and users do can share them.

But the recent "Compatibility Administrator" (it has to be downloaded seperately from MS) does the job as good as i experienced and i don't need the help of "DXWnd" anymore.
When you install it and browse through the fixes you will see almost any old game already listet in it.
NFS4, SimCopter, Streets, just to name a few of my favorites.
And yes probably they learned from "DXWnd" it is somewhat popular and the fixes which concentrate on games show that off, things like to trick the DX version wasn't possible before.
Further this really makes virtual machines obsolate if you don't need a closed environment.

That means once installed you won't have to care for most old software it will run by dblclick.

It can fail of course but with a little experience it's not that hard to install a fix by yourself, a very personal fix if you like though.
Yes it was a process to learn that and at start with Win7 i was also overstrained by the many settings options fixes.
But one after the other, take a game and see what will help step by step.
Often it was guesswork, "no idea what exactly that means, let's see..."
"aha it's for this, note that next time it can be useful".
Still 80% of it is unknown to me.
A lot of things you will never need for a game, what games need to be run is repetively the same.

It can be really handy, i.e i wrote that already i use it to center the window of Pioneer. because win10 has this strange behave to cascade program windows and you can't get rid of that, not all but foremost stuff which isn't MS their own programs can influence this behave.
That means first time it starts in the upper left corner and works itself with every run down to lower right until the window vanishes half under the lower edge, i found that's shit and found a solution for it in the compatibilty admin.
"center app window to screen"

the "compatibilty admin" can store fixes different you can store it in the internal library or you can generate a fix which you can put anywhere you like, i use to store them in the games dir. It's also possible to share the fixes named xxx.sdb.
So the "center app window" fix for pioneer will work for your pioneer as well as example.
But it's also possible to share the whole library.

I guess, to return to win10, it's like always when an OS is designed new the ppl will dislike it, but it's not that bad even if it has some backdraws, but again that's a Q of POV.

Failing updates, rollbacks and bottlenecks caused by the updates aren't new at all.
Of course one would have wished to get rid foremost of the bottlenecks.

A plus here and a minus there.

Hmmmm
So you think Win 10 has improved since it first came out Gernot? I did the upgrade at the very start and I couldn't stand it. It was slow, it was always updating goodness knows what until I got so sick of it I went back to Win 7. It was night and day, finally I had a good responsive OS back. I have to admit, I will miss Win 7 like I did with XP and Win 98 SE before that. Of course Workbench 3.9 will always be my favorite though, now THAT was how an OS should be!

Geraldine, I only added a texture and exhaust flames to the Ladybird and copied the thruster specs from the Talon to improve her performance. I didn't create or modify the model at all.
I'm using Linux Mint for my OS. It's GUI is XP-like and runs most Windows games. It's also free and you can dual-boot with Windows if you like.

My apologies Marcel. I honestly thought it was your good self. I do recall you adding those things but I also thought you were simply improving your ship. So who created it then? Guess my memory is getting fuzzy these days.

It was one of the ships that come with the early alphas. I first played Pioneer around alpha 3 or so when the starting ship was the Sirius Interdictor. I assume they were created by Tom Morton.

Ah! So it was one of Tom's ships, like the Sirius then? That makes the Ladybird the 2nd oldest ship in the game. Still, you did a wonderful job on it Marcel, improving it. Even now it is still amongst one of my favorites in the game.

Indeed it is tom noflag morton

When you examine the script you can see very well that it's made by someone who is very versatile in maths.

Dunno who's exactly the designer, Tom told me that his wife is the "creative one" (while i answered that he's as creative just different) if i remember that right. However the beziers for the wings of the ladybird are pre-calculatet, something i can't do or i would have to learn first how to generate vertices instead to write them one by one, or like i do it mostly if i can't imagne it to draw a sketch.

What i know for sure that the Dome (which isn't anymore in the game since i don't know) was an idea of his wife. It was just a green dome and due to that it wasn't much above the ground most time under the ground., besides even this was made typically Tom.

they should be together with the starting ships (which i added later) in "xx_default_ships.lua", the no# can vary and i also moved the ladybird from "texmapper_example.lua", which doesn't existanymore, to "default_ships" again, so all the original ships are in one file what was my intention once with "default_ships". But i changed that and it can again change i guess it was proper only to gather Toms ships there so it's more obvious. It's really not important in which file they are and i could have all in one file for the scripted geometry but this is not handy and so i grouped them.

Recently my skripted ships are in seperate files but i guss as soon as i don't have to work on them anymore or just little changes i will gather them all in one file. While the skripted ffe ships are all in one single file, perhaps i number them, because with a "#nnn" they would be quick to find in the large skript.
Of course the name works to but a "lanner" i.e. appears as name a couple of times.

To bypass an existing model it's enough to either replace it with an empty ship specs file or one which points to a different model.

In this way... (and i feel it starts to get exclusive with the introduction of the .json files because i found out all this modding won't work anymore, you can't anymore simply replace or disable a model especially not if it's a building for ships or stations i'm not that sure but i strongly assume that, sadly. i guess now you can only use the "mod" dir to add and not to replace)
...In this way It's possible to have a FFE mod (on which i'm recently working again a little) which replaces systems, factions, screens, ships, stations, model, in general the whole apperance of the game which i always saw as a central thing to "Pioneer".

Unlike that as soon as i start to work on the source my first change will be to remove the hard coded "ladybird" and replace it with "police", interdictor (has no effect but it still lurks around in the code) with "default2" and the lanner which has been later added for the ship spinner at start to default1, this still affects "Phoenix" due to that i have tpo exchange the Lanner with a different model. strange is that for the ladybird and the interductor it referes to the ships name like the ship spec file is named while for the lanner it referes to the models actual name in the script.

It just stands a bit in the way of modding and it's not to clear why i keep a "ladyird starfighter" even when it's in fact in the game "viper_police" i.e. A "polic_ship.lua" is certainly more obvious what it is likewise a default_ship of which is obvious that i have to keep it named like this instead to keep a ship spec "ip_shuttle" (even a hard coded one) for the default ship i need to start the game at all. (regardless of my starting ships i need for "Phoenix" they are called by the main_menu skript and have no relation to what is default for the game, that's why i like to get rid of them except for police and one default ship).

I like to make it obvious that you need at least 3 ships in minimum to start the game, the police vessel, a starting ship (quasi the ip shuttle or interdictor) and one big enough for the trader module else it will argue and one for the bulk ships while this module shouldn't argue if there is no fitting ship, and unless i can't change this a "dummy model" for the ship spinner.

---
local wingtip_rear = v(30,-5,10) local cpoint_rear = v(20,4,10) local leadingedge_mid = v(24,-5,-3) local tmp = v(5,0,5) local cpoint_leadingedge1 = leadingedge_mid - tmp local cpoint_leadingedge2 = leadingedge_mid + tmp local normal = ((v29-v09):cross(v30-v09)):normalised() local cpoint_bodycurve = 0.5*(v29+v30) + 3.0*(v29-v30):cross(normal):normalised() -- top wing bulge xref_quadric_bezier_quad(divs,divs, wingtip_rear, cpoint_leadingedge2, leadingedge_mid, cpoint_rear, v(17,5,0), cpoint_leadingedge1, v29, cpoint_bodycurve, v30) quad(v09,v08,v11,v29)


Nope i stilleven don't understand fully what he did here.
Yes i see he multiplied some vertices ":cross" and used ":normalised" which damned never worked for me