SpaceSimCentral

Excellent news s20dan.

only a few days left to the launching of alpha2
Quote:
Submitted by tom on 19 June, 2010 - 23:51Too busy with work to remember, pioneer turned two on about 6th July...And to think, it was originally to be finished in 4 weeks...

Yea Potsmoke, looking forward to the numerous added features and fixes

story writers will be needed, someone has to write all the missions we want to see since a long time and have in our closets i guess. so grab out that key and start to write missions! i guess pioneer should soon be in a state, missions would make sense.don't fear the scripting we can stick our heads together

Excellent news just got my big computer back. Now I have a mission which Involves the player being approached by a man who informs the the player that he a rep of Egosoft,well known makers of a space simulation game X40,000.Famous tag line "we don't innovate we just make the same game over and over". He has an update which needs to taken some where so it can sent to the playerS of the game,now if the playeraccepts the mission,they will never make it as the player is attacked by angey games player from all over the galaxy.

Ah yes, Pinback strikes yet again! <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_lol.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':lol:' />Of course the player would never make the delivery, Egosoft jump gates wouldn't work in the near infinite Elite universe! <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_confused.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':?' />Ok, to Potsmoke's question, how exactly would one go about writing missions?Right off the top of my head here is a tried and tested idea, how about a treasure hunt?Rumour has it that an ancient "weapon" (could be just a gun or even the blue prints for an advanced warship) left by a long dead race older than either humanity or the Thargoids (if they make an appearance in Pioneer in some form) has been scattered throughout the galaxy. Each piece that can be found gives clues to the location of another piece and as luck would have it, many of the parts happen to lie in dangerous parts of the Galaxy, which means lots of fighting, dealing with hazardous environments and high gravity wells and possible side quests too. The main quest should push your piloting, gunnery and navigational abilities to the max. The reward being either a super powerful gun or a deadly ship. Or maybe I am just rambling! <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_redface.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':oops:' /> Anyways, how could something like that be written into Pioneer? Basically a mission to "get you out there".

right i never did something like that myself but once we would have to start and it's not so hard i guessfirst we would need a "cleaned" plot of the mission, i guess, so no side trips or such for the redline.next would be to determine how that mission should be released, you can bind it to various things in the game.will it be one i pick from the board? i guess not, to follow your idea, so it will be released by a act, let's assume a landing on a certain planet, pick one. we could also link both possibilities (i guess else you would only find the mission accidentially it's also to imagine), let's say on the board you find this hint;"we heard somewhere in the galaxy (or in a given sector of it), has happened this and that (rumors), so the player will have to follow that rumor and land on the right planet, but leave it up to the player to find the right, it could be also made somewhat randomly spread over the sector(s) or generated by acting you did before you pick the mission, a "good" one has a easy search a "bad" more a course, but i guess randomly would be nice enough for the beginning.next will be what will happen when you find that location, a attack or a new quest? let's assume a new quest, how will that then be reported to you, ok if you have inhabited systems as assortment, you can pick next on the board of the nearest or a given spaceport, or if it's a uninhabited, it cold be a ship, a wreck, or (sadly we can't walk around) any thing you find on the surface of a planet, i guess that would work, easy solution, just land on a given spot (player must not know exactly where) to release the next step in our plot. there you have allready your treasure hunt find the right system the right planet and the right spot to land.we could also spread some infos on the board while the player is on his quest to give him more or less useful hints, some maybe lead you on the wrong track, but it should be somewhat predictable if you think right, but not to easy on the other hand. even part's of that could be generated randomly so the mission wont be allways the sam you play it (remeber indiana jones, never the same answers possible in a new start of the game)so maybe we would like to expand the whole thing now a bit and let the player travel to more then one system and the tasks could be different then, like meet the right or wrong person (on the board for shure) one will lead you here the other in a other direction. you will have to determine who you can trust. but i guess all trails should end in the same result only different tasks for each decision you made (this is going to be complex allready!), let's say following one trail you will have a hard fight on your way to the next step/target, following another one you will have maybe less info about the whereabout of next target.not to loose the redline we say after three such quest we can let the mission be finished, maybe it should possible to finish in two if you decide right, from the beginning on, guess that would be nice.you can bind the tasks very weird things so the player will have it hard to decide which is the right trail to follow, lay a trap in other words, one thats obviusly looking easy will end up hard and vice versa.what's left now is to determine what you will gain or loose even, when the plot is finished, will it be money (yawn), or some goods or goodies, you could give the goodies a value in money, so you can lead the player to the next trap, in a different mission, means if you had sold that artefact e.g. another new mission could be much harder. or even lead in a different directioni guess it could be also a hidden ship in one mission why not, a very expensive rare, but a weak one, so again a unaware player will sell it not thinking of the consequences that could have. (again it remainds me of lucas gameplays)but i guess there should allways be a way to getout and get to a positive result, only harder or easier, dead ends should not be used to often and not really harmful. i guess players will hate it to restart a game like pioneer.reputation i guess should play a mayor part, in all of the missions or quests. so you can punish one who's acting badbut he should be able to manage it then with firepower, imo.additionally we should give the player the possibility to rectify himself through certain gestures or actings, help a poor animal or race or whatever, something you wan't earn much money therefor it will clean your face.ok that's it i guess so far.

first it's not true that i "never" did something like this, i set up once a very complex scenario for railroad tycoon II, in which i had to learn how to bind the plot to events or objects, so i'ts not a complete new terrain. foremost you will have the same possibilites to work with; - time related events (game time/date, or time since).- object related events (planets, starports, ships, the board).- player related events (money, reputation, progress). from which you can say time related belongs to player related as well as it can be bound to objects.in addition,time and object related you can split to "game world" or "player related", that means "game world" effects on the whole game, "player" only for a player or party. in given limits you can mix all three, plus randomizing any of the events (player, object, time).these are the "tools" you can work with, the rest is storyline.i slept that over and i have to say in a plot for pioneer like it is by now, i guess we would have to leave out my idea of a special place (small flat on surface of a planet), or a artefact, because i don't know if such is allready given, but has to be before we can use it. else all of the here described events are possible. correct me if i'm wrong yes the railroad tycoon scenario, "the battle for switzerland" i will upload once on my website, but i have to check everything first, i guess i used a hacked exe for it to fit better to my idea i had, but i'm not shure it's a long time ago, additional it has a slight bug, you can cheat the gameplay by leaving the country, because outside the borders is no terrain, so you can earn a lot of money there, cost of tracks is low, trains run faster, less service and so on, you get that well other players had no chance. you can imagine that i was really surprised when i played the first working version, and after a short while the AI took this opportunity. so i guess i would have to create a new map, with terrain outside the borders of switzerland, but the problem was, 1st, i had no web then, 2nd in the time before i had web and was allready interested in such a terrain, but didn't found a proper height map i could use, showing the terrain outside the borders, guess that is why we are not part of the EU. a second one i made is to save zürichs tram lines, a nearly impossible task!

Yes, when you put it like that Potsmoke, the treasure hunt mission could become enormously complex. Mind you the location of the "parts or clues" wouldn't necessary need to be located planetside. For example, one of the parts or clues may lie in the accretion disk of of white dwarf star. Trying to scoop this up would be really difficult, not to mention escaping the gravity well afterwards. The "prize" I feel should be hard earned, even to the point of being unfair were only the most skilled should attempt it. Afterall, what's the point if the goal is too easy to obtain.

I think we should star a mission thread,can always get D1 to move the above post to it when he gets back from his hols.

tatarataaa, tateratataa,Pioneer's now alpha two and the website is also overhauled! [url]http://pioneerspacesim.net/[/url] guess you won't hear a tiny noise of me for the next few days only this i made a .lua conversion of the IP Shuttle, it's of course only the rough exactly frontier style one so far:oh no :shock:edit: everything is running fine, i just had to mirror the model on Z axis quickly because the back was in front
Code:
define_model('shuttle', {info = { scale = 1, lod_pixels = {20, 50, 100, 0},bounding_radius = 20,materials = {'grey', 'black', 'alu', 'matvar0', 'text'},tags = {'ship'},ship_defs = {{'Interplanetary Shuttle',{ 4*10^6,-2*10^6,1*10^6,-1*10^6,-1*10^6,1*10^6 },4*10^6,{{ v(0,0,-5), v(0,0,-1) },{ v(0,0,5), v(0,0,1) },},{ 10, 1, 2, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1 },10, 5, 1000000, 1 } }},static = function(lod)set_material('grey', 0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 1, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 10)set_material('black', 0,0,0.1, 1, 0.7, 0.7, 0.7, 100)set_material('alu', .5, .51, .65,1, .5, .5, .7, 50)local v00 = v(-3.1,2.5,-5.0)local v01 = v(3.1,2.5,-5.0)local v02 = v(-3.1,2.5,6.8)local v03 = v(3.1,2.5,6.8)local v04 = v(-3.7,0,-7.5)local v05 = v(3.7,0,-7.5)local v06 = v(-3.7,0,7.5)local v07 = v(3.7,0,7.5)local v08 = v(-3.1,-1.2,-6.8)local v09 = v(3.1,-1.2,-6.8)local v10 = v(-3.1,-1.2,6.8)local v11 = v(3.1,-1.2,6.8)local v12 = v(-2.8,2.3,-5.3)local v13 = v(2.8,2.3,-5.3)local v14 = v(-3.2,0.8,-6.8)local v15 = v(3.2,0.8,-6.8)local v18 = v(3.4,1.2,-5.2)local v20 = v(-1.8,-1,-2.5)local v22 = v(-3.1,-2.5,-2.5)local v24 = v(-1.8,-1,2.5)local v26 = v(-3.1,-2.5,2.5)local v28 = v(-3.1,-2.5,-5.0)local v30 = v(-3.1,-2.5,5.0)use_material('grey')quad(v08, v09, v11, v10)xref_quad(v04, v08, v10, v06)quad(v04,v05,v09,v08)quad(v06,v10,v11,v07)use_material('matvar0')quad(v01,v00,v02,v03)xref_quad(v00,v04,v06,v02)quad(v00,v01,v05,v04)quad(v02,v06,v07,v03)if lod > 1 thenuse_material('alu')xref_ring(3*lod,v20,v22,v(0,1,0),0.09)xref_ring(3*lod,v24,v26,v(0,1,0),0.09)xref_cylinder(3*lod,v28,v30,v(0,1,0),0.12)use_material('black')quad(v12,v13,v15,v14)endend,dynamic = function(lod)set_material('matvar0', get_arg_material(0))set_material('text', get_arg_material(2))local v16 = v(-3.4,1.4,1.0)local v17 = v(3.4,1.4,1.0) if lod > 1 thenuse_material('text') geomflag(0x8000)reg = get_arg_string(0)text(reg, v16, v(-1,0.23,0), v(0,0,1), 2.5, {center = true})text(reg, v17, v(1,0.23,0), v(0,0,-1), 2.5, {center = true})geomflag(0)endend})
create a new notepad file (rightclick on your desktop), and paste the code into it, rename the file to shuttle.lua, ready to copy to your models folder of pioneer.that's really cool you can post model scripts in a common thread don't need no up- neither download you might wanna tune your shuttle it's not fairly tested in space, but i guess that shouldn't be a problem just take a look at the wiki:[url]http://pioneerspacesim.net/wiki/index.php?title=3D_Modelling#Defining_ship_types_for_models[/url] made that very quick over night, based on the "code" i submitted on FE2 thread. some basic enhancements like thrusters position lights have to be made but it's ready for use anyway.if you feel it's to small you can size it at "scale" in the script (on the very top of ships specs), i don't know if alpha 2 has allready a more flexible zoom else you maybe wan't to size it up for a screen shot or such.

check that there is a slightly fixed new win binary of Pioneer, not very important but could help with later releases of others or my models. texture use has been enhanced to load texture to a .OBJ based model via script. i guess the "preybird" will take at first use of this advantage, to have the Rogue Squadrons colors exchangeable, i will see.[url]http://pioneerspacesim.net/sites/default/files/pioneer-wip.rar[/url] i'm shure my shuttle had crashed the game with a "transparent" texture added, this has vanished to.

the space1999 alike font and the unique sfx i got from here [url]http://www.space1999.net/moonbase99/media_centre.htm[/url] exchange the font for the reg# just rename any choosen font to font.ttf, sadly the LYNX font won't work proper with pioneer but space1999 is almost as good

What a great site that is Potsmoke! I loved that old show, its high time it was remade, season one was the best, season two was ok but not as good as the first.

thanks for the reply, yes it was. even when i don't know which season i saw when, because you must know broadcasters here in middle europe especially german speaking part (germany, austria, switzerland) they split it up, usually selected what was to their oppinion good, to synchronize it, what took also some extra time.so none of the old series from the 60's and 70's we have seen chronologically. but anyway space1999 had a fascination to me my parents never quite understood, also ST of course. UFO we never seen here, or only partwisely, first i remember decades later on first satellite broadcasts via super channel i guess.another one i've seen on super it was this, what was the name of the puppet sci-fi series? i forgot, but i liked it much, it was made with the typical acriby british series had sometimes.i guess anyway movies and series have lost a lot of the charms they had back then, (except i like thomas, i love trains), today everythings (almost) a bit flat even in 3D.a good (fitting to the situation, scene) coloured background could express a lot more rather then the best computer graphic! imho. sometimes even b&w can express a lot more, remember soylent green? one of my favorit movies. sadly these days are so fast consuming, most didn't take their time for the real good stuff. except i stumbled over a review for Frontier written by a 13 year (18 now, it's a bit a older article) old israeli, title was "the unbagged final frontier galaxy" what immidiatly took my attention. i hope we see him around here soon.[url]http://www.ciao.co.uk/Elite_II_Frontier_PC__Review_5467355[/url] course i wrote him a pm and layed a track to frontier.uk as well as to elite-games and here.

thanks for the reply, yes it was. even when i don't know which season i saw when, because you must know broadcasters here in middle europe especially german speaking part (germany, austria, switzerland) they split it up, usually selected what was to their oppinion good, to synchronize it, what took also some extra time.so none of the old series from the 60's and 70's we have seen chronologically. but anyway space1999 had a fascination to me my parents never quite understood, also ST of course. UFO we never seen here, or only partwisely, first i remember decades later on first satellite broadcasts via super channel i guess.another one i've seen on super it was this, what was the name of the puppet sci-fi series? i forgot, but i liked it much, it was made with the typical acriby british series had sometimes.i guess anyway movies and series have lost a lot of the charms they had back then, (except i like thomas, i love trains), today everythings (almost) a bit flat even in 3D.a good (fitting to the situation, scene) coloured background could express a lot more rather then the best computer graphic! imho. sometimes even b&w can express a lot more, remember soylent green? one of my favorit movies. sadly these days are so fast consuming, most didn't take their time for the real good stuff. except i stumbled over a review for Frontier written by a 13 year (18 now, it's a bit a older article) old israeli, title was "the unbagged final frontier galaxy" what immidiatly took my attention. i hope we see him around here soon.[url]http://www.ciao.co.uk/Elite_II_Frontier_PC__Review_5467355[/url] course i wrote him a pm and layed a track to frontier.uk as well as to elite-games and here.

potsmoke66 wrote:
what was the name of the puppet sci-fi series? i forgot, but i liked it much, it was made with the typical acriby british series had sometimes.
Gerry Anderson made quite a few puppet series you may mean Thunderbirds, or Captain Scarlet or Stingray or Terrorhawks even Fireball XL5. There is a fan site for his work here if you want to take a look http://www.fanderson.org.uk/

thanks, yes i'm pretty shure it was thunderbirdsphantastic models. i allways liked, sadly the series never run on swiss or german tv, so i had to wait until mid 80's to see them on super (or sky?) early in the morning, sometimes i missed go to work because of that

any plans to improve procedurally generated terrain? especially for rocky planets?haven't seen a single crater... not even on asteroids :)also thin atmo planets need more flat or plain like surfaces. keep up the good works!

we have to leave that to tomms opinion i guessi've seen better procedural generated terrain truely, but in specialised demos, no other thing was running, and not on my machine.i guess you have to make conventions when it comes to this in a game. C and any speaky language use a lot of processing time if i'm right.so we have two limits, not everybody can afford the newest crap they sell and you like to play the game maybe fluid even when later a lot of objects work together, allready i can feel when i lift off or land when it takes a little longer to process and full detail level is not wise on my computer. a good way to "feel" it is my scanner (until now) he was animated by a simple adding of a given value instead via game time, but the scanner slows then down or speeds up in relation to left processing time. im not shure which i like better a scanner that rotates like hell in accelerated time or a processing time dependant.maybe i control the animation with os.time this will run steady no matter time acceleration or left processing time.