SpaceSimCentral

hey guys,i had some thoughts this morning on possible game modes for pioneer. i think (maybe i am the only one, but lets see) I think it would be really cool if all systems but the core systems appear as "unknown systems" on the map (noctis-like) without any further information (sun-type should be known though). As soon as you get there, you can name the system as you want or just pick the "recommended" name like they have now. Now you can see how many planets there are, but not yet the kind of planet or any information on moons. You see just some placeholders. As soon as you get to a planet you "explore" the planetary details such as axial tilt, day lenght etc and if the planet has moons (for further information on the moons you have to get there again). In order to get very detailed information on the temperature and atmospheric details (in a later development status: resources, material quality) you have to land on the planet and remain there some days for some scientific work (or jump on your ground vehicle and drive around a little bit)The player should get money for every explored object and special bonuses for extraordinary finds (should be possible to realise, i am thinking of attributes of the planet that differ a lot from the average attributes that a object has according to the procedural generation) and of course a very special bonus for - earth-like planets.Furthermore we had a topic on a "free-look" camera mode in this forum before. I would like to expand that a little bit and have a "take-a-picture" mode. The player should get money for nice pictures of varying positions on a planet (i don't know yet how to define if a picture is nice or not...). These pictures and a overwiew picture of the planet from space can then be connected to the system info-screen so you can remember how the explored objects look like.I know all this is way too much now, but i just wanted to share these thoughts with you.

Once youve explored a planet it would then be given a development index. Follow up missions could include hauling in materials colony modules and assisting in setting up acolony ( the system would then acquire colonies) and u could either than have a system where the AI trades or random movements in the index - would affect pirates hauler traffic and so forth the player could help a system to develop by providing materials.If u really wanted to push it along pirate bases could appear and u could hamper a colonies development or force it into a pirate state if its a stable area. These would be the fringe areas outside of earth colony and indepdant empire systems im thinking 2000au + from earth to give the rest of the galaxy somethingA fog of war is a good idea until u explore it would give pretty well much unlimited playability in single player modeI guess this is down the track thoBut the science exploration, measurements samples etc worksAlso random pirate bases could occour on the fringes of settled space and u could run interdiction missions kill so many ships to reduce the threat the system would then have its piracy index drop and be more likley to attract colonists

I was thinking of something like this guys:This could be the info screen after arriving in a new and unexplored system:excuse me, i forgot to cut out the info on the starport. Imagine it wasn't there ;)Having arrived at Planet 6 we explored its 1st moon and took some pictures and the system info screen could look like this (just an idea of it)I guess that would make exploration of space more exciting. because you never know what you can expect until you travel to a planet.

I like this idea, were exploration itself can become much more important within the game.

yeah, i mean this exploration part is the reason why i personally play pioneer. For me it would make sense if all the trading, fighting, wars etc. take place in the core systems, which are the well-known part of the galaxy.Maybe there should be a certain invisible border, for example 50 light years from earth, where the unknown space begins according to my idea in post #1. Behind this border lies the playground for every explorer

Well yes, I mostly agree, only thing is it should still be dangerous or even more so the further out you go. In my view, you must balance the thrill of discovery with the fear of the unknown. It would be great if you could discover another race for example with hyper advanced ships and weapons, i.e. Thargoid-a-like. All good sci-fi (or space sim) games need an seemingly unbeatable baddie!

advanced weapons like a stealth drive or cloaking device for starters to aid in exploration

Bad ideaPlayer is not first to explore and name systems and planets, maybe he would do it only for himself lolin game there is year 3200 so till this time first exploration was made by scientists ect they got technology to do this not civilians. Player in elite, FE2, FFE is civilian its like someone with new car but if you travel to other cities and countries it not means that you are the first one so you are not discovering nothing and not making maps, everything is there already, you only travel. This game is called pioneer so it may be confusing. But its based on EF2 and there was no discovering new worlds and giving names to them. There are others and was others who was first in many star systems so player cant be first. For this there is needed new game that would start when mankind would make first space travels so player would be scientist/pioneer/discoverer and game would start in about 2080-2100 But game pioneer and EF2 is starting in 3200, FFE in 3250 so why you expecting to be FIRST in far space?! There are even pirates already in many systems lol. Now we got so many named stars that you cant visit all of them even in game. If you got money you can name one of them as you like now, you dont need to wait to 3200 to actually travel to them. Scientists now got equipment that can scan planet surface and analyze what is it made of and what atmosphere is containing and all this can be made from long distance so in 3000-3200 they would not need civilians to do this! In pioneer there is made many colonies far far away from sol system almost in all milkyway (I tried once to see far away in map with shift pressed and I saw many occupied star systems but game crashed while I was trying to go around milky way) To be honest I dont understand This game title... and also your idea is.... sorry but it is stupid.

No its a good idea , the developers are looking to expand this game.This is a basis but not a replica of elite, FE2 FFE etc so youre window argument is meaningless - the developer has already stated he is open to progressing this game much further.So discovery, colony planting and supply, development assistance, exploration will no doubt be considredThere was no discovery in FF2 because it was made nearly 20 years ago. So pushing the boundries forward to include new elements is welcome if u want a replica oolite is there for youre playing pleasurePirates usually go ahead of colony efforts setup bases where they cant be detected - the idea is quite sensible for pushing forwardYoure response is to put it mildly narrow midned restrictive and without any reasonable plausible argument the lua system in this game allows for much much more expansion of the core game it isnt FF2 it is modeled after it but i would like to see it more what elite 4 should be whenver it gets developed and more like modern star sims discovery, science colony and base building trading and pushing the boundries as far as possible

Cosm1cGam3r wrote:
This game is called pioneer so it may be confusing. [...] To be honest I dont understand This game title... and also your idea is.... sorry but it is stupid.
Since this is a game, it should be fun at first. I think such game elements could make the playing experience better, regardless if this should be the year 3000, 5000 or -32500. So why not adding it? The game is not meant to be the perfect EF2 clone. So i am sure when tomm decided to name it "pioneer" he may have confused you, but not everyone else. no offense.

my response hopefully sounds respectful but in essenese this is not FFE2 it is something more and open source so u can basicaly do anything with it if u have enough programmers and contributions. While wiaitng for infinity and elite 4 something can be done with this

ollobrain wrote:
my response hopefully sounds respectful but in essenese this is not FFE2 it is something more and open source so u can basicaly do anything with it if u have enough programmers and contributions. While wiaitng for infinity and elite 4 something can be done with this
I'm getting off topic here, but I think it's a little arrogant of you to presume what it is exactly that the developers are aiming for exactly. Also, this is a project in its own right, not just something to do while you wait for other projects to be completed.That being said, I think this idea is interesting in its own right but it should be implemented in the same manner as it was in Frontier. That is, if you travelled far enough away from core systems, you would come across unexplored systems which have no planetary data available. These are a considerable distance from [0,0] and therefore would only be encountered by players with the interest in traveling this far - seasoned explorers who have in interest in going deep into the great unknown. Exploration missions sound like a great idea, and could require the player to collect and return a soil sample (land on target planet) or air sample (fly through atmosphere) and return it to the client. Perhaps something which could also be included as part of these missions is a probe equipped with nothing but a hyperdrive, and your mission is to get within a certain range of a target system, launch the probe, make sure it enters hyperspace successfully and then the planetary information is revealed and the system listed as being explored ...And if I *really* want to get ahead of myself then how about the game keeps note of systems you have explored, and you can upload this to a central server which keeps track of the systems that players have visited? See how long it takes the playerbase to scout the entire galaxy!

mathee wrote:
. i think (maybe i am the only one, but lets see) I think it would be really cool if all systems but the core systems appear as "unknown systems" on the map (noctis-like) without any further information (sun-type should be known though)....
Your not the only one I would say that not all the non-core systems should be unexplored, as there have surely been other 'explorers' throughout the years, but the rest I think sounds great.But...I also think that CosmicGamer makes a valid point:
Cosm1cGam3r wrote:
.... For this there is needed new game that would start when mankind would make first space travels so player would be scientist/pioneer/discoverer and game would start in about 2080-2100 But game pioneer and EF2 is starting in 3200, FFE in 3250 so why you expecting to be FIRST in far space?! There are even pirates already in many systems. .... Scientists now got equipment that can scan planet surface and analyze what is it made of and what atmosphere is containing and all this can be made from long distance so in 3000-3200 they would not need civilians to do this! .....
The point he makes is that basically this far into the future, there wouldn't really be much exploration to be done as we already know which planets and their possible composition are in a system.But, that doesn't stop there being 'secrets' in far away systems though, like ruins or hidden resources.I think we could get round it by saying that not all resources can be effectively located from a great distance, so a direct scan and sample of the planet must be taken and tested.So I suppose that the galaxy is so effing big that we could easily have these unexplored and unknown worlds, but they would have to be far away like the galactic core, or the other side of the galaxy.

ollobrain, what you meant is that I have tunnel vision? Lol Judging by your response I see that you have tunnel vision and you see only things that you want to see. Read what I meant again .I never said that pioneer is 100% clone of FE2 I said that this is BASED on this game. Read with understanding boy! As it is BASED on FE2 it should have plausible things that got sense and logic.mathee
mathee wrote:
Since this is a game, it should be fun at first.
Go to place where fun games are. Sim games are not made for kids that want fun from games that is why they are called SIM games.... it means COMPLICATED and as I know complicated games give fun to sim lovers not simple fun as it is in cod games so simple ideas dont fit to sim games.You two didnt understand my post at all so I lost my time trying to explain something to you two. I will try one more time and I am almost certain that this will be my last attempt to put sense to your thinking.If That plan would have sense then game should be based on other galaxy than milkyway,then player would be discoverer and would explore star systems. U didnt understand that in pioneer there is no unknown places cuz all in game milkyway was already discovered! U want programmer to erase all his work and make milkyway UNKNOWN? Are you... serious guys ? pffhahahaIn preset times milky way got many star systems already named so to 3200 they would know all of them. With in game travel system that would be possible even faster so thats why in game milkyway is already explored by many pilots but first they would be explored by robots. Remember that in game you start not as first pilot and all orbital ports are not made only for you there are others and pilots with bigger ships so that means they was earlier in space than you so bet that there was exploring fanatics too. Player start in 3200 so there is no logical way to make milkyway UNKNOWN! Why you dont understand that? They now can even see some planets, mostly gas giants but soon they will discovery new even smaller planets from earth orbit telescopes in future. U expect that this game programmer will make new games only for you boys? Lol maybe he will make game in future that will be about exploring new galaxy, maybe Andromeda but for what??? Milkyway is more than enough to explore for one civilization but impossible for 1 ship thats why EF2 and pioneer are made as almost already discovered so economy was easy to put to game. If player would be the first one to "explore milkyway" he would do nothing more as only reporting back to earth about new discoveries without economy system and no option for trading so it would be absolutely different game as it is now! Game would need to start at about 2100 that is plausible date for humans to make first spaceship capable of traveling from star to star in decent time. In games there was need to make wormholes which now they are only sci-fi theory. But without them traveling through milkyway would be not possible at all, cuz even traveling with speed of light would take YEARS to travel to stars (In game ist only few days) so person which would travel in ship with almost speed of light would see few star systems in his life. Until humans will not make possible way of traveling that would be more effective than speed of light then even not single person will be send to "discovery" and "explore" milkyway. Instead of that they will make new ways to see milkyway galaxy better by building better telescopes. And in future with spaceships they will send robots to explore so until wormhole travels there will be no way that human on his own will explore new places and analyze them by his ship because all will be already known to humans.Do I need to write a book here for you to make you understand that idea about exploring "unknown" systems in milkyway is childish idea without any sense and logic ?!

I believe in Pioneer the jump drive was created in 2700 or there-abouts, all other ships prior to this were slower than light.So you could have a game set around 2700s where there is war between the systems for independance as well as new systems to be explored and colonised.That info is from the description of Epsilon Eridani and the Alioth description that I added based on the Epsilon Eridani one.Anyway, if there was exploration added to the game, its most likely that it would be a military thing or contractual thing. So it would be optional, just another feature to the game that people can ignore if they don't like or revel in if they do. :)It would not be for the faint of heart though, as Cosmic Gamer mentioned, you would be far away from civilisation and far from the support of colonies for trade and repair, which means things can go wrong easily.
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Do I need to write a book here for you to make you understand that idea about exploring "unknown" systems in milkyway is childish idea without any sense and logic ?!
Seriously though, there is the possibility of unknown systems, Pioneer will eventually be changed to have a radius on the human colonies instead of spreading out to the whole galaxy.So over the other side of the galaxy, there could be all manner of untold riches and beasties.Theres also the matter of the galactic core which due to the density of stars and radiation its possible that some stars could remain hidden.But I know what you mean, it is highly unlikely this far into the future its just that it can add a nice element into the game for those that are into that sort of thing.EditJust had a random idea, might as well post it here ;)What if weapons were a black market item in some systems? Just like in the UK and lots of Europe today most weapons would be illegal.But in some of the more liberal/lawless systems and the imperial systems they would be freely available.

Cosm1cGam3r wrote:
mathee
mathee wrote:
Since this is a game, it should be fun at first.
Go to place where fun games are. Sim games are not made for kids that want fun from games that is why they are called SIM games.... it means COMPLICATED and as I know complicated games give fun to sim lovers not simple fun as it is in cod games so simple ideas dont fit to sim games.
Thanks for the advise. Maybe i should stop playing pioneer.... it was too much fun. because suddenly i realised, thats not what games are made for.

play as many as posisble get some ideas drop em here heck u might even drag some programmers back to assist

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Scientists now got equipment that can scan planet surface and analyze what is it made of and what atmosphere is containing and all this can be made from long distance so in 3000-3200 they would not need civilians to do this!
This sounds like a classic linear fallacy, combined with incomplete knowledge.1. we have equipement for mapping a planets surface from orbit, or even from further away. It's called a telescope, that means its main working principle is that of light. The spread of photons over distance makes light subject to the inverse square law, which means it's almost useless to detect a planet over interstellar distances. You'd need a mirror the size of the earth to be able to map the surface of a planet around a nearby star. Since this is a limitation based on a physical law, it won't get any better as long as physics stay the same. We'd have to come up with some magitech to provide the abilities you're suggesting (there's a lot of that already in pioneer, so it could be introduced... but it doesn't NEED to be introduced).2. This method tells us nothing about surface composition. Based on spectral analisis and creation theories we can make an extrapolation on how the planet *might* be composed, yes. But for certainty, you need to go there and pick up a few samples. I.e. explore. 3. Atmospheric composition can be guessed with spectral analysis, as can atmospheric pressure and density (mostly mathemathicaly derived from the planets surface gravity and some other data gained by various means), that is correct.4. Noone has yet seen an exoplanet by eye, not even through a telescope (right, with our current telescope you can't yet see the buggers. And as explained, telescopes don't get more efficient, they only get larger). Exoplanets are discovered when they pass between a star and your telescope. And even then we can't see them, we just register that the star has grown dimmer for a certain period of time. Together with a few other means of detection we can estimate radius, mass and orbit, and based on that guess what the planet might be like. But until someone gets to that system with a telescope, we won't know much more about it. Until then, any description of planetary properties are pure guesswork, although we can assume that the guesses will get more and more educated the more we know about the evolution of a planetary system.5. The Galaxy is big. As in, really, really, really big. Lots of stars. We can assume that the most interesting have been surveyed in the vicinity (I would expect an intensive surveylance of G. K, and probably F stars, as they're most likely to have some planets you can colonise), but there should still be plenty left to explore. Although exploring them might be a rather routine, boring and tedious task.Still, I'm all in for an exploration. I always wondered why all 3-d spacesims are modeled after elite and none after starflight. There are some problems with this idea concerning the procedural nature of the pioneer galaxy, though. Free exploration in a procedural environment can leave to *severe* savegame bloat.Plus, Pioneer really isn't complicated. For a real sim player (read: Orbiter), it's like going to the arcade...

My thoughts, firstly exploration was hinted at in Frontier. If you read your Stories Of Life On the Frontier book that originally came with Frontier, there is a story called "The Outer Limits". Basically it was about an explorer who made money by discovering planets, rich in resources or possible future colony prospects.However it is a valid point about there being unexplored systems when hyperdrives have been commercially available for centuries. That does not make sense.So what do you do?One easy thing that could be done is simply reset the game clock to say 100 years after the discovery of hyperdrives.Another more interesting thing that could be done (as I already said) is to make unexplored systems much more dangerous. The game really needs big bad "First Ones", Thargoids, Borg, Reapers, Daleks, or some such aliens, roaming around outside the "safe" human inner core worlds. These would provide a disincentive to ill-equipped players to stray to far from home. On the other hand, for the brave and more skilled, big fat rewards also await. So the real question then would be, could you handle life out there on the edge of explored space? "Q" from Star Trek TNG said it best when talking about unexplored space, "treasures to satiate, desires both subtle and gross, but it's not for the timid"

Gudadantza wrote:
I remember the old Sid Meier´s Pirates!.
That is a very good example Gudadantza. One of the inspirations for the original Elite for David Braben & Ian Bell was the old Pirate tales like Black Beard. After all, the Elite universe was a bit like the 17th century Caribbean, but with more advanced technology and space as a medium instead of water. I still play Pirates! by the way, a great classic game that
Gudadantza wrote:
Pioneer is a suggestive name to implement the first era of future outer space exploration or colonization.
Yes it does seem that way doesn't it? Maybe resetting the game clock could be an option then, or like you say have variable start dates? I dont know how difficult this might be though to implement