Frontier VS Pioneer

[fluffyfreak]

This is the overflow topic to get everyone out of the HELP thread. Discuss the differences between autopilots and other things here please. Technically is important though because they're arguing about how the games work, and Pioneer does not, and never has, worked the same as Frontier. How it looks is superfically like Frontier in many places, and yet it is very different in many other areas too. If you're after something more like Frontier then you want Genesia. Pioneer was never trying to be Frontier although many would have liked that, even Tom Morton has commented and said that using the Frontier ships was a bad decision, Pioneer is trying to be what we think Frontier would have liked to be if the technology had been available when it was released. These are two very different goals, and they're something I've talked about in many threads and comments extensively in the past. I'm not trying to say it shouldn't be discussed, I'm saying that it shouldn't be discussed in this HELP thread.So if you guys do want to discuss it, just create a new thread and discuss it in there.However, please do be aware that whilst there are superficial (on the surface, skin deep, graphical) similarities that doesn't mean you can assume that the games work the same intnernally. Frontier had to run on very limited hardware, Pioneer would NOT be able to run on that same hardware because it does a lot of things that Frontier could not afford to do because of the technology available.

[robn]

And just for any newcomers that think Pioneer is trying to be a clone of Frontier, think again. It started life as a clone. We since deliberately decided that it was no longer a clone and instead, perhaps, "inspired by" Frontier. It looks quite similar right now for little more than legacy reasons. One day, when its "done", the similarities won't be as obvious.So arguments of the form "Frontier does X, therefore Pioneer should do X / is like X / can be understood in terms of X" are pointless. However true that might have been in the past, or is right now, its not necessarily going to be the case into the future.

[NeuralKernel]

Just out of historical curiosity... did this shift in attitude coincide with the move away from releasing Alphas? I seem to remember at one point the goal for the Beta was feature parity with Frontier and then it would be modified from there into its own game. It seems to me that the "end goal" always was to make a unique game but that it used to be more explicitly inspired by Frontier.I never really played Frontier or Elite much, I grew up on Wing Commander and a whole range of flight simulators of various degrees of realism... so I don't have the connection to the old games like a lot of people here and in recent years I've actually become far more interested in the idea of a realistic open world Space Sim for it's own sake rather than a copy of any previous game specifically. If anything I'm actually a bit put off by the general Space Opera theme and setting and would prefer something a little more... "rustic" for lack of a better term.I have played the originals. I lost at least week of my life to an Emulated Frontier a while back but it was a buggy experience, doubly so because of the steps I had to take to get it working. I'm familiar with the game but I didn't really get the right experience to properly enjoy it.Basically, what does Pioneer really need to take from Frontier at this point? I've always seen Pioneer as a Space Sim Inspired by Reality... like Frontier was. They happen to look and feel similar... not entirely by accident but not entirely by design, either.

[Vuzz]

"And just for any newcomers that think Pioneer is trying to be a clone of Frontier, think again. It started life as a clone. We since deliberately decided that it was no longer a clone and instead, perhaps, "inspired by" Frontier. It looks quite similar right now for little more than legacy reasons. One day, when its "done", the similarities won't be as obvious.So arguments of the form "Frontier does X, therefore Pioneer should do X / is like X / can be understood in terms of X" are pointless. However true that might have been in the past, or is right now, its not necessarily going to be the case into the future." Despite the fact i've take very long time to understand that , actually i completly agree with that today. We can clearly see the state where Pioneer whas in the past with a look on Genesia , the scission of the nexts Pioneer's release/frontier universe is more an more evident (and when whe take a look on Paragon it's more impressive). Nothing be compare 

[robn]

Just out of historical curiosity... did this shift in attitude coincide with the move away from releasing Alphas?No, that's a very recent move, whereas we haven't considered the game to be a clone of Frontier for a long time - well over a year at least.I seem to remember at one point the goal for the Beta was feature parity with Frontier and then it would be modified from there into its own game.That was Tom's early goal, I believe, but it was never concrete. Indeed, I didn't hear about that until several months after I joined the project.It seems to me that the "end goal" always was to make a unique game but that it used to be more explicitly inspired by Frontier.I'd still say that Frontier is one of Pioneer's inspirations, and in the end may very well be its major inspiration. But that's quite a way away from being a clone.

[Guest]

I liked your topic. That eccentric idea of the dialogues were very nice. However while it's true that the gameplay of Pioneer is similar to Frontier, it's also true that you can't count on this forever. Things have changed, and maybe (probably?) are going to change even more. Is it bad? I don't know. Let's see, and discuss about it while the development of Pioneer goes on. I really don't unserstand this kind of religious awe towards Frontier. As if it were untouchable and unquestionable. This is an attitude that's very far from mine.Regarding the brainwash... I'll try to protect me with the usual tin foil hat...

[sscadmin]

Warning... Admin getting irritated that people cannot play in the sandbox and get along. *** I have already edited this thread down to where it can be now back on topic..., please stay on topic or I will close this thread and remove it. *** I will be honest, I don't have the time to keep up with all the goings-on of Pioneer. But I do know their direction the devs are taking it and respect it and actually like it. The post that Fluffyfreak made to start this topic was sound and on track and was steered off-track by individuals it was stated that the 'differences' should be discussed. It's not a thread to bash either of the two games or the direction. This topic could have been constructive and the devs could have pulled something out of it if people were constructive instead of destructive with their thoughts. SSC is a place where ideas are shared and hopefully brought to life in these great games, projects and mods. People do not forget the hard work that these people donate many hours to is done for the love of these games and they share those efforts with you for free most times. Show some respect to all the developers/modders that do all this for you so you can enjoy it. It's ok to disagree or to have other ideas but state them respectfully and just don't call something crap and not give a reason as to why and a way to remedy this. People like feedback when it is constructive and makes sense. I have for the longest time let people just talk it out and have the 'freedom' to say what they want. When I get a report of someone causing discussion issues I read over the entire thread and I see whom is at fault or what started it. I usually just warn people, and recently suspended someone and in extreme circumstances IP ban them. People come and stay at SSC because of the projects and the atmosphere (and some the beer), and what I personally like about SSC the most is how everyone just gets along and everyone is pushing to the same goal. In this thread I will remove all postings that I don't think are on topic and I will issue a warning to Rocketeer. I will keep this thread alive because it could be useful if used right.

[Vuzz]

Anyway, I think today the frontier universe must be let and Pioneer must go on his proper way . Probably David Braben's team make the same for Elite Dangerous ? Frontier Universe is a good start , but certainly not a goal ( I've understand that with my work on Gen. , i've make this one to maintain some content but when i see the entire game today i don't see a clone of Frontier). Of course , the begining of frontier was make in a sort of "nostalgic reach". But it's the past now , when whe see the state of Pioneer's dev. And it's a good thing for the future 

[NeuralKernel]

I don't particularly want to draw this thread out... but the top of the forum still says"Pioneer is a open-source remake of Frontier: Elite 2. It is a on going project that need some fan support and some models and other content created. Come on in and see the progress."I think this ought to be changed, I'm personally indifferent but it could lead to trouble, it's somewhat misleading from the start.Are there storyline, universe or gameplay elements that could be changed to further distinguish Pioneer as it's own game? I'd like some kind of thermal management mechanic, reduced rocket efficiency and a stronger focus on intra-system gameplay... but I'm not going to argue too strongly without some code to back it up

[fluffyfreak]

But after the "infamous topic", talk about frontier seems Taboo, Not taboo, but painful for the core team especially.A lot of those threads and comments about the removal of the Frontier content got very upsetting and personally very hurtful - so it's not that I wouldn't want to talk about Frontier for example, I just don't want to talk about that aspect of things anymore. I'm sure that goes for some of the others too. Now, where to go in the future is a wide open question.Mod's like walterar's Scout+ work are interesting because he's put a lot of cool things into it and continues (hopefully) to work on it. There's a lot there that I'd like to see come back into Pioneer itself.There are some parts of Paragon that I'd like in Pioneer too, their work on mining, the much higher level of activity at starports and a number of other pieces would be excellent - obviously excluding the "Transit Drive". I think that aside from some minor parts we actually got very close to Frontier in terms of what was implemented. The choice then becomes to stop and just be a clone or to move on. The team chose to move on and see what else Pioneer can be. To be inspired by Frontier, but not limited to what it was.

[robn]

Before Remove Elite Content I see in robn Blog something like this "Pioneer team wants to make elite 4 because the man (D.Braben) will not do it. so Elite-Dangerous is not elite 4.The players will not lose interest in pioneer."You saw nothing like that on my blog. I have never ever stated that the "Pioneer Team" wants to make Elite 4, because that has never ever been the case. Which is amply demonstrated by the fact that we continue to distance ourselves from Elite/Frontier (changing from "clone" to "inspired by", removing Elite-based content, etc).does Frontier Dev Team, want, removes the content and spirit of the Frontier in Pioneer!?so they sugest to Pioneer go in another direction!?No. Frontier Developments are actually quite enthusiastic about Pioneer, and even offered the use of their assets. Unfortunately the offer was incompatible with our licensing so we couldn't take them up on it. But I won't let it be said that they don't support this project, because they've always been very cool about it.

[robn]

I don't particularly want to draw this thread out... but the top of the forum still says"Pioneer is a open-source remake of Frontier: Elite 2. It is a on going project that need some fan support and some models and other content created. Come on in and see the progress."I think this ought to be changed, I'm personally indifferent but it could lead to trouble, it's somewhat misleading from the start.Sure. Its not my forum. Feel free to ask DarkOne (and get that IRC link changed while you're at it).Are there storyline, universe or gameplay elements that could be changed to further distinguish Pioneer as it's own game? I'd like some kind of thermal management mechanic, reduced rocket efficiency and a stronger focus on intra-system gameplay... but I'm not going to argue too strongly without some code to back it up ;)All things we're thinking about somewhere. Right now most of our focus is on getting the engine right so we can build a game on top of it. Not that we can't do some of those things now, but we keep running into engine shortcomings whenever we try

[XenonS]

The best version of Frontier for anyone interested in playing it today is: GLFrontier. You can switch in-game to the original Atari grafics if you want or go with the OpenGL grafics. It's based on the original Atari version.A dozen of savegames can be downloaded here: [url]http://www.sharoma.com/frontierverse/saves.htm[/url] Chose the Amiga Frontier Saves that also work with GLFrontier and most probably with Atari versions of FE2. I think that only by playing Pioneer and then GLFrontier one will be seriously qualified for sticking to the thread's topic. My contribution to it is: I throw my hat to David Braben and Ian Bell to make a game of such complexity like Frontier and put it on a floppy disk. XenonS

[robn]

Tom Mortons Pioneer is a open-source remake of Frontier: Elite 233 Alpha versions.I've been release manager since Alpha 9 (14 March 2011), around the same time that Tom ceased being actively involved.You'd do well to learn some of the history of this project.

[XenonS]

hello Xenons, we were just waiting for you to begin to understand how good and fun to play Frontier 2 is ;)you say only "Pioneer and then GLFrontier!?if I play a lot of Pioneer i will be seriously qualified for sticking to the thread's topic!?good, because i play a lot ;)The family is now complete. (me, you and vuzz.) and we are friends now, ok!?Bio is no troll and Bio do not say nonsense, OkYou want to say something more!?Thank you Sorry, you didn't understand my point:Without wanting to downgrade Pioneer in any way, you guys must show that you are capable of doing such a craft act like Frontier, that is. make such a complex game and put it on a floppy disk (1,3 mb). THEN, you can start comparing Frontier to Pioneer (or vice-versa if you like). Until then, better forget about Frontier and concentrate on Pioneer.Respectfully,XenonS

[XenonS]

Until now, Walterar's mod Scout+ adds the most to the Pioneer combat. Here a brief resume of Frontier's combat system based on my play experience: Enemy pirates are generated as soon as you come into a system and head "magically" towards you. Soon or late they find you and materialize 1 at a time. In the orbit view, you can watch the "comming close" progress.In Military photograph missions, you may face many enemy ships at once as they spawn out of the special base.The difference in FFE is that you may face more pirate ships at once, making the combat part almost impossible, unless you have really heavy equipment. That's pretty it what's to say about combat in Frontier, except that one must cheat to win: You must pause the game in order to get time to select and orient your ship to the enemy's one, because there's no intelligent visual combat system integrated in the cockpit. The same goes for FFE. Now, how does it work in Pioneer? Apart the Scout+ mod, I don't know enough yet. At a first glance, the combat system looks similar, also because the equipment and their names is similar, so why should I doubt in the first place that it's not all the same as in Frontier for the very first Pioneer releases? Playing now with A33, I don't see revolutionary changes take effect which do definitly get away from Frontier (still for combat only of course). All military missions found in Frontier were taken out from Pioneer, Also most names had to be changed. Why? Probably copyright reasons, but I'm not well-placed to answer or comment on that, except that, for me, the player, it would be much better if they still were available. For the devs this absence doesn't harm in any way: there's more room for new code...  My objective playing experience with Pioneer up to now is: apart the numerous new ship models, the improved grafics and some nice features added in the UI like the new orbit calculation, I don't see really new things to make me forget Frontier. And I don't mean the quantity and nature of things, but their improved quality for gameplay. But that's ok, Pioneer is in alpha state. XenonS

[fluffyfreak]

RE: Military Missions.They're not "taken out", they're just "not added yet". We don't use any code from Frontier so whenever we add a new feature we create it from scratch  At the moment I'm not sure that we'll have military factions. We'll see.

[fluffyfreak]

I do not understand why removing frontier 2, Pioneer always said they want to keep the same physics (newton laws)And we have alpha versions with the Churchs and Towers with Clocks, Pioneer Alpha 10 is a remake of Frontier 2. Why we need to forget this versions!? or removing the Frontier 2 remake!?they are Bad!? to many bugs!? The alphas is also a tabbo!?This is hard for me to understand the motives behind this.I´m a Pioneer player and disagree completely (my opinion). Maybe others have diferent opinions. Robn was pretty clear about it above actually. So no you don't have to forget about "Alpha 10", I'm slightly confused why you would anyway, but it was just one step in the development of Pioneer, one that we've moved a LONG way beyond now. Pioneer is developing it's own identity, and others are building on the engine to develop their own identities. That's all. If you want Frontier, or a game that is exactly like Frontier then play GLFrontier, or one of the others. Pioneer is just a different thing.Alternatively work with Vuzz or someone else to fork Pioneers from the Alpha that you most like (or any other time) and develop it into the game you want. The trouble is that lots of people have opinions about what they want Pioneer to be, so they come on here and talk about it. They're not actually writing the code, or doing the art, or scripting, or writing design documents, maintaining the wiki or anything else though. Most people come here and demand that things are done, however we all have things that each of us wants to do, so we do them, because no-one is here to satisfy what other people want. If you want something, you have to do it.

[robn]

If you want something, you have to do it.Or persuade someone who can do it to do it. Which means communicating effectively and not annoying anybody. If you're show a bit of respect and courtesy, you'll receive it back. If you piss us off, you just get ignored in the future. If that's what you want, then fine, but don't be surprised if you don't get listened to by anyone that matters.And just to be clear, I'm talking to just a handful of people here. There are many many people on this forum that I've spoken to and sometimes worked with directly, and I've enjoyed doing so. Believe or not, I do this for the people, not the game. But I get enough idiots in my job, and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend my personal time on them as well!

[fluffyfreak]

"wannabe developers"? Anyone can be a developer, you just need to contribute code, art, audio, scripts or some design. There's various ways we've tried to make it easier for new developers. For everything except code there's the mod system to try things out directly with everyone.