Pioneer Elite II Remake

[Miggy4000]

Hi Folks
I am not expecting this thread to get much attention, but just in case someone might be interested, here goes anyways.

I know you are all Sub Sim fans and that's great because so am I, but I am also a big fan of space sims, specifically space sims with a Newtonian flight model. Right now I am updating Pioneer's Mod DB page with the latest monthly Alpha build straight from the devs themselves, Alpha 23.

As for Pioneer itself, it's a free open source game that uses the old David Braben game Frontier Elite II as it's design starting point, but with much improved graphics, for example, a full sized galaxy model, seem-less surface to space transitions, full orbital mechanics, trading and a load of classic Elite ships to fly. Anyone can contribute work to the project, in fact all the work done thus far has been done by a dedicated team of volunteer devs.

As I said the game is still in Alpha phase so lots more work is still to be done and bugs can pop up from time to time.

If you would like a look, drop by here

http://www.moddb.com/games/pioneer

Or Pioneer's own site where you will find additional builds for Mac OSX and Linux

http://pioneerspacesim.net/download

As a sub sim fan I would love to see underwater modelling put into this game as planetary terrain models are still being worked on, but I am a lone voice. It would be great to pilot something like a Moray Starboat under the surface then hit the main thrusters and keep on going as you breech the surface. Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "Emergency Surface"!

Also here is a vid of an early Alpha of the game, the visuals have come along quite a bit since it was created, but it will give you an idea of what the game is like.



Anyways, thanks for reading

[Sailor Steve]

Subsim forum devoted to non-subsim games:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/forumdisplay.php?f=177

[Miggy4000]

Drat! Have I posted this in the wrong section?

Apologies. Perhaps one of the mods could move it?

[Sailor Steve]

Not at all. I was just pointing it out for future reference. Also, you might find some threads you like there.

[Miggy4000]

Thanks for that Sailor Steve! Yes interesting topics.........oooh look, theres one about DOS games........

[Egan]

Ooooh....Elite....I don't think I've a single game since I first played that on a BBC Micro in the mid 80s that ever captivated me quite as much.

I'll check this out. Thanks for the link!

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

HURRAH!!! Thank you VERY much for the link! I tested it and it works (so far) very well. Brings back good old memories!




Yes, even this kid played Elite, Frontier: Elite II, Frontier: First Encounters et. al. once upon time

[Miggy4000]

Hey, your welcome guys
Glad someone found the thread useful.

If your also fans of the original (Non Newtonian) Elite, you might want to take a look at Oolite. This is another free open source game and is very nice indeed, especially so when stuffed to the gills with mod packs or "oxps" as they are are known.

Here is some links

Oolite: http://www.oolite.org/

OXPs & General Info: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolite_Main_Page

Oolite Forum: http://aegidian.org/bb/index.php

Oolite SSC Section: http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/forum/60-oolite/

Also there is another free Elite re-make based on Elite III First Encounters. Its called FFE3D.
Russian devs (with some help from others) have modded the original game almost beyond recognition, but it is still not quite finished. However, its still fully playable. Rumours of ongoing work are rife on the Russian Elite boards though.

Here is a link to some very handy sites for all things Elite: http://www.frontierastro.co.uk/ and http://www.eliteforever.co.uk/

SSC Section for FFE3D: http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/forum/39-ffed3d/


Have fun!

[Miggy4000]

Hi Folks
A new Alpha build of Pioneer has just been released (Alpha 24). Lots of little tweaks and general improvements for this month by it's wonderful devs. Check out the download links in the first post

[Miggy4000]

Hi Folks
Another monthly Alpha build for you. This one does a few bugs related to dwarf stars but it does have extra features over Alpha 24. As usual the download links are in the first post

[CaptainHaplo]

I am downloading as soon as I can.

Do you want me to give it a review even though its alpha? I can do so while keeping that in mind.

[Miggy4000]

Hi CaptainHaplo

Apologies for taking so long to get back to you. Been busy with that annoying real life thing again

Anyways, yes feel free to do a review, but you might want to hold off until Alpha 26 is out. It's release is imminent. I will update the thread once it's out

EDIT: some FFE3D news. This game is undergoing a complete re-write by it's Russian devs that will not use any of the original games code. Its being retitled to "Final Fronter" and promises (amongst other things) to have multiplayer. Have a look at this thread for details and links to the Russian Elite board

http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/topic/1516-is-this-project-slept-or-dead/?p=30133

[Miggy4000]

Hi Sub Sim Fans

Its that time again, a new Alpha for Pioneer and I've just uploaded it to ModDB. Here is a run down for the features for this month from Robn

"The Pioneer development team are pleased to announce the release of Pioneer Alpha 26. This month sees the addition of two popular features of the original Frontier, the Imperial capital Achernar and the Imperial Trader, as well as various graphical and internal tweaks. Full changelog and builds for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (32 & 64-bit) are available from the download page

Alpha 26 is dedicated to the memory of Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

New features

Achernar (4,-9,-16) is now a fully custom system (#1452)
New Imperial Trader (a variant of the Imperial Courier) (#1069, #1496)

Minor changes and tweaks

Updated station splash advert (#1429)
Updated the Imperial Courier model (#1069)
Updated the "pilot" and "squadsign" sub-models (#1069)
Updated surface stations (#983)
Made month names translatable (#1490)

Fixes

Fix atmospheric pressure calculations (#1431, #1395)
Fix lighting glitches in systems with multiple stars (#1430, #1411)
Fix flipped EYE ship texture (#1436)
Fix Caribou laser position (#1435)
Fix broken planet ring textures on Intel GMA 900 chips (#1442, #1439)
Fix Lua console tab completion for some oddly constructed tables (#1447)
Fix Lua console tab completion for tables with numeric indices (#1461, #1462)
Fix ambient light state leak from intro/tombstone (#1472, #1445)
Fix blank UI after game load failure (#1481, #1479)
Draw the city before its starport to avoid a glaring graphical bug (#1487)
Fix Lua stack leak in console completion (#1492)

Script changes

Ships now identified by the filename the ship is defined in (#1444, #1474, #1491)
New Event system allowing Lua scripts to broadcast their own events. EventQueue is deprecated, for removal in alpha 27 (#1441)
New FileSystem module so scripts can list data files (including files from mods) and files in the game's configuration directory (#1350, #1483)

Internal changes

Show frame time in the stats overlay (#1437)
Update COUNTOF macro to fix avoid warnings when compiling with compiling with optimisations on GCC (#1451, #1450)
Force most icons to scale to their bounds regardless of their initial size. Allows hi-res icons (#1448, #1470)
Reimplemented Lua read-only tables (#1460)
Move the global Lua context so it can be used from modelviewer (#1473)
Rewritten material and shader infrastructure (#1432)
Many minor optimisations identified by PVS-Studio (#1480, #1399)
Fix a warning when building with clang (#1488)"

Also here is a screen shot of Mexico City



Also thought I would highlight another retro Elite clone called Galaxias, which recently retailed at £10. Now the dev is allowing the game to be downloaded for free and if you like it, he is asking if you will buy him a beer?

Here is a link http://www.jexea.co.uk/Galaxias/Home.html

[Miggy4000]

Hi Sub Sim Fans!

Here it is, another monthly alpha for you to try out. Here is the change list for this month from Robn, one of the Pioneer devs. I've just finished updating ModDB with the new build too. Have fun out there!

http://www.moddb.com/games/pioneer

"The Pioneer development team are pleased to announce the release of Pioneer Alpha 27. This month seems the introduction of our new (highly experimental!) faction system. Also new cameras to see everything around your ship, and the usual pile of tweaks and fixes. Full changelog and builds for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (32 & 64-bit) are available from the download page, here http://pioneerspacesim.net/download .

New features

Factions, with custom goods illegality and colour coding (#1505, #1567, #1562)
New views (Left/Right/Top/Bottom, Cockpit Front/Rear) (#1454, #1539, #1544, #1564)
The settings screen is now acessible from the main menu (#1187, #1512)
There's now an option to enable texture compression (#1522)

Minor changes and tweaks

Smooth zoom animation in World, System, Sector and Galactic views (#1170)
Earth start location has returned to Los Angeles (in daytime now) (#1506)
Player cash is shown on the 'Personal' page of the Info (F3) screen (#1525, #1500)
Equipment listed on the Info (F3) screen is split over two columns (#1525, #1527)
Explosions are now slower and more visible (#1543)
Application icon for Windows builds (#1537, #1166)

Fixes

Avoid icons in some ternary systems overlapping each other (#1510, #1511)
Fix overlapping text for long system descriptions (#1494, #1498)
Fix crash in SystemInfoView from leaking widget references (#1526, #1493)
Clamp some newer terrain heights to non-negative values (#1534, #1530)
Try to avoid placing starports where they will be covered by mountains (#1503, #7)
Don't pass events through the load/save dialog to the widget below (#1547, #1553)
Fix crash when old hyperspace cloud is shown after game load (#1552, #1551)

Script changes

EventQueue, which was deprecated in alpha 26, has been removed (#1485)
Orbital phase (season) and rotational phase (time) can now be set in custom systems with :rotational_phase_at_start and Orbital_phase_at_start (#1506)
Thruster values in ship definitions are now all positive (#1536)
New function Dev.SetCameraOffset to help find good cockpit camera offsets (#1130)

Internal changes

Terrain generation thread now sleeps until being signalled (#1169)
New C++ wrappers for Lua table manipulation and value persistence (#1438)
Terrain patches are now rendered more efficiently (#1507)
Many minor cleanups identified by valgrind (#1524)
Copyright and license is now made explicit at the top of all code files (#1515)
Max terrain height for heightmapped planets is computed more accurately (#1504)
Code to detect supported video modes has moved to Graphics (#1535, #1385)
Cleaned up UI view code for consistency and stability (#1528, #1558, #1547, #1557)
Removed duplication in key bindings code (#1545)
New view (DeathView) to deal with display after the player dies (#1543, #1540)
Simplified terrain thread locking (#1495)
Moved intro and tombstone out to their own cutscene classes (#1559)"

[Miggy4000]

Didnt see any mention of this on the forum so I thought I would let you guys know about a new kickstarter from David Braben for Elite IV. Have a look here http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...lite-dangerous