Pioneer Elite II Remake

[Miggy4000]

Hi sub sim fans.
Back again with more info for you.
First up is Pioneer news. Up to now Pioneer has had constant monthly Alpha builds, but that is now no longer going to happen. Instead much smaller updates will be released instead. This is to save folks constantly re-downloading the full game over and over again.
Anyways here is the official announcement from Pioneer dev Robn

"As you know, for a couple of years now Pioneer has had an alpha release on the second Friday of every month without fail. The dev team has always considered this to be an immovable deadline, and it has been useful in giving us something to aim for. To try and help make sure the alpha releases are sort-of stable, we've also had a "freeze" period a week before the release, to allow testing and last-minute fixes to happen, ensuring a stable release.

Lately its become clear that that model isn't giving the best results. Very few people actually do freeze testing, so we don't usually find any problems, yet real actual bugs are often missed, leading to the situation we've had a couple of times recently where the alpha has a nasty bug. Its usually fixed hours later, but that fix doesn't make a release until the next alpha a month later. Meanwhile, new development continues to happen on the master branch during the freeze week so that by the time the alpha is released it's already obsolete.

All of this means the alpha releases are becoming more of a burden than a useful part of the process, so we've made the decision to drop it. Obviously though we need to get something out into the hands of players and testers, so we're intending to promote the nightly builds to "official" status as follows. Twice a day a complete build for Windows and Linux will be run and uploaded (though obviously not if no changes have been made). Version numbers will be changed to YYMM.BB, where BB is the "build number" for that month. So a build for today might be 1305.2. The latest build will always be linked from pioneerspacesim.net, and the last week's worth of builds will be archived, just in case.

To keep the changes visible, we'll be making a "what's new in Pioneer" post to the SSC, the G+ page and a few other places at the start of each month with the changelog for the previous month. Of course, the current changelog will always be available from the homepage and in the release archives proper.

This should mean that if you encounter a bug, the fix is available to you in an official, supported build as soon as possible. Of course, there's also challenges involved with this. It will mean that we need to be more careful about ensuring that broken code doesn't make it to the master branch, and we can't be as blasé about breaking savefile compatibility as we have been in the past. That's good though; it puts pressure on us to work towards things that we've been wanting to do for a while now, like a new save system that better supports upgrading old savefiles and stabilising the procedural generation so that minor code changes don't break the entire galaxy.

Right now OS X builds won't have the same twice-daily build schedule, as they're currently compiled semi-automatically by Philbywhizz when he has time. We're working on getting these happening as soon as we can, which might mean changes to this process, not sure yet. We'll let you know the outcome of that. The homepage will list the most recent build available for OS X.

We're aware that asking people to regularly download a 150-200MB archive is a bit of a stretch, so we're also looking at ways to reduce the amount of stuff you need to grab to get a new build. That might be splitting the game data from the binaries, it might be a patch system, it might be something else. Again, we'll let you know.

This change is effective immediately (as soon as I've made the necessary changes to the build system to support it). So there won't be an alpha 34. The first builds under this scheme should be available in the next few days."

I will also update Pioneer's ModDB page as these updates are released.

Secondly Dominion news. This has just launched on Kickstarter and is looking for backers. Its from a small indie outfit called Mak Software Studios. Its a single player sandbox game, DRM free and will have a star map consisting of 200,000 stars, over 1,000,000 planets, at least 1,200 unique species and civilisations . In terms of roles, its very much like Elite: trader, miner, pirate, explorer or flying for the navy. Interestingly, (well at least for me) the game will feature both Newtonian and non-Newtonian ships in the game, flight model dependant on the ship you choose from.

Stretch goals include Linux, Mac, iOS, Android and mod tools.

[Miggy4000]

Thought I would drop this in here as it is a bit like a space sim, but a sub sim too! Apologies if it has been mentioned else where. GOG have recently released Microprose's old school Subwar 2050. I loved this game back on the Amiga and played it for hours. The release also includes "The Plot Deepens" expansion pack and its presently selling for $5.99.

[Miggy4000]

Hi Sub Sim Fans!
Due to a slight mix up on my part (sorry folks) about the new switch over from monthly alphas to ongoing builds, I am a little late this month with my upload. Apologies about that. Anyways here is the latest (Windows) build as of May and below, the change logs for both April & May. ModDB is being updated as I type this and the new build should be available shortly there. As always, Linux and MAC OSX builds are also available via http://pioneerspacesim.net/download

Have fun out there!

May 2013

* New features
* Multithreaded Job based Terrain Patch generation (#2163, #2268, #2262)

* Minor changes and tweaks
* Model level-of-detail now takes field of view into account (#2257, #2077)
* Improvements to translatability of joystick axis descriptions.
(#2272, #2280, #2281)
* New ships are always fully fueled (#2283, #2162)

* Fixes
* Crew can no longer be hired with a negative salary (#2254)
* Fix landing gear sound repeating when autopilot lowers the undercarriage (#2269)
* Fix landing gear button toggling briefly when lowering gear (#2269)

* Internal changes
* Enum mapping tables now have a visibility specifier (#2276)
* Removal of the unused BezierCurve and RefList classes (#2274)
* The game constants live now all in src/gameconsts.h (#2274)
* Silence some debug printouts for the faction code. (#2274)
* Object property system now uses LuaTable. (#2275)

April 2013

* New features
* New combat music track (#2209)
* Mission list can now be sorted by clicking the column headers (#2183, #2128)
* Mission list now shows distance to system and days remaining (#2234, #2244)

* Minor changes and tweaks
* Commodity Market buy/sell buttons now speed up when held down (#2188, #1734)
* Clamp ambient lighting to avoid pitch black (#2241)

* Model changes
* Station definition 'num_docking_ports' is no longer used; it is computed
from the bay definitions (#2219)
* Station model docking nodes are checked against the station definition
(#2219)
* New 6-bay ground station model (#2227)

* Script and UI API changes
* New method 'SetColor' on Label widgets (#2234)
* Player:GetHyperspaceTarget() now returns path of destination system when
in hyperspace (#2244)

* Fixes
* Fix lua system export (#2229)
* Fix Lua console so that it lets you continue incomplete commands (#2198)
* Fix logical error in crew skill boosting code (#2253)
* Fix assertion when attempting to dock whilst you're also trying to leave (#2239)

* Internal changes
* SpaceStationTypes now loads data using the LuaTable wrapper (#2170)
* ShipType now loads data using the LuaTable wrapper (#2215)
* Reduced allocations and improved data locality in the eclipse code (#2200)
* New dynamic object property system (#2161, #2226, #2225, #2223, #2221)
* Support linking against the LDB Lua debugging library (#2147)
* Stars with flattening due to fast rotation, i.e; ellipsoids (#2178 )
* Update bundled Lua to version 5.2.2 (#2230)
* Model loader: improve instancing (#2228 )

[Miggy4000]

Hi Sub Sim fans

Firstly, apologies for taking so long to get around to updating this thread.

Anyways, recently uploaded Pioneer another build to ModDB and there has been a ton of changes since my last post here, with new ships, new UI and an whole host of little changes under the hood of the game.

You can grab it here.

And here is the change log for this month.

For January 2014. Full changelog.

• New features
  • New ships "Malabar" and "Vatakara" (#2599)
  • Show hull heating effect in atmosphere (#2550)
  • Shield meshes with hit effects (#2491)
  • Show trails behind ships (#2529)
  • Skybox support (#2570)
  • Initial cockpit support (experimental) (#2603, #2614, #2679)
• Minor changes and tweaks
  • Ship stat balancing (#2620, #2673)
  • Atmospheres in gas giants are much deeper (#2609, #1395)
  • New "free software" charity on the bulletin board (#2611)
  • Change start ships and initial equipment (#2696)
  • Add delta-v data to ship market (#2616)
  • Earth start position now starts at 13:00 (Pioneer time) (#2615)
  • Misc. tweaks for the intro animation (#2649)
  • Improve the sector view map, giving more navigation info (#2640)
  • Improve cargo and cabin use gauges, easier to understand (#2657, #2648)
  • Key bindings of sector view are now configurable (#2542)
  • Advert type icons in the bulletin board (#2668)
  • Remove unnecessary colon from ship empty weight description (#2682)
  • Show min/max crew in shipmarket (#2681)
  • Show labels on stations and cargo models (#2680)
  • Show decals on models (#2680)
  • Improve error reporting (#2694)
  • Xylophis textures updated (#2700)
  • Don't allow cargo to be jettisoned wile docked (#2699)
• Script and UI API changes
  • Game.StartGame now takes an optional start_time argument (#2615)
  • New method, Random:Normal gives a random number with normal distribution (#2651)
  • New method, SpaceStation:SetEquipmentPrice to override equip/cargo price at station (#2654)
  • New method, ChatForm:ClearFace removes face without clearing whole form (#2663)
• Model changes
  • Modelviewer: Show bounding box when showing collision mesh (#2664)
  • "Landing" tag-point to define where the bottom of the ship is for the landing collision test (#2695, #2656)
• Fixes
  • Fix label positioning in orbit and galaxy views (#2608, #2576)
  • Various fixes for keybinding modifiers and repeats (#2524, #2523, #2618, #2630)
  • Fix Taxi "group of one" mission (#2623, #2628)
  • Fix Taxi and Delivery assassins never spawning (#2622, #2624)
  • Reset table scroll position when it goes off screen (#2629)
  • Clean up station state correctly between games (#2631)
  • Fix TradeShips crash when trying to launch after failing to add fuel or cargo (#2634)
  • Fix ship pattern selection (#2645)
  • Fix shipyard adding ships faster than it sells them (#2653, #2650)
  • Fix that fuel was not displayed as percentage after load (#2659, #2660)
  • Clear chat form face when showing crew candidate list (#2663, #2647)
  • Calculate a sane mousewheel scroll step for scrollable regions
• Internal changes
  • Render screen to texture in preparation for post-processing effects (#2525)
  • Various code cleanups (#2621)
  • Serializer Reader class can now load data from any file source (#2646)
  • Expose models to Lua, move pattern methods from ModelSkin to Model (2645)
  • Add initial model binary converter/loader (#2643)
  • Replace GatherTransforms with a visitor (#2686)
  • RefCounted(Ptr) with atomic counter and allowing const correctness (#2688)

Also there is the Scout Mod for Pioneer, now in it's 14th iteration this mod adds colourful sky boxes, more missions, more ships (Elite ships are back!) and loads of other tweaks to the game. That can be found here.

Finally in other news, has recently released their Elite Dangerous multiplayer Alpha. Lots of player videos around, .

[Miggy4000]

Hi Subsim fans!
Back again with another Pioneer update for you. Lots of improvements & tweaks for this month, so do check it out.
The download for the Windows version is now live on ModDB and the Linux version is available on Pioneer's own site.

However, there is an issue with the Mac OSX version this month and the devs are appealing for help. Check out the bottom of this post for further details.

Here is the extensive change log for this month.

Changelog For February 2014.

New features

New "Octagon" ground station
Now any star in a multiple system can be the hyperjump target
Rewrote console on the new UI
Characters have reputation, which is required by missions
New (rare) "News" event for commodities on the BBS
Minor changes and tweaks
Added landing tag points to all ships
Draw sectorview stars with sphere imposters
New UI now available as an overlay in all views
Quicksave can now be loaded directly from main menu
Paste support for text entry widgets (ie console)
Improve skybox, restore star rendering
New wheels up/down icon
The `console.lua` script is now run at each game start
Config values can be overidden on the command line
Use tables instead of grids for layout
Donating money or not paying wages affects reputation
Script and UI API changes
Model.SetDebugFlags for adding debug effects to model drawing
ModelSpinner.model to get the spinner model
UI.Image: SetHeightLines to help set image height against text
hasprop method to see if the named property exists (#2734)
Ship:InitiateHyperjumpTo to jump regardless of range or fuel
UI.Table.SetColumnAlignment, various ways to position table columns (#2778)
UI.Table.ScrollToTop and ScrollToBottom, basic scroll control
Empty grid cells now expand to the available size to assist with layout
Model changes
Removed two_sided material property, it didn't handle lighting correctly
Fixes
Complain about custom systems with wrong number of stars
Fixing thruster tags
Fix run-away terrain threads when ending the game
Fix Lua error from TradeShips when colliding and hyperjumping
Reset mouse grab state on game exit
Fix a potent bug when destroying copies of invalid LuaRefs
Fix English in Taxi missions
Fix various glitches and an assertion in system info view
Fix that rotation state of bodies was not saved/loaded properly
Fix pattern for Xylophis
Render to texture Skybox alpha fix
Remove Lua timers at game exit
Properly set terrain detail settings
Always relayout tables and single containers after content change
Internal changes
Moved model debug effects (wireframe, collision mesh) out of ModelViewer and onto Model, and exposed via SetDebugFlags
Handle blend/depth/cull render states as stateset objects
Removed redundant shader cleanup
Split camera state into a separate class
Sector and star system cache improvements
Generation of explored flag moved from StarSystem to Sector
New Vertex buffer class
Code cleanup in StarSystem and SystemBody
Removed Visual Studio 2010 and 2012 support
IterationProxy for save access to embedded containers
Automatically manage the cancellation of jobs with RAII
Added a Profile Config to VS2013

Also two more things. Calling MAC owners! OSX builds are down for this month on Pioneer's own site. Can you help? The devs are looking for someone who can provide MAC builds of Pioneer, here is what Robn, one of Pioneer's devs had to say,

"They can come back if and when someone can produce a working set of steps to build and bundle the game from scratch - something that I can turn into a build script. If anyone reading this feels up to the challenge it would be a huge help."

If you can help, have a look here: Pioneerspacesim.net.

Finally, a new edition of Pioneer Scout is out (G15), do check that out also at Spacesimcentral.com.

Have fun and thanks for reading Commanders!

[Miggy4000]

Hi Sub Sim fans!
Another monthly Pioneer update for you. This one covers all the work done upto the end of March. Download is now available on Mod DB.

Here is the change list for this month:

• New features
  • Support for CJK fonts and Simplified Chinese translation
  • Replace WATER with HYDROGEN as the thruster fuel of choice.
• Minor changes and tweaks
  • Message boxes used for warnings in station screens
  • Textual galaxy dump (#2811)
  • Money format with language specific thousand separator and decimal delimiter (#2810)
  • Add button to sector view to toggle auto selection mode
  • Move sector view search results to a text area under the search box
• Fixes
  • Fix volume control layout (#2798)
  • Support horizontally-expanding widgets in table rows
  • Fix compilation with gcc 4.7 (#2799)
  • Fix crash with gcc 4.7 compiled binary (#2802)
  • Fix crash when attacked during deliver package mission (#2806)
  • Try to fix spiky asteroids (#2809)
  • Billboards not drawn correctly for some distant objects (#2791, #2824)
  • Division by zero when using unguided missiles (#2421, #2827)
• Script and UI API changes
  • New `inherits` function in the `utils` module to quickly implement class hierarchies in Lua (#2767)
  • MessageBox.Message and MessageBox.OK for modal alerts
  • Renamed TabGroup to TabView, better explains its purpose
• Internal changes
  • Update terrain to use the new VertexBuffer (#2795)
  • On-demand glyph caching (#2796, #2804)
  • Select fonts by Unicode range (#2808)
  • Gas Giant rewrite (#2803)
  • Support C++11 enum features in scan_enums.py (#2782)
  • Mouse and keyboard events now only distributed to the top UI layer
  • Code cleanup (#2818)
  • Fix glitch in Job code (#2823)
  Linux 32 and 64 bit versions are also available via Pioneer's own site: Pioneerspacesim.net

Have fun Commanders!

[Miggy4000]

Hello Sub Sim fans!
Back again with another Pioneer monthly update for you. Lots of tweaks, fixes and new features for this month by Pioneer's ever busy volunteer devs, great work guys!

Anyways, here is the change log for this months build, which should be appearing shortly on ModDB or if you cant wait or want the Linux 32 or 64 bit versions instead, then head over to Pioneer's own site here. Have fun folks!

For April 2014. Full changelog.

• New features
  • UI animations (#2830)
  • Explosions (#2831)
  • Support Fake Baked Ambient Occlusion texture (#2872)
  • New Wave Skins (#2822)
  • Soft mouse (#2883)
  • Autosave when docking/undocking/landing/takeoff and on game exit (#2814)
• Minor changes and tweaks
  • Add a Return to Game button in the pause/options screen (#2841)
  • Disable the Save button when in hyperspace.
  • More specific warning message in ship market if trying to buy equipment that the current ship model doesn't support
  • More stat on ship in ship market and ship info view (#1733,#2838)
  • The autopilot now faces toward its destination during the coasting phase (#2846)
  • A "Refuel full" button added next to the refuel button (#2855,#2853)
  • Balance - Exhaust velocity increase (#2835)
  • Slightly bigger chat forms (#2856)
• Script and UI API changes
  • Animation object, UI.Context.Animate and AddAnimation methods (#2830)
  • Improve TradeShips.lua (#2851)
  • Ship.SetShipType doesn't equip the default hyperdrive anymore
  • ShipDef.defaultHyperdrive has been removed in favour of ShipDef.hyperdriveClass (#2859)
  • New attribute SpaceStation.numShipsDocked to get number of occupied ports
  • Body.FindNearestTo to find bodies near this body
• Internal changes
  • Emit Lua events and timers in hyperspace
  • Output some system info for debugging purposes (#2832)
  • Add serialization support for LuaRef objects (#2849)
  • Add facilities to easily call arbitrary Lua methods from C++ (#2854, #2869)
  • Address some warnings from cppcheck and GCC (#2871)
  • Add possibility for synchronous jobs (#2879)
  • Assign factions to systems when first needing it (#2887)
  • Merge Sector and StarSystem caches in a common template class (#2880)
• Fixes
  • Fix duplication of cargo during cargo scooping (#2644, #2828)
  • Fix extra crew lingering after sale of ship (#2122, #2837)
  • Fix taking off with wrong number of crew (#2837)
  • Fix taking off with unpaid fines (#2359)
  • Fix zero duration and fuel display in sector view after load (#2847)
  • Fix water still sold in fuel club (#2852)
  • Fix duplicated HANG_UP button in crew bulletin boards (#2858)
  • Fix assertion in system info view when starport on planet with same name was selected (#2848)
  • Fix crash when Nerodia selected in shipyard (#2865, #2864)
  • Fix internal bug in multi-threading queue (#2874)
  • Fix crash due to ships spawning with default hyperdrive 0 (#2875,2877)

[Miggy4000]

Hi Folks
Updated Pioneer's ModDB page again with the latest build for this month. It should be available for download shortly. More incremental improvements for May by the wonderful and ever busy Pioneer dev team. Please check the changelog below and, as ever, Linux 32 and 64 bit (as well as Windows) builds are also available here from Pioneer's own site. Have fun folks!

For May 2014. Full changelog.

Minor changes and tweaks
In ship repair, since printing reported hull damage with precision "%.1f", cap it at 99.9% instead of 100%
Fix Wave texture problems & missing ModelViewer pointer
Hoop station door collision

Script and UI API changes
Added onShipFiring

Internal changes
Update the 3rd party libraries to ones built with vs2013
Encapsulate custom systems, factions, caches in a Galaxy class
Fix ill-formed API documentation for Engine
No GLU dependency

Fixes
Fix cockpit glass opacity

And here is a little screen shot for you showing Roberson World in the Phigreho system.

[Miggy4000]

Hi Sub Sim fans!
Back again with another (belated) monthly update for you.
A bit late this month with the Pioneer update, apologies for that. This was due to issues with the code that caused stability issues in the main build. I am glad to say most have now been rectified by the ever busy Pioneer Dev team.

Also other news, Mac OSX builds are coming back! Check out this thread over on the SSC for more details. These builds should be available soon from Pioneer's own site here.

Anyways the windows build on ModDB should be live very soon or if you cant wait head over to the Pioneer site and grab it there.

Here is the extensive change log for this month, fly safe out there folks!

Changelog

For July 2014. Full changelog.

• New features
  • New ship AC33 (Military version of venturestar), and updated meshes for other ALBR ships, Deneb and Venturestar, and updated textures (#3008)
  • Attitude-hold flight modes, accessed from the in-flight F4 menu (#3014)
• Minor changes and tweaks
  • Include the Lua stack top in the debug overlay.
  • Don't list lasers under "Equipment" in InfoView, since already listed under forward/read mounts (#3010)
• Fixes
  • Fix potential Lua stack overflows when calling Lua methods (#3003)
  • Fix Lua stack leaks when triggering Lua UI templates from C++ (#3004, #2996, #2997, #2999, #3000, #3001)
  • Fix crash on game start on Mac OS X builds (#2995, #2993)
  • Fix hyperrange bug (#3007, #3017)
  • Fix invalid orbital plane for lone orbital stations (#3022, #3018, #3026)
  • Fix use of fuel when hyperjumping (#3024, #3019, #3028)
  • Fix directory enumeration on POSIX systems when built with a PIONEER_DATA_DIR value that contains a trailing slash (#3031, #2545)
  • Fix hyperspace details shown in the Sector View (#3037, #3033)
  • Fix crash when the player collides with floating cargo (#3043, #3041)
  • Fix incorrect usedCargo values (#3036, #3035, #3020, #3044)
  • Fix incorrect cargo/free space values on game load (#3052, #3049)
  • Fix empty cargo lists (#3044, #3039, #3040)
  • Fix crash and skipped updates when firing missiles (#3044, #3038)
  • Fix internal tank refuelling from cargo (#3044, #3046)
  • Fix cargo scooping so it only works if you have the equipment (#3053, #3045)
  • Fix equipment remaining available after buying a new ship (#3052, #3027)
  • Fix missing ship total mass limit when adding equipment/cargo (#3052)
  • Fix Lua error in some circumstances when using Ship:SetEquip (#3052)

Also two off shoots of Pioneer called Genesia & Pioneer Scout Plus have both seen updates too this month. Both of these contain elements from the original Frontier Elite II game as well as features and code changes over and above those seen in the standard Pioneer build.

If your interested in these, drop by these threads over on the SSC:

Genesia

Pioneer Scout Plus

[Miggy4000]

Hi Sub Simmers! Can I coax you warriors of the deep to take a little jaunt into space?

Here is another another progress build for you all to try out, the "August" build of Pioneer. For this month there is more changes to the cockpit amongst other things. Have a look at the change log below for the details. As usual, its now up on ModDB or ,if you prefer to try out the Linux build, head over to Pioneer's own site here. Have fun!

For August 2014. Full changelog.

New features
Bring Luomu's game msg log over from the SSP fork
Display ships in system view
Display ship heading and pitch
Advanced radar mapper works in system orbital view
Draw periapsis/apoapsis as icons on system view orbits
Improved Joystick Binding

Minor changes and tweaks
Consistent set nav target on click in SystemView
Write opengl.txt earlier to help debugging
Bigger font for msg log

Script and UI API changes
Ship:UseECM() returns recharge time and success state.
Update COMPILING.txt, and add Doxygen support

Fixes
Fix trade ship without atmoshield causing crash in system with only stations on worlds with atmosphere
Fix crash when clicking a view change button (F1-F4) while a new-ui message box is being displayed
Zoom out button before zoom in in system,sector,galactic view
Fix an Exit Game widget crash.
Fix bad faction colour only being applied to uninhabited
Destroy Hyperspace clouds after 2 days of ingame time
Fix system view ship crash
Fix refreshing assertion in SystemInfoView
Fix unnecessary limit on ship base price
Fix crash from TradeShips trying to serialize dead ships
Fix Fuel club discount not being applied

Fly (and sail) safe commanders!

[Miggy4000]

I think it's high time for a Pioneer update! The "January" build has just been uploaded to ModDB and Pioneer's own site too. Mac OSX & Linux versions also available. Highlights for this month include more code tweaks and....new stations. Here have a peek.







Also, here is the changelog for this month. Lots of good work by the dev team, do please try it out.

Changelog

For January 2015. Full changelog.

• New Features
  • Many point stars on starless galaxy (#3321)
• Fixes
  • Fix 3310 (#3312)
  • Fix 3313 (#3316)
  • Fix Ship: onShipEquipmentChanged (#3326)
  • Ship launch thrust timer fix (#3330)
  • Fix the UI strange rendering (#3332)
  • Update the ToolTip text layout (#3334)
  • Prevent issue #3340 assert (#3341)
• Internal Chnages
  • Remove DrawPoints & DrawLines methods (#3303)
  • Dummy renderer for headless tools (#3306)
  • Fix scanner drawing post-load (#3309)
  • Faster text buffer rendering (#3304)
  • Ignore any sgm files in the repository (#3315)
  • Faster deduplication of collision data (#3319)
  • Stop vs2013 using the whole program optimisation (#3333)
  • Equipment strings moved to new translation module (#3295)
  • modelcompiler no GL, no SDL, build support for compiled models (#3339)
• Optimisation
  • Animation interpolation optimisation (#3327)
  • Ship nearby optimise (#3328)

Fly (and sail) safe out there Commanders!

[Miggy4000]

Ahoy there Sub Simmers!
Back again with another monthly update for you. It should be live on ModDB shortly. Do please give it a go.
And here is the change list below for this month, good work by its every busy dev team.

For March 2015. Full changelog.

Fixes

Fix modelcompiler
Attempt to avoid calling methods on a nil object
Fix missing specular highlights
Fix compilation of planetrings shader

New Features

Mouselook for internal camera
Migrating the save-game serialisation from a binary flat file to JSON

Internal Changes

Fix VS2013 profiling configuration
Rendering statistics
Instanced model rendering for cities
Update the sgm file version

[Miggy4000]

Hi there Subsim fans!
Another update for you, the "August" build. The dev team have once again outdone themselves in adding ever more content and the usual bug smashing. So have a look at the changlog below.

For August 2015. Full changelog.

• New Features
  • Orbital planner got some new features (#3426)
• Fixes
  • Fix NAN for planned orbit (#3437)
  • Fix math typo (#3440)
• Internal Changes
  • Changed/removed some non-portable C++11 usage (#3444)

• Also a special appeal on behalf of the dev team: Pioneer needs someone out there to assist in the creation of a build for the Mac using the latest source code. Can you help? If so please contact the dev team via GitHub.

Finally here is a screenshot for a rare planet in the game with 3 moons in a tri-star system. Note you can see the shadow on one of it's moons displayed on the surface.




Have fun out there folks!

[Miggy4000]

And I just remembered about an Elite clone but made for Android devices. It's called Alite and is itself based on that other famous Elite clone Oolite. Its free and is available either on its own site here or on the Google Play store here. It's been recently updated too (1.1). It was a 400 meg download the last time I tried it so that could give you an idea of how much content it has.
And finally here is a screenshot to give you an idea what it looks like.


Fly and sail safe out there Commanders!