SpaceSimCentral

The Pioneer development team are pleased to announce the release of Pioneer Alpha 16. Builds for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are available for download from the download page. This release mainly focuses on cleanups, with a huge number of bugs, memory leaks and stability problems fixed. Of course we always have to include a few new features so you'll also find cargo scooping, an improved HUD and a couple of new ships.Follow Pioneer on Google+: http://pioneerspacesim.net/+New features[*:pfxyx9t0]New ships: "Wave Heavy Hypersonic Fighter" and "Turtle" (#558, #657)[*:pfxyx9t0]Cargo scooping (#585, #708)[*:pfxyx9t0]Target and velocity indicators now shown with directions at edge of screen if they are not directly in front (#750, #752)[*:pfxyx9t0]Scanner now shows different colours for different types of nearby object automatically adjusts range to show the most interesting objects in the best detail possible (#521)[*:pfxyx9t0]Spanish translation (#628)Minor changes and tweaks[*:pfxyx9t0]New assassination missions appear less often (#634)[*:pfxyx9t0]Translation infrastructure for Assassinations (#641), DonateToCranks (#658), GoodsTrader (#659) and DeliverPackage (#639)[*:pfxyx9t0]Targets can be selected from the system view (#503)[*:pfxyx9t0]Model cleanups and optimisations (#680, #675, #672, #674)[*:pfxyx9t0]New "temple" building (#664)[*:pfxyx9t0]Change non-local delivery mission reward calculation so that more urgent deliveries get higher rewards (#719)[*:pfxyx9t0]Ships will now emerge from hyperspace at a point "close" to the source system (#724)[*:pfxyx9t0]Jump duration estimate in sector view shown in days + hours (#738)[*:pfxyx9t0]Renamed "Panther" to "Caribou"[*:pfxyx9t0]Slightly improve model cache performanceFixes[*:pfxyx9t0]Optimise trade ship cargo management (#632)[*:pfxyx9t0]Ensure that stars in a binary pair do not overlap (#621, #627)[*:pfxyx9t0]Model optimisations (#666)[*:pfxyx9t0]modelviewer no longer crashes if invalid model name is given on command line (#669, #670)[*:pfxyx9t0]Fix hyperspace behaviour after game load[*:pfxyx9t0]Lua onGameEnd event now fires when game ends after player destruction (#684)[*:pfxyx9t0]Remember sectorview info box visbility state across view switches and game saves (#685)[*:pfxyx9t0]Don't pollute the global Lua namespace with translation functions (#696)[*:pfxyx9t0]Fix assassination crash on mission completion/failure (#692, #694)[*:pfxyx9t0]Fix delivery crash on dock[*:pfxyx9t0]Model LOD switches now calculated correctly based on screen wdith (#704)[*:pfxyx9t0]Fix potential deadlock in terrain generator (#661)[*:pfxyx9t0]Initialise stock levels for equipment above the station's tech level (#719)[*:pfxyx9t0]Trade ships only check trade prices in surrounding systems if it has starports (#728)[*:pfxyx9t0]Determine damaged caused by collision between two ships using the other ship's mass, not our own (#732, #733)[*:pfxyx9t0]Missile collisions will no longer cause damage (the explosion will though) (#734)[*:pfxyx9t0]Prevent SystemBody.parent from crashing when the underlying StarSystem is no long in memory (#729)[*:pfxyx9t0]Fix material use in ship landing lights (#656, #705)[*:pfxyx9t0]Fix screenshot crashes (#742, #727, #645)[*:pfxyx9t0]"Repair 1% hull" display correct % and cost when hull has <1% damage (#748, #467)[*:pfxyx9t0]Fix error capture from filter functions to EquipType.GetEquipTypes, ShipType.GetShipTypes and Space.GetBodies when called from console (#764)[*:pfxyx9t0]Objects on the scanner now positioned correctly (#521)[*:pfxyx9t0]Only randomise goods trader stock levels when bulletin board is created (#772, #776)[*:pfxyx9t0]Clear breakdown servicing state on game start to avoid state leak between games (#775)Script changes[*:pfxyx9t0]Modules moved into dedicated subdirs with their translation files (#640)[*:pfxyx9t0]Module translations (#640)[*:pfxyx9t0]LMR get_arg() and get_arg_string() replaced with several special purpose functions. "Stringy" constants now in use (#650, #586, #582, #688, #689, #690, #709)[*:pfxyx9t0]Serializer support for Lua-based objects (#715)[*:pfxyx9t0]New SystemBody.population attribute (#726)[*:pfxyx9t0]Ship.GetEquip and Ship.SetEquip changed to 1-based indexing (#719)[*:pfxyx9t0]SystemBody now has several new attributes for body size and orbital parameters (#760, #754)Internal changes[*:pfxyx9t0]Cleanups, leaks fixed and general code improvements (#635, #637, #665, #729, #753, #743, #741, #761, #762)[*:pfxyx9t0]Windows build optimisations (#636, #758)[*:pfxyx9t0]Improve terrain generation performance[*:pfxyx9t0]Run Lua timers from the physics loop, which should help to make frame times a little more consistent[*:pfxyx9t0]Remove deprecated EquipType::types list (#642)[*:pfxyx9t0]Show Lua memory usage in debug info (#638)[*:pfxyx9t0]Limit number of physics updates between render updates (#671)[*:pfxyx9t0]scan_enums.py preprocessor to generate string->enum mappings (#716, #686, #723)[*:pfxyx9t0]Camera and rendering refactor (#744)

WOW, that was a surprise robn. I forgot it was near Alpha release time again.

Hi Team,Just a quick note to say that the OSX build of alpha16 has now been uploaded. Cheers,Phil.

HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!! new version out already *downloads*@anyone .......with geraldines comment how often are these things getting released then .......then i know when to look out for them next timeEDIT .....btw awesome work

spike1984 wrote:
how often are these things getting released then
We release a new alpha on the second Friday of every month. Alpha 17 will be released on 9 December.

I must say, for an open source project you guys are driving one hell of an organized schedule! *tips hat*

robn wrote:


spike1984 wrote:
how often are these things getting released then
We release a new alpha on the second Friday of every month. Alpha 17 will be released on 9 December.
hey thats my brothers birthday lol ...................thanks for that robyn

congrats alpha 16 looks great

@ Spike 1984Just to add to robn's comment, if you look at his signature you will also see an option for "nighty builds". These are dev builds where you will find the very latest features being tested before going into the main monthly Alpha. Handy if you want a sneak peek on whats coming up next And yes Uncle Bob, robn and the team certainly are well organised and very serious in their commitment to the project. Upon its completion (if there can ever be such a thing when thinking about Pioneer) I would expect the dev team will have their doors being beaten down by the big game studios wanting to employ them all. At least, that is what I hope will happen as in my mind, they all throughly deserve it.

I just wanted to put this up on the forum to check for confirmation before making it an issue on github. I have to re-assign joystick axises every time I start the game. It's not that it doesn't remember the configuration, it's that it simply doesn't seem to recognise the joystick after startup before I assign axises again (buttons work fine).By the way, is there thruster support planned?

UncleBob wrote:
I just wanted to put this up on the forum to check for confirmation before making it an issue on github.
Always stick it on Github. We have a dedicated person (me!) whose task is to find duplicate issues, categorise them and so on, so you're not actually going to be making extra work for the devs if it's already a known issue.We do know that input support isn't quite what it could be. (-: