Phoenix 0.0.4 WIP
2recent wip of my pioneer "Phoenix" release.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eorl6z5nwjh11b6/Phoenix0.0.4_Pioneer31.zip?dl=0
it's quite a long and boring clip but it shows what is to expect if you start "phoenix", some boring deliveries to gain your first money which will allow you to buy some equipment like an autopilot.
there is no getting around this (except you are a miserable cheater) and you will have to learn how to cotrol a spaceship in "wired flight" (computer controlled flight mode). depending on the system you start which will be a random location (recently of a table of selected locations) for each new start of the game you gain more or less for each delivery, this is bound to the distance of the delivery targets. as you can see i gain some 900 credits which even isn't enough to buy me an autopilot so i would have first to make a second delivery until i can afford one. you will make only slow progress and are bound to the starting system with the shuttles (one of recently 5 possible ships to start with, you can change the ship if you leave the game to the main menue and restart at the same location) because they can't use a hyperdrive, shuttles are ment only for interplanetary purposes and neither can have have defensive or offensive weapons, with exception for the "mining vessel" which would allow to fit a pulse laser, respectively a mining laser, which is imho far to expensive to make any sense. a mining laser can't be used as a weapon (hardly) because the cadence (shot freq.) is to low for such a use thus i have to lower the price of the mining laser and scoop device in future to give mining a sense.
unfortunately i can't tell pioneer it's a non-removable part of the ship, this would be the best solution for this and i could equip the "mining vessel" properly without the possibility that a player can simply sell this equipment to gain money (it's to think about to make scoops and mining lasers to a fixed part of certain ships, that would be a better solution in any aspect, you like to have a scoop? you need to obtain a special ship for this. recently certainly i can restrict ships from a scoop mounting but i can't make such to a non removable part of the ship and like i said it would allow to give ships like the "mining vessel" a special purpose in the game). mining isn't worth much, the best you can reach are a couple of credits for "precious metals", but personally i would like even to live as a miner until i gained enough money for a better ship. however some 20'000 to 30'000 credits is a lot of money if you gain between 25 and 1000 credits for each delivery. a quite hard life for "jameson" to become a somebody, in this or any other way, as soon you can afford a "radar mapper" you can contract even to interplanetary scout (reconnaissance) missions. interplanetary taxi missions are planned but i have to write them first. you will spend an afternoon or two of playing until you are wealthy enough to buy a fighter which will allow you to leave your home.
very unlike to "pioneer" or other space games you don't start as "grosskotz" (boaster) with a super ship and super duper weapons, you start as nobody which you truely are.
of course you can cheat and give yourself a lot of money using CTRL-M, but likewise to start with a superfast fighter this will spoil the game.
the ships are in general quite lame and fully loaded not many can accelerate more as roundabout 10G. exclusions are the tiny fighters like the "rapier" or my x-wing clone "XF-MKI" but unfortunately they come with a military drive by default and because i added the price of the engine to the cost of the ship they are quite expensive. far to expensive for you commander jameson.
in general:
less is more (fun to play)
"Phoenix" is named phoenix because it reflects what i expected of "Pioneer" when i joined the project in 2009 (i guess it was). i also like the FE2 like minimal HUD, more isn't needed and i see no reason for i.e. an artificial horizon for a spaceship. them are spaceships and no airplanes, you woun't need that for a spaceship your trim plays absolutely no role.
less is more :)
As you can see you have the option to start at "Sol" (not recommended), if you peep into "data/ui/MainMenu.lua" you can change this quite easy by just changing the name "Sol" in "local yourpath = fixedpath('Sol')" to any of the system names in the above table "StartLocations". this will allow you to start at a given location you prefere.
"Phoenix" writes userdata to a own folder in your "documents" directory so it won't conflict with "Pioneer" or other releases of "Pioneer".
for questions and suggestions visit:
"Space Sim Central/Forums/Free SciFi Gaming Projects/Pioneer/“Phoenix” (former Sputnik)"
http://spacesimcentral.com/forums/topic/phoenix-former-sputnik