Pioneer dev forum

I think I've got the new (to me!) tools figured out, had real world stuff too, though... oh well. So I've got some basic design concepts still to work out... and actually the design possibilities have opened up in general, I guess that's just how it goes when you learn blender as you go, eh? :) So I...

Cool, thanks for the tips... just got back from a visit with the folks, why I didn't get back to you earlier. So... how would you go about setting up an elliptical Hull layout? The sphere works for the most part but you are certainly right about making certain jobs harder later on... As to the Ship ...

So I've got a few rough models of a ship design I'm working on. It's a flattened and stretched spheroid "Lifting Body" aerodyne with cargo and fuel scooping capability speacialized for the Jovian environment. Because it's meant primarily to fly quickly between various bodies within a small...

Anyone looked at FracPlanet? I played around with it a while back, might have some useful ideas or code...
http://www.bottlenose.demon.co.uk/share/fracplanet/

With a tractor system (beam, cable, clamp...) another interesting possibility would be rescues... some poor schmuck runs out of fuel and is falling towards the local star... grab him before he burns up and nudge him up to a stable orbit? Or serving as "Stage 1" for a courier... boost him u...

This could replace the current Cargo Scoop, make collecting cargo by running into it something that all ships can do but make Grapplers/Tractor Beams an optional extra that makes it WAY easier to just grab everything in the area... also a Mass Driver / Pusher Beam (or just an optional mode for the G...

How much focus on Planetary environments do we actually need in a Space Sim? What is the "Baseline Environment" for the game? Earthlike worlds? Martian Worlds? Tiny Moonlets? Asteroids? Orbital Stations? Jovian Systems? Planetary Ring Systems? Just throwing out a mess of ideas :) Seriously...

Aerodynamic lift and control would make a HUGE difference when operating in or near a Gas Giant's atmosphere, not just your puny Rocky Planets :D
It also brings up an old question from a while back... if we can have Aerodynes why not Tailsitters?

Moving Parts, eh?

Does collision with parts on OTHER ships work? :D

The scaling does seem a bit off to me, higher rated hyperdrives getting exponentially more massive... maybe the curve should be the other way, with bigger hyperdrives getting more mass efficient with scale. Small ships can only make short hops even with a hyperdrive taking hyp most of the hold, big ...