Minor bug fixes and some new feature.
The site was also updated, with better project documentation.
Barring any large bugs this should be the final update in the current series.
Next release would likely be about planets, with better and more honest-to-description generation.
I also hope to get something on the surface soon - rocks, grass, trees, etc.
Buildings other than gates are possible, but unlikely.
Where are the sources? - Would be released as soon as the situation stabilizes, most likely by the end of the coming week.
Thanks again for everyone who reported bugs.
Full changelog:
-Slowboat vessel added
-Gateship vessel added
-Point to point stargates implemented
-Added current galaxy checkbox to the log
-Various cleanups all over the code
-Fixed potential hangs on system leaving
-Fix for handling wrong and empty addresses
-Fixed warp mode handling and speed limit
-Fixed local dial by long address
-Final fixes for all kinds of stargate bugs
-Fixed OGLA message overlap
-Fixed stencil crash for zero-length group meshes
Not much bug fixes this time, mostly visual stuff.
But a few new features -
Lights: keys 1 through 9 turn headlights on and off, stargates are lit, thrusters are lit, etc.
F11-2 to enable.
Help: Press H to read controls help.
Full changelog:
-Fixed intergalactic no motion bug
-Ice quantity fixes
-Fixed stars and sky visibility at night
-Some fixes and improvements to warp_ship
-Some fixes about lights for stargates
-Fix for points on hidden vessels
-Stargate distance fix
-Better notes and translation, internal help made more obvious
-Multilight off notice
-Warp speed limits, Rapier can go no faster than light speed
-Warp ship can now carry a Rapier, and have no speed limit
-Added lights defined in cfg files
-Stargate refuels ships
-Stargates are lit
-Vessels can define lights, for headlamps and thrusters
-Exhaust streams added (Courtesy Orbiter space sim for texture)
-Better walking
Another set of bug fixes.
These mostly address crashes and out-of-memory errors that plagued the few recent releases.
Thanks for everyone who reported bugs, now SpaceWay should hopefully be crash-free.
Full changelog:
-Stargate and vessel sizes adjusted
-Zoom limit in star block
-Fixed memory leaks
-Fixed insides not releasing stars
-Fixed MFD keys not working every now and then
-Fixed all random crashes (i hope), grand bugfixing of stars and gates
-Shadows fix for hidden objects
-Info screen fix for planet rotation rate
-Fixed crash from changing vessel from interstellar space
-Fixed bugs with selection of vessels, gpscross and hazmsh
Several bug fixes over the yesterday's release, most importantly it fixes the rounding issues the different CPUs have.
Now planets should have proper rotation rate on all computers, and there will be day at the default site (if anyone else had a problem wioth night at start).
Just in case, i've includes several other scenarios, in orbit and in deep space, to allow for playability even in case of bugs or low performance.
Also, a few accumulated nicities were added.
Full changelog:
-Fixed rounding discrepancy (night at start bug)
-Fixed Markers menu
-Fixed multiple insides lagging behind bug
-Fixed vessels from another planet being shown on the map
-The log window now shows description and planet info
-The gate now detects current galaxy in full address and does regular checks
SWGR:
-CB info is now given by star_sector (in SWGR for the moment)
-Fixed solar system block in SWGR
-Added planet information to solar system block
Bugfixes, bugfixes, BUG FIXES!
It's all about fixing bugs.
And there were lots of them, with full changelog below.
Except for that, there are some playability improvements.
You can now leave the ships, to ride on a rover or walk around.
You can now safely keep things anywhere in the galaxy and send unfocused vessels thru the gates.
You can gate between galaxies (but take a hyperdrive with you just in case)
You can play it, and fly around what now is a fully infinite universe.
I hope there's not much bugs left, but i can't be sure without second opinions.
The overview of the features, new and old, can be seen in the video:
Some controls and quick-start for default scenario:
-Press E to enter a vehicle
-Numpad 8 and 2 controls walker/vehicle acceleration, num 1 and 3 steer
-Numpad Ins key is jumping
-To leave a vehicle, select the one, who would be leaving (F3 menu), and press D
-The stargate is operated by G key. In default scenario it is preset to the planet where a starship is parked. Key A opens the addres input menu. Key L opens the planet log.
-The autopilot is pre-set to take a spaceship to orbit. It is selectable from F5 menu. Run the program by pressing Shift (on the side the screen is)+G.
Full changelog:
-Added ability to enter and leave vessels
-Every vessel have a category and a list of categories it can carry.
-Added Rover and rover mesh
-You can walk around at 100x (tested at 65FPS or so)
-Added walking mode (walk and jump).
-Added nice mmu vessel
-Made the sky dimmer (looks better)
-Internal camera can spin inside the cockpit
-Cockpit can be made visible
-Balanced far and near texture generation, should exclude holes in planet when in near-first generation mode
-Resetting texture size to CPU in case of no GPU support found (CPU fallback now work properly)
-Option to simplify functions for planets, for slower PC's
-Flatlands around stargates
-Infinite universe (looped)
-Speed limit: 1000000 ly/sec
-Cleared up intergalactic speeding artefacts
-Changes to camera and mesh handling
-Camera can now be positioned inside the vessel by cfg
-Vessels now have defined landing gear offset
-HUD and info disappears with the rest on I key
-Added Home key, to center camera
-Added full path enumeration to the log records (includes galaxy prefix).
-Added more info to moon info page.
-Accelerated and cleaned stargate target world type look up.
-Save stargate address in the state file.
-Recovered terran planet appearance
-Planet generation reconstruction
-Synced craters between the GPU and CPU, thanks to "Neptune"'s crater noise function.
-Added support for physics of many stars, by virtue of locked stars tracking
--(Now you can leave a ship in orbit around a planet of one star and be off exploring other stars, with it staying where it should be)
-Intergalactic gate travel added
-Fixed axial tilt 90 skew.
-Fixed own rotation jump on each orbit.
-Fixed a bunch of old gate-related bugs (non-focused can go thru ok)
-Fixed collision detection in non-visible systems.
-Fixed random crash on load
-Fixed double locking in stargate travel (dialing locked the star to check planets, but never released it, and the gate transfer locked the star twice)
-Fixed a bug with newly created vessel considering itself in interstellar space.
-Fixed slowdown due to excessive attempts of lgts op to find the file at every frame.
-Made the lrandom thread-safe (fixed many palnet inconsistency issues).
-Fixed crash on system reentry
-Fixed in-galaxy camera inside following outside rotation
-Fixed a bunch of autopilot crashes
-Fixed a bunch of random crashes
-Fixed detection of GPU capability (no more transparent and blank planets on less capable cards)
-Fixed double locking
-Fixed stargate texture blops
-Fixed Orbit screen picking up target all the time
-Fixed camera issues in graphics
-Fixed some translogic issues
SWGR:
-Vessel following in star block
-Vessel and it's velocity is drawn in star view
-Fixed grid transparency in both 3D views
-Scalable tabs
-Fixed tab switching causing events into the blocks
-Added lines toggle to stars
-Added centering to both stars and gals
-Added galaxy display
-The planet map now can zoom and scroll
-Continuous starblock drawer
12.09.2010
Alpha from 100912 was released, adding both technically and in playability.
This release is more technical than niceful - a new texture generation scheme was introduced, generating them on GPU.
But the textures themselves have degraded somewhat in process.
Only terran planets look better, other classes now lack the nice craters.
Changes since 100831 are:
-Option for shaders to generate textures instead of software (much faster, much buggier)
-Lines on planets in GPU mode are fixed by turning off the anisotropic filtering
-Rayleight scattering partial support
-Moon markers appear only when close
-Vessel scripting support
-Wooden warp ship vessel, with some scripted effects
-Refuelling space station that refuels
-Loading screens
-Options screen
-Launch menu
-Ability to redefine menu colors
-Cleared up F11 menu
-Targetting stars from log on starscape
-Saving target to state
-Save fuel to state
-Sea specular masking
-Tuned atmospheric limits, better looking haze from space
-Fixed planets-go-black issues
-Fixed gigantic mountain problems potentially appearing on some planets
-Fixed autopilot and system leaving saved state crash potential
-Fixed vessel names vanishings
-Fixed marker mis-location with extreme zooms
-Fixed marker disappearances
-Fixed crash on state load if the vessel is just outside a solar system
-Made nearest star marker camera-dependent
And, some screenshots:
05.09.2010
One more known issue - if you flew some autopilot commands, then left the solar system and saved state,
there is a chance that the game will crash on attempted reload of that state. To fix it, remove :UAP: section from the state file.
04.09.2010
A known issue - if planets appear black from space or at certain altitude, you can fix it by disabling air haze (F11, 6).
31.08.2010
Second patch, alpha from 100831, was released, fixing another set of recent bugs and adding a few nicities.
Changes since 100830 are:
-Fixed various input problems from 100830
-"Manual" is now an overview, and somewhat more consistent. Also contains an autopilot quickstart tutorial
-Restored fine thrust controls for mains/retro/hovers (Ctrl+...)
-Added confirmations to critical buttons
-Enlarging stellar navigation crosses as you close in
-Fixed input callback (UAP)
-Fixed input in navigation mode
-Fixed autopilots and warp mode
-Fixed galaxy phantoms being drawn on galaxy leaving
-Fixed vessel markers between galaxies
-Fixed anaglyph rendering
-Fixed shadows in interstellar space
30.08.2010 - second
Please note that version 100830 was re-uploaded a few hours after release, fixing the problems with orientational thruster keys not working.
If you have this problem, please re-download.
30.08.2010
Alpha from 100830 released, fixing some bugs from yesterday, adding requested features and restoring non-windows platforms.
Downloadable from https://thespaceway.org/dwnld.php , all platforms.
However, be advised that 64 bit builds are still somewhat unstable. Autopilots are the worst.
Changes since 100829 are:
-Reassignable keys (Main menu->Keys)
-Changeable FOV, telescope mode
-Improved atmospheric coloration
-Fixed main menu button and resizing problem
-Fixed air lighting problems near secondary stars
-Fixed moon locating if there were solid planets skipped
-Fixed potential color overfill for the ground on Failed Cores
-Removed 90% of terrain microfracturing (blinking lines on the ground)
-Fixed hot house and failed core non-randomness
-Sky-horizon link on terran worlds
-Clouds, their shadows and air made consistent
-Better air/clouds/haze consistency
-Air-worlds look great
-Some improvements in planet generation
-Light textures (hot rocks magma)
-Warp mode near surface now works nicely
-Enlarged stargates
-Better interface
-Worlds log, allowing to record and recall visited planets
-Stargate controls & world log integration
-Trajectories of planets and vessels
-Better option and feature controls interface
-Menus are mouse-controllable
-Separate marker classes control
And, some screenshots:
--Trajectories of planets and vessels can be displayed:
--World log and generally better interface:
--Hot and magmatic worlds are now giving off light:
--Better airfull worlds
--The views into distance on planets are now much better:
28.08.2010
Development continues along many lines.
Among the key improvements are:
--Better interface, no need to remember a hundred keys and navigate claustrophobic menus with them.
All major functions are now mouse controlled as well, in large and intuitive menus.
--Matching up the colors and removing discontinuities. The distant hazes now match the sky, clouds match the haze, and murkiness in the air match the clouds.
As a result, the views into distance on planets are now much better:
And planets with dense air now look believable. You can dive into a sea of air, and won't see a thing :)
--Finally, some new planet types, like the Terran classes:
Yet to come before approaching new release are some more interface and playability improvements, hopefully allowing one to actually enjoy the sim instead of flying in the dark.
Stay tuned, Spaceway may be slow, but it's never dead.
Screenshots page is likely to be more often updated than the news log, btw.
And that's where you can leave comments, if you wish.
30.03.2010
Alpha 100330 released.
--Fixed compilation on 64bit Linux.
--Fixed some quirks in Linux builds.
--Fixed interplanetary hiccups.
23.03.2010
Alpha 100323 released, adding autopilots for newtonian flights and a few fixes.
Also, version for Linux and source package were released.
21.02.2010
Alpha 100221 released, fixing gaps and stripes in 3D terrain rendering, and potentially fixing many crashes.
20.02.2010
Taking the usual intermittent while, the Spaceway alpha 100220 was made public today, along with a total site update.
Ideas, and quite a lot of everything else are welcome, in the SF forum/tracker or screenshots page.
There is still a lot of things to make and fix, but it can be considered playable at the moment, thus the release.
Old news:
15.04.2008
The SpaceWay universe slowly takes shape - a varienty of worlds with their own terrain, kind and look, star systems with lots of planets, galaxies with lots of stars...
The physics are mostly debugged, transitions cleaned, parameters balanced.
Several space ship meshes was provided for the project by Steve "Coolhand" Tyler and is now being integrated.
All in all, there goes big progress.
Status and Screenshots pages are updated with recent takes and data.
12.03.2008
Project description and development plans are uploaded, along with new in-dev screenshots.
11.03.2008
A lot of changes happened across the years.
The project is still alive, and some status updates are up on it's site now.
The development is still slow, and it's far from playable right now, but a progress never the less.
13.10.2005
The site is under construction.
It will remain in that state for about a week.
