Request:

We need better landing images. Full 3d art is preferred, 2d art would be fine, but stylized landscape photography (that isn't compressed) will also work.

Argument:

A big stylistic issue in Endless Sky is the fact that all of the landing images are stock photos under .jpg compression. Although the loss is barely noticeable, when it does catch your eye it is problematic.

Another aspect of this is the clashing of styles from overworld to landing. The overworld (in space) images don't look nearly realistic enough to justify photorealistic landings.

To make matters worse, all of the landings are clearly earth-like, even on truly alien planets.

A solution we came to is temporary. I will be stylizing and pushing all the current stock photos. However, what we really need is to replace all the current stock photos with either our own, lossless, photography, or with 3d created landscapes. The former is considerably easier to do than the latter, so we might stepping-stone this out.

For now, however, we will be sticking with the plan of a simple stylization of the current stock photos, and just attempting to ignore the compression images that arise from that.

Introduction
Given that this project is a chance to fix the things that Endless Sky is having trouble fixing, we have the opportunity to demo this. Converting all the data files to XML will make it easier to develop tools to accelerate content creation (like ESMB), make it easier to extend the game itself, and is just better practice than what already exists in the source code.

Describe the solution you'd like

1. Rewrite the Data Format in XML

2. Update the source code to read in the new XML files

3. Convert all game data files to the new XML formatting

Additional context

1. I will attach examples of what the XML data files will look like as I get to them

2. Per my announcement on the Discord about this, there is a bounty for whoever successfully completes this pull request.

as soon as i leave the ships i am escorting break formation and spin endlessly in random directions

Describe the bug

I've noticed on my playthrough credits occasionally going negative while on a planet. After a number of incidences I've narrowed it down to happening when I buy commodities. At first I thought it was just a cool glitch... but I've just now noticed that the commodities are costing me way more than they should, and I think that's why it's letting me buy into the negative.

To Reproduce

In the attached save file, clicking buy all will fill your hold. Then, sell all will sell it all, but cost you money. Clicking buy all again after this puts you into the negative.

Expected behavior

• Commodities should cost as much as they say they should cost.
• Selling commodities shouldn't cost you money (unless the price is negative for some reason, which hey, could happen, look at oil last year)
• It might be undesirable (but not necessarily unrealistic) to perform a transaction that would result in negative credits.

Screenshots

In this screenshot, I just bought one ton of metal that cost me 30,810 credits. This is the state of the save file below:

After performing the steps described above (including a quit and reload), I am now in negative credits:

I'm uh, not sure what happened to the freighter I was escorting in the previous screenshot... that might be a whole separate issue.

I believe Buy All was greyed out when I quit the game before, but upon loading the game to take that screenshot, it is not greyed out despite my being in negative credits. Clicking Buy All from here sells all my metal and finally leaves me in a state where I am unable to buy or sell.

System (please complete the following information):

• OS: Devuan GNU/Linux 3 (beowulf)
• Game Source: nightly
• Version: current master at 2b3231f I think

Link to save file

Lia Somberworth.zip

As the vast majority of you know, since starting chemotherapy I have been virtually unable to work on this game. Truth is I just feel like total trash all the time. Working on ESS took too much of my willpower even when I was feeling well.

The shame of it all is that we're so close to being done that we could, theoretically, meet the deadline of August or September first. We just need the story content finished and things like unique fleets expanded on, which honestly shouldn't even be hard. I already have the storyboards made and plans for nearly every aspect of the content, I just can't do it by myself.

I want to publicly thank literally everyone who has worked on ESS, even if the contribution was a simple copy-and-paste fix, and want it to be known that I am neither giving up on nor abandoning the project. I just wanted to be honest with everyone as to why the content suddenly stopped coming from me, and wanted to be honest with myself that I need additional help.

Thank you for understanding, and thank you for your time.

Current cloak behavior is good for current human fighters with their poor cloaking tech, however for more advanced cloak tech and techniques (ie. Strafing runs), it would be better to have a way to determine if it gets used in such a manner or not Has been brought up by Zitchas on the Discord

Currently this issue is largely as a reminder of this being something I need to implement, however if anyone else wishes to do so I will be pleased. In addition, I would love for people's ideas on this to be added to here.

Currently, the R&D subplot lacks depth, and only really serves to give the player new weapons after 5 minutes of work:

Meet Barmy->Test Plasma Turret->Get Plasma Turret->Test Flamethrower->Get Flamethrower->Get Capital Ship

Boring. Barmy deserves more screen time. The new structure will look like this:

Bring Hardware to Kraz->Meet Barmy->Plasma Turret Storyline->Get Plasma Turret->Flamethrower Storyline->Get Flamethrower->Capital Ship Testing Storyline->Get Capital Ship

This adds 3 new storylines, to better flesh out the realities of wartime R&D.

Plasma Turret Storyline

The components you brought to Barmy work, and the plasma turret is ready for an initial live-fire test. Barmy asks the player to help, using the current mission (FW Plasma Testing) with a few tweaks to the dialog. Extensions are as follows:

• When the player returns, Barmy asks them to come back in a few days, to give him time to go over the data from the test. After a few days, Barmy tells the player that the test was successful, but their best coolant system isn't enough to keep the turret operation in a real battle. Given enough time, Barmy could design a new system, or the player could negotiate a contract for an already existing cooling system from Tarazed Corp.

  • Declining to negotiate for the new system gives a delay in the availability, similar to the current delay.
  • Accepting starts a new quest (FW Coolant Negotiations), upon completion, the turrets are immediately available.

• FW Coolant Negotiations: Player heads to Tarazed, and meets a Tarazed Corp. rep there. The rep rejects their initial offer. The player comes back the next day and offers more, but is rejected again. After the rejection, a stranger appears and offers to sell the schematics for a couple million credits.

  • Declining: The player comes back the next day, and the highest offer is finally rejected.
  • Accepting: The player gets a mission to return with the schematics. The schematics are illegal and the player should be attacked by security if caught with them.

Flamethrower Storyline

After a similar delay to start this mission (FW Flamethrower), The player is summoned to Kraz by Barmy. Barmy asks the player to help test a flamethrower, using the current mission (FW Flamethrower 2) with a few tweaks. Extensions are as follows:

• When the player returns, Barmy asks them to come back in a few days, to give him time to go over the data from the test. After a few days, Barmy tells the player that the test was successful and then new coolant systems worked here too, but it uses too much fuel too quickly. He asks the player to negotiate for a fuel siphon regulator from the Tarazed Corporation.
  • Declining: The current delay before giving the player access to the turret
  • Accepting: Starts a new mission (FW Fuel Siphon Regulator), upon completion, the flamethrowers are immediately available.
• FW Fuel Siphon Regulator: Depends on what the player did the previous mission
  • A) Paid for the parts: Player offers to pay for them, and the offer is accepted
  • B) Stole the schematics: Tarazed has a fleet of enemies that shoot on sight. Once the player kills them or lands, they are charged 4M credits for the Fuel Siphon Regulator. Alternatively, if the player doesn't have the money, they can loot the part from the hostile ships.

Capital Ship Testing Storyline

About a month after the acquisition of the flamethrowers, the player is contacted by Barmy, and asked to come to Kraz. Upon arriving, Barmy explains that the final test models of the new line of FW warships is complete, and they want to test the integration of the plasma turrets and flamethrowers onto the new ships.

• FW Integration Testing 1: Add test ship as a combat escort with plasma cannons, then go fight a pirate
• FW Integration Testing 2: Add test ship as a combat escort with flamethrowers, then go fight a pirate
• FW Integration Testing 3: Add test ship as a combat escort with plasma cannons and a flamethrower, and a couple Furies with flamethrowers, then go fight a pirate. Upon returning, Barmy thanks you and tells you that the headroom left over is enough for "some big-ass ship the kids over at Southbound are cookin' up"
  • Completing unlocks the ships you've been testing

Notes

Given that I'm working on ESMB, I don't have time to actually write out the missions, so I need someone to actually do all the writing out. I'd be happy to provide feedback on the details, this is just a rough draft of what the overhauled story should looks like.

Is this a total conversion mod? Seems like it after reading credits.txt.

I plan to update upstream endless sky so that core game data can be disabled. That would enable total conversion mods to switch to being plugins for ES instead of having to rebuild the game from scratch.

Would this be useful for your use case?

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Ships in formations will break formation whenever a hostile ship is detected, without the player having any ability to decide under what conditions ships should break formation

Related Issue Links
Has anyone else had this issue or idea? Share some links to those Issues, Google Group threads, or Steam forum posts

Describe the solution you'd like
A setting (in the settings panel) to choose from two or more behaviors for breaking formation. A simple on/off switch for whether or not to break formation would suffice, but more detailed options (never, when close, on aggro) would be preferable

Describe alternatives you've considered
A keybind to toggle current behavior could replace or augment the setting (like with ammo usage for escorts)
A more sophisticated automatic system to decide when to leave formation could also solve the issue