Pioneer

Pioneer is a space adventure game set in the far future in our galaxy.

Players may choose their path as traders, explorers, pirates or bounty hunters. There are several factions, each faction having an extensive history and social system described on the Pioneer Wiki.

Once being a clone of Elite II: Frontier, the game is now becoming a new game, still in the spirit of Frontier but with new ships, stations, factions and improvements in the GUI and other areas of the game.

Story
Pioneer is not intended to have a hand crafted, overarching story but rather procedurally generated missions. More than that, the player is not treated as a central heroic figure who can change the course of the universe but a simple individual around whom the universe does not revolve.

Setting
Pioneer takes place in a procedurally generated universe with millions of stars.

A planet can have several cities, which in gameplay terms count as stations for landing.

Flight
Flight mechanics in Pioneer are Newtonian, an unusually realistic choice compared to the Aristotelian mechanics preferred by other space sims (such as Oolite) for gameplay reasons. This choice makes multiplayer impractical to implement due to the necessity of time acceleration mechanics. All told, the developers aim to strike what they consider a balance between realism and playability. Not only the player ship but other bodies, follow Newtonian orbits.

There are two types of hyperdrive, using different grades of fuel.

Missions
Missions get posted at space stations.

Development model
Pioneer is developed using the git model. The major decisions, however, are made in privacy by a core team which calls itself "benevolent dictators".

Mods
Pioneer supports mods.