StarLife - an indie sci-fi 4X in making

[orzelek]

Good example there on how not to do it is Shackleton Crater's Kickstarter. 0 Substance. No hope for anything. They sunk their game with the first paragraph. turn based realistic moon colonization. Wee... and they wanted how much for that?

How about bridge building simulator?

As a bit of bridge building fan I got that one.
I find it quite fun with two drawbacks:
1. Don't look at world records - you need to build bridges of insanity that crumble a bit (but don't fall down) to get into records. That part is quite silly for me since (IMHO) it should promote nice stable constructions not some freaky bridges.
2. UI gets a bit clunky especially when in advanced mode (issues with clicking on part you want - you need to click at the right spot etc.). And fact that roadway always gets auto-framed into wood/iron is a bit annoying.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I'm totally grabbing that bridge game on steam when it goes on deep enough sale.  I remember an old freeware one that was ridiculously fun.

Though I do agree that any records/high-scores table should have a separate section for "clean" bridges that don't suffer any structural failure during operation.  The ones that intentionally bust up (particularly those that spectacularly disintegrate while the train still gets across, sometimes catching air in the process) are a lot of fun but that's a very different pursuit than actually building a good, cost-efficient bridge.

[Cyborg]

Yea, I'm totally grabbing that bridge game on steam when it goes on deep enough sale.  I remember an old freeware one that was ridiculously fun.

Though I do agree that any records/high-scores table should have a separate section for "clean" bridges that don't suffer any structural failure during operation.  The ones that intentionally bust up (particularly those that spectacularly disintegrate while the train still gets across, sometimes catching air in the process) are a lot of fun but that's a very different pursuit than actually building a good, cost-efficient bridge.

It does look like a lot of fun, and it would be more so if the civil engineering were using real parameters. It doesn't look like $20 worth of fun, though. I have been having the same internal debate with kerbal space program. Is the lack of real parameters going to be a problem? Is Newtonian physics going to be annoying when we should be doing general relativity (this matters for elliptical orbits with rotating axes)? This is one of my complaints with universe sandbox. When you are trying to run real experiments using a game toolbox, it can be jarring when you know what the result should be, it isn't, and you lose the immersion/fun.

[eRe4s3r]

I can assure you, there is not a single bit of fun in KSP watching planets make their way through the kerbal system The fun is failing to get somewhere, retrying, failing, retrying, succeeding. Docking a huge 200 ton space-ship in space and moving it to a moon orbit. Mining fuel and returning it. Building shuttles and transfer systems, building RCS lifters for orbital cargo operations. Accidently crashing into your giant orbital space dock and having to clear a huge debris ring....

Anyhow, Bridge Project is not worth 20$
The physics are far inferior to that age old one.. ehm, Pontifex ? The way joints work is abysmal (You can't say what to connect to what joint specifically) joints are always bunched and the editing is no fun whatsoever because it has some control issues. And the actual bridges are not working how they should (indeed..)

There is a big different between KSP and Bridge Project.

KSP is fun because mostly anything you build works somewhat, the problem is that even newtonian physics are extremely difficult when you are traveling with 3000m/s. Planetary transfers are extremely difficult, tiniest miss and you drift of millions of KM. You need to learn yourself what works best, the game doesn't punish you for bad designs, it just makes you fail utterly and hilariously if you are missing something important. Like ladders, lots of people forget ladders that reach to the ground on landers.. hehe ;P

And KSP never wanted to simulate the universe, no engine on this planet can do that. And if it claims it can it lies. So if you don't think building rockets (with the thousands of mods) or planes (or rovers!), getting them somewhere and doing something with them is fun for you while controlling them yourself, then KSP is not yet for you. A campaign will surely add more stuff to do with more specific goals...

Anyhow.. StarLife.. anything new?

[Echo35]

I can assure you, there is not a single bit of fun in KSP watching planets make their way through the kerbal system The fun is failing to get somewhere, retrying, failing, retrying, succeeding. Docking a huge 200 ton space-ship in space and moving it to a moon orbit. Mining fuel and returning it. Building shuttles and transfer systems, building RCS lifters for orbital cargo operations. Accidently crashing into your giant orbital space dock and having to clear a huge debris ring....

You can mine? Granted all I've been doing so far is trying to become more and more efficient at orbital intercepts and docking so I don't end up blowing all my fuel just trying to get that far, and also attempting to make a space shuttle type craft that doesn't flip over and explode on launch.

[eRe4s3r]

You can scan for kethane,  mine kethane and convert to fuel with Kethane mod + Kerbal Attachment system (Mod) to get transfer established without docking ships via docking ports (since you don't want to lug around the HUGE converter and fuel tanks required every time..). Although they are usually for the latest version, no idea if it works with demo. Kethane works with 0.18.4 but I don't know if the demo allows mods. And you should always have Mechjeb and Romfarer mods, Mechjeb because it gives you absolutely vital data (and a superb "Smart ass" tool)

If you want a smart hint. Put RCS keys to the numpad 82 46 (up down, left right) and 9 forward, and 3 back. That way you have a perfect translation system for docking And always use RCS to accelerate or brake, thrust pushes objects that are in the direction of the thrust vector away and can even destroy parts. So you don't need to ever use fuel for orbital motion close to the object you wanna meet. circularize a good orbit below the object's orbit, move the planing tool node so that you get a sub 2km intersect and once you reach it, circularize again. At this point, all motion should be done with RCS (at best, RCS is placed in packs of 4 , 1 above the center of weight, as high as possible, and 1 below the center of weight, near the end of the ship. The smaller the fuel tank is in length the better (it often helps to put fuel tanks on metal poles and make em hold with them.. ehm, struts. Because it doesn't change your center of weight so much when the fuel tanks are spread along the natural center of weight. The more the RCS is off-set from the center of weight, the less it strafes, and the more it rotates. (not a good thing ,p)

Also remember you can switch with the <> keys to control other vessels close to you, so you can use that to rotate a station to a better position. Or line it up better...

As for space shuttle.. enable the display of the center of mass, if it isn't in the perfect center of your vessel then that is what causes your spin, (Also as you use fuel, the center of mass shifts...) the camera center when you rotate view in exterior view is the "absolute" center of mass (as a hint) so you can always see where it is. Of course, you will have to experiment ;p

Sidenote: Space shuttle is one of the hardest things to get right in KSP, you should go first for asparagus staging because that allows you to get much much more weight up in the sky. 70% more delta-v compared to just firing all at once like the space shuttle. (But you will have to control the launch manually or with surf-tool) .. you will see why if you try

Also KW Rocketry is absolutely vital. It gives you a lot more engine, solid fuel boosters and liquid fuel tank options. ^^ Basically, I only play KSP with lots of mods. The modding community is huge!

Also if you are wondering why I mention delta-v (You can't see it in native) Mechjeb shows you statistics for each stage (sometimes wrong ones, but mostly correct ones) you need about 5000m/s delta-v to get into a average height orbit, stabilize it and get back safely. 1300 more to get to a moon and back.  3000 more to get to another planet. (on average) I don't think launching with 8000m/s delta-v is going to be easy, so most people do a 3 ship thing, one control and fuel, other fuel and engines, and the last one the lander. F5 is quicksave, USE IT (Holding F9 reloads)

Also this mod
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/42909-Subassembly-Saver-Loader-Save-chunks-of-your-rockets-as-templates-etc

Absolutely vital if you build space ships that you dock together.

[Echo35]

I do have a bunch of mods installed, but the mining on is not one of them. I'll have to get on that (I went and bought the game, so I've been playing with all the parts so far. I got the aerodynamics fix as well).

[Hoverdog]

Anyhow.. StarLife.. anything new?

We're working hard on the demo.

Sorry for interrupting your discussion

[keith.lamothe]

Sorry for interrupting your discussion

It's ok, you're new here

I can assure you, there is not a single bit of fun in KSP watching planets make their way through the kerbal system

When you're launching planet-cracking warheads, it's a real drag when the simulation model's inaccuracy makes you hit a moon instead.


Does KSP have any modelling of what happens when significant masses hit planets at relativistic velocity?

[Echo35]

Does KSP have any modelling of what happens when significant masses hit planets at relativistic velocity?

I don't know if you CAN get to relativistic velocities with what's in the game. Once I get more competent at putting things into the exact orbits I want them in I'm going to build a gravity probe and test if the game models LaGrange points.

[eRe4s3r]

It can't model lagrange points - Planets use spherical falloff-based exclusive gravitation modeling, they do not use point based gravitational modeling. Hence, a single object is boolean part of 1 planet or another, it can't be part of 2 at the same time.

As always, it's because Unity does not support 64bit natively. Though there are other reasons why the game can't do that, one is that it had some PRETTY funky issues when you reached high speeds called the Kraken funnily... it was a glitch in Unity where if you exceeded a certain speed there was a TINY calculation error every step of the calculation which over time caused objects to move in slighty different ways apart (even if they were connected) That is what causes wobble, and why wobble can never be fully fixed in KSP (it's a unity glitch that is literally because of a lack of 64bit support) Since speed needs to be modeled in a certain way, the fix was beyond crazy.  But it works now ,) Anyhow, the reason I mention that speed issue is that this revealed a design flaw in Unity that can not be worked around entirely. (Although the Kraken was fixed, it also makes realistic simulation of the planetary system IMPOSSIBLE based on how it was fixed)

Needless to say, if you want hard-core simulation of space, buy a super computer and code one Unity can't do it, not even Unity 4 (Which still doesn't support 64bit natively..)

[Echo35]

Needless to say, if you want hard-core simulation of space, buy a super computer and code one Unity can't do it, not even Unity 4 (Which still doesn't support 64bit natively..)

To my knowledge, Orbiter can. I know the wiki makes a lot of mentions to flying around the solar system using Lagrange points to conserve fuel (Which is how they actually do it. Transfer burns suck a lot of gas).

[keith.lamothe]

As always, it's because Unity does not support 64bit natively. Though there are other reasons why the game can't do that, one is that it had some PRETTY funky issues when you reached high speeds called the Kraken funnily... it was a glitch in Unity where if you exceeded a certain speed there was a TINY calculation error every step of the calculation which over time caused objects to move in slighty different ways apart (even if they were connected) That is what causes wobble, and why wobble can never be fully fixed in KSP (it's a unity glitch that is literally because of a lack of 64bit support) Since speed needs to be modeled in a certain way, the fix was beyond crazy.  But it works now ,) Anyhow, the reason I mention that speed issue is that this revealed a design flaw in Unity that can not be worked around entirely. (Although the Kraken was fixed, it also makes realistic simulation of the planetary system IMPOSSIBLE based on how it was fixed)

Far be it from me to be able to object to someone else saying "we can't because Unity (blah blah blah)", but I think there may be some exaggeration in the telephone game here.  The memory limit could be an issue due to the volume of the coordinate space being modeled, but unless this is one very uncommonly-active solar system a great part of it could be left on disk at any given moment.

So it may be unfeasible, in terms of the performance cost of the methods involved, but I'm not understanding how it's actually impossible due to the 32-bit thing.

[eRe4s3r]

I am sorry to have confused you apparently I was playing the phone game a bit too much indeed I blamed Unity and it's 32bit platform for no reason by accident, what I meant was PhysX (The physics Engine KSP uses). Anyhow, rereading what the issue was (was ages ago..)

Since all physics in KSP go via PhysX all it's physic issues are because of that. The lagrange points can't be simulated because of a fix that had to be implemented to combat a (Very destructive) glitch in PhysX which involved a float precision issue related to speed. Basically, when you exceed certain speeds with certain amount of parts, physX didn't calculate the exact same speed for each part (even though it should do that). Essentially it is a problem of single precision floats hence 32bit floats, I was confusing this sorry ,)

And since PhysX doesn't support point physics the only way to simulate gravity wells is via spherical influence ranges. As I understand it, planets can interact with each other, but lagrange points don't work when 2 spherical influence ranges overlap in physX.

And yeah, this is also why it can't be fixed. PhysX isn't an open code base you can modify.

[keith.lamothe]

Ah, yea, I see how that could be a problem.

Short of scaling the speeds back (making them more coarse) to avoid running into the precision errors, I see that they basically don't have much choice there.  Pity.

I never did trust floats   We can't use them in the AIW sim either, though for somewhat different reasons (multiplayer sync).