NovaSilisko

Shrunken and sharpened a little.

Alas nothing really lately. Going through another slow period... lots of thought and brainstorming, but nothing new for pictures. The story's been refined considerably, the MEA is no longer a government agency but an independent organization doing its best to avoid a government that really would like to steal its teleportation technology. Buying parts now will be handled through "contacts" from various locations, who require an "admission fee" for the player to access their inventory - which, conveniently, serves as a nice way to balance the player's access to said inventory.

Oh, all over the place. Generally, I don't really play favorites to genres. The only dislike I have of a genre comes if I dislike the songs in it, I won't avoid a whole genre if I dislike one song from it. I also don't care much about popularity, doesn't matter to me if it's mainstream or ultra obscure indie stuff, if it's good music I'll judge it as such. That doesn't mean I'm exactly a fan of the large-scale music industry, but that's a point for another thread... Here are a few examples of preferences: More, but the forum only lets me embed 5 videos: Pink Floyd - Any Colour You Like (live version): Steely Dan - Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBp_ox14ruo The XX - Infinity (Bachelors Of Science remix): Camel - Lady Fantasy: Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk2FzqxV-oE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RoPtTEswWM

In reference to hugo redoing spaceplane parts. Not sure if this has surfaced on the forums yet but I figure I should post it here for context. The new mk1 cockpit model, vs old:

I don't think there will be another prototype. Not sure if there will be an alpha period, either. Sorry, it will be a while yet...

New blog post, general progress update http://www.scienceofthespheres.com/july-24-progress-update-screenshot-dump/

Stole Chad away from his work on Universe Sandbox for a bit and he helped me improve the lava shader a bit... result: (greatly sped up for ease of viewing)

Random FunFactâ„¢, the name Sean's Cannery actually came from a building name from an abortive attempt of mine to make a SimCity esque game a few years ago, which never passed the rough draft stage.

There would be tides, just unchanging ones. The sphere of liquid would be slightly distended. Waves don't have to be caused by tidal forces though here, there would be a lot of convection going on, as well as perhaps some manner of direct effect from the proximity of the sun. Lava planets will need boiling atmospheres too from outgassing of the melted rocks. edit: I do agree the waves are too vigorous, I've greatly reduced the deformation and made it a lot more subtle now. Looks better.

It's just a smooth patch of the planet. There are a few divots and canyon things outside the view of the camera. The big planet in the distance is covered in ocean. PS: PPS:

No stars visible as it's just in the editor view. The ship cameras have stars. Need to write a system eventually to dim the stars as a planet or nearby star is in view.

Physics are being rude Or I could call it quicksand and say it's a feature... hmm

Updated prototype lander, sans booster Booster flying distantly past a star system after jettison

Nope. It's a clone of the Altair upper stage motor, used on Vanguard and Scout rockets. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Altair_X248-A2_rocket_stage.jpg

That's just the price of recovery. Most rockets to date have been expendable because it's a pain in the ass to get them back without smashing them like tin cans.

Yeah, it's an annoying problem with unity's input system... unsure how it can be fixed, though for the moment there's only keyboard support in the main game, so it's not worth worrying about just yet. Forgot to show a picture of the mostly completed lander. I will disappointed if the construction system can't be made flexible enough to build things like this in the end

Could have a "maximumRecoverableMass" value on parachutes as a simple way to check if the debris will survive descent. Do a quick check of the recovery masses on each parachute, compare it to the total mass of the debris, and give a thumbs up or down as to whether it can be brought back. Recovery value shouldn't be very high though, the shuttle SRBs for instance had to be partially reassembled each time, and also refilled with solid fuel.

Government would bail out your space program at the cost of a huge hit to reputation? Yeah. It seems a lot of games recently are scared of letting the player fail (mostly AAA games). I never understood it, for the reasons you specified.

Constructing a new debug spacecraft that's better than a cube with some solar panels. Using whatever models I have lying around to get a general idea for the feel of the final vehicles...

Blinking an unhealthy amount.

Perhaps this is confirmation that having the sots thread stickied makes people automatically ignore it :v

did you just

Bumping this thread because cool things continue to happen. Looks like Churyumov-Gerasimenko is a contact binary comet.

There is speculation they might try something like that for the core stage of Falcon Heavy. But F9R itself will just fly a steep trajectory for facilitate easier boostback (this could be seen very easily on yesterday's launch)