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Science of the Spheres - development

NovaSilisko

By NovaSilisko
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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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Currently writing up some internal design stuff on a means through which you can program automated functions into spacecraft, I think the power might be going to my head. Also have been making some early semi-placeholder part assets for things. I plan on doing a bit writeup on the level of In Orbis Parvum about the plan for the construction system as a whole.

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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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So, development is picking up at last. We've sort of drifted back to unity for development... it ends up so much faster and easier to get things made, since nobody has to learn python (as long as you make proper considerations for its limitations). I've gotten physics hopefully working nicely for small things (minimal jittering), have written a solar system generator (no terrain yet, only locations and statistics), and am beginning work on the early phases of the construction system.

The downside of course means that this:

Probably more open, actually. Only the core functionality of the game will be hardcoded in C++, the rest (parts and part functionality, generation parameters, balance parameters, etc) will be coded in python, and can be opened to screw around with.

Doesn't really apply too much anymore. So far, only the voxel engine will be coded in C++, and loaded into unity that way, and the rest will be done in C# like a normal unity game. That said, I still intend to make everything very moddable, at least to the level of KSP (a plugin system is a possibility), and in some cases beyond; the music system would be and functional as described before, user-created solar systems could be put in which override the normal area seed input (instead of using the input as a seed, it would just load the custom system matching that seed)

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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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Hmm, shame about hearing about you bumping over to unity again, but if it makes things easier I don't think I'll have an issue with it. Also any other new news?

Things are progressing much, much faster. First visuals of the terrain engine should be coming within a few days. The basics of the ship construction system are now complete, mostly what's left to be done is the implementation of some form of UI to actually interact with it.

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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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Yeah, it looks really nice. Are they going to be planet-dependent, or will they exist in more than one at a time?

They can show up anywhere, as long as the planet conditions are suitable for them. There may be a system to randomize their colors to give some more variety.

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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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B) ITS PICTURES FROM THE FREAKING GAME!!!

Almost. At present it's just the debug lander with an early control script. The planets are just spheres and the generator only spits out a single solar system.

But, it's technically playable. You can fly around and land, affected by gravity like the other prototypes. You can also see the image degradation system at work in those images. There are at present several presets for it to choose from, which control a stack of effects (greyscale, bloom, image grain, resolution reduction, FPS reduction, etc). The aforementioned image grain is also controlled by the strength of the connection to the base station (which doesn't exist yet in its true form, but a test script with the same equations is working fine). In addition, the image cuts out entirely if you lose line of sight to the transmitter.

signal.gif

A side note, I made an early version of a control method that makes aiming your ship around much easier. It's a "pulsed thrust" mode. When you hit W, for instance, it lets out a puff of RCS that starts you rotating. When you release W, it makes an opposing puff to stop you rotating. At present it simply applies a torque to the ship but later it will be done with actual thrusters (and will have a spoolup time as a result). You can also switch to "continuous thrust" mode, which functions just like the RCS in KSP, and is better when you're trying to land.

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*Aqua*

*Aqua*

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This game sounds interesting. But what is the goal of the player?

KSP is about putting stuff into space while figuring out how to not explode all the time and run out of fuel too soon. And your game? The description remembers me of some sort of an economy game (mining ore to make money to mine more ore to make more money etc.).

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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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This game sounds interesting. But what is the goal of the player?

KSP is about putting stuff into space while figuring out how to not explode all the time and run out of fuel too soon. And your game? The description remembers me of some sort of an economy game (mining ore to make money to mine more ore to make more money etc.).

The goal is to explore and discover. For the most part, it's completely free-form, but in addition to the player's own self-decided actions, there will be broad objectives given to you occasionally, by the government, or a scientific organization, or what have you. An example for an early game scientific goal might be to figure out how such small planets can have so much gravity. To accomplish this, you might attempt to probe its subsurface with radar, or blast your way down to the center of the planet and see for yourself.

Beyond that, there is no real end goal to the game. But an overarching theme is "no bucks, no buck rogers" - you need to make money in some way to sustain your operations. A small trickle comes in from the government, but for the most part you'll rely on exporting mined products and more-or-less auctioning off practical scientific discoveries.

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*Aqua*

*Aqua*

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Thanks for your answer! :) I think I get it now. It's about exploration (and a little bit about how to pay that).

Will there be some kind of plot? Or is it basically like a sandbox with all kinds of interesting stuff to explore and discover? Or a combination of both?

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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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Stress testing can be pretty...

lHHIq88.png

FOhSW6t.png

Will there be some kind of plot? Or is it basically like a sandbox with all kinds of interesting stuff to explore and discover? Or a combination of both?

Well, I've got a backstory in mind for the origin and advancement of the program before the game starts, but after that, how things progress is entirely up to you.

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