Science of the Spheres - development

[spaceman1999]

Will there be both tech tree and sand box? (Like KSP?)

[NovaSilisko]

Will there be both tech tree and sand box? (Like KSP?)

I am contemplating how to make that work. An idea I had is that you could perhaps start a new game at different points on the tech tree, like in Civilization. So, if you wanted to start at the endgame with everything available, you could.

[Joey_Penguin]

Some questions:

-How many different kinds of creatures are there going to be? A few dozen? A few hundred?

-Will there be binary and multiple stars in the game?

-How about planetary rings?

[NovaSilisko]

Antennas, neither really textured yet:

Some questions:

1-How many different kinds of creatures are there going to be? A few dozen? A few hundred?

2-Will there be binary and multiple stars in the game?

3-How about planetary rings?

1. Unknown. Likely a few dozen at best. But, they hopefully will be completely moddable, so new ones can be very easily added as time goes on.

2. Yes, most likely

3. No. Unless it has a constant source of material, the ring will be dispersed quite quickly due to the lack of any stable orbits

[Whirligig Girl]

What is up with that second antenna?

[NovaSilisko]

What is up with that second antenna?

Cloverleaf antenna. Apparently it's a good design for an omnidirectional antenna

Despite how it looks, it's four-way symmetrical and not actually a jumble of wires.

[gooddog15]

Is this project dead?

Sorry, I couldn't resist!

Edited June 19, 2014 by gooddog15

[Whirligig Girl]

There's no way he'd abandon this project. Right?

[Special Agent Sigvan]

I think he took my silent advice:

"SHUT UP AND TAKE OUR MONEY, NOW"

Or he could be productive in making, you know, the actual game.

But a productive developer? Sounds like magic.

[NovaSilisko]

Is this project dead?

Nah. Things have been a bit sluggishly paced, however. A number of things are waiting on another of other things. For instance, a lot of stuff is waiting on the release of Unity 4.6, for the fantastic UI system. Once that comes around, the flight/construction/headquarters/menu/etc UIs can be prototyped and worked out. Beyond that, I recently made several super secret assets that I'm quite proud of and want to show off, but it would ruin the surprise of finding them in the game for yourself.

Oh! And there's this guy

At the moment I will be starting to model some random props for the headquarters, companions to the desk I talked about a while back.

[Special Agent Sigvan]

Nova, do us all a favor...

AND TAKE OUR MONEY.

[Whirligig Girl]

what's the story behind that bipedal creep?

[NovaSilisko]

Broke down the wall of procrastination between me and the headquarters interior. It's just a shell at the moment, and needs to have lots of little tweaks to texture alignment so it's not yet very presentable, so have this instead

space boss will see you now

Edited June 24, 2014 by NovaSilisko

[spaceman1999]

How will the interior work? How will we interact with it?

[NovaSilisko]

How will the interior work? How will we interact with it?

The interior will be where you manage all program operations. You physically walk around it, in different locations around it are things like the primary command console, the part inventory, the construction station, the transfer portal, etc.

Certain things will need to be carried around as well, such as drums of propellant (often hydrazine, don't trip) and returned samples.

[Whirligig Girl]

So if you drop the Hydrazine tank, bad stuff will happen?

[Joey_Penguin]

If you consider explosive combustion to be bad, then...

[NovaSilisko]

Made a HUD setup for determining prograde and retrograde.

From left to right: Retrograde, prograde, ship retrograde, ship prograde.

In action:

[astropapi1]

.ship retrograde, ship prograde.

*raises hand*

What do these mean?

[DisarmingBaton5]

*raises hand*

What do these mean?

I believe ship prograde is where you are pointed and ship retrograde is where you are not pointed.

So if your camera is locked to the orientation of the vessel, (think KSP chase cam or cockpit cam) these two markers should appear static on your screen.

[NovaSilisko]

I believe ship prograde is where you are pointed and ship retrograde is where you are not pointed.

So if your camera is locked to the orientation of the vessel, (think KSP chase cam or cockpit cam) these two markers should appear static on your screen.

Yes. They're locked to vessel orientation, not camera orientation, though. So if your camera is angled relative to the ship, the marker will be offset to reflect that, still pointing along the ship's forward axis.

[astropapi1]

Oh, now I get it. Thanks guys.

[NovaSilisko]

Made a little detachable rover for the test scene. Requires line of sight to the lander to function, range of about 1.5 km.

[astropapi1]

That is... fascinating.

Really happy to see this project slowly take shape.

[spaceman1999]

I see that first person (for the spacecraft) images are low quality. I am assuming that we will start with bad cameras but then get better and better cameras as the game progresses. Am I right?