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Science of the Spheres - development

NovaSilisko

By NovaSilisko
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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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So, I feel like writing up some things about the game, but am not really sure what to write about. I'd like to do a Q&A sort of thing, so maybe everyone can post questions and I can do a big blog post answering a selection of them.

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miracmert

miracmert

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Nova, if some other guy in your age posted here that he is going to make a game, I wouldn't even bother to reply the thread. But when you are saying this, underestimating you would be ignorant because of all your contributions to the game and the community :) So here are my questions:

Are you using Unity or another engine? Or are you coding another engine?

When did you start working on the game? Or are you just at planning stage now?

If you started working on the game, then what stage are you at?

I have been reading all of your stories about this game and I was really curious where you'd connect them. I'm too excited about this game so sorry if I ask too many questions in the future :D

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Krevsin

Krevsin

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Wow, this looks absolutely fantastic. :D

Questions:

- Will this feature orbital mechanics for ship movement like KSP, or will we be able to simply move ships around in a 3D enviroment?

- Will the game feature a storyline, or will it be a pure exploration sandbox?

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astropapi1

astropapi1

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- Will we be able to build our own spacecraft KSP-style, or will we have to use prebuilt ones?

- What kind of control mechanics could we expect?

- What might be some cultural aspects of the society that is launching those ships?

- What would be the game's currencies (like KSP's money, science, and reputation)?

- What's your favorite pie flavor?

This game is gonna be great. :D

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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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All right, some good questions here. I think what I'm gonna do is give short answers to questions here, and then, later on, make short blog posts going into more detail about a selection of them...

So, let's start the Q&A.

hotmailcompany52:

Who's in the dev team? - This will be covered in a blog post soonâ„¢, but both are known to the community...

Whats the dev plan? - Hah! Plan. No but seriously, right now the plan is to build a few gameplay/mechanic prototypes before consolidating them and crafting a roughly playable version of the full game.

Will the early versions be free? - Unknown. It's certainly a possibility but I think it's far too early at this point to say.

How much will the full game cost? - Unknown. Again, I'd like to wait to see what the future holds then decide.

Will there be awe inspiring music in the game? - Yes. I have a plan for how music will work in the game. Actually have already written a short blog about that, just waiting til I have a batch of stuff to post together.

Could I have an estimate of when a playable demo will be released? - Eeeehhh... not really. Give it a couple months and I might be able to give you a vague estimate. Although that said, I might release the original unity prototype as a teaser of sorts.

miracmert:

Are you using Unity or another engine? Or are you coding another engine? - The first prototypes both used Unity but now it's being rebuilt with Panda3D. The nice thing about this is P3D comes with audio and physics libraries among others, and is totally free and open source. So, that means any problem with the engine can be smashed, and any amount of new stuff can be added in without having to have it tacked on top.

When did you start working on the game? Or are you just at planning stage now? - The first ideas and prototypes came up around... august, I think. From there it was pretty on and off until the New Initiativeâ„¢ started later last year, and has continued somewhat steady ever since.

If you started working on the game, then what stage are you at? - Presently it's in the planning, concept, and engine work stage, with a couple early assets made. The big thing right now is to get the terrain prototype working... that might be released as a free download for people to play with, because I have to say when it's done it is gonna be cool. That's being done by one of the other guys though, he's going to make a big blog post about it when it's farther along, so keep an eye out for that.

Krevsin:

Will this feature orbital mechanics for ship movement like KSP, or will we be able to simply move ships around in a 3D enviroment? - Yes, though it won't function too much like KSP in practice. All planets will exert gravitational force on you, which makes orbiting a bit... weird. It's best not to trust something floating in space to remain in a good spot for very long.

Will the game feature a storyline, or will it be a pure exploration sandbox? - Exploration sandbox, but with various goals that can be provided to the player, by the government, corporations, or various universities, etc. The existence of the MEA, while officially denied, is somewhat of an open secret.

astropap1i:

Will we be able to build our own spacecraft KSP-style, or will we have to use prebuilt ones? - Yes, ships are built from scratch. Start with an empty frame, fit it with various things like computers, fuel tanks, engines, sensors, etc. I've been drafting up concepts for how construction will work and think I've got it pretty solid now, so hopefully yet another post will cover that.

What kind of control mechanics could we expect? - Very similar to KSP (WSADQE for 6DOF rotation, tenatively the numpad for translation in the case of vehicles that actually have that capability), with pulsed engine thrust usually. As in, holding down shift turns your engine on, releasing shift turns it off. Later, fancier engines can be throttled via other hotkeys, or a slider on the UI, and then pulsed at that new throttle value.

What might be some cultural aspects of the society that is launching those ships? - The ships are launched from Earth and shoved into a space hole into this other, tiny universe. This space hole is located just outside St. Louis, so I guess you could say that's the culture in question.

What would be the game's currencies (like KSP's money, science, and reputation)? - $dolla bills ya'll$. Like NASA, pretty much everything ends up costing money, be it parts, research (the inner workings of research are still TBD however so that may change!), or whatever. Not sure if you can consider this a "currency" but you have resources such as, say, gold, which can be sold and transformed into the aformentioned $dolla bills ya'll$.

What's your favorite pie flavor? - .. I'm not sure I've ever eaten pie. You've just made me realize this, and now I'm having a crisis. -edit: actually I believe I may have had a bit of some form of apple pie a family event but it was awful and was not a good impression of what pie can be. I also recall crafting a delicious ice cream "pie" of graham cracker crumb crust, filled with vanilla ice cream and covered with chocolate sauce and I'm hungry now.

Edited by NovaSilisko
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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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I forgot one question. Will the moding system be like KSP's?

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.

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hotmailcompany52

hotmailcompany52

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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.

Huh, maybe ill be able to make a mod then because my friends teaching me perl and from what I know its quite like python. Also, the engine you are using has it got decent 64-bit versions for all platforms?

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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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Huh, maybe ill be able to make a mod then because my friends teaching me perl and from what I know its quite like python. Also, the engine you are using has it got decent 64-bit versions for all platforms?

I believe the latest in-development versions of it do. Not 100% sure of the version currently being used but we do want to move to the indev versions later on (or possibly when the indevs are whittled down to a stable release, that probably would be better)

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NASAFanboy

NASAFanboy

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Nova, if you may, can I use some concept art on my Tumblr blog and personal websites?

They are very good, and I want to build hype for your game. I just wanted to make sure you're OK with it first. Anyways, nice work!

It has made my Christmas-want list for 2014-2015 holiday season.

Or the list of things-that-I-must-purchase-at-first-avaliable-oppurtunity

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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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Nova, if you may, can I use some concept art on my Tumblr blog and personal websites?

They are very good, and I want to build hype for your game. I just wanted to make sure you're OK with it first. Anyways, nice work!

It has made my Christmas-want list for 2014-2015 holiday season.

Or the list of things-that-I-must-purchase-at-first-avaliable-oppurtunity

Go ahead, long as you say where it's from and provide a clear link to the site.

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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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When will the next concept art come out?

No clue! Whenever a new concept is made I'll post it. I'm going to be writing up a number generator for solar system parameters tonight, to later be bolted on the actual generation systems and feed them numbers.

what happened to the flying game?

In the box of "boy it sure would be nice to bring this back one day", alongside my portal mod, the robot game, my half-life 1 mod, doom wads, and a hundred other things.

Your site messes with my eyes, now all I can see are lines.

I'm thinking of making a new background, with some nebula in it, maybe that will help.

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