Science of the Spheres - development

[Bill Phil]

Thd rings could be a new anomaly.... I don't know really. It would be really interesting, though.

[hotmailcompany52]

Nova? You still there buddy? Any new news about SOtS?

[NovaSilisko]

Not dead.

[Vaporo]

https://i.imgur.com/B6W0sWO.jpg

Not dead.

Hooray!

Those planets look nice.

[Nemrav]

Is all that in game, and are the ground textures procedural ?

Full update report is anxiously being awaited

[NovaSilisko]

Is all that in game, and are the ground textures procedural ?

Full update report is anxiously being awaited

Ground textures are generated procedurally via Substance, but baked into textures.

Also, to restate that it's not dead:

Eventually there will be a big blog post explaining some big changes. Patience.

Edited January 8, 2015 by NovaSilisko

[Whirligig Girl]

Plant life

[Deadpangod3]

Ground textures are generated procedurally via Substance, but baked into textures.

Also, to restate that it's not dead:

snip

Eventually there will be a big blog post explaining some big changes. Patience.

those "plants" which i asume they are, apear very similar to tentacles...

[Stratzenblitz75]

Ground textures are generated procedurally via Substance, but baked into textures.

Also, to restate that it's not dead:

https://i.imgur.com/el3asGX.jpg

Eventually there will be a big blog post explaining some big changes. Patience.

This just keeps getting better and better! Can't wait!

[NovaSilisko]

those "plants" which i asume they are, apear very similar to tentacles...

Nah, they're closer in material to wood. Not nearly squishy or wiggly enough to be tentacles.

[CG_Kerbin]

I like the idea

[XIRA]

Is that scene lightbaked? Or is it realtime in game lighting??

[Deadpangod3]

Nah, they're closer in material to wood. Not nearly squishy or wiggly enough to be tentacles.

*nerdmode activated*

okay, so since i dont see any leaves or anything to suggest photosynthesis, id say their somehow getting their sustenance from the ground, probably an element that the alien grass emit as waste, or their actually infact EATING the planet (cooooool).

or they lose leaves in the planets seasons...

*nerdmode deactivated*

when this game gets released I wont be able to not do this on every planet i find with life

Great job so far Novasilisko, I hope this game turns out as awesome as it looks.

[NovaSilisko]

Meet the Dynamic Debug Duo: Sgt. Stubbs and Lt. Vribble:

They are specifically designed to emulate the sort of ships you'll be able to build once the construction system is made.

Is that scene lightbaked? Or is it realtime in game lighting??

Realtime lighting - though it's manually arranged in that case, but the final result will look just the same. Need to actually build the system that makes it all work together.

Edited January 10, 2015 by NovaSilisko

[Vaporo]

Will there be any kind of rotation to the planets?

[NovaSilisko]

Will there be any kind of rotation to the planets?

Nah, they'll sit still. I'm not sure, given the small size, if that would make ice caps on the far sides, but I harbor doubts - the planets are so small I think they'd be a pretty uniform temperature.

[Whirligig Girl]

What about extremely rare anomalous planets rotating? Might be an interesting mechanic.

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Nova, have you heard of Outer Wilds? The planets are relatively small, a bit bigger scale than yours, the major difference being that they can actually move.

[megatiger78]

Nova, have you heard of Outer Wilds? The planets are relatively small, a bit bigger scale than yours, the major difference being that they can actually move.

its a good game , outer wilds.

[NovaSilisko]

What about extremely rare anomalous planets rotating? Might be an interesting mechanic.

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Nova, have you heard of Outer Wilds? The planets are relatively small, a bit bigger scale than yours, the major difference being that they can actually move.

1. Yeah, I've thought about having some planets rotating on their own, which your science team freaks out about since it goes against everything thus far learned about the place.

2. I have. I actually first learned about it when I showed Scott Manley a few pictures of the very first prototypes of SotS. IIRC his reply was something along the lines of "Oh cool, reminds me a bit of this game <link>", and of course my mind was blown because, dammit, somebody else thought of small planets too!

[Whirligig Girl]

1. Yeah, I've thought about having some planets rotating on their own, which your science team freaks out about since it goes against everything thus far learned about the place.

2. I have. I actually first learned about it when I showed Scott Manley a few pictures of the very first prototypes of SotS. IIRC his reply was something along the lines of "Oh cool, reminds me a bit of this game <link>", and of course my mind was blown because, dammit, somebody else thought of small planets too!

Me and my friend were briefly working on a game about small planets as well, without knowing about SoTS or Outer Wilds. We then retconned the planets from being 1/1000 real scale to being 1/100 reals scale. This meant that the game was essentially redundant, because we realized it was basically going to be a combat-oriented KSP, and a 1/10 scale Kerbin mod exists, as do weapon mods.

The combat part was his idea, but trying to make the fighting realistic (in scale anyway), was my compromise.

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Incidentally, I find that if you die in Outer Wilds more than the Sun blows up, you're doing well.

[Whirligig Girl]

I was just playing around with the demo when I noticed that there was a hopper that had managed to find itself floating frozen above the Living Planet. When I flew my ship near it, it fell back down.

I suspect it's a glitch. Still neat though. I wonder if any creatures will be capable of spaceflight on their own in the game.

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Just how complicated will spacecraft construction be? For instance, will I have to deal with ullage or engine restarts or things of that nature?

[NovaSilisko]

I was just playing around with the demo when I noticed that there was a hopper that had managed to find itself floating frozen above the Living Planet. When I flew my ship near it, it fell back down.

I suspect it's a glitch. Still neat though. I wonder if any creatures will be capable of spaceflight on their own in the game.

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Just how complicated will spacecraft construction be? For instance, will I have to deal with ullage or engine restarts or things of that nature?

1. The hoppers freeze their motion and turn off their AI if you go too far away, and then turn it back on when you return. You must have flown away from it after it jumped up, and then flown back to find it still up there.

There will be plenty of creatures capable of handling at least a bit of space. For instance, trees which grow a seed pod high up into the planet's gravity well before letting it burst, scattering seeds far and wide across the planet, as well as off into deep space, allowing it to spread all across the galaxy wherever those seeds may take root.

2. Probably some basic ullage simulation in that you won't be able to fire the engines while upside down in enough of a gravity field, but beyond that everything is pressure-fed, so it's not as much of an issue. Most fuels will be hypergolic and not need ignition sources, and simple electric sparkers can suffice for non-hypergolics.

[Whirligig Girl]

Will there be any sort of armor options for spacecraft to protect from Hoppers/three-legged-dinosaurs/acidic-space-trees/starbuilding-alien-civilizations?

Will there be any sort of story? For instance, will the game progress from the 70s to the 80s, or will everything just stay 70s because no one is going to timewarp enough for that to matter?

I was thinking about things, and I remembered Burnside's Zeroth Law of Space[flight]. People relate to people more than they do to robots/space-probes/aliens-that-aren't-green-and-little. Perhaps the idea of manned exploration should be more important to the MEA. After all, imagine a world where spaceflight is as inexpensive as using merely a single city's power for a few minutes instead of building a skyscraper that has to fly. Would the people in this company really be able to hold themselves back from manned exploration? I don't think so. It would be too enticing, and everyone likes manned space exploration more than space probes. Obviously manned exploration wouldn't come first. You'd have to make sure you can survive in the multiverse or else the insurance company won't help with any medical bills. You'd use probes to do this.*

*Don't use probes to hurt the insurance company**

**There should totally be an insurance company mechanic.

I think that you could probably even have several different structures for space exploration.

1): A structured mission like Apollo where you plan ahead and have a specific goal for each step of the mission.

2): An expedition where you're just jumping into the multiverse and dealing with whatever you find. Basically probe exploration but with people instead.

3): A space habitat (where you send bad employees) that continually orbits a star system (using thrusters to maintain stability) to make constant observations over time. Or a ground habitat where you send slightly less bad employees to study the wildlife or geology of a specific world.

Edited January 13, 2015 by GregroxMun

[NovaSilisko]

Will there be any sort of armor options for spacecraft to protect from Hoppers/three-legged-dinosaurs/acidic-space-trees/starbuilding-alien-civilizations?

Will there be any sort of story? For instance, will the game progress from the 70s to the 80s, or will everything just stay 70s because no one is going to timewarp enough for that to matter?

I've thought of that, but it ends up being a huge amount of work for something almost nobody would encounter. Not worth it.

I was thinking about things, and I remembered Burnside's Zeroth Law of Space[flight]. People relate to people more than they do to robots/space-probes/aliens-that-aren't-green-and-little. Perhaps the idea of manned exploration should be more important to the MEA. After all, imagine a world where spaceflight is as inexpensive as using merely a single city's power for a few minutes instead of building a skyscraper that has to fly. Would the people in this company really be able to hold themselves back from manned exploration? I don't think so. It would be too enticing, and everyone likes manned space exploration more than space probes. Obviously manned exploration wouldn't come first. You'd have to make sure you can survive in the multiverse or else the insurance company won't help with any medical bills. You'd use probes to do this.*

*Don't use probes to hurt the insurance company**

**There should totally be an insurance company mechanic.

I dunno, I'm pretty attached to Stubbs & Vribble here...

In all seriousness, manned missions are back to being a higher priority I think. I think it would pretty much exclusively be the player performing the manned expedition, since everyone else, when asked to enter the terrifying void with aliens that want to eat you and debris sailing around and the real possibility of drifting off into space forever, responds with a general consensus of "are you out of your damn mind?!". Maybe if you pay well enough you can take a few henchmen along, but I'm unsure how getting a bunch of interns killed would fit into the narrative. The last thing the MEA needs is an investigation into what they're up to.

I think that you could probably even have several different structures for space exploration.

1): A structured mission like Apollo where you plan ahead and have a specific goal for each step of the mission.

2): An expedition where you're just jumping into the multiverse and dealing with whatever you find. Basically probe exploration but with people instead.

3): A space habitat (where you send bad employees) that continually orbits a star system (using thrusters to maintain stability) to make constant observations over time. Or a ground habitat where you send slightly less bad employees to study the wildlife or geology of a specific world.

I think it would be entirely up to the player. Probably would have some general purpose habitat modules that you could enter and refill your suit with air/etc.

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Playing with post process once again. Need to turn down the specular reflections on the metal beams.

[hotmailcompany52]

That looks pretty awesome. Whats the current use of PC resources of the Beta?