New Space Flight Sim?

[MAFman]

I've been planning to create my own space flight simulator similar to KSP, for a project in a class at school. Anybody have some ideas for me? I want it to have as realistic of physics as possible without frying my computer, and I want a similar "feel" to KSP without any copyright infringements.

[deadshot462]

I would start with something 2D to at least get the basic orbital mechanics down.

[FuzzyLlama]

Call it Flatbin Space Program?

[SoldierHair]

You might want to take a look at SimpleRockets.

[Merinsan]

Copyright law only applies to the implementation (ie code), so in theory you can make it look the same, it's just bad form, and people tend to avoid blatant rip offs.

Since it's only a school project, and you're not going to be selling it you don't need to worry as much.

However, making something like KSP is a lot of work, something I doubt you can do in the time frame of a school project. I would suggest sticking to a map view only, with a nav ball. Also, I'd ignore the structural physics of the rockets, and allow rockets of any size. Maybe you should look at allowing for changes to ISP/thrust as rocket set up parameter for the launch.

What is the objective of the project? Is it to demonstrate physics or to demonstrate programming ability?

[Greenspan]

What level class are we talking? High School? College? Grad School? Any kind of orbital simulations will require some pretty advanced math to simulate.

[MAFman]

This is for high school. My plans include at least three-body simulations for the craft (the planets are on rails), realistic aerodynamics similar to FAR, a full scale solar system, velocity-based reentry effects, terrain damage (scorch marks, craters, dust, etc.), planets with rings that include boulders (the rings rotate with the planet so as to not have to calculate thousands of particles...), and damage effects such as bent metal, fires, and bigger explosions.

[MAFman]

I went ahead and Googled SimpleRockets, and turns out, that seems like a great place to start! Thanks for the suggestion, SoldierHair!

[Sevant]

This is for high school. My plans include at least three-body simulations for the craft (the planets are on rails), realistic aerodynamics similar to FAR, a full scale solar system, velocity-based reentry effects, terrain damage (scorch marks, craters, dust, etc.), planets with rings that include boulders (the rings rotate with the planet so as to not have to calculate thousands of particles...), and damage effects such as bent metal, fires, and bigger explosions.

I don't mean to discourage you, but that sounds overly ambitious for a high school project. Even if you're a brilliant coder and rocket physicist, and even if you limit the game to one rocket design, this is going to take an a lot of time to put together. You should consider if 1) you can complete the project within the appointed deadline (preferably while still having time to eat and sleep) and 2) creating such an elaborate project is worth it.

Even if your goal is simply to learn as much as you can, you can learn something from a smaller project, and then continue learning by doing larger projects in your free time (ie. without having a deadline to meet). I suspect that the only way you could complete this project within a school year would be to steal a lot of the physics code from other programs.

[kBob]

Good advice here, part of learning about software development is learning what is and isn't possible given person-power and time limits. Start with a simple goal, get it right, expand it if there is still time. I'm not saying don't consider the future expansion when you first start to design, you can leave "hooks" and stub-code for that, but nothing is more discouraging than an overly ambitious project that you won't be able to finish anywhere near in time (and the pro's sometimes make this mistake too).

[MAFman]

I don't mean to discourage you, but that sounds overly ambitious for a high school project. Even if you're a brilliant coder and rocket physicist, and even if you limit the game to one rocket design, this is going to take an a lot of time to put together. You should consider if 1) you can complete the project within the appointed deadline (preferably while still having time to eat and sleep) and 2) creating such an elaborate project is worth it.

Even if your goal is simply to learn as much as you can, you can learn something from a smaller project, and then continue learning by doing larger projects in your free time (ie. without having a deadline to meet). I suspect that the only way you could complete this project within a school year would be to steal a lot of the physics code from other programs.

There is no deadline, as long as I have something to show for my work. I could complete online C# tutorials to learn the language, and likewise for Unity. I could also avoid overwhelming myself by starting small and building up toward my goal. Similar to how Squad only had Kerbin and the Mun at first, but gradually added the Kerbol system and the other features.

[MAFman]

Good advice here, part of learning about software development is learning what is and isn't possible given person-power and time limits. Start with a simple goal, get it right, expand it if there is still time. I'm not saying don't consider the future expansion when you first start to design, you can leave "hooks" and stub-code for that, but nothing is more discouraging than an overly ambitious project that you won't be able to finish anywhere near in time (and the pro's sometimes make this mistake too).

I see your point! That's what I'll do, then. I'm not too terribly good at coding yet but I do have my goals to work toward, and I can easily break them down into steps and half-implemented features.

[MAFman]

I did more research, and I figured I should follow roughly the same development progress KSP did, starting with barebones spacebar-controlled primitive rockets in a very basic plane-world, then gradually implementing more controls, physics, and so on. I don't think I'll get to orbit anytime soon, but that's OK.

[Red Iron Crown]

Copyright law only applies to the implementation (ie code), so in theory you can make it look the same, it's just bad form, and people tend to avoid blatant rip offs.

Copyright most definitely applies to art assets, too. I couldn't put a character looking exactly like Mario in my game without opening myself to potential copyright trouble with Nintendo, even if no code is shared.

[MAFman]

I've been doing some messing around with code, and I've just decided to start REALLY simple, and the final game is going to just have patched-conics with basic explosions. I'm going to just simulate Lagrange points with empty SOI's orbiting a planet. I'll start the way HarvesteR started, with a plane for the ground and a cylinder for a rocket, and gradually work my way to more advanced things.

[Javster]

This is almost more ambitious than KSP, which doesn't actually have some of the things you mentioned

[MAFman]

I see what you mean. But like I said, I'm going to start out very simply. I'm not even that good with C# yet but it's a good learning experience. A while ago, I did get a cylinder SRB thing to work in Unity, but I lost it when my computer had a derp moment and crashed...At least I got a concept working, though!