The Video Game That Maps the Galaxy(newyorker.com)

93 pointsby maglevfield12 lat temu46 comments

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/07/the-video-game-that-maps-the-galaxy.html

6 comments

To summarize: Elite was an amazing game that had a gigantic universe, procedurally generated from a carefully chosen and vetted random seed. There's a story on how it was made, discussed here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7892462

For the upcoming Elite: Dangerous, the maker is drawing as much as possible from current astronomy.

Mithaldu12 lat temu

Sadly he draws exactly nothing from Astrophysics, and instead of exploring the possibilities of truly interplanetary combat aided by highly advanced computer systems; the game is populated by vehicles behaving like WW2 era planes and blimps, floating in the ether between space objects.

teamonkey12 lat temu

There's a lot more to astrophysics than Newtonian mechanics. Stellar formation, element abundance, extraterrestrial geophysics, etc.

Have you played Frontier (Elite 2) at all? That seems to be what you're after. Much as I loved that game, the combat was awful. It came down to judging when to switch your autopilot on and off, because there was no way you could manually track your enemy as you passed by at 5000kph.

[deleted]12 lat temu

anigbrowl12 lat temu

Turns out that this is how people want to fly spaceships. Slingshot maneuvers and dumping reaction mass make for a great simulation, but not an enjoyable one for most people.

electromagnetic12 lat temu

Yeah, anyone whose played KSP can attest to how hard flying blind in space is. There's no "hey I see him!" and going for it unless you want the maneuver to take an hour.

I think space combat in reality would be 99% dull, 1% mind blowing too fast to react insanity, because the firing windows would be so narrow before just being missiles fired back and forth, with point defences having ages to pick down the enemy munitions.

Realistically speaking. Lasers would lead to mirrored ships. Particle beams would likely lead to the magnetic shields proposed for protection against the solar wind. Explosives will be highly inefficient in a vacuum, so they'd only be implemented like in current bunker busters. So we're talking kinetic impact weapons.

davedx12 lat temu

> Realistically speaking. Lasers would lead to mirrored ships. Particle beams would likely lead to the magnetic shields proposed for protection against the solar wind. Explosives will be highly inefficient in a vacuum, so they'd only be implemented like in current bunker busters. So we're talking kinetic impact weapons.

I've given this a lot of thought recently, working on my own hard sci-fi space game :)

I don't think mirrors are a good protection against high powered lasers. I've done some reading around the Internet and the consensus was that even if the mirror is absolutely flawless and perfectly clean, it's only a matter of time before a laser punches through it. The best defense against laser weapons turns out to be bad weather, which is hard to find in outer space. (Fighting inside a nebula might help?)

I think beam weapons will be devastatingly effective, once ships have enough power behind them, leading to battles at extreme ranges (light seconds to light minutes), where evasive manuevers can be somewhat effective.

That's my take on it, from reading various Q&A's on the net and thinking a lot about how space battles would probably really work in the near future. It's great fun to think about.

teamonkey12 lat temu

> The best defense against laser weapons turns out to be bad weather, which is hard to find in outer space.

Maybe some kind of gas or mirrored chaff as a countermeasure?

Borogravia12 lat temu

Completely agree. As a hack writer who periodically takes a swing at writing sci-fi, I struggle badly when trying to get both realism and excitement into space combat.

pavel_lishin12 lat temu

I always imagined it would be like playing a submarine simulator - you rely mostly on your instruments, the locations of your enemies and their capabilities are largely educated guesswork, and you spend most of your time waiting to see if an action you took an hour ago had any sort of impact.

anigbrowl12 lat temu

I used to enjoy playing a submarine simulator (688 Attack Sub, IIRC) but it's not that dynamic. Elite was firmly rooted in the Star Wars vision of space combat, which was in turn based on WW2 naval air combat. I remember a bunch of games based on Star Trek but they never became massively popular because they were based much more on strategy than action.

On the upside it's not an atmospheric flight model in Elite. You can orient yourself freely if you're not thrusting, and indeed 'flying backwards' by getting some thrust going and then doing a 180 so you can fire at the enemy with your forward-facing weapons is a pretty essential tactic.

jimmcslim12 lat temu

It wouldn't be the first time that accuracy has been sacrificed for playability... A space sim that fully relied on Newtonian physics would probably be quite tedious and difficult? (In fact, I think one of the previous Frontier titles was guilty of this)

That said, I do believe Elite: Dangerous does allow you to adopt an advanced mode that might be closer to what you are expecting.

lloeki12 lat temu

In Wing Commander Prophecy there was a key (or button if HOTAS was your style) that made you temporarily cut off the "atmospheric flight simulation" mode.

Using inertia and rotating was the only way to "strafe" along a cap ship, and much more efficient at destroying turrets than your usual back and forth fire-and-forget missile/torpedo/guns-blazing runs typical of post X-Wing/TIE Fighter space operas.

Also you could just turn around and shoot whoever is behind you (except they've got a time advantage since suddenly you're moving on a straight line and by the time you've got them on sight you're dead). An incredibly useful strategy was to just pivot then throw in the after burner for dramatic direction changes in an attempt to outmaneuver your opponent.

I always thought this game landed a good balance between fun and realism, with a suspension-of-disbelief-compatible in-story explanation that you're usually in computer assisted mode that simulates atmospheric flight behavior because otherwise dogfights are humanly impossible to manage.

okasaki12 lat temu

Independence War 1 & 2 and many other games had newtonian physics and were lots of fun.

To be it seems awfully insulting that players wouldn't understand that a ship doesn't necessarily go where it's pointing, which is really what it comes down to.

maglevfield12 lat temu

Interplanetary flight in I-War 1 & 2 was done with the inertia-less LDS drive (same as Elite: Dangerous super-cruise), you practically didn't do it in Newtonian mode opposed to the previous Elite sequels where everything was done in a single Newtonian mode, which also featured realistic orbital dynamics, moving celestial bodies and freeform planetary re-entry.

That said Elite: Dangerous regular flight physics are still Newtonian, even more so than I-War series as it features rigid body dynamics and not a point mass, but the ships have very strong maneuvering thrusters a flight control system computer to counteract the skidding and keep it within a certain speed limit, but you can partially turn it off.

See videos below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KAJuR5giGo&t=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwVYc_iPAvg

coder2312 lat temu

That makes the combat much more interesting, but the flight model is still way of, it simply violates Newtonian laws. You turn and accelerate immediately like a plane if you choose to and there is a max speed limit, unlike I-War. Resembles airplanes with the ability to strafe and pivot, which is fun but not what some want.

maglevfield12 lat temu

It doesn't violate any Newtonian laws.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Elite:_Dangerous_FAQ#W...

coder2312 lat temu

If their marketing department says it follows correct physics, and the game actually doesn't, you just blindly believe them.

You can't say you follow some rules and then break them when you choose to and then say your game is Newtonian. Because then every game having player moving in the world is.

Here are the facts. When turning you keep you velocity, which implies magical thrusters that can change power drastically when needed to do so. But why not use that power all the time and not only when turning? Doesn't make any sense. And there is a maximum speed limit. How does that follow the Newtonian laws?

z3phyr12 lat temu

Does Kerbal Space Program qualify as a space sim?

the_af12 lat temu

KSP sounds tremendously interesting, but I think in the context of this discussion we're talking about combat space sims.

TeMPOraL12 lat temu

Well, people did various type of space combat experiments in KSP, and they're as easy and interesting as you'd expect (i.e. not very much).

flohofwoe12 lat temu

I really hope they keep the Newtonian mechanics as in Elite2, and implement a 'fly-by-wire' mode on space-crafts which makes them behave somewhat like atmospheric vehicles, it's just a matter of thrusters at the right places fired at the right time, but if you turn everything off, the spacecraft should properly be affected by gravitation of nearby planets and stars.

Borogravia12 lat temu

Beta backer here, have already wasted a ton of time in this game. "Fly-by-wire" is called "flight assist" in the game, and it works essentially the way you describe.

You mostly get the sort of gravity effects you're describing in the fast-traveling "supercruise" mode, where the proximity of a large mass severely slows you down. The effect is handy for slowing to approach speed close to stations, since they're generally close to a planet or a moon.

pacaro12 lat temu

Sadly David Braben and Ian Bell have differing accounts of who did what on the original game, to the point of legal disputes in the past...

Having met David Braben socially, I'm inclined to believe Ian Bell

Borogravia12 lat temu

Gee, that sure sounds like a scientific way to make such a determination.

NikhilVerma12 lat temu

If you are interested in space sim's you should check out Space Engine [1]. It's build on real data combined with procedural generation.

Here is a quote from their website:

"SpaceEngine - a free space simulation program that lets you explore the universe in three dimensions, from planet Earth to the most distant galaxies. Areas of the known universe are represented using actual astronomical data, while regions uncharted by astronomy are generated procedurally. Millions of galaxies, trillions of stars, countless planets - all available for exploration. You can land any planet, moon or asteroid and watch alien landscapes and celestial phenomena. You can even pilot starships and atmospheric shuttles."

[1]: http://en.spaceengine.org/

mkesper12 lat temu

Too bad this is not Free Software but instead regarded as trade secrets. :(

eps12 lat temu

Why is it too bad?

mcmire12 lat temu

This sounds sick... I did a bunch of research a while back about stars back when I wanted to make a friendly version of the SIMBAD database[1], but it would have been so cool to make a 3D version of our galaxy and fly around it. Probably not as glamorous as it sounds, and certainly a pretty backdrop does not a game make, but still sounds neat anyway.

[1]: http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-basic?Ident=sirius&sub...

flohofwoe12 lat temu

One of my fondest memories of Elite2 on the Amiga was to fly to our solar system, manually land on one of the Saturn moons and just sit there and watch Saturn rise over the horizon.

No other space game comes even close to the Elite series for this mix of reality and fiction, and I spent most of the 90's and 2000's to find a worthy Elite successor, but there simply was none.

maglevfield12 lat temu

Keyframe12 lat temu

People say EVE is close to it. I have spent two months in EVE awhile ago... even though it's close it's really not on par with Elite, Frontier: Elite 2, hell even Frontier: First Encounters (Elite 3, even though buggy). I wish I could point my finger at what is different about it, but I can't.

edit: now that I think about it, I think visual style of the game has a lot to do with it as well.

maglevfield12 lat temu

EVE is 3rd person roll & dice, point & click RTS style controls, with empire building and almost fully player driven world. It's totally different from Elite.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Elite:_Dangerous_FAQ#W...

Keyframe12 lat temu

Mechanics, yes. On the other hand, you still get to trade, fight, take care of your standing with various alliances, explore. So, it's both the same and different. I just never got the same sense of exploration in EVE as I did with Elite(s).

Borogravia12 lat temu

Wormholes, man. Wormholes. It's still not the same, of course - a game where you don't really "fly" your ship, like EVE, is never going to be immersive in the same way an Elite game is - but it's damned addictive in its way.

ldite12 lat temu

For people interested in playing Elite 2 & 3, some impressively dedicated fans have disassembled the original executables, and re-engineered them to use DirectX, high resolution models, fix gameplay bugs, etc:

http://www.eliteforever.co.uk/games.html

http://www.frontierastro.co.uk/Hires/hiresffe.html

maglevfield12 lat temu

I recommend the originals as those enhanced versions are either buggy or unfinished.

http://www.eliteforever.co.uk/downloads.html

Also get this JJFFE patch if you're gonna try Frontier: First Encounters, also has a Mac version.

http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/files/category/154-jjffe/

The BBS talking face videos from the CD-ROM version can be found here

http://ffeartpage.com/util/ffevid.zip

ldite12 lat temu

I recommend the originals as those enhanced versions are either buggy or unfinished.

Yes, but they're impressive technical achievements - disassembling a DOS game and completely rewriting its rasteriser and I/O subsystem.

Anyway, even if you don't use the D3D or OpenGL versions then JJFFE is well worth using over the originals; it fixes a lot of horrible physics (and texture) bugs, and adds some very useful things like keybindings for manual control of the lateral thrusters.

maglevfield12 lat temu

That's why I also included JJFFE in there.

okasaki12 lat temu

There's an open source game inspired by Elite 2 that's coming along nicely: http://pioneerspacesim.net

harryf12 lat temu

> Supported Operating Systems

> Windows 7.x

> Windows 8.x

Is that really the way to launch a successful game these days? No consoles. No tablets. No smartphones.

coder2312 lat temu

Yes. The game was Kickstarted and their goals were clear. The successful campaign shows that most gamers that like such games are on PC. I dare to say >95% of the market.

The game type also makes little sense on tablets and smartphones and the hardware requirement are too high to support them.

Porting to console is time consuming if you are not developing with Unity or equivalent.

Quote from their kickstarter: We have announced a stretch goal for a Mac version of the game. If we reach the stretch goal of £1.4 million through the Kickstarter we will release a Mac version approximately 3 months after the Windows PC release. It was reached.

pavel_lishin12 lat temu

Isn't developing for consoles also fairly expensive due to various licensing fees?

I guess nowadays releasing physical game media is no longer a requirement, which also makes releasing updates easier.

maglevfield12 lat temu

They have their own engine that's used for many console games already and a console port of this game isn't ruled out.

Aardwolf12 lat temu

I'm more disappointed about the no Linux myself. Though probably Wine will be able to run it, it manages a lot these days.

maglevfield12 lat temu

Linux support might come: http://www.tuxradar.com/content/interview-david-braben-0

zephjc12 lat temu

Tablets and smartphones? This isn't Candy Crush or Angry Birds here