Already started this project a few weeks ago, so I will try my best to remember whats happened so far!!!
The Project:
Create a space game for the PC. One which actually has a Full universe to explore a fly through, UNLIMITED! ie NO Worm Hole or Jump Gates to travel between small limited space sectors!
Must Avoids:
If you want to play a space sim type game, then you need SPACE! Not a bunch of Non-connected small areas - with nice shiney lights and sparkling nebulae and a like!
Most space games that I have played do not give the idea of Space! Elite back on the Amiga, so many years ago, did! The reason I believe is that you could actually fly from one solar system straight to another solar system! No need for Jump Gates and alike!
Key Areas To Overcome:
The biggest and most demanding area of programming to overcome has got to be the whole scale of space, and objects in space!
Example, if 1 computer unit = 1 meter (m), then
distance from Sun to Earth would be 147,000,000,000 units/m!
Ok you say, whats the problem there?
Well, not even considering larger distance ie Sun to Pluto 4500,000,000,000 m a computer stores numbers in Variables called Floats or Integers (of various types). These variables can only hold numbers upto a certain size!
I am pretty dam sure that a computers Float variable can not acuratly hold numbers as big as 147-4500 x 10^9 as shown above!
Ok use an Interger variable, say INT32 ( a 32bit integer variable ) that should be fine! Cool, sorted - or Not!
Now consider the distance across our whole Galaxy, approx. 100 Light Years I think or 100 x 9460,800,000,000 units / m!
It is now getting clear that we can not possible expect to store these vast distances in a single computer variable, even if we did manage to fit them into say a INT64 (64 bit number) or bigger! - we would then have rediculous problems with the maths calculations just to run the game!
The Project:
Create a space game for the PC. One which actually has a Full universe to explore a fly through, UNLIMITED! ie NO Worm Hole or Jump Gates to travel between small limited space sectors!
Must Avoids:
If you want to play a space sim type game, then you need SPACE! Not a bunch of Non-connected small areas - with nice shiney lights and sparkling nebulae and a like!
Most space games that I have played do not give the idea of Space! Elite back on the Amiga, so many years ago, did! The reason I believe is that you could actually fly from one solar system straight to another solar system! No need for Jump Gates and alike!
Key Areas To Overcome:
The biggest and most demanding area of programming to overcome has got to be the whole scale of space, and objects in space!
Example, if 1 computer unit = 1 meter (m), then
distance from Sun to Earth would be 147,000,000,000 units/m!
Ok you say, whats the problem there?
Well, not even considering larger distance ie Sun to Pluto 4500,000,000,000 m a computer stores numbers in Variables called Floats or Integers (of various types). These variables can only hold numbers upto a certain size!
I am pretty dam sure that a computers Float variable can not acuratly hold numbers as big as 147-4500 x 10^9 as shown above!
Ok use an Interger variable, say INT32 ( a 32bit integer variable ) that should be fine! Cool, sorted - or Not!
Now consider the distance across our whole Galaxy, approx. 100 Light Years I think or 100 x 9460,800,000,000 units / m!
It is now getting clear that we can not possible expect to store these vast distances in a single computer variable, even if we did manage to fit them into say a INT64 (64 bit number) or bigger! - we would then have rediculous problems with the maths calculations just to run the game!
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