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Post by dichebach on Nov 4, 2017 0:47:52 GMT
dichebach Less dense fuels require more mass/cost for armoring them; which is why most players use methane or the higher alkanes when building armored vessels. The more armor you slap on, the more attractive the denser fuels become. So, my chemistry is pretty remedial. Is Decane (which always seems to require Lox for a fully functioning system) pretty much the heaviest in the game? ADDIT: Also, "decane" a hydrocarbon. Hydrocarbons come from geological deposits "where decomposed organic matter provides an abundance of carbon and hydrogen." Are these things being artificially fabricated from hydrogen and carbon sources off Earth? Is that even energetically viable? I know there are synthetic oil processes which can be used in desperate circumstances (e.g., Germany in WWII) but even those require coal.
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Post by Kerr on Nov 4, 2017 1:04:20 GMT
dichebach Less dense fuels require more mass/cost for armoring them; which is why most players use methane or the higher alkanes when building armored vessels. The more armor you slap on, the more attractive the denser fuels become. So, my chemistry is pretty remedial. Is Decane (which always seems to require Lox for a fully functioning system) pretty much the heaviest in the game? ADDIT: Also, "decane" a hydrocarbon. Hydrocarbons come from geological deposits "where decomposed organic matter provides an abundance of carbon and hydrogen." Are these things being artificially fabricated from hydrogen and carbon sources off Earth? Is that even energetically viable? I know there are synthetic oil processes which can be used in desperate circumstances (e.g., Germany in WWII) but even those require coal. You can use bacteria to produce Methane out of Bio matter, usually from food waste or feces. Specialized or engineered micro organisms could potentiaΔΊly produce decane.
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Post by treptoplax on Nov 4, 2017 2:10:43 GMT
dichebach Less dense fuels require more mass/cost for armoring them; which is why most players use methane or the higher alkanes when building armored vessels. The more armor you slap on, the more attractive the denser fuels become. So, my chemistry is pretty remedial. Is Decane (which always seems to require Lox for a fully functioning system) pretty much the heaviest in the game? ADDIT: Also, "decane" a hydrocarbon. Hydrocarbons come from geological deposits "where decomposed organic matter provides an abundance of carbon and hydrogen." Are these things being artificially fabricated from hydrogen and carbon sources off Earth? Is that even energetically viable? I know there are synthetic oil processes which can be used in desperate circumstances (e.g., Germany in WWII) but even those require coal. I think it's either decane (10 carbons) or RP-1 (high-grade kerosene; a mix of hydocarbons including decane, mostly including carbon chains of length 6-16). It's moderately energy-inefficient but quite possible to convert carbon dioxide (or almost any other carbon source, really) and water into carbon chains of your choice; coal is a very common carbon source for this because it's so cheap, but there's been a lot of talk of CO2 on Mars and a small nuclear reactor being used for this.
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Post by SevenOfCarina on Nov 4, 2017 2:22:49 GMT
dichebach Less dense fuels require more mass/cost for armoring them; which is why most players use methane or the higher alkanes when building armored vessels. The more armor you slap on, the more attractive the denser fuels become. So, my chemistry is pretty remedial. Is Decane (which always seems to require Lox for a fully functioning system) pretty much the heaviest in the game? ADDIT: Also, "decane" a hydrocarbon. Hydrocarbons come from geological deposits "where decomposed organic matter provides an abundance of carbon and hydrogen." Are these things being artificially fabricated from hydrogen and carbon sources off Earth? Is that even energetically viable? I know there are synthetic oil processes which can be used in desperate circumstances (e.g., Germany in WWII) but even those require coal. Actually, the heaviest hydrocarbon usable as fuel in the game is RP-1, unless I'm mistaken. Also, a variation of the Sabatier reaction has been proposed as a viable method for manufacturing propellant in-situ on Mars using imported hydrogen and atmospheric carbondioxide. It requires 17kWh per kilogram, assuming you want a stochiometric fuel mix. The synthesis of only methane is exothermic, so requires no energy input to sustain the reaction.
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Post by Enderminion on Nov 4, 2017 2:49:41 GMT
So, my chemistry is pretty remedial. Is Decane (which always seems to require Lox for a fully functioning system) pretty much the heaviest in the game? ADDIT: Also, "decane" a hydrocarbon. Hydrocarbons come from geological deposits "where decomposed organic matter provides an abundance of carbon and hydrogen." Are these things being artificially fabricated from hydrogen and carbon sources off Earth? Is that even energetically viable? I know there are synthetic oil processes which can be used in desperate circumstances (e.g., Germany in WWII) but even those require coal. Actually, the heaviest hydrocarbon in the game is RP-1, unless I'm mistaken. Also, a variation of the Sabatier reaction has been proposed as a viable method for manufacturing propellant in-situ on Mars using imported hydrogen and atmospheric carbondioxide. It requires 17kWh per kilogram, assuming you want a stochiometric fuel mix. The synthesis of only methane is exothermic, so requires no energy input to sustain the reaction. umm, it's a polymer, UHMWPE is like the same thing
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Post by ππππππππππ on Nov 4, 2017 6:38:25 GMT
I want to see magnetically confined tungsten plasma as a friggin propellant lol
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Post by ππππππππππ on Nov 4, 2017 9:09:05 GMT
I am admiring, inspired and even awe-struck by what Q-switched has pulled off here. Astounding spaceship combat and module/shipbuilding 'simulator.' The fact the "Campaign" progresses through graded stages of difficulty, providing what is one of the better 'tutorials' for how to understand the underlying science and game concepts are highly laudable. I think there are two major design decisions that hurt sales, and he may be perfectly aware of these and resigned to the fact that he made these design decisions for pragmatic reasons: 1) the universe in which game episodes occur is not a living thing. There is no permanence (player teleports across the solar system between episodes). There is no "living sand box" for which the "campaign" prepares the player to operate in once each step in the series has been mastered. Logistics, economics, planning, construction, resource control/extraction/stewardship are irrelevant. I could add to this that, apart from the very brief mentioning of some NPCs, there are effectively no "characters" in the game. 2) putting the module and ship design behind a "grind wall," and making non-random scenarios the central focus of the game which I've heard more than one commentator reflect on by saying "this is a puzzle game." Both are perfectly understandable for a one man show, and even making such an intricate, accessible, fun and additive game as this is, for one person, an enormous accomplishment. But those are the two reasons why I believe the game didn't engage more. -=-=-=- I think that LOTS of people care about science fiction, with space travel and space combat and space warfare all being favored themes. Granted, games like Empyrion, Kerbal and No Man's Sky are not exactly pulling in PUBG or CSGO numbers, but they are apparently selling hundreds of thousands of units. Even little Distant Worlds Universe, with graphics that are WORSE than CDE, a UI that is far worse than CDE, and with a flavor of "soft science fiction" that is more or less the antithesis of what Qswitched set out to do here have sold nearly 100,000 on Steam (and probably in excess if one considers its pre-Steam years when it was sold on Matrix store only). I don't think "general lack of interest in space-based stuff" can account for it. The "diamond-hard science fiction" imperative could be seen as a turn off for some, but I don't think that is "lethal" to a game's market potential. It is true, many gamers cannot be bothered to learn about game representations of complex and difficult technical matters like orbital mechanics, or materials science or "how to build a nuclear reactor." Extreme realism probably does inherently alienate a sizable chunk of prospective audience and there may be no way around that. But even with that chunk subtracted, I believe there are large numbers of gamers who thrive on the sorts of complex technical challenges that a game like CDE offers, as long as it is served up to them on a proverbial silver platter and is fun. Arma is quite realistic (as tactical FPS combat shooters go) and it doesn't harm its popularity. Silent Hunter series: pretty brutally realistic. Rome Total War: not much in the way of Deus Ex there and to the extent that emergent gameplay veers from "realism" it is not because the game rules and topics are fantasy, it is simply because the algorithms comprising the computer opponents (what gets erroneously called "AI") are just simply terrible at matching even a 8 year old humans tactical and strategic acumen. Generally "tough AI" is a matter of mobbing, hit points, reaction times, 'precognizance' which reflects the developer knowing enough about the game to write the algorithms appropriately, or some other form of "human handicapping" like giving the computer a 50% bonus on mass and currency allotment. In this sense, despite its admirable devotion to create a simulator that breached as few laws of reality as possible, the actual game play is pretty typical in forcing the player to face the computer opponent on the developers' terms . . . Lots of games that are really not much less "realistic" than CDE (piles and piles of war games, for example) . . . Even games which make enormous arm-waving motions and breach physical and natural laws for the sake of game play often involve quite complex rules of internal consistency (EVE Online, Civilization, etc., etc.). I'm hesitant to say too much. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or offend anyone. I don't know any of you, and in truth, I have zero experience with actually shipping titles so it is easy for me to spout about "good game design" when I'm really more of a "student" of the topic than a practictioner. But I really feel that this game has tremendous untapped potential, which (depending on his situation) even the lone father of the thing might be able to untap with sufficient clarity and motivation. There may be little or no motivation, I don't know. If I had to put in simple terms what I think a major overhaul, update or expansion should do, I'd have to say: open world. Bring the CDE solar system to life and place the player IN that world and give them the options to navigate it on their own terms, but with a sufficient number of (a) major story arcs that form a narrative backbone; (b) a handful of "side-quest" story arcs, some more pre-meditated, some more random-configured, and some a mixture and with varying degrees of linkage to the "main quest" (as they say in Bethesda fan communities); (c) living world that pulses and breathes and throbs all by itself, and out of which a reasonably frequent rate of "random scenarios" can crop up. The biggest problem is that the game hides its biggest selling point behind several missions, it can be skipped by using an option in the info link which is pretty well hidden. An open dynamic world the size of KSP solar system plus several AI factions, combined with random events, resources and multiple ways to complete missions with consequences, that would give CoaDE not only the gimmick factor of being realistic and having module designing. But the engine seems to limit the communities modding ability, fusion drives are in the form of relatively accurately simulated chemical reactions and the rest is pretty much only materials provided by Rocket Witch and uh.. some others. CDE seems to be played by a lot hard sci-fi authors, probably because CDE is on a lot of Atomic Rockets pages. And an "realistic" space warfare simulator plus ship designing plus also making your own parts is great for everyone that wants to design a practical spaceship. I second this... qswitched should read this
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Post by Kerr on Nov 4, 2017 9:25:06 GMT
The biggest problem is that the game hides its biggest selling point behind several missions, it can be skipped by using an option in the info link which is pretty well hidden. An open dynamic world the size of KSP solar system plus several AI factions, combined with random events, resources and multiple ways to complete missions with consequences, that would give CoaDE not only the gimmick factor of being realistic and having module designing. But the engine seems to limit the communities modding ability, fusion drives are in the form of relatively accurately simulated chemical reactions and the rest is pretty much only materials provided by Rocket Witch and uh.. some others. CDE seems to be played by a lot hard sci-fi authors, probably because CDE is on a lot of Atomic Rockets pages. And an "realistic" space warfare simulator plus ship designing plus also making your own parts is great for everyone that wants to design a practical spaceship. I second this... qswitched should read this I doubt that it would help, the engine seems very limited. It would require the entire game to be made from scratch.
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Post by dichebach on Nov 4, 2017 13:45:32 GMT
So, my chemistry is pretty remedial. Is Decane (which always seems to require Lox for a fully functioning system) pretty much the heaviest in the game? ADDIT: Also, "decane" a hydrocarbon. Hydrocarbons come from geological deposits "where decomposed organic matter provides an abundance of carbon and hydrogen." Are these things being artificially fabricated from hydrogen and carbon sources off Earth? Is that even energetically viable? I know there are synthetic oil processes which can be used in desperate circumstances (e.g., Germany in WWII) but even those require coal. You can use bacteria to produce Methane out of Bio matter, usually from food waste or feces. Specialized or engineered micro organisms could potentiaΔΊly produce decane. Doesn't surprise me OHHH! How I wish there was a game that achieved the high degree of realism of CDE with respect to orbital mechanics, and engineering, which ALSO achieved the same degree of realism (and detail! and good gameplay!) with respect to these sorts of industrial, logistic, production, and population welfare issues. Imagine, if designing outposts and bases, factories, farms, entertainment and recreation facilities, schools (not to mention things like curriculum, social policies, law enforcement, etc.). Like I keep saying: this game has ENORMOUS untapped potential.
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Post by dichebach on Nov 4, 2017 13:58:19 GMT
Why do you say that? What "engine" was used to write the source code anyway? Based on my perspective as a retired professional social scientist who has spent a couple years studying computer science and am now making my way slowly into game development . . . "engines" (apparently) CAN be constraining. My mentor suggests starting from scratch instead of trying to use existing commercial engines, and he has 35 years of experience as a programmer and IT director. On the other hand, many studios seem to get incredible mileage out of their "engines," and what I gather is that, by virtue of forking their code (in the technical sense if not the literal sense) after each game they publish, they "create" a new engine every few years. Yes, 90% + of the code in Clausewitz Engine 2016 (the year Paradox published Stellaris) might be identical to the code in Clausewitz Engine 2012 (the year they published Crusader Kings II), so it is in fact only "10% new" in terms of lines or characters in the C++ . . . but when you are talking about half-million or more lines of code, even 1% change could be enormous. Indeed, even just ONE character missing can cause the whole house of cards to freeze up and explode! I think the "constraints" have more to do with (a) the level of understanding of the existing code among those with the motivation and incentive to adapt it for new things; (b) desire to simply "plug in" modules that are available and more readily used by virtue of using a specific engine; (c) in some cases, structure in older code which effectively flies in the face of nearly every modern best-practice for object oriented programming (e.g., the only project I've worked on so far was an evolution of an engine originally written in C in the late 1980s which used an effectively procedural loop design as the "heart" of the game . . . I cannot even imagine how those guys got this archaic abomination to run on multi-core rigs, but they did it. Pushing that engine to do things like take advantage of more modern CPUs or GPUs just does not make sense. Why would anyone take an engine out of a 1954 Buick and try to adapt it to use modern turbo-chargers and such like!? You could do it but why!? I seriously doubt that the "engine" for CDE is suffering any problem like that though. Even experts forget how their stuff work(ed)s . . . if someone asked Sid Meiers to go back to the code for Civ 3 [or whichever one he was a primary programmer/lead developer on] and "port" the game to modern 64-bit platforms, and assuming he actually WANTED to do it . . . it might well be less effort and headache for him to just start from scratch with a blank Visual Studio project, and "match" the new game to the old game simply by consulting screen shots and/or some of the data forms, i.e., "copy" the old game like a painter painting a photograph instead of a photoshop hacker shopping the photograph. Whether or not making an expansion/sequel/overhaul to CDE was better achieved by starting from a fresh tablet (whether using an existing engine or literally a blank C++ project) is a question that only one person could answer: Qswitched.
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Post by The Astronomer on Nov 4, 2017 14:05:45 GMT
I and tukuro have a plan to make a new standalone game. CDE respects science but not social issues, but this planned game respects science as well as the social issues. You can use bacteria to produce Methane out of Bio matter, usually from food waste or feces. Specialized or engineered micro organisms could potentiaΔΊly produce decane. Doesn't surprise me OHHH! How I wish there was a game that achieved the high degree of realism of CDE with respect to orbital mechanics, and engineering, which ALSO achieved the same degree of realism (and detail! and good gameplay!) with respect to these sorts of industrial, logistic, production, and population welfare issues. Imagine, if designing outposts and bases, factories, farms, entertainment and recreation facilities, schools (not to mention things like curriculum, social policies, law enforcement, etc.). Like I keep saying: this game has ENORMOUS untapped potential. You mean merging CDE's science with KSP's ability to construct bases with several other games? That's going to be a long, hard work. Find the programmers.
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Post by dichebach on Nov 4, 2017 14:22:16 GMT
I and tukuro have a plan to make a new standalone game. CDE respects science but not social issues, but this planned game respects science as well as the social issues. Doesn't surprise me OHHH! How I wish there was a game that achieved the high degree of realism of CDE with respect to orbital mechanics, and engineering, which ALSO achieved the same degree of realism (and detail! and good gameplay!) with respect to these sorts of industrial, logistic, production, and population welfare issues. Imagine, if designing outposts and bases, factories, farms, entertainment and recreation facilities, schools (not to mention things like curriculum, social policies, law enforcement, etc.). Like I keep saying: this game has ENORMOUS untapped potential. You mean merging CDE's science with KSP's ability to construct bases with several other games? That's going to be a long, hard work. Find the programmers.I'm READY! Though admittedly I did have in mind something more along the lines of: "merging CDE's science with Civilization 4's population and historical mechanics. KSP's construction mechanics are great, but I think that to model "warfare" at a solar system scale, the combat mechanics must be integrated into realistic data on human and/or automaton populations (at least superficial data), resource harvesting, materials and industrial production, supply, logistics and military staffing. I don't see the KSP construction mechanics superceding those in this game that much; there are more options for how to arrange parts, and the KSP interface may be a bit more 'pleasant' from a gameplay standpoint, but I don't think it adds that much. I believe that the sort of overhaul I have in mind might be achieved in large part with the existing game screens, but with more 'back end' data forms, and sufficient code to run the outputs to the screens. A few new screens would be necessary and some changes to the existing screens but not enormous changes I think. Just my guesstimating . . .
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Post by Kerr on Nov 4, 2017 14:25:21 GMT
dichebachI have no clue, the document structure is unique, also I can't any files of a engine within CDE order. Sure, you can do that. Gamebryo is a proof of concept that you can perform necromancy on a game engine, or the Engine of CoD, which as far as I know is a modified version of the quake engine. Correct if I am wrong, but modifying your engine has it's limits, you can't take tetris engine and make it into an GTA V. And modding appears limited, as we can't add new scripts into the game, but only add more materials, missions descriptions and designs, edit limits and change from effect like refractive indexes.
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Post by dichebach on Nov 4, 2017 17:03:18 GMT
I have yet to even bother learning how to disassemble stuff, and I don't really see the point (if not forensic applications). I get how it is done, but why bother? If you have the expertise (and time and endurance) to pull that stuff, why not just make your own!? Not to mention that it is illegal and rude to barge into other people's .exes when they did not provide the source code . . . I suspect that most "major hacks" of commercial computer games (the 24-hour crack of Spore comes to mind, which might be a record relative to the applications complexity) were inside jobs where a disgruntled staff member with full access to the source code and who was in fact bound by an NDA leaked a crack. All that said: when I sign an NDA it is permanent and adamantine. It is simply not worth any other policy as an IT or more broadly an IP professional. I'd be leery of signing one that seemed too attempt to curtail me LEARNING from having access to source code, but certainly plagiarism is something any sane IP owner wants to prevent. If Qswitched wants "help," I think he must be aware that he can get it, essentially for free. Totally agree that, from a general computer science theory standpoint, modifying a "game engine" (or any app) to serve new purposes, or strap on new functionalities has "limits." But those limits are never 100% nor (it seems) are they ever 0% (perfect opportunities). In my very limited experience, making even a very small change to a particular app could be disproportionately time-consuming, befuddling and aggravating--even though in the end it turns out to be completely "doable." It probably is _possible_ to use virtually any computer language or "engine" going all the way back to the beginnings, to create nearly any game . . . Star Citizen clone written in PlankalkΓΌl!? (ADDIT: although by the time you "updated" PlankalkΓΌl to be able to function on modern machines, it would probably look and read and feel like a hybrid of itself and more modern languages). However, the work load of using ANY languages, apps, engines which were not intended for a specific purpose (e.g., using an older technology for newer purposes or to interface with newer technology [whether hardware or software]) is, it seems, more often than not, far beyond what anyone who is mortal would take on willingly. Thus, people select languages, apps, engines which represent lower effort to reward ratios. Assuming the owner of the IP even entertains the idea of expansions/updates/overhauls (which, no one can blame him if he does or does not!), he (or someone with suitable experience with the source code) are really the only ones who are in any position to know if the effort to reward ratio of building from the existing engine is better than moving the game to a different engine.
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Post by AdmiralObvious on Nov 4, 2017 18:05:55 GMT
I'm 90% sure the game runs using Unity, if that counts. Not sure which version though.
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