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+--- Thread: Getting my hands over Java, aiming at own spacesim in future! (/showthread.php?tid=116097)
Getting my hands over Java, aiming at own spacesim in future! - Swallow - 06-01-2014
After many hours flying in Freelancer and Orbiter (might count in EVE and some others yet not played games), reading stories and scientific literature, I build in my mind a new image of what space sim might be to me.
As my Blender skill grows up (soon I might even end up with complete textured model), I decided that modmaking under FL and Orbiter won't be suiting me forever, and thus, to accomplish my addiction of creating space-related things in future, I aimed myself at building a game or a simulator, basically, from scratch. I picked Java for this purpose because it seems easy, well-designed and absolutely cross-platform.
What I would like to show with my project in case of success?
1. The actual question (and answers) on WHY would people go in such a harsh environment and for what possible goals.
2. The main feel of deep space - absolute loneliness, insignificance, and fear for your resources and energy; opposite to it, the feel of populated space - orbital life, routine, fights, commerce.
3. Role of the fuel and resources and scientific innovations in the space.
4. "Everyone is vulnerable" feel. No matter how thick your armour is, a small screw at speed of 5 km/sec (far not the biggest speed at the Earth orbit), will melt through the steel like through the butter, making large hole in it, making simple armouring just useless (which will lead to the interesting spacecraft designs I suppose).
5. Space fights? - Doubt so. Having one relatively light railgun (or any other accelerator) on the top of your ship would make you the source of fear among the places. Laser guns, missiles are basically useless and ineffective. Besides - turning your enemy into the cloud of shards flying random directions at high speed is an unwanted thing. The fights are going to be accurate, the more accurate your gun, the better your balancing and aiming system, the better computer you have aboard - the more distance to hit your enemy from you have, the more chances to dominate you have.
But you still have to be insane to dare to engage someone...
6. Priceless life and priceless machinery. Constant stress related to the space routine could make you paranoid I suppose (but not sure), means that safety will be considered with the great caution... It will be hard to feel oneself safe in the space, which might mean that large amounts of funds will be invested in safety and performance of the spacecrafts. I think that the problem of safety will have high priority at any time, just because people will be living in the isolated environment.
7. Power of time. Yes, time, the thing we all afraid here in FL, where we cross half galaxy in no time...
Pursuing a station in orbit might take days, while there is no need to say anything about the interplanetary travels.... In most of the games, for the sake of gameplay, such things as jumpdrives, scale-shrinking are implemented, but we all feel that it is kinda weird. Must not run away from time?
And many other ideas to kick off all the romantics from the space living, we all used for... What will it be after that? Naked and harsh space sim? And now imagine this in real... Does space travels still look that appealing?
Still, after all, I believe I could tie this all into something not completely scientific and attractionless, but for now I have to learn, it is still too early to say something more right now.
RE: Getting my hands over Java, aiming at own spacesim in future! - Haste - 06-01-2014
Java isn't exactly known for its great graphics performance. I'd suggest looking into something lower-level like C++ and perhaps not caring about cross-platform all that much. If you want something similar to Java that in my experience is a lot better performance-wise when it comes to graphics, try C#. Not to mention it's always felt a lot more coherent than Java in terms of its libraries and whatnot.
RE: Getting my hands over Java, aiming at own spacesim in future! - lIceColon - 06-01-2014
I think for a futuristic space sim you should aim for high automation and high precision - there are things computers can do that humans just cannot, and should definitely not be relied upon for.
As for time - you know, space might be big, but space is also tiny. What I mean is, just because its space doesn't necessarily mean you MUST traverse great distances. On earth we have to travel great distances because we mostly only have 2D space to move and play around with, but space is 3 dimensional.
I have full faith that something could be created that is 100% scientifically accurate but at the same time easy to play, those two attributes are not necessarily contradicting.
RE: Getting my hands over Java, aiming at own spacesim in future! - Swallow - 06-01-2014
(06-01-2014, 06:24 PM)Haste Wrote: Java isn't exactly known for its great graphics performance. I'd suggest looking into something lower-level like C++ and perhaps not caring about cross-platform all that much. If you want something similar to Java that in my experience is a lot better performance-wise when it comes to graphics, try C#. Not to mention it's always felt a lot more coherent than Java in terms of its libraries and whatnot.
ะก# looks too-Windows relied though for me... (While I'd rather use *nix).
Anyhow, I am not aiming to use lots of post effects and over-advanced graphics... moreover, I have quiet a lot of time before I actually start working with graphics, so things might change till then. Besides, I've seen couple gaming engines like Jmonkey, and some examples made with it.
RE: Getting my hands over Java, aiming at own spacesim in future! - Occam Razor - 06-01-2014
You can simply use OpenGL for Java, which works the same way as C++ or C and does not have a real performance difference for any of the languages. It all depends on how big what you want to do is gonna be.