Colony has currently split into two main projects: The Colony MCO project, which has evolved into a collaborative online community of Mars enthusiasts – many with great knowledge and curiosity, AND Colony: Surveyor – a mission oriented variation of the above that doesn’t carry all of the coding and programmatic challenges with a semi-persistent colony.

Colony: Surveyor has a strong direction, and provides a much more elegant platform to pursue and solve the challenges being discussed in the space community today. My recent discussions with Howard have gotten me excited about the opportunities. There are still programmatic and mechanical challenges to present a very rich and deep simulation experience, along with game elements that help make this simulation both fun and rewarding for the player.

Hyperkat has not abandoned Colony MCO,  dedicated to ensuring that a long term persistent experience is available. This is still a very important project, that fortunately shares the bulk of code with the Surveyor project. Howard, and the beta testers, have been carefully following the newest developments; plans to put a station on Earth’s moon, new ideas on how to build structures on Mars and so forth.

SPAM: Really, when are we going to evolve past the point that random spams, both to this blog and to the forums will end? Bless those dedicated coders that maintain the source code and security elements for both platforms, their efforts have saved us from some VERY embarrassing posts, yet spammers still seem to get past! What a waste of bandwidth and time!

So a question: Given the need for communication between Mars colonies and Earth, how would you respond if you were EVA in a suit for 5 hours repairing a water processing unit, and your HUD suddenly flashed with the latest Cialis scam or an announcement that you just won a lottery?

Me? I would wander back to the co-hab, open up a can of SPAM and fry up a nice hash with potatoes. Then log into the forums, blogs and other systems and delete all of that electronic garbage! Shame we can’t turn those bits into compost.

Here’s why… there are a couple of “big” things happening. Those of you that are actively testing each week with Hyper in the Mars Colony Online alpha are aware, but for the rest…

MCO has been ported to a new and more capable engine. This gives the engineers and artists many more tools to make the environment much more immersive and leverage Shader technology in modern graphics cards. The result is considerable hand work in porting core logic and rendering systems into the new engine. The good news is that the bulk of the work is completed, and the team is back on mechanics and fixing minor bugs as they pop up.

Secondly, MCO is beginning to mature to the point that actual plans for release are forming. So for all of you Mars simulation fans… stay tuned!

Good job Marcus!

Enjoy!

Mars Colony ETS – Independent game developer, HyperKat Games, is excited to announce the immediate release of Mars Colony ETS public demonstration. Mars Colony ETS is the first virtual Mars exploration simulator, based on existing practical science, that puts the user into an immersive first person 3D graphics experience. The demo is available as a free download at Hyperkat.com.

Inspired by JPL’s Mars Rover projects and the proposals of entities such as The Mars Society for manned exploration of Mars, Mars Colony ETS hopes to bring realistic space exploration experiences to everyone. The first mission puts up to four people on the surface of Mars, with all of the basic tools of survival and specific goals to ensure the eventual successful colonization of our sister planet. While open ended, the primary tasks are to locate water, sustain life support systems, generate fuel and gather and catalog information on local exploitable resources. The simulation has an active weather system and Colonists are required to equip EVA gear to survive the hostile Mars environment while installing and managing external activities. Things break and successful Colonists must think creatively in juggling mission requirements while maintaining critical systems. Successful missions complete all or most of the mission parameters while generating sufficient fuel and oxygen to return to earth. Additional missions are under development and will include the addition of rovers, vehicles, food production and engineering.

Colony ETS is based on a client and server model, allowing for individuals to play solo or host up to four friends in collaborative play requiring a broadband Internet connection. Mission hosts can create private or public servers, accessible through server lists in game. Game status is persistent on the host server allowing for games to be played in single or multiple sessions. Completed missions are given a score and analysis of the completed mission parameters. Hosts can also reset the mission to replay.

While this demonstration is still conceptual, there is a lot of potential to influence the development, from academic to mainstream experiences. HyperKat needs your feedback and participation to help refine and steer the development toward the best possible experience. Please join us at HyperKat.com to provide feedback, opinions and participate in testing programs for new missions. Our special thanks to “thedubman” who has shared his tremendous enthusiasm and time in testing and providing great feedback, and to the rest of our wonderful testers who have logged hundreds of hours working out the bugs in Mission 1! We have a great community and would love you to join us!

Colony ETS information: www.hyperkat.com
Colony ETS blog: www.hyperkat.com/blog
Colony ETS Testers: www.hyperkat.com/litterbox

HyperKat Games was created 2003 by Howard Dortch to design, develop and distribute fun games for all ages. The company is located in an economically depressed area of Southern Ohio in hopes of providing local college students employment in the games industry.

Howard Dortch currently teaches game design at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio. HyperKat is home to Mars Colony ETS, Virtual Rover Simulator, ScudBuster, SOF/Raiders and HyperXBall.
Company Site www.hyperkat.com

Over the next few weeks, I will be writing and posting a story about a return, 3 person mission to Mars. Before we begin the stories, I want to address a few things directly – to avoid any confusion.

1. The likelihood of a single manned mission – as expressed in the first story series – is pretty low. The risks involved are too great and additional team members ensure a higher probability of success. The “logs” were loosely based on my experiences running Mars Colony Simulator (alpha and beta) in single player mode… and it is conceivable that once these kinds of missions are regular, that a series of bases, manned temporarily by a single person, could be established. I would guess however, that a larger “local” base, with a full staff and facilities would be required to allow for this kind of pioneering effort to be considered. Personally – I see this idea much like the hundreds of pioneers that set out alone to establish the West in North America. They grouped together to make the treck, but split into smaller groups and individuals to setup homesteads, farms and ranches. Other pushed on to the west coast. My point is that there is a key spirit of discovery, pioneering and risk taking that will be a central criteria for successful colonization… whether for long term expansion of civilization or for resource harvesting.

2. To increase the “challenge” the next story will focus on a 3-person mission, rather than 4. As a focus, I am going to dwell the relational aspects and interactivity – the actual tasks will start to take a bit more of a backseat. We are also picking up elements of “Mission 2″ – under development by Hyperkat for the commercial release of the simulator. I am not a psychologist nor a behavior expert, but will draw on historical events, as well as logs and mission reports from the Mars Society missions, and my experiences managing diverse teams. I look forward to putting three highly capable pioneers into the stressful grinder of a return mission to mars, and watching how their personalities and capabilities run up against difficult circumstance.

3. I will try to mix both narative and the “log” report format, to provide some continuity, as well as a few directive’s from Command and Control back on earth. Dealing with the (6 minute) delay is very hard in fiction – real time communication is not practical, so the focus will be on broadcast audio, some limited video and email/report communication, so while “real life” will have more direct communication, this story line will have very little. In fact, my early drafts feel a bit like Command and Control is very passive.

I hope that you enjoy the series.

Pretty funny and fairly accurate…

Cross your fingers, perhaps we can get an ingame radio system before too long. Meantime, we <heart> Teamspeak.

Well, Mars Colony Simulator is well on its way to a public demo release, but we need fresh eyes and strong backs to polish this up. A few of you have already been to Mars, but we need a few more pioneers!

Because the bug fix schedule is unpredictable, we are building an invitation list to query when we need a new test run. Usually we will need 2-3 hours of your time. Oh there are some requirements…

1. Windows users only… there is no Mac port of this project.

2. We will screen for system specifications… so will ask that you send some system information ahead of time. We have tested on laptops and mid-high end desktop computers so you will most likely pass. A good graphics card is useful. You can find out your specifications by running DXDIAG from your Start/Run menu.

3. You need broadband internet access… we don’t really care what brand, although GPRS or 3G modems will experience significant lag problems.

4. We prefer you use a headset with microphone and require Teamspeak. This information will be forwarded to you in the invitation.

Why Teamspeak? There is currently no in game radio system. Teamspeak will run in the background allowing you to talk with other testers during the game… this is far more efficient for communication than the console chat.

Teamspeak is a free client download – you can find it at http://www.teamspeak.com/ . Those of you that play a lot of FPS or MMO games maybe familiar with Teamspeak already. Teamspeak will require a microphone, configured through your system’s “Sounds” control panel.

Please setup “Push to talk” hotkey, we suggest the left CTRL button, if you are not using a headset mic. This prevents echo problems and feedback when using live speakers, and keeps the background noise down. 

In the invitation, you will be provided with the server IP address to join. While only 4 people are supported in a given Colony instance, feel free to join in. There may be people dropping out because of schedule – freeing a slot.

How to join…

Please send an email to hdortch@hyperkat.com. Include your name, location, email address and a general description of your PC. It is also useful to know if you are a space enthusiast or professional.

Testing sessions are happening about 3-4 times a week, during major updates and bug fixes, and occur during evenings on weekdays – and anytime on the weekends.

12/24/2012, 13:15 PHX

Missions are entirely completed. I have a full survey of the 500 meters surrounding the COHAB site, and heading through the final preparations for return. I am waiting return instructions and the proposed launch windows. The storms have been increasing in intensity of late, and some minor damage has reduced the solar array’s effectiveness. I have been running at the lightest possible load to ensure enough battery charge before leaving. The return missions here will need to bring additional PV panels, and possibly a replacement battery system.

I hit another snag in the generation of fuel. Running a single pump means carefully metering water to the COHAB and the ERV for fuel. In running the COHAB lean, I have been able to get enough fuel reserved for a safe take off, however oxygen still needs to be capped off. I am planning to divert the ERV rations to the COHAB to store up adequate oxygen and transfer the last requirements tomorrow.

12/25/2012, 18:16 PHX

I found an anomaly in the sampling data earlier. About 56 meters south of the ERV I have found traces of methane. My first assumption was that I had a leak in the EVR fuel system, but it all checked out. My only conclusion is that either there actually is methane or that somehow the samples were contaminated. I resampled around the general area and found a “cluster” of samples – with a very regular dispersion pattern consistent with gas leakage.

There is no protocol for drilling and recovering methane, and I tested the stability of the surface gases with a torch. Not enough oxygen present it seems to make it flammable. So I setup the drill and dropped a 25 meter hole. The hole is venting a visible fog stream into the atmosphere, and I was able to recover some water vapor. While the LIBS cannot test vapor or gas, I managed to mix some of the gas and local sand by condensing the vapor in a plastic tent. The LIBS analysis showed 60% water with about 15 ppm methane. This is exciting, because there are very few geological explanations. While scientists believed to find methane clouds in 2010, few people were willing to entertain the idea of biological determination.

I have sampled and bio-bagged the aggregate mud returned from the drill. I do not have the time or the facilities to do any biological testing here on planet. I will need to modify the rock bin on the ERV to ensure these are properly secured and can survive the trip home.

12/26/2012, 02:15 PHX

Countdown to return is on, however I am more than a little irritated. It seems that a new protocol is rerouting me to the international space station for biological isolation. If I have been exposed to any kind of bacteria, germ or virus, they will need to figure out the danger, as well as begin to analyze the samples.

This delays my return to my family significantly. The good news is that I am also to get credit for the discovery, although actual ownership will remain a corporate asset. The bad news is that I am now a corporate asset if I have been contaminated. I don’t believe there is any real danger, although I was exposed to the exterior of my suit  in the COHAB. I feel fine and doubt that any bacterium would survive outside their own unique extreme environment.

Regardless, this will be my last entry. I am scheduled to lift off at 04:00 PHX and will be starting the life support procedures shortly. It has been exactly 26 days since I landed, and there have been some crazy challenges. All in all I am pleased with my performance. Physiologically, I have lost 12 pounds and my suit is a lot looser  now. Otherwise, no  other medical conditions. I am a bit nervous about the launch, I recall descriptions of these kinds of launches as a bit like riding a bomb. The computers manage the entire procedure, and I will be tightly strapped in, and sedated. I hate needles, and I guess now I am going to see a lot more of them at the space station.

Signing off. By the way, I am looking at my last sunset. The sun is cresting on the edge of the crater, creating deep red and orange shadows. I have worn a path that runs between the wellhead and the COHAB that looks purple in the fading light. Off to the west is a massive dust storm catching the dimming light. I can’t say this has been the most comfortable few weeks, but I am looking forward to coming back. There is a lot to do and a lot to gain. If I am lucky, we will be able to bring an oxygen garden and the diet can expand to something besides freeze dried sludge.

Message to my family: I am looking forward to our reunion. I have a lot to share with you all and miss you very much.