I know, I know… this is the time of year empty promises fly from the mouths of our exalted elected officials attempting to maintain their hold on their offices. Howard is still busy working out bugs and few features to ensure that a beta or alpha release can happen soon. There are a few key [...]
I just completed a drive from Austin, Texas to North Central Kansas and back, in three days, alone. Funeral trip, but not the point of this post… at best, I averaged 60 mph and the trip, just under 800 miles took about 14 hours each way. Never mind that I drove straight through - it [...]
Hi friends,
We have been a bit bogged down in details, trying to sew up a demonstration version of Colony ETS. Without giving away the surprise, mission control has changed our target landing site just a little bit… and the results should be fairly exciting. Look for an update in the next few weeks, and a [...]
So, you have decided to travel to another world and create a sustainable colony or at least discover if it is possible. It is kind of like moving to some remote location in the middle of the frozen tundra in Siberia. You can’t carry all you might need in one trip so how do you [...]
Below are a few high-level scenarios as you enter the game and learn the basic systems required for survival.
Scenario: You are hired by a corporation to do exploratory analysis of a potential site for colony installation. This will be the initial onsite phase: selecting the proper landing area, securing the basic materials and resources necessary [...]
I added a picasa widget that will feed a random image on the right panel. If you want to see more, either refresh your browser, or click directly onto the image, hyperlinking you to a higher resolution view in the Picasa service. Feel free to comment!
I must say I haven’t been very impressed with the quality of the other space colony / settlement sims out there. They tend toward the cartoonish or focus on a particular element and that becomes all of the content quickly. As for the graphics - it drifts from pretty raw to downright rough, understandable in [...]
Designing the game or simulator is much like making the trip for real. That is a rather bold statement and I don’t want to ever trivialize the efforts of the brave men and women that venture into space for mankind nor the endless hours of work by top engineers to make this happen, but the [...]
Construction on an alien world is a difficult challenge. It involved signficant engineering expertise; understanding of materials, loads and structural challenges, and perhaps most difficult, a standardized mechanism for transporting materials and the tools necessary. Most games make large leaps in assumptions, providing complete “kits” that self assemble - usually to avoid coding complexity and [...]
How do you simulate the mineral distribution on a alien world for simulation purposes? Big question and many answers can be given to this challenge. How detailed will the simulation or game be? That is the better question to start with. In a simple game we can just randomly drop things where ever we want [...]
