Minousoft Software » Polaris

Polaris: Current development progress

oakwhiz — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:13:49 +0000

A lot of people have been asking about Polaris lately, so I’m going to clarify what is happening and what needs to be done.

Current status:

Design:
Physics:
Gameplay/mechanics:
Optimization:
Testing:
Overall:

Notes:

Design: I still have to clarify a couple of game design issues, and I have yet to even design the artificial intelligence. Many of the other game elements have already been designed, however.
Physics: I spent a very large amount of time on the custom-made physics engine, and it seems to have paid off. Occasionally I will find a little glitch in the engine, but I don’t expect too many modifications in this area in the future.
Gameplay/mechanics: I need to work on the gameplay because at the moment, Polaris is just an engine. I also have to fix the bugged resource system, and create a better management interface for everything.
Optimization: Polaris hogs a huge amount of resources right now. It’s mostly in the CPU department, but occasional load occurs on the GPU. My own aging PC struggles to keep the framerate up when many ships are created. I’m probably going to add more checking for objects that are too far away, and replace their calculations with faster, more granular approximations. Another idea is to actually freeze processing on objects that can be ignored. However, some progress has already been made with optimization; for example, objects in the game that are far away are not drawn, or things like small graphical effects which require extra CPU time are not drawn. Additionally, I found several ways to ‘recycle’ some expensive physics calculations that were being called multiple times, which increased speed quite a bit.
Testing: Most of the features have been tested extensively, and debug interfaces have been added, so future additions to the code won’t take long to test thoroughly.
Overall: I’m halfway there, and it’s pretty much downhill from here.

On a side note, I’d like to thank Chris Walden for his generous donation of $10!

Minousoft on Twitter! (plus minor updates)

oakwhiz — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:40:13 +0000

You can now follow Minousoft on Twitter. You’ll get the added benefit of receiving tweets when new posts are made!

Also, some minor updates…

A couple of bugfixes have been made in Polaris. Not much progress has been happening with Polaris lately, and it looks like it’ll take a while before it’s ready for release.
I’ve been working on several ‘experimental’ apps lately. I might post one up sometime soon.
Some previously unknown 404 and 403 errors on the site have been fixed.
The server software and hardware is being improved. No downtime is expected at all.

Quick Polaris Update

oakwhiz — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:01:51 +0000

Just some quick Polaris updates to keep you posted:

The user interface is being enhanced, and most of the selection system has been worked out.
Modules and ships now have ‘properties’ panels which give information about selected objects.
New module types have been added and old ones have been tweaked; notably the Mass Driver, Science Module, Armored Module, and Cargo Capsule.
Improvements have been made to the Ship Builder, but it isn’t finished yet.
Some previously unknown bugs from 0.23a have been squashed, finally.
Parts of the game have been redesigned to improve efficiency.

New content has finally been added to the Media Player:

Caramelldansen (Remix)
Sonic – Flying Battery Zone (Remix)
Final Fantasy X – To Zanarkand (Remix)
Final Fantasy 8 – Force Your Way (Remix)
Azumanga Daioh – Soramimi no Cake (Remix)

A couple of small bugs in the site itself have been corrected, but an accident while editing the shoutbox has erased all of the shoutbox comments and the CSS template for the shoutbox itself.

Polaris v0.33a Progress Update

oakwhiz — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:01:42 +0000

Polaris is progressing, however, because of new time constraints, a public release is not expected for at least another month. Those of you which want to pre-order Polaris will have to wait for now, as we are dealing with licensing issues at the moment.

Below (after the jump) is an animated GIF of how modules react right now. The ship firing the lasers has a primitive auto-targeting system, which causes the lasers to point in many different directions. At the end, the ship has its lasers’ power levels bumped up to a very high number, which causes the ship to explode.

What’s new with Polaris:

Basic module selection system
Complete saving and loading of entire ships – you can create a ship, save it, and an exact copy of it can be loaded later
Started work on the in-game user-interface and ship builder
‘Aimable’ modules – lasers and thrusters can be vectored to point in different directions
New module types: Armored and Science
Module types are more balanced
Container system – modules can now hold objects
Many bugfixes

Polaris v0.25a Progress Update – Planets

oakwhiz — Wed, 06 May 2009 05:13:23 +0000

The last Polaris update I made was at v0.16a. hxhl95 has been alpha-testing some of the releases along the way, and progress is looking great. At the moment, I am working on turning Polaris development towards modifying the code into more of a game. Right now, it’s just a ‘sandbox.’ In order to get to the finished product, the main things that I need to add are the user interface, the ship builder, and the scenario engine.

In order for everything to ‘fall into place,’ as it were, the game needs to be shaped into a sort of framework at this point. I’m adding in the planets, asteroids, and other objects which will be used during missions later.

Any suggestions or comments about Polaris are appreciated. However, I would like all future commenters to note that insane feature requests probably won’t be honored.

Wondering what Polaris is? Read previous entries tagged with ‘Polaris.’

Polaris v0.16a Progress Update – Includes Lasers

oakwhiz — Sat, 02 May 2009 06:30:22 +0000

There have been so many changes with Polaris since I last posted that video. The main thing that everyone’s been talking about are the “lasers.” *does Dr. Evil air quotes*

[Screenshots after the jump!]

I’ve just about worked out all of the bugs in the laser module. The laser uses a crude binary-search sort of algorithm to detect how far it should go. This reduces the lag, allowing whole groups of lasers to be constructed.

You may be wondering what the laser modules are for, and how they work. Every laser module has properties relating to output wattage and frequency. Statistics about the range, shape, size, and result of the laser are calculated based on these properties. For example, a low-power rangefinding laser in the range of milliwatts will be very dim and have a short range, while a laser yielding several kilowatts will actually be able to heat up and destroy other modules. I’m trying to add some more effects to the lasers to make them look cooler, but right now they look pretty awesome in motion.

Stay tuned for more updates! If you haven’t already, use the subscribe box on the right to sign up for email notifications.

Polaris Demo Video

oakwhiz — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:23:32 +0000

I’ve uploaded a demo video of Polaris. Progress so far is good. Check out the nice physics!

Polaris article link: http://www.minousoft.com/2009/04/polaris-new-game-in-development/
Video link: http://www.minousoft.com/media-player/

Feel free to comment on what you think.

Polaris – New game in development

oakwhiz — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 18:36:42 +0000

We’re working on a new game called Polaris, which will be a space travel simulator. Polaris will be my top development priority until June, when we expect to release a public beta. Note that I will probably spend less time improving the site until then.

The main goal of Polaris is to simulate the design ideas and processes that go into planning and launching space missions. We would also like to make Polaris both educational and fun at the same time.

Spacecraft in Polaris are constructed using a revolutionary modular approach. All spacecraft are comprised of small interconnected modules. Each module has its own functions and behavior, and works together with its neighbors. A simple example would be a space probe. It could include a main computer, a communications dish, and a thruster. Each part would be a module, and they would be linked together with special dynamic constraints. The constraints ensure that the modules stay together, even if one of the modules rotates or moves away. If a constraint or one of a constraint’s constrained modules is destroyed, the other modules attached to the constraint will simply disconnect and float away. This allows for some dramatic explosions; i.e. as modules are destroyed, the other modules connected start to break off in chunks and collide with each other, leaving a trail of burning debris.

At this point in development, we have finished basic constraint operations, and I have succeeded in linking five modules and having them interact successfully. This compares to the old physics system, which had major bugs and collided with itself, usually with catastrophic results. But the new physics system is astounding. The individual modules, which move and collide normally, act as one object when a simple constraint object is created between them. Hopefully the rest of it will go smoothly.

The following tasks are on the priority to-do list:

Make multiple-object rotation more realistic. This is when multiple constrained modules have a spinning force and moving force acting on all of the modules at once. Right now it works (mostly) but acts a little odd.
Improve force propagation. This is when a force on one constrained object causes a force on the other. This should scale automatically to situations when one module is the master to several other constrained modules.
Create and test thruster capabilities.