PA LiveStream: July 30th, 2013

YouTube: http://youtu.be/T4kvsGCCTuo

Topics of discussion:
- Planetary Annihilation

Reddit discussion thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/planetaryannihi ... 30th_july/

Comment away!

The physics simulation looks like it'll be a lot of fun.

But it looks like I was mistaken, not a whiff of Orbital Units yet... Maybe next time...

Not yet.. I've spent a few hours on them, and Scathis, Neturino and I have spent a lot of time talking about em, but we need a solid week+ to work on em before we'll have anything to show off.

Cool. What's the skinny on them so far? Is there anything you can share?

Even just some basic concept-phase stuff?

Or art? Has Steve got any art for us?

the orbital mechanics are great Good Job! All my fear for too unrealistic orbital movement is gone

I can make the art if you give me the details! ;p

Mike

I too would love to hear how these are going. There's been a lot of discussion about them, and I'd love to hear any details that you may feel ready to tell us.

Orbital mechanics look fun.
I am glad that thought is being put into a full chaotic capable simulation as well as a stable more video-game friendly locked orbit system. Will be great for making campaign mods.
Player made scenario solar systems will be plentiful.

Out of curiosity, I have a bunch of absurdly technical questions, what type of integration is Ryan using? First order/Euler? or RK4? or something else? Fixed time steps?

Other questions:
-Would there eventually be pre-configured systems we can insert into our solar system? I.E. Earth+moon style, Mars + 2 tiny moons style, so we can skip the tweaking to make them work(yes it does depend on orbit radius, but it could be 'adaptive' relative to position from the star).
-So far it looks like only 2D orbits not 3D, is that a engine/interface/not there yet issue?
-Is the mass of the star adjustable? (so that if we scale orbit velocity correctly, we end up with the same orbit but slower)
-It has been previously stated the star is non movable, is this still true?

I am REALLY excited about this!!!!!!!! (no you couldn't tell, be quiet )

really cool planet collision stuff today!

One burning question about the planet editor is; will it be full 3d space or is everything on a flat plane? The grid that always pops up makes me think that all orbital mechanics will be occurring on a flat plane for ease of calculation. It would be more interesting if it was fully 3d cuz ... yknow .... space ....

Somehow I feel that it is not the calculations that would be the problem for 3 dimensions, but rather the gameplay. Getting an overview is already a pretty hard task, add in 3D solar systems and it will get even worse.

I'm stoked to see some gameplay with orbital units/interplanetary combat.

And thanks for answering my question on bots, good to know they'll have a purpose other than being good with micro and raiding.

Looked really good. Can't wait to test it!

The nerd part of me almost exploded when they revealed the n-body sim and said that you'd be able to play that. I can totally understand the need for a more stable 2-body sim for competitive gameplay, but I'm going to be using the n-body every time =D

Top notch livestream guys!

Looks like the youtube's up here for those like me who missed it: http://youtu.be/T4kvsGCCTuo

I'll be giving it a watch right after my 10AM class.

I always wanted to ask this, but never actually did: this opening music you use for livestream, what is the story behind it? Because I'd say it's even better than what you used in the kickstarter video. Did Howard write it especially for livestreams? Will it be in PA release? I think I heard it in PA alpha as one of the background themes, although I'm not sure.

And on the related note: are you going to have more chorus in PA music? Maybe even live chorus? I mean, you're going for live orchestra, and a live chorus would be a nice addition.

Yes there will be a live choir.

The planetary sim is actually fully 3D but we are currently restricting it to a plane to make it sane to work with. That could change of course. The actual code itself is 3d and will work if you get it the inputs.

Yes I was wondering about the 2d/3d thing myself. I think a single plane makes sense for the intent of the game (if you've ever played kerbal space program, once you get off the plane of the other planet's orbits things get way trickier).

The gameplay question then would be, how would I aim the asteroid at the other players base if it isn't on the 'equatorial plane'? I'm not sure how planets rotate relative to their orbit, but coming in and hitting an arbitrary point on the target planet would require the 3rd dimension.

I'm simply excited to throw a bunch of stuff into that editor and see what happens. In fact, even with the mod-2-body, the artist in me is gonna go nuts.