Somewhere in the clusters

Graphics

I have thought back and forth about how to graphically represent space, while travelling aboard spaceships. The original idea was to keep it very basic, with mainly instrumentation and charts and no actual 3D representation. I got a new idea however, which I think may be the best.
It's basically a standard 3D space, but it will be rendered through some kind of filter, to make it look organic, pixelated and slightly blurred to keep details from showing until really close. This way it will create the illusion of much higher resolution than a more conventional display. I guess what i got in mind is something close to the "night vision" filters some games try to simulate.
I just want to avoid the situation where you see something from way off and know, by the graphics, that even if you run right up to the object it will look the same but bigger.

The adventures of Captain Hicks

Starting off a small set of mini stories from the Deep Space Sentinel 'Armitage' to create some background material. http://dssarmitage.blogspot.com

Another piece of concept art. Didn't look like much from the start but turned out quite sleek and cool looking. Judging from the construction I'd say that this probably will be some kind of public transport.

A transport navigating through an asteroidfield

Ballistics and Damage

The last few days I have been working at the ballistics model. My goal is a a fairly realistic system, that takes into account different kinds of ammunition and other variables which will affect the final impact. If a bullet hits something, the system will calculate energy tranferred and if the projectile got enough momentum to penetrate and keep going. Hopefully I will also manage to describe the effects high velocity rounds have on hard targets as well as the more penetrating effect a slower moving heavy round have on soft targets.

Im aiming for a complex damage model as well with bleeding, heart failure and similar conditions turning the role of doctors or surgeons into a very special part to play. For the sake of gameplay recovering will be much faster than in real life focusing more on the life threatening situations that might occur in combat.

Short description of the game project

First of all its a new genre. Call it - Role playing * Space simulation * Business strategy. Entirely new code based on mud/mush technology (á la Pennmush) crossed with supportive graphics and interfaces to allow "realistic" simulation of spacetravel including a very advanced engineering model.
The ship model should be sufficiently advanced to make it neccessary to have a dedicated engineer on capital ships. By this I mean that the damage model is advanced enough to cause additional damage down the lines that perhaps need rewiring and temporary repairs to keep the ship running.
The reason for keeping first person in text mode is the superior roleplaying that comes out if it. No limitations because of animations etc etc. First person graphics will be limited to some kind of icon system and either rendered or real time 3d backgrounds.

First person combat will be a hybrid cross between text and a tailored interface to allow turn based (but still time limited) combat system based upon skills and stats (and equipment).

In the beginning...

...was the hope for "the game".

Eventually hope turned into dissapointment and despair.

...

And they thrived for quite some time.

...

Then came the thought.

And the thought transformed into an idea.

Until one day, when the idea turned into a plan.

This is now. This is here. Ill explain shortly...