Game programmer looking for science help.

[PaulModz]

Hi all,

 

I’ve decided to take a few minutes and post a real intro so everyone will know what I’m running on about later.

 

I’m currently working on a space colonization game along the lines of Galactic Civilizations or Masters of Orion that (unlike every space empire game ever written) builds on the work of an obscure scientist named Isaac Newton.

 

Unlike Celestia, Orbiter, and other space simulators I’ve seen, the game does not use pre-calculated tables (ephemeredes) to compute the positions of bodies, but actually simulates gravity. This is far more inefficient than look-up tables, but modeling gravity in real time allows the player to take an active part in celestial engineering as their technology progresses (putting Titan in orbit around the Earth, designing planetary orbits for specific purposes, etc…).

 

The game also places heavy emphasis on the economics of a space fairing civilization. Lifting resources out of a large gravity well is expensive; utilizing resources from low-gravity environments is much cheaper. Quickly getting a critical mass of infrastructure into space is the challenge.

 

While I’ve done ok so far, the problem is I’m a game programmer, not a scientist. While searching the web for both specific equations and views from 10,000 feet, I kept hitting this site, so I decided to come straight to the source.

[pgrmdave]

Does it need to be mathematically precise, or simply an approximation?

[InfiniteNow]

Welcome aboard PaulM,

 

Be sure to ask any specific questions in the Computers and Technology forum, and any of our users with information will surely jump in and help out whenever possible. Enjoy your stay. :)

 

 

Cheers. :cup:

[cwes99_03]

Also don't be afraid to post in the math and physics or the astronomy forums. I don't read much in the computers forums.

[TheFaithfulStone]

I gotta tell you, that sounds awesome

 

TFS

[Jay-qu]

Funny you say that, I was just wondering if there where any programs that did the same job as celestia, but with real time gravity simulation. I will be very interested as to how this turns out and will help where-ever I can. :hyper:

[GAHD]

and here I was on the OTHER side of that problem about 4 years ago...and left it be.

checkout the search function above, but set it for old threads too.

[CraigD]

Welcome, PaulModz! Your work in progress sounds very cool.

 

To help with the many spaceflight-related discussions going on here at hypography, I wrote 6972, a straightforward, any-number-of-bodies, selectable tick length gravity simulator using just simple geometry and Newton’s law of gravity. It’s flexible, but ugly and text/command line based, and written in a simple but numerically low-performance, interpreted language. Still, I’ve had a lot of fun with it messing with transfer orbits, rendezvous, and odd stuff like simulating massive bodies passing thought diffuse nebulae. Its core is fairly tiny: 333 bytes of interpreted code, and very easy to understand.

 

I look forward to discussing your project as soon as you’re ready to start a thread on it.