Spaceway
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  •       Project's old news
    Newer news: [recent] [2013-2011] [2011-2005]


      14.01.2014 - Version 140114

    Spaceway 140114 Windows 32bit (1.4 Mb)
    Linux version to be compiled in case of requests.

    Update: If going interstellar drops FPS to 2, re-download the file - there was a bug, i've re-uploaded it (yes, i suck at testing releases :( ).

    A bug-fix follow-up for the release of two days ago.

    Changes:
    -Reduced RAM usage from 1.5Gb to 400Mb on a typical run
    -Fixed rover mesh
    -Fixed a crash with MFDs when going through a gate
    -Fixed SC3 crashes
    -Fixed lights always on issue
    -Fixed state saving of thrusters, lights, etc
    -Fixed variety of bugs and crashes

    Post/read comments

     

      12.01.2014 - Version 140112 and early 2014 progress report

    Spaceway 140112 Windows 32bit (1.4 Mb)
    Linux version to be compiled in case of requests.
    13.01.2014: If SC3 vessel loading cause crashed, re-download the file - there was a bug, i've re-uploaded it.



    Changes:
    -Added Orbiter's spacecraft3.dll vessels support
    -TransX (Great transfer MFD by by Steve Arch and Duncan Sharpe) ported (might appear upside-down on some systems)
    -Various fixes, directories in scenarios, bug removal, etc

    Spacecraft3.
    Spacecraft3.dll, or just SC3, is a format and plugin for Orbiter that allows complex vessels to be defined with ini files.
    It served Orbiter well, and haven't been updated in a while so me and Face done an open-source remake of it, genericvessel.
    The way i made genericvessel, it fit into Spaceway framework like a well-oiled part, so now all these vessels (a good third of Orbiter add-ons) can be used in Spaceway.
    General opinion is that it's fair use (Poll at O-F)

    To use SC3 vessel (you can get them at orbithangar.com, Orbiter add-ons repository site) in Spaceway, just unpack it into the things directory (as if things was the Orbiter directory).
    (There is no need for spacecraft3.dll file itself, the support module is compiled in)

    To create an SC3 vessel, use create vessel menu in the game.
    One big issue is that keys don't map yet (gears, animations, etc), so you'll have to use vessel control menu for them.
    Not all SC3 features are supported, limited by both genericvessel incompleteness and Spaceway's incompatibility.

    Progress report.
    Not much have been happening, besides the SC3 detour and terrain engine optimizations.
    Reason being, i'm mostly stuck and out of ideas.
    Most ideas and feedback i get about how to make a game out of it revolves around Yet Another Orbiter, Yet Another Space RPG, Yet Another Homeworld, Yet Another Space Shooter, Yet Another Minecraft IN SPACE!, etc.
    None of these i am able or willing to pull off, to any sort of honest quality, and many don't fit the existing highly procedural engine.
    Not even the visuals and ability to browse and fly around a generated universe is worth much now, thanks to Space Engine (which is, honestly, quite awesome).
    This lack of direction to go makes even polishing the sim as it is lacking much sense.

    So, let's do it like that.
    If you like Spaceway, and want something specific added to it, or fixed in it - write about that on the forum or in the comments, and i'll be doing it (if possible), and posting a new release.
    This way you won't have to wait for changes to accumulate to a point where i'll feel a big release worth making.
    And if i'll find a good idea, then the development in general will proceed on it's own.

    Should nothing happen in-between, next progress report will be by summer 2014.

    Post/read comments

     

      02.09.2013 - Version 130811

    Spaceway 130811 Windows 32bit (988 Kb)
    Spaceway 130811 Linux 32bit (781 Kb)

    Changes:
    -Significant updates to terrain engine. Performance might increase up to tenfold, especially on older systems
    -Removed a few failed features, like the sharp clouds
    -Sharp sky transition and planet/star appearance through the air fixed
    -Various bug and crash fixes

    Terrain configuration.
    Now there are two intuitive parametres to configure terrain performance:

    Uniformness controls how sharp a decline of quality would be, moving away from the camera. When it's low, things would be sharp up front, but blurry in the distance.
    With it high, everything would tend to be equally sharp.

    Quality controls how much polygons are allocated to the terrain. If it's high and uniformness is high, then you get uniformly sharp terrain and minimal FPS.
    If it's low, then there is only so much details the terrain can have - if uniformness is high, then the terrain can be uniformly blurry (but FPS would stay high).

    Just a little something to keep this place alive and let more people enjoy the game with higher performance and stability.
    Now, to find some spambot poison for the forum...

    Post/read comments

     

      30.07.2013 - Progress report, 2013

    Occasionally you take a short break from a project, then turn around and notice that a year have passed.
    So, what's been happening?

    When i have a bad mood i occasionally say that this project is dead and is a turned leaf.
    That is hardly true - i put a piece of my soul in Spaceway, to abandon it for good would require a total change of interests and career path for me.
    Thus, apologies for being a drama queen every now and then.

    An impending new version is not completely impossible, but no promises for a time frame.
    Spaceway is primarily a "programmer's toy", so there are changes going on on the inside pretty much all the time.
    There is nothing to show for them externally, but the code structure is getting cleaner, and the stability improves.

    By now i'm well behind the curve on the "nice graphics" and "procedural generation" sides (Spaceway started circa 2005), but i still haven't lost hope on the "fun game" side.
    The update is likely to happen once i get some structure into the "game" side.

    I can kind of see how people might have troubles with playing Spaceway.
    Spaceway's controls, interface, tools - many parts are influenced by Orbiter, a hardcore space flight simulator which is in turn influenced by actual aviation and spacecraft controls and interfaces.
    And these in turn need months of astronaut training and a PhD in math and physics to work with.

    This is the first attack vector - making an interface, tools and controls that are comprehensible by average folks.

    The second vector of attack is the game itself - flying around an infinite universe with ancient graphics is fun for maybe a few hours, but what then?
    Sure, you can use your imagination to create some fun, meaning and a backstory, but why would someone with so much imagination need the game in the first place? :)
    Here i am at loss for ideas, and that lack is the main reason the project is largely standing still.
    What can you populate an infinity with?
    Building, mining, space program simulations, ant fortress simulations, empire building, constructions and custom content of all sorts - all dissolves like a drop in a sea when the game universe is infinitely big.
    Even a single planet in Spaceway can be as big, or bigger than the real Earth, and is already a challenge to fill.
    Multiply by a few dozen orders of magnitude, and you're lost.

    If anyone have any ideas, comments should be working. If comments don't work, there is spaceway@1gb.ru .
    If there are no comments, or no good ideas in them, then an update will happen once i think of something good.
    If i don't think of anything good, next progress report will be by early 2014.

    Post/read comments

     

      13.02.2012 - Walking around

    This feature was brewing for a while.
    For a while it was placeholdered with an uber-ugly MMU vessel.

    The feature is walking aroud, independent of a vessel, and interacting with the environment.
    And now i finally mastered 3D CSG, giving this feature a space to walk around.

    For example, a rover now has a proper (although ugly as usual) inner side:

    You can look around.
    Or, you can climb out of the pilot seat, open the door and walk outside.

    Walk around, and look around...
    Not much to see yet.
    But "yet" is the key word.

    Need i mention that a familiar Mouse-and-WASD interface is used for the walikng part?

    Post/read comments

     

      02.02.2012 - Be awesome, fly Spaceway!

    It's been some time since the last release.
    Spaceway is still brewing, and it's taste is getting better.

    First, there are two changes to the site:
    -The screenshots in news are now hidden under a closable label, for convenience.
    It uses javascript, so if you prefer JS disabled, there is always the regularly updated gallery page with the same content.
    -After some research i've finally added "AddThis" bookmarking buttons for social networks.
    I still have no clue how this is supposed to work, so if it works in an improper fashion, please let me know it.

    Second, the game itself.
    For things like improved stability and performance, fixed bugs and better interface you'll have to take my word unless files are provided, so i'll show something more obvious.
    Like bump mapping of the terrain.
    The ground is now literally drawn from whole globe down to the rocks and dust:


    Above ground, there is smoke.
    Smoke coming out of the rocket engines, that is.
    And there is a lot of that, since you can now stack the rockets into multi-staged boosters.
    Oh, and did i mention clouds?

    As cool as it all looks, there is still work to do.
    As i found out repeatedly, better to overbrew the release than underbrew it.
    After all, i'm making the best space game ever, not some railroaded demo to brag with :)


    Post/read comments

     

      26.01.2012 - Forums and comments

    There were several e-mails coming at me following the post i made on 30.11.2011.
    In a feat of ironic coincedence, all of them ended up in a spam folder.
    And i only check that once a couple months. :(
    Sorry for silence, people.

    So, several changes were implemented.
    First, the forum registration was slightly simplified - there is no longer a need for an e-mail confirmation.
    There were reports of registrations failing, and that is the only part of it that i could find that may fail (and 4 inactive accounts seem to confirm that).
    If you failed before to register on the forum or to get your account activated, trying again now may help. All inactive accounts already present were activated.

    Second, writing comments to the posts here and in the screenshots section is possible again.
    The comments section is the same for all posts.

    Lastly, it's been suggested to make pages for Spaceway in various social networks like Google+ or Facebook.
    Which is unlikely to happen at the moment, but i won't rule that out eventually.

    Post/read comments

     

      21.01.2012 - Setting preferences

    Spaceway engine is very scalable.
    It can be run on mobile phones and semi-PDAs without graphics.
    It can be run on netbooks and old PCs with simple graphics.
    It can be run on various PCs with various degrees of detalization.
    It can be run on gaming rigs with full set of effects.

    Spaceway engine is modular and configurable.
    You can have it compute an entire universe, or just a single solar system.
    It can have props, stargates, autopilots, first person walks, or you can make it not have them.
    It can run scripts and make sounds, or play dumb and stay mute.

    Only all that was not apparent, and was hidden among hundreds of parameters in cfg files and code ifdefs.
    But not for long.

    Various internal settings were bundled together and placed into a GUI.
    Performance-related ones were put together into clearly named presets.
    Subsystems were grouped into simple switches.

    Now you won't need to know the engine inside out to make it work on a non top-grade rig, but just select the appropriate preset as games allowed players to do since dawn of PC gaming.

    Currently, the options screens look like this:

    Post/read comments

     

      30.11.2011 - The progress and the mystery

    Something mysterious is going on.
    There are on average 30 downloads of Spaceway a week - 5 each day.
    So, it's not a friends-and-family only project, somebody do fetch it every now and then.
    And yet, there is only slightly more than no feedback what-so-ever.

    This is hardly a well documented game, yet basically no questions were asked about how to play, and barely any bugs were ever reported.
    Like if all these 300+ people who downloaded the 110923 version have either understood everything in Spaceway, or didn't bother to play it for more than a few moments.
    Or maybe the downloads are from some leech bots?

    It's just as likely that the facilities on this site are set up in some wrong or overly-complicated way.
    Or i just expect too much.
    Summarily, if you wanted to give some feedback but failed to do so due to some site issues, drudgery encountered, meanings missed, expectations blown, etc, i would welcome the descriptions of such issues on my e-mail - spaceway@1gb.ru

    Meanwhile, Spaceway does not stand still. There were some updates, both cosmetic and functional.
    For example, better sky rendering and sequencing:


    Post/read comments

     

      23.09.2011 - Spaceway 110923 released

    Download from: https://thespaceway.org/dwnld.php

    Obligatory bug fixes.
    Improved and more comfortable interface.
    More details.
    Expanded framework for add-ons.

    Spaceway keeps evolving.
    In short bursts with long pauses, yet sure and steady.

    Also, we now have a forum to discuss and share things about Spaceway: Spaceway forum

    And documentation about add-on making is up and there: Add-on making
    Quickstart FAQ: Quickstart

    New features:
    -Multiple bugfixes all over the board
    -Surface props support - trees and rocks
    -Definable surface bases and buildings
    -Planetary-wide temperature readings and some weather
    -Ice ball type of planet is optimized and ported to GPU
    -Ambient lighting on planets with air
    -Pre-defined control sets selection - Orbiter or arcade
    -Default control set is now WASDQE-keys based
    -Mouse controls in MFDs
    -MFD control buttons
    -Large expansion of add-on interfaces
    -Added MFD add-ons support
    -Surface MFD and Relative MFD are now add-ons
    -Added recompilation of add-ons at runtime (for developers comfort)
    -Controls and information improvements
    -Added "local bubble", with markings for stars and custom star names
    -Basic biomes map
    -Action key now controls exit

    New nice stuff:
    -Numlock independence of numpad controls
    -Unwrapped the double negative in exit menu, by popular request
    -Dynamically updated help, depending on control set selected
    -Added thumbnail screenshots to loading menu
    -Added screenshot of current to the main menu
    -Added pre-main-window splash to show that it's loading
    -Added debug console, to see add-on errors logged messages from in-game
    -No more q-saves folder, quicksaves saved to loadable place
    -Hide stargate label if further than 10 planet radii away
    -Joystick info message
    -Added disembark menu (Shift+E)
    -Added first run options menus

    Bugs fixed:
    -Fixed sporadic crashes while browsing the world log
    -Fixed the ancient bug with planets and clouds jerking in rotation
    -Fixed ancient bug with rotations drifting and shifting in cockpit view
    -Fixed the ancient bug with landing drift and relative velocity errors at fast-spinning planets and at high altitudes
    -Fixed "Error in smobs_render"
    -Fixed ancient bugs with vessel creation
    -Fixed gateships loosing their gates on vessel addition
    -Fixed crashes on vessel addition
    -Fixed slowboat mesh-related crashes
    -Fixed stargate passage orientation
    -Fixed GPU inridgetf, thus matching terran CPU and GPU
    -Fixed the projection of labels, they are now aligned with objects perfectly
    -Fixed windows ordering
    -Fixed input boxes
    -Fixed warp near a star bug
    -Fixed at distance with limit bug
    -Fixed text-on-black at loading
    -Some loading speed-ups
    -Flyer can't warp
    -Partial fix for intergalactic gateship dialing
    -Language selection fix in vessel editor

    Screenshots:

    Post/read comments

     

      04.03.2011 - Alpha from 110304 was updated

    Alpha from 110304 was updated.
    Fixing problems with landed vessels and joystick.
    If you had joystick-related issues (spinning vessels with no input), then you can now disable joystick in options menu (launchpad or in-game).

    Post/read comments

     

      04.03.2011 - Alpha from 110304 was released

    Alpha from 110304 was released.
    Downloadable from https://thespaceway.org/dwnld.php

    Fixed several long-standing bugs, like the terrain stuck bug and rings illumination.
    Added some nice features like more MFDs, aerodynamics and planes, buttons to select MFDs and some common things, etc.
    Some more variety on Terran planets. After all, green oceans are boring. Now they can be a variety of colors.

    Also, source pack was released along with the binaries.

    Where is Linux version? It lacks one crucial feature - separate GPU context for texture generation, that i wasn't able to implement.
    That means very dull and slow planets, so i considered it unfair to make a Linux build yet.

    Full changelog:
    -Added joystick input
    -Added aerodynamic modelling
    -Added Flyer vessel, a simple aeroplane
    -Added air breathing engines support
    -Added MFD select buttons
    -Added surface info tool
    -Added Galaxy tool
    -Added Stars tool
    -Added Solar system tool
    -Added Map tool
    -Added Relative tool
    -Added some more variety to terran planets
    -Added world log key to the screen
    -Added vessel select button to screen
    -Warp mode off on stargate pass

    -Fixed vessels stuck in terrain against hover
    -Fixed multiple insides falling away on exit
    -Fixed rings illumination
    -Fixed targeting a full address
    -Fixed stars map in intergalactic
    -Fixed Orbit tool sizing
    -Fixed MFD target select in interstellar

    Screenshots:

    Post/read comments

     

    Older news: [recent] [2013-2011] [2011-2005]



      
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