Starmade is basically what the title says with less letters you can make ships with different subsystems all blocks and fight pirates upgrade or build new ships make a space station salvage parts and such
it's currently beta free to play at the link and it supports multiplayer
Comments
This looks cool but I worry that you can't really make the ships look cool. I want a cool looking ship.
If you want cool looking ships perhaps Kerbal Space Program is for you
What's that like? The trailers on Steam don't show any actual gameplay....
It's a sandbox rocket building game. You assemble rockets by snapping together various parts engines fueltanks rcs thrusters aerodynamic surfaces (you can make space planes too) you can build in multiple stages and docking ports to connect to space stations or bases.
Then you launch the thing and most likely explode on the landing pad go back correct that then get it in the air crash a few times then sort that out get up to orbital heights figure out the orbits and gravity turns boost to a stable orbit.
It employs a model of gravity and orbital mechanics which seems fairly good. Planets with atmosphere cause drag and you need to account for that. They just recently added a manuvears system before you had to learn when to boost and how long to get the orbit you wanted now you can plot it on the map screen and it will show you when and where to boost and for how long.
I've been playing it a fair amount I've built a space station and sent up a fuel tank so it can act as a refueling station for deeper space missions. Docking was really hard learning how the docking system worked helped. Now I've been trying to land on the mun (their name for the moon) so far I've blown up every time the last time my landing struts actually touched down but the sideways velocity tipped the thing over and then the thing exploded :D
It's a hard game but fun half the time I spend ages getting a craft to orbit then on a trajectory to the moon or ready to dock and find I'm out of fuel or maneuvering thruster propellant or I forgot to add solar panels so there is no more power and then it's back to the start. They've built a large sandbox to explore basically a whole solar system is there to visti and put things on rovers and probes are possible to build space planes and space stations moon bases and so on. Like minecraft the fun comes from what you make of the tools.
There are a lot of videos on youtube about the game and a healthy mod community. The game is still in development so the devs are adding new stuff all the time the docking and manuver were added since the last time i played.
I seem to have built a rocket that has a built-in atmosphere decector. As soon as it leaves atmosphere it explodes :-(
Got 3 guys into orbit. Not sure I can bring them back, but thats a problem for another day surely!
Can get people into orbit fairly regularly now, and can circularise an orbit as well. Not yet twigged on the controls to change an orbit to match the equator though, which is a bit of a pre-requisite to travelling to the moon.
Simple graphics, but it can be very pretty...
Also can't seem to get solar panels working, which tedns to end up with me having ships that I can't manoevre once the batteries die :-(
Really tempted now.
It's a game that rewards a good understanding of physics and 3-dimensional movement...something I struggle with!
As Matt said, it can also be frustrating when you get something into orbit, only to find you've omitted something important from your design (solar panels, or my favourite is a stage separator, so you end up trying to haul along tonnes of empty fuel containers).
I now have a small ship in orbit round the moon, and (probably) with enough fuel to return. My next goal will be going for a landing, though I'm struggling to get enough mass into orbit to get a decent lander and fuel for the transfer. My take-offs are very in-efficient, so need to work on that...
Yeah it's a game I've spent hours tweaking some design to achieve absolutely nothing.
Solar panels you right click once you are in orbit and press extend on the menu that comes up. Most of the special parts have that sort of mechanism. You can also set a custom function key if you press the button in the middle at the top of the design screen then click one of the the custom key or custom action group lables (I forget) click solar panels and hit the toggle option then the number keys triggere the action. I use that for my covered docking ports or if I have a space plane with two sets of engines I want to enable or disable due to atmosphere.
With heavy lift for refueling stations in orbit I've found mastering asparagus staging is key to get high powered lift platforms.
You chain up fuel tanks with engines so you fire all at once for maximum thrust but feed fuel into the central tanks so as you empty the outside tanks you discard the weight and the remaining tanks are all full.
It's also really annoying when a side separating tank or booster clips one of your engines or flight surfaces thus sending the remaining rockets into a death spin :S
I've still not managed to land on the moon I think I need to design a more stable landing craft so it doesn't topple over.
I was actually doing asparagus-staging last night...very fiddly to build, but it is far more effective. I spent some time studying the Kerbal X Stock rocket, that has it implemented. The current launch-rig has 6 jumbo 64's with Mainsails around the main body, and I'm working on adding some solid rocket boosters as well, though I'm having a bit of an issue with roll being introduced during stage separations, which often ends up with a spectacular and short-lived catherine-wheel explosion.
I also figured Solar Panels...never thought about clicking on them! Didn't know about the hot-keys though, shall definitely be implementing that in my Munbound rocket series. Also getting better at more efficient orbits...blast until your aphelion is ~100-120km, then turn off rockets, flip 90' sideways, then as you approach aphelion prograde burn until a decent circular orbital path is reached.
My plan is to get a few more missions to Mun Orbit, then start working on lander technology. I've actually had a bit of practice with rocket-controlled descents...mainly failed ascents where I've been trying to bring the rocket under control before popping the capsule!
Awwww.... this does look cool.
Its a great game. IT'd be col if they created a multiplayer version. All of us adding space junk into a persistent Solar system.
Any chance this would play on a slightly older laptop or is it something that needs a dedicated gaming machine to run?
I've only run it on machines so powerful that organic life makes up part of their operational matrices so I don't know. I would suspect it would work ok as the graphics though nice are not outlandish.
I've been trying for the moon landing a few times I think my lander design is the issue as I can reach the moon fairly easilly get in orbit decend and get to the surface at acceptable speed then topple over and explode. Here's that sequence in picture form
Orbit
Decent
Failure
It might struggle if you get a massive ship...it does a lot of physics calculations.
Apparently the system specs are a bit of a moving goal
OK...challenge accepted Matt...I shall commence with "Project MunCrater", with the goal of landing a manned mission on the Mun...with survivors....
....it will un-doubtedly be a 1-way trip! Perhaps I should call it a small colony ship instead?
I'm going to buy this at the end of the month! :)
I should wait until the end of the month but I believe i will crack and purchase before that.
Here's my photo from last night...testing the capabilities of a newly designed First/Second Stage to see what sort of payload it could put towards Mun. This is me having just completed the transfer burn from Kerbal to Mun orbit
(blue line is the trajectory, purple is the new orbit without interference from Mun, and the brown area is the point where I will come under Mun's gravitational influence. The white lines are the paths of other craft I have in Space)
I was wondering about flying a space plane to the moon but most of them die horribly on the runway seconds after I fire up the engines.
Or if I get them to lift off they do a sort of loop and slam back into the ground the stability center of lift/mass/thrust are much more important in space planes.
So we aim for the Mun
We do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard and also fun and involve lots of explosives
I found one of my failed moon shots left a capsule orbiting kerbal in an eliptical orbit all that is left is the capsule no engines no fuel the three kerbal spacenauts lost forever in the sea that is space.
OH there is a demo that might give people a clue as to whether the full game will work it's on the KSP site here https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/demo.php
And that's one small step for Kerbal one giant leap for Kerbal kind
On the approach
Dropping off the fueltank
The gratuitous kerban moon picture
On the descent
touchdown one of the landing struts fails
The craft slides sideways down the hill eventually comes to a rest after all but one landing strut falling off later I'm down and stopped
Deploying the solar panels and preparing for EVA
The ladder is deployed and my brave pilot Wilbert Kerman
Those gear are a bit weak
Should have brought a flag
Jet pack somewhat hard to control
And so my pilot returns to the craft which is probably where he stays as I don't thing there is sufficient fuel left to make the return trip :S
You did take a flag...right-click on the Kerbal, and "Plant Flag".
You'll have to go back!
(well done...nice work!)
Well I left the guy there on the mun so I can plant the flag this evening.
I might send a moon base or a moon space base that would have fuel so he can make it home. It had docking capability :D
Next stop Duna!
I just smeared my first 3 kerbals over the surface of the Mun. It was all going great, then during descent my electricity died...the Sun, Kerbal and the Mun were all in a neat line, so kerbin was blocking the light :-(
SAS died, and suddently I was flying on super-twitchy RCS and main rockets...it ended as I smashed into a mountain.
Next flight...extra batteries.
That's it, I'm blowing some of my budget tonight on KSP.
Tried to play tonight but was plagued with bugs. Twice I bnuilt a rocket and it didn't render properly (just black screen with a spinning command module). Tried to follow the tutorial but it crashed to windows before I could launch (annoying). A bunch of other crashes. Wasn't in the mood for it tonight, so I'll return when it is more stable.
Oh that's annoying I've not had that sort of issue with it but it is still an alpha so could well be things lurking that need fixing
for one I'm not sure if the tutorial exists yet it didn't the last time I tried it
might be worth looking on the forums for fixes or making the devs aware of the issues you're having so they can fix it
Yeah, nothing like that here either. Had some physics bugs, but nothing in the crash /render department. It uses the Unity engine, which I'd have thought is pretty stable?
Hmm unity is ubiquitous these days almost as common and well supported as Unreal3 odd that it wouldn't work maybe an out of date driver or somesuch ... have you tried turning it off and on again?
I had a space related disaster when building my new space tug I built to move stuff around I forgot to fit RCS thrusters so docking was somewhat impossible. So I decided to go for a spin in the space tug
a slight misalignment of the ladders and the kerbalnaut fell into space then through a solar panel :S
Well, it's working again now. Switching off/on seems to have worked. I find the alpha-ness a bit annoying. Tutorial isn't very good and wiki guides are much better once you've worked out what question to ask. I've got a rocket into orbit and then EVA'd the Kerbal, only to have him float off. Brilliant. I'll bring the ship back but it'll be empty. Someone's going to have to explain that to his family.
If you can still access him (space center has all the active flights you can delete them from there which is sometimes nessecary as the more flights the more the program can lag due ot the extra sim required) you can activate the jetpack by hitting R then normal controls shift and ctrl up and down you might get him back to his craft or just deorbit him for a death plunge :D
yeah I'm of two minds about the new wave of alpha early accessness I love some of the games it is producing but they are initially quite frustrating and it does feel like I'm paying them to be a games tester sometimes rather than the normal way which is for them to pay someone else to do it.
Still there are a lot of tutorials for kerbal and a strong modding comunity I've found if you think of something to do there will be a tut on youtube of what to do to achieve it even some for things you can't do like deorbiting the moon or travelling faster than the speed of light or building a space elevator.
Those brave Kerbals know the risks I too have lost many in the endless pursuit of science one currently sits on the moon unable to return due to a miscalculation of fuel. Three sit in an eliptical orbit in the command module that sheered off during a moon transfer and for some reason didn't deallocate when I went back to the launch pad.
Those brave souls go in knowing the risks
One of the things they are obviously planning is training and leveling the kerbalnauts at some stage you can see they have stats already which mean nothing at the moment. It will be interesting if they suddenly have some use and experienced kerbalnauts are then more useful abandoning them in deep space or the like would suddenly be more of a pain and recovery and return to Kerbal a greater benifit.
A glorious night in the history of the Kerbal Space Program!
It started with a new, experimental build of a Mun-capable craft...simple, elegant, effective, and foolproof!
...nearly foolproof!
..anyway, after a new more struts were added, Muncrater 3 was up and away!
After a fairly un-eventful orbit, transfer and successful intercept with Mun, a landing point was selected on the Kerbin-facing side of the Mun (after previous issues with a lack of battery power on descent)
Confidence was high as final approach was mapped in
After a final retrograde burn, the last main fuel-tank is disposed of, solar panels are stowed, and we reach the point of no return!
It all looked pretty sedate on the way down...all systems within expected parameters. It's a this point I notice I forgot to pack a parachute...turns out point of no return was about 3 seconds after lift-off!
SHITFUCKS! too fast!
Due to excellent use of ablative, non-vital systems (engines, solar panels, landing legs)...the chassis of the lander survives, along with all 3 Kerbalnauts
The brave Kerbals step out onto their new home (as there is no hope of them going back!)
The publicity photo for future "volunteers" to bravely explore the new frontier.
"It's a this point I notice I forgot to pack a parachute..."
I will save you an iteration and point out that the Mun has no atmosphere.
It was supposed to be a return trip..
Grats Pete! Makes for great reading. I am just failing again and again.
Got to the mun. Descent too fast. Exploded. Now feel like I've just wasted 40 minutes of my life. Sandboxes aren't supposed to do that. Thanks to no-fucking-save feature, I have to start the whole cunt again.
Not impressed.
F5. Autosave.
Actually, I like the investment you have to put into a mission, gives a bit of real tension to all manoeuvres. Also really puts into perspective how impressive early space missions were... This is a noddied down simulator, those guys were playing with actual lives, millions of miles across space with massive comms delays, 44 years ago!
Or...looking at it another way, you've spent 40 minutes playing a computer game.... Wasted time is assured.
Do I get a team of mathematicians to tell me whether I've got enough thrust to escape Mun's orbit on the return like they did in the 60s? Do I get an engineer to tell me I need solar panels, or doohicky-thingy that's got a joke where a description of use should be?
I don't feel like I waste time when I play games. Playing a game is form of relaxation and gives a sense of achievement, of a system beaten. It provides an escape from the hum drum and allows my brain to focus of different kinds of problems or be creative in different ways. At the end I should feel that I have enjoyed myself. That is not a waste.
Thanks for the F5, will do that when I spark it up again. I'm waaaaay to fucking annoyed with it for now.
It is an unforgiving hard game and I've spend evening trying to launch something to fail again and again and again which can be frustrating but I find the sense of achievement when you do land on the mun or dock a space station or what ever is that much greater for it having been difficult.
As for amount of fuel and do forth there are maps of what deltav you need for the various planets and some of the mods give you a lot more information on your craft to make things easier.
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/20993-Request-Delta-V...
http://kerbalspaceport.com/0-18-1-kerbal-engineer-redux-v0-5/
besides with a lot of effort this game allows you to do crazy stuff like this
magic school bus trip to Duna and back
http://imgur.com/a/wuIVB
The manoeuvre planning system in the map allows you to see what sort of burn is required (and where in orbit) to complete an intercept, and you can slide it round to find your best spot.
I tend to play windowed, and have the wiki open so that I can refer to that... I had to basically book learn the basics of orbital physics before I had a hope of getting anything to stay up (a week ago I couldn't tell you what peristatic and apostatic were, and Holtzmann transfers were probably something I'd try at Frankfurt airport). Still not master normal and anti-normal burns to sort out eccentric orbits!
That space bus is fantastic. I'm still struggling on Mun intercepts but some judicious use of F5 should alleviate that somewhat.
Build sturdy landing gear and take plenty of fuel :D
Got my first rover on the Mun...I went large on it
Munrover 2 (don't ask about number 1) could comfortably carry 3 guys (though the Kerbal who got out to repair the landing gear was left behind as it rolled away...no handbrake!). Could get some real speed up as well, and was solar-powered for un-limited exploration...
...however it was a bit top-heavy, so rolled if you crested a hill too fast at one angle, with fairly devastating results.
It's probably capable of lift-off and getting back to Kerbin (you can see if has plenty of fuel left, and with 6 engines needed very little thrust to control the descent). I think Munlander 3 will have an access port, a bit more stability, a ladder for getting back on, and will act as a mobile moon base!
I've been adding to my space station I was just docking a small craft to potter about in
docking sideways is hard
And docked
Maybe a few too many solar panels
I'm impressed... Must be really hard getting an intercept in orbit. I still can't reliably get an equatorial orbit.
I think my next mission is a rover on Minmus...I'm now happy with the launcher for the Munrover project, just need to give it a bit MORE POWER for the transit/deceleration.
I typically use the smaller orbit align planes to target then boost to intercept at a suitable distance 1km or so then just boost in switching to the rcs thrusters and the very handy docking mode (where if you set it up right the controls move your craft screen relative in straight lines or with a bash of space rotation) it took a few goes to get the hang of it
I need to perfect my heavy lifter for a moon rover so far it's been less than sucessful
Nice station Matt, having spent the best part of twenty minutes floating round my station attempting to get a nosecone mounted dock oriented and engaged I can only imagine just how frustrating a side mounted docking point is to line up.
However, 3 intrepid Kerbalnauts have now successfully docked their space bus to Kerbyut station in Kerbal orbit (approx 300k out):
The intercept proved remarkably straight forward, having yet to attempt a Mun landing I couldn't say which is more difficult. Getting familiar with the manoeuvre widget is a definite must.
Initially my intercept was a little off (the yellow and blue lines):
I thought it would be as simple as making a burn at the point of intercept but one 10 kilometer overshoot later I realised that I was best served aiming to align the orbits as closely as possible than worrying about distance. A few manoeuvres later my bus was travelling along an almost identical trajectory about 12k away from the station. I set the station as the target and noticed that the speed displayed with the navball showed relative speed, once i had that matched it was simple to reduce the distance to the station at a steady 5 m/s and then down to a less than a metre per second as I got within 100m.
A few things about the stock station to be wary of, it has no rcs boosters so it's really slow to rotate using inline stabilisers and it doesn't have any lights on it which can make EVA perilous:
New module arrives at Kerbyut station:
And docked:
Not loving the cruciform layout so a quick rejig is in order:
The part count on the station is starting to creep a little high so future plans involve stripping away what can easily be removed, the docked bus which has been operating as a tug will leave and when I've worked out how to transfer fuel I'll fire the explosive decoupler to drop the fuel tanks on the right hand side of this pic:
Crew aboard now totals 6.
Hells bells! Are you guys using mods yet or is this all stock?