Sunday, June 16, 2013
Summary
It hung before me. Shiny. Dazzling, rather. It teased me. Promises of riches. Promises of a new life. A home for my family. School for my children. It was all right there. A shiny - no, dazzling - chunk of rock. No doubt others had passed by here. Others had searched. But in the darkness of the sector, they had missed what stood before me now. They thought the field clean of all riches. But it was not. Before me - right before my very eyes - hung a melange of rare minerals that would see me and my family through the next few years, at least. As a nearby planet poised itself to drape the field in an icy shade, blocking all primary light for the next sixteen hours, I gently tapped the control panel of my humble vessel, readying the mining equipment. I prepared for what would surely be a joyous night in the field.
Yep, it's true, exaggerated as it may be, I mined and sold my first 30 units of "unknown ore" today! It sure wasn't pretty. The mechanic right now is just a simple test, based solely on collision. Hit an ore-laden asteroid with something - anything (a pulse, a beam, even your ship's hull..) - and it will emit a piece of ore. Scoop it up with your ship, and it's yours! That'll get more interesting. It was primarily a test scenario But a successful one nonetheless! I was very pleased to see that some of the nicer chunks of "unknown ore" sold for 1000 credits a pop. One of the only serious parts of this test was the graphics. I'm toying with various graphical effects at the moment to convey asteroid richness. I've come to a fairly decent little variation on the standard asteroid. It looks slightly shinier...not highly obvious - you'd have to know what you're looking for. I like this, as I want to maintain an interesting balance of naked-eye prospectability for some asteroids. Of course, I haven't even embedded visual chunks of ore in the exterior yet, so it will only get better. But ideally, it will be a subtle effect that one could learn to identify with practice, as per the original KS pitch - "You can spot the shimmering reflection off of asteroids a lightyear away. You know the color and composition of each and every raw ore that the generous galaxy provides." It would be very compelling to actually have a somewhat unique visual style for every ore, such that prospecting could be, for those that choose to shun the technology, a matter of sheer skill and experience. Naturally, fancy scanning equipment would usually do a better job than the eyeball. But it could prove fun even still. I would probably prospect without the equipment "Let go Luke."
I solved several memory errors today that have been plaguing the engine for too long. One was causing a crash at exit on occasion, the other preventing me from writing a certain function in the most natural way. I'm particularly happy about the former, as crashes always make me uneasy. Overall, though, I'm feeling pretty good these days about memory in the LT engine. There was a time when I was quite scared that everything would go wrong and break when I extended out into world simulation. With all the cleaning and simplifying that I've been doing over the past few months, though, things are finally becoming conceptually simple enough for me to keep in my head without any issues. I feel as though I have a very solid grasp on all of the various memory paradigms that I'm using to power the engine. That's a good thing, because with a hundred or so systems being simulated at once and a few thousand AI actors touching them all, it's going to be crucial that I understand exactly how each piece of memory is being handled.
I figure I'll start bottom-up on the economy. Build the most basic resources that are at the core of everything (ore), build the AI to handle it, then move up to the next level of the economy (processed materials), rinse and repeat until I'm dealing with entire factions and a global economy of every type of good imagineable. A lot of the details are still fuzzy, but I'm certain the next few months will bring about some fantastic opportunities for forum discussions on the various mechanics.
Now, if I could just get in gear here for the rest of this month, maybe we would actually see a living economy happening soon. Someone get the cattle prod. We've got work to do.
PS ~ Still haven't written the weekly summary. I'm so tired! Rawrr. Maybe in the morning...not that it's highly important
[ You can visit devtime.ltheory.com for more detailed information on today's work.
Post
Sun Jun 16, 2013 11:49 pm
#1
Week of June 16, 2013
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ~ Henry Ford