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Project news
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?
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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:
[ - Hide]
Terrain on an ice world, from astronaut perspective:
Terrain on a rock moon, same perspective:
Terrain on a rock moon, no extra lights:
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?
[ - Hide]
Flying around:
The stack and the exhaust streams:
The stack going into the clouds:
Staging:
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 :)
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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.
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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:
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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:
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23.09.2011 - Spaceway 110923 released
Download from: http://spaceway.1gb.ru/dwnld.php?lng=eng
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:
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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).
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04.03.2011 - Alpha from 110304 was released
Alpha from 110304 was released.
Downloadable from http://spaceway.1gb.ru/dwnld.php?lng=eng
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:
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