UNION Cooperative Spaceship Simulator

[Anonymous]

UNION is a co-operative spaceship simulator where one or more players work together to pilot a ship, taking on one or more stations (Captain, Helm, Tactical, Engineering and Science). It is inspired, most obviously, by Artemis Spaceship Simulator, however this will be a very different game. The other major inspiration is submarine simulators, such as the Silent Hunter series, which I love.

The game is completely network based. Even the "singleplayer" will run on the local server, so that you can invite friends to join you at any time.

I’ve been working on UNION, part time, for over a year now. A lot of that was spent researching, building prototypes, and generally trying to figure out how to create the game. In the last few months I’ve started to make real progress in the game, completing the network infrastructure, implementing a networked physics simulation (with collisions that cause damage), crew management and the beginning of the Helm Station flight system.

You can see images of this here: http://imgur.com/a/Rui2m

And a video here: http://youtu.be/JKstGWoBQf8

I have two modelers working on ships for the game at the moment, there is a placeholder ship in the game currently (which will become one of the ships later).

If you’d like to read more about the game I have a basic features overview (work in progress) here:
https://docs.google….sJivto1k-U/edit

When I’m happier with the flight system/controls I’ll post a build of the game here.

All the best,

Mark

[Anonymous]

Cool, I was playing Artemis recently with some people from 091labs. It is great fun.

After playing it, I was wondering about building a more hardcore/realistic spaceship simulator than Artemis, where you essentially had screens with information from sensors and LIDAR and IFF. No nebulae either :), just coloured stars as you would realistically see.

[Anonymous]

Looks cool, do love me some realistic Space Simulators :)

Looks like a 3D FTL from the looks of it.

[Anonymous]

It was in 091Labs that I played Artemis, and was inspired by it’s concept. That was over a year ago now.

The FTL comparison is quite apt, but instead of ordering the crew around you (and your friends) are the crew.

I’m making great progress with the game. I’ve made massive improvements to the flight system.

Each ship now has 12 thrusters positioned around the ship, and two or more engines. Each thruster/engine is individually simulated, based on the pilot’s input, to maneuver the ship.

This allows fine tuning of each ship’s flight systems and gives each it’s own flight characteristics.

Later on, when the damage system is in, if an engine or thruster becomes damaged it’ll affect the maneuverability of the ship.

We did a multiplayer flight physics test on Wednesday with 12 players (the most yet), it worked beautifully.

[Anonymous]

There is very little information around about it now but the X-Plane people used to have a hardcore realistic space combat simulator with proper physics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Combat

[Anonymous]

There is very little information around about it now but the X-Plane people used to have a hardcore realistic space combat simulator with proper physics.[/quote:0ae33cc9d7]

I’m really trying to find a balance with the flight physics. I did some user tests with full newtonian physics (no drag) and most people found it difficult to pilot, especially in regards to lining up attacks and/or collisions.

So at the moment there is drag in the game for ships, though there is still momentum and it is a physics simulation.

I explain away the drag as an effect from the ship’s singularity power core, everything without a power core (like asteroids) won’t have any drag at all.

[Anonymous]

I’m sure you know of Frontier and Frontier:First Encounters. These games have completely realistic Newtonian combat. If you wanted to attack an enemy you had to match velocity and then slingshot around them while firing lasers and missiles.

http://youtu.be/rGNlrurPOgg

Even found a how to fight tutorial:

http://youtu.be/5knGR5scD9A

:D

[Anonymous]

Ah brilliant. I played the original Elite but not Frontier.

UNION is a very different game though, the pilot does not aim the weapons so he/she isn’t pointing directly at them to shoot.

I can, quiet simply, make drag a server setting, so that people can play without it if they choose. Alternatively I’ve been considering developing a ship stabilization system (which automatically fires thrusters to make flight more stable), which can then be toggled on and off. All these things will have to wait though, I want to move on and get some basic gameplay in place.

We’ll definitely do lots of playtesting in 091 Labs. :)

[Anonymous]

This looks amazing Mark, awesome job!

Cheers!
Pedro

[Anonymous]

Thanks very much man, I’m quite happy with how it’s going. There’s a real momentum to the development now.

I’m working on crew management at the moment, being able to create/join crews and select stations within them.

I should have a video of that soon.

[Anonymous]

Latest pic.

[Anonymous]

Latest footage from UNION: http://youtu.be/M9rl05sg9-U (now with a music track ;))

[Anonymous]

looks good but too busy with EvE Online atm!

[Anonymous]

UNION now has an IndieDB page here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/union-cooperative-spaceship-simulator

I also posted my first development diary, which talks about UNION’s flight system (available at the link above).

[Author]

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