GSim version 0.0

[testtubegames]

Surprise!

As a little holiday treat, I have somehow managed to get the first version of the new sim all packaged up! (Mark this down as the first time I've met a deadline)

Disclaimer: As I mentioned about in the 'Suggestions' thread, I'm going to have a *very* open development process with this sim. Which means you'll (get to) see each little step in the process. Fun! It also means these are not even close to the final version. There is an unbelievable amount left to add/change (especially since this *is* v 0.0). And there will be plenty of bugs. I'll try to do a rough list of "new in this version" and "still to do" with each update.

Alright, so here we go!

Version 0.0
"Bare bones Prototype"

New in this Version:
-Got the basics of the sim in place: planets, stars, orbits, and such
-Added in moving stars
-You can change the colors of the objects, and toggle their orbit colors, too
-You can save and load codes (they are similar to the old version, with an extra slot for colors)
-Toggle-able grid lines, if you're into that kinda thing
-Heavily optimized!!!!

Still to Do:
-Too much to write down! Still missing even basic buttons from the original (like pause), and there's plenty to do to add lots of the bonus features we've been talking about

The optimization is something I'm really excited about. In the old version, the game would start to lag pretty quick once you added a dozen or so planets. But in this new version? I've been able to add 50 planets without appreciable lag. Fifty! And that's at sixty frames per second -- about twice framerate of the flash version. So it's speedy. And this is just the first version, too!

Wanna see just how cool that 'speediness' is? I put some presets in that you can access by clicking on the TTG logo in the bottom right corner. Click it once, and you'll get a line of 50 planets. Now put a fixed star anywhere you choose on the screen. And watch the crazy beauty unfold.

I'm excited what you will all be able to do with this much more power.

Feel free to play around with it -- and ask questions if you have them. The game right now doesn't have a lot of 'instructions' or 'labels' persay, but you seem to be a bunch that can be happy clicking buttons and discovering what happens.

[Stargate38]

I can't get it to work, even though I installed the Unity Plugin. It said "Couldn't change to requested moniter resolution". Here's a screenshot:

The Unity Plugin has crashed. What to do?

UnityPluginCrashed.png (70.04 KiB) Viewed 10275 times

[testtubegames]

Hmm... that's too bad. I'll look into what might be going wrong. Out of curiosity, what resolution monitor are you using? And if anyone else has that problem, let me know, too.

Edit: I don't suppose you right clicked as it was loading to select 'full screen version'? In any case, I disabled that feature (full screen is broken at the moment, anyway). Maybe that will fix it? It seems odd. Unless the game is trying to go into full screen mode... I don't know why it should be messing around with resolutions. I'll keep checking.

[robly18]

Aight, looks neat so far?
However, here are a few priorities I think are pretty important:
-The preview. I have no sense of scale whatsoever when placing down asteroids.
-Changing the exponent without needing to go into the code.
-The whole formula thing. I want a 2^r law already!

[testtubegames]

Aight, looks neat so far?
However, here are a few priorities I think are pretty important:
-The preview. I have no sense of scale whatsoever when placing down asteroids.
-Changing the exponent without needing to go into the code.
-The whole formula thing. I want a 2^r law already!

1-Yes
2-Didn't put in the button yet, figure I'll kill two birds with one stone
3-This second bird... it'll be a tough one. Full on parsing of complex expressions will/would be pretty tough (Think: cos(log(r) + 2^r)*r^cos(sqrt(r)) Yikes!) But I could work my way up. Maybe starting with simple expressions, where 'r' only appears once, like the one you mention.

[robly18]

Good luck doing that.
Seriously, I wish you luck.

[A Random Player]

Aight, looks neat so far?
However, here are a few priorities I think are pretty important:
-The preview. I have no sense of scale whatsoever when placing down asteroids.
-Changing the exponent without needing to go into the code.
-The whole formula thing. I want a 2^r law already!

1-Yes
2-Didn't put in the button yet, figure I'll kill two birds with one stone
3-This second bird... it'll be a tough one. Full on parsing of complex expressions will/would be pretty tough (Think: cos(log(r) + 2^r)*r^cos(sqrt(r)) Yikes!) But I could work my way up. Maybe starting with simple expressions, where 'r' only appears once, like the one you mention.

I've had some experience making a parser before - made one for derivatives, but stuff had to be input with an insanely complicated binary tree format. Making the parser add a liberal amount of parenthesis might work though.. I think I lost the original after getting a new user account on my computer.

Basically I parsed numbers and r's as "objects", all others as operations. My program used, for example, (((2)^(r))+(log(r))), which it parsed by a find and replace, like ((object1)+(object2)) -> ((object1')+(object2')).
(Well, it was a short symbolic differentiator, so it didn't do any rapid/repeated evaluating. Actually evaluating like this might be a bit slower.)

[testtubegames]

Just threw up a new version -- it's got a 'preview' line and the ability to change the force law. That part just works for laws of the form "r^a" right now. Eventually, I'd like to add more options...

I've had some experience making a parser before - made one for derivatives, but stuff had to be input with an insanely complicated binary tree format. Making the parser add a liberal amount of parenthesis might work though.. I think I lost the original after getting a new user account on my computer.

Basically I parsed numbers and r's as "objects", all others as operations. My program used, for example, (((2)^(r))+(log(r))), which it parsed by a find and replace, like ((object1)+(object2)) -> ((object1')+(object2')).
(Well, it was a short symbolic differentiator, so it didn't do any rapid/repeated evaluating. Actually evaluating like this might be a bit slower.)

Yeah, it seems like it would turn into a big, complex tree pretty fast. I'm going to start small. Expressions with just one 'r', say. That way there's no branching. If that seems interesting enough, then I'd consider going further.

[robly18]

I see you didn't add the a^r yet.
When you do, I know no chance for more than one r, but any chance we could get a glimpse of r^r?

[testtubegames]

I see you didn't add the a^r yet.
When you do, I know no chance for more than one r, but any chance we could get a glimpse of r^r?

Done and done. The restrictions have been extended: --> force laws of the form r^a, a^r, and r^r (as well as a^-r and r^-r) are allowed.

It's particularly fun to cycle through the presets (by clicking the TTG logo) to get a quick glimpse of what goes on for each of the force laws.

Also a pause/play button... just cause. And as a heads up, probably the last big changes on this project before the holidays.