Space Engine

willhub · 30 Aug 2012 at 12:19

Imagine adding an MMO game to the Space Engine universe.

Guild Wars on some planet in another solar system.

Likewise for WoW

Doom on Mars.

EVE in Space.

Star Wars in another galaxy

Star Trek.

Imagine it, AiO everything game. File size: 100000TB

SlyReaper · 30 Aug 2012 at 13:27

willhub said:
Well the distance was for example 11GPC (gigaparcec?)

That's about 36 billion light years. That's exactly what you'd expect to see at that distance. Look up red shift in Google. Apparently, they have implemented it in Space Engine.

Jaffar · 30 Aug 2012 at 13:36

Clav said:
Will I be able to watch attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion? Or c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate?

Ha - nice reference. Makes me want to watch Blade Runner again.

Mint_Sauce · 30 Aug 2012 at 13:43

Thanks for melting my mind.

SlyReaper · 31 Aug 2012 at 11:01

One thing I wish they'd done is to allow a much faster time speed up. Allow us to see billions of years into the future, so that the sun expands to engulf the earth, galaxies fly away, and andromeda collided with the milky way. They way they've done it, time seems to be stored as a signed 32 bit integer, so it overflows long before these interesting things happen.

SlyReaper · 1 Sep 2012 at 12:23

Found a neutron star. Looks like they've implemented gravitational lensing. This pleases me far more than it should.

Drukk · 1 Sep 2012 at 23:05

Has anyone downloaded the planet texture packs? Are they worth it?

Want to get these but looks like only way is using the torrent link they show. Did n't really want to use torrents.

willhub · 1 Sep 2012 at 23:35

SlyReaper, do you have the co-ords for the neutron star?

Drukk, the torrents are pretty fast, I was maxing my connection with one the other day.

bainbridge · 1 Sep 2012 at 23:40

Definitely going to install this, thanks.

SlyReaper · 1 Sep 2012 at 23:58

willhub said:
SlyReaper, do you have the co-ords for the neutron star?

Drukk, the torrents are pretty fast, I was maxing my connection with one the other day.

I didn't note it down, sorry. But if you do a search for "PSR", it'll come up with a list of pulsars. Go look at one of them to see the gravitational lensing effect.

ChrisJSY · 2 Sep 2012 at 01:18

Frustrating as hell to do anything, inputs seems to just crap out and get stuck on objects

Right so, everytime I want to explore a body close up I get stuck to it and have to restart the game or use the goto option to another place, anyone know how to get unstuck?

Alex_6n2 · 2 Sep 2012 at 01:31

Putting the Kerbal Space Program rocket stuff into this = WINNING

Alex_6n2 · 2 Sep 2012 at 01:54

Question: My planet surfaces are all crappy, low res and don't have craters/mountains etc

How do I add that?

willhub · 2 Sep 2012 at 10:31

ChrisJSY said:
Frustrating as hell to do anything, inputs seems to just crap out and get stuck on objects
Right so, everytime I want to explore a body close up I get stuck to it and have to restart the game or use the goto option to another place, anyone know how to get unstuck?

Do you land on the surface? To move all you need to do is increase the speed.

Alex_6n2 said:
Question: My planet surfaces are all crappy, low res and don't have craters/mountains etc

How do I add that?

Sounds like a bug, most planets have stuff like mountains on, although stock planet earth does not I don't think.

SlyReaper · 2 Sep 2012 at 12:13

willhub said:
Sounds like a bug, most planets have stuff like mountains on, although stock planet earth does not I don't think.

Actually I've found all the known solar system bodies are like that. It's only the unknown things with procedurally generated terrain that have a good level of detail. The reason for that, I imagine is that the terrain level should ideally correlate with the texture of the surface, and that's hard to do procedurally. It would be better if we had detailed elevation data for all those planets and moons, but we don't. Even Earth elevation data (I've worked with level 2 DTED before) doesn't look that good if you look at it from human head height.

nuttyprot · 2 Sep 2012 at 12:15

Looks very nice only thing missing. Is Ships, docks, trade stations alien races galactic war

willhub · 2 Sep 2012 at 12:38

SlyReaper said:
Actually I've found all the known solar system bodies are like that. It's only the unknown things with procedurally generated terrain that have a good level of detail. The reason for that, I imagine is that the terrain level should ideally correlate with the texture of the surface, and that's hard to do procedurally. It would be better if we had detailed elevation data for all those planets and moons, but we don't. Even Earth elevation data (I've worked with level 2 DTED before) doesn't look that good if you look at it from human head height.

Mars is not flat, it has mountains and all that.

felton1592 · 2 Sep 2012 at 15:47

Love space stuff, will check this out.

SlyReaper · 2 Sep 2012 at 15:52

willhub said:
Mars is not flat, it has mountains and all that.

I don't think any of them are perfectly smooth, it's just that the elevation data we have is of a pretty coarse resolution.

Talkie_Toaster · 3 Sep 2012 at 02:02

Thanks for the link, fantastic program, lost hours in it.
If anyone finds the Horse Head nebula put the coordinates in here please, I have tried IC 434 but its not that in space engine.