Despite the yachting season, I sometimes manage to work on the project, and thanks to AI, progress can come in fairly big leaps.
Let me tell you about something I haven't discussed before. In the course of the work, I came to the conclusion that we couldn't do without specialized software tools.
Take ship modules, for example. Of course, you could enter everything into the database by hand. Or you could create a tool that accounts for, checks, and calculates a module's parameters, then quickly adds it to the database by itself.
So... drumroll... here is a list of tools and microservices that have already been created and are under active development.
The star-system generator. It takes all available parameters of a star into account and uses them to model the star's birth and evolution, while also working through the formation of planets and moons from the protoplanetary disk: their composition, parameters, orbits, and migration. The latest update added comets, belts, and large asteroids.
The planet generator. It takes each planet and moon, with some exceptions, and generates the initial tectonics: plates and their collision boundaries. It uses that to generate the terrain. It checks the atmosphere and makes adjustments based on it. If liquid water is present, it calculates evaporation cycles, the transport of moisture by winds, and precipitation. That is how the climate forms. And if life is present, biomes form. It's a process with many stages and feedback loops. Life can consume carbon dioxide, lower the temperature, and send the planet into an icy dormancy.
A separate population microservice. It is currently running tests with a population of seven billion divided among six factions. It handles births, deaths, and the formation of the population's views and skills, along with health, loyalty, and many other factors.
A microservice for agents and criminals. It manages the NPCs the player can recruit, interact with, or oppose. It handles their appearance and development, dementia and death, stats, skills, and perks. It currently processes about 1,500 characters.
And finally, probably the most interesting and difficult part, which is now under active development: two tools under one roof. One creates modules for ships and, in the future, anything else that needs modules, complete with checks and calculations. The other builds the ship itself from those modules in a 3D window, like Lego or Tetris: modules, corridors, hull, structural frame... The latest addition is automatic corridors. You place modules, and the corridors build themselves, pointing out problem areas. These tools will later form the basis of a client module. Perhaps there will also be an offline tool so players can design ships themselves. They will also serve as the basis for the viewing and engineering interface.
The project is moving forward, though it may not look that way because play can only begin once all the mechanics are brought together. One part doesn't work without another. So right now the work is on the core mechanics at the server level. The game interfaces will come later.
That's about it. A reminder: anyone who wants to help is welcome. There is work to do.