Project archive
Development posts collected in one place. English translations are added after review; each entry links to its Facebook source.
Targets for jumps between systems, naming them, sending that data to the server, interface elements, reworking those interface elements, plotting a course to jump corridors, a new lighting model, finally getting a star to work as a light source (it isn't as simple as it may seem; the basic approach simply fails over large distances), orienting the ship along the thrust vector, and handling jumps on the client.
Read post ↗Work continues every day. Although I had aimed to start flying in January, I decided not to rush, and here's why. Technically, the little ships really could fly by early January. BUT they need to do more than merely fly: the player needs a convenient way to send them, inspect nearby star systems, navigate the map, and so on.
Read post ↗So. The need to implement one server feature properly rather than patching it together led to almost two weeks of trial and error.
Read post ↗Right. I've been laid up ill, but I'm back at work. Today I wrote a server-side protocol for parsing client data about a ship's changing status. I'll test it tomorrow. There is a real chance it will work on the first try. I also added another timer channel on the client and server for more flexible operation and synchronization.
Read post ↗Today I worked on optimization and the order of network operations. I also finally split the code into blocks and added comments, because I'd noticed I sometimes spent quite a while finding the section where the code I needed had been written.
Read post ↗There are a lot of distractions because of pre-Christmas trading. I have to help my wife.
Read post ↗Four days. I thought it was three. In short, the little ship seemed to fly, but not accurately. Sometimes it braked too early, sometimes too late. About 30 hours of work. I spent roughly three days looking for the error and found it. Fortunately, I also made other useful improvements along the way: a trajectory-calculation formula that accounts for starting speed, a new in-game timer mechanism, and waypoints. The little ship has learned to fly. I still need to finish switching trajectories to a different target; aiming for a moon or planet; complex trajectories through waypoints; automatic calculation of waypoints to go around dangerous areas. After that I'll connect the ship's resource-accounting system (one is ready in the previous project), planetary bases, jumps to another system, the rise in X-ray radiation at 0.2–0.5 c and the resulting damage, entry into a bubble in a rudimentary form, and interception of another ship's trajectory. Do you think I'll manage it before New Year? ))
Read post ↗Teaching the little ship to fly.
Read post ↗One more thing. I reread the post from two posts ago. Everything listed there for production, the planets, and so on has been done: orbits are drawn, moons revolve around planets, data is received and decoded, and so on. Kepler's laws are working beautifully. In short, there has been a great deal of progress since that post. When I wrote the post immediately before this one, I thought I'd said that a lot of it was working. Apparently I forgot.
Read post ↗As usual, before New Year I'm helping my wife with other projects. We have to eat! But our project has also made important progress. I won't go into all the little things; I'll tell you about the important ones.
Read post ↗No picture today. There's almost no visible progress, but a lot has happened under the hood.
Read post ↗Well... The menus and server-side functionality for login and registration are done. If you log in successfully, you end up here. That's all for today. I coded for 11 hours without a break. A lot of time went into dealing with the peculiarities of database access, or more precisely, handling errors with no content properly. I won.
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