Gaming Moonbase Alpha - NASA's new on-line game

[Turbinator]

Same engine.

Of course the new NASA game is a major update on this.





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[IronRain]

that doesn't make it a dev-beta game. There are more games that uses the same engine, but they aren't each others beta's or so. Look at Far Cry and Crysis. Both using same engine, but Far Cry is no dev-beta from Crysis...

 

[Turbinator]

The correct term would be tech demo.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_demo"]Tech demo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[Ghostrider]

Darn. I fell off the face of the Moon. That would have never happened to The Buzz.

 

[IronRain]

@Turbinator:

yeah, so you say that the Maid Marian is a ''tech demo'' of Moon Base Alpha..

A tech demo (technology demonstration) is a prototype, rough example or an otherwise incomplete version of a product

the game from Maid Marian is a whole different game then NASA's game. It just has nothing to do with each other. Then it would be the same that the Halo series is the demo of Mass Effect. Why? because they both play somewhere in the far universe

 

[Turbinator]

See if you can make it to the top of the Earth.
It's a fun challenge.

---------- Post added Jul 5th, 2010 at 02:56 AM ---------- Previous post was Jul 4th, 2010 at 05:24 AM ----------

Some pictures to wet your appetite:

 

[jedidia]

seeing this, I'm once more convinced that someone just GOT to take on the task of making our UMMUs walk...

 

[autopilotman]

This'll never work on my computer

 

[Izack]

seeing this, I'm once more convinced that someone just GOT to take on the task of making our UMMUs walk...

Yes. Orbiter doesn't stand a chance in the face of this!! :lol:

I'm just wondering what sort of things will have to be done here. My experience with bases in space is UCGO and StarCraft, neither of which have much functionality in that respect. I guess I'll find out tomorrow, assuming I can get it. There's something about a meteor (which angered me because it was glowing despite the Moon's airless environment...you know better than that, NASA), and restoring critical systems, but how do you make a game out of just that??

 

[jedidia]

I'm just wondering what sort of things will have to be done here.

Since we can have direct access to the mesh in Orbiter, it wouldn't really be that hard. You have three major tasks: One is a script for 3ds Max or Blender that can output animations into a file. You're probably best off designing yoour own file format, since there's not really any standards for this. Newer 3d-formats store the animations directly inside the mesh, so this would be kind of old school.

The second is writing a routine in C++ that can be plugged in into orbiter (as a proof of concept. The code would most propperly be implemented directly into the UMMU code, a thing I'm sure DanStep won't mind doing) that can read the animation file and apply the changes to the mesh in orbiter. If you already have file format and exporter, this shouldn't be such a huge task.

Third, you have to animate the UMMUs of course... Since they're all bypedal that wouldn't be that much work either, but I would recommend leaving it to someone with experience, because else the animations might look a bit wooden.

Well, that's about it. It's doable alright. Yes, I have thought about it, but no, I don't have the time to do it currently. Also, I don't have any experiance with Max-scripting. Someone like Moach might already have the knowledge to pull it of, though.

Edit: sorry, just noticed that I misinterpreted your question, which was about the game, not about walking UMMUs. I'll leave the text in anyways, maybe someone feels inspired by it...

 

[Turbinator]

(which angered me because it was glowing despite the Moon's airless environment...you know better than that, NASA)

Maybe they tried to melt it with mirrors... :rofl:

---------- Post added at 09:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:38 AM ----------

Here is an in-game, or game-play video;

 

[mc_]

Xbox-style camera isn't wery handy. I suggested, they will make it better...

 

[4throck]

Looks interesting. I have given some tough about using a game engine to produce something like that, so I'm curious to see if it works, being developed by a professional team.
If it turns out OK, it's something to consider. Orbiter is fun for realistic spaceflight but can't handle (and it isn't supposed to) first person exploration (no collisions, flat surface, etc, etc).
But there's nothing against customizing a game engine to give you a spacestation or Mars surface to explore... and to integrate it with an Orbiter addon. For example, you could do the base building in Orbiter...
Let's see what comes out of it.

 

[Xyon]

I did and I don't get it.

Watch it again. Specifically, the scenes on the Enterprise-B while attempting to rescue the Lakul from the energy ribbon.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

SPACE.com: "New NASA Game Hands Over Keys to Virtual Moonbase".

 

[Turbinator]

They just updated the NASA Games website about moonbase and i found the steam id of this game.

To download moonbase click this: steam://install/39000

You need steam installed first! Get steam here:
http://cdn.steampowered.com/download/SteamInstall.msi

 

[Urwumpe]

Grabbing it.

 

[fireballs619]

This looks to be fun- Grabbing it right now too.

 

[FordPrefect]

Was trying to install it now, however, I could not find any option where I can select the partition on my HD, on which I want the moonbase application to be installed. Don't want to have it on C: Bummer.Oh well, getting rid of it all again...
*EDIT* ah, never mind, found the problem...

 

[Urwumpe]

Can't play it... crashes when using a SSE2 instruction on my old AMD CPU. Need a newer computer for it.