Ideas - OverQuantum/DangerGalaxy GitHub Wiki

This is list of game ideas.

Please do not remove any ideas, only comment them.

Table of Contents

Galaxy

Galaxy is the whole game universe

  1. Milky Way parameters
    • Number of stars: 200–400 billion
    • Diameter: 100000 light-years
      • Area: 31.416 billion ly sq
    • Thickness: 1000 light-years, bulge - 3000 ly
    • In the Sun's location it is about 0.133 stars per cubic parsec
      • cubic parsec = 34.7 cubic light-year
      • 1 star for 260.9 cubic light-year
      • Recount to plane – 1 star for 40.83 square light-year
        • 190 million stars for disc of 100 000 ly in diameter
  2. Different types of galaxies
    • Spiral (S and SB)
      • 77%, mass 10^9-10^11 Msol, diam 16-800 kly
      • Arms are logarithmic spirals
      • Mostly 2 arms, may be 4, less probable 3 arms (5?)
    • Elliptical (E)
      • 20%, mass 10^5-10^13 Msol, diam 3-650 kly
    • Irregular (Irr)
    • Lenticular (S0)
      • Looks rare
  3. Main estimation for game
    • Galaxy disc size 100000 light-years in diameter
    • Quadrants 1x1 light-year
    • Galaxy area is 131072x131072 quadrants
      • 2^34 quadrants = 17179869184
      • 34 bits for coordinates
    • Only 1 star system per quadrant
    • Probability of star system in quadrant – 2.45% (in the area like area of Sun)
    • Center of galaxy - massive black hole, dangerous for player

Interstellar travels

There are several ways of travel between stars. Each have pros and cons.

  1. FTL motion
    • Waste some of game time
      • How in MMO?
    • Possible features:
      • Capsule – fly faster, but more dangerous in case of collision
      • Chronocapsule - indestructible, but there is no way to exit it prematurely. Chronocapsule could fall to a planet, into a star, ship will be destroyed after chronocapsule opened
        • Source: Vernor Vinge, "Marooned in Realtime"
      • FTL catapult - set up vector and wait till you will be pulled by some star system
  2. Teleportation
    • Instant travel
    • Consume a lot of energy or fuel
    • Possible features:
      • Low cost (or only allowed) at distances multiply of specific length plus-minus
        • Ex. you could travel to 50 l.y. or 100 l.y or 150 l.y. but not 36.
        • Not possible to travel to interstellar space, only to stars (gravitational well of a star is required)
        • Source: overflow bug in "Frontier: Elite II" game with 655.36 l.y.
      • Long time of transportation, during that ship will be in both systems (and so vulnerable)
        • How to made it in game? Blend one star systems to another via transparency?
        • Source: "Buy a Cat" by Sergey Lukyanenko
      • Unpredictable point of destination
        • Could be good for escaping from battle field
  3. Using wormhole network
  4. Using stargate system
    • See below Stargate system
    • Source: "StarGate" franchise
      • Does MGM trademark restrict using word "stargate" in the opensource game for similar object?
  5. Using HyperSpace
    • HyperSpace have different proportion of objects scale and distances
    • Sub-lightspeed engines defines speed and rotation in HyperSpace
    • For entering need jumpdrive or opened jumpgate
    • For exiting need jumpdrive or opened jumpgate
    • Aliens could be asked to open jumpgates or jumppoints - at a price for enter, free for exit (if race is not hostile)
    • HyperSpace is distorted, twisted, unfriendly for navigation
      • Relation to RealSpace is distorted, stars close in RealSpace could be far in HyperSpace and vice versa
      • Speed vector rotates slowly during motion
      • On higher speed, speed vector rotates faster and faster, making sublightspeed not convinient
      • Visibility in HyperSpace is limited
      • There are (invisible) hindrances, affecting ships in HyperSpace:
        • Slowing down
        • Speeding up
        • Pulling and pushing by gravity-like force
    • HyperSpace requires random generation for a game (ships, objects, obstacles...)
  6. Using AboveSpace
    • See below AboveSpace
    • Source: idea by OverQuantum
  7. Using PlusMinus Engine
  8. Using black hole random exit
    • Fly into black hole and perform specific maneuver near event horizon. It allows to jump-out one of near neighborhood stars
    • Source: partially "Fiasco" by Stanislaw Lem
  9. Using artifact items
    • Return to a point, there artifact was left
    • Artifact to jump to specific system
    • Two artifacts to build a "bridge" between two or more systems
      • One variant - artificial wormhole
      • Other variant - additional stargate system, behaving by other rules
      • If more that 2 systems - must be way to choose destination
  10. Using exotic events or objects
    • Region of space (may be around specific object) relocates thru all Galaxy by specific cycle (or random)
      • Source: SG1 S10E11, Merlin's hidden lab (recheck)
  11. Using sub-lightspeed engines
    • Very long and boring, but still manageable, especially in galaxy core, where interstellar distances are small
    • Must be less between 1 hour and 1 minute for player to fly 1 light-year at about lightspeed

Stargate system

Stargate system a fast way of interstellar travels

  • Most of star systems have a stargate on distant orbit, some of them have their address.
  • If you know the address you can travel from any of stargate by this address.
  • If you do not know - you can only guess.
  • Not all address lead somewhere.
    • About 1 address from 1000 should work
  • Stargate system is a legacy of ancient race, who build the whole system about 200 million years ago.
    • So there should not be stargates around younger stars and must be around too old stars (white dwarfs and so on)
      • However, advanced races could build new stargates around younger stars for their purposes. So, stargate may happend in young star systems but with rather small probability. This is indicator of something potentially interesing in this star system.

Address-coordinates association, variant 1

Address and coordinates are associated via encryption.

  1. RSA 36 bits
    • Coordinates - 34 bits (see above)
      • c – ciphertext, m – plaintext
      • n – public key, e – public exp (fixed 3?), d – private key
      • p – 19 bits, q – 18 bits
        • p - 262144 < 19 bits < 524288
        • q - 131072 < 18 bits < 262144
        • 37 007 443 250 < n < 68 719 476 735 (max 36)
          • oct 423 564 142 462 < n < oct 777 777 777 777
      • Example
        • p = 262151
        • q = 131111
        • n = 34370879761 = 0x800AA0111 = 100000000000101010100000000100010001
        • r = 34370486500
        • d = 22913657667 = 0x555C2AB43
        • tests
          • d1 = 0400000000
          • enc(d1) = 02EB58D119
          • d2 = 02EB58D119
          • dec(d2) = 0400000000
          • d3 = 79C370555
          • dec(d3) = 004683EEB0 = 1183051440 dec = 010640767260 oct
    • Formats
      • c = bit 0 || bit 1 || {x,y}
      • m = address
      • c = m^e mod n - encrypt
      • m = c^d mod n - decrypt
    • Coordinates -> address
      • x,y -> c
      • c -> m
        • m = c^d mod n - decrypt
      • m -> address, digits, 36 bits
        • 36 bits – 12 digits in octal (first char is 0-3)
      • Ex
        • m = Address = 163415602525 = 001110011100001101110000010101010101
        • c = 0x79C370555
          • c = 11110011100001101110000010101010101
          • x = 11100111000011011 = 118299
          • y = 10000010101010101 = 66901
    • Address -> coordinates
      • address -> m
        • ?
      • m -> c
        • c = m^e mod n - encrypt
      • check c = bit 1 || smth
      • c -> x,y
        • c = bit 1 || {x,y}
    • Public and private keys
      • Public key allows to get coordinates by address
      • Private key allows to get address by coordinates
      • This is logical - stargates knows public key to operate, but does not know private key.
      • Disassembling stargate does not reveal private key, only public key.
      • Private key was known only to gatebuilders(?) and lost with their extinction. Advanced races could have broken private key.
  2. Player could get partial info about addresses
    • Digit at specific position (first, last, second) of any star
    • Open specific digits (all zeros)
    • More complex info - sums, subtraction, multiply, equality and so on
    • Single addresses could be purchases or found in databanks
    • Whole data base of one race could be purchases or found (may be some stars are excluded by security policy of race)
    • In MMO keys could be different for different player to dissalow players to exchange addresses outside the game
  3. Intercept address
    • Player could intercept address broadcasting by another ships
    • Other ships could intercept address, broadcasting by player (on pursiut for example)
    • Narrow-beam technology could be used to transmit address hiddenly
  4. Indication of address correctness
    • If address is of this stargate
      • “Stargate instantly respond that it is their address”
      • Nice for checking address of stargate
    • If address is larger than public key - quick response
      • “Stargate instantly respond that address is incorrect”
    • If decrypted address does not give bit 0 | bit 1 in the stars - a bit longer response
      • “After a small pause stargate respond that address is incorrect”
    • If address gives coordinates, but there is no stargate there (no stars or stargate destroyed) - stargate activates but does not opened (energy emission detected by player)
      • “Stargate activated, but not opened. A bit later came response was that address is incorrect”
    • If address gives coordinates of existing but locked gates - stargate activates but returns error code
      • “Stargate activated, but not opened. After a second came strange response. You cannot decode it”
    • If all good - stargate opens
      • “Stargate activated and opened. Do you wish to travel into?”

Address-coordinates association, other variants

  1. Address-coordinates association, variant 2
    • Random
    • Address and coordinates generates on the fly and random by itself (one could be hash of another)
    • Requires keeping base of all generated pairs and check new pairs to eliminate collisions
    • After loading save addresses will be different
  2. Address-coordinates association, variant 3
    • Some complex function, which can be determined by player
    • One-time variant, player will need to investigate it once, second play will be much less interesting
  3. Address-coordinates association, variant 4
    • Coordinates - points of elliptic curve (public keys), addresses are numbers (private keys)
    • One could travel by +1 and -1 (like in PlusMinus) - to next and prev gate
    • One could travel to predefined gate if you know start and finish addresses
    • No way to get address by coordinates (cryptographically complex, ECDLP)
    • POints of curve is much less dense than 1 in each quad (number of points on curve is approximately equal to field size), so to address all possible stars in galaxy field must be 34 bits and so star coordinates - 1x1 light-year will not work

Wormhole network

Wormholes are simple way to travel between neighborhood stars. Wormhole connects two stars systems and if you fly into one exit of wormhole you will instantly fly out of another. And you can always fly back.
Wormholes are hard to find, but even harder to loose – they are not orbiting stars, just hang in fixed location relative to a star system, approximately coinciding with direction to star system, where wormhole goes. So its like two ends of threads stretched between star systems. Wormholes always hangs outside planet orbits and all wormholes of one star system are at approximately same distance from center of the system. So if you find wormhole you can estimate there it goes, and if you want to find wormhole to specific star you can estimate there to search.
Origin of wormholes are unknown, most theories rely on natural appearance. There are some rumors that wormhole network is build by some alien race very long ago, but it is unlikely as stars are moving and wormholes network reorganized sometimes – wormholes breaks if stars became too distant and appears if stars became close enough.
Wormhole network covers whole galaxy like a web, but wormhole never connects stars more than 20(?) light-years away. So at the edge of galaxy network became thinner and breaks to clusters. Very separated stars may not contain wormhole exits at all and so being inaccessible this way from galaxy core.
Some races poses technology to catch and using wormholes at some distance, without direct flying in.
There are rumors, that rarely one exit of wormhole is undetectable and unusable – if travel via such wormhole you will simply drop out in flat space and wont’ be able to travel back. It is believed to be very lucky to find such wormhole, however in fact it is rather unlucky.

  1. Star systems are connected with wormholes - two-way tunnels, allowing instant travel between systems.
  2. Wormholes are still in space far from mass-center, but in the direction of destination star system
  3. To find wormhole you must fly very close or have a specific radar or know the location
  4. You can by info about wormholes, find in databanks and so on
  5. There are device to use wormhole from a distance – Wormhole Distant Catcher. Advanced catcher allows to use any wormhole in the system from any point. But in this case exact location of wormhole end in this system does not discovering.
  6. Algorithm of generation of connected wormhole network (see picture below)
    • Delaunay triangulation by wave algorithm for square around a star
      • For a star system get a sector around system
        • 5x5 squares 10x10 ly, given star system in the central square
      • From all star system in the sector waves are started
      • If waves from two systems reach each other and distance between system is less than 20 ly, then these systems are connected by wormholes
        • Error could be made if wormhole cross near-empty square diagonally (ex. from top to left)
  7. Algorithm of generation could made an error (see above) - one-way wormhole. In this case player gets a huge bonus for discovering it.
    • Player could even use this case
      • Ambush enemies - separate them from a colony
      • Escape from pursuit - if he can leave second system (without wormhole end) by other way, but can not leave first (with wormhole end)
Algorithm test on 128x128 grid:

PlusMinus Engine

  1. Device moves player ship from current star system to another by fractal curve path. Plus in one direction by curve, Minus to another. Device could be used in interstellar space or at the edge of star system, does not work near massive objects like stars.
  2. Device description: «Big cube from alien metal with nice fractal drawing on all sides. Top side have two buttons, scarce mathematical notes around explains that their meaning is Plus and Minus. But it is unclear what will happens on pressing them.»
  3. Three actions:
    • Press Plus
    • Press Minus
    • Press Plus and Minus simultaneously
      • Hidden by default?
  4. Description from low race: “This devices are remnants of crazy alien race, _Algebraists_. No power source is required and usage is extremely simple – leave gravitational well of a star and press a button. You ship will be emerged into QuasiSpace - some sort of quasi continuum and remains there for a while. Then you will drop out in the vicinity of other star system. But it is rather hard to predict, where. May be it will be close star to your start point, may be rather far, and may be you will find yourself half across the galaxy. But you can be sure that another buttons will return you back to start system, so if Plus transport you from system A to system B, then Minus will transport you from B to A. It seems, that all stars in the galaxy are organized into some sort of list, in which you choose Next and Previous positions. May be advanced races have a complete list, but we do not. In most cases colonies knows where Plus and Minus goes from their star system. You can purchase this info or get it in some other way. Exit from QuasiSpace to star system always lie on the area of specific gravity strength, but completely randomized inside this area. Thus, PlusMinus is a good way to escape from pursuit, as persuading ships will not be able to determine your exit location within star system. Although advanced races setting up sensors for a whole area and sometimes even mine fields.
There is no way to disassemble the device, at least we do not have info that some race understands the principle of traveling or determine some patterns in PlusMinus path. Time of travels varies from system to system with very small dependence from real distance, but time is almost the same for two direction between two stars. Ah, you can activate the device in interstellar space, but you wont return into interstellar by opposite button, you will just travel to another star. Some races collects information about travels from interstellar space to specific systems, but it is very expensive. The only revealed practical results is that for each star systems there is one direction from where you can quickly returns to system by Plus and one - by Minus.”
    • "There are rumors, that one could learn absolute number of a stars in the list and travel between arbitrary stars directly only by knowing their numbers"
  2. Description from advanced race: “Ah, PlusMinus. Nice thing for low-level travels. _ Algebraists_ has specific sense of humor. Path is known to your race as Hilbert curve. It is space-filling fractal curve, so it covers whole galaxy and some of adjacent space. Plus button moves you clockwise by the curve, Minus – counter clockwise. If you reach one of ends, you will be transferred to another. QuasiSpace is an envelope around you ship, while corresponding energy point travels along the curve in search of star to drop you out. That is practically unknown is a third travel option. If you press Plus and Minus simultaneously you will travel twice further without stops, but in random direction. Nice escape feature if both stars around you are too dangerous in all areas of possible entrance. There is no such thing as list of a stars and there is no way to travel to arbitrary star by PlusMinus. As stars moves in the galaxy, path of PlusMinus changes.”
  3. Curve variants
Algorithm test on 128x128 grid, Hilbert curve at the background:

FTL catapult

Huran(?) FTL catapult is a crazy interstellar travel device. It allows to overcome lightspeed many times by covering your ship with some sort of continuum-foam. But device does not allow controlling movement or setting up destination – only vector of start. So you simply “firing” yourself in specified direction and wait till your ship will be pulled by some star system there continuum-foam will vanish and you will get control again. Good news is that inside continuum-foam you are practically invulnerable to collision with interstellar objects, bad news is that your motion became very sensitive to gravitation of all stars. It is rather easy to reach nearest star by almost direct firing, but harder to reach distant ones as you ship must bend around closer stars. There are stories, that experienced Huran navigators could travel whole along the edge of galaxy by few jumps – by firing outside galaxy at a small angle and rely on galaxy gravitation.

AboveSpace

AboveSpace is additional 4-dimensional space. RealSpace is only a membrane inside AboveSpace. Like HyperSpace, AboveSpace have different scale of distances, but scale changes with moving away from RealSpace along 4th dimenstion. Space ship could use Stretch engine to separate space around itself from RealSpace and travel outside - in AboveSpace - without beeing limited by lightspeed.

    • Some space around ship could be separated from RealSpace (into surface of 4-dimensional hypersphere) and travel outside RealSpace - in AboveSpace - without beeing limited by lightspeed.
    • The farther hypersphere from RealSpace, the faster it could travel with relation to RealSpace distances
    • Game phase - sphere with ship, galaxy map as a background
    • Expenses - for uplift? for traveling along RealSpace

Starsystem generation

Star system is a system of one or more stars, planets, moons, asteroids and other objects.
It could be just one star or complex system of several stars each with planet system. Star system could be inhabited or empty; it could be full of artifacts or practically clean.

Star systems are practically isolated locations in the game - they are separated from each other by vast interstellar space distances. Only one star system is loaded in game memory at the same time, exception could be in the galaxy core for very close stars.
Star system is generated by predefined-random algorithm upon arrival of player based on "galaxy seed" and coordinates. Generation should have more-less scientific basis, as long as it can be in a game with 2D and FTL space travels.

Elements

  1. Stars
    • Single
    • Multiple: 2 - 6 stars in complex system
  2. Planets - orbiting stars
    • Rock type (like Mercury)
    • Earth type
      • Water-covered
    • Gas giants (like Jupiter and Saturn)
  3. Moons - orbiting planets
  4. Asteroid belts - orbiting stars or planets
  5. Other astrophysics objects
№*** "Isaac Asimov suggested a distinction between planet-moon and double-planet systems based in part on what he called a "tug-of-war" value. ... In the case of the Earth's Moon, the Sun actually "wins" the tug of war with a value of only 0.46, which means that Earth's hold on the Moon is less than half the Sun's hold."
  2. Items
    • Equipment, materials and so on.
    • At the surface of planets, moons, belts and even stars
    • Floating in space
  3. Life forms
    • At the surface of planets, moons, belts and even stars
    • Floating in space
  4. Aliens
    • Ships (flying, orbiting e.t.c)
    • Space stations (including space lifts, aritificail belts and artificial planets)
    • Colonies and homeworlds (including asteroid belts and stars)
  5. Space lifeforms
    • Specific tactic - bigger ones protect smaller ones
    • Source: some novel in ESLI magazine (found name)
  6. Other space objects
    • Wormholes
    • Stargate (one in a system, if not exotic)
    • Thirdgate
      • If activated, very advanced and hostile aliens came thru and attack everyone in the vicinity
      • Maybe just allows to travel via "advanced HyperSpace"
      • Source: Thirdspace, movie adjanced to Babylon 5
  7. Events
    • Drifter ship pass the star system
      • Alien ship exit FTL, fly and jump to FTL again
      • Source: StarGate Universe, "Destiny" itself
    • Nova and supernova blasts
    • Star system disappeared
    • Some planet(s) falling into black hole
      • Source: SG1 S02E16, "A Matter of Time"
    • Encounter with copy of player's ship, which is hostile. Possibility to gain copies of your items, but must defeat AI controlling exactly the same ship.
      • Source: SG1 S09E13, "Ripple Effect"
    • Discover destroyed copy of player's ship (may be a copy of shit a bit in the past). Possibility to freely gain a copies of few your items.
      • Source: SG1 S09E13, "Ripple Effect"
    • Double-core star collides and stars explodes like nova
      • Star is pulsating (I assume, grows then cores fly to distant portions of orbits) and period becomes shorter
      • Source: SGU virtual season 3, 3x03 by Laurence Moroney

Random generation

  1. Multiple stars
    • Mass division algorithm
      • There is mass X at a start
      • This mass could be divided into:
        • One star
        • Two masses roughly equal orbiting around common center
        • Two masses, first is much larger, second is orbiting first
      • Each mass could divide further
      • Max orbit of inner motion should not be 25% of minimal proximity of external motion
        • Consider exact limit
      • Star mass have low limit, lower mass gives dwarf or a planet or else
      • Stars have sizes, at max could touch each other
        • Better to have radius is 25% of a distance - to avoid non-spherical stars
    • Orbital periods
      • Orbital periods can be less than an hour (for AM CVn stars), or a few days (components of Beta Lyrae), but also hundreds of thousands of years (Proxima Centauri around Alpha Centauri AB).
    • Sizes
      • Red supergiants (RSGs) are supergiant stars (luminosity class I) of spectral type K or M. They are the largest stars in the universe in terms of volume
        • The radius of most red giants is between 200 and 800 times that of the sun.
        • VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) is the largest star discovered to date. It is a red hypergiant star located in the constellation Canis Major. At between 1800 and 2100 solar radii (8.4–9.8 astronomical units, 3.063 billion km
      • The estimated radii of observed white dwarfs, however, are typically between 0.008 and 0.02 times the radius of the Sun;[29] this is comparable to the Earth's radius of approximately 0.009 solar radius.
      • The Guiness Book of World Records lists a white dwarf named L362-81 as the smallest star in size; its diameter is estimated to be only about 3500 miles, or about the same size as the planet Mercury.
    • Masses
      • The star with the smallest mass (again, according to Guiness) is designated RG 0058.8-2807; its mass is only 0.014 solar mass (it is also the faintest known star).
      • OTS 44 has a mass of about 15 times that of Jupiter, or about 1.5 % that of the Sun.
        • Mass* 15 M-jov (0.0143 M-sun)
      • Still, the most massive stars are considered to be hypergiants, and can have masses ranging up to 100–265 solar masses.
        • R136a1 is a blue hypergiant star, currently on record as the most massive star known, at an estimated 265 solar masses.[2]
          • {230-345}
    • Luminosity
      • R136a1 is a blue hypergiant star ... also holds the record for the most luminous at 8,700,000 times the luminosity of the Sun.[2]
        • Absolute bolometric magnitude -12.5
    • Mass-Luminosity-Radius (M L R)
      • Mass-luminosity relation
      • How to lighting objects in game - star and far planet emit very different light
        • Adjust brightness as player see very bright and very faint objects?
      • Star sequences
        • For different star sequences on Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams, M, L and R are linked via equations, which can be interpolated - L and R from M.
  2. Exotic stars
    • Cepheids
    • Intergalactic star
    • Y-dwarf
    • Quark star
    • Magnetar
      • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar
        • A magnetar is a type of neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field, the decay of which powers the emission of copious amounts of high-energy electromagnetic radiation, particularly X-rays and gamma rays.
      • Estimation: Could be nice thing - rotator with deadly projector, player must keep away from burst
    • Aspherical fast rotating
      • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achernar
        • Achernar is the least spherical star in the Milky Way studied to date.[2] It spins so rapidly that its equatorial diameter is 56% greater than its polar diameter.
      • Estimation: Funny, simple to implement
    • Black dwarf
      • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_dwarf
      • A black dwarf is a hypothetical stellar remnant, created when a white dwarf becomes sufficiently cool to no longer emit significant heat or light. Since the time required for a white dwarf to reach this state is calculated to be longer than the current age of the universe of 13.7 billion years, no black dwarfs are expected to exist in the universe yet
      • Estimation: Could be nice, indicator of advanced race in range - who exhausted resources of a star
    • Dark energy star
    • Electroweak star
      • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroweak_star
        • gravitational collapse of the star is prevented by radiation pressure resulting from electroweak burning, that is, the energy released by conversion of quarks to leptons through the electroweak force. This process occurs in a volume at the star's core approximately the size of an apple, containing about two Earth masses.
      • Estimation: Very exotic, could be a bonus for finding
    • Flare star
      • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flare_star
        • A flare star is a variable star that can undergo unpredictable dramatic increases in brightness for a few minutes. It is believed that the flares on flare stars are analogous to solar flares in that they are due to magnetic reconnection in the atmospheres of the stars.
        • Most flare stars are dim red dwarfs, although recent research indicates that less massive brown dwarfs might also be capable of flaring.
      • Estimation: Flare could happen on any star, flare could be dangerous, so if player got flare-prediction ohe must escape, if not - get hurt
    • Iron star
      • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_star
        • hypothetical type of star that could occur in the universe in 10^1500 years. The premise behind iron stars states that cold fusion occurring via quantum tunneling would cause the light nuclei in ordinary matter to fuse into iron-56 nuclei.
      • Estimation: Could be nice, indicator of advanced race in range - who speed up process or creates this star
    • Quasistar
      • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasistar
        • hypothetical type of extremely massive star that may have existed very early in the history of the Universe. Unlike modern stars, which are powered by nuclear fusion in their cores, a quasistar's energy would come from material falling into a central black hole
      • Estimation: Could be nice, indicator of advanced race in range - who created this star
    • Spinstars
      • "spinning velocity of 500 kilometers per second at the surface", "formed some 300 million years after the Big Bang and burned out by the time the universe was 1 billion years old", "ended their lives with a huge Gamma Ray Burst (GRB), producing an enormous flash of high-energy radiation"
      • http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/04/first-stars-were-spinning-tops.html?ref=hp
      • Estimation: Could be nice, indicator of something wrong - dilated time of advanced race who created this star
    • Other exotic stars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Star_types
    • Additional rings or arc around galaxy
  3. Physical limits for planets and stars
    • Size of a planet is based on volume, covered by orbit - between orbits of previous planet and next
    • Frost line for dust - near to star is rocky planets, farer - gas giants
      • "frost line ... refers to a particular distance in the solar nebula from the central protosun where it is cool enough for hydrogen compounds such as water, ammonia, and methane to condense into solid ice grains. Depending on density, that temperature is estimated to be about 150K. The frost line of our solar system is around 2.7 AU, near the middle of the asteroid belt."
      • This affects size
    • Planets are formed around close binary components or around distant components
  4. General modifier for whole star system

Interstellar discoveries

On FTL travels player could found interstellar objects, what is not seen from star systems i.e. not know in advance. In game such objects are generated randomly. In case of high mass this object must also affect mass-related interstellar travels - like Plus-Minus and FTL-catapult, but not mass-targeted teleportations. So high-mass objects should be generated by seed-related algorithm.

  1. Low mass objects
    • Must be generated by event seed algorithm, and so may not rehappens after loading savegame
    • Interstellar planet
    • Alien ship at low speed
      • Abandoned
      • With alive aliens
      • With frozen crew
      • Should disappear after a while?
    • Gas cloud
      • May contain hidden objects inside
    • Interstellar small objects
      • "The outer Oort cloud is believed to contain several trillion individual objects larger than approximately 1 km, with many billions ... approximately 20 km diameter. Vast majority of Oort-cloud objects consist of various ices such as water, methane, ethane, carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide."
  2. High mass object
    • Must be pre-generated by galaxy seed algorithm, one per quadrant, but not seen by player
    • Faint star
      • Dwarf-star
    • Black hole
      • Old remnant of a star with planet system
    • Artificially created/moved star system
      • Very strange things could happens there, very advanced technology could be found, very dangerous disasters either
      • As star was not yet seen from nearest star systems, it should appear there during last several years
      • Source: SGU, S01E13

Evenets

  1. Something could happens in anytime
    • Item broke
    • Item stolen ?
    • Item evolve
    • Item bobby-trapped (explosion on activation)

Items

Items are main source of new possibilities for player - to travel, to study, to fight, to trade and so on. Items could be found, used, purchased and sold. Items could broke on using, disappear suddenly, stolen and so on.

  1. Types
    • Equipment
      • Sub-lightspeed engines
      • FTL engines
      • Weapon
      • Ammo
      • Power sources
      • Shields
      • Cloak
      • Radars
      • Landers
      • Cargo bays
      • Exotic
        • Container with alien life form, which request to transport them to specific type of planet
          • Source: SG1 S02E07, Message in a Bottle
        • Mirror of alternate universe. Allows to learn some information about possible near "future" of player - close stars and so on.
          • Source: SG1 S01E20, There But for the Grace of God
        • Matter-phase switcher. Allows to transfer ship into specific state of matter, which does not interract with main matter of universe, so material-like weapons have no effect and so collision with planets.
          • Source: SG1 S03E21, S09E18 and later
    • Containers
      • Content is random (from other items)
    • Materials
      • Raw materials
      • Fuel
    • Information banks
      • From single pieces of info up to whole knowledge base of entire race
    • Life forms
    • Useless things (some could be traded)
  2. Limits
    • Common item
    • Unclear how to use
      • There is some action (activation or so) but not defined what will happend
    • Other items are required to use
    • Some level must be achieved to use (and so on)
  3. Price
    • Price is defined by interest of alien races, it could be very different depends on a race level, relation to item's creators and so on

Weapons

  1. Laser beams
  2. Plasma
  3. Antimatter
  4. ... (more common used sci-fi weapons)
  5. Cubic neutrons
  6. Chronocapsule cannon
    • Just creates chronocapsuled raw matter (for mass) and throw it
    • No way to destroy chronocapsule, but it could be stoped
  7. Absorbing shield
    • Absord energy of other weapons and transfer it into ship energy system
    • Certain part goes to reflecting, also there is max limit energy which shield can absorb at one shot
    • Source: Thirdspace (Babylon 5)
  8. Mass driver
    • Accelerated raw material
    • Source: "Babylon 5" (earlier sources?)
  9. Sideral engeneering
    • Very advanced weapon based on gravity, excellent defense and damage, but could be not very precise
    • Source: "Fiasco" by Stanislaw Lem
  10. Stretch bubbler
    • Throw region of space away from RealSpace. Use same principle as Stretch engine
    • Source: idea by OverQuantum
  11. Space disruptor
    • Star-system scale weapon, destroying space
    • Must be fired from large distance
    • Source: "The Star Kings" by Edmond Hamilton (galaxy scale originally)
  • Planet and star destruction weapons?

Aliens

There are several alien races in the galaxy. They behave differenly, have different levels of knowledge and interest in player. Some races are hostile, player will have to fight. Some races could be traded with, some ignores player at all. In most cases there is no problem with understanding alien languages, but some races could talk unclear or behave unpredictable (words differs from actions).

  1. Races
    • Way1: Limited list of races
    • Way2: Randomly generated races
      • If star system generator require race of some level, then new race generated or previous one used
  2. Ships
    • Ships could fly to other star systems (or it should look like that for players)
      • Stand still, remains there they was after generation
      • Could vanish after returning of player to star system
      • Could appear in other places with some probability (should be related with distance, activity and so on)
  3. Type of relations
    • Hostile with no negotiations (like drones)
    • Hostile, but negotiatable
    • Suspicious - hostile in their space
    • Friendly - trades, alliance and so on
    • Passive - communicatable, but nothing useful from that
    • Ignorant - no communication at all (only turns hostile if fired)
    • Unpredictable - could be hostile, could be friendly, could be ignorant

Random generation of a galaxy

Galaxy is generated at random, but in a predefined way - seeds are used to initialize PRNGs for almost everything. If same seed is used, then same galaxy will be generated.

  1. Galaxy seed defines whole galaxy
  2. Star seed is derived from galaxy seed and coordinates. Star seed defines:
    • Presence of star system in given quadrant
    • Exact coordinates of a star system
    • Whole star system content
  3. Event seed is derived from galaxy seed, in-game time interval and player main action (fly, FTL, orbiting planet ...). Event seed defines:
    • Unexpected events, that could happen to player
  4. Changes are stored in savegame
  5. Battle and flying variations (hits and so on) are generated without seeds
Rare items and events are generated by binary-rarity system
  1. Every item have rarity property
  2. rarity - integer, from 0 to infinity
  3. rarity=1 happens twice less frequently that rarity=0 and so on
  4. For random generation rarity is generated first - by generating random bytes and counting zero bits up to first one
  5. Among all items with given rarity is selected one - all these items considered to have equal probability
    • This adjust rarity a bit - if there is 1 item with rarity=20 and 10 items with rarity=19, then rarity=20 will happens 5 times more frequently than any of rarity=19
  6. If there is no items with giver rarity, then rarity decreased by 1 till items will be found

Game phases

  1. Flying in RealSpace
    • Main phase - flying inside star systems, including battles, and on FTL travels
    • 2D motion
    • Stars, planets and moons moving on orbits and pull ships by gravity
    • Collision with Stars, planets and moons? (open question)
    • Autopilot is possible
    • Time contraction is possible
  2. Orbiting planet
    • Planet is displayed, operation only by menu
    • After reach planet and set up orbiting
    • Could be interrupted by alien attack (game phase broken and warning displayed)
  3. Harvesting planet
    • Lander is moving on surface of planet - collecting materials, items and lifeforms
    • After dispatching lander from orbiting
    • Harvesting obstacles:
      • Tectonics (quakes)
      • Atmosphere (lightings)
      • Temperature (fire)
        • Additionally on day side?
      • Hostile lifeforms
      • Hostile objects (mines e.t.c)
    • Could be interrupted by alien attack to main ship
    • Fire weapon from main ship to open strong-sealed doors or containers or reach object under surface (Source: StarGate Universe, S02E18)
    • Planet surface is flat or 3D? (open question)
  4. Flying in HyperSpace
    • Operations like in RealSpace, including battles
      • Battles are very dangerous?
    • After jumping to HyperSpace
  5. Flying in AboveSpace
    • Flying alone
    • Additional control to move farther from RealSpace or closer
    • During using Stretch engine
    • Limited information about possible coordinates in RealSpace?
  6. Flying in QuasiSpace
    • Flying alone
    • No control, no info, no battles, you can only wait for an exit
      • Display rotations of curve somehow?
    • During fly by PlusMinus Engine
  7. Talks with aliens
    • Radio communication between player ship and aliens - ships, stations or colonies on planets (or else)
      • Politic negotiations, including threats, begs and so on
      • Trade
        • Items
        • Resources
        • Information (location of items, stargate addresses, how to use specific items)
        • Travels (player is transported somewhere for a price)
      • Quests? (open question)
    • Could be activated from space or from orbit, by player or by aliens
  8. Galaxy map
    • Display data about stars in galaxy
    • Player can set up autopilot for FTL or teleportation by map
    • Low zoom displays separate stars
    • High zoom displays only density of stars
  9. Various interface phases
    • Managing items on the ship
    • Communication with stargate
    • Activating PlusMinus
    • Autopilot

Game general process

Objective

Main game objective is an open question.

  1. Way1: There is no defined objective, player should only explore galaxy and get experience for different actions
    • Relative objective is get as much experience as possible
    • High experience could not be achieved by killing some aliens in thousands
  2. Way2: Find good planets to establish human colonies
    • The close planet to the defined requirements - the higher is the cost
      • Requirements: Earth-like planet with no immediate threats around (aliens) and no hard thread in future (like asteroids)
    • Con: In MMO all good planets around starting location will be found quickly
  3. Way3: Game is oriented to short play, despite huge universe

Expenses

Actions and life support requires something to be used. Expenses is on planning.

  1. Interstellar flying
    • Fuel?
    • Energy?
  2. In-system flying
    • Fuel?
    • Power capacity? (i.e. power generator have some output, using that power only limited
  3. Fight
    • Power capacity?
    • Ammo?
  4. Storage
    • Simple counting mass or space (or both)?
    • Managing storage (like in Diablo and so on)
    • Additional storages increases external ship size and mass? (and so increase chanced to be hit and decrease maneuverability)
  5. Repairing
    • Raw resources?
    • Crew? (like Star Control 2)
  6. Life support
    • Resources? (oxygen, food e.t.c)
    • No expenses?

On player death

Single player game should have usual save-load, but it could be useful plan with respect to MMO.

  1. Way1: Complete loose of everything, but debris of ship could be reclaimed (by anyone)
  2. Way2: Loose of some things, restart somewhere
    • Not very logical, rather magical
  3. Way3: Possibility to save only ship, without external universe and restart in that position with that inventory on death (like time-grenade in "A Lord from Planet Earth" by Sergey Lukyanenko, but without back in time)
    • Could be exploited to "brute-force" aliens (ex. if player could kill 3-4 before death)
    • Saving could be limited by number of save, by delay, by locations, by game phase, by randomizing after-loading location
  4. Way4: In-game currency TFM - Time-Freezing Matter - which allows to save and load game states.
    • Each whole unit can be "setup" at any(?) time and saves all player ship state (including position relative to max-gravity object and states saved by other TFM units, but exclude this unit itself).
    • Also each unit can be "triggered" - to restore saved state (unit disappear after restoring state).
    • Units can be given (saved stated cleared), but can not be stolen or taken by force (? consider).
    • In case of player death he offered to choose which unit to activate. If player have no TFM units - game ended (or restored deep past state without TFM and with other penalties).
    • Player initially have 2-3 TFM units. TFM could be found in game in whole units or partions.
    • Player could also "trade" 1 TFM unit for "giving" specific item (newly found) to past-self (for example, item which work better with other item, which was sold some time ago) by leaving item close to saved location.
    • Since saving is ultimate "weapon" and resource, it forms near-to-absolute currency.
    • Source: idea by OverQuantum (partially based on "A Lord from Planet Earth" by Sergey Lukyanenko)
    • Still, player could cheat by trading 1 TFM for copy of all item he have - save, leave all in space, use 1 TFM to restore state back, collect all.

Minor notes

  1. Flags "explored"
    • Automatically sets for scanned planets, moons, star systems (after exploring whole universe) and so on.
    • Could be set or clear manually
  2. Player's notes for anything
    • Could be set to display in info of planet/star/moon
    • Could be set to display in info of star system on galaxy map
    • Could be simply set floating in space
    • Does not affect anything else in game
    • Whole list of all notes could be displayed
  3. Fast events
    • Something could requires fast reaction
      • Something could be detected on FTL - investigate or not
      • Something could be detected on fast fly in star system
    • Ship should be defined to react on this events
      • Stop of everything
      • Ignore non-threats
      • Leave a marker-not
  4. Orbital motion and big numbers
    • Orbital motion could be affected by precision of floating-point numbers. So it should be global-time which setup start phase of all objects at orbits in star system and local-time which is used to calculate orbital motion visible for player
  5. Power source - solar charger
    • On touching surface of a star, device stores huge amount of power
    • Strong shield is required
      • Source: SGU, Destiny's power source
  6. Calculation of gravity
    • Simpliest way - calc acceleration, produced by all masses; calc speed change lineary by this acceleration; calc position change by speed and acceleration
      • Effects: degradation of orbits due to time quatization (ellipse->circle->smaller circle)
    • Advanced way - calc orbit around object if that object produce dominant gravity field
      • Specific relative angular momentum of two orbiting bodies is the vector product of the relative position and the relative velocity: H = r x v. Like for the movement under any central force, i.e. a force aligned with r, the specific relative angular momentum stays constant. For unperturbed orbits the H vector is always perpendicular to the fixed orbital plane.
        • by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_orbit and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_relative_angular_momentum
      • Vis-viva equation, for any Kepler orbit (elliptic, parabolic, hyperbolic or radial): v*v = G(M+m)(2/r-1/a), is the v - relative speed, r - distance, a - semi-major axis (a>0 for ellipses, a=inf or 1/a=0 for parabolas, and a<0 for hyperbolas), G - gravitational constant, M and m - masses of the two bodies. It is the direct result of the law of conservation of energy, which requires that the sum of kinetic and potential energy be constant at all points along the orbit.
        • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vis-viva_equation
      • Eccentricity vector - vector pointing towards the periapsis having a magnitude equal to the orbit's scalar eccentricity. The magnitude is unitless. For Kepler orbits the eccentricity vector is a constant of motion.
        • e = |v|^2*r/u - (r*v)*v/u - r/|r|, where u = G(M+m)
        • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccentricity_vector
      • Calc orbit elements
      • We need (for orbit in 2D): e - ccentricity, a - semimajor axis, w - argument of periapsis
        • Semimajor axis, a, is calc by vis-viva equation: 1/a = 2/r - v*v/G(M+m) = q
        • Eccentricity, e, is calc using specific relative angular momentum: e = sqrt(1-h*h*q/G*(M+m)), where h=|H|, q = 1/a
        • or by eccentricity vector?
        • Argument of periapsis, w, is calc by eccentricity vector: w = arccos(n*e/|n|*|e|), where n - vector pointing towards the ascending node, e - eccentricity vector
      • Sub way 1 - calc position change and speed by orbit elements (and lost orbit elements)
      • Sub way 2 - keep orbit elements and stay at this orbit till engines will not be activated or gravity domination decreased, or some collision occurs
      • Sub way 3 - keep orbit elements but calculate their change due to other gravitation fields and engines, till gravity domination decreases
  7. Objects with negative mass - push other objects by gravity
  8. Hide from nova blast beyond planet or moon
    • Source: SGU virtual season 3, 3x03 by Laurence Moroney
  9. Pure energy entity, which feed on energy sources
    • Source: SGA, S01E03
  10. Underground storage, viable only with advanced energy sensors
    • Source: SGA, S01E08, Genii
  11. Mist as an energy source (may be alive)
    • Source: SGA, S01E09, M5S-224 inhabitants
  12. Quest to find hidden storage on planet
    • Source: SGA, S01E16, Brotherhood's ZPM quest
  13. Orbital weapons platform
    • Source: SGA, S01E18, Ancients' platform
  14. Ship-controling computer virus
    • Source: SGA, S02E02, Wraith's virus
  15. Runner - player got a beacon, which tells his location to enemy ships (irremovable without advanced tech)
    • Source: SGA, S02E03, Wraith's beacon in Dex
  16. Experimental power source - powerful for a short time, unstable then (up to star system destruction)
    • Weapon as is?
    • Source: SGA, S02E06, Project Arcturus
  17. Time dilation/speedup is a star-system or planetary scale
    • Dilation could be useful for repairing, escaping and so on
    • Source: SGA, S02E12, Ascension Sanctuary
  18. Time dilation as a effect of an item
    • Source: SG1, S10E20
  19. Preserved consciousness of alien in some storage, could be uploaded to player's crew (for a limited time)
    • Could lead to a profit and/or problems
    • Source: SGA, S02E16
  20. Energy source on borrowing principle - get energy now, return it to device later
    • Source: SGA, S03E08, Experiment and results
  21. Sub-lightspeed ship in interstellar/intergalactic space
    • Source: SGA, S03E10, Lantian warship Tria
  22. Underwater object, harder to detect
    • Source: SGA, S03E18, Wraith cruiser near drilling platform
  23. Detected radio signal from planet/moon/space and so on
  24. RandomDrive - teleports player from any location to random location inside a galaxy
    • Coordinates of destination is calculated by hashing galaxy coordinates of starting point. No checks on star system are made, so player may appears in interstellar space or inside a star.
    • Additional artifacts may show destination location from current location or from other locations as well.
    • Source: SGA S05E04, Alternate reality drive
  25. Alien storage which ask to be delivered somewhere. If opened it gives something valuable, but fails its mission, if delivered when valuable will not be accessible for player.
    • It may be a test - if player chooses to open, valuable may be a trap. But if player chooses to deliver, may get something even more valuable in return.
    • Source: SGA S05E15, Sakari legacy
  26. Signal from alternative reality with some information. Detectable only with advanced sensors.
    • Information could be either useful (location of valuables) or dangerous (virus or location of an ambush)
    • Source: SGA S05E20, Signal with Earth location
  27. Test for (in)maturity or trickiness - player is requested to do something hard and what he could only do if have advanced technology or knowledge, and threaten to be destroyed if will not comply.
    • In some cases test works in opposite way - only if player do what was requested, he will be destroyed as too dangerous.
    • Player must be given a hint - will test do as it says or in a opposite way.
      • Alien race which promise something valuable in return for doing -> opposite way.
      • What can be indication of direct way? When no (specific) reward is promised?
    • Source: Babylon 5 S03E03, Berserker's probe
  28. Junkyard planet
    • Player could search junk and found various things - up to very rare and useful items. Most of them will be damaged and broken, but undamaged items also could be found.
    • Source: Clifford Simak, Junkyard
  29. Details of unjinxed ship
    • Low-grade devices with "supernatural" properties. Properties are related to basic functions of device, but are indirect.
      • Unjinxed hull part - makes invisible (up to some technological level)
      • Unjinxed radar - creates enlarging shield (like radar-wave)
      • Unjinxed сanon - throws ship forward with speed of a bullet
      • Unjinxed missile - works as radar while fly, restored in storage after explosion
      • Unjinxed reactor - teleport ship to specific location in galaxy
      • Unjinxed engine - produces energy while working (as much as should consume)
    • It was parts of some ship, which happens to pass near glitch of the universe and obtain "supernatural" properties. Ship as a whole was practically invincible, but its crew were cheated by group of mercenaries ship were taken and disassembled. Since then parts are quickly changing owners.
    • Source: items in The Lost Room (mini-series)
  30. TODO: read all http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_in_Stargate and sub-pages
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