Monday, March 11, 2013

Dark Side Jam: Rocket Builder






I made a game for the Dark Side Jam this weekend at NASA, it's called Rocket Builder, you can try it out:
Download: rocketbuilder02.zip


UPDATE 3/14:
I fixed the Fuel placed in the ground bug, if you want to update download this version and just copy and replace the rocket.exe file.  Also added altitude to the info.


Instructions:
Editing:
Left click to build beams and points, right click to delete.
WASD move viewpont
T to test
F1-F4 to switch between 4 available slots for rocket designs

1-7 switch beam type



Fuel Lines are one-directional, they will pump fuel from the black to red.  Ignition is also one-directional, make sure the triangle is pointing down.


Testing:
I toggles ignition
Left and Right arrows to contract hydraulics
Hold F for fast simulation
1-5 switch camera
P to pause, O to step one simulation frame at a time

Thanks to everyone at the jam especially Sam for being my consulting rocket scientist, it was a lot of fun!

UPDATE:
I fixed a bug with the fuel lines, they were only applying force to the fuel particles without an equal force to the beam (@MysticalEric made a rocket that just used fuel lines to propel itself) , now fuel lines should work a lot better.  I also added support for multiple hydraulic beams and a zoom to the in-game camera.

43 comments:

Vegeta897 said...

So the particle collisions are actually what causes the propulsion, instead of just some magic physics force like in every other game?

Alex Austin said...

Yeah

coolguy1 said...

Oh this is fun.

Goran said...

Made it to orbit! Can we have a moon now :)

Unknown said...

You should make particles disappear after some time cause when you do a full orbit your ship will just crash in the smoke and loose lot of speed resulting in an unavoidable crash.

Alex Austin said...

The smoke left over is pretty light and won't slow your ship down much, I've flown through it a few times, and it usually falls into the ground after one orbit. I probably will have it fade out in the next version though.

flaillomanz said...

Would you kindly fix fuel placing when you click the fuel button (i.e. underground)?

Tetraspace West said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tetraspace West said...

Has anyone got to orbit with 2 tanks or less yet? My record is 3.

Goran said...

Got into orbit with 2 fuel tanks :) http://imageshack.us/a/img823/2747/rocket5.png

Goran said...

Tried to build a 2 stage rocket. I set the fuel line outside the fuel tank and used hydraulics to move it in and out the tank. Alas the fuel line never pumped any fuel this way :(

Sam said...

Are you planning on adding destruction pyhsics in future updates?
Also the fuel bug that cause it to spawn in the ground is quite annoying

Alex Austin said...

I fixed the fuel placed in the ground bug, I do want to add some more things like destructible beams and multiple stages but don't have much time to work on it right now.

Anonymous said...

Errr. I'm pretty sure it's newton's second law that causes thrust; not particles collisions. Look for the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation

Anonymous said...

Errr. I'm pretty sure it's newton's second law that causes thrust; not particles collisions. Look for the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation

Rob said...

Due to the frictionless surface and atmosphere you can start your sideways burn at launch.
Thereforem you can easily make orbit with one fuel tank by simply reaching 300m/s.

dionvc said...

Did someone say 2 stage rocket?
http://imgur.com/a/B75Sq#0

dionvc said...

Looks like the fuel tanks might be a bit buggy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG6XEjD13v0&feature=youtu.be

Sam O said...

I created a rocket that maintains the fuel pressure and gives a nice reading of the fuel left.
http://i.imgur.com/vkdk4G7.png

Unknown said...

Well then At the basic stage of this game incredibly silly built a car went around the earth and still gown... I don't usually mess with the physics engine but with this game Could not resist But i see this game pretty good in physics in the future And more silly designs

flaillomanz said...

Gentlemen! BEHOLD! http://gyazo.com/fd53ec5db1281c02b5cec7728cd66d99.png

Jake said...

Is there any way you could add the functionality to be able to select and move groups of nodes/beams? Also, fuel lines seem to work backwards if you are pointing opposite your velocity vector, is there any way that could be fixed as well?

Aside from those two things, I think the game is an awesome ton of fun! I'd really like to see you add the inverse square law to the gravity field so we get the orbits properly focused on the planets, but I believe you said that you want to do that when Scott Manley mentioned it.

Jake said...

Oh, also, Wilhelm VonRoefelz, while yes, it is newton's second law that creates the force which propels the rocket, said force IS transmitted through the fuel particles. As they expand they push on each other and in turn push on the combustion chamber of the rocket engine, creating an change in the rocket's momentum equal and opposite to the change in the momentum of the propellant. Tsiolkovsky's equation plays no role in how forces propagate through the propellant to create a force on the rocket, it only describes the total achievable change in velocity of a given rocket, so don't bust it out just to sound smart.

TheSlider said...

This is awesome, you should definitely add more to this rocket simulation. I spent the entire working day trying various designs and doing weird stuff to make the rocket either fly as far as 25.000 alt (I did manage to put one in orbit though) or having fun with fuel physics simulation in a rollercoaster-ish platform.

I love it.

May i sugest a few additions like a general purpose hydraulic and fuel line that we can assign to a key press ?
This would allow for example to pass fuel from one stage to another.
A segment separator line so that we can separate the rocket in two or more segments (disengaging rocket stages to make it lighter or simulating the release of an orbital satelite).
Alow zoom/pan when following the rocket in the 5th view.
Press a key to move the camera from one segment of the rocket to another when you break it into parts.

i want to land on the moon too ! : )

Anyways, thank you for letting us try this builder !

TheSlider said...

Hi, I'm trying this at home but there seems to be a problem with Fullscreen 1920*1080 resolution. The view scrolls when i'm not even touching the borders (3/4 to the right or 20-50 pixels above the building menu. It's like if the scroll detection is based on a lower resolution than the full screen one.

It works in windowed mode though.

Cheers

Airrider1 said...

The builder doesn't appear to be registering my left clicks, leaving me unable to build anything when switching between rockets at all.

Unknown said...

Jeez, seomtimes my rocket engine would explode, the fuel tanks blew up 0.o

I love this simulator

coolguy1 said...

I'm not going to say Scott Manley played this game because I suggested it in a Youtube comment, but Scott Manley played this game because I suggested it in a Youtube comment.

Edward Tubb said...

Nice. Broke 40,000 today with a simple looking rocket.
God this thing is addictive.

User said...

61000

http://i.imgur.com/fw9zy72.png

TheSlider said...

That rocket is a mess but it does indeed fly that much high.
the real challenge is putting one in orbit without consuming too much fuel.

Unknown said...

Oh this is fun.

Glyn Willmoth

Alex said...

This game is awesome !

In my physics department we have a little contest about who would be able to send the rocket the highest. Currently the record older is me with 45615 of altitude and a max Y speed of about 936.

Naum Franpos said...


Wonderful post!.Many people are afraid travelling in the sea or water because theres a high tendency of accident.That inviduals have their own travel insurance for their safety incase of sea accident.

Jennifer said...

Thank you for this game. I really enjoyed it and i think now i am addicted of this game now.
---------------
http://www.atechhydraulics.com

Unknown said...

It needs a way to move a point. It would really help, so you can easily modify, without having to delete and rebuild so much.

Unknown said...

I don't know what equation you are using for gravity, but in real life, if you double the distance from an object, the gravity is 1/4 of what it was. You should seriously consider implementing that into the game.

Unknown said...

I just got into an orbit with only 1 tank of fuel!

thuytien said...

great friv puzzle game,

Gideon said...

Yeah, I was having trouble with some of my humble orbital simulations as the orbits didn't have the parent body at one of the ellipses. It turns out the force of gravity must be inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the two bodies. Probably beating a dead horse, but oh well. Great game by the way! :)

Gideon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

umm...whats with the wierd config file?
This is in it
screenwidth=1920
screenheight=1080
colordepth=32
depthbits=24
stencilbits=8
fullscreen=1
joystick=1
sound=1
soundvolume=80
musicvolume=80
port=27584
servermaxbytespersecond=100000
name=Agent 320
servername=Sub Rosa Server
invertmouse=0
maxnumofplayers=16
roundtime=7
setcpuaffinity=0
voicechat=0
voiceholdtotalk=1
voicekey=102
voicemin=2048
help=1

Unknown said...

looks like another game config file? xD
http://www.subrosagaming.com/ as a quick google :P

Nice rocket building game though :D