Update#49 : Almost got it...

I'm just excited and wanted to share that I'm sooo close to finishing the new star designer! I just need to figure out one last piece of this machine...

Update#48 : New Days

So it's been a little while since my last update (blame Christmas!) and I thought I should share what's going on, aside from all that family stuff.

I have been making progress with the whole planetary formation thing. In the process, I've found that... while I've been using a bit more and more scientific references for my models, I'm a bit lost with some of my previous choices. Mainly, the arbitrary values I was giving stars for their variety, and how they were mucking up my planetary designs. My solution: take a step back to star formation. I'm not going to be revising the whole system and thus need to start over with the stupid equations that took months; I just need to change how the star values are determined, and then adjust a few surrounding things to accomodate the new value ranges.

The specific problem: Originally, I gave stars a random mass and volume, to account for the possibility of small massive bright stars and red giants. Now what I'll do is roll a mass for a star, generate planets according to that mass (and resulting brightness) then roll for its age to determine which phase of star life it's in.

The final piece of related info: The values that I was using were totally arbitrary, so I couldn't relate them at all to the more-realistic models I was starting to formulate and, well, without any relation, I didn't know how to proceed! Also, again, I was ending up with wonky systems due to the star properties being too random.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to having fun with finding good number ranges and figuring out nice easy ways to make them, so that I can get back to building planets!

Update#47 : Olden Days ... with Programming?

No snow around here, so I've been convinced to visit a place with snow, where I can work by candles some more. I forgot how many details there really were for designing planets; much more complicated than stars. Writing it all up will probably take a few pages per draft and I don't know how many drafts I'll be doing...

Before I get overwhelmed, I just have to remember ... snow and candles.

Update#46 : Definition

I have all my new equations fully refined and set, and I promise this will be the last time that I touch them ... excluding the event that I find I've made a mistake in any of them. I say that specifically because I've found a couple errors in current and past equations already (and, I believe, have fixed them all) ...

Also, this last set of equations I had a little more fun with than usual. I hold to the belief that handwriting is the best way to solve equations (not including the number-crunching part) and so I have my binder with sheets of paper and write out my equations in pencil. The last set, however, I wrote without the tv on, or music, or computer aid, or even lights... by the light of four candles, I derived my equations carefully, including factoring and compressing my terms all in two steps. I mathed this night like I haven't mathed in a long time; and doing it in quiet by candle light, I felt like a classic mathematician. I know I'm quite the nerd, but I can't help it, I had a lot of fun with this and I hope I'll get to do it again some time. I think that should be fairly easy, actually; I might not be doing math specifically but I do a lot of brainstorming and writing it into my binder...! Looking forward to it!

Now, though, it's about time to sleep again. It seems I might have a busy day tomorrow [outside and excluding programming] but we'll see.


Lately I've been putting together plans for a more advanced map interface; it will be pretty similar to the current one but a little more intuitive for interaction and control... Actually it will be essentially the same, except simply better, the deal is that I'd build the new one from scratch. It shouldn't be too bad though, since I've done it once and I'll probably copy-and-paste a lot... details are secret for now, just trust me it'll be awesome! But I'll definitely finish the planetary formation stuff completely before I start into the new map styles. With the planets finished, I'll actually have 4 map types to set up:
1) Star Region : your local stellar neighbourhood
2) Solar System : an overview of the selected solar system
3) Planet Syetem : an overview of the selected planet (planet name, its moons, nearby fleets)
4) Planetoid View : all of the details about a specific planet/moon/asteroid, such as type and resources


That's enough babbling for now, it's bed time!

Update#45 : Refinement

So I'm preobably being an exceptional perfectionist, but I've made another adjustment to my equation. I will need to spend some time tomorrow finalizing and installing my new modified equations.

Also, I wasn't perfectly happy with the equations with respect to how it would represent natural formations, but was going to accept it; but after some reading I found some theories that help to close the gap between reality and my equation, so everything is dandy now.

I've spent quite a while in this now, so, I'm going to take a little break until the math itch comes back and I have to work the equations a little more... or sleep, that's good too.

Update#44 : Resolution

Now, I absolutely do have my equations, and they are all giving me the results that I want out of them.

Finally I can really move forward preparing planetary design and generation; back on the road with "it's going to be a good winter"

It's still going to take a little while and a lot of trial-and-error to get the full planetary formation strategy finished in a form that I'd like, but I think this should take about a week, and maybe a couple days to expand it to fill the 'galaxy' ... after which I can declare all of my foundations finished, and begin building player-owned objects in the Universe. Hopefully that step will begin before the new year. Wish me luck!

Update#43 : Resolve

That title is a bit of a play with words. There's the meaning "resolve" as in determination, which is being described, but also it can be read as re-solve as applicable in the sense of re-working a mathematical equation.

As I said, some trial-and-error was in order, and ... well I found that the equation I finally got was wrong. After a couple more days with several more revisions and re-discoveries, I finally really have the right equation that I've been looking for. The numbers coming out are what I expect, and can really start putting it to work once I have the full planet creation strategy figured out. I have another couple equations to solve actually but they will be easy and fun in comparison, and I'll have them done tonight.

Update#42 : Planetary Tactics

Pretty simple and short update today. I'm devising the methods of how the system will produce planets, using the equations developed in the previous steps. This will probably take a few more days of trial-and-error to tweak it until I can get results that I'm happy with, then a few days after that to expand it to work on a massive scale.

Update#41 : Solution Today, Construction Tomorrow

I'm pretty happy now with my equations, now they just need a little but of tuning and then I'll be assembling some code to put them to work. Actually, this is a bit of re-tuning because I found that the scale they were producing before wasn't nearly big enough to properly represent real solar systems, in my opinion.

Make no mistake, space is big. Space is REALLY big.

With this math hurdle finished, I expect to get into the good stuff of planet-building tomorrow. Excited!

 If I work hard and get reeeeeally lucky, we might have something to start test-playing by the end of the year! Hopefully not too much distraction will come up between now and then.

Also, I might be able to get a dedicated web host in the near future, which might make the test site more responsive.

 It's going to be a good winter =D