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Games Entertainment

Limited Edition Terminus For Order 128

Posted by Hemos from the cool-new-games dept.
A reader writes "Read over at GA-Source that the space sim game Terminus is finally about to start shipping and that they are taking 100 pre-orders for limited edition signed copies of the game. If you never heard of Terminus, check out GA's preview of the game here. It's got a load of cool features like real Newtonian physics and a persistent online universe and real good AI to boot! I've never been a big sim fan but this is one game I'm definitely gonna check into. "
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Limited Edition Terminus For Order More

Limited Edition Terminus For Order

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  • "Terminus"... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This many be slightly off-topic, but...

    Wasn't there a Doctor Who story called Terminus? It was a Fifth Doctor story, and the TARDIS somehow got joined to a spaceship that was at the centre of the universe. I remember seeing it as a kid.

    As soon as I read "Terminus" and "space," this is what I thought of.

    I'm posting this as Anonymous Coward because I'm not sure how it will be received. So, if you like this, don't moderate it up too far. All those karma points will just go to /dev/null.

  • There's no conspiracy here - I just think it's a cool game.
  • Yep, there was an episode [bbc.co.uk] by that name.

    It wasn't what I first thought of when I read "Terminus" - my first thought was of the last story in Stanislaw Lem's book Tales of Pirx the Pilot [std.com].
  • It's Newtonian physics, not Einsteinian. You'll percieve time as moving at the same rate no matter what speed you're going at - unlike the real world. I suppose this opens the doors for a lot of FTL too... (just go real fast - nothin' special ;)
  • | BOSE? Lol! Last thing I expected in this forum
    | was a BOSE advocate.

    I'm not too surprised at anything I read on Slashdot these days. However, even a Bose system is likely to sound better than the "multimedia" crap - and that includes some systems that come with what is billed as a subwoofer - that is put out for use with computers these days. (This is also why so many people think MP3s they download over the net sound as good as CDs... ;) )

  • /. (Score:1)

    by mincus ( 7154 )
    As if it isn't hard enough to get a limited edition of a game, let alone when it gets slashdotted with only 100 copies of something.

    bah.

    .allen
  • I must admit that I got bored while reading the first page of the GA-Source review, so I only had a quick look at the second. I've read that thoroughly as well now, and I'm not impressed. I played Elite something like 15 years ago and I would have expected something better than 1) improved graphics and 2) multi-player mode as the main differences from Elite, especially with all the hype. The NASA guys were impressed with the HUD, eh? Wow...

    I don't mean to offend or provocate, but there simply isn't much that is original in this game. Perhaps the AI is better than I can imagine from reading the review, or maybe the review is just badly written, but ... I see so much hype about "newtonian physics", "dynamic economy" and "cool HUD" that it makes me wonder whether there is anything interesting in that game at all, because those things certainly aren't. I hope the gameplay is good.

  • Every crappy "Lunar Lander" type game I've ever seen had "real Newtonian physics". Sheesh.

    The graphics of "Terminus" look nice, although it seems to be yet another uninspiring space shooter.

  • Where is this info? I couldn't find any info on the Mac release.
  • I have a feeling this game is gonna cost me another point on the GPA

    /ZL
  • While you may be correct about the graphics.. comparing the sound quality is stupid! Your computer or dreamcast don't play sound worth a damn... just like you said... 4 speakers and a sub play your sound. If I am not mistaken there have been video games made for consoles that take advantage of surround sound. And I can bet you that the sound quality of a BOSE surround system will put your 5 speaker system hooked up to your SB live to shame... so please leave speakers out of the equation.
  • "Sunday April 23
    Terminus Limited Edition
    As of 6:45 PM PST, the limit of one hundred people has been reached. I came home from work at 5:30 to find my inbox flooded with emails. I would like to thank everyone who took the time to send me their information and pre-order.

    I will format the list and send it over to VV within the week. Like Karthik said in the forum, once they have the list they will email the confirmation. For those of you who didn't make it by 6:45 PM PST, go ahead and send it to me anyway. I say this because when VV compares the list to the pre-orders at their store, there may be some inconsistencies. Some people may have not ordered at all. So don't give up just yet."

    - http://www.stationterminus.com/current/
  • Now, that was a game that someone should build a 3d, multiplayer version of!!! If you never played it, you REALLY missed out. Even though it was an EGA game with PC speaker sound. IT rocked!! AND, strangly enough, I still play it at times. It was very cool.

    This game was produced by Future Magic and released through Electronic Arts a very long time ago (back in 1988).
    ---

  • ME2! (Score:1)

    by ndege ( 12658 )
    darn...don't know if I can stand another gpa point drop! ;)
    ---
  • Well, let's say your ship can thrust at 10gs. Furthermore, let's say it has unlimited fuel.

    It would still take you a month to get up to light speed. That would be really boring, and you would run out of fuel LONG before.
  • Oddly enough, the requirements seem to be pretty low...
    http://www.stationterminus.com/ lists the hw requirements as a P200 with 32 megs of ram, and sw as linux or win9x or macos. Of course, that's probably like Doom on a 386/20.
    Jim
  • There have been no less than two PhD dissertations based on writing a Netrek robot. The netrek server newbie.psychosis.net has bunch of robots that keep game at a full 16 players. When a human comes in, one of the bots leaves. They are in "suck mode", so they fight much more poorly than they could, to give new players a chance to kill them.
  • Damn, I loved that game. Except I played it in CGA on a 4.77MHz IBM PC. It took about three seconds to move one step forward and five minutes to save the game. It was worth it, though.

    Another great game in the genre was Space Rogue.
  • When Doom first came out, it was pure shareware. You could not buy it in stores, you could only order it through the mail. It didn't do too bad. And I don't remember Id Software having a big marketing budget at the time either.

    The only difference between then and now is that now, more people are 'online' and are more likely to be exposed to something like this through word of mouth.

    If it really is good, and if they release a good demo, in a timely fashion, it will do well.
  • but why stop there? Relativistic physics beckons: 4) As the speed of the craft approaches the speed of light it contracts along the direction of motion and time slows down.
  • Yes, that is how it is typically done in games. It's fast, it's simple, and nobody really cares about accurate collision resolution for good game-play. I just wanted to point out that simulating Newtonian physics doesn't necessarily imply a trivial set of rules.

    In fact, even in two dimensions it's quite non-trivial if done with a signicant amount of accuracy.
  • I hear the guys at the Galileo Project: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sjoh0780/ have been working on something similar for sometime, using neat continuous physics.

    I haven't actually read the linked page so this may well be what you meant by 'continuous physics' anyway, but what would be cool is a persistent space game where you can get in your ship, point it towards the next star system, accelerate to like 50% of light speed, and then logoff and come back to the game in 24 hours when you're just entering the star system. :)

    .. Oh yeah, and hope some Space Banditos (just listen for maracas) haven't taken your ship in the meantime :)

  • Hmm. Funny you should say that. I remember a tiny little game company that everyone said would fail because THEY didnt have hardly any marketing. This tiny little company called Cavedog going up against giants like Blizzard, Westwood, and EA. Especialy in a market that was already full. Funny thing was, Total Annihilation took off without a ton of hype. History does repeat itself.
  • And people expect when they want to move to something in a higher orbit they should accelerate toward it or in the same direction as their present orbit...
  • You mean like: When you drop a cluster of these, they will fall in a realistic manner?

    Or if you drop Beowulf in the game, he will fall in a realistic manner?

  • Could this finally be what Elite 2 et al. were supposed to be?

    It's even got the elite radar thing.
    I must buy this ASAP
  • Somewhere on their site, they claimed the realism was adjustable to `arcade style'. Perhaps they've thought about the learning curve and let people work their way up.
  • Is there an accelerated time scale to this game? Because, it's been a while since I took the physics AP, but otherwise won't this game be incredibly boring to play considering the time involved in space travel? Today, Mars is 352*10^11 meters from earth (According to Microsoft Space Simulator, sorry ). So, starting at zero velocity... x=.5*10g*t^2... considering you've gotta start decellerating halfway through your trip... It'll take about 10 days to make the all important Mars-Earth trip.
  • independence war sucks. its controls are too difficult to use and its VERY awkward to even try to shoot at something (download the demo for IW1 and IW2 and see for yourself). the defining element in the success or failure of these games is the controls..if they can be customised nicely the game will succeed..otherwise it'll just piss people off.
  • now that I think of it, there was a 1996 game called Subspace (nothing like terminus) that implemted all of those.
  • There is a popular Mac game named Escape Velocity that does all that.

    (snip) The url for that Mac game is:http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/ev/ [ambrosiasw.com]

    Man, I'd love it if Escape Velocity and it's "sequel" Escape Velocity Override were ported to an OS that'd run on my Intel hardware. I liked EV so much I gladly registered it (shareware). The folks at Ambrosia Software do a great job. If you've got an older Mac or a Mac laptop sitting around, grab this - along with a copy of Bungie's Marathon series :)

  • Hemos-


    So, if you personally had to choose, what would be your favorite game overall?


    ~~Delphinios~~

  • There is a popular Mac game named Escape Velocity that does all that (missions with timeframe, depending on factions, trading, thrust needed to change trajectories, etc.), except it's in 2D and not 3D.

    It is a lot of fun!

    The url for that Mac game is:
    http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/ev/
  • I have played a few games that have touted their realism. What I have found is that the more buttons and effects you have to worry about the harder it is to pick up and play.

    Take the Playstation game Wipeout. I have played many racing games in my life, but Wipeout is by far the best. What makes it different from the more realistic racing sims is the fact that you don't need the brake in the beginning levels while getting all of the nifty graphic effects of the later stages and most of the speed. In other words, the game was fun while I was building skill.

    The problem with video games is that you have fewer options than you would ever have in real life. In a real baseball game you have the option to stand anywhere you want in the batter's box, swing as hard as you want, even drop your shoulder a hair when you see a juicy fastball to uppercut the ball out of the park with nothing more than minute adjustments, but if you want to include it in a game, you have to find a separate input device for each small feature.

    My prediction is that this space sim will have so many features that it will be rendered unweildly to all but the most experienced gamers, and even they will have a learning curve that will bore them for a while
  • there is an ``inverse realism slider''

    cunningly mislabeled "volume"? I had a printer driver like that for my old mac. It had a "do not fuck up" checkbox that had to be selected, but it was labeled something weird, like "download fonts once", or something equally hard to guess.

  • Oh man, I would be so there if...

    1) I wasn't married.

    2) I didn't have kids.

    and thus

    3) Had the time to work the 70-80 hours per week you've been putting in.

    Honours B. Sc. in Math, minors in Physics and Comp Sci, three years coding experience out of university and drooling to work on a game like this. Oh, and ran a B5 mailing list for the region with over 500 people on it... :)

    I considered sumbitting a resume after the slashdot story, but the 70 hours a week would kill me.

    Oh well. In another life, perhaps... :)

  • http://terminus.gamestats.com/information/game/
  • According to the linked preview page, the preview was posted in January 1, 1999. The scheduled release date is quoted as May 1999. What's up with that?
  • Any chance for a FreeBSD version? Please? :)

    A native version is always perferred, but I wonder if this can be run under Linux emulation.
  • Thank you for possibility.
  • *shrug*

    Not a unique name by any measure. T'was also the home of the First Foundation in Asimov's "Foundation" series, if memory serves.
  • ;-)

    Hehehehehe. Mmmm, I've played Netrek in hockey mode before... mostly straight bronco, 'tho, and occasionally chaos. 'specially Borg-enabled chaos.

    Oh my, did I hate SC-oggers...

    Looks like they won't have cloaking, 'tho. That should make it MUCH more difficult to ogg. On the other hand, since there's momentum, maybe not -- if you can hit a high-enough velocity before they take out your engines/steering systems so you end up getting just as close. Or if there are ways to hide, like areas where radar doesn't work...

    (Anybody ever write, say, a fully-automated OggBot? Getting one to figure out when to abort, and how to intercept w/o eating a string of torps might be something wicked.)
  • People generally expect three things to happen when flying something.

    4. Things make noise when they explode.

    --

  • Even though the Bell experiments prove that the quantum world experiences either nonlocality or nonseparability (most probably the latter, which doesn't allow superluminal signaling), there has been much analysis of the possibility to send signals over entangled particles, and so far there is no way to send any information across them. The best we've been able to do is quantum cryptography, but that requires a second (sub-lumnial) communication channel.

    Either way, they said that Terminus uses Newtonian Physics which means none of this is relevent :)

    -------------
    The following sentence is true.
  • Not a unique name by any measure. T'was also the home of the First Foundation in Asimov's "Foundation" series, if memory serves.

    You are indeed correct. That's a great series: I still haven't had time to read the 4th and 5th books in the series yet.
  • From the review:

    Descent Freespace and Descent 3 look to be nice additions to the genre, but they're all in the same series.

    Freespace and Decent have absolutely nothing to do with each other, beside the Decent name (which they dropped for Freespace 2). Nothing. Nada. The world used for the Frespace games has a completely different plotline from Decent (assuming Decent has a plot, I never figured it out what it might be).

    Also, I must point at that while the screenshots look good, they're not great. I would rate Freespace 2 as looking significantly "slicker", especially the computer controls (of course this can be "explained" by the fact that Terminus is set in 2200, while Freespace is set in >2300, IIRC). However, the realism introduced (radiation killing the pilot, etc) is pretty cool, and the Newtonian physics is nice, the one thing I don't like about Freespace2 is the very silly physics. So I'll probably buy it after it's been marked down in the $30 range.
  • I didn't say they were similar, I said they were in the same series. I thought it was a valid point when discussing the options of space sim fanatics.

    OK, I suppose that's valid. I think the same "genre" would maybe be a little more accurate, though of course Terminus is in the same genre as well. Maybe just "Decent 3 and Freespace are both arcade style space shooters where you go around and blow up a bunch of ships". Yeah, that about covers it. :)

  • hehe.. no problem. I remember that freshman year though.. do i get an advance copy ? heh --jay
  • It was the sequel to Wolfenstein 3D, which was extremely popular. You're showing your age -- or rather, your youth.

    Wolfenstein, OTOH, was chiefly publicized through word of mouth. I don't remember ever seeing an ad for it before I played it. It benefited, however, from being based on an extremely popular 2D shooter called Castle Wolfenstein that ran on the Apple II, AT/XT, and possibly other platforms. I played it on a IIc.

    There are games which are publicized mostly through word of mouth and get decent distribution -- GLTron [gltron.org] and Dope Wars [beermatsoftware.com] come to mind. Of course, Dope Wars is, again, based on an older MS-DOS game...

  • I have read the foundation series a couple of times and as a matter of fact am re-reading "fountations edge" for the fith time, EXCELLENT read, "foundations edge" and "foundation and earth" in my opinion have got to be Asimov's best work.

  • I don't know about that. When newton first introduced his gravitational theory one of the big detractions was that it didn't predict the orbit of mercury properly. Mercury is too close to the sun so it has relativistic effects caused by the sun's mass. If you take the solar system as a whole, mercury orbit is very different from earth orbit and a pure newtonian model would not take those changes into account.

  • Terminus will ship with Linux (x86), Windows and Mac binaries in the box. (see Station Terminus [stationterminus.com])
  • > Has anyone else noticed a distinct B5 influence?

    Yes, the developers have said as much:

    "What has inspired you for the game? Books, movies, etc? Which ones and why?"

    "As far as previous games that have influenced us: Elite, Starflight, and Sentinel Worlds. We're all sci-fi buffs, and most recently Babylon 5 has become a favorite with us. Okay, I'll be the first to admit that I'm a total B5 nut. I think the common thread with these influences is that these creative works weren't afraid to take chances and try something new. They also have very well written, compelling, and immersive storylines that really capture your imagination. We're hoping that Terminus will do the same."

    As for the music, it is indeed very reminiscent of B5. Note that the game will ship with a seperate audio CD containing the music (that's every game, not just the limited edition).

  • May I point out that half-life has been out for PC for well over a year and is just now coming out for dreamcast? I don't want to wait a year to play a game on a console even if it does have better graphics and sound, and I doubt if it really does. And can you use mods with dreamcast half life? Somehow I doubt it. The only reason I still play that game is cause of Counter Strike [counter-strike.net]. I don't think I could do that with a Dreamcast.

  • Nice graphics, multiple roles, multi-platform, decent physics, customisable ships, missions, trading... The list goes on.

    If this puppy lives up to its billing, I've just found a great way of wasting a few months.

  • While the article doesnt really go into much depth on how detailed their modelling scheme is, I suspect you are right. If all they are talking about is Newtonian motion for flying around, that's not too difficult.
    You're right. It doesn't take 10000 monkeys to figure out how Newtonian motion works. That's why we were surprised that no one had ever done it well!

    We were working on Terminus right about the time Independence War was being developed as well. It looked like they were thinking the same thing. I had a lot of interesting chats with the developers at Particle Systems about Terminus vs. I-War. With I-War, they went a different way than us, focusing more on capital ship combat, and more tactical-type stuff. Terminus focuses mostly on fighter-style combat.

    You're right that we didn't worry about friction effects and such. However, we do have a highly accurate collision detection engine, which results in realistic damage scenarios. (The type of damage to your ship depends upon the location of weapon hits, etc...)

    I can tell you how great the game is, but you probably won't believe me. But I will say that it is unlike any other game in many ways, and is worth a look.

    -Chuck
  • I've been a reviewer of PC games for a magazine for a while, and have been playing them for about 12 years. And I have to conclude that it will fail.
    Jeez, dude! Let's keep the nails out of the coffin until the game at least hits the shelves! I don't know what VV/Vatical has cooked up for marketing, but I assure you, you will know about Terminus before the release date.
    Besides, this game is probably not as good as MS Research's Allegiance (very similar).
    Ouch. Talk about about how great Microsoft marketing is, and not realize that you're a victim too? I suggest you play both games and find out the truth, first, before you damn me to oblivion.
    -Chuck
  • I wish I could find out some specifics about the engine.
    Granted.

    You've pretty much hit it on the head with the rotating particles bit. This gives us the majority of the feel of space flight, without an enormous CPU expense. (Our enormous CPU expense is AI!)

    Planetary gravitation is not modelled, becuase at the speeds we're talking, you would never know the difference. Again, traded off to AI for CPU time.

    As for building ships, you will need to choose one of our 8 basic hulls, which you can then customize by installing numerous components. Rest assured, you can build a ship you're happy with.

    -Chuck
  • I remember when chuck was working on it three years ago and telling us how the AI was doing retarded things, and how some of his schemes sucked, and the like.
    Before anyone gets any wrong ideas, the AI is much less retarded now!

    Thanks, Jay.

    -Chuck
  • Has anyone else noticed a distinct B5 influence?
    I have.

    The entire development team are B5 fans. A lot of us were pretty disappointed when the B5 game never came to fruition, but I think B5 fans will enjoy Terminus quite a bit. Don't even talk to me about the nebulae, though. Those were not my idea... :)

    -Chuck
  • Very funny...

    We had to suspend realism a bit, because after all, it's a game!

    However, there is an ``inverse realism slider'' for the audio, if you wish to use it.

    -Chuck
  • Remember??? I played Sentinel Worlds for two years on my Tandy 1000. There is definitely influence in Terminus.

    I never get to talk about it, because no one else has ever heard about it. But for a time, Sentinel Worlds ruled my life!

    -Chuck
  • Any chance for a FreeBSD version? Please? :)
    I won't rule it out, but it's something of a ``developers' spare time'' sorta thing.
    -Chuck
  • 'Cause if they do, it aint Newtonian.

    The sound-development crew for this game should have an easy time of it!

  • There's also one multiplayer-only mode called, aptly enough, Multiplayer Melee, where up to eight teams and eight AI ships can duke it out in any number of environments. You can choose Deathmatch, where players can fly all around the solar system to try t o blow each other away; Cage Match, where players battle it out in a confined area; or Zero-G Hockey. Zero-G Hockey sounds like the most fun - there are two goals, and each team is equipped with tractor beams and repulsor weapons with the goal of sending the puck through a hoop in space. The trick is, with a realistic Newtonian engine, if you let the puck go it'll keep right on going until someone or something stops it.

    It's a 3D version of netrek [netrek.com]! Any of the old unix gurus out there know what I'm talking about - I wonder ogging people will become popular in this game..

  • I hear the guys at the Galileo Project: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sjoh0780/ have been working on something similar for sometime, using neat continuous physics. It'd be great if they could get it up and people could add their own ships etc. Flend [apologies about repeat post, forgot password]
  • Go read about it a little bit, then comment on it.

    I don't mind criticism, but calling it "yet another uninspring space shooter" is plain ignorance.
  • I have no idea about the friction stuff, but as for the collision modelling, here's how it works:

    Basically, each ship model has a bunch of collision spheres in it. If a sphere from one ship overlaps a sphere from another ship, collision. Not the most accurate, but it'll work.
  • The premise of the game is that space colonization is going well, and then an expedition finds an alien artifact orbiting Jupiter (or something like that). The technology they find there allows them to construct gates that let you zap from one to the other instantly. The downside is that you have to get to your destination through normal means before you can build a gate there and zap through, so no easy travel to other stars, but it lets you get around the solar system more easily.
  • You souds like you have a Mac.

    Terminus is coming for the Mac. No need to get another OS.
  • As was discussed a little bit ago with the MMOGs realistic dynamicism would be cool. For any type of role playing game a dynamic realistic world would be a pretty fun place to run about in, dynamics and arbitary DM choices are what made AD&D fun to play more than one time. I'd like to see VV license their world engine to some RPG designers.
    On the matter of physics (ha ha I made funny), I really like that someone has FINALLY learned about intertia and such. I wonder though if they are going to calculate for rigid bodies or if they are going to just deal with a bunch of particles that have virtual links to rigid parts. It would be pretty cool to see someone fly out of control if you nailed them with a missle. I think even if this game flops the technology inside it could still make these guys some money. As seen with HALO and Soldier of Fortune, game developers are trying for a bit more realism with their engines. It's fun sometimes to rocketjump over a guy's head and turn about in mid-air but it is also pretty fun to shoot out someone's fuel tank and watch them drift out of the solar system.
  • Newtonian physics work fine in Mercury's orbit, the only difference there is the gravitation of the Sun has relativistic effects on shape of space in the region which causes funny things to happen with light et al.
  • To communicate in such a way means that I need to find a true particle pair, considering all of the particles in this solar system originated in another part of the universe it would be pretty difficult to find such a pair. I know of the thought experiment though, it'd be cool if it worked. Imagine DX'ing all the way to M100....
  • BSD scales like crap? Shit dude, tell those guys who used FreeBSD on the Matrix not to pull those shinanigans again!
  • So, does this mean that players who are travelling very fast will perceive time as moving slower than players who are at rest? Of course this isn't possible.. to address this situation, the manufacturers are including mind-altering drugs which will affect players' perceptions of time.

  • That's funny. Two years ago, everyone was telling me that the consoles were dead and PCs were the new gaming scene. The reasoning was that PCs could do online gaming and had a more powerfull interface (keyboard, mouse, AND joystick/controller if you wanted).

    Today, I think the PC still has a lot more potential than a console. PCs are almost always connected to the net, where consoles might be. PCs have much better graphics capabilities; regardless of your 3D accelerator, a monitor just kicks a TV in pixel count. Finally, for the games I play (real-time strategy), a keyboard is a must. Try imagining Starcraft with a console controller.... *shudder* All of my unit building and selection is via the keyboard because it is fast.

    Finally, don't kid yourself. Developers have very little control over what platforms a game is developed for. Game companies have much more control, but the ultimate power comes from the gamers themselves. If the majority of gamers want a particular platform, you can bet that is where the companies will be, grabbing all the market they can.

  • Einsteinean physics don't really become visible until you get around 90% of the speed of light (0.9 C). If you accelerate at 1G for the better part of a year (acceleration at 1G is quite useful, if you have huge amounts of fuel and reaction mass but no artificial gravity) to get to 0.9C.

    Basically, the speed of light is around 300,000,000 meters per second. The acceleration of one gee of gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared (call it 10). So to get up to 0.9 C, accelerate at 10 M/sec^2 until you get to 270,000,000 M/sec.

    Do the math, and this takes 27,000,000 seconds, which is 312.5 days.

    Now, assuming that you are running this on Windows, your universe will CRASH before you get relativistic effects ;^>

  • Newtonian physics are great and all, but going at the speeds these things are going, wouldn't you have to toss in some relativity, or some fudge factor or something? I mean, blast off in some direction in your hottest ship and things start LOOKING different (cubes start getting concave, etc., becuase of the bending of light) as you get closer to the speed of light. Or does this only apply to speeds really close to the speed of light that are not possible in this game?
  • None of these features are particularly new in space simulations.

    Independence War, as a prime example, used very newtonian physics. You could easily fly past an enemy ship in a fraction of a second, the flip around and shoot while flying backwards, and other such points. Lateral, etc, thrusters were available as well. Plus, the damage model was complex (if your thrusters were hit, for example, you really couldn't turn in those directions. It's a lot of fun to be spinning helplessly in space, waiting for your repair crews to finish, while the enemy ships are streaking toward you). Also, Allegiance, which just came out, has similar lateral thrust (not to mention Descent)

    Trading has been around since Elite (I think, never played it) and more recently Privateer and probably other games.

    Of course, a full online trading community, like tradewards, hasn't yet been done in a graphical format, and not all these features have been combined in one game before. And it seems they are making things more detailed than in previous games of this type. So, it could be very cool.
  • Just watched the demo avi, listened to the music....

    Has anyone else noticed a distinct B5 influence? The stations look similar (not so much the theory as the shape, their rather bulbous.) The music sounds like Tangerine Dream/Christopher Franke. Plus there seem to be nebulae everywhere, one of B5 tricks for producing adequate lighting...

    I'm drooling now,...
  • Considering everything that is relevant to this game involves large masses and velocities that are well below .7 times the speed of light, its not necessary to use relativistic calculations to achieve a better then .1% error. Which hardly seems significant in a video game

    As far as quantum mechanics goes, one of Bohr's fundemental principles stated essentially that large systems modelled using quantum theory essentially appear the same as a classical (read "Newtonian") result. So again, its not necessary to make calculations based on quantum mechanics.

    Yes I realize that this post was probably a joke anyway. But I guess I just don't have a sense of humor :-)

    Spyky
  • ega? EGA? PC speaker? Luxury!

    When I were a lad I played Elite on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum in wire frame mode! In fact on many platforms. But the best, world beating ultimate Elite (so far) had to be the Amiga version. At the time nothing could touch the Amiga for 3D action.

    Thanks to the submitter for this one: I wasn't aware of Terminus, but I had been looking at Starlancer as my next game. (Diablo II still seems so far away) I'll get Terminus instead, partly because it will work on all my systems. I love multi-platform software.

    And if it really IS Tradewars/Elite with real time and physics and a great 3D engine... wow.
  • It just takes practice. I had no trouble finishing it... The controls are pretty much just like for most space sims except for a couple of additions. You just have to learn how to deal with a real universe, where turning is hard, rather than a cartoon universe.

    Of course, tactics that work for most sims won't work here, because of the newtonian physics. Those who are attached to those tactics may be put off.

    Anyway, I thought it was a great game, though a game that demanded so thought, rather than a "just wade in and shoot 'em" attitude.

  • * Hardware/software requirements?

    If you follow the links to the developer's site, they don't seem to mention requirements anywhere -- or any technical info whatsoever. For all I know, all their nifty screenshots might only work on, say, 3Dfx hardware, and owners of other stuff might get hosed. Or, maybe they've been considerate enough to support just about every 3D accelerator out there *and* provide a software-renderer for those who don't have supported cards. I can't seem to find out.

    Memory? Space? Number of CDs (or DVDs if they use them)? How about server load -- if a server has 8 AI players and 8 human chaps, will a decent PII/PIII/Athlon do, or will we find ourselves wishing for a quad-Xeon with FDDI, 2GB of RAM, and nobody playing directly on that machine?

    The concept *sounds* cool. If they really pulled off such distinct behaviors, then that's very very impressive. But it might be nice to know whether it's going to be playable in a given setup, first...

    * So an e-mail has to be sent to one address first... and the online store doesn't appear to tell you how many slots are left, before you actually select 'order' ? Um. I'm curious about how many e-mails are going to be sent to that address -- quite possibly WAY more than 100...
  • Its kinda weird, hearing about Terminus now in the news. I remember when chuck was working on it three years ago and telling us how the AI was doing retarded things, and how some of his schemes sucked, and the like. Its kinda another geek success story to see that come along.

    A good friend of mine used to be chuck's suitemate at WPI... so its been really awesome to see how this game has come along from in the gleam in chuck's sleepless eye to something that is actually going to do REALLY well.

    I caught up with him a few months ago, at which point he was complaining about the ports.. hehe.. its been a long hard process, and i wish them all luck. And hopefully ill get an advance copy =).. please!

    --jay

  • I wish I could find out some specifics about the engine. Some current things I'm wondering are.... Is it full rigid body dynamics in 3D or are the ships simply particles with some extras to determine rotation, etc.? Do they mind that newtonian physics doesn't work in some parts of the solar system, i.e. near mercury's orbit? Do they include gravity effects of planetary bodies and the sun? If the whole solar system is a battle ground, do they mind that such flight speeds would render Newtonian physics invalid as well?

    Also, does the moment of inertia, etc. of the ship change when parts are shot off? Are we to assume that the ships use some sort of acceleration compensator to make them survivable? Otherwise we would see autonomous combat craft that would simply kick the crap out of the human piloted ships.

    Lastly and m ost importantly, can I build a Starfury or a Gunstar with the fighter creator?

  • God, I know! Everytime I'm playing one of these so-called "sims" and it neglects to take into account the spin of my electron torpedo phase modulator, it totally ruins the effect.
  • Sounds more like a 3d version of subspace, which is my all time fave action game.

    http://www.subspacehq.com/

  • Re:9 out of 10 developers agree... (Score:3)

    by chuck ( 477 ) on Monday April 24, 2000 @04:35AM (#1115024) Homepage
    ...real spaceflight physics SUCK for dogfighting. There was a game called Mantis that came out not too long after Wing Commander that used 'real' physics, and it turned every fight into a jousting match.
    Don't knock it until you've tried it. Although novice pilots have a tendency to do the jousting thing, after a bit of experience it becomes clearer how to do combat in a zero-G environment. Keep in mind that not all combat is dogfighting. Cruiser and station attacks are much more interesting at times.
    Atmospheric flight performance is much more fun for dogfights. And besides, you can always rationalize it.
    Well, I'll let you be the judge as to which is more fun, but Newtonian flight combat has certainly not been fully explored yet. Terminus is set in the very near future, and the discovery of yet-undiscovered medium seems unlikey, much less how to control it.
    -Chuck

  • Re:Specs and one poor mail server... (Score:3)

    by chuck ( 477 ) on Monday April 24, 2000 @04:42AM (#1115025) Homepage
    The game will run with Glide on Linux and Windows, and with OpenGL on all three platforms. I believe the system requirements are something like a P-200 with a voodoo 1.
    Oops. Allow a developer to nitpick. It's Glide on Linux, Glide or Direct3D on Windows, and OpenGL on Mac. After some Linux OpenGL things settle down a bit, we may also do OpenGL for Linux after the initial release. (But I'm not speaking in an official capacity on that, so don't go flaming VV.)

    Although I've developed the game on a P-200 with a Voodoo 1, I most certainly recommend a P-II system. (The Voodoo 1 is fine, however.)

    -Chuck

  • Re:9 out of 10 developers agree... (Score:3)

    by CaseyB ( 1105 ) on Monday April 24, 2000 @01:40AM (#1115026)
    None of these three things are physically accurate; they apply more to atmospheric flight. What Terminus is doing is getting rid of those things, so that when you point your ship somewhere you actually have to thrust to change direction. When you shut the engines off, you keep going. And so forth.

    I hope that they aren't going for Wing Commander-eque gameplay with this -- because real spaceflight physics SUCK for dogfighting. There was a game called Mantis that came out not too long after Wing Commander that used 'real' physics, and it turned every fight into a jousting match. You found the guy, he found you, you charged at each other guns-ablaze, and then shot off in opposite directions, counter thrusting to attempt another pass. Forget 'getting on somone's tail', it ain't gonna happen. Lining up a ship for docking is difficult enough, never mind maintaining position with respect to a guy that is trying to get away.

    Atmospheric flight performance is much more fun for dogfights. And besides, you can always rationalize it. The Star Wars (novels, anyway) universe refers to 'ethereal' rudders and ailerons. Same principles as atmospheric flight, but your flaps are pressing against some as-yet-undiscovered-to-us medium, instead of air.

  • Re:Specs and one poor mail server... (Score:3)

    by HeghmoH ( 13204 ) on Sunday April 23, 2000 @10:53AM (#1115027) Homepage Journal
    Go to Station Terminus [stationterminus.com] (which was linked in the slashdot story), they have all sorts of info.

    The game will run with Glide on Linux and Windows, and with OpenGL on all three platforms. I believe the system requirements are something like a P-200 with a voodoo 1. For hosting, it depends on the number of players, but it sounds like most systems will be able to handle at least 8 or so.

    When you're playing freemode or campaign (where the whole solar system is simulated, not the shoot-em-up part) then there's no concept of x humans and y AIs. You simply decide how many humans, and all of the other hundred or so ships get taken over by AI. Somehow it still runs well.

  • It depends (Score:3)

    by jetpack ( 22743 ) on Sunday April 23, 2000 @11:38AM (#1115028) Homepage
    While the article doesnt really go into much depth on how detailed their modelling scheme is, I suspect you are right. If all they are talking about is Newtonian motion for flying around, that's not too difficult.

    However, if they are including three dimensional collisions with friction and correct collision detection, it's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. I worked on writing such simulations for a couple years at a university, so I know at least a bit about it.

    Frictional collisions in three dimensions are actually a bit tricky to get correct. More difficult is correct and efficient collision detection; you need to know as precisely as possible where the two bodies collide so that you can calculate accurate surface normals to compute accurate frictional forces. The hip thing in collision detection at the time was to use three dimensional voronoi diagrams to minimize collision checks. Calculating voronoi diagrams is a non-trivial excersize, but at least they can be precomputed.

    Dunno what the hip thing is these days in collision detection. The work I did was about 3 years ago.

    Of course, this sort of accuracy probably isnt necessary for a game, so they probably aren't really worried about this stuff.

    Anyway, as in most areas of computer science, the answer is "it depends" :)

  • Newtonian physics in games (Score:3)

    by ucblockhead ( 63650 ) on Sunday April 23, 2000 @11:30AM (#1115029) Homepage Journal
    This isn't the first game to try newtonian physic in a space sim. Independence War [independencewar.com] does exactly this, and also allows you to fly anywhere in the solar system. (Multiple systems, actually.)

    It makes a huge difference in gameplay. You can't just turn on a dime, at least not when going at a reasonable speed. But as others have noted, you can spin around and fire at someone chasing you without losing speed.

  • 9 out of 10 developers agree... (Score:3)

    by zpengo ( 99887 ) on Sunday April 23, 2000 @10:21AM (#1115030) Homepage
    While having full-on Newtonian physics sounds just mad-awesome on the box, is it really that wonderful of a feature? Pseudo-Newtonian physics have been simulated fairly well for years now, and the average gamer probably can't even tell the difference.

    I'm certainly waiting for the day when all movement is generated according to strict laws of physics, but until I get a 3Ghz AMD Asskickaron in my computer, I think that I'll trade smooth gameplay and lower load for that fraction of a fraction of a difference.

  • More info & links on Terminus. (Score:3)

    by Geert-Jan ( 101165 ) on Sunday April 23, 2000 @10:52AM (#1115031)
    I've been following this game for quite a while, so I know a bit about it. First of all some more links:

    Station Terminus [stationterminus.com], the main fansite for the game. Read the latest news post here on how to actually get the limited edition, it's not enought to just pre-order it from the store! (you need to send in an email).

    a bunch of screenshots at LinuxGames [linuxgames.com].

    ATFW's Terminus databank entry [atfw.net], lots of info. There's some *really* good MP3 tracks from the game there as well.

    I pre-ordered my copy last week and I'm already on the first 100 list, can't wait to play it!

    Also, what isn't mentioned in the writeup or in the (rather old) preview that was linked to is that this game will ship with binaries for Windows, Linux (x86) and Macintosh in the box.

    Some of the main features are a newtonian physics engine, lots of ship customization features, a half dynamic, half scripted campaign mode that can be played in both single and multiplayer; three different careers to choose from,...

  • Saw this at Linuxworld C&E in NYC (Score:3)

    by doogles ( 103478 ) on Sunday April 23, 2000 @10:22AM (#1115032)
    I was demo'd this game by some of the creators at the Linuxworld Conference and Expo in NYC back in early February. While the graphics and whatnot didn't "blow me away", the theory of gameplay did.

    It seems to almost take the old Tradewars 2002 theories and turn them in to a graphical game. There are ports, and trading to be done. Certain ports have better selling prices on certain objects, others higher buying prices.

    In the game, time has a meaning. If you sit around and do nothing, you're missing out on what's happening elsewhere in the universe. If you are a certain faction, missions are offered to you and you are given a timeframe to appear "on site" and accept them. Succeed and be paid. Fail, and lose political status.

    I also remember there being a true "up/down" feature. He explained that certain ships have .. pardon me if I don't know how to word this .. thrusters that allowed lateral up/down and left/right movement WHILE travelling forward. Don't like how you're approaching the dock at that port? Fine. Fire the thrusters, and get centered properly.

    All in all, I walked away looking forward to giving it a try. The story seemed VERY deep, and the demo guys mentioned a trule "online community" where you can work together, compete, etc.

  • A Noble Effort that will Fail (Score:3)

    by Soldier(R) ( 173249 ) on Sunday April 23, 2000 @11:17AM (#1115033) Homepage
    I've been a reviewer of PC games for a magazine for a while, and have been playing them for about 12 years. And I have to conclude that it will fail.

    No matter how good a game is, they need marketing. To have marketing, you need a publisher who is going to buy adds in the major mags and secure you shelf space at EB, Best Buy, etc.

    Think about Microsoft. While you may not think much of the products, you have to admire their masterful marketing ability. There are probably situations where better products were *totally ignored* because their developers ignored marketing while Microsoft made it priority one.

    Besides, this game is probably not as good as MS Research's Allegiance (very similar). But I'll mention it to the editor and see if we can get it reviewed.


    Soldier(R)

  • Re:9 out of 10 developers agree... (Score:4)

    by HeghmoH ( 13204 ) on Sunday April 23, 2000 @10:56AM (#1115034) Homepage Journal
    Full newtonian physics is actually pretty easy to implement, and doesn't take up much computing power. However, it tends to confuse most people, so space games often leave it out. People generally expect three things to happen when flying something.

    1) When you point the ship in a particular direction, the ship is moving in that direction.

    2) If you keep the engines on, you speed up until you hit the maximum speed.

    3) If you turn the engines off, you slow down.

    None of these three things are physically accurate; they apply more to atmospheric flight. What Terminus is doing is getting rid of those things, so that when you point your ship somewhere you actually have to thrust to change direction. When you shut the engines off, you keep going. And so forth.

  • Re:Dates??? (Score:4)

    by Zurk ( 37028 ) <zurktechNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday April 23, 2000 @10:46AM (#1115035) Journal
    here's an excerpt from this page. [stationterminus.com]

    The official U.S. retail launch date is June 8th 2000. We were scheduled to ship in May but the date was pushed back to June. Now before any of you come up with a conspiracy theory on this, here's what happened:
    Vatical, our publisher, met with many of the major retailers to introduce Terminus to them. It turned out that the decision makers at some of these retailers, including Electronics Boutique, have known about Terminus and have been following the game's progress for more than a year. And let me tell ya, they were pretty psyched to see it nearing completion.
    What happened was, when we finally nailed down a solid timeframe for going gold, the retailers came back to Vatical saying that they needed more time to prepare for the launch. So it was decided that the date be pushed back so we can give it a proper retail launch. It's really thrilling to see some of the retailers getting behind the game!

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