The Video Game That Maps the Galaxy

An anonymous reader writes "Video game designers and astronomers have been working different ends of the same problem: how to chart a galaxy full of stars. Astronomers start with observation, finding new and better ways to look into the sky and record what they can see. Game devs take the limited data we have as a starting point, and assume that everything else in the galaxy obeys roughly the same rules. They generate the rest of the galaxy procedurally from this data. But the information flow isn't simply one-way. As developers like David Braben improve their galaxy-creation models, astronomers can look at the models and see where they match (or not) with further observations, allowing them to improve their own scientific models in the process. "'The conflicts that show up are generally due to simplifications made in the models, for which new observations can provide improved guidelines. There's a continuously evolving and developing understanding of space, in which both models and observations play important roles.' ... Elite's model has expanded Braben's understanding of planet formation and distribution. Braben boasts that his games predicted extra-solar planets ('These were pretty close to those that have been since discovered, demonstrating that there is some validity in our algorithms'), and that the game's use of current planet-formation theories has shown the sheer number of different systems that can exist according to the rules, everything from nebulous gas giants to theoretically habitable worlds.""

planets the hard way: how to

[Anonymous Coward]

const float planet_probability = 0.000001f; // todo: raise the value if we dont find any

Re:

[Ost99]

You can always wait for the finished game and buy that when it arrives next year.

Elite is crowd funded - early access is one of the perks of contributing. Alpha access was a $300+ tier.

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[polyp2000]

Without the contributions and crowdfunding Elite: Dangerous might not have happened! There are a huge number of people who have made this happen (including myself)! That money , not only gets you early access to the game but to actually help shape the games development. The reviews so far , despite the fact that were still in Beta have been amazing , some commenting that the game is remarkably polished for this stage in the game. Others have said its occulus rift support is possibly the best showcase of the

Of course

[pthisis]

Braben boasts that his games predicted extra-solar planets ('These were pretty close to those that have been since discovered, demonstrating that there is some validity in our algorithms'), and that the game's use of current planet-formation theories has shown the sheer number of different systems that can exist according to the rules, everything from nebulous gas giants to theoretically habitable worlds.

Starflight did this in 1986.

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[Anonymous Coward]

And Elite did this in 1984

Re: Of course

[Teranolist]

Was it obeying the same rules or just creating "random stuff"?

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[ElderKorean]

And Elite did this in 1984 Was it obeying the same rules or just creating "random stuff"?

From what I remember the star and planet creation happened through an algorithm, as you could visit the same location when playing Elite on a totally different computer, eg BBC Micro, or (eventually) PC version. There was some fluctuation on commodity prices but even that wasn't really random, more cyclic.

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[mwvdlee]

I think GP meant "random" as in the seeded random values a computer generates; i.e. all over the place and unpredictable for a human but completely identical every time.

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[wonkey_monkey]

Wasn't there only ever one planet per star in Elite?

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[pthisis]

Gravity was modelled and absolutely key in Starflight--if you tried to land on planets that were too high-grav, your lander would crash and you'd die. So scanning for gravity was among the more important aspects of a landing mission.

Drake's equation did it in 1961

[mattack2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Re:Drake's equation did it in 1961

[PhilHibbs]

Drake's Equation hasn't predicted anything, because no-one knows what the vaues of any of the variables are.

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[fuzzywig]

We've got quite a good idea of R, the rate of star formation, and in the next 50 years or so we'll probably have a more precise value for fP, the number of stars that have planets.

Explore the known universe

[Trogre]

apt-get/yum install celestia

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

For those wanting to know more

[Pecisk]

ED has been amazing blast so far, both as KS community and just inspirational development project. We are closing to regular beta, starting at the end of July, which will have huge majority of first version of ED implemented, coming out at the end of the year.

See ED unofficial community FAQ [wikia.com] for more

Slashvertisement for a 1984 game?

[rodrigoandrade]

As I started reading TFS, I really was expecting the announcement of a new space combat sim or 4X game, but... Elite? really?

wow

[CSIHiddenCrimesHack]

What's this article! WOW

Uh... I don't get it

[jfengel]

I did read the fine article, but I'm afraid I just don't get what's going on here. Are the players contributing something in some kind of crowd-sourced "Yes, that blob is a star, and its center is here" kind of way? Or are they using players' computers as a distributed processing system?

It's nifty either way, but I don't the New Yorker's audience has the same kinds of questions about the technology that I do. Can anybody in this audience (more like me) help me out?

wow

[UnderworldEmpireHack]

I thinks that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]