You Can Haz Economies news

Intro
One of the mission statements of Astral Clause is to have everything manufactured in a dynamic economy, similar to the X-Series. I have just finished the mechanics that allow equipment and ammunition to be manufactured and sold like every other commodity. This means that everything in the game can be manufactured by the same factory processes that make trade goods!

Snapshot
This screenshot illustrates a second of activity in the universe. Note that the universe wasn't done "baking" so some stations were still being spawned. But you can see the traders across multiple solar systems going about their daily lives. Right click and view original if you need it larger.

If you noticed Amarok in the lower right corner, I was listening to "Ashes to Ashes" by David Bowie when I took this screenshot. Anyway, that big console dump proves that the universe is completely active even when you're not present in that solar system. It also demonstrates traders becoming "interested" in a ware, getting the ware, and selling it.

Obviously, this isn't showing off the graphics in the game, but it does show something far more important. Gameplay! You've seen how the game looks, but this shows you how it acts. It's hard to show you all this activity from the in-game perspective. But here's an example of that activity.

The icons overlap a bit, but that's several factories owned by various factions with NPC traders, taxies, and patrollers flying between them. It was much more impressive when everything was moving. I have pretty much solved the entire problem of NPC traders picking trade routes and patrol routes, and the manufacturing of goods. The economy is pretty much defined, it just needs more products and factories. I can now dedicate myself to combat code!

Trade Good -> Equipment
In my old model, trade goods and equipment were different. Equipment inherited the trade good because it was a more complete version of that. I have reworked this model so that the equipment is defined both in terms of a trade good and equipment. When on the market, it is a trade good so it can be bought and sold by the player and NPC traders with no complications. However, once fit, it is interpreted as a piece of equipment. When unit it becomes a trade good again. Here's an example of how a Shield Recharger is defined.

commodities.txt

<Item=Shield Extender 1>
	description='Improves maximum shield strength.'
        #item properties
	volume=1
	mass=1
	hp=10
	minPrice=8200
	maxPrice=12100
</Item>

modules.txt

<Module=Shield Extender 1>
	description='Improves maximum shield strength.'
        #item properties
	volume=1
	mass=1
	hp=10
        #modifiers
        shieldCapacityBonus=2
</Module>

And of course we have to be able to manufacture it.

processes.txt

<Process=MakeShieldExtender1>
    time=100
    consume=Standard Energy Unit:2
    consume=Raw Ore:2
    consume=Nanites:1
    consume=Electronic Components:3
    consume=Foodstuff:2
    produce=Shield Extender 1:1
</Process>

And a station needs to be able to make and sell it. Here's the relevant segment from a Shield Extender Fab's definition.

stations.txt

#commodities
process=MakeShieldExtender1
process=MakeShieldExtender2
process=MakeShieldExtender3
buy=Standard Energy Unit
buy=Raw Ore
buy=Electronic Components
buy=Nanites
buy=Foodstuff
sell=Shield Extender 1
sell=Shield Extender 2
sell=Shield Extender 3

Smart Collision Testing
My original collision testing scheme used bounding polyhedron that, when intersecting, were colliding. As cool as this is it fails when something moves quickly. Unlike in the real world where an object was always at every location between two points it crossed at some point in time (barring weird quantum crap), the game engine moves things forward in units. This means that my ship could pass through a station if I was moving fast enough.

To solve this problem I've used my moment velocity calculations. Since the translations on the X, Y, and Z axis were already calculated, I have used them to scale the bounding polyhedron using 1 + velocity along all axis. This means that the shape and size of the shell changes depending on how fast you're going! This effectively emulates realistic collisions because your collision shell IS everywhere you would have been in that instant.

Comments
As usual, if you have questions or comments feel free to leave them. The big thing I need right now is ideas on modeling the path of aircraft in a dogfight so I can use that to build some combat maneuvering code. For now, fly safe.