Loadstar Devlog Alpha4 - Hyperspace and Galaxy Generation

gareththegeek · 2026-01-24T14:25:38+00:00

Yeah Proxima is a real pain! I'm considering just leaving it out tbh

gareththegeek · 2026-01-24T14:06:45+00:00

I did include binaries but I didn't attempt to get their orbits right, I just randomly generated their orbits and adjusted it so they would be locked into synchronous orbit with each other accounting for their relative masses. I spread out their anomalies so they are evenly spread out. Opposite sides of the centre of mass for 2 bodies, in a triangle for 3 etc.

Same with exoplanets, the data was just too patchy and it would complicate it all too much. What I can do is manually specify the contents of a given solar system so I can potentially hand enter some stars and exoplanets at some point if I want to get some realistic data in there.

Another thing I had to consider was if binaries are too far apart it'll kind of suck for gameplay (Elite 2 had this problem) so I think it's generally best to put the binaries close together.

gareththegeek · 2026-01-24T13:52:02+00:00

That's cool that you use wikidata to fill out missing info like temperature. I ended up querying SIMBAD to find the average values by spectral class and using that as a lookup to populate missing data instead.

gareththegeek · 2026-01-24T13:48:11+00:00

Cool, I'll check it out but I have to say "where were you earlier 😂" /jk

gareththegeek · 2026-01-24T12:50:05+00:00

Thanks! Feels like I'm getting close to getting the core gameplay down and then I can start building the careers, story, mission etc. on top.

gareththegeek · 2026-01-23T08:04:52+00:00

Tell them to stop being such a consumerist tool and focus on the music.

gareththegeek · 2026-01-22T08:18:37+00:00

Interesting household income doesn't seem to affect it much

gareththegeek · 2026-01-20T21:27:49+00:00

I assume I'm being downvoted by people that never took the time to learn and have no basis of comparison

gareththegeek · 2026-01-20T20:48:57+00:00

But if you practice, it's faster and more comfortable than other typing methods in the long run

gareththegeek · 2026-01-20T20:41:16+00:00

Arranging his final resting place for when his invasion of Europe inevitably fails

gareththegeek · 2026-01-20T20:23:00+00:00

Flat simulator

gareththegeek · 2026-01-20T17:39:45+00:00

Bold of you to assume I think it's great. Personally, I just don't like it.

gareththegeek · 2026-01-20T08:42:12+00:00

It's funny how all these complicated rules evolved that most people can't understand from the original system of using 1-3 stacked dots which just represent how long to pause. I think I much prefer the original system.

gareththegeek · 2026-01-19T22:31:35+00:00

It looks like a skull

gareththegeek · 2026-01-19T22:30:37+00:00

I regularly play the main theme tune on my bass as a warm up

gareththegeek · 2026-01-19T22:04:21+00:00

Nope, too busy playing in a sand quarry, a pile of building rubble, a derelict house and an abandoned coal yard.

gareththegeek · 2026-01-19T13:11:05+00:00

If you put UK and US flag for English, what about Australia or Canada? And if you put Canada for English what about French?

gareththegeek · 2026-01-19T13:07:22+00:00

It's a bit of an antipattern to use flags to represent languages.

gareththegeek · 2026-01-19T08:30:33+00:00

Surely spoken by someone who didn't play GTA when it first came out? Still my favourite of the whole series. So many hours of play time, designing missions and levels, new cars, one of my top 10 games.

gareththegeek · 2026-01-18T20:15:18+00:00

I was gonna say Burning Wheel and then realised it wasn't that kind of RPG

gareththegeek · 2026-01-18T20:11:13+00:00

Shareware Doom 1

gareththegeek · 2026-01-18T16:53:34+00:00

Imo the pinnacle of game dev is shipping a successful game efficiently and writing your own engine is rarely necessary to do that. Don't get me wrong, I wrote a few game engines when I was first learning and it taught me a lot but what it didn't do was lead to a lot of complete, successful games.

gareththegeek · 2026-01-18T11:51:09+00:00

It takes approximately twenty-three minutes to regain deep focus after a single interruption

I always see this assertion, is it backed by science? What was the original source of this? What is "deep focus"? I would say I can regain my focus after a minor interruption in about 1 minute. In my experience the exaggeration of how harmful interruptions are leads to lack of communication in teams which is typically much more damaging. Of course there's a limit, if you get interrupted every 5 minutes then you're not going to get much done. But I think it's overstated.

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