Solar-Sim Devlog

All remaining natural satellites for Neptune and Uranus were added today, which brings Solar-Sim population of moons complete for all planets!

List of Uranus satellites in Solar-Sim:
Ariel
Belinda
Bianca
Caliban
Cordelia
Cressida
Desdemona
Ferdinand
Francisco
Juliet
Margaret
Miranda
Oberon
Ophelia
Portia
Prospero
Puck
Rosalind
Setebos
Stephano
Sycorax
Titania
Trinculo
Umbriel

Uranus has 3 additional moons not listed above, but NASA doesn’t have orbital information about these moons yet. They will be added to Solar-Sim at some point in the future after NASA updates their ephemeris data.

List of Neptune satellites in Solar-Sim:
Despina
Galatea
Halimede
Laomedeia
Larissa
Naiad
Nereid
Neso
Proteus
Psamathe
Sao
Thalassa
Triton

Solar-Sim’s network seems to be stable again after AT&T sent 3 line repair technicians. To celebrate, I will be adding more moons to Solar-Sim later today.

I haven’t posted here for quite some time… in fact, not since I upgraded my network to AT&T U-VersE. This greatly increased my speed, but it make it impossible to access Solar-Sim from inside the network. AT&T’s U-VersE router contained a flaw whereby port-forwarding would only be effective for people accessing the site from outside the network.

AT&T recently pushed a software upgrade to the router that seems to have fixed the above issue. If everything works OK, I’ll have no more excuses!!!

Solar-Sim’s count of tracked Solar objects reached 100 today, thanks to the addition of moons for Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. More moons for Jupiter through Neptune will be added over the coming weeks.

For moons with currently unknown diameters, I’ve defaulted them to 5 kilometers. All moons added today use the “plain ol’ white sphere” as their 3D model, so they’re not exciting to look at… but they do appear in their best-known positions using the latest available data (thanks to the Cassini mission).

Of all of the outer planets, Saturn is the one with the most moons (40) currently in Solar-Sim. As stated above, more moons will be added and both Jupiter & Saturn will eventually exceed 50 satellites each.

Saturn isn’t properly tilted on its rotational axis right now, so its moons might not appear in their appropriate position with respect to Saturn’s ring system. Fixing this is on my “to-do list” as well!

As noted in my May 9 patch notes post, you can now use a command called /speed to adjust your ship’s flight speed.

/speed accepts a number as a parameter, such as “/speed 1000″. The number you specify is the number of Solar-Sim “units” your ship travels per second. Solar-Sim’s scale is currently set at 1mm:25km — meaning 1 Solar-Sim unit of travel measurement (a Multiverse “millimeter”) equals 25 real-life kilometers.

Using this information, it is possible to adjust your ship’s speed to the speed of light and test whether Solar-Sim’s scale is accurate or not. Here’s how you can duplicate this test:

The speed of light, according to Wikipedia, is 299,792,458 meters per second. Divide this number by 1,000 to convert to kilometers per second. Take that number and divide it by 25 to account for Solar-Sim’s 1:25 scale.

The final result from the above calculation is 11991.69832. Since the Multiverse platform doesn’t currently allow decimal/fractional speeds, we’ll need to round it up to 11992.

So, now that we have all of this information, we can do the following inside of Solar-Sim to test the speed of light:

1. Type “/warp earth”.

2. Use the A/S/D/F/Q/E and PageUP/PageDown keys to maneuver your ship to be touching the surface of the Earth and facing the sun.
3. Type “/speed 11992″.
4. Press the NUMLOCK key. This will cause your ship to move forward at a constant speed until you press NUMLOCK again.
5. Start your stopwatch and go grab a cup of tea while you’re waiting.
6. Stop your stopwatch when your ship arrives at the surface of the Sun. Apply plenty of suntan oil. I’d recommend SPF 10 million.

Wikipedia says light takes 8.3 minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth. How long did it take for your ship to travel the same distance?

For a much shorter test (no trip to the kitchen required), try flying from the Earth to the Moon. A beam of light can do this in 1.3 seconds.

Solar-Sim’s free demo is now online!

As stated in the disclaimer on the demo page linked above, this is a “demo” only; The final product won’t feature a bald guy running around in space wearing a leather tunic That will be fixed when Alpha Test starts later this summer.

I struggled to come up with an appropriate “first post” to inaugurate Solar-Sim.net’s Devlog.

In fact, I’m still struggling.

Setting that aside, I bid you welcome to Solar-Sim and I hope you’ll join me in looking forward to “go-live” day!  So much work has to be done between now and then.  This “Devlog” is where I’ll post updates on how things are going, what has been accomplished, and where we’re headed.  Think of this area of the website as a developer’s status report to Management… and you’re Management.  Try not to let the power go to your head. 

So what has been accomplished so far?

1. The technology platform has been chosen.  We’re going with Multiverse (www.multiverse.net).
2. Database connectivity works.  The simulation’s server can connect to a database in real-time and retrieve appropriate astronomical data.
3. The technology platform passed the initial “proof of concept” test.  8,916 stars, our sun, Earth’s moon, Haley’s Comet, and all Solar System planets were rendered in real time.  The computer running the test was running the database, server and client.  No small feat.
4. A website has been registered:  solar-sim.net.  You’re looking at it.  Catchy name, eh?

What’s next?  (The items in the following list are not listed in order of priority)

1. Implement an online help screen.  Pressing F1 should bring up a screen that shows how to move around within the simulation.  This screen should also appear upon the first login.
2. Replace the bald human male avatar with a spaceship.
3. Improve performance by replacing star models with a skybox texture.
4. Add moons (currently Earth’s moon is the only moon in the simulation), plutoids and asteroids.
5. Add textures for the planets.  Other than their scale, Jupiter and Earth currently look the same.
6. Whether by a slash command or an interface menu, allow players to “warp” to any named object within the Solar System.
7. Add an interface widget that displays the player’s Cartesian X/Y/Z coordinates in real-tme as they move around within the simulation.

I think that’s about enough for my first post.  More updates to follow!