Damocles for Orbiter

[Urwumpe]

Damocles is a classic adventure game, tasking you to destroy a comet with a powerful bomb before it crashes on a planet.

http://mercenarysite.free.fr/mddclone.htm

The graphics had been quite impressive at their time (1990) and the game play including some sort of special relativity when traveling between the planets made it quite challenging, when you are short on time.

http://mercenarysite.free.fr/m2pics.htm

Would be cool to have a orbiter version of it, which maybe does not follow the original to the last bit, but does at least keep the essence of it:
- A large solar system, not limited to the main plot.
- Buildings which can be entered
- Cars and spaceplanes.

 

[Enjo]

GREAT idea, Urwumpe!

I'm sentimental towards Mercenary, so I like the whole series very much. So much, that I've decided to help in testing and translating MDDClone to Polish.

I'd very look forward such a mod for Orbiter, alright. Such an idea whould never enter my mind though.

I'll try to contact MDDClone Author, and ask him about what he thinks about this idea. He'll have to share some info on how things should work, from the game's perspective (in practice - translate the code of the game to real words. The code isn't open unfortunately)

We'd finally have the background planets moving in the correct direction when moving forward, and the stars will be in motion, lol :rofl:

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, I am not sure, if the plot could get transformed 1:1 into Orbiter, but I am sure, something similar should go. Some compromises between original and Orbiter are inevitable.

 

[jedidia]

Well, I was thinking about something in these lines for a long time. I'm too busy with IMS currently to dedicate any time to it, however. If anyone would do kind of a framework for this kind of thing, it would save me a tremendous amount of work in the future, apart from being a hell of a lot of fun.

I think I played that game once, or at least one that was working along the same lines...

 

[Enjo]

So I asked MDDClone Author whether he'd want to help or not.

This is what he replied:

I'd be willing to write this up as an e.g. high level specification - in English!

Be careful with this guy. It's easy to choke from laugh because of his sense humour.

[EDIT]
Uwrumpe (or anybody), do you know if a planet can be destroyed in a running sim? If it can't, then can a massive vessel affect other vessel's gravity? (vessel can be destroyed) This is needed for one of the solutions.

 

[ar81]

I think that if a carbon copy is made, a copyright issue may arise unless we have permission from author or author himself goes for it.
However if I remember correctly, your idea of implementing cars, buildings that can be entered, is underway by Dan Steph.

 

[Urwumpe]

Uwrumpe, do you know if a planet can be destroyed in a running sim? If it can't, then can a massive vessel affect other vessel's gravity? (vessel can be destroyed) This is needed for one of the solutions.

No, orbiter does not allow this yet, unless you make the planet a vessel and remove all other advantages.

Some comprises will be needed to be made, unless you want to create a new engine for a Damocles revival.

That's why I mean, that the plot needs to be altered a bit. A full destruction of the planet would be impossible... but does it need to be a planet? A future where space stations are still vulnerable to ejecta is not too unlikely.

Or a full destruction? We can for example simply create a massive volcanic activity on a planet. A nuclear winter would be harder, but also not impossible.

The idea I want to keep, is a complex adventure with possible side-quests in a solar system. It must not be perfectly like Damocles, but along the lines.

ar81: Yes, and it would be great to have this. for it. Also UMMU can be used pretty good for roleplaying, with some extensions to Orbiter.

 

[Enjo]

Apart from destroying Damocles, the other solution I mentioned, was destroying a void planet, Icarus which Damocles would normally sling, so its trajectory would touch Eris. The idea is destroying Icarus, so that Damocles just continues to orbit the Star, and remains as a tourism feature

This is the situation plan:
http://mercenarysite.free.fr/boxes/m2/damocles_poster_d1745.jpg

But I'm not sure if this question was answered along - if we decide to use vessels after all (say at least for Icarus), then does a massive vessel affect other vessels gravity?


[EDIT]
Ar81:

The team which created Mercenary saga - Novagen, is no more, so the copyright belongs to Mercenary saga author - Paul Woakes, and the team. They said, that they don't mind MDDClone (Mercenary saga PC remake = Mercenary Damocles Dion Clone) being released, as long as MDDClone Author (not Mercenary saga author) does not make profit from it. This means that we can do it too... until they change their mind, but I wouldn't count on it, as they're quite cool chaps, and I think that they'd be more happy than angry, seeing such a mod being built, meaning that people still remember their child, from which nota-bene they can't make any more money.

This is just my opinion though. If they do change their mind, then we'll have to remove the mod from public servers - we're screwed, MDDClone Author is screwed.

It would be best to ask the authors, mainly Paul Woakes, with the help of MDDClone Author, before anything is actually started

Ultimately, we could just create a brand new plot, partly like Uwrumpe says, having little in common with Damocles, but this would miss the point of recreating a great game IMHO

 

[Urwumpe]

But I'm not sure if this question was answered along - if we decide to use vessels after all (say at least for Icarus), then does a massive vessel affect other vessels gravity?

No. Still no effect unless you manually do so, by coding the effect into the DLL of the affecting vessel.

 

[Enjo]

Sounds like a plan to me. We can fire nuclear rockets in Orbiter, unlike in Damocles, so Damocles doesn't need to be a planet - it doesn't need to support landing, to allow for placing the novabomb on it.

If we wanted to use Dion Crisis (Mercenary III) ideas and solutions, like finding pulvin ore on Damocles for another part of the mod, we could make Damocles as a planet then.

 

[Urwumpe]

Sounds like a plan to me. We can fire nuclear rockets in Orbiter, unlike in Damocles, so Damocles doesn't need to be a planet - it doesn't need to support landing, to allow for placing the novabomb on it.

If we wanted to use Dion Crisis (Mercenary III) ideas and solutions, like finding pulvin ore on Damocles for another part of the mod, we could make Damocles as a planet then.

Yeah. But the flight times would be different, even with "hypothetical drives", so the typical lone merc plot of Mercenary II would not really be the same. One possible change could for example be more time until impact.

(With UMMU, we could also allow multi-person crews...)

Also the author's computer will be harder to implement....

But finally - making two vessels which have gravity attraction on other vessels should be possible - so a comet which could get deflected from course by destroying another planet would be possible. But the trajectory calculations would become harder...

 

[ar81]

I would tow the asteroid using a thether and a VASIMR engine.

 

[tgep]

As for comets and asteroids being destroyed, couldn't you code the module to change the mesh from a complete object to a mesh of a debris field ?

I realize what a pain it would be to mesh out a detailed debris field but there are possabilities in that option. Your parameters would change depending on the module state but I think it it's workable because we do have a damage and failure option in the 2006P1 build.

 

[Enjo]

Also the author's computer will be harder to implement....

Unfortunately I don't know anything about the computer yet

But finally - making two vessels which have gravity attraction on other vessels should be possible - so a comet which could get deflected from course by destroying another planet would be possible. But the trajectory calculations would become harder...

If the Damocles was a vessel, then we could give it some engines, and set it on a collision trajectory using TransX, and save its state vectors. However I bet that TransX wouldn't care about Icarus' (a vessel) mass.

 

[Urwumpe]

If the Damocles was a vessel, then we could give it some engines, and set it on a collision trajectory using TransX, and save its state vectors. However I bet that TransX wouldn't care about Icarus' (a vessel) mass.

Well, we could make the trajectory planning in another program, for example GMAT. I think it could do that.

More important is IMHO a consistent game play. If people can't solve the problems or don't enjoy it, it is not really good.

 

[Enjo]

Naturally, but almost every orbinaut can perform a rendezvous with an object in orbit. I only thought, that it would be great to use such brilliant Woakes' idea in the mod. Alas, partly because I have no other ideas currently...

[EDIT]
Sorry, did I say Psygnosis? I meant Novagen (Mercenary team)

 

[Urwumpe]

Naturally, but almost every orbinaut can perform a rendezvous with an object in orbit. I only thought, that it would be great to use such brilliant Woakes' idea in the mod. Alas, partly because I have no other ideas currently...

I think solving some more riddles would not be bad. Like for example get important parts for the spacecraft. Also, maybe something can be made to justify a human mercenary delivering the payload, instead of a robot. The comet thus has to be something slightly special.