Gaming Space Station Designer (disclamer : might include a tiny bit of self-promotion! )

[N_Molson]

Hello Orbinauts,

I had little free time for Orbiter this last year because I was busy on a commercial project. The game is Space Station Designer, the main developer and coder is Ignacio Liverotti, and the studio is Polar Motion (we worked on BASPM too).​

https://polar-motion.com/devblog/

Space Station Designer (aka SSD) is, as the name implies, focused about designing and building space stations. The main genres are construction and management, and there are a lot of simplifications that aim to provide an interesting gameplay. What you have to do ingame is : to buy station modules, hire and manage closely your astronauts, and make sure your outpost is financially sustainable. That's where it gets really cool, as there are several ways to generate profit : industrial production of rare goods manufactured in microgravity, modules leasing, space tourism, and of course governemental subsides.​

https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvODU4Nzg5LzQ4MTk3NTEucG5n/original/5Nge7A.png

The game is in real time, goods prices fluctuate dynamically on the market, random events and modules failure happen, all that good fun! There is much much more and the best way to get an idea is probably to try our 0.5.0 alpha release. You can downoload it for free from Steam or itch.io :​

https://polar-motion.itch.io/space-station-designer-playable-alpha

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1447650/Space_Station_Designer/

The game is still under heavy development, and what you can play currently is the "first phase" of the game, that will once completed lead you through three "phases", that are sort of milestones in the expansion and development of your orbital outpost.

Last but not least SSD is meant to be an highly moddable sandbox, and you can already have a try at creating mods with the alpha version!

Feel free to give your feedback or report bugs on Steam and itch.io message boards, it will help us greatly in the development process.​

 

[Max-Q]

Norton won't let me run it. I have to add an exception.
Says that it detected SONAR.ProcHijack!g43 and deletes the exe.
From what I read on this, it looks like it's a false positive based on behavior.

 

[N_Molson]

Norton won't let me run it. I have to add an exception.
Says that it detected SONAR.ProcHijack!g43 and deletes the exe.
From what I read on this, it looks like it's a false positive based on behavior.

Thank you very much, the information has been relayed to the coder

 

[Ouacaze]

Wow ! Nice !
Congratulations from a fellow Toulousain
Are you an independant dev ?

 

[N_Molson]

Wow ! Nice !
Congratulations from a fellow Toulousain
Are you an independant dev ?

Thanks ! The lead developper is Ignacio Liverotti, the 2D/3D artist Mauricio Sanjuro and we are a small independent studio (Polar Motion).

 

[Ouacaze]

Ok awesome !

NB: I asked to join the game testing on Steam

 

[N_Molson]

Space Station Designer v0.5.15 is out ! The last update of the year !

A lot of changes, we really reworked many things, including :

• A redesign of the 'Campaign' mode.
• Changes to the existing 'Sandbox' mode.
• A new 'Sandbox' mode, now called 'Free Builder'.
• New maintenance-related modules, such as the intermediate and advanced variants of the Airlock, along with the newly introduced 'Maintenance Workshop'.
• Various changes to the 'Earth Facilities' mechanics.
• Extensive balancing and fine-tuning of the game's database.
• and so on...

Feel free to play the first Phase of the campaign (roughly 12 in-game years!) on Windows or MacOS and give us your feedback :

On Steam :

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1447650/Space_Station_Designer/

On itch.io :

https://polar-motion.itch.io/space-station-designer-playable-alpha/devlog/658385/space-station-designer-version-0515-is-now-available

Devblog :

https://polar-motion.com/devblog/

 

[N_Molson]

Space Station Designer v0.5.22 is out !

On Steam : https://steamcommunity.com/app/1447650
On itch.io : https://polar-motion.itch.io/space-...tation-designer-version-0520-is-now-available

• Added a new set of campaign objectives for the early stages of the Campaign
• Tweaked the tech tree so that research technologies can only be acquired using research points
• Implemented cooling/electricty proximity rules. Modules located far from cooling/electricity modules will suffer penalizations
• Added a panel in the module installation screen so that it's easier to visualize how the new module is going to impact the station's stats
• Failed modules within the proximity of a 'Maintenance Workshop Module' will now benefit from increased chances of repair success

Edit : v0.5.22 : hotfix regarding tutorials we forgot to update.

New "EVA experiments" module, allowing to generate Research Points very early in the game, available as "Base space station tech" (got inspiration from the Kibo JAXA ISS module) :

New "Module installation panel" :

 

[N_Molson]

Space Station Designer v0.5.25 is out !

On Steam : https://store.steampowered.com/app/1447650/Space_Station_Designer
On itch.io : https://polar-motion.itch.io/space-...tation-designer-version-0525-is-now-available

To put it shortly, we have completely overhauled the propulsion mechanic, it should now be more realistic and take basic physics into account!

• Replaced the previous propulsion/mass mechanic with a new system that makes the distinction between 'orbit control' and 'attitude control'. This includes new modules (thrusters pods), changes to the UI, changes to the way the orbital decay is computed, and changes to the Debris Avoidance Maneuver (DAM).
• Added a mechanism for relocating modules with propulsion capabilities in order to maintain a healthy orbit control/attitude control score as the station evolves. Note that relocating modules effectively reduce their service life.
• Implemented new 'Orbit control and attitude control' interactive tutorial.
• Changed the Debris Avoidance Maneuver (DAM) mechanics in order to reflect all the changes to the propulsion system. Now the 'average throttle' set by the player will determine the amount of space station modules that can be potentially affected by the debris, whereas the 'attitude control' score will determine the probability of those modules to actually suffer damage. We've also modified the mechanics so that the service life of the thrusters pods used during the DAM is decreased.
• ... and many other fixes!

 

[barrygolden]

Back when the Shuttle first started to fly NASA had a screen shot from mission control called 3D world that looked a lot like this. It would be great to see this in a MFD to help track spacecraft in Orbiter. Thought I had a screen shot but cant find it