Yeah, I like that kind of look too. Got a bit of nostalgia going for that kind of design, and it creates the right atmosphere (I hope). Also, there’s actually a worldbuilding reason for it…
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Time for the June development update!
TLDR: I accomplished everything that I intended to accomplish until mid-July, but the next release remains set for then. I’ll use the time to add a couple extras and prepare for a wider announcement.
Long version (and screenshots of the definite version and layout of the new UI):
(honestly, I’ll be damned if I ever understand when exactly these links are left as links and when they are converted to widgets. I’m seeing it over on orbiter-forum as well. Must be some weird thing with itch…)
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buttons. So many buttons. 
The Great Lunacy. I love it!
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And here we finally go, the major update that’s been cooking for 3 months! Held it back a couple days more to let people get the expedition out of their systems, hopefully someone will find time to play it!
There’s a lot of new stuff here, so here’s some patch notes:
Check it out and tell me what you think (it’s still free at this point, and will continue to be so for quite a while).
Here’s the newest devlog with some musings, mostly about music in video games and the music in this game in particular, but also a few hints of the future:
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I think the last time I checked in with orbital it was just some functions and mostly text, it’s amazing to see how far along it’s come. And music? Well I’m sold.
Similar to yourself I had grand schemes to be a musician of sorts, particularly I wanted to score things, was obsessed with Nobuo Uematsu. But the curve is one of th steepest mountain climbs on th planet with nobody to spot you or Sherpa your way to the top.
Happy just having it as a hobby, I realised after I made the correct decision not to turn any of my hobbies into careers but damn young me sure did try 
I realised it all requires social networking and building good relationships and I have too much anxiety in social situations to ever truly take advantage of em.
I have to help a friend install fallout London later but soon as that’s done I’m hopping into Orbital M 07
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It’s still mostly text. It’s just prettier text.
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Minor update with a couple of fixes this month, while I’m working on some chunkier mechanics:
I’m talking a bit about what I’m working on in the new devlog, as well as about crickets…
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It’s been a while, but it’s finally here: The new major feature changing a lot of the early game, and the first actual progression system. Now you’ll have to build your network of business contacts to get good jobs, but maintaining good relations with them will also have other long-term benefits, making some things easier.
Expression is now finally a truly useful attribute. Quite a powerful one, actually, allowig you to build relations with contacts much, much quicker than the stick jockeys that think the business is just about flying spacecraft.
Just don’t get cockey. Flying a spacecraft is still very much part of the business, and those that don’t do it right will find that running out of remass is not economical at all…
download here (no account required), or through your itch app.
More musings about the slight delay in development, the challenges, and the new feature:
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Devlog for december is up, revealing some of the struggles I’m having with getting orbital mechanics into the game. No actual update to the game yet I’m afraid, and probably not next month either.
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Funny, I was trying to explain the same problem to someone but stopped myself when I noticed I couldn’t put in words what I actually wanted to achieve with these orbits. As you I am at a point where I definitely don’t want realistic n-body-physics in 3D space with ellipses (overkill for most games).
So what do I want instead? The story of your (actual and my theoretical) game is about space travel, but that doesn’t mean the game mechanics have to be. The game mechanics should be … well, a game. 
E.g. there are pipe mini games where you click to rotate differently bent pipe segments under time pressure to form a closed pipe which will fill with water. The story behind it could be “fix the wires of your spaceship” or “fix the plumbing of the toilet”. Either would make a proper game - and neither would have anything to do at all with spaceship engineering or plumbing reality.
So with that in mind I am leaning towards making an astrogator interface with a 3-point 2D bezier curve (there should be a formula/library).
The spaceship location is the start point of the course (P0), the target station (P2) is moving in a circle in time, and the astrogator drags the middle point (P1).
The length of the resulting bezier curve is the flight time, and during that time, the station is moving away. If you move the middle node aimlessly, you’ll miss the moving station, so players need to “aim ahead”.
It would not be orbital mechanics at all. But it would feel like manually plotting a course and aiming a little bit better every time.
I’m sure I missed a logical step / case, and I need to actually experiment with it to make it work as a game… Do you see what I mean, does it make any sense?
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When you’re already at fiddling with bezier curves, actual orbital trajectories aren’t that far off, really. As I’ve mentioned in my blog, giving the player an interface to plot their course manually would have been simpler than what I’m trying to do. In 2-d space, you can make do with 2 inputs: Time, and velocity. Perfectly enough to plan an intercept from anywhere to anywhere. Add a third one (split velocity into two perpendicular inputs), and you have all the inputs you actually have in reality.
3-d space requires a third input (another velocity vector perpendicular to the two you already have), but that one only makes sense at very specific points in your orbit anyways.
The problem I’m facing is that I exactly don’t want the player to have to fiddle with anything, and leave the result to the skill of the actual character. Which means that I have to calculate the maneuvers by myself, as if the character came up with them. As also mentioned in the devlog, there might have been ways to abstract this that would have made it easier to implement and not caused too many questions… right now.
But at the end of the day, this is going to be a hard-scifi RPG. The world, currently barely a side note, will at some point have to take center stage if this is going to work. And at that point, it would probably become an issue, because the world is all about real-life limitations and finding ways to deal with them. I feel like a half-arsed approach to orbits (mind you, half the games title is literally orbital) will harm that.
Also, as an old orbiter hand, I feel like it’s kind of my duty. I wouldn’t even be working in software today if it wasn’t for that simulator. I feel like I have at least a bit of legacy to live up to…
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This is the completely wrong time to ask anybody on an NMS forum to read something, but it had to go out before the month changed to february…
It’s not an actual update to the game yet, that’ll still be a bit in the making. Details, as well as a few insights into the games backstory, are in the link.
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Orbital margins, now with orbital mechanics! Take on the new challenge as you don’t just manage your money and your DV, but also your time!
Latest devlog to go along with the release:
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Minor update, finally introducing other aspect ratios than 16:9, and a couple other improvements:
New devlog, outlining a bit what the features are going to look like that I’m currently working on:
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so 50s sci fi looking. I like!
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I’m glad the visual reference gets through. Though the setting is not as such retro-scifi, it’s still heavily inspired by the visions of the 70ies. Only the space artwork of the 70ies is a bit too high-grade for me to reproduce, and I feel the colder color palettes that were used in only a small subset of space art from 50ies through late 60ies suit the game better. Feels more lonely and forelorn.
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Dang, I haven’t looked at this in a while, sorry. It’s not my typical type of game (more planning than exploration and building), but the demo I looked at was solid. 
I did several game dev tutorials and never finished even the simplest thing, so you’re way ahead of me! 
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Yes, the game is a planning and resource management game at its heart.
A bit of exploration should eventually make it into the game, though not the kind of sweeping space exploration of NMS. More the kind of everyday “where the hell is that office I have an appointment at”-exploration that we all know and mostly hate. And probably purely text based.
In general, looking at the game, somehow the things end up in there that I’m worst at and that I have some really bad experiences with. Scheduling, dealing with customers, long trips, dealing with fracking customs and paperwork, and subsequently bribing your way out of it, the list goes on. There’s probably a thing or two that psychologists would like to comment on the fact that I seem to be making a game that depicts a life I couldn’t stand to live for a week, even if it was in space… 
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Heheh, actually, that’s interesting. The difference to real life is, when you program it, you know 100% how it works and you are in full control. Maybe that’s why you did it?
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