Spacer: What if Freelancer had more realistic space?

[Backo]

Concept
Most space games often simplified space flight by forgoing orbits, gravity and scale, with some extremes like Freelancer even introducing drag in vacuum. So it got me wondering if modeling space flight much closer to aerial flight was due to a design decision that orbital mechanics would make the game unplayable (boring, hard, etc) or not? Obviously we have some exceptions such as Kerbal Space Program, Orbiter and any other similar space sims, but those games had the main gameplay focus of simulating more realistic space mechanics instead of just having them as a component in an otherwise more role-play focused game (think Freelancer, Starsector, etc) that focuses on trade, combat, factions and storyline. So to test the assumption I thought about making an amalgamation of mixing together Kerbal Space Program, Starsector and Freelancer. The project is 2D and single-player only and I aim to implement most of Freelancer's base features - trading, combat, mining, factions and explorations, but in a single system and a much more realistic scale.

Prototype
In order to save myself from having to employ any artistic creativity at this early stage of the project and because I always wondered what Freelancer would have been like if they bothered to be more realistic with its space flight, I decided to try and model the California system (and perhaps some other solars/bases from neighboring systems).


I've already implemented the orbital mechanics simulation using Kepler's laws similarly to KSP and you can travel between the planets, moons and stations in the system.


Orbital transfers, approaches and maneuver nodes similarly to those in Kerbal Space Program are already implemented.


Ships have their own mass, the propellant you use has mass and the cargo you carry does as well. The lighter you are, the faster you can go.

Click for 1600x900 resolution

Currently I also have stations where you can dock to trade and refuel. Willard is the one I have the model finished, but I'm working on making an asset model for the other stations in the system as well.

Click for 1600x900 resolution

Next Steps
I still need to finish making visual assets for a few more ships, stations and solars. The other thing I want to get done is a way to get maneuver nodes calculated by a single click rather than having to plan them yourself and to implement automation of the maneuvers so that trading can have the equivalent to the F2/F3 of Freelancer. Depending how fast that happens I will probably drop a link to a playable demo here.

---

Republic of the Sword and Sun

[Chuba]

I'm your biggest fan

---

[Proselyte]

Your work is beyond awesome and I am now hungry for Starlancer Freesector

[Ashyur]

Thing is ..what you doing in that it's possible on freelancer too with what we have scripted so far, just needs a little more tweaks

[monmarfori]

Cool.

[Laz]

This is very cool. As a big fan of Starsector this appeals to me greatly.

The developer in me must ask: what engine / languages are you using to make this? Will it be open source?

---

[EisenSeele]

that looks amazing :o

---

FEEDBACK

[Backo]

Thing is ..what you doing in that it's possible on freelancer too with what we have scripted so far, just needs a little more tweaks

Any videos of that? I'm actually intrigued how far the Freelancer engine can be pushed and seeing planets orbit around the sun in Freelancer is something I'd have never imagined to see.

This is very cool. As a big fan of Starsector this appeals to me greatly.

The developer in me must ask: what engine / languages are you using to make this? Will it be open source?

The whole thing is written in Zig with dynamic linking to the SDL2 library for graphics and audio. As for open sourcing it - I haven't decided on that yet, but if I end up abandoning the project I would probably just put the code out for others to use as they wish.

---

Republic of the Sword and Sun

[Reddy]

Hello Vasko, good to see you around

---

[Laz]

Zig

Very based and cool

---