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ras09191
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Re: Work progress 0.991

04 Oct 2023 18:39

Theres been barely any update that actually changes things for months, its October, and i feel that and most of the things that the devs promised to bring this year arent actually coming this year. Its normal business for the dev team though as they almost never deliver exactly when they said they would. 0.991 is like a year overdue as well.
 
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Re: Work progress 0.991

04 Oct 2023 18:40

Good afternoon. I only have one question, but it's a big one.
I read another blog post (about temperatures) and I want to ask, as they once asked Blizzard: “Is this a out of date April Fool’s joke?”
Absolutely not. Let me check the calendar, but no. Ok, April Fool's, we already have a space game complete with everything but we....
Of course not.
Months, if not years, have passed since the last visible changes. And so I read a post that seemed intriguing at the beginning, but in the end it says that was done... nothing visible. Again. Yes, somehow the temperatures on the planets change - and how should I see this? Do I need to land on the planet and just stand there, scrolling through the time and looking at the thermometer? And then do the same in another location? What kind of experience will I get from this as a player? There is not a single visual or sound effect in the game that would indicate any change in the environment. All I get is a change of 2-3 digits on the screen. Are you serious?
We are extremely serious. How else you would describe an engine that, in order to achieve procedural correctness and scientific plausibility, is laying down structural changes and fresh new algorithms that nobody else, to our knowledge, has integrated in other engines?

I know, it's confusing, all this "game" thing is weird. What game is this? What's the purpose of this game? The problem, I guess, is that there's no game yet. This is an engine. Something that will eventually be used to build a game, that one, for sure, with playable content.

Of course, it lacks all you are saying, sound effects, what about rain then? Nitrogen snow? Eerie sounds of feeble winds in extremely low pressure landscapes?
This is good and all but it needs a foundation, the engine needs to know how to crunch some real numbers before being able to let you see crunching ice sheets on a planet at your will. That's what developers are doing, preparing the path for crunchy content, and in the meantime, you see what they are developing, one step at a time. Last update, not much time ago, introduced a powerful tool, the Event Finder. A nice little tool allowing us to find planetary events in every star system we stumble upon when clicking through the universe. Alas, no games.
This repeated disclaimer looks especially ridiculous and cynical:
This plot is not displayed in-game. This is simply a look “under the hood” of the SpaceEngine climate model and for reference in selecting a suitable temperature profile for custom planets.

That is, it says: “You won’t get anything again.” Why the update then??? And it also says “We have not accounted” and lists 8 points where the new rule still doesn’t work. So you let him fly around the planet with a thermometer, but in half the cases even this does not work. Are you kidding or what?
I can see why you are saying this, given the premises of your post. If it was so easy to implement, don't you think that the devs would have simply done it?
Dr. Tannock expertise on exoplanetary climates is being translated into useful content for the engine, a huge work, and it's hard to convey how actual scientific work can be incorporated into software. Hence the (plainly normal) disclaimer, as you won't likely be able to get a brand new, relatively accurate and universally adaptable climate system in a few months, graphics included. Disclaimer that you chose to read as an insult to your gamer identity. Ok. Not how it works though.
If you're even serious about your project, this whole temperature update should at least include a visual display. It seems to me like this: next to the button for displaying atmospheres, a button for displaying temperatures appears and when it is turned on, the planet gets a translucent thermal aura, which sways and changes when time is rewinded. This is the only way this system will make any sense. Otherwise it's just ridiculous.
Right. Unfortunately, that will take a... few months, I guess. We will keep you posted, and thanks for your input.
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Re: Work progress 0.991

04 Oct 2023 18:47

Theres been barely any update that actually changes things for months, its October, and i feel that and most of the things that the devs promised to bring this year arent actually coming this year. Its normal business for the dev team though as they almost never deliver exactly when they said they would. 0.991 is like a year overdue as well.
Most of the "things that devs promised to bring this year" didn't have a date tag, same as 0.991. From my experience, it's mostly users interpretations of vague phrases extorted to people not directly involved in coding.
No offense.
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ras09191
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Re: Work progress 0.991

04 Oct 2023 19:40

Theres been barely any update that actually changes things for months, its October, and i feel that and most of the things that the devs promised to bring this year arent actually coming this year. Its normal business for the dev team though as they almost never deliver exactly when they said they would. 0.991 is like a year overdue as well.
Most of the "things that devs promised to bring this year" didn't have a date tag, same as 0.991. From my experience, it's mostly users interpretations of vague phrases extorted to people not directly involved in coding.
No offense.
Alright, thanks for the helpful response. Can you atleast tell me if 0.991 or shadows are being worked on still? 
 
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Re: Work progress 0.991

04 Oct 2023 19:41

The problem, I guess, is that there's no game yet. This is an engine. Something that will eventually be used to build a game, that one, for sure, with playable content.
This is MYYYTH. After 13 years of development, we must already admit it - this is a rose-colored dream that will never come true. The project has been in development for so long that a new generation of people has already been born and in 4-5 years they will begin to create their own projects. Using much superior technologies, Unreal Engine 5 and higher, using neural networks. And in SE there are clouds and water of 2D effects! There will be no game on SE. It needs to finally grow up and understand this, to stop denying it. It's a pipe dream in a vacuum. At the time of "Space Rangers" SE seemed incredible, but now we live in the times of Elite Dangerous, NMS, Infinity Battlescape, Everspace, Starfield, Star Citizen. When someone wants to make another game, he will choose some Frostbite or Unreal or Source as an engine and add the same temperature effects there instead of choosing SE and thinking about how to add... everything else there. SE is a morally outdated project now. This could still be denied in 2016 or 2019, but now it’s already 2023! The forums are empty. Nobody expects anything anymore. There are no fans left. Nobody will make games on SE! Forget it! You need to accept reality and simply bring the project to a digestible state in, say, a year or two, working only on the visuals, doing the most important thing - working for the player, for commercial appeal, for money in the end! Nobody pays for invisible temperature calculations! People pay for beauty, for impressions, for effects, for sound, for sexy voice of narrator, for a story. And in your blog posts you constantly have such points that no one understands what they mean. “We changed some digits to other digits and now we have even more digits in our pokeballs.” We don't need this. We're stupid! We are players. We just want it to be cool. Just complete the visual and that’s it! We don't need anything else. I don't need... an equation for calculating the distribution of gravitational waves from the merger of a pulsar with a magnetar. I need water to sparkle like in Far Cry, dang it! Sparkle and splash so peacefully... And the stars twinkle above it. And I hear the wind. Or so that in Africa I could watch the sunset over the savannah and not the glare over a totally flat texture. So that I land on a gas giant - and there are clouds. This is what we need. And nothing else is needed. There is an infinite number of calculations in the universe for your digits, you will never collect them all. Stop doing them, they are not needed. Just finish the dang project! Just the most requested visual and sound and that's it. 13 years already!
 
ras09191
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Re: Work progress 0.991

04 Oct 2023 19:48

The problem, I guess, is that there's no game yet. This is an engine. Something that will eventually be used to build a game, that one, for sure, with playable content.
This is MYYYTH. After 13 years of development, we must already admit it - this is a rose-colored dream that will never come true. The project has been in development for so long that a new generation of people has already been born and in 4-5 years they will begin to create their own projects. Using much superior technologies, Unreal Engine 5 and higher, using neural networks. And in SE there are clouds and water of 2D effects! There will be no game on SE. It needs to finally grow up and understand this, to stop denying it. It's a pipe dream in a vacuum. At the time of "Space Rangers" SE seemed incredible, but now we live in the times of Elite Dangerous, NMS, Infinity Battlescape, Everspace, Starfield, Star Citizen. When someone wants to make another game, he will choose some Frostbite or Unreal or Source as an engine and add the same temperature effects there instead of choosing SE and thinking about how to add... everything else there. SE is a morally outdated project now. This could still be denied in 2016 or 2019, but now it’s already 2023! The forums are empty. Nobody expects anything anymore. There are no fans left. Nobody will make games on SE! Forget it! You need to accept reality and simply bring the project to a digestible state in, say, a year or two, working only on the visuals, doing the most important thing - working for the player, for commercial appeal, for money in the end! Nobody pays for invisible temperature calculations! People pay for beauty, for impressions, for effects, for sound, for sexy voice of narrator, for a story. And in your blog posts you constantly have such points that no one understands what they mean. “We changed some digits to other digits and now we have even more digits in our pokeballs.” We don't need this. We're stupid! We are players. We just want it to be cool. Just complete the visual and that’s it! We don't need anything else. I don't need... an equation for calculating the distribution of gravitational waves from the merger of a pulsar with a magnetar. I need water to sparkle like in Far Cry, dang it! Sparkle and splash so peacefully... And the stars twinkle above it. And I hear the wind. Or so that in Africa I could watch the sunset over the savannah and not the glare over a totally flat texture. So that I land on a gas giant - and there are clouds. This is what we need. And nothing else is needed. There is an infinite number of calculations in the universe for your digits, you will never collect them all. Stop doing them, they are not needed. Just finish the dang project! Just the most requested visual and sound and that's it. 13 years already!
I think that the developers should be focusing on reworking the flawed generation systems, introducing procedural textures for galaxies, and adding more interesting planet terrain, and SpaceEngine is good to go for years. SpaceEngine right now isnt a game, its a program for visualizing the universe. Adding and fixing all that will make the universe exploration part interesting for years to come. Visuals arent really that important since this isnt a game. The game part will come in like a decade when the engine itself is developed prepared to handle effects, though i do agree by the time the game part comes i think it will be outdated.

Also, most of the 13 years of development was done by a sole Russian developer with some people giving him tips on coding here and there, i think thats why so little progress has been made in developing the game. Only like a year or two ago was the team massively expanded (allegedly). 

Yeah the forums are mostly empty sadly.

I do think your post is a little bit crazy though.
 
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Re: Work progress 0.991

04 Oct 2023 19:52

Your post has a lot of what ive been thinking about, that this program is increasingly becoming outdated as months go by without shadows, 0.991, clouds etc and games like No Mans Sky continue to improve. But this isnt a game, its a program (an engine if you wanna call it that), and the game part will come eventually. 
 
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Re: Work progress 0.991

04 Oct 2023 20:29

It will never come if going like this! You think we are immortal? Time broke all illusions. Doctor of Space himself left the forum already. Nobody even believes anymore. One programmer was working? I know! And he was asked so many times to open the code or to get help from volunteers, he refused everybody suffering copyright complex. And this brought us here, to an empty forum, development hell, constant delays and news about "we spent months to implement totally invisible stuff". omg... Even the forum fathers left SE because last drops of trust are over. Mine too.
 
ras09191
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Re: Work progress 0.991

05 Oct 2023 06:04

It will never come if going like this! You think we are immortal? Time broke all illusions. Doctor of Space himself left the forum already. Nobody even believes anymore. One programmer was working? I know! And he was asked so many times to open the code or to get help from volunteers, he refused everybody suffering copyright complex. And this brought us here, to an empty forum, development hell, constant delays and news about "we spent months to implement totally invisible stuff". omg... Even the forum fathers left SE because last drops of trust are over. Mine too.
I think your somewhat right honestly. Theres nothing that can be done, this is how the dev decided to develop the project. All we can hope for is that major visual and generational improvements come within the next decade otherwise this project is gonna become very boring real quick and probably outdated by other similar space simulator projects that might come in the future.
 
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Re: Work progress 0.991

06 Oct 2023 16:05

I must agree with the repliers above. SpaceEngine has changed very little visually since 2016, when (I think?) procedurally generated nebula models were added. While under-the-hood improvements are certainly needed, I think focusing on e.g. transit calculations and climate models is a disadvantageous approach. People ask for 3D clouds, procedurally generated volumetric galaxy models and correctly rendered shadows and other stuff that has been on the TODO-list for a decade. I know these are difficult to implement, but focus ought to lie there.
 
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Re: Work progress 0.991

12 Oct 2023 18:00

I must agree with the repliers above. SpaceEngine has changed very little visually since 2016, when (I think?) procedurally generated nebula models were added. While under-the-hood improvements are certainly needed, I think focusing on e.g. transit calculations and climate models is a disadvantageous approach. People ask for 3D clouds, procedurally generated volumetric galaxy models and correctly rendered shadows and other stuff that has been on the TODO-list for a decade. I know these are difficult to implement, but focus ought to lie there.
If you pay attention to the details you would realise that there was a great improvement on the planets, such as textures, terrain generation (This one isn't very different), the atmosphere hasn't changed very much yet, the biggest changes that the planets had at the moment are rings, and speaking in celestial bodies, the black holes, is known that the people wants 3d clouds (thing I have been waiting since 2020) and 3d water, and such climate stuff like thunders, rain, sandstorms and snow, but the cons of this project is that there isn't too many developers.
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Re: Work progress 0.991

15 Oct 2023 14:12

Good afternoon. I only have one question, but it's a big one.
I read another blog post (about temperatures) and I want to ask, as they once asked Blizzard: “Is this a out of date April Fool’s joke?” Months, if not years, have passed since the last visible changes. And so I read a post that seemed intriguing at the beginning, but in the end it says that was done... nothing visible. Again. Yes, somehow the temperatures on the planets change - and how should I see this? Do I need to land on the planet and just stand there, scrolling through the time and looking at the thermometer? And then do the same in another location? What kind of experience will I get from this as a player? There is not a single visual or sound effect in the game that would indicate any change in the environment. All I get is a change of 2-3 digits on the screen. Are you serious?

This repeated disclaimer looks especially ridiculous and cynical:
This plot is not displayed in-game. This is simply a look “under the hood” of the SpaceEngine climate model and for reference in selecting a suitable temperature profile for custom planets.

That is, it says: “You won’t get anything again.” Why the update then??? And it also says “We have not accounted” and lists 8 points where the new rule still doesn’t work. So you let him fly around the planet with a thermometer, but in half the cases even this does not work. Are you kidding or what?

If you're even serious about your project, this whole temperature update should at least include a visual display. It seems to me like this: next to the button for displaying atmospheres, a button for displaying temperatures appears and when it is turned on, the planet gets a translucent thermal aura, which sways and changes when time is rewinded. This is the only way this system will make any sense. Otherwise it's just ridiculous.
This is Space Engine. Not Climate Engine. Not Google Maps or Universe Sandbox, this is Space Engine.
[dah<500,26>dah<180,14>dah<180,21>dah<500,19>dah<180,26>dah<500,21>]
 
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Re: Work progress 0.991

26 Oct 2023 16:51

The problem, I guess, is that there's no game yet. This is an engine. Something that will eventually be used to build a game, that one, for sure, with playable content.
This is MYYYTH. After 13 years of development, we must already admit it - this is a rose-colored dream that will never come true. The project has been in development for so long that a new generation of people has already been born and in 4-5 years they will begin to create their own projects. Using much superior technologies, Unreal Engine 5 and higher, using neural networks. And in SE there are clouds and water of 2D effects! There will be no game on SE. It needs to finally grow up and understand this, to stop denying it. It's a pipe dream in a vacuum. At the time of "Space Rangers" SE seemed incredible, but now we live in the times of Elite Dangerous, NMS, Infinity Battlescape, Everspace, Starfield, Star Citizen. When someone wants to make another game, he will choose some Frostbite or Unreal or Source as an engine and add the same temperature effects there instead of choosing SE and thinking about how to add... everything else there. SE is a morally outdated project now. This could still be denied in 2016 or 2019, but now it’s already 2023! The forums are empty. Nobody expects anything anymore. There are no fans left. Nobody will make games on SE! Forget it! You need to accept reality and simply bring the project to a digestible state in, say, a year or two, working only on the visuals, doing the most important thing - working for the player, for commercial appeal, for money in the end! Nobody pays for invisible temperature calculations! People pay for beauty, for impressions, for effects, for sound, for sexy voice of narrator, for a story. And in your blog posts you constantly have such points that no one understands what they mean. “We changed some digits to other digits and now we have even more digits in our pokeballs.” We don't need this. We're stupid! We are players. We just want it to be cool. Just complete the visual and that’s it! We don't need anything else. I don't need... an equation for calculating the distribution of gravitational waves from the merger of a pulsar with a magnetar. I need water to sparkle like in Far Cry, dang it! Sparkle and splash so peacefully... And the stars twinkle above it. And I hear the wind. Or so that in Africa I could watch the sunset over the savannah and not the glare over a totally flat texture. So that I land on a gas giant - and there are clouds. This is what we need. And nothing else is needed. There is an infinite number of calculations in the universe for your digits, you will never collect them all. Stop doing them, they are not needed. Just finish the dang project! Just the most requested visual and sound and that's it. 13 years already!
This is most likely a troll post, but I hope you realize that SE had a grand total of 1 developer for a long time. Admittedly, there's still only so many people working on the game at the moment, but updates take time. The devs have lives of their own, as well. If people can wait nearly 3 years for 0.990 to release, people can wait a bit longer for the next update to come out.
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Re: Work progress 0.991

31 Oct 2023 07:06

Glad to see that the Beta version's temperature display anomaly has been fixed. Thank you for the update!
By the way, are there any plans to bring back the "Annual average temperature" that was there before?
 
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Re: Work progress 0.991

31 Oct 2023 15:56

Glad to see that the Beta version's temperature display anomaly has been fixed. Thank you for the update!
By the way, are there any plans to bring back the "Annual average temperature" that was there before?
That was causing issues in its current implementation, so the code will be reworked.
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