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Update #7 - V.2024.02.01
The most wanted feature is now implemented. You can now save and load your simulations to play them further at another time. You can find your savegames in the option menu. BUT BEWARE: Saving costs a lot of disk space and memory. It costs ~4,6 MB in disk space and ~40 MB in memory and takes ~0.5 seconds per 10.000 stars. If your PC don't have either the memory nor the disk space, the game will most likely crash. Here an example: The game itself takes ~800 MB in memory plus an extra of 1,1 GB for 1 million stars in-game. On top of that comes now the saving process, which takes an additional ~4 GB. So to save 1 million stars you need ~6 GB of memory and ~460 MB of disk space. It will take about 50 seconds to save it, but the performance depends on your device, so it may be faster or even slower for you. This means I still recommend over 1 million stars only for high-end PC's with more than 16 GB of total memory.
You can now set an FPS limit in the graphics option menu. I recommend to use it instead of VSync, as VSync can cause performance problems, if your FPS rate is far below your monitor refresh rate. With activated VSync and low performance, the FPS counter shows more FPS than you actually have and the game will stutter. If you have a 120 Hz monitor, deactivate VSync and set the FPS limit to 120 instead. For new players, this is set automatically.
The game will now pause if you press ESC during the simulation. This frees performance capacities for the newly introduced save/load function. It also allows you to get away from keyboard without have to fear that a nearby Black Hole will absorb you.
Before you were only able to create a few more stars over 1 million, but not a lot more. This is now fixed. You can create now up to 10 million stars. BUT BEWARE: Test in smaller steps if your PC can handle such an amount of stars. Start with 1 million and if you have at least 30 FPS, then you can go further with 2 million, and so on. For the leaderboard hunters, which can now save their sessions and create a lot more than 1 million stars, I can only say: happy hunting! Here a few screenshots how galaxies with 2 million stars and activated orbital velocity can look like:
The color banding issue with very bright objects is now fixed. This means that all the bright stars will have a more smoother light now without visible brightness steps. You can see this the most with the bright star in the main menu. These features and fixes are now available with Update #7. Have fun with this new update and delight yourself in void!
[ 2024-02-01 17:47:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
First a short list of added features and fixed bugs, if you don't like long texts to read. Then a more detailed description of each important feature and bug fix.
Added Features
- added save-load functionality (CAUTION: disk space and memory heavy procedure)
- added FPS limiter
- game will now pause when option menu is open in-game
Fixed Bugs
- fixed game breaking bug when creating more than 1 million stars
- fixed color banding
- fixed FPS counter, which couldn't count below 10 before
- fixed missing letters in some languages
- fixed font size to fit button texts for some languages
- other minor bug fixes
Savegames
The most wanted feature is now implemented. You can now save and load your simulations to play them further at another time. You can find your savegames in the option menu. BUT BEWARE: Saving costs a lot of disk space and memory. It costs ~4,6 MB in disk space and ~40 MB in memory and takes ~0.5 seconds per 10.000 stars. If your PC don't have either the memory nor the disk space, the game will most likely crash. Here an example: The game itself takes ~800 MB in memory plus an extra of 1,1 GB for 1 million stars in-game. On top of that comes now the saving process, which takes an additional ~4 GB. So to save 1 million stars you need ~6 GB of memory and ~460 MB of disk space. It will take about 50 seconds to save it, but the performance depends on your device, so it may be faster or even slower for you. This means I still recommend over 1 million stars only for high-end PC's with more than 16 GB of total memory.
FPS Limiter
You can now set an FPS limit in the graphics option menu. I recommend to use it instead of VSync, as VSync can cause performance problems, if your FPS rate is far below your monitor refresh rate. With activated VSync and low performance, the FPS counter shows more FPS than you actually have and the game will stutter. If you have a 120 Hz monitor, deactivate VSync and set the FPS limit to 120 instead. For new players, this is set automatically.
Pause Game
The game will now pause if you press ESC during the simulation. This frees performance capacities for the newly introduced save/load function. It also allows you to get away from keyboard without have to fear that a nearby Black Hole will absorb you.
More than 1 million stars
Before you were only able to create a few more stars over 1 million, but not a lot more. This is now fixed. You can create now up to 10 million stars. BUT BEWARE: Test in smaller steps if your PC can handle such an amount of stars. Start with 1 million and if you have at least 30 FPS, then you can go further with 2 million, and so on. For the leaderboard hunters, which can now save their sessions and create a lot more than 1 million stars, I can only say: happy hunting! Here a few screenshots how galaxies with 2 million stars and activated orbital velocity can look like:
Color Banding
The color banding issue with very bright objects is now fixed. This means that all the bright stars will have a more smoother light now without visible brightness steps. You can see this the most with the bright star in the main menu. These features and fixes are now available with Update #7. Have fun with this new update and delight yourself in void!
[ 2024-02-01 17:47:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
A Hole In Space
Clever AI
Developer
Hoi 4 Deu
Publisher
2021-02-04
Release
Game News Posts:
11
🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
🕹️ Partial Controller Support
🕹️ Partial Controller Support
Mostly Positive
(15 reviews)
Public Linux Depots:
- A Hole In Space Linux Content [175.32 M]
Game is not tagged as available on Linux on Steam.
Linux is not in the OS list.
Epilepsy Warning
If you are suffering from epilepsy, this game is probably not for you. This is due to the huge amount of bright stars, which can flicker and rotate around you.Description
'A Hole In Space' is a slow-paced space simulation game. You take control of a small black hole, which roams through an universe created by parameters you choose.
The movement is slow and sluggish, because everything moves by forces. The time you need to accelerate is the same time you need to decelerate. Therefore, it is not advisable to try to fly with max speed.
The amount of time you need to absorb the whole universe depends on how many stars you want in your universe. Your universe can have from 100 up to 10 million stars, but only if your PC can handle it.
Goal
The goal is to absorb the whole universe.
1. Absorb nearby suns to grow in mass.
2. Absorb other black holes in the universe, if you are greater in mass.
3. Absorb the rest of the universe through your new added huge mass.
4. Enjoy the Big Bang!
You lost the game, if any black hole absorbs you. This will happen if you get to close to them with a lesser mass.
Features
- Every universe is unique due to procedural generation.
- Nevertheless, use the seed to share your universe with others.
- You can create up to 100 galaxies in your universe and therefore up to 100 supermassive black holes in their center.
- The galaxies can either be static or dynamic, which means they either stay in place or attracting each other.
- The whole universe can contain up to 10 million stars, but only if your PC can handle it.
- You can turn the gravity of stars on or off. If this is off, the performance will drop linear with the amount of stars. Otherwise it will drop squared. Therefore the max amount of stars will be reduced to 100K.
- The stars can either start with zero velocity or with the first cosmic velocity, which means they will fly in an orbit around the center black hole.
- You can enable "Spaghettification" to tear stars into smaller pieces.
- There are 7 Nebula backgrounds to choose from, which don't affect the simulation.
- There are 9 different galaxy forms to explore: Random, Circle, Cube, Octahedron, Sphere, Spiral-2-Arms, Spiral-4-Arms, Spiral-8-Arms, Star
- Switch between the player black hole and galaxy camera to get a greater view of the universe.
Technical Aspect
For this game I used Unity's Data Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) and with it the Entity Component System (ECS), the C# Job System and the Burst compiler.However I did not use Unity physics. Instead I created my own, based on classical Newton mechanics, center of mass model, vector mathematics and the superposition principle. The more advanced Schwarzschild Metric is not implemented.
For a stable collision detection and to avoid infinities, a maximum speed for all objects and a space boundary were implemented. So no star can be slingshotted into oblivion, which would otherwise lead to an unfinishable game.
Epilog
If you have any ideas, criticism, feedback or just found some bugs, let me know in the Steam forum.
Last but not least, have fun and delight yourself in void!
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GAMERSGATE
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