Galactic penguin! Now the game also works on Linux OS.

A small update with bugfixes and improvements has been uploaded. Bugfixes: - The slider for transferring items between two units has been improved, as well as the slider for selecting the amount to sell/discard. - Increased the limit on transportable volume for crew members. - Achievements in steam are now working :) - Improved feedback when exceeding the mass / volume of the purchased product from the trader. - Fixed a bug where a planetary or gas-harvesting drone always appeared when loading the game (even if it was abandoned or returned to the ship). However, if you have accumulated a flock of mining drones on your home station, they will not disappear after this bugfix, you need to manually remove the mining modules (it is better to sell them, or, if not possible - destroy them :) - In the planetary window or galactic map mode, the camera no longer move when you bring the mouse to the information sidebar. - Now you can easy to point the mouse at the UI elements and scroll the contents with a wheel. The camera will not zoom in this case. - Fixed a bug where an incorrect message was displayed about a lack of electricity on the ship. It appeared when there was at least one module de-energized due to a breakdown. - Fixed a mismatch in the description of items at the trader (in the list of products and in the detailed description window). - The reward window is no longer layered on the dialog window. - Fixed a bug where the reward was displayed more than it should have been set for the quest. - Fixed a bug when the NPC with dialog is stopped working. - Fixed a bug where hp sliders were not updated when selecting multiple units.

May your starships be warm and cozy this year! And your space base will have a lot of yummyand gifts :) How many Earth days lasts 1 year on different planets (1 revolution around the Sun): - Mercury: 1 year = 87.9 Earth days - Venus: 1 year = 224.7 Earth days - Earth: 1 year = 365 Earth days :) - Mars: 1 year = 686.9 Earth days - Jupiter: 1 year = 4332 Earth days (12 Earth years) Saturn: 1 year = 10759 Earth days (23 Earth years) - Uranus: 1 year = 30685 Earth days (84 earth years) - Neptune: 1 year = 60190 Earth days (165 Earth years) - Pluto: 1 year = 90553 Earth days (248 Earth years)

In the new update, I have been working on further improving the process system. Now the assignment of a crew member to the module maintenance process has become more intuitive. Also, in the game has appear a cool process called production (crafting). For now, several production modules and simple recipes have been added. As well as a new crew member who will serve all this stuff. Module "Metalworker"
It is intended for the manufacture of Parts that are used to fixi module breakdowns, and they are also often used in the above-mentioned production process as one of the components of the recipe. The Parts are made of steel ingots (not to be confused with titanium ingots or nickel ingots). Module "Assembler"
It is intended for the manufacture of finished products from various components. For now, the manufacture of not the coolest clothes is available (several types of armor and hand weapons). Module "Chemical reactor"
It is designed to produce some components, and also here you can make a very useful thing - medicines. It is recommended to install such modules on ships that have at least several slots of a general type. They can also be installed on the player's station, now it has several slots for modules.
Crew member "Production Engineer"
A smart guy in a fancy vest. It is needed to maintain the above modules, they will not work without him. Meanwhile, he has average skills for servicing any modules in principle, as well as an average level of "Fixing" skill. As usual, his combat skills leave much to be desired and he does not have military equipment when hiring. Class: engineer, subclass: process engineer. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the production chains introduced in this update are a kind of start for larger-scale updates in the future and will be significantly rebalanced. Some ingredients for production can only be bought so far. For example, the smelting of steel ingots from ore will be in the next updates, you will have to buy it at the station or somewhere else, but the nitrogen gas needed for the production of medicines can already be extracted from gas clouds. ****** Some problems were also fixed, when, for example, a crew member engaged in module maintenance did not react in any way to a module breakdown (he was simply thrown out of the module maintenance slot), now a crew member will try to fix the module breakdown (if he has the necessary skill and consumables for this). Breakdown fixing process
The mechanics of breakdowns have also been changed - their overall chance of occurrence has been reduced, but there is a nuance - breakdowns can now occur at any time while the module is connected to the ship's electrical network (for example, a short circuit), and not only during processes. But there are also breakdowns relevant only to specific processes. For example, the breakdown of medical probes in the module "Medical bay" can only occur during the execution of the "healing" process. And other small bug fixes for the work of processes: - Now, if a crew member is already maintain a module, when you hover the mouse over this module, there will be no "maintenance" icon under the mouse. I.e. you cannot assign a crew member to maintain the module that he already maintains. - Now, if a crew member is unable to maintain the module due to insufficient skill level, then there will be a relevant icon under the mouse. - Fixed a bug with incorrect display of the current action when a crew member maintain the module. - Now, if a module breaks down, the crew member which maintain this module immediately tries to fix the damage and continue maintenance. - During the fix process, the crew member now has wrench icon instead the gear icon. - If the repairman runs out of consumables or some other problem occurs during the fix of a breakdown, his icon of the current action will start flashing. - The color of the fixing icon has turned olive green. Try the update! And good luck with your work and production!

I'm just working on the next update (quite small). Simple crafting will be added. Crafting will be possible in several ways: either create an item directly by a crew member using a special hand tool, or craft on the production module of the ship / station. Crafting items will be a new crew member of the engineer class - production engineer. The production engineer will have the ability to use hand tools for crafting and also maintain the production modules of the ship.

I haven't been heard from for a long time, but that's all because I was hard working to preparing a complex but interesting update - the "Processes System". And now it's ready! The new "Processes System" deepen the gameplay and gives the player new tasks and new opportunities. Based on this update, the following ones will be released, which will add even more variety of game scenarios and features! More info about the "Process System" update: Now many activities (for example, or drilling, healing, unloading, etc.) are based on a single "Processes System". The process has such parameters as: cycle time, consumables used per cycle, a tool without which the process is not possible, as well as personnel. - Process personnel this is crew members who must be assigned to the process carrier (for example, an engineer is assigned to the reactor module). Moreover, there are "mandatory personnel" - this is the personnel without whom the process on the carrier does not work (it is on pause), as well as "support personnel" - this is the personnel whose presence is not necessary, but it gives bonuses for the process (mostly it a bonus to speed of the process). It is important to note: that sometimes there are requirements to the personnel. For example, a crew member (personnel) must have some of skills (module maintenance skill, engineering equipment mastery, etc.), and some kind of equipped tool and consumables. The medic work as the personnel for the med. module (process speed bonus)
- There are processes without personnel (for example, the mining drone is automated and its drilling process does not require any personnel). Mining drone do an automatic drilling process
- Also has been added to the game a "breakdowns". As a rule, breakdowns occur just during the execution of processes. Moreover, each process has its own unique breakdowns. For example, on the mining drone there are two processes - the ore drilling process and the unloading process. During ore drilling, the drill may break (and the mining process will pause) and during unloading the unloading connector-conveyor may be damaged (the unloading process will pause). There are also quite universal breakdowns, such as a short circuit on the module or a failure of the module's control panel. They occur on almost every module, but they still look unique to each module. - Breakdowns can have different effects - some slow down the process and some stop it altogether, and some can generally cause damage or disconnect the module from the electric system of the ship. Broken fuel line
Reactor short circuit
Broken drill of the mining drone
By the way, the engine module and the reactor module can now be serviced (the so-called maintenance process) this gives bonuses for the speed of the ship and a bonus for energy production. Flight engineer maintains the reactor
- Each breakdown has its own unique "fix process", which has its own set of requirements: as a rule, the fix process requires personnel with some kind of skill, tool and consumables. Most often, only personnel with the "fix skill" of a certain level are required (when there are no complex breakdowns). But sometimes, in addition, may be required consumables - "parts". Again, different breakdowns require different amounts of them. By the way, in future updates, support maintenance slots will also be available for the fix process (to speed up the fix process), but this is for later. - By the way, the fix process may also have breakdowns. That is, the repairman, fixing a breakdown can breaks something else because of his crooked hands), but this does not happen often. Do not confuse the "fix process" of breakdowns/malfunctions and production problems with the "repair process". Repair process (ship, car, module) this is quite another thing - his task is to restore health points (HP). The repair process is similar to the healing process, when we restore HP from a character, but repairs restore HP from ships, equipment, modules and other inanimate things. So far, there is no repair process in the game, you can only repairing from traders. But the repair process will appear in the next updates. It also will be not easy:) but more on that later. By the way, medicines are now needed for the healing process (by a medical module or by medics). They can be bought from traders. Medics can maintain med. module (increase in the rate of healing). There is also an idea to make such a feature - a medic crew member begins the process of healing a target and support personnel can be attached to him (well, like assisting a medic), they can be an ordinary soldier. If you are interested in such a feature - write here:) Parts and medicines
New crew members have also been added to the game: a pilot and a flight engineer. Flight engineer can repair more complex breakdowns and maintain more complex modules (for example, soldiers can also maintain modules, but not all), also flight engineer has good skills in engineering equipment. But the main task of a flight engineer, as can be understood from its name, is to maintain the ship's modules, which increases overall efficiency.
Pilot is needed to maintain the Bridge module, which increases bonuses for the speed of the ship and its maneuverability (which increases the chance of evading an enemy hit). Other characters can also maintain the bridge module, but they will not have a bonus for evasion, only for speed. Also, the pilot is generally not bad at maintenance usual ship modules and has the skills to fix breakdowns, but to a lesser extent than the flight engineer.
Both of these subclasses are considered non-military. Their weapon and armor skills are very weak, but in general it is possible to equip them with low level weapons. Both the pilot and the flight engineer are subclasses of the profession (class) engineer. That is, the class is an engineer, the subclass is a flight engineer. Other subclasses will appear in the future, such as a repairman (specialist in repairing the hull of the ship and fixing module failures), a miner (specialist in mining equipment for resource extraction, etc.) In general, it is desirable to have at least one engineer on board (1 pilot and 1 engineer are now included in the free ship, instead of old soldier recruits). Hint: always take at least one flight engineer with you, as module breakdowns can be caught at the most unsuitable moment, and soldiers cannot fix breakdowns of high complexity. It is recommended to take a pilot in the same way, his bonuses for the ship will help in space battles. It is also better to take as many medicines and parts on board with you as possible, they are inexpensive and can be useful. And in general, it's good take more armor suits on your ship, especially with a helmet for walking on airless planets, as well as hand weapons. Fortunately, the cargo hold of the ship is large and these things take up little space. Here's an update. Well, I'm going to do the following update as usual:) ---------------------------------------------------

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Mars
Which planet should humanity go to? Of course to Mars! In the game Spaceship Commander people fly to Mars like they go to their grandmother's village, some for work, and some as a tourist. Why to Mars? Because for a people he is the most favorable from the planets closest to us. Mercury is not an good decision, it is too hot there (+427C on the sunny side and almost -170C on the dark side). Venus - landing there is a sure suicide (pressure 100 atmospheres and temperature +464 C). Earth - well, we are already here :) The moon - although it is close the conditions there are not very good (there is no atmosphere, harsh temperature drops from +100 to -170), and low gravity. And then Mars - the planetary traveler's best choice. The force of gravity is 30% of the Earth's, more or less acceptable temperature conditions (about them later), as well the atmosphere, though it is of carbon dioxide (CO2). Another bonus is that the length of a day on Mars is 24 hours 37 minutes 22.7 seconds, just like on Earth. Our gas giants Jupiter and Saturn also have interesting satellites, but they are much further than Mars. Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun
Solar system. The bunch of planets in the center are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars - also called the "Inner Region of the Solar System". Next up are the gas giants.
The mass of Mars is 0.10 of the mass of the Earth, and the diameter is 0.53 of the diameter of the Earth. Mars is called the "red planet" because of the reddish hue of the surface, given to it by the mineral maghemite - iron (III) oxide. Size comparison
The relief of Mars has many features - impact craters like on the Moon, volcanoes, valleys, deserts and even polar ice caps like on Earth. The Martian extinct volcano Mount Olympus is one of the highest known mountains on the planets of the solar system, its height is 21 km. The grandiose Mariner Valley has a length of 4500 km (a quarter of the planet's perimeter), a width of up to 600 km (an average of 200) and a depth of up to 11 km. At the north pole of Mars is the Great Northern Lowland - a plain that occupies 40% of the planet's surface, which lies 4-5 km below the average radius of the planet, and is essentially a crater from a colossal collision with another celestial body. Mars is a godsend for "space archaeologists", because Geologically, it has remained almost unchanged for 3 billion years! And on Earth during this time, violent tectonic processes took place, which erased almost all traces of the early history of our planet. Previously, Mars had rivers, lakes and seas and reminded the Earth. However, a billion years ago, active processes in the lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere of Mars is stoped, and it has acquired a modern look. The fault of the global catastrophic changes in the Martian climate is considered to be the large eccentricity of the orbit and the instability of the axis of rotation, which cause huge, up to 45%, fluctuations in the flow of solar energy incident on the surface of the planet. And also weak influx of heat from the bowels of Mars, due to the small mass of the planet, and the high rarefaction of the atmosphere. Mars is a quite harsh place, although there are a more worse places. The atmosphere of Mars consists of 96% carbon dioxide, and oxygen here is only 0.1%, which is clearly not enough for breathing. Also, the atmosphere here is very rarefied, how much? Approximately 100 times more rarefied than on Earth! Therefore, walking on Mars without a helmet you will very quickly get air out of your lungs and you will feel yourself very bad. And Mars is also famous for its dust, it is able to cover any apparatus or building very quickly, by the way it is very toxic, since it contains perchlorates. There is more bad news about the very powerful radiation that comes from the Sun, because Mars does not have a magnetic field and nothing stops it, unlike Earth, for example. To date, the best way to hide from this radiation is to sit in caves (lava tubes). But in the game Spaceship Commander people use a special nanofiber that effectively shields radiation (used in buildings, ships and uniforms). Somewhere in the wastelands of Mars
Oddly enough, it cannot be said that Mars is catastrophically cold. Of course, it is better not to go to the surface of Mars without a heated spacesuit, but on a good summer day the planet can be warm. Since the atmosphere of Mars is very rarefied, it does not smooth out daily fluctuations of surface temperature. Here there is a temperature below -120, and sometimes +20, it also depends on the season, but on average it is somewhere around -60, which is comparable, for example, with the Arctic regions of the Earth, so if you are a Siberian, then Mars will not surprise you much with frost. On Mars, the color of the sky is reddish. This is due to the size of Martian dust, which is suspended in the atmosphere, as well as the composition of this dust - it consists of iron oxides. There is an interesting point - at sunset, the color of the sun on Mars ... red? Very red? No blue! The physics of this process is not very simple, but in short it is again due to the size of the dust particles. Mars in the game Spaceship Commander is the main transport hub. It has many supply bases and most of the personnel of these bases work on a rotational basis. Supply base
Working days on Mars
Inside the Martian base (plants are highly valued here)
Landing window
So, Mars although not a paradise, is quite suitable as an initial base for humanity on another planet. After the infrastructure is built, it is already possible to go to other, more distant planets from here more efficiently than from Earth. There are also ideas about terraforming it, but that's a completely different story.

I haven't been heard from for a long time. It's because I was working on redesigning the equipment system for the crew members. The old system when all the equipment was "glued into the character" is a thing of the past, and now we can separately buy weapons and armor/armoured suits for each crew member.

However, there is a point - in order for a crew member to be able to put on an item, he must have the abilities (skills) to own this equipment. The maximum level for a abilities is 10. At the moment, the following types of equipment and skills of possession have appeared: - Standard armor (requires the skill "Possession of standard armor") This includes usual body armor and some types of armored suits. - Heavy armor (requires the skill "Heavy Armor Mastery") This includes powerful and cool armor and exosuits. - Standard weapons (requires the skill "Possession of standard weapons") This includes light types of small arms, rifles, shotguns and submachine guns. - Heavy weapons (requires the skill "Possession of heavy weapons") This includes powerful and mighty guns such as plasma cannons, assault rifles or machine guns.
You can buy new equipment from the Earth Trade Fleet (i.e. at the player's station). As for the crew members, they can also be hired at the player's station. Crew members now have a "specialization", which determines which skills a character have and how his skills will be pumped when level up (however, level up will be added in future updates). Now you can hire several "pre-trained" crew members (so-called presets) - from an ordinary soldier with an usual rifle to a cool space marine with a plasma gun. It is important to remember that by buying a simple soldier, you will not (most likely) be able to put cool armor on him, you need to look at what skills he has for owning a certain type of equipment. By the way, now each armored suit has its own resistance to various environmental conditions. At the moment, there are already the following environmental conditions: heat, cold, lack of oxygen, toxicity. Each of the above effects has its own level (for example, the heat of the 1st level corresponding to 100 degrees Celsius or the heat of the 5th level corresponding to 500 degrees Celsius). To fully comfortably and safely enjoy the views and beauties on the surface of Venus, whose temperature is around 450 degrees Celsius, which corresponds to the 5th level of effect "heat", you need a spacesuit with at least 5 level of resistance to heat. If the level is lower, for example 4, then the character will receive damage, although reduced. But a character without a spacesuit at all, who decides to walk around Venus, will instantly receive a lot of damage.
The following minor edits and improvements were also made in this update: - The start of a new game has been fixed. How it works always and under any case. Previously, there were problems of which you had to restart the application to start a new game. - A player database patching system has been created. So this made for the data structure on the current player database matches the one that was changed in the updates. Well, in case the patching of the player's database with his current progress does not go according to plan and a bug occurs - you can always start a new game, since this function now works flawlessly :) - An ugly bug has been fixed when enemy characters "blinked" after being detected. - The new player's crew members now have a normal, human name and not the name of his preset. - Fixed the short description window of the item (popup) in the store. Now it stands in the right place and does not fall over the edge of the screen. - The ship's power system is finally working correctly. If there is no energy, then the modules will be switched off alternately until the energy balance is ok. Also, now disconnecting a module that consumes a lot of energy will release free energy and possibly reconnect another de-energized module. By the way, it began to work well and correctly just thanks to the new equipment system. - Fixed a possible bug when you can put a module that is installed on the ship in the shopping cart for sale. Now you need to uninstall it before selling. - Fixed a strange and unpleasant effect when pop-ups near the cursor "lagged" behind it. - Fixed a bug with incorrect image movement in the mini-windows of the unit preview (these are the windows that you see in the store when you selected an item or when the unit inventory is open). Now the picture moves smoothly, so now you can view the goods/units without suffering. - Now, when a player destroys enemy units (characters, ships), he is given a reward - credits. Also, the amount of the reward is now displayed near the icon with credits. - Added new hints when using some perks. For example, if you use the "heal" perk on a target that has a maximum hp. I just keep working according to the plan :) ---------------------------------------------------

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The solar system and neighboring stars (radius 10 light years). Projection from above.
The number of stars filling the galaxy is just enormous. At night, we can see a maximum 2 thousand stars, although there are 400 billion of them in the galaxy! Consider the nearest celestial bodies within a radius of 16 light years. There are 57 star systems in this zone. Some of them are not single stars, but double and triple stars, so the total number of celestial bodies reaches 64. Also included are 13 brown dwarfs. The closest neighbors
he closest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri. The distance to it is 4.2 light years. This is a red dwarf, its mass and diameter does not exceed 10% of the solar. Proxima is a very "cold" star, the temperature is only 2700C (the Sun has 5500C), it emits little light and therefore it is not visible to the naked eye (0.0005 of the Sun's luminosity). It was opened in 1915. Despite the seemingly a "weak" of this star, it sometimes behaves like a real monster - the fact is that, like many other red dwarfs, Proxima Centauri is a flaring variable star. During flares, its luminosity can increase many times over and exceed the energy of solar flares by 10 times! The radiation from such a flare, which will irrigate the planets of this star, will be lethal. Proxima Centauri belongs to the Alpha Centauri triple system, which also has the stars Centauri A and Centauri B. Are you already sick of these tautologies and oddities of astronomical names? :) To put it simply, stars Centauri A and Centauri B are two cool and interesting stars that are very similar to our sun, they orbit very close to each other, at a distance of 29 AU. It is as if in our Solar System instead of the Sun there would be Centauri A and instead of Neptune there would be Centauri B. Proxima, is included in this star system, although it is distant from Centaurus A, B by 13000 AU. ! So, first fly to Proxima and from there already to Centauri A, B. Although in the game Spaceship Commander humanity first visited Centauri A, B (due to their potentially favorable conditions) and only then to Proxima (well, what to do near it ?) Although it has one confirmed planet (and 2 unconfirmed), its name is Proxima Centauri b. But I thought that this is not a very cool name and in the game Spaceship Commander it is called Rilotetu. An interesting fact: a modern Earth spacecraft that go to a journey to our nearest neighbor Proxima Centauri will need 70 thousand years to get to it. This is if you use modern chemical engines. About engines, by the way, there was already an article. The next closest star is Barnard's Star. Its distance is 5.9 light years. It is a single star, it is also a red dwarf star, but brighter and more massive than Proxima. The mass and diameter is estimated at 20% of the Sun. Barnard's Star is often named to as "flying" because it has the highest rate of angular movement across the celestial sphere of any known star. For 174 years, the star moves along the celestial sphere by 0.5. It approaches the Solar System at a speed of 100 km/s. The star has one confirmed planet. The last nearest neighbor is the double substellar system Luhman 16. The distance to it is 6.58 light years. Why is it a substellar system? Because instead of normal stars, two brown dwarfs live here. Brown dwarfs are substellar objects becouse they are somewhere between a planet (like Jupiter) and a star. Their masses in the range of approximately 0.01 to 0.07 solar masses. In the depths of these "planet stars" thermonuclear reactions can be launched as in ordinary stars, but the power of these reactions is insufficient and they cannot reach a constant luminosity. Despite their small mass (by the standards of stars), thermonuclear reactions can still occur in brown dwarfs, although this is achieved not due to the burning of hydrogen as in normal stars, but due to the burning of deuterium, which is quite small, and because of this brown dwarfs start to cool down quickly. Due to the fact that brown dwarfs are difficult to detect, the first detections were as recently as 1995, although the theoretical justification for the existence of brown dwarfs appeared as early as 1963. Luhman 16 was opened only in 2013, due to its dullness. Brown dwarfs is detecing in the infrared spectrum, due to the large amount of heat released. So, there are interesting neighbors around the Sun that are definitely must a visit. Both in real life and in the game Spaceship Commander :) ---------------------------------------------------

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This update added a apparat for gas collecting (gas harvesting drone). It is capable of extracting gas from cosmic gas clouds (gas concentrates), which can be found in space locations - gas and dust accumulations, which were also added in this update. For example, one of these locations is a huge gas and dust accumulation, which was formed from the powerful impact of the stellar wind on the planet Vreada, as a result of which part of its atmosphere was blown away. To get the Gas harvester you need a special module - Gas Harvester Launcher, from which the drone is already launched, this can be purchased from the Merchant Fleet (i.e. at the home station). Such a module is installed on a ship in a genera slot.
By the way, you can buy 2-3 drone at once and then harvesting will be more fun! Also in this update: - Added a new product - nitrogen gas. Which you can just dig in a new cosmolocation. - Prices for all gases have been changed - argon, hydrogen, oxygen and helium-3 are now cheaper. - Fixed a bug when it was possible to enter a cosmolocation while already being in it. - Fixed a bug when, while in a cosmolocation, a player gave an order to move to the same location and it turned out that he left this cosmolocation even though he shouldnt have. Now there will only be a message you are already in this location. - Minor corrections regarding the body filling visual of the Mining Drone mk1. Now the contents of the body disappear gradually when unloading onto a ship Try gas harvesting as soon as possible, Commander! ---------------------------------------------------

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In the game Spaceship Commander ships have 2 types of engines: a warp engine, through which the ship moves through Star Systems and deep space at faster than light (FTL) speeds, as well as a standard propulsion engine, through which the ship moves after exiting warp mode, for example, at orbit planets or during a space battle. You can read about propulsion engines here The warp drive on the ship is warping space
Warp drive, no matter how fantastic it looks, in my opinion, is currently the most "realistic" of all FTL propulsion concepts. Because the idea behind it seems to be the closest to realization at this science level of humanity and in general does not contradict the laws of physics. The principle of work of warp engines (distortion engines) is to deform the space in front of and behind the ship. Space compresses in front of the ship and inflates behind it, while the ship itself is in a kind of warp bubble. Inside the bubble, the space will remain normal and the ship in it will actually remain motionless. The distorted space around the ship itself moves. And this space movement can be faster than the speed of light. This may seem outlandish and far-fetched, but the fact is that it does not violate the laws of physics (although any such theory has its problems). If an object with mass cannot move at the speed of light (According to Einsteins special theory of relativity), then there is no such restriction on the movement of space itself at FTL speed. Moreover, right now, in our Universe there are galaxies (very distant from us) that are moving away from us...faster than the speed of light! This happens due to the expansion of the Universe. *** Now about the problems of the warp drive theory. Problem 1: to create a deformation of space that seems to inflate we need...exotic matter. What it is? Well, this is almost the same matter as ordinary matter, only it has a negative mass, something like -10 kg. If you push a ball made of exotic matter, instead of rolling away from you it will roll towards you. LoL. The problem with exotic matter is that no one has observed it in our time, but there are no fundamental prohibitions on its existence, and quantum field theory allows its existence under certain conditions. That's why I decided to allow exotic matter in the Spaceship Commander universe :) Ordinary and exotic matter distorts space differently
By the way, there were studies that seemed to make it possible to form a warp bubble using only ordinary matter, where this was achieved by changing the geometry of the bubble itself and some other tricks, although the speeds obtained were sub-light. Problem 2: It takes a LOT of mass to create the desired distortion in space. How much? Well, for a small ship, several solar masses would be needed from ordinary matter and the same amount from exotic matter... Although there were also calculations that reduce the mass by orders of magnitude. But still, to create a distortion of space, a huge mass is needed. And here, in the universe of the game Spaceship Commander, a technology appears that is called a warp catalyst, this is a device that reduces the above problem with a huge mass to acceptable values. And now for an ordinary ship we need not a mass of 2-3 Suns, but, say, energy of several megawatts. Here we count not by mass but by energy, because roughly speaking, energy is mass, and vice versa. E=mc^2 and all that. But a few megawatts is certainly not a firecracker either, but the ships in Spaceship Commander have fusion reactors that are capable of generating that much energy.
The warp catalyst in Spaceship Commander allows humanity to travel at FTL speeds, which opens the way to other stars (and in a very short period of time). At the same time, the technological level of humanity remains at the level applicable to current understanding, i.e. There are no super-duper technologies here like teleporters, replicators and other hard equipment, and if there is, its a secret :) Generally speaking, if you use technologies that are shown in many sci-fi films or games, it is very difficult to imagine how this should appear on the balance of the game. In essence, we would have to rethink all the sci-fi concepts that we have become accustomed to over the past decades. For example, in many games, ships can reach some unimaginable speeds, and in fact, if a ship can reach almost the speed of light, why all these lasers and other things? Just accelerate the ship to the speed of light (or so) and ram the giant station where the main rascal sits, thats the end of the film... Therefore, the technologies in the game Spaceship Commander is which familiar to us. But with some modifications. *** What about the speeds reaches by the ship? Excuse me, the speeds of the space around the ship? Well, in the star system the ship flies at speeds of the order of 100 speeds of light. By the way, according to the games lore, we cannot fly at full warp into any planet or asteroid, because... they have their own gravitational field (and therefore themselves distort space). Work of a warp engine near objects with mass is not possible, therefore it is impossible to ram someone elses ship or even a microwave at warp speed; your ship will simply be thrown out of warp mode. As for flight to other star systems, warp gates are used here. Yeah, the gates also use warp technology. Gates do not teleport a ship or open a portal to another dimension; they give acceleration to a ship that has passed through it. In more detail, they charge the ships warp engine with a huge amount of energy that is generated in these gates (using the same thermonuclear fusion) and redirect it to the ships warp engine, after which it can rush at maximum speed no longer at a 100 FTL speed, but at 10,000 FTL speed or more. However, this does not happen in any direction you want, but only to other gates. This is due to the imperfection of navigation equipment. The gates are strictly tied to other gates (aligned along the axes, the distance between the gates is known up to 1 meter of error), the slightest incorrect orientation of the gates in space and the ship will be thrown out God knows where. They say sometimes the gates malfunctioned and some ships were thrown somewhere in an unknown direction at distances of light years. Warp gate. Although they are more often called Hypergates, God knows why.
Many may have a question: can a ship perform a dashing maneuver in a space battle, warping directly behind the enemy ship? The answer is no, since there is a minimum distance traveled per unit of time in warp mode, so there is no such cheating method. Your ship will simply fly by, and for a couple of tens or even hundreds of thousands of kilometers. Again, in addition to the minimum speed, there is also an error in the navigation equipment - even an error of 0.0001 seconds when exiting warp - and you have already flown past your desired destination by many hundreds or thousands of kilometers. So, warp drive technology is the best choice for sci-fi games about the future and space flights at FTL speeds!

The Milky Way Galaxy is our home galaxy
The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy that contains the solar system and the Earth. Most of the stars in the Galaxy are concentrated in the galactic disk with spiral arms. There are two main spiral arms in the galaxy - the Centaurus arm and the Perseus arm, and two secondary ones - the Norma arm and the Sagittarius arm. Their angle of twist is about 12. In addition to large arms, there are also smaller arms, such as the Orion arm. At the center of the Galaxy is a supermassive black hole - Sagittarius A*, whose mass is 4.3 million solar masses! Compared to other spiral galaxies, our Galaxy has a quite large mass and high luminosity. Also she's beautiful. The diameter of the Milky Way is 105700 light years. The thickness of the Bulge is 3000 light years. The bulge is such a spheroidal densification of stars in the center of the galaxy, which has great brightness. The thickness of the disk of the galaxy is 1000 light years. The number of stars in the Milky Way is estimated at 200-400 billion pieces (and every star most likely has planets). Structure of the galaxy. Side view to disc.
Our solar system placed in a small arm of the Milky Way called the Orion Arm. This is an area whose width is approximately 3500 light years and the length is 11000 light years. The Orion Arm crosses the Perseus Arm and then extends to the Outer Arm via the Perseus Transit. In fact, the Orion Arm here is a kind of bridge between several arms. The Orion arm that contains the solar system
The solar system and neighboring stars (radius 10 light years). projection from above.
Perseus Transit
The Milky Way is in the Local Group of Galaxies, a gravitationally bound group of galaxies that contains the Milky Way and several other large galaxies such as the Andromeda Galaxy and the Triangulum Galaxy, as well as over 100 less massive galaxies. The Milky Way is the second in the group in terms of size and number of stars after the Andromeda galaxy (the diameter of Andromeda is 153000 light years), but the masses of the two galaxies are comparable. The Milky Way has more than two dozen satellite galaxies, of which the largest are the Large Magellanic Cloud (14,000 light years in diameter) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (7,000 light years in diameter). Local Group of Galaxies
Andromeda is 2.7 million light years away from us, by the way, it also has its own "bros", it has about 20 satellite galaxies. After 4 billion years, the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy will collide and merge, resulting in the formation of an elliptical galaxy. Some of the Milky Way satellite galaxies (Subgroup of the Milky Way)
The age of the Milky Way is estimated at 13.6 billion years. The Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago, that is, the galaxy began to form approximately 200 million years after the appearance of the Universe. It is believed that in the early Universe small dark matter halos formed from the primary density fluctuations. These objects collected the gas that filled the Universe and colliding with each other formed protogalaxies. 13 billion years ago, stars began to form in our Galaxy - until that moment it consisted entirely of gas and dark matter. The various components of the Galaxy - the bulge, halo, thin and thick disc - formed at different times in different ways. During the formation of our Galaxy, the Universe consisted of elements that arose during the Big Bang - hydrogen, helium, their isotopes - deuterium and helium-3, and lithium-7. More heavier elements were mainly formed later in stars. Less than 4 billion years after the Big Bang the bulge was formed - star formation in it went very quickly and was completed in less than 0.5 billion years, which is why bulge stars have an excess of alpha elements compared to iron. At the same time, but over a longer period of about 12 billion years, a small number of stars formed in the halo. The disc formed later, by 4-5 billion years after the Big Bang, after which stars were formed mostly only in the disc, and a minority in the bulge. It is believed that the disc formed from the inner parts to the outer parts: in the inner parts, the characteristic duration of star formation was 2 billion years, and in the outer parts it was 10 billion years or more, which explains the gradient of metallicity of stars in the disc. The thick disc formed before the thin disc, and after the formation of the first, 8 billion years ago, star formation practically stopped for a billion years. 7 billion years ago, star formation resumed and continues at an almost unchanged pace, and stars form only in a thin disc. The evolution of our Galaxy is influenced by the accretion of gas from outside, which compensates costs of star formation. Over the past 12 billion years, our Galaxy has not experienced mergers with other large galaxies - such a history of collisions is atypical and distinguishes the Milky Way from other galaxies. So, 11 billion years ago, the Milky Way merged with the Kraken galaxy, the mass of which was about 3% of the Milky Way mass. According to various estimates, this could be the largest merger apart from those that could have taken place in the early universe. There is also an estimate that the merger with the Gaia-Enceladus galaxy was larger and the mass of the latter was 6% of the mass of the Milky Way. It is believed that in the Milky Way there are, respectively, at least 20 globular star clusters, originally formed in these galaxies. *** In general, the Milky Way is our home, or rather it is a big house where our smaller house lives - the Solar System. And if someday we populate it completely, then we have "nearby" almost the same galaxy - Andromeda :)

A small update has been released: A new mining drone (and a module to launch it) has been added. It has an impressive cargo hold. Extraction is conduct by the good old way - with a bucket. Buckets are in fashion in any weather!
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A new system of abilities (perks) has been added to the game. Thanks to this system, the game will have more and more updates with different new units and their various abilities. However, the old mechanics have also been changed and work on the new ability system - for example, the ore mining mechanic of the mining drone now works on the new system, although outwardly this has not changed. Some perks start the so-called "process", for example, the aforementioned drone, when using the "mine ore" perk, starts the mining process (when the drone reaches the ore vein), we can now see the current status of this process (a new process slider has appeared under the HP slider, which filled in as the process progresses). Mining process
Unloading process
This update also added a new crew member "Medic" who has the "heal" ability. He can heal both himself and other crew members. Although he is very poorly armed.
It is planned to release a wide variety of perks and specializations: resource extraction, construction, crafting, equipment maintenance, military specializations, science, etc. Also, in the next updates, a system for crew members level up will probably appear. The update also includes some bug fixes and improvements: - The cost of repairing ships has been reduced by 3 times. - Fixed a nasty bug when hovering over resource veins did not hover/highlight. - The system for orders to units has been reworked (although outwardly this is again hardly noticeable). - Now, when hovering over different objects (for example, a box), an action is displayed near to the cursor, that the selected unit can perform. For example, if you have selected a crew member and hovered over a box, you will see a hand icon, which means that the selected unit can interact with this box. - Fixed a bug when player can to give an order to an enemy marines capsule to board its own carrier ship, although probably few people knew about this possibility :) - Slightly increased the display time of the scoreboard showing the addition / decrease of credits. Now, having this basis, I will start developing and implementing new abilities and new units! And of course there will be new bug fixes and other minor improvements. ---------------------------------------------------

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The Mining Drone in game Spaceship Commander is an automated unit capable of mining minerals from veins that come to the surface. Cheapness, lack of a pilot, autonomy and the ability to load a drone on almost any ship, even a small one, made this model very common. Mining drone
Iron ore (vein)
Copper ore (vein)
Mining process
The drone is equipped with a cone drill, in which carbide cutters are installed. In the process of drilling, the cutters knock out pieces of rock that break off and scatter, at the same time they are picked up by a powerful compressor and pumped into the drone like a vacuum cleaner. Further, the rock moving through the channels inside the body to the distributor and pours out into the cargo body. Scheme
To unload the mined rock is used a telescopic connector, which is connected, for example, to a ship, after which the contents are quickly unloaded without any buckets and other uncomfortable and outdated things. Although, in principle, the drone can also be unloaded with a bucket, because its cargo body is open. Mining drone unloads the contents into the ship
The drone is controlled like a usual unit. For order to start mining, you need to send him to an ore vein (iron, copper, etc.). After its cargo body is filled, it will automatically go to the ship for unloading. In order for the drone to appear on your ship, you need a mining module. Remember that not every ship is equipped with a slot for this module.

There are several classes of ships, they differ in size, durability, crew capacity, slots for modules, as well as hold capacity and the amount of generated base energy

Has been released the update that has significantly redesigned Marines Capsules. Now the capsule can be given orders - to board, return to the ship, unload mariners (when docked). To return your troops to your ship - select the crew members and send them to the capsule (RMB). After they get into the capsule, select it and give to capsule the order "Return to ship". The capsule will undock from the enemy ship and go to your ship.
Also has been added the ability to capture an enemy marines module and escape from enemy ship on his capsule. To do this, simply send your mariners inside the enemy marines module (RMB), in fact, how it is work with player marines module. After your guys sit in the module, it will be captured and you can give him the orders to launch the capsule (unless of course If the enemy has not spent them before you)
Other changes and bug fixes: - Enemy crew members now correctly attack the doors on the player's ship. Also, the player's crew members now more correctly attack the doors on the enemy ship. - The shooting distance of the crew members has been changed. Now the crew members do not run "head on to ram" but keep the firing distance if the target is in the visibility zone. Also, the distance of aggression for the crew members of the enemy and the player was a bit increased. - Improved overall control by crew members. Now they can attack enemy modules. They can be recalled from combat (RMB) and they don't "stick" on some objects as they used to. - Changed status-icons like "out of ammo", "no energy", etc. Fixed a bug when they rotate with the ship. - Fixed a bug when a crew member was sitting in the landing module and when the ship was destroyed, he "fell out into space". Now the crew member will be destroyed. - Fixed an not cool bug when a player could install 2 modules in the same slot. - Fixed a rare, but also not cool bug when a player cannot buy a ship immediately after selling his own. - Unit health bars are now displayed correctly - Slightly corrected the description of the ship "Buffalo". - Increased the amount of medicines in the medical module. He can now heal 500 health points. Now I'm start work on the next update. A little later I will tell you what it will be) --------------------------------------------------- Join to game community!

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Working on return a marines capsule from an enemy ship after boarding. This will be available in the next update.

A new crew member "Soldier Mk-3" has been added, which has not bad weapons and cool armor. Thanks to the armor it has resistance to the lack of oxygen as well as low temperatures. It also has a pretty good movement speed for its class. All these factors allow the new infantryman to fill an intermediate niche between the quite weak low-level crew members and the expensive Space Marines. --------------------------------------------------- Join to game community!

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In the game Spaceship Commander ships have 2 types of engines: a warp engine, through which the ship moves through Star Systems and deep space at speeds faster than light, as well a standard main engine, through which the ship moves after leaving the warp mode, for example, at orbit planets or during a space battle. There will be a separate article about the warp engine and how it works (as well as why, in my opinion, this is the most adequate sci-fi technology for moving at speeds above the speed of light). But if in short - the warp engine bends the space in front of the ship and behind it in such a way that the ship appears to be on the "crest of a wave". At the same time, the ship is still unmoving but space itself is moving. The warp drive on the ship bends space
As for reactive propulsion engines, the ships in the game use ion engines. These are the same engines that some spacecraft and satellites use in the real world. It would seem that this is a primitive technology and is not suitable for a game about the future. But firstly, the action of the game takes place in the region of 2100 years and, according to the lore of the game, humanity does not have any absolutely super-technologies. One of the exceptions here is just the technology of the warp drive and warp gates (there will also be a separate article about them). No teleporters, replicators and other hardcore have yet been invented, and if they did, it remains a secret :) Generally speaking, if you use technologies that are shown in many sci-fi films or games, it is very difficult to imagine how this should be influence to the balance of the game. In fact, we would have to rethink all the sci-fi concepts that we have become accustomed to over the past decades. For example, in many games, ships can reach some unthinkable speeds, and in fact, if a ship can reach almost the speed of light, why you need all these lasers and other things? Just accelerate the ship to light speed (or so) and to ram the giant station where the main villain sits, that's the end of the movie ... Therefore, in the Spaceship Commander game technologies, let's say, are ordinary and familiar for modern people. But with some modifications. So, back to ion engines - this is a type of electric rocket engine, the principle of work of which is based on creating jet thrust from ionized gas (plasma), which is accelerated to high speeds by an electric field and ejected from the engine. Let me remind you that in a classic liquid or solid propellant engine (chemical rocket engine), jet thrust is created by burning fuel (fuel + oxidizer) by heating it and following expansion and then ejection from the nozzle. Scheme of the ion engine
Ion engine on a ship (sectional view)
The advantage of the ion engine is that it has a very high efficiency (about 90%) and a huge specific impulse compared to a chemical engine. Specific impulse this the ratio of the amount of motion received by the rocket engine to the mass of the expended working fluid. I.e. the higher this figure, the less fuel is needed to accelerate. Remember this point, it will come in handy later. The disadvantage of ion engines is that they have very little thrust. The fact is that it takes a lot of energy to create desired thrust. And modern satellites or spacecraft are equip with some unconvincing solar battery or, at best, a small nuclear reactor. And it would seem what we forced to fly further on chemical engines. But in the game Spaceship Commander on a ship with ion engine also installed fusion reactor! It changes everything. A fusion (thermonuclear) reactor releases at orders of magnitude more energy than a usual nuclear reactor, and is capable of powering a small town or village.
So, taking into account the huge available energy on the ship, ion engines can reach a fundamentally new level - we can supply a powerful current and create a powerful electric field, which will accelerate the speed of the outflow of ions at orders of magnitude and, consequently, thrust. As a result, the level of thrust of ion engines in the game is at the level of modern liquid engines. It doesn't sound like the super technology of the future, but the point of the ion engine is that they don't require the huge volumes of propellant that older rockets require. Of course, they also need it, but orders of magnitude less. By the way, ion engine use xenon gas as fuel. As a result, it turns out that size of your ship's tank is no longer as size of the ship itself, but takes up relatively little space. Imagine for yourself how inconvenient and unsafe it is to carry a tank of fuel with you, which occupies 90% of the entire size of the ship. And it ends almost instantly, about 10 minutes of continuous acceleration - and the tank is empty. Although, imagine, liquid and solid fuel engines are also used in the game. For example, a liquid-propellant rocket engine is used in marines capsule, since it is assumed that its task is simply to fly to the enemy ship, and maybe back, and then refueling is already required. Well, we dont want stick a whole thermonuclear reactor with a complex ion engine into a disposable device, although there are also such developments, but for elite units :) By the way, you can read about the landing capsule here. Still chemical, namely solid propellant engines are used for missiles. Good old kerosene + oxidizer! Cheap and cheerful. Marines capsule with liquid propellant engine
Missile launch
So, the ships in the game Spaceship Commander use a warp drive to move at FTL speeds through Star Systems and deep space, and for "normal" movement at planetary orbit or maneuvers in space combat they use ion-type sustainer engines powered by a fusion reactor. --------------------------------------------------- Join to game community!

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Marines capsule in the game Spaceship Commander is a small spacecraft, launched from a carrier ship in order to board an enemy ship. The capsule can accommodate several people with equipment. Marines capsule start from carrier ship
Capsules series MK-1 (2 people) and MK-2 (4 people)
Boarding process
The marines capsule is equipped with a usual rocket engine to gain speed and fly to the target ship. After approaching the target, the capsule equalizes its speed with it and begins the process of rendezvous. Next, the capsule "sticks" to the hull of the target ship with the help of hydraulic grippers and only then begins to weld a hole in the hull of the target ship with a plasma jet. After the hole is made, the mariners can get inside the ship.
To launch a marines capsule you need a Marines Module on board the ship. Give an order to your crew members to enter the Marines Module, and then order to launch the capsule. Remember - the number of capsules is limited and is determined by the capacity of the ship. You can replenish the supply of capsules either at the home station, or in large cities or at merchants. --------------------------------------------------- Join to game community!

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