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Frequently Asked Questions


    Here, you just might find answers to your questions.  Then again, you may not.  If not, feel free to fire off a question to my E-Mail address, available on the Contact page.

Why the heck is this called The Deimos Project?
    For the answer to that, I've decided to provide you with the beginning of the game's plotline in story form.  The story is under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.  Read the start of the file for more information.
    The project is named for the game I'm building, which is named for the destroyer in the story.

When will the Asteroids clone be playable?
    Hopefully soon.  The answer to this is closely related to the next question, but this is a complex issue.  I've got work to do on most of the libraries before this will happen.  For now, try the Status page.

When will the physics engine be done?
    It'll never quite be done.  This is, after all, an open source project.  However, that's probably not what you're asking.
    I'll consider the physics engine done enough for serious use when I have full rotational dynamics and kinematics.  Put more simply, when I'm able to spin stuff.  This is the difficult part, but most of the preparatory work is done.
    I want to have this working some time in the next few months.  Currently, I'm waiting to hear from a physics professor about possibly getting a student to lend a hand.  If I get this aid, I will complete this much sooner.  If not, you can expect a long wait.  Possibly as long as six months, as I spend painful amounts of time reading texts describing the equations, trying to grasp the concept of how rotational dynamics work and how they can be represented in software.
    If you understand this subject and you want to help, please E-Mail me (available on the Contact page).  I would appreciate help on this a great deal.  All I need is for someone to write down all the equations involved, detailed explanations of them and the algorithm for applying them.  You may wish to examine the source code for my integrators to understand the context this information will be used in.

Why don't real men need inertia dampers?
    Ah.  That question.  Hrm.  I'm tempted to say, "If you don't know, I won't tell you."  Tempted, but I'm not going to.
    If you really want to know the answer, you can wait until the Asteroids clone is done (it will then be answered for all), or you can E-Mail me (available on the Contact page) and I'll give you a hint.  It's a bit of an in-joke I don't want to give away too soon.  I'm having too much fun with it!

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