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!
Hosting
for this project generously
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