Here's an idea (sorry if this isn't the right place for it)

[wyattman854]

i think it would be cool to have a sort of "spaceship" or "landing" mode, where you can both fly around the system in a rocket/spacecraft, and then land on planets, exit the spacecraft, and walk around the actual planet. with this could be a feature where you could build like trees/buildings and such. sort of like colonizing.

[Dan Dixon]

Totally the right place for this kind of discussion.
My only critique would be that the topic subject is pretty vague, which is a common criticism of mine.

It's good idea, but sounds pretty involved to implement.

Care to expand on how you would want this to work in a sandbox environment?
How would you expect the spaceship controls to work?

[wyattman854]

I feel like maybe you could be focused on a planet, and then press like a "launch from" button. After that, you would be transported to the spacecraft and use like, WASD controls to move the craft and then the mouse to rotate the camera and such.

As for actually landing on a planet. i feel like once you got close enough to another planet (such as in its "orbit" and whatnot) a button or option could come up to be able to begin a landing sequence. after that, a little spaceguy comes out, and you can traverse the planet (again perhaps with WASD). I know all of this DOES sound involved, i just thought it would be pretty cool.

thank you for responding and listening to my crazy idea. xD

[Dan Dixon]

It's not crazy at all, but it is complicated.

As with most ideas for new features, they starts to get really complicated when you break it down and think about how it would be implemented, how each part would work, and how they would work along side all the existing features.

I agree it would be totally cool.

[wyattman854]

it would be. maybe someday, who knows?

isnt there a sort of landing feature already implemented? i've heard of it once or twice but cant seem to find it 

[Chaotic Cow]

Something like the "Space Engine"?

The game does require a fairly powerful computer, as most everything is procedural.

If you want to check it out yourself here is a thread on Facepunch on how to install it.

http://www.facepunch.com/threads/1075794-Space-Engine-Procedural-Universe-Simulator




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69z7gA-X_3I

[atomic7732]

I'd really like to the the spacecraft part of it, be able to have an object that you can control and go in different directions, obviously with gravity and stuff. Fly by planets and go into orbit, simply by rotating your craft and choosing a burn time or just hitting a certain button or key, and settable strength of the burn. You could do EVERYTHING with just: rotating attitude and altittude, and firing at a settable strength. That would be a GREAT start to wyattman854's idea.

[Bla]

I like the idea, but I don't think landing on a planet will be that exciting when the textures are so low resolution that they only really look like something from space. Also, the bodies seem to have edges because they're 3D models. If the planets could be made completely spherical (and not just be 3D models with more polygons, as it would just slow down the simulation and never be perfect anyways), this feature would be more exciting I think. And maybe with some sort of "pixel fractalizer" which makes the terrain look detailed at all zoom levels, even though the zooms beyond that wouldn't have anything to do with the real texture. If that's even possible.

[wyattman854]

I'd really like to the the spacecraft part of it, be able to have an object that you can control and go in different directions, obviously with gravity and stuff. Fly by planets and go into orbit, simply by rotating your craft and choosing a burn time or just hitting a certain button or key, and settable strength of the burn. You could do EVERYTHING with just: rotating attitude and altittude, and firing at a settable strength. That would be a GREAT start to wyattman854's idea.

I agree, Dan. This would be a great addition to universe sandbox in general!   

[Neon]

What you want is Orbiter. It's the best one I've seen. It's
a complete space simulation, however it's practically limited
to the solar system. It has massive number of addons and
mods.

Even though it's just the solar system (you can go further) it
works exactly the same as real current ships operate. In other
words, you will need to have some understanding of orbital
mechanics, even a basic understanding will help. Getting around
is not as easy as movies make you think, it's quite difficult. However
it's so satisfying to leave the earth, setup a nice orbit, and a good
ejection burn to go to Mars, and aim to aerobrake in the Mars atmosphere,
and pull it off just as you wanted. Definitely for the serious space nut,
and those who want to know more. Very satisfying experience.

Google Orbiter n u'll find it.

Another is Celestia, though it doesn't have the detail of Orbiter,
it does allow full exploration of the galaxy, has masses of addons,
and allows you to travel at any speed, including light speed or higher.
One thing I learned from it was in the scale of even the solar system,
Light speed is rather slow. Using it to just get to the nearest star takes
ages, probably days (I usually gave up n hit multiple levels of light speed. lol

Google Celestia for that. You can't land on planets though.

[void]

I don't think this fits the purpose of Universe Sandbox. You should look into "Infinity: The Quest for Earth" instead, an upcoming space MMO game (still in heavy development but looks very promising).

Pre-Alpha Tech Demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5toQqcxcNc

http://infinity-universe.com/Infinity/index.php

[Flynn]

Yep, Infinity looks awesome and I've been following it for absolutely ages now. He's got a Twitter account now so you can hear more frequent updates.

I've also played around with Space Engine but it was quite laggy