| Space Build Download |
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Build spaceships and land on distant worlds, perhaps building settlements or space stations. It comes with one demo map which includes all of the near-solar terrestrial planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth(and Moon), Mars(and moons.) Gravity only applies when standing on a planet, and the Moon has less than half normal gravity. Mercury is so close to the sun that you will receive burning damage if you do not find shade quickly. It is difficult to build due to the planet's instability causing frequent tremors. Venus has such a heavy atmosphere that you will be instantly crushed if you venture onto the surface without a Life Support System(Air Exchanger) to stabilize your atmospheric pressure. Both Earth and Mars have regular day and night cycles, though Earth's atmosphere is so thick that you cannot see anything in space during the daytime, while on Mars you can faintly see the outline of objects and other planets in the ruddy daytime atmospheric haze.
Using the Life Support Addon will render space and all planets but our habitat Earth as air-free. You will need to bring your own air supply if you intend to leave Earth's atmosphere. The benefit of a Life Support System is that you will then be able to survive on Venus, which would otherwise be completely inaccessible.. Every planet has a different temperature for direct sunlight and shade, the density of the atmosphere also affects how quickly your suit systems get depleted and how fast you get chilled or burned to death.
Further installments are planned to include the Gas Giants, and an Astroid Belt, but they will have to be in separate maps to prevent Source from getting overwhelmed... At any rate, I'm also working on instructions on how to make your own SpaceBuild maps to take advantage of the multi-environmental system demonstrated by the map. In the meantime, enjoy the demo!
Technical Details
This is a GameMode Script which defines planetary domains via data objects placed by mappers and manages effects on entities according to environments. For a deeper Role-Playing experience the Life Support Addon is recommended.
The premise is grand in scale yet relatively simple to use. Since the Source Engine prefers to have players standing upright(obviating a truly spherical planet layout) I had the idea to surround displacement map terrain with illusionary spheres. This created self-contained environments which, although harsh in visual transition, were ideal to immerse players in the kind of role-play they had intensely desired for quite some time. With the Life Support Addon installed, there is a sense of peril in exploring new worlds, as inevitable doom surely awaits the unprepared adventurer.
The evnrionmental parameters are: Temperature, Pressure, Toxicity ,Solar Radiation and Geological Instability. Each environment demands a unique approach, as the effects also change the behavior of equipment. For example, Wind Generators would produce no output on Mercury while Solar Panels would produce large quantities. Architecture would have to be fully enclosed to prevent occupants from receiving sun damage and construction would have to be done carefully as frequent tremors would upset the alignment of tools and props.
| Demo Video |
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