WIP UNIVERSAL CARGO BOX

WIP WIP WIP UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Features:
– Note: the texture part is just for fun, no real labels so far but I provided "room" for them. Theres also space for a logo and the "funny wrong placed QR-Code". Also misses some serious scratches
– The usual OLED-Screen (will run a texture of "Linux on steroids"). The Xpad2 is gone (maybe a UMMU will hold it in his hands)
– The red LED-backgrounded 'drag-slide-to-open' mechanism
– Input / Output vents
– The retro control module (now with USB-Connector and XY-Hardware-Slot) + even with some lil' LED system status indicators
– Covered modules (8 possible): Coolant, Electronics, Refrigerator, Pressurizer, whatever (could also count as extra cargo space, e.g. just in case)
– Case study as eye-candy: Somebody forgot to put a module cover back again (might be part of a random box out of +200 planned cargos with little individualization gimmicks)
– The usefull 'LED-Sheeter' also likes to be part of it
– Has Handles, oh yeah baby – Fork lift bottom access
– Space Fork connectors (4 for now, maybe more will be added)
– LED light stripes on each side help locate the box
– The body of the box is made to be sturdy to avoid collision with the soft-parts (but so far it's only plastic)
– At the back: Coolant for integrated computation + old fashion coolant vent
– A little solar collector
– A Gesture Detection Sensor (for the Touchpad)
– Invisible but included: Ambient light sensor, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and duno what
– Other things might be added, too

Preview: WIP MagShield + a little review

Flight log: Critical radiation bombardment | Test pilot: d2k "visualdude"
Classified report | For your eyes only | MagShield Initiative 

Heres what the cam drone recorded:

I did not concentrate on my job, had only a couple of seconds left or I would have been fried. I guess space pioneer's have a dangerous job. I quickly played with the setup to lower the magnetic bubble to a maximum of 400 ms/Av because I started to feel dizzy. Then it happened – the Pegasus effect was visible to the blank eye [right after I had to find myself sitting inside some 70's optical colour illusion with over 1200 ms/Av]. I survived only by luck, I'm not used to fly the Delta Glider, neither to press it's buttons. nd now the magnetic fields values are nominal and as expected. I hope I soon can use one of my private ships to test the XXL MagShield module.

RisingFury and Loru, the two project managers, did outstanding work. The shields cover the whole ship from radiation. I cant describe my feelings, it looks so relaxing when keeping in mind space travel can be called save. The future of space colonization is awating us. No more hidding underground, behind stone or inches of plump platings.

--- End of message ---

Note: This is a WIP, a proof of concept. I only did the Texture file that creates this effect! This has only little do to with non-sci-fi shields but the colourplay reflects are those you could see when using it in reality. 

FUTURAMA Take 3 [Gamma]

See also:

Futurama Take two
Futurama Take 1

The Flight of the Navigator – The hottest ship in store!

What a movie, awesome how it reflects a little boys dreams. 

Remember this one? I can't forget that ship, decades later it's the still the hottest one around. It has been my biggest inspiration source ever – the shiny chrome semi-liquid shape shifting hull, what more should I say!? Rewatching this movie as a grown up uncovers a lot of ununderstood turns in the storyline. I found out that the ships AI Computer is evil and that it's not the kids friend at all. I found out that the ship comes from some dark side and is trying to make Anakin Skywalker out of him. Anyway, Hollywood, if you ever want to make me feel like a kid again, do a revival of this merchandise but keep the ship as it is (or update it a little, I say slightly to be even more awesome). Theres not many look alike Sci-fi ship designs around, trust me, only one or two or three. This one is the KING!

Illustration (could have been me)

Pick me up, handsome!

Yeah, that would be my vehicle of choice:

wheres my keys? (made by circuit5389.deviantart.com)

See, even it has futuristic look it's retro, just like:

It's a classic!

Random Inspiration: Inside the ISS at night

Inside the International Space Station. Looks very steampunk IMO.

WIP ShieldBox / MakerBox / UniBox

I just need a place to upload this image so I can link it. What you can't see yet is the handles for opening of the box. These are part of the mesh I use, below is just the texture.

Anyway, heres a little brief description:
Shielded from the inside against cosmic rays / misc radiation / EMP / sun flares. Also withstanding extreme high and low temperatures. Pressurized and unpressurized, depending on the content.

– wears a shield grid (a.k.a. Faraday cage).
– has a OLED-Screen.
– the enteriy box tries to imitate a composite material look (unfornutaly,you can't really see it)
– the Xpad2 with lefty mini-joystick and usb/whatever (sorry FoodDivPack users, you run the Xpad1 for now).
– some retro control module as seen with FoodDivPack.
– one guidance text block.
– a funny wrong aslope QR-Code sticker.

                                                                  V 1.2:

            

                                V 1.1 ingame (sneak):

Replicator-X Early-WIP:

Draft Universal-Cargo-Box-1 (inspired by STO Lock Box):

^WIP 2D, WIP 3D>

Contains many bugs, under constuction. I'm not happy with couple of details!

Wing Commander Saga – The LOLCATS strike back! Most epic game ever!

A true Hall of Fame entry:
The LOLCATS strike back! The Most epic game ever: Wing Commander Saga!



Cat's are fun: A Cat on the ISS would be the most ever clicked YouTube video I guess.
I don't know how, but cat's somehow appeared in space, they call themselves Kilrathi now.
And they evolved to be lovely monsters. Yep and we and them became equal so watch it, they fly spaceships. BTW: The cute angry cat on the left actually ain't a Kilrah (those look more like tigers).


Oh yeah, so linear story based gameplay can be big fun, entertaining and thrilling. It's about atmosphere and you can feel it even theres no atmosphere in the vast of space. The storyline is like this: A Squadron, Carriers that house you, lot's of cat's everywhere. They call us furless freaks (maybe because we freaked out on funny cat-vids, yeah no doubt). They have CapShips / BigShips and lot's or medium and catsize support crafts. They fight hard but they don't risk too much. They entirely blame your flight skills (at least till right before you finished all campaign missions) + they hit hard.

The seven lifes thing works for cat's even in space, be it as if you need to restart a certain mission or because they can eject their ship just like you could. You pathetic descendant of monkeys! ...that's one of the more gentle things they said to me. Since they really make you want to find arguments (because of their flight skills or what they say) you can enjoy listening to what your taff wing mates have to counter. Fly in groups of 8 or more or do a recon mission with only one wingman. Play all those "I always wanted to" things. De-stabilize the Kilrathi presence at different sectors of space, get them away from any resources, aim for their Carriers and whatever (try damage it part by part, if they let you).

Having a great time:
Do two atmospheric flights, safe people, safe your Carriers. Encounter a loyal Monarchy of cat's following their Kings / independant leaders and say miaow to many high society cat's. A couple of the interesting stories and sceneries know from the various Wing Commander releases await you behind the ingame part where you have to stand them while you and they play hide and seek. This is no old-to-new: It has been made from A-Z for it's pilots. This also means the storyline introduces you the the world of Wing Commander. It's a tribute to Chris Robert's Wing Commander (which many of you might played before as it was the first top seller PC games, had movies and merchandising decades ago). WC Saga is made by fans for fans. Unlike Battlestar Galactica Diaspora – which also is a very epic game based on the FreeSpace2 Engine – Wing Commander Saga feels a bit more comfortable. I recommend flying only with "Glide Mode ON" (adds fun and simulator charecteristics). Meet famous cat's (you will get to know them). Have a little dogfight, the cat's have awesome ships (absolutely). Now they don't just look frightening sweet – unfortunately they are your target's (oh behave, cute cat's) . You will experience stunning briefing sequences, great music, voice-speech and radio-comms. the AI's will become your friends. Even the graphics are not state of the art the visuals have been all over raised to the maximum possible that the FS2 engine can master! If you haven't played it yet, trust me, everybody is saying this is trully thrilling and totally entertaining.

One or two pictures:

Download it here for free – have some fun:
http://wcsaga.com

Notes:
– Play it or never even think of calling it wack (it's Open Source, it was meant for something)
– This ain't a Multiplayer but they're working on such a thing at the moment
– I can't wait till we can pilot the cat's ships ourselves. They're on it, too!


This entry has been written by Simulator Miaow, meet her, she is here on this blog (on the right side), she wants to play a bit and she is a cute non-monster cat. 

Off-Topic: The most sophisticated Billard Multiplayer-Browsergame around (with 3D graphics)

Sometimes I go play billard with the local billard club guys. With one of them I play some online Billard. I can say, unless this ain't the "Billard Simulator" it matches a real Billard simulation (four stars rating).
The physics are very accurate for a browser game. Unlike other Billard Browsergames it's 3D environment is the only one around, very unique I guess. It can even harm your FPS so let's say it has good graphics. Every time I login it's hard to be afk, the match invitations appear one after another, a crowded place. This game now received my 5 Stars rating, it levelled up by one because recently I've been able to play it like real Billard, it simulates perfectly!

Features:
– has Leagues and Championships
– strong community (hundrets of players online, no matter what the clock says)
– lots of pro-level players
– player profiles (Gender, registration date, you can even be visible with your own image [facebook based login] or without it by regular login)
– Player ratings (current rank, matches counter, wins/looses, ratio wins/looses)
– Skill indicator / Current Reputation
– Chat system
– Top players list
– many different Rooms
– has an observer mode
– Bar/Lounge background (can be activited to enhance visuals)
– Game preferences (a couple things can be set)
– a Forum + a help function

Disciplines:
– Blackball Pool
– 8-Ball Pool
– 9-Ball Pool
– 14/1e
– Bank Pool
– Snooker
– Quick Snooker
– Snokker Lite
– Power Snooker
– Sinuca

Notes:
– After you added / started it it's way more comfortable to select the game type
– It needs a registration but it's a really good multiplayer game
– In you want to keep your ranking you should play this on the regular basis because if not your Highscore will be resetted
– Works with all major browsers, especially with Google Chrome (as an App)
– You need the Java Plug-In in order to play it (but most PC's have it)

You can play it here:
http://www.flyordie.com/pool


If you wanna know about serious pro-level Simulators explore this blog! SimTech2k ain't about agrar simulation and stuff. 

FUTURAMA Take two

Thanks to: http://www.corandal.com/flowsnake/hypnofrog.html for Hypnofrog

Food Diversity Pack (70+ food containers for transportation and consumation plus 10 Xtras) – UCGO Cargo-Box RFB MkIII

This is a little developement log about a series of Cargos, some grand set of foods commodities.
Status: Released (V1.1)

A matter of taste – Take your favorite foods with you, have 'em all on board:
Introducing the refrigerated Box MkIII – Invented by Sunlight Products, packaged with the help of unihealth Corporation and UCGO. This cargos are consumable and can be mounted onto an Arrow Freighter.
The new medium size UCGO standard for refrigerated goods based on the newest UCGO cargo box made by DanSteph's, Pappy's and wall's Addon-on OrcusPatera (a thousand thanks, you made the RFB MkIII possible)! Also special thanks to Dr. Martin Schweiger!

The mighty Refrigerator Box (RFB) MkIII "Food Diversity Pack". 
What I tried to do was to copy an existing container box mesh (Credits to DanSteph, awesome work). I simply modified the existing textures to add some modules (fictional hardware) needed to transport fresh foods. Any 3D on the surface texture is a 2D cheat. I tried a bit to placed light sources realisticly onto the textures.

The V3 release will feature a general Bump-Map.

Here some authors fiction (my little story behind it):
Introducing the unihealth and sun products worlds finest quality selection goods joint venture. A quote of CEO d2k mentions: "Working with those all new standardized medium size cargo containers was a huge step forward. People gonna like these high tech boxes and they gonna love what's inside. The finest, the most divers, variaty is the claim giving lots of flavours – because it's a matter of taste, very specific and individual. Since we think having a good meal, not just space food – is a luxury good out there, the brandnew RFB MkIII is taking care of important things. Keeping good foods safe and cold. Bon appetit."




About V1.1:
– added a scenario:
(filled food arrow over afrika)
– Cargos are now visible
(with Arrow's bridge cargo console)
– Cargo info display text length
(has been optimized for readability
– fixed issue with subfolder
(boxes weren't accessible in scenario editor)

About V1: 
– almost done with the Add-On
– 82 foods cargo items (82 in total)



V1.1 Release Pack contains lots:

Foods Pack alpha: Alcohol Mix, Algas Grits, Aroma/Flavours, Beans Mix, Berries Mix, Cakes, Candy Mix, Cereals Mix, Cheese Mix, Chocolates, Cookies-N-Cream, Corn Mix, Curry/Masala, Desserts, Dried Fruits, Egg Products, Food Oil, Fruits Mix, German Beer, Honey Mix, Humus/Falafel, Jelly Jars, Lentils Mix, Meat Mix, Milk Products, Mushrooms, Nuts Mix, Organic Soy, Parfait Mix, Pasta Mix, Potatoes, Sugar, Rice Mix, Pure Juices, Salsas, Salt-N-Peppa, Seafood, Snack Mix, Softdrinks (Minerals), Space Food, Spices Mix, Survival Pack, Milk & Tea, Vegetables, Weeds, Wheats Mix.




Meals Selection alpha: 
– African Meals Selection
– Arabic Meals Selection
– Brazilian Meals Selection
– British Meals Selection
– Chinese Meals Selection
– European top 10 Meals Selection
– Fastfood Meals Selection
– French Meals Selection
– German Meals Selection
– Italian Meals Selection
– Japanese Meals Selection
– Korean Meals Selection
– Kosher Meals Selection
– Lebanese Meals Selection
– Mexican Meals Selection
– Pacific Meals Selection
– Spanish Meals Selection
– Thai Meals Selection
– Vietnamese Meals Selection













Xtras alpha:
– Cookware
– Dinner Set
– Flowers
– Food Cions
– Food Seeds
– Gardener Tools
– Harvest Drones
– Herbals Mix
– Minerals
– Organic Dung
– Plants,
– Proteins
– Robotic Bees
– Non-organic Fertilizer
– Hearth Furnace.









General Design Features:
– Consumable contents: +60 Food Goods, +10 Meal Selections, +10 non-food helper goods)
– Re-useability: Change the transparent sheet telling what's inside, the LED stripes make it look like a screen
– QR scan code is on the sheet, too (the box also has RFID, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and whatever but this ain't visible)
– Wears the logo "Sunlight Products" (Logistics company) and "Packaged by unihealth Corporation" (engraved box manufacturer)
– The most sturdy case system by UCGO (keeps your food safe)
– Wears a maintenance plug and hardware access plate along with some guidance letters
– Modified opening guidance mark instead of text label  "Open with key", only a symbol but you could lock it by adding some password with the...
– Docked Xpad (included for free with all shiped RFB MkIII, powered by UniGadget)
– Cargo temperature, battery level, weight information: Lots of data can viewed on the Xpad
– Has a "just in case" monochrome retro device control module
– Fill your Arrow cargo inventory list entirely (finaly without duplicating things)
– A detailed content description (see what's inside each box)

Notes:
Contains way too much things but maybe one or another thing is missing. Some are non-food, Some are national meals, some are technology, some are assets.

This is my first Orbiter Add-on. The reason why I made it is that I think you should transport more diversity (now let's beginn with food). I always wanted to have tons of food on my spaceship (where else). Enjoy – Bon appetit and happy trading! 

Download:
Food Diversity Pack V1,1




Installation:
1. Download and unpack into Orbiter's root folder.
2. add cargos to Arrow Freighter with the cockpit console or...
3. add cargos with scenerio editor (you will find them under "UCGO/Cargos/Food Pack").

Known bugs:
– only 50+ instead of 82 items appear on the arrow's cargo console (because of a limitation).


Release notes:
Passed proof of concept, is still WIP but already available for preview download (containing 82 cargos):







Long stories:
I was always one of those guys asking for background assets in games, movies, whatever. I have some work experience with package and product design for advertisers but ever since I played X3 and saw my first gigantic item tree I wondered how to box things because the cargos just had the same standard mesh for almost every item. So my idea was from that time on, how they could look standard and be individual at the same time. For the crowdfunded game Infinity I did some concepts but unfortunately it wont be of use since the current item trees amount of possible entries is way to low to feature rice or beans (at least for now). Heres how my concept sketches looked (copyright Infinity – The Quest for Earth):

[-  can be stacked and it can do something I call "stacked containment transfer", e.g. for making your cereals mix  -]

[-  squeesh it, it's a soft body package  -]

[- for humans and water infuser systems: drink it yourself or plug it into a life support system or machine coolant. Available in three sizes [only one size is shown here at the moment, need to search image file on my PC -]

[- I played with this idea some time ago, it serves what it has inside, seperated by levels hover over the sensor to open a stack -]

Different engines, different specs:
The decision on the right game engine is important. You might wanna do this or that with your newly created assets. Orbiter Space Flight Sim allows you to manufacture boxes, to manage them, to deliver boxes, to use boxes, to skin boxes. That was a best case decision and another reason why Orbiter ain't no Space Sim at all, it's a universal Sim! Other Sims might be better at other things. Orbiter is like Elite (like both of 'em, the Elite game and the gaming Elite). The power of open source becomes visual when we start guessing on how many cargo container concepts are out there. Speaking only of Orbiter, dozens. This time with my RFB MkIII container, I used the development based on others ideas, they sure did some research before me as the the results look realistic (speaking of the graphical visualization and the idea behind it). This is just 2D, it's just a modification, somebody granted permission. What a great thing open source and shared efforts is / are, ain't that true? :D

Thanks a billion times for the strong support the Orbiter Forum community gave me on this one. The next Cargo project will be the "Shielded Cargo Box High-Tech Pack", currently brainstorming possibly cargo contents. 

Greetings
SimTech2K

BTW: Heres my review of Orbiter Space Flight Simulator:
Orbiter Space Flight Simulator – The one and only!