Robot Simulator – Domo arigato Mr. Roboto?

This time around I'm gonna review one of those very special Simulators. Yeah, strange things exist but this software could be quite usefull for you. LadsGents, get to know about Robot Simulator.

(I like to move move it, you like to: MOVE IT!)

Why crashtest bots in real life?
I once had RC stuff like helicopters and RC cars but I selled them because I knew if I would try to steer those things, they would crash the hard way. The only thing I was able to fly was a pair of robo-birds and they got attacked by cats and dogs. You guess it, in a video game such problems don't even exist and in my opinion the respawn part is the best thing at it. And yeah, the industry also does it that way, using their highly advanced Simulation environments before testing things in reality.

"It's a game". No, it's not, but it's fun + it's educational
This game comes from the developer of the almost unkown but very good Vehicle Simulator and the Virtual Sailor. It is like a Sandbox for your robotics projects. You can build robots, add code and test the whole thing within a scenery of choice. The physics engine acts like real stuff. The DirectX 9 delivers proper graphics and the integrated voice-speech is fun, too. A good Joystick support is also part of the whole thing.

Two choices: Control the robot or make it run artifical
You will need a basic knowledge of the programming language BASIC but you don't have to know much since there are many sliders and options on screen that allow a simple and fast control over the robots. Every axis can be adjusted by the user. On the other hand you can plot courses and create a semi intelligent bots that do what you want them to.

Robot types
Different types of robots are included along with components and tutorials. Those given robots are big fun. You can play with a desktop size rocket, a car that has laser, a tank like moving bot, a LED board of even a robotic spider.

Many possibilities

• You could create your own drones and toys.
• You could create a Tele Presence system like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory.
• You could create a kitchen service buttler bot.
• Unfortunately, the creation of FemBots seems to be impossible.

Summary
This game is not for free but you can use the base version with only a little of limitations. The full version can be ordered for 20 bucks. I recommend to download the Demo first. This way you could sneak into it and play around and in best case it wont be boring (depends on you). I still need to learn more about this Sim but one thing is for sure: It's better to test things inside a virtual environment.


Disclaimer: Do not create super intelligent robots, please. Scientists believe that one day robots will be more advanced than humans so let's just avoid the Matrix effect. Speaking of such, it would be wise to not introduce this Simulator to the Cleverbot because his mood is often in a bad condition and he prefers to get mad at people instead of having a good conversation. Hehe, just kidding, at least a bit. ;)

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. 

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!

Vehicle Simulator – The Aero-Nautical one

Based on the wonderful Sailing Simulator and on Micro flight Simulator this is an all grounds Simulator with excellent dynamics. 

Vehicles, vehicles ...and surroundings:
The weather conditions can be adjusted at a maximum of detail, e.g. wind speed, wind direction, wave height, wave length, water level, ground level, turbulences and so on. Even the water colour can be set or something like adding rain and thunder. Unlike other Sims the cockpit features straight click-at-it action which means you can steer the navigation wheel or control the sails. Some powerfull devices like GPS, Radar, Depth scanner or for planes a HUD can be monitored. All visualized by proper gadgets and overlay cockpit panels. Theres also a wind stroke view aimed to help sailors or pilots with navigation depending on the weather.

No matter what you like to drive, fly or dive there are lots of Mods available as free downloads, be it luxury yachts, gigaliner ships, sailing boats, planes, gliders, hang gliders, helicopters, cars, trucks, a flying saucer and guess what – even more whatevers. By the way: It's the perfect submarine game plattform. Ever wanted to make your very own car? It has it's own vehicle design editor allowing you to create fancy "whatevers". Or you may just try one vehicle after another. In case you like to be a Captain, a Pilot or just a Driver, you have the tricky choice of variety. A combat simulator and AI scripts round the whole thing up.

The GFX and engine are state of the art (compared to other Simulators). Some would say the overall look is deprecated but once you see the real time shadow casting effects ingame you will forget about any bad screenshot + everything can be modded speaking of trees or bees, buildings and sceneries. There are animals around you, the base installation even includes a cat, same goes for dolphins (this blogs insider jocke number one) ;) And just in case, if theres a need for a real living asset you can start a Multiplayer session, do a boat race, fly modern jets togheter, yep, you name it! Practise makes a pro – it's educational!

More info here:
http://hangsim.com/vsf/index.php

Add-on gallery here:
http://library.qualitysimulations.com/library.php

This game has a price but it's worth every dimme and it's not expensive at all. I say: Strong community, quality Add-ons, accurate simulation. Let 'em all know!

A list of my favorite Add-ons to come soon. I only played the demo yet but soon I will be able to present my first Mod for this game. It will be a Sci-fi supersonic sub. I'm gonna talk about reality Vs. fantasy on another post. Vehicle Simulator allows both things.

Aquanox 2 – A forgotten piece of art

This is worth another entry in the Hall of Fame of great Simulator like games even it was more a Sub-Opera: Aquanox 2 Revelation and The Angel's Tears. A epic liniar story line driven gameplay, personal submarines, Steampunk, the deep sea scenario of a nuked future and hunting forgotten treasures. What else does a Nerd want to play? 

It was a Deepsea Simulator, no doubt! Casual mode could be turned off delivering adjustable and incredibly tricky handling. But lifes a #§%! and the game studio behind it imploded because of lack of interesting and because most people were playing mainstream stuff. It might also be because the selling chain wasn't organized well so non-european people didn't even heard of it.

Neopolis, I can't forget that city near Europe deep down below miles of water. It's like Georgia on my mind. And then there was the latin america deep sea, I met Angelina there, we survived and felt in love but unfornutaly, those others, it's without any words. That asian girl was funny, and that afro dude called Stoney, he is the best. I owned the Drake Industries Carpenter XXL Sub and drove the Salty Dog, what a ugly piece of sub (comparable to today's submarines). Later I managed to dive with an organic stealth batman's sub like ship, uuuhh wow. In the end I found something which created a longterm vision of a "Whatever Hall" without spoiling too much. I'm gonna feature the "Whatever Hall" in some future post related to something I call the "Backup". Meeting lots of Cyberpunk characters I had fun talking to them because beside the mission part there was time to "2D walk across your ship" and since the characters moved from here to there, you had to find 'em. Besides that you could do the basic things, upgrading your subs with some offensive and defensive hardpoints. Besides blowing stuff up with several types of weapons you could raise your cargo space, add turrent command software, power generators, armor plating, Buzzer flares, noise reduction, speed boosters, a fixer and so on. The level design was for it's time beyond imagination with lots of vegetation, deep sea vulcanos, thrilling ambients, ancient cities and epic places to park at. The game engine was made by massive development. The all over look and feel including the design was epic and well done like a movie. This game is still in stores but I don't know if the credits ever reach it's creators.

What is the message of this post?

Please let me make something clear. Nowadays theres no Submarine Sim with state of the art GFX and Engine available, none at all my friends! Besides Silent Hunter and only a few other examples Aquanox 2 or it's prequel "Schleichfahrt" were the ones taking care of unterwater fun. And remember, Silent Hunter is also a sunken project and no doubt, other games on topic didn't even appear well so Submarine games were and still are a niche.

SimTech2K must have played on all grounds:
After beeing a Sci-fi fan looking up at spaceships, playing dozens of space related games I once realized... "hey, deepsea is like space, too, I wanna hopp into a sub". But just like they say in spanish: ¿y duespues? "and then?". What happens now!? I ask this for real now that Star Citizen is leading the race into the new space age! Some time ago while researching the topic deepsea Sims I found an ambitious CryEngine3 project on the CryDev Forums. However I couldn't manage to re-find this project. Why is that? Was it bad re-research skills or did this project also sunk already? I also heard of a community project trying to recreate Aquanox but with slow like no progress. I really want to play a Submarine game with the look of Steampunk but as you might know, I'll get serious on shapes and engineering details + I want good visuals and a powerfull game engine. Now give me that dude, I'll appreciate, all my support!

Count me in for a Kickstarter or Indigogo crowdfunding action – feel free to contact me on this topic, I might have lots of things to add!

Battlestar Galactica Diaspora – The trickiest game to play! Something for the Hall of Fame of game industry

This time around I would like to tell you about another masterpiece of Open Source software power. Introducing Diaspora, a dream that came true!

Created not so long ago but with years of development it features 99% real space flight Physics with the aim to recreate the handling + look and feel showed in the award winning TV series Battlestar Galactica. That's why the developers just claim that this is no real physics Simulator, only a BSG Simulator (strike, we all agree). Other than that it does act like a true space Sim. Believe me, what the guys from Hardlight Productions created is truly one of the best games ever saw the light of the day (if not the best).
It wants to combine old BSG with new BSG elements so theres plenty of ships for you to play with. And in multiplayer chat messages can set to be voice-speech (big fun because it's a computer voice talking).

Sit inside a Colonial Viper MK VII or how about a Cylon Raider (an organic ship and you will see it's blood veins for example). The ships are very exclusive, not based on random BSG mods made entirely from scratch and they designed new ships you never saw before (this way they did a favour to BSG). The Engine used to make this dream of a game come true is based on FreeSpace2 which wasn't a big seller (shame on all of us, the game studio behind it got broke long long time ago). But the original developers saw the power of their engine and granted access for further improvements. The graphics and detail level are state of the art looking awesome even the former FreeSpace2 engine is an old sailor (FS2, existing since more than ten years). I recommend flying with the so called Glide-Mode which makes the game act like a hardcore Space Flight Simulator. You need lots of training to be able to manage a dogfight. Limited ammo makes you feel tiny. The ambient is dark and cold. I never saw a game that delivered that experience!

The storyline of the campaign mission set is epic, BSG fans gonna love the thrilling end. Spoiler: it's all about fate. It features voice speech briefings and great cut scenes, the music is great, too. It has TrackIR support. The Multiplayer part is the biggest fun – I call this the most tricky game to play ever! After a ten minutes online session I end having an epileptic seizure (or at least it feels like that). Said with others words: It's breathtaking, it's sick, only skilled gamers gonna enjoy, you can't be a n00b pilot on this, it ain't your average game! ;)

The community behind it is strong, more and more mods appear, many missions and maps are in the making. A powerfull mission editor is included. A lot of ships known from the game Battlestar Galactica Online have it's origin from one of Diaspora's lead artists. This game is about quality.

Five stars rating on this! Get it here for free while it's hot:
http://diaspora.hard-light.net

Coming soon: My first Mod pre-release for this game, an fps intensive map for skilled manuevers (WIP). 

Note: It ain't easy to find people in the Multiplayer mode. That's properly because only a few of you even know about this game. It's worth it, let's play it togheter – go spread the word! 

BTW: I loved FreeSpace2 the game. It was the most exciting childhood game I ever played and it had the so far unseen most epic ending even it was sad and almost made me cry (the Carrier beeing the players home just blows up and meanwhile, in real life, the game studio called "Volition. Inc." is no more).

Simulating engineering: A toolset for aircraft designers

Sumo + Scope = Powerfull Open Source Software!

Sumo stands for "Surface Modeler". It can help rapidly create aircraft geometries and provides an automaic surface mesh generation. It's like WYSIWYG, just drag parts to shape things. All parts of a plane are featured and can be modified. Editing parts is possible in a CAD-2D view or as 3D view. Even it's easy to learn and intuitive to use the origins of this software reach back to a serious Swedisch Aeronautics Research Project called DirSim. The European Union project SimSAC sponsored further develoments.

Along with the included visualization tool called Scope it is a great problem solver, stress testing simulator and a true plane designers tool. I'm still just playing around with it a bit – this is the way I learn things (with patience). If I ever would design a plane, I would use this tools to benchmark it!

Read more about it here + you can download it for free:
http://larosterna.com

Rigs of Rods – a class of it's own!

Today I would like to introduce you to Rigs of Rods – a highly sophisticated vehicle Simulator featuring awesome Soft Body Physics and real time processing. It is the first Open Source attempt of this type and the results are breathtaking beeing very accurate. Buoyancy, the blade element theory, distribution, construction, and/or suspension. Those are the things making you believe that you actually sit in that virtual vehicle of choice. Also theres a Multiplayer mode, try to beat the top time of another player racing over a complicated surface. Or you might just like to share your crane handling skills with a dude. Rigs of Rods is made for that – Casual players wont understand.

Currently the development tends to be within the CryEngine3 which can handle Physics way more effective than the original Rigs of Rods Engine could. Of course the CryTek GFX will make it look better but even with some lowpoly Add-Ons it's fun to play now. I would make this game an official ESL (Electronic Sports League) candidate. Take my vote!

The community behind Rigs of Rods is creating something different. Neither the vehicles, the types of machines or the intend of this game are common to most people. Exclusive rides and professional heavy weight machines make this game a perfect education plattfom. Theres something comparable to the Orbiter Space Flight Simulator – Rigs of Rods is another extreme tricky to play game! This is truly a fun Simulator for different types of folks. It allows real handling of any type of vehicle, e.g. cars, trucks, lifts, boats, submarines, planes, trains, bikes, hotrods, misc objects – almost everything except spaceships (so far). Start your motor, shift the gear, drive over a stone a feel the deformation of your car. It's enough to just use a Monster Truck to jump over a set of parking cars and watch the show while things below get stomped down. The other experience is to drive a 4x4 over bumpy grounds. The scenarios couldn't be other to the exclusive Rods part – you can drive your "whatever's" at very exclusive locations. It's a tribute to flexibility! This game has so much style! It welcomes modding and right now offers over 2000 downloadable Mods.

I will list my favorite ones soon...!

Find out more at and take a look at it's repository to pick some Rods:

http://www.rigsofrods.com

The latest release version is 0.38.67 downloadable at:
http://download.rigsofrods.com/
Installation of Add-Ons is pretty simple but keep in mind, there are two folders – one game folder and one individualization folder (find the second one, usually under C:\Users\XY\Documents and Settings\Rigs of Rods. Place your Rods into that folder). On Windows 7 the game may only run with admistrational rights, right click admin open the RoR.exe to get things working. Note: Full HD resolution is not supported yet, those of you gonna have to play with two black strips just like me. 

Coming soon: My screenshots of cool rides inside Rigs of Rods plus some fail compilation (me driving like craizy) and some good manuevers I managed to handle.

Be a star citizen!

The first triple A game with 4K (CryEngine3) resolution beeing totaly crowdfunded + currently breaking all records + is getting beyond all expectations featuring top designers, real scale objects, true flight physics, toilets and even beans, yes beans!!

The vid below presents the Hornet but it's just one of dozens spaceships that will be available:

I would like to fly the Retaliator but they should give it a name change since I would be more a trader like player:

For more info on Star Citizen visit:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com

Never heard of Chris Roberts? Ever played Elite, one of the first epic games for PC? Or this ...check out Wing Commander Saga and discover the reason for this guys success story. It's a free game, a tribute based on the FreeSpace2 Engine, totaly epic:
www.wcsaga.com