Orbital Navigation AI Sim Game Ideas

Stub. Tracking notes for a game idea. AI controller for a simulated rocket

Neural/AI of some kind, train AI to efficiently navigate the system

• learn to navigate a system efficiently

AI Goals/Metrics

• Take off from and land (gently) at ports
• Conserve fuel
• Conserve time
• Conserve ship integrity / maintenance cost
• Don't crash
• Don't break down

System

• Zoom in/out
• Pan around
• Speed Dial (Days in game / Seconds in player time)
• Pause / Save
• 2D to start (maybe 3D later, but principles should scale)
• Realistic scale/sizes (days/months, millions of tons for a planet vs a few tons for a ship
• objects come together to create a fluid map of gravitational pull
• Pre-built scenarios for testing/teaching:
  • Earth + Moon
  • Sun + Earth + Luna + Mars + Phobos + Demos
• Sol system map vs generated systems, maybe levels like in Mini Motorways with increasing complexity

Base Object class

• Imperfectly known/estimated mass (AI's know estimated mass, physics works based on real mass)
• gravitational pull (based on mass)
• velocity
• direction
• volume/size
• spin/rotation (matters most for planets/port locations)

Stars

• heat / radiation danger
• ships' integrity as they get close, incentive to avoid

Planets

• Should make slingshot maneuvers possible/useful :)
• Ports that ships are trying to get to

Asteroids

• navigational hazards (don't crash into them)

Ships

• imperfectly known and/or variable mass, fuel, thrust capability, fuel/thrust ratio
• intensity of burn/forces increases strain on ship, reduces integrity proportional to g-forces
• mass decreases as fuel is burned
• fuel/thrust ratio worstens as ship ages (can get repaired at ports)
• occasional randomized breakdowns (eg. lose a thruster or something, breakdown % chance increases as integrity decreases)
• integrity is a proxy for ship part wear/tear and crew health

Game Ideas

• balance between simple game & capable AI navigation sim
• need impotice for AI ships to get from port to port
• maybe long term the player owns a spaceport and is trying to mine asteroids
  • like a space-based backwards mini-motorways
  • ports send ships out to asteroids & hope they get baxck in time to keep station from dying
  • player decides where to build/what to name ports based on some resource count
• maybe player is managing colonies & trading food for minerals
  • keeping their station's people alive
  • at the mercy of little AI controlled ships that bring shipments from one port to another
  • can start/name/grow new colonies
  • maybe some economics based on colony metrics, like supply/demand of food/water/metal/fuel, hunger levels?
• Teach players to manage logistics in orbit, like a Space-UPS sim
  • receive requests from ports for shipments from other ports
  • Assign ships to waiting stacks of shipments
• Maybe automated civilian transports, but a player-controlled set of military ships, guarding from space-pirates or a rival faction?
  • would teach AI to have to respond to erratic human commands & destinations
  • player would get to watch their fly around via physics & learn orbital mechanics for themselves
• Waves of alien attacks that get faster and bigger until the player is overwhelmed!
  • increasingly complex systems
  • increasingly aggressive aliens
  • ability to build more-better ships to fight the aliens with
• Conpetitive mode
  • two players start on different planets
  • have to expand/out-mine each other
  • maybe survive aliens attacks longer than the other
  • destroy all each other's ships/ports

Deployment & Live Hosting

Now that v0.3 is web-based, it was a lot easier to throw it up on Vercel & get a live url :)

Note: Pushing/merging to the main branch will trigger a deployment, so most ugly local work should now happen on the dev branch.