Greetings and salutations!

I won't bore you with details of my past, but suffice it to say I played in the '80s, and never was any good. Working with the US Navy has given me a lot of experience with operating consoles and electronics. My current interest is building a simulator for TW2002. To that end, I've started a server with some games for fun, and one for experimental work with my simulator designs.

As one of the few communities out there that might be interested in this kind of hobby, I would like to invite you to join me in conceptualizing, discussing, and potentially even testing these designs. There are no promises here, except that the games will be fully supported. I hope to eventually join the tight-knit community that still remains around TradeWars, and look forward to our future discussions!

This topic will serve a little bit like a development log, for the simulator, but really I hope to interact in lively and respectful discussion!

What do you mean by simulator? Like client that shows you the view from the bridge of your ship?

No, actually I'm working on a physical simulator: buttons, switches, knobs, and dials with sound and lighting effects. I like to dream big.

I've got a couple of navigation panel concepts floating around in my mind, but I don't want to get into details just yet, as I'm still looking for a good human-machine interface. Raspberry Pi looks promising, as do the Arduino microcontrollers. However, as an example, one thought is to have a panel which displays your current sector and surrounding sectors with a button for each neighboring sector. Press the appropriate button and you warp to the sector. You could include additional programmable buttons for Navpoints, SD, etc.

If wanted even more realism, you could include simple manual navigation that you might incorporate into your simulator. That's how it works in Galactic Empire, which was also written for MBBS/Worldgroup.

It's open source, and in the game you have to navigate by moving your ship by hand through 360 degrees towards the heading that will take you to the sector you want to go to, as well as adjusting speed as needed.

There are a few collaborative space games where several people with tablets or laptops act as the bridge crew of a starship. Have you ever seen those? You might find some inspiration there.

Not exactly related, but I recently got a Google Cardboard. The idea of using off-the-shelf hardware for immersive gaming is very intriguing. I imagine you could make a prototype of your simulator by duct taping a few old smartphones to a lawn chair.

Realism is not one of my primary goals, but I do want to improve the game experience where possible. There are a number of flight simulators that would allow you to 'pilot' a spaceship and they will always be a more realistic experience than what I can simulate. This project is more an extension of gameplay through a custom designed human-machine interface. If done right, the game shouldn't change much.

That said, I am toying with a NAV console that includes a throttle. Instead of simulating a 3D vector towards a NAV point, you would establish a target sector (as you do already) and the 'throttle' simply begins the warp. Half throttle would be normal mode (stopping for ports and points of interest) and full throttle would be express mode. This could change the gameplay subtly, in that you now introduce the concept of going 'backwards' along a previous path, or changing destination sectors mid-travel. Hard to say how that would affect the game, but I'd hope it gives live players an edge over a bot/script. (Nothing against bots and scripts, per se, but I like to advantage active players).

I have played a couple of bridge simulators, ARTEMIS being one of the better examples. That is something I would love to build a simulator for someday, but I need to keep my dreams in check.

Any news on this project? I started a visual helper called TWX Terminal when Tom (SG) was still here, a project he was having me work on but when everything happened, that ended too. I really would love to see what your working on... any screen shots to wet the appetite?

As a matter of fact, yes!

The Raspberry Pi 2 came in the mail over the last couple of days. I haven't had a chance to start tinkering with it, but I'm hoping to make some mockup control panels in the near future. I have about an hour or two a week to work on this, so updates will be slow.

In other news, we have started working on the software interface that will actually translate simulator manipulations into commands for TWGS.

*Update 30MAY15*

Things are still going slow, as I am just now able to back down to working five or six days a week instead of seven. Still doing 12+ hours a day though.

I've had a styrofoam board console form made for awhile now, but I am waiting on actual hardware to come in the mail. Initially the entire interface will be toggle switches, as a proof of concept, and a keyboard to allow for more 'advanced' controls like typing numbers or hitting 'enter'. From scratch is a slow process.

Development of the software is coming along. We built a telnet client that can connect and parse/filter the data from TWGS. We haven't chosen a native environment for the simulator yet, but Linux (e.g. Rasperry Pi) is the current prediction. Once we have a chosen environment, we'll be able to port the telnet client.

In the meantime I'm still learning more about the TWGS itself and how to properly manage/moderate a game. A few outside players have started to log in regularly (Thanks, CBYNOT!) and everyone seems to be having fun.

I appreciate the support I've received so far! Any interest in this is awesome!

-Matt

Check this out....

http://www.cnet.com/news/buttons-and-sl ... e-for-pcs/

Yikes. Are those things certified to fly in space or something? I might go for the pro kit if it were 1/10 the price.

I didn't even look at the cost... Very expensive...

You know, you could tear apart an old roller ball mouse, and you would have two knobs (or sliders) and several buttons for less than $10...

Neat idea, and I would love to see something like that less expensive. MAYBE for a final product?

For now, prototyping is going to be cheaper components...and lots of wires.

Just saw this for $99.00:
http://www.adafruit.com/products/800

It's a cheaper modular solution than the one above. It would be able to do a touch screen and all the controls you want.

Adafruit Pro Trinket - 5V 16MHz $9.95:
http://www.adafruit.com/products/2000

Trinket can emulate an HID device (i.e. keyboard and mouse). This would allow you to connect all kinds of buttons switches and knobs up to a regular PC or tablet.

https://learn.adafruit.com/pro-trinket-rotary-encoder