ScrumbleShip Wiki

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Welcome to the ScrumbleShip wiki page! Here you can learn about both existing and planned features of the game*.

*Note that this wiki refers to some features which are not yet implemented, and all features are subject to change.

What is ScrumbleShip?
ScrumbleShip is the most accurate space combat simulation devised to date. It is currently in development by Dirkson of Orange Hat Tech, and will be a multiplayer, open-world, block builder space combat, mining, and exploration sim when complete.

Players will gather resources, construct anything from a shuttle to a capital ship out of individual blocks, then pilot it with AI or real-human help against other players. Players will then fly their ships from solar system to solar system, mine ore, build other ships and space stations, and fight each other in simulated PvP battles for wagered credits, or in "real" battles where damage is permanent and to the victor goes the salvage. Players will form factions, sell ships, goods, and services to other players, and plenty more. In ScrumbleShip, you are limited only by your own imagination.
 * Want to build a hulking behemoth with a three-meter thick titanium hull? You can do that.
 * How about a carrier with dozens of fighters? Sure, that too.
 * A ship made of butter that melts as soon as you turn the engines on? Of course!

Each paid license of ScrumbleShip will come with access to the source code under a proprietary license, for those interested.

This will allow developers to easily construct mods, and help cut down on the bugs experienced by other games. Developers will retain all rights to code they produce.

The current pre-alpha release is a basic block-building type of game - construct the ship of your dreams out of meter-sized blocks. Flight and combat simulations code (some pre-existing) will be added in the alpha release.

The final release will be a multiplayer, open-world blockbuilder space combat, mining, and exploration sim. Seamless planetary landing and exploration are planned as expansions. Free demo releases are available at the ScrumbleShip website or the indieDB page, and alphafunding is available - buying the Deluxe version grants access to bleeding edge releases with new features as they develop.

Gameplay
ScumbleShip aims to be as true real-world physics as possible, while remaining true to science fiction and being fun to play. ScrumbleShip is set roughly 100 to 300 years in the future. Players will gather resources, construct anything from a shuttle to a capital ship out of individual blocks, then pilot it with AI and/or real-human help against other players. Players can then fly their ships from solar system to solar system mining ore, building other ships and space stations, and fighting each other in simulated battles for wagered credits, or in "real" battles where damage is permanent. Players will form factions, sell ships, goods, and services to other players, and more.





Players will need to consider numerous factors in building a working ship, including: radiating heat produced by the ship's systems to space; ensuring an adequate fuel supply; keeping the ship's air breathable and contained; keeping the crew efficient and happy; ensuring the ship's power supply can meet its power demands; placing crew members in roles at which they are skilled; and more. ScrumbleShip's gameplay aims to be challenging, but reward players who plan ahead.

In ScrumbleShip, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, and players and AI crew members (redshirted clones), will need to build their ships and space stations block by block out of material mined from | asteroids or salvaged from other ships. Players and clones can only carry one block at a time, as blocks are a cubic meter in volume. Players will place blueprint blocks that indicate where a clone or player should weld a new block or component, and out of which material it should be made.

Heat Simulation
As of August 12, 2012, ScrumbleShip's alpha version features heat simulation. While heat simulation has been featured in two-dimensional video games, such as falling-sand games, ScrumbleShip's heat simulation is unique among 3D computer games. Players can currently heat blocks and other in-game components using a laser.



Blocks transfer heat to nearby blocks at a rate proportionate to the real-world thermal conductivity and capacity of the materials.

As objects grow hotter, they glow red proportionate to their heat energy. Laser fire is scalable; lower-powered lasers are likely to gradually warm and object and cause it to melt and boil off. High-powered lasers are more likely to flash-boil the voxels they strike, resulting a a hole in the object and relatively little heat transferred to the remaining material. Objects that pass the melting point of the material from which they are made without being flash-boiled turn into an red-hot animated blob representing melted material in zero gravity. Such blobs tend to quickly boil off, as the boiling point of a liquid is just over its melting point in a vacuum. When the engine calculates an object to be boiling, the object animates to represent boiling into nothingness, and is removed. Planned features include exothermic ship components producing heat that builds up in a ship's atmosphere and material, and requiring players who hope to build working ships to design them with heat dissipation in mind.

Voxel Damage Modeling
Unlike in other block-building games which are erroneously called "voxel" games, each component and block in ScrumbleShip is composed of anywhere from several to 4,096 individual voxels, which are essentially 3D pixels. ScrumbleShip depicts damage to in-game materials accurately and precisely by removing voxels that the game calculates to have been destroyed, rather than by removing entire blocks or components. This results in compelling and believable damage modelling.

Characters
Characters are the sentient beings that populate ScrumbleShip. Thus far, there are two types of characters planned:

Clone

Player Character

Ship Components
ScrumbleShip will have a wide array of components, ranging from simple blocks of material to complex ship systems such as lasers, fusion reactors , and warp drives. Most of these components can be made from different materials that have been mined and refined from asteroids (or salvaged from other ships). This custom materials system allows for hulls, chairs, terminals, or whatever else - made out of anything from butter to diamond.

[[File:Modernbutter.png|thumb|The back end of the old buttership, showing off several of the game's blocks:

The curved pipes.

The modular factory blocks (on the left wall, below the pipes). Access is on the exterior of the buttership. This is the smallest possible factory.

Suit refill station (on the floor next to the right wall). Working - Refills your suit gauges.

Hold interface block (on the back wall above the diesel engines and below the pipe). Whatever enclosed space is on the other side of this block is considered the ship's "hold" - Roughly equivalent to your inventory in other games. You can interact with this block to haul out individual blocks.]]

Many components will require power, fuel, and sometimes other resources to function. These requirements can be met by energy production and storage components connected to power-consuming components by wires, or fuel tanks connected to fuel-consuming components by a pipe.

Most complex components will cease to function when lightly to moderately damaged (several voxels destroyed), though simpler mechanical components, such as an oxygenator, may retain some impaired function when damaged.

Atmosphere/Life Support

Amenities

Building Materials

Connectors

Cooling

Energy Production

Energy Storage

Equipment

Materials

Material Fabrication

Material Storage

Networks

Organics

Portals

Propulsion

Sensors

Terminals

Weapons

Space Stations
Players who run their own ScrumbleShip server will be able to run large space stations which differ from other player-made stations in several ways. These large space stations can store players' ships on the server over an extended period, halting all upkeep and login requirements (as any ship abandoned in open space by a player for several days will become derelict and capturable).

Space station owners can install very large factories, which are too sensitive to G forces to be practical on mobile vessels. Such large factories allow printing of large, complex, and resource-intensive ship components such as jump drives and fusion reactors. Space stations will also feature a jump engine that can be run in "gateway" mode, allowing ships to travel to other servers.

Controls
Movement

Other

Mouse - Yellow Crosshair (Plasma Torch Mode) (Bleeding edge release) Mouse - Green Crosshair (Build and Copy Mode) (Bleeding edge release) Mouse - Blue Crosshair (Temperature Gauge Mode) (Bleeding edge release)

Mouse - Red Crosshair (Weapon Mode)

Mouse - Orange Crosshair (Build and Plasma Torch Mode) (Bleeding edge release)

Bleeding Edge Executable Releases
Bleeding edge executables are frequently broken, frequently updated executables with all the newest, untested features in them, and are equivalent to other software project's "nightlies". They are currently available as a perk for ScrumbleShip "Deluxe" owners. To install a bleeding edge release, players must unzip them and then move the files into the directory for the latest release of ScrumbleShip. Each bleeding edge is built against the current version of ScrumbleShip on the official web site's "Get" page.

They are currently limited to Win32 and Lin64 executables due to technical limitations of the developer's system. Each release comes with the full source code, however, so players can build executables for any operating system.

Multiplayer
NOTE: Multiplayer has not yet been implemented. This page explains the planned direction multiplayer will take as Dirkson develops ScrumbleShip further.

Multiplayer will be phased in over time with increasing complexity. At first, battles will probably take the form of individual matches of various gameplay modes like deathmatch, capture-the-bridge, and do-the-most-damage sessions between two or more players. Battles will take place in real-time. Players can either command their own ship, issuing orders to AI crew and other players, or help crew someone else's ship. As AI clones are phased in, they will be able to man weapons, pilot fighters and boarding craft, use laser rifles in combat, etc. Players will be able to do anything clones can do, and more.

Over time, multiplayer will evolve from individual battles to a persistent, open-world setting. Players will host servers, which will take the form of solar systems which they have a hand in designing. These server-solar-systems will be linked to other systems by warp gates. Ships can also be fitted with large, expensive warp drives.

An economy is expected to develop, both player- and computer-driven. Some basic raw materials will be available for sale from populated computer-controlled planets and space stations. Players will likely fabricate and sell more complex ship components out of materials they purchase, or mine and refine. Secondary economic services are likely to arise as well. For instance, players may pay other players for taxi or towing services, mercenary work, and much more. Companies or clans are also expected to arise.

Warning: Technical Content!

When multiplayer battles become possible, there shouldn't be any technical limit on battle size, but there probably will be a practical limit based on client hardware, server hardware, and available bandwidth. Most calculation will be done on user hardware, with the server merely checking random frames to ensure that no funny business happens, so combat should scale pretty well hardware-wise. Thus, bandwidth or client memory will likely run out first.

The server won't transmit voxel data, but will rather re-create it on each machine; thus, the server need only transmit and store a handful of bytes per block, and that data is easily compressable.

PvP
In multiplayer ScrumbleShip, some of the player-hosted solar systems will be "safe" systems, where battles are by invitation only and will be "simulated" - at the end of the fight, both ships will be undamaged. In such safe systems, players can wager in-game money on the outcome of a PvP battle. Conversely, some solar systems will be dangerous, with PvP battles occurring at any time and ship destruction permanent. These systems may have some attractive feature to make them worth the risk.

Alpha
ScrumbleShip is currently in the alpha stage of development. Playable alpha demos are available for download at ScrumbleShip website or the indieDB page, and alpha funding is available - preordering the game grants access to bleeding edge releases with new features as they develop.

Open Source License
ScrumbleShip is released under a unique open source license. Every purchased copy of ScrumbleShip will come with a full copy of the proprietary source code. The game's creator retains full intellectual property rights to the original source code, but if a player can code in C, he or she can make a mod for ScrumbleShip. Modders can even contribute their original source code and voxel models for inclusion in the main build. Commercial mods are also permitted.

How to Build a Working Ship
Note: This guide refers to many features which are not yet in the game. It suggests design concepts that will be relevant when they are added to the game. All features discussed in this guide are based on discussions with Dirkson, the game's creator, about likely directions the game will take.

Table of Contents

 * 1) Life Support
 * 2) Cooling
 * 3) Energy Production
 * 4) Energy Storage
 * 5) Resource Networks
 * 6) Material Fabrication
 * 7) Material Storage
 * 8) Propulsion
 * 9) Weapons
 * 10) Portals
 * 11) Amenities

So, you've decided to try your luck in the void of space. Maybe you plan to be a merchant, selling ship components, commodities, or raw materials to others. Maybe you'll be an asteroid miner, scraping a living out in the fields from bare rock, hoping to strike it rich. Or perhaps you're a more violent breed, looking for a fight out there between the planets? Well, you're sure to find one. Whatever you end up doing, if you don't want you and your crew to end up breathing vacuum, you'll need to know a few basics about building a working ship. Here's some of what you need to know.

1. Life Support
A life support system is something virtually every manned ship will need, unless the crew plans to keep filling up spacesuits at suit recharge stations. Life support allows a crew to go on breathing without a suit. There are several life support components in the game currently.

Note: Air simulation, and therefore life support, is not yet implemented in the game.

Life Support Components

2. Cooling
Another requirement for virtually any ship is a cooling system. Any component that creates or uses power likely creates heat. It might seem like space is cold; however, because space is a vacuum with no air or matter to carry away heat, it actually takes a while to dissipate heat in space through radiation. This same principle allows a vacuum flask or Thermos to keep coffee hot for hours. Because of this, you need to ensure your ship has some help dissipating heat - both away from "hot spots" like a reactor room, and away from the ship as a whole. When designing your cooling system, bear in mind that materials with high thermal conductivity, like copper or graphene, will essentially suck heat from their surroundings. A line of copper blocks makes an excellent heat pipe to transfer heat into radiators on the outside of the hull. From the radiators, the heat will radiate into space and cool your ship.

Note: Air, and therefore air temperature, is not yet simulated in the game.

Cooling Components

3. Energy Production
If you want your ship to do things, you'll need to produce energy for it to use. There are a variety of ways to produce energy. Placing these components on the same wire network as power-consuming components will allow the consumptive components to work, assuming enough power is produced. A word of caution: many energy-producing components are also heat producers, so employ cooling systems accordingly.

Note: Energy simulation is not yet implemented in the game.

Energy Production Components

4. Energy Storage
Once you've produced energy, you may plan to store some of it for later use. Having a high energy storage capacity is a good way to have more energy available for immediate use than would be available simply from using it as you produce it. Energy produced by an energy production component, such as a fission reactor, may be stored by an energy storage component, such as a battery, on the same wire network.

Note: Energy simulation is not yet implemented in the game.

Energy Storage Components

5. Resource Networks
It's not enough to simply produce electricity or have fuel in a tank; you need to transfer that electricity and fuel to components that can use them. That's where wire and pipe networks come in.

Electricity Transfer

Simply put, power-consuming components like terminals and railguns can be powered by linking them to a wire network which is also attached to a power producing component like a reactor, and/or to a power storage component like a power cell; so long as the power production and storage components on the network produce sufficient power for the consumptive components on the network, they will continue to function. Note: Wires not directly connected to a component terminate in a wireless power node, which supplies all nearby components with power.

Material Transfer

Similarly, a material-consuming component such as a thruster or an oxygenator can be supplied by linking them to a pipe network attached to a material source, such as a tank. So long as there is sufficient fuel or other fluid/gas in the tank, the consumptive component will continue to function.

Note: Power and resource transfer is not yet simulated in the game.

Resource Network Components

6. Material Fabrication
In ScrumbleShip, everything from the simplest iron block to the most complex warp drive will need to be built - nothing comes from nothing. All useful items will need to be fabricated in factories, which are molecular 3D printers constructed by building factory blocks into a hollow box big enough to hold your desired end products. Simply add raw materials to the factory, set it to the desired blueprint, and take out the finished product. The raw materials you put into those factories come from asteroids - the place where ScrumbleShip's economy begins. Asteroid ore contains varying amounts of minerals, such as iron and diamond. Blocks of asteroid ore are placed in an ore foundry, which breaks the ore into its component minerals until it has enough of a certain type of mineral to make a pure block, and then ejects the block. These blocks may then be used to build a ship's structure; they may be combined with other raw blocks in a factory to make alloy blocks like steel; or they may be used as raw materials in a factory for more complex components like a laser or chair. Note: Material fabrication is not yet simulated in the game.

Material Fabrication Components

7. Material Storage
If you plan to keep the items you find and raw materials you mine in the game, you'll need someplace to put them. In ScrumbleShip, you don't have bottomless pockets into which you can shove a thousand steel blocks; you'll need to build a cargo hold to put them in. A hold can be built as large as you want, so long as it can fit in your ship, and your ship has the propulsion systems to propel all the mass contained in your hold. Hold contents may be added and removed via a hold interface. Aside from solid materials like ore and blocks, you'll also want to contain liquid and gaseous materials like fuel, cooling and drinking water, and air for breathing. These can be stored in tanks. Like holds, tanks may be built as large as you want/as your ship can handle. Liquid and gas may be added to and removed from tanks by a pump. Hold and tank contents may be monitored and visualized at a materials terminal.

Note: Material mining and storage are not yet simulated in the game.

Material Storage Components

8. Propulsion
Once you've got a ship with life support, cooling, and energy production/storage systems, you may wish to use it to go somewhere. Because ScrumbleShip adheres to a Newtonian physics model, you will need thrusters on all sides of your ship so it can maneuver, and even on the front of the ship if you'd like to be able to brake, rather than flip 180 degrees to stop. Thrusters will require energy to work, such as the fuel burned by chemical rockets. Fuel can be pumped to thrusters along a pipe from a fuel tank.

Note: Propulsion is not yet simulated in the game.

Propulsion Components

9. Weapons
While you might be a fair-minded, peaceable citizen of the galaxy, not everyone in the void is so reasonable. You are likely to encounter pirates, mercenaries, and maniacs who like to fight for the sheer fun of it. Therefore, it's best that you arm yourself. ScrumbleShip will place a wide variety of weapons at your disposal, from small point defense weapons to kilometer-long modular railguns and lasers you construct to your exacting specifications. Energy weapons such as lasers, and electromagnetic kinetic weapons like railguns will require a significant source of electricity. In general, each weapon will be controlled by its own weapon terminal, which clones and players will use to see what the weapon sees, aim the weapon, and fire it.

Note: Weapons other than a handheld laser rifle are not yet simulated in the game.

Weapon Components

10. Portals
There are a number of portals available to a Scrumbleshipwright, ranging from basic doors to airlocks. Because a ship pressurized with breathing air must remain airtight to the vacuum of space, it is wise to employ airlocks as the sole mode of ingress to and egress from outside a ship. Within the ship, ordinary doors may be used to control access from one compartment to the next. However, even inside the ship, it may be wise to install airlocks between compartments; they take longer to operate than doors, but compartmentalization using airlocks will allow one compartment to be depressurized without depressurizing adjacent compartments.

Note: Air and air pressure are not yet simulated in the game.

Portal Components

11. Amenities
A ship is many things. It is a beast of burden to haul goods to market; it is a steed to bear you between planets; it is a sword to smite the foe and a shield to shunt his lance; but most importantly, it is your home, a beacon of light and warmth in the cold void of space. Because of this, it behooves a captain to provision his ship with amenities that make life onboard not only possible, but pleasant. There are several things a captain can do to make his ship a hospitable home to both himself and his crew, above and beyond things like basic life support. As human beings, the crew will need to eat quality food, sleep regularly, bathe, and entertain themselves to be happy and effective at their tasks. A crew without these amenities will suffer reduced morale and efficiency. Note: AI crew, morale, and effectiveness are not yet simulated in the game.

Amenity Components