Test Your Intuition of Physical Principles with OutPost Game

[Jack Martinelli]

Here's a little game I wrote that uses a few basic physical principles.

Test your intuition of momentum, (linear & angular), acceleration and force.

http://www.martinelli.org/flash/OutPost.html

Have fun!

 

[Nenad]

that game is hard man

 

[expscv]

lol moon landing

 

[recon]

This ain't fair...I thought computers did the whole landing job for us.

My High Score: 0.

 

[expscv]

anyone got a score over 0?

 

[Integral]

I'm on the bottom of the score board. I have not yet managed to land at the 2 outpost. I've been close several times but no luck so far.

 

[Integral]

HEY! How come Lurch's 260 knocked my 270 off the High scores!

Edit:
Well I finally landed at outpost 2 and have found outpost 4, Looks like Outpost 3 is at the bottom of a virtical shaft!

 

[Jack Martinelli]

HEY! How come Lurch's 260 knocked my 270 off the High scores!

Edit:
Well I finally landed at outpost 2 and have found outpost 4, Looks like Outpost 3 is at the bottom of a virtical shaft!

Well, it looks like I've got a couple of bugs left to fix. I kind of ignored the fact that multiple people could be updating the Hi-score file. (oops). I used Perl to do the server side stuff & didn't use sessions. I'll fix this it sometime this week.

Yeah, its hard. But maybe its too hard. I have the top score, but still not the max. To get the maximum possible score you land at every outpost & do a full loop & end up back at outpost #1 -- I haven't been able to do it yet. The last leg of the trip is a killer. It zig-zags up a long cave and there are no refueling stops along the way.

Should I make it easier? What would make it easier? More powerful thrusters? Fatter caves? Hardware that's not so delicate on landings? Configuration settings? (e.g., noob, cadet, pilot, astronaut )

 

[Integral]

It looks like currently the last spot on the high score table is simply the last person to score. I have bumped off my own ~500 score with a ~250 several times. The tunnels are murder but do-able, perhaps widen the margin of error on the fatal landing. Nor sure that I want you to do anything major. Its a fun little game, and seems to behave in a nice physical manner.

So far I have landed at 1,2 and 4. Still looking for 3, there are several choices which I am exploring. So easy to die! (That's not necessarily bad!) I am getting better and better control all the time. I do not think more powerful thrusters would help and may make it even more difficult to maneuver in tight places.

 

[Alkatran]

I think you need to redo your controls.

Up should be both thrusters. Left and right should be inverted so left does right and right does left. It's intiutive for the left arrow to mean "turn left" and it's currently the other way around. I've crashed a bunch of times because I sent myself spinning wildly instead of countering the spin.

Also, take it a bit easier on the landings. I've exploded on feather landings.

The collision code is way off, too. The sides of the ship pass through terrain easily (without this 'feature' you'd die at the start)


Why is the terrain shaking randomly?

 

[pervect]

anyone got a score over 0?

I managed to land once. It seems to help to tumble in the "wrong" direction, i.e. so that your jets point away from the outpost. Then you kill your spin and loose a little horizontal velocity, and then you just have to be good and lucky.

 

[Gonzolo]

I can't see far enough in front. The ship is about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way towards the direction you're going, why not in the middle in the middle of the screen? Why can't we see where we're going?

Outpost 3 is easier than 2 IMO. Didn't get 2 yet.

 

[Alkatran]

I can hit outpost 1 about 20 times faster than outpost 2. I always explode on outpost 2.

 

[Erus]

This game is fun, and addicting. I can land outpost 1 everytime now... outpost 2 nearly every time.. outpost 3 is too simple. outpost 4 I have yet to land, but I've only been to it once. You have more control over the craft if it's going really slow (inertia is mean). While going thru the caves, watch out for the lunar quakes.. They're wicked.

 

[Alkatran]

If you go backwards at the start (land at 1 then go back) there's a tunnel going down. I made it to the bottom of it but I ran out of gas...

 

[Integral]

I am kinda puzzeled by your "high score" table. How is it that EL is on the table 3 times, but my score gets replaced by my most recent. I had a 1098 on the table, it was replaced by a 1024, now I am down to 9xx. I do not understand its inconsistent operation. And WHY DID IT REMOVE my high score?

 

[Alkatran]

Why is it that if I fire the bottom thruster, which should rotate the ship so that the bottom thruster pushes UP, I hit into the cliff at the beginning. But if I fire the top one the opposite happens (I clear it, even though I've pushed down)?

 

[Integral]

What do you mean by "bottom" and "top" thruster? They both are on the bottom and both act in the same direction. Just opposite sides of the craft.

 

[Alkatran]

If the ship is facing right, I meant.

I did say it was at the start. I suppose, the bottom one is the right thruster.

 

[expscv]

lol how do i land? slowly? horizontally?

 

[Integral]

Land stright down onto your thrusters. Even a little bit of rotation is fatal. Zero your velocity less then the thickness of the craft above ground and you drop in safely.

 

[PatPwnt]

Someone explain to me how I land this damn thing... I land it at like 2 mph and it still blows up

 

[Alkatran]

I like how pressing the "add me" button more than once adds you more than once now.

 

[Gonzolo]

Someone explain to me how I land this damn thing... I land it at like 2 mph and it still blows up

Then it has to be 1 mph, and almost perfectly flat.

 

[Integral]

It is critial that you have mimimal rotational motion when you land. You can drop in from a small distance but if one side is falling faster then the other you are dead!

 

[expscv]

lol eska 177 haha and kick out a score of 556? this is serisouly a bug

 

[Alkatran]

I don't understand how someone who can handle the physics aspect of this programming can't make a simple leader board.

 

[Jack Martinelli]

Who is EL?

EL, whoever he is has beat my best score & I wrote the thing?!

His best is 1730. I'm impressed!

BTW, I've fixed the server side code so that hi-scores are sorted correctly, but I ran into a glitch with the Flash/client side. I'll keep you posted.

And thanks for the feed-back guys!

I guess I'm going to have to add a bigger gas tank. I've tried & tried to get up the last cave but I always just sputter & die.

 

[EL]

EL, whoever he is has beat my best score & I wrote the thing?!

Here I am...

I guess I'm going to have to add a bigger gas tank. I've tried & tried to get up the last cave but I always just sputter & die.

However it is possible to go down that tunnel the first thing after the start (or by making just a stop at outpost 1).

I have one problem...havn't found outpost 8 yet...

Nice game btw!

 

[Jack Martinelli]

Here I am...

Good Job EL!

However it is possible to go down that tunnel the first thing after the start (or by making just a stop at outpost 1).

Yep. That's what I've been doing to try to gauge the gas -- to see if there is enough to make it at all.

Have you been able to make it from outpost 1 to outpost 11? If you can make it I'll leave the gas tank the same size.

I have one problem...havn't found outpost 8 yet...
Nice game btw!

Thanks!

Outpost 8 is right next to outpost 14. Down at the bottom.