SpaceAge

A few years ago I started working on a little game I have come to call SpaceAge.

It was meant to be an amalgam of what I perceived to be the best elements of Eve Online, X2 The Threat, Freelancer and Dwarf Fortress. I wanted to create a massive and immersive world that was capable of showing the capabilities of cool AI stuff using the really powerful CPUs we have today.

I wanted:
- An artificial economy that truly was self-sustaining and that the user could influence. NPCs would be smart enough to exploit trade routes, setup new stations, colonize new worlds, and innovate spaceship production
- A procedurally generated universe the size of at least our local star cluster.
- Dynamic factions/races and changing political landscapes.
- Realism in as many ways as possible, based on humanity’s current and anticipated space exploration
- Detail on some level down to at least 0.2 AU

I chose to write it in C# due to my familiarity with it and the ease it is to singlehandedly implement large ideas quickly. I wanted to make the universe as realistic as possible, so I did some research to find out what the theoretical concentration of stars/systems is in our galaxy. I also researched economic models and aspects of theoretical physics and orbital mechanics. For the first few weeks the implementation got pretty far and was fairly pleased with the inner workings. But outwardly felt like you were playing with Excel.