Stellar Landing Simulator
- 4 Devlogs
- 4 Total hours
Lunar spacecraft lander simulator.
Ship #1
@ARG_Lightning
on
Stellar Landing Simulator
So this is Stellar Landing Simulator. It is a very simple, web-based game that is easy to run. You essentially control a spaceship and try to get it to land on the landing zone.
It was a couple nice features that I enjoy. The gravity works radially, so no matter where you are, the ship is pulled into the center of the moon. Also, the terrain is generated randomly and the ship is able to detect collisions pretty well for an object that has a lot of ridges at various heights. Finally, my favorite feature has to be the HUD. We include simple statistics on the left of the screen with color indicators for two different variables: pitch and speed. To get a good landing, the pitch of the spaceship has to be nearly upright and the speed should be less than 2m/s, so when these conditions are met, it turns green. Another thing I love about the HUD is the mini-map. It works pretty well and scales well according to the radius of the moon, so the code can be altered very quickly allowing me to add some-sort of scroll bar later to change the radius of the moon while not having to worry about the mini-map. The mini-map also draws a line from the lander to the center of the moon showing you how to get back to the moon when you are lost.
This was my first project of the sort and I hope you guys enjoy it. Please give me any feedback to improve this, and I am happy to answer any questions.
@ARG_Lightning
on
Stellar Landing Simulator
1h 4m 34s logged
Heads Up Display was just finished being built. Created a drawUI() function which basically calculated a bunch of statistics based off other variables in my code. Then it was drawn in a box on the top left. Two different statistics use color indicators to show when its safe to land. Speed turns green when it is below 2 m/s and pitch turns green when it is between pi/2 +- 0.25 radians which are part of the criteria for a successful landing. Additionally, I found it was helpful to include a minimap as the sandbox did not have limits for where the spaceship can go, so it was easy to get lost. By centering the minimap onto the moon and scaling down proportionally to the scale of the moon’s radius, we ensure an effective way for the user to navigate. We draw a line from the moons center in the minimap to the center of the lander in the minimap creating a way for the user to know which direction they should go down. Finally, I created a README.md file and updated it with information, so now I am ready to deploy Stellar Landing Simulator.
@ARG_Lightning
on
Stellar Landing Simulator
1h 48m 15s logged
07/21/2026 - Gravity Upgrades / Collisions / Game Phases. Today I spent a good part of my time getting collisions working well between the lander (spaceship) and the moon. Used simple ray casting to determine if the rocket intersected the moon. Then was some gravity upgrades. Previously I just added gravity to the vertical velocity constant so it was very simple and did not always pull the rocket into the moon, so I altered it using something closer to real life where gravitational strength is dependent on the gravitational constant divided by distance between both objects squared (was too lazy to implement false masses of both objects). Lastly fixed some errors in the way the game determines winning. To win, the lander has to arrive at the landing spot with a sub 2 speed and 25 degree landing angle which makes the landing seem more realistic. A Heads Up Display should be viable to create tomorrow.
@ARG_Lightning
on
Stellar Landing Simulator
32m 32s logged
Built simple graphics and movement into this game.
@ARG_Lightning
on
Stellar Landing Simulator
45m 34s logged
Finished some basic movement. Working on basic graphic models right now.
