SpaceSimCentral

Miner Wars is a upcoming single player/MMO based game that takes place in a asteroid belt between Earth and the Sun. Miner Wars has an open destructible universe with many factions and mission types, you will even come across some rare alien artifacts. To get more information on Miner Wars visit their website: http://www.minerwars.comKeen Software House's founder/game director has taken the time to answer some questions about Miner Wars for SSC. Questions are in bold, enjoy the read and if you have more questions you want answered about Miner Wars please post them here.Miner Wars is a 6DOF game. Can you describe what we can expect and can do in a 6DOF game compared to what is out there now for space games?By 6DOF we mean type of movement. In our case movement is similar to Descent / Forsaken.Difference to other space games lies mostly in that your ships will stop moving whenyou don't press the key - e.g. like car. So it's not like operating an airplane where youare constantly moving. How fast can a miner actually dig into an asteroid? If I was out of view for a few seconds could a dig a hole to hide the ship in and maybe loose the NPC/human player chasing me?It depends on digging devices or explosives. But basically smallest hole after explosionis slightly larger than your ship, so yes, you can hide easily. What can you do with your mined resources? And will a player ever have the ability to run their own refinery to make extra money from players?You harvest the ore, load to your cargo, carry to your mother ship and unload. After thatyou get money and can buy new stuff. I read that there would be 20 different factions in the game. Are they spread out over the universe or do they claim/own certain sectors of space? And will the different factions attack each other or help you in a conflict? and will there be any reputation stats that would will need to worry about with the factions?You as player belong to some faction. Other members are your friends. But members from differentfactions are your enemies or in better case allies. Factions are like corporations and can spreadthrough many sectors. There can be more factions in same sector. I see you have a lot different missions types (13+ types). Do you have to get these at a base like in Freelancer or can you get them from communicating with passing miners/stations?You get your mission in your base ship Do you loose radar lock on a target if it hides in a miner hole in an Asteroid?We are experimenting with different radar types, so I can't say yes or no. Reason is that withoutradar it's almost impossible to find other players (friends or enemies). The world is too big. Will the world be persistent in a way that if you drill a hole or make a small little base in an asteroid will it always be there unless someone destroys it?Yes, world is persistent, although we may rebuild/reset a sector if it's too destroyed. This is frompure technical reason (too many holes = too much memory) And to stay on that topic of bases. With there being billions of asteroids in Miner Wars could we possibly make a base and buy defenses or turrets to keep prying eyes out?We plan to have player controlled bases in future version, but in the first, user can only operatehis ship and use base ship for cargo unload, buy tools, etc. Is the universe really unlimited in size? And will the sectors have any nebulas, planets, meteor showers, solar flares or any other space anomalies?Game is played in our Solar system, in asteroid belt that is between Earth and Sun. Game will notconstrain player from moving in any direction, but practically he will be able to fly only if he hasenough oxygen or fuel. And yes, we have one whole system effect, it's solar wind. In our engine itlooks like fire coming from sun. The Voxel Rage engine Keen Software created looks great, will players be able to use this engine to mod Miner Wars and will there be tools made available help with this?We plan to have mod tools, although not in the first version. Probably in the second. Is Miner Wars a SP/MP game or a MMO? In the FAQ there is a mention of a persistant universe so I would think that it would be a MMO style game am I correct?Miner Wars is some sort of combination between single player and MMO. That means, whole game is playedonline, even SP mode. But these two worlds (SP and MMO) are separate - only you can play your single playerstory or you can invite buddies. Only in MMO mode world is open to everyone. With Miner Wars being pushed out until 2010. Do you know if Miner Wars will have a beta this year? Is there a possibility for pre-order beta inclusion? We will have beta but we will open it close to release date. Beta will be only for pre-orders. I assumeit will be in 2010.

Darkone wrote:
Do you loose radar lock on a target if it hides in a miner hole in an Asteroid?We are experimenting with different radar types, so I can't say yes or no. Reason is that withoutradar it's almost impossible to find other players (friends or enemies). The world is too big.
Now that I have read and seen some video on various things. The mention of various radar types might be a good idea, would like to see maybe two different types. You have your standard radar that detects spacecraft and other objects in space (20km) but can only read inside an asteroid at very close proximity (10m or so). But on the other hand you will have a more powerful density style scanner (ping/sonar) style radar that can point out hollow areas in asteroids or pickup things inside asteroids at a fair distance of 1-2km, but to get that functionality you have to give up standard radar strength which is reduced to only 3km. I don't think we should have radar systems that can detect anything anywhere and we should have radars that have strengths/weaknesses so people can weigh how they want to play there character. I also have another thought on ground penetrating radar, you could also craft a missile that when fired it attaches to the surface of the asteroid and then sends a pulse through the radar and the missile records the feedback and sends back any relevant data back to the player. This missile can come in two types (player/base finding) and (mineral/ore finding).

Radars have not been decided yet. How will they work, look and all that. Its fairly complicated when you think of being inside the asteroid. I have been looking at some of those by the competition and yet we still cant decide.

Oh totally understand, I know I posted a few thoughts on radar on MW forums. But I guess a simple way to solve the issue is to either make different radar systems the player can buy that has both strengths/weaknesses or have non-combat related skill point system where the player puts points into unlocking ship components and upgrade their radar skills to make their detection better over time.Radar in MW isn't like FL. There is a new aspect with factoring in tunneling and being inside an asteroid. Just like when you are inside pure rock, you would think you would loose all radar once you get 20-30ft in. Maybe another option is players carry around small radar buoys that they drop before tunneling and it sends a low frequency signal to the ship to alert of possible danger.