Have you ever wanted to walk around in a Traveller scout ship? Me too! Join me onboard an interactive virtual scout ship modeled after my Pioneer Scout Ship Deck Plans.
Welcome Aboard The CSS Pioneer!
I've been playing and enjoying Traveller for about 40 years. During that time my imagination has been inspired in so many ways. One of those ways is imagining life aboard a starship.
What would it be like? How big would my room be? How big would the cargo hold be? How much stuff could we carry? How BIG is our ship? Can we park it someplace? What does it look like on the ground? How do we normally come aboard and disembark? How big is the airlock? Can we carry a rover? How do we emergency evacuate? How do we do maintenance on our ship?
I decided to do an interactive 3D scale mock-up of the Pioneer Scout Ship Deck Plans I made for virtual tabletop use (VTT) so I could see first-hand how big the ship is.
Creating A Virtual Scout Ship
I recently became involved in developing for the Core Metaverse platform, and thought this would make a good project, and given enough interest, might turn into a Traveller-inspired MMORPG.
I have to start somewhere, so I started layout out the internal structure of the ship and I soon came to realize that things were out of whack. It turns out the default size for the human avatar is 2m (including the hat). I had to resize the avatar spawn settings to be more like 1.8 meters tall. Once I got that straightened out, I had to resize doors to the proper size to give an average size male of 5'10" to have some headroom when going through doors.
I used the Efficient Doors module from the Community Content as a basis for the interactive doors, then modified them for my purposes. When creating for Core, it helps to have good modeling and scripting skills, as you will depend on them to add functions and customize things to your liking. Other than the door module, I am just using the stock sci-fi tileset and props from the Core Catalog that I used as-is or I have customized or kitbashed.
Another problem arose from re-scaling: vehicles like the sedan and the pickup truck were the wrong sizes. Lesson learned: all the items I use need to be scaled to the proper size before placing in the ship.
After 2 false starts, I completed blocking out the interior on try #3 and I'm pretty pleased with the results.
Follow The Construction On YouTube
Follow along as I stream my construction process live on YouTubeI stream my construction process live on YouTube.
What Can I Do?
Right now, you can run around and open and close doors and see what it's like to live in and move around inside a "real" Ship.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be adding more content and gameplay elements.
Virtual Scout Ship Roadmap
Over the next few weeks, I'll be developing the following areas in more detail:
- Furnishing the Lounge
- Furnishing the Staterooms
- Adding the avionics section
- Detailing the Flight Deck and cockpit.
- Adding ceiling and internal lights
- Adding Traveller navigation utilities to the navigation station.
- Adding Traveller GM utilities to the Captain's station.
- Adding engines
- Adding hull
- Adding flight systems
If there is community interest, I'll keep developing more ships and sci-fi content. Let me know with LIKES, COMMENTS, and BOOKMARKS on Core. Thanks in advance for your support!
What I Learned
While the ship is cramped, it is also quite big. The line-style drawings on graph paper that we are used to seeing don't do enough to convey the mass of this ship or the thickness of the walls and hull. Because of this, the model is not 100% accurate to the printed deck plans. However, I made the actual rooms the proper size and just fudged the corridors.
I'm glad I chose Core to do the modeling; when I tried the same exercise on Space Engineers, I had very limited success.
Virtual Scout Ship - Play Now for FREE
Play Virtual Scout Ship NOW!
FREE!
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CyborgPrime Games Discord: Core Game Dev |
How To Play
The Alpha Version is just the interior layout with no roof. you can move about the ship and open and close doors.
More gameplay elements will be added as the development process continues.
System Requirements
You will need a FREE account on the Core Metaverse platform.
Minimum System Requirements
CPU: Intel Core i5-7400 or AMD equivalent
RAM: 8 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti or AMD equivalent
OS: Windows 10 64-bit
Recommended System Requirements
CPU: Intel Core i5-7400 or AMD equivalent
RAM: 16 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti or AMD equivalent
OS: Windows 10 64-bit
Basic Controls
Move- W, A, S, D
Jump: Space
Look- Mouse
Attack- Left Mouse Button
Interact- F
Chat- Enter
Game Profile
GAME NAME: Virtual Scout Ship
PLAYER COUNT: 1-4 Players
CORE VERSION: 1.0.276-prod-s
GAME VERSION: v1.0.117
GAME LINK: Corvus Sector: Virtual Scout Ship
GAME DESCRIPTION:
Virtual Scout Ship is a sci-fi interactive starship experience inspired by ships from the Traveller role-playing game. My goal is to make a 3D MMORPG-style game with a Traveller feel or at least several models of ships to explore.
GAME ROADMAP:
- see the Roadmap above
GAME VERSION NOTES:
1/18/23
v1.0.15
- Finished stateroom detail (YouTube Livestream)
1/17/23
v1.0.11
- Added stateroom detail (YouTube Livestream)
1/15/23
v1.0.9
- Added lights and ceilings (YouTube Livestream)
1/13/23
v1.0.3
OPEN ALPHA
Join My Game Dev Journey!
It's nice to have company on a long trip.
If you want to follow my production progress, check my blog at MakeYourOwnRPG.com.
You can also join the CyborgPrime Discord server, where I post my progress and interact with the community.
Your Turn. What Do You Do?
What kinds of things would YOU like to see aboard my Scout ship? What are must-haves? What kinds of activities would you expect to do inside?
Please share with us in the Comments section below.
If you found this article helpful, please give it a good rating at the top, thanks!
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