Matrix Games

 Welcome to the eighteenth Dev Diary entry for Space Station Designer! In our last entry, we reviewed which practical difficulties make the realization of such a project a real challenge.

In today’s diary, we’ll see how the theoretical and practical considerations we discussed in the previous ones translate into Space Station Designer gameplay, and what were our guidelines.

Translating a very complex project into actual gameplay

The Megaproject meaning as an ultimate achievement

While the gameplay of Space Station Designer can be separated into 3 phases (First steps in LEO, Expansion in LEO and Expansion beyond LEO), the Megaproject allows the player to achieve something that really stands out and ‘means something’.

Once ‘Expansion beyond LEO’ has been mastered, the cis-lunar space is under complete control, and the next logical step for mankind would be to expand to other planets. But these are much farther away and this would require a whole new set of technologies in order to make such an expansion viable in economical terms. 

The hazards of interplanetary travel are great: high-energy radiation (high energy protons, cosmic rays, Gamma, and X-rays) during the trip and on planetary surfaces, the impossibility to abort a mission and be back to Earth in a matter of days (which saved Apollo 13), and even communication delays (due to light speed) that make real-time conversation impossible.

A simple two-way radio exchange takes 6 to 42 minutes, depending on the two planets alignment. Every 2 years, the Earth, the Sun & Mars are aligned (Mars Solar conjunction), which makes communications impossible. Not to scale.

Real world space agencies like NASA have been considering these difficulties for years and have chosen not to risk astronaut lives. While the impact of political and financial decisions is of course real, it does not boil down to just that. The current technology simply makes a crewed trip to Mars too dangerous for too little returns, while unmanned probes and rovers are increasingly capable.

What seems a consensus as of today is that a permanent lunar base would be a necessary milestone in order to launch interplanetary missions. This is what NASA and SpaceX, but also the CNSA, are currently aiming at. A solid infrastructure on and around the Moon would allow them to refuel spacecraft and accommodate astronauts to long low-gravity missions.
Artist’s view of a permanent Lunar base.

Furthermore, the Lunar Space Elevator could make the ‘holy grail of energy production’ accessible by allowing operators to extract and carry in orbit significant quantities of Helium-3, a rare isotope of Helium that is nearly absent on Earth, and relatively abundant in the lunar regolith. Which would probably allow advances on fusion powered nuclear reactors, potentially solving energy problems not only on Earth but also, once the technology matures, in space.

A spacecraft powered by a miniaturized fusion reactor could burn fuel even more efficiently than one powered by a fission reactor, allowing longer powered flight phases, which in turn would considerably shorten the trips and the crew solar radiation exposure. And let’s remember the golden rule in radiation exposure: it is a matter of intensity and duration.

How does this translate in terms of gameplay?

This is where the Lunar Space Elevator makes sense. It would facilitate access to the lunar surface and make the Lunar L1 Station a thriving hub for spacecraft coming from Earth or heading out to other planets. It would also be the ideal location to build an experimental miniaturized fusion reactor operated in real conditions. Completing the Lunar Space Elevator is not only the end of a playthrough; it is also something that opens a world of possibilities.

The ‘far bottom’ of the Tech tree.

When it comes to the actual process of building the elevator in game, the first thing the player has to do is to research the ‘Megaproject’ technology, located at the far bottom of the tech tree.  The next step is to validate a series of milestones, whose requirements are understandably quite high. As an example, you’ll need a team of astronauts with specific special skills, commercial goods from the top of the production chain that, while very valuable, are not easy to manufacture, and currencies like Funds (obviously), Research Points, Industrial Research Points…

On a larger scale, the idea is that you’ll need to develop a network of space stations that all have, to some extent, cutting-edge industrial production and research facilities, as these are necessary to progress through the milestones.

The Megaproject milestones screen, at a very early stage of completion (and still WIP).

The other thing is that these milestones take time and while continuing to make progress on the Megaproject, the players must make sure their network of stations isn’t collapsing. Realistically, and without teasing too much of content, you’re in for several years of in-game time. Maybe it is the ideal opportunity to transition your aging Low Earth Orbit station from a complex industrial and research hub to a simpler services-providing platform. There sure are many possibilities!

At this stage of the game, this LEO station is probably a bit too complex for its own good, and as research in other orbit is much more efficient, it could be simplified a lot, requiring less maintenance, freeing astronauts and player’s attention.

As you progress through the milestones, new modules will be available in the Lunar Orbit station that provide the necessary infrastructure in order for the Megaproject to be completed. These modules are unique in that you can only place them at a given orientation. Implementing that limitation was necessary in order to ensure that the elevator ribbon was always ‘going down to the Moon’. Some of these modules have hefty power and cooling requirements, so obviously you should be sure that your station infrastructure is up to them.

A snapshot of the modules you need to acquire in order to complete the Lunar Space Elevator.

As we mentioned in a previous diary, the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 1 (aka. EML1) isn’t perfectly stable. Small trajectory corrections are necessary in order to stay right on it. You can imagine having a basket or soccer ball and trying to put a golf ball on top of them. In perfect conditions, you can achieve equilibrium, but if you do that outdoors, a gentle breeze alone is likely to break it. So the Lunar Orbit Station requires careful orbit control in order to keep making progress on the megaprojects milestones, and the acceptable deviation is very tight. Once the elevator ribbon is fully deployed, it actually helps keep the station in position, and orbit control is much less a problem.

A 2011 NASA computer simulation exploring early concepts for lunar missions to orbit the Earth-Moon Lagrange Points 1 and 2. As you can see, without using thrusters (‘free fall’), the resulting trajectories were a bit chaotic. The real Artemis missions (2022 & 2026) followed a more conservative flight plan.

This is the end of this series of diaries focused on the Lunar Space Elevator Megaproject, we hope you liked them! In the next and final pre-release diary, we’ll provide details on the development highlights, and give some details behind our development process.

Space Station Designer will be released on Steam on November 18th. Wishlist it now (LINK) 

--Ignacio, Mauricio, and Nicolas (Polar Motion)