Slingshot Speeders v0.0.8 is live
Slingshot Speeders v0.0.8 is live
Play: https://slingshotspeeders.com/
The first orbital mechanics racing game.
Talk:
Full notes: https://slingshotspeeders.com/changelog
Rendezvous (hard mode)
Rendezvous is the new map. It sits at the top of home with a gold New! mark.
Two equal-mass bodies orbit each other. You start around one. The win is not a closed orbit around a well. You have to match the moving green ring in orbit around the other body and hold it for 5 seconds.
This is the hard mode for anyone who understands orbital mechanics. Matching position is not enough. You have to match the moving ring's velocity too.
- A green arrow on the ship is your velocity relative to that moving ring. Burn along it to match. It shrinks as you match. Cyan is still velocity relative to the body you clicked (the pin).
- Hold time sits at the top of the screen.
- Click a body and the white coast still pins to that frame. There is no grey predicted moon orbit anymore.
If you know Hohmann transfers, phase angles, and matching a target in a different orbit, this map is for you.
Boards
Scored maps now have three lists of the same wins:
- SCORE (mixed: time and leftover fuel still weigh the same)
- TIME (fastest)
- FUEL (least burned)
Fuel on the board is main tank seconds + RCS seconds. One second of either still counts as one second.
Trefoil stays a race card: RECENT races (default) or FASTEST times, same card.
Slingshot is no longer marked new.
Share and talk
SHARE copies the URL only. Paste is the link, not a score sentence.
- Win a map: SHARE is the tape (
?r=). Fast wins keep a tape too. - Watch a tape: SHARE copies that same tape link. The button flashes when you click it.
- Watch a Trefoil race: SHARE copies a link that opens that race (
?race=). - Open a shared link, then hit Esc: you are on the site. Refresh stays on home. It does not reopen the tape.
The win card is SHARE only (score and time). The extra rank sentence is gone. Talk belongs on Reddit or Lemmy, not as an in-game note.
SOCIAL (top-left) opens the Reddit and Lemmy links.
HOW TO PLAY now includes the game idea at the end.
Sharing the site itself (Discord, chats, link previews) leads with The first orbital racing game. then a short free 2D space race description, with the icon.
Flying
- FREE CAM: click-drag to look around. Toggle with the 1 key or by clicking the HUD.
- The white coast is the real 50 ms forecast, live and on watch. Only the switch between samples eases.
- A path that crosses itself (Trefoil) no longer blanks when you fly through it.
- Passing in front of the trajectory line no longer cuts it off.
- Replay uses the same trajectory line as live play.
- Clicking a body no longer draws a grey predicted orbit. The white coast still pins to that body.
We will not predict the path of gravitational bodies. Only player ships get a prediction path.
Race
Trefoil no longer kicks you for flooding when you race.
SHARE while watching a race copies a link that opens that race.
Stress lab and sim
Home STRESS TEST is one dense field: a thousand wells, a thousand moons, and cyan rings that shove you away. No score.
Lab moons yank each other. Orange moons pull (minus). Purple moons shove (plus). Rings show + or −.
A slam through a well stays smooth. Thousands of wells and moons still feel smooth.
The sim runs at 165 updates a second. Old tapes still play at the rate they were recorded.
Home
- WHAT'S NEW opens the changelog page.
- Home cards scroll inside the card. The page behind them stays put.
- PLAY asks for your name, then starts that map.
- Version sits with ping so the title can stay centered.
- The line under the title is The first orbital mechanics racing game.
What's next
The next major focus is a touch-screen mobile control UI.
That is a completely separate interface from the computer / keyboard experience. Same game, same physics, same net. Desktop stays keyboard and a dense HUD. Phones and tablets get big tap targets and on-screen thrust, rotate, and afterburn.
Not a squeezed copy of the desktop HUD.
1 reply
Here's a replay in game of me getting a faster time https://slingshotspeeders.com/?r=1216