Mini Space

With space in any sim a premium due to the price, prim usage and size area anything which can help that has to be welcome. One such project is called Mini Space and which is something that has been discussed in one form or other over the last few years. Richardjrn Weatherwax started major work on the project this week.

The idea is how do you maximize the space you have in a sim particularly when flying. The problem being that with a ship fly at a reasonable speed it wont take too long to get from one side of a sim to another and the fact most flying is done in open area's you'd get a distinctive feeling your flying around in a box.

Mini Space looks at reducing the device your flying  in and also encouraging placing obstacles, sets  and objects so your not just flying into open space.

Sundays AAC event was the first mass user test of the early system. To get into mini space required you to fly a specially modified ship and enter the wormhole outside phoenix station where you where given a selection of locations you can be teleported to.

Its when you select mini space the magic happens as your sent to a specially made area and your ship is automatically modified in flight to take advantage of the area giving you a 50% increase in perceived land mass.

We took the opportunity to fly through specially made tunnels into open areas to see if users felt they were flying in a bigger expanse. The general consensus was there was an increase feel of space and we look forward to adding some challenging and innovative space scenes for people to fly round and interact with.

Mini Space is still in early development, but from the tests so far could be something special.