3D Lunar Lander

Due Date: Monday October 8th 2007

Idea: You are to implement a 3D simplified version of Lunar Lander (also available in flash), a game with a long history. You control a space ship which has one rear thruster and (arbitrary) attitude control. You get limited fuel, and must land on a (spherical) planet with a specific gravity constant(s).

Physics:

• Ship is a point mass
• Ship is steerable in all directions
• Ship has a thruster to affect speed (through acceleration)
• Gravity is the only external force on your ship
• The initial speed and attitude of your ship will not necessarily be in a "straight line" with the planet

Rendering:

• View similar to those in Lunar Lander
• 2D view acceptable, 3D view preferable

Core:

• Take user input from keyboard (or mouse) to steer ship and enable ship booster
• Save user input to a file
• Replay user input from file to get same results
• In other words, there are 2 input methods, direct-human or a 'replay' file

Scenario(s). You need to create the following scenario:

• Landing on the moon with initial position in orbit around the moon (thruster pointing tangential) at distance of 2 lunar radius, and initial velocity so that orbit would be maintained.
• Bonus: Landing on the earth - initial position is geosynchronous orbit. You must simulate air resistance as well as gravity
• Bonus: Landing on moon (like first scenario) but initial ship velocity has the ship "spinning" in all 3 directions.

Submission Requirements:

• README file containing notes on what libraries you used and how to get them (if not included)
• Reference(s) file containing notes on what references you used. This includes books, web pages, discussion with friends, etc. This is an 'engineering journal'. [can be appended to README]
• Makefile or build script or detailed instructions on how to compile
• Source code
• Sample user input files for your scenario(s)
• Must be submitted as a single file (zipped or gziped archive).

Notes:

• Thruster strength must be scaled so that things look/feel 'right'
• You must use the Moon's actual mass in your physics. The actual characteristics of the Lunar Module might be useful in setting some thruster parameters.
• Must run on either Linux or MacOSX using OpenGL.
• Each student does own assignment (no group work this time).
• Any programming language can be used
• Recommend using pre-written linear algebra and ordinary differential equation integration libraries

Marking:

• 80% physics, 20% rendering/playability
• Good "software engineering" of the physics engine will be marked as part of the 80%

Bonus: (implementing any/all of these features will be worth extra marks)

• [See above for scenarios]
• Any extra controls, graphics (especially 3D) will be worth more
• Bumpy terrain (like the original lander game)