hi . For Steam PC/Mac/PS3 the simulation is going to be down to the sub-systems . Namely Electrical , Fuel , Hydraulics , Life Support, etc.. Every valve , switch , relay , wire , pipe , nozzle interchanger, vent ,,etc.. will be simulated at a functional level , as from the original Apollo's ( and later Shuttle's ) engineering blueprints. This way we can simulate the malfunction of every imaginable element ( again : wires, valves, nozzles, pressure regulators, fuel tanks ,etc.. ) , with explosions, blackouts, untimely fuel-vents ,etc.. etc.. etc..
What;s even more
, a new internal app* (more about this later ) window , showing real-time schematics of the desired/affected subsystem is shown , with real time status of every element.
This will require a chunky GPU Card as more and more of the game is run on the GPU cores., As most features- the user can select the degree of complexity . From "No susbsystems simulation" (i.e. as it is now ) , to the full extent of -literally - thousands of pipes, wires, fuses, relays , valves ,etc..
*Internal apps ? Yep . you heard right .We are implementing installable ( -free of course-) apps withing the internal operating system ( operating system of Space Simulator ,that is ). so you can get windowed apps (with icons ,etc) , of your choice , downloadable from a central repository. Again those internal apps will be of course free. Some of the already coded ones include trajectory computers, this subsystems analyser ( and editor ?) , LUA compiler/interpreter ( for customers' to create own missions ) , VI editor , screenshot taker ,web browser ,music player , all controlled withing a embedded mini-linux( with its command line terminal yep! ) running inside the game , to keep track/control of those windowed apps.
i.e. if user's X decides to not use much the time compression , he ll be able to delete/disable the time-compression APP from the game. OTOH , if the same user is an avid screenshot taker , we ll be able to install -yeaaaaaah , free- an advanced screenshot taking module/icon/etc.. .
lastly , all those apps can be created by the LUA interpreter -which is also available as an internal app- and the internal SDK , so the whole thing is Turing -Complete. In principle , someone could make a SS-APP for whatever ( from chess to astronautics to multiplayer to the app-the-three-jokes ) , and share it via the cloud internal-app system that yours truly is coding right now .
