So, some thoughts:

1) There are two Excellent open source starship bridge simulators, SpaceNerds in Space and Empty Epsilon.

Space Nerds in Space (#SNIS) is immersive, actually 3D, and very well done. It runs on linux and must be compiled from source. It's also difficult to pick up for the first time, in my experience.

Empty Epsilon has some 3D graphics, but it does not do actual 3D navigation or firing. Everything is done on a grid in 2D. This makes the game much much easier to pick up and play, and means that it can run on much simpler devices (android tablets, raspberry pi computers)

Both support some custom controllers. Both have a scripting engine for adding your own missions.

Of course, this is all in 2D space! Empty Epsilon only allows 2D navigation.

In some ways, this makes the game faster paced, easier to pick up, and significantly less complicated to navigate.

In other ways, I find it really limiting, and I want to get a full #SNIS setup running soon to compare against.

As far as a navel game masquerading as a space game, EE does a great job though. It's fun. I'm looking forward to playing it with a full crew.

My plan is to set up all the computers running #SNIS and get everyone acclimated to their roles in one session, then spend some time with the story engine and write a few missions in another session.

Then, if they have fun, we'll make it a bi-weekly or monthly thing.

Updates:

I got my rasberry pi 4 to boot, so I'm going to get it running #SNIS later today or tomorrow.

I did not get a takeup reel because the film store was closed, so I guess I'll do that one day this week and start doing film captures.

I'm waiting on paperspace to let me have a computer that runs linux so I can install all the tools I need to run deoldify video with a real GPU, so that I can try deoldify on Space Patrol.

Thinking about #SpaceLARPCafe again today as I plan a #SNIS party for some friends.

We're renting a room, I'm covering everything in silver foil and passing out (nerf) side arms and uniforms.

I imagine it's going to be a lot of fun.

@estoricru@hackers.town I'm okay. Looking forward to getting off work so I can fiddle with #SNIS, thinking about building some dedicated battle stations with custom controls and stuff. (but trying really hard to convince myself that it would be total overkill/not worth the effort.)

It looks like #snis runs without issue on my pinebook pro.

Or, at least, it *launches* without error.

I don't have enough people around to actually try to play tonight, but I'll try again tomorrow.

Has anyone tried to run this on a pi4? I bet it'd run on the pi4. I'm going to try that tomorrow too.