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165-445: Eve Online (stylised EVE Online ) is a space-based , persistent-world massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by CCP Games . Players of Eve Online can participate in a number of in-game professions and activities, including mining , piracy , manufacturing , trading , exploration , and combat (both player versus environment (PVE) and player versus player (PVP)). The game contains

330-404: A media franchise consisting of space combat simulation video games, an animated television series , a feature film , a collectible card game , a series of novels , and action figures . Game designer Chris Crawford said in an interview that Wing Commander "raised the bar for the whole industry", as the game was five times more expensive to create than most of its contemporaries. Because

495-413: A "Cynosural Field" which the capital ship can then jump to. While this allows the capital ship to travel instantaneously, it requires a trusted second party (or an alternate account) to create the beacon. Jump drives also consume fuel (in contrast to stargates, which require nothing), drain the ship of its capacitor, leaving it nearly defenseless until it is recharged, and incur "jump fatigue", which prevents

660-471: A 10 million year timeframe, and therefore it is extremely unlikely they would have survived for the billions of years that make up the lifetime of the star system. Tau Ceti e is a candidate planet orbiting Tau Ceti that was first proposed in 2012 by statistical analyses of the data of the star's variations in radial velocity that were obtained using HIRES , AAPS , and HARPS . Its possible properties were refined in 2017: if confirmed, it would orbit at

825-427: A CCP representative at Fanfest 2010, is that free interchange of currency causes in-game banking to fall under the same regulatory domain as real-world banking. CCP prefers not place this restriction on in-game behavior, due both to the difficulty of regulatory enforcement and the desire to allow players to create illegitimate in-game banks or Ponzi schemes if they wish to do so. Commentators have attempted to estimate

990-485: A Jupiter or super-Jupiter based on a tangential astrometric velocity of around 11.3 m/s. The exact size and position of this conjectured object have not been determined, though it is at most 5 Jupiter masses if it orbits between 3 and 20 AU. A 2020 Astronomical Journal study by astronomers Jamie Dietrich and Daniel Apai analyzed the orbital stability of the known planets and, considering statistical patterns identified from hundreds of other planetary systems, explored

1155-583: A certain level to be trained, and some skills require more time to train than others; for example, the skill to fly a Titan-class spaceship takes 8 times as long to train as the skill to fly a frigate ship, with a significant number of prerequisite skills. Until the Odyssey expansion, it was not possible to train more than one character per account at the same time. Odyssey introduced "Dual Character Training", which allows players to expend PLEX (see accounts and subscriptions ) in order to allow that account to train

1320-539: A character will begin with more advanced skills in their own race's ships, a character of another race can reach the same proficiency through training. Thus, players are encouraged to use starships that meet their preferred style of play, and the game does not provide incentives for playing as one race rather than another. However, the ships of different races receive unique bonuses to certain things. Ships in Eve Online come in four size classes: Each spaceship within

1485-462: A damper on the possibility of complex life in the system, because any planets would suffer from large impact events roughly ten times more frequently than present day Earth. Greaves noted at the time of her research that "it is likely that [any planets] will experience constant bombardment from asteroids of the kind believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs ". Such bombardments would inhibit the development of biodiversity between impacts. However, it

1650-530: A detectable biosignature . Few properties of the planet are known other than its orbit and mass. It orbits Tau Ceti at a distance of 1.35 AU (near Mars 's orbit in the Solar System) with an orbital period of 642 days and has a minimum mass of 3.93 Earth masses. However, a reanalysis of the data in 2021 provided an in-depth study of the HARPS spectrograph systematics, showing that the 600-day signal

1815-472: A distance of 0.552 AU (between the orbits of Venus and Mercury in the Solar System ) with an orbital period of 168 days and has a minimum mass of 3.93 Earth masses. If Tau Ceti e possessed an Earth-like atmosphere, the surface temperature would be around 68 °C (154 °F). Based upon the incident flux upon the planet, a study by Güdel et al. (2014) speculated that the planet may lie outside

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1980-687: A few trust -like megaconglomerates. The Gallente Federation's official policies regarding multiculturalism and encouragement of diversity attract many immigrants to Gallente space; a third of all ethnic Minmatars reside as citizens there. As the Caldari did not share this enthusiasm for diversity with the Gallente, the Caldari State at the time of its formation found itself at a relative population deficit compared to its Gallente adversary; rather than encourage massive immigration to and diversity within

2145-412: A few dozen meters in length to gigantic capital ships up to 17 kilometers long. Ships fill different roles and vary in size, speed, hull strength, and firepower; smaller ships are generally faster and capable of disabling their targets, but lack the damage output necessary to destroy larger ships, while capital ships do very high amounts of damage but have difficulty striking smaller, mobile targets. Each of

2310-430: A functional use and are not good for trade with NPCs. The characters themselves gather the necessary raw materials to manufacture almost all of the ships and ship modules in the game. NPC ships can be looted and salvaged for items and materials. Non-player created ships and equipment may be purchased from various NPC factions as a character gains status with them, and can be resold in the in-game economy. The in-game currency

2475-516: A game a simulator. Many of the pseudo simulators feature faster than light travel . Examples of true simulators which aim at piloting a space craft in a manner that conforms with the laws of nature include Orbiter , Kerbal Space Program and Microsoft Space Simulator . Examples of more fantastical video games that bend the rules of physics in favor of streamlining and entertainment, include Wing Commander , Star Wars: X-Wing and Freelancer . The modern space flight game genre emerged at

2640-597: A high-functioning technological society some hundred years before the Caldari, building the first lastingly democratic republic of New Eden in the form of the Gallente Federation. Originally the Caldari composed a member race within the Federation, but cultural animosity between the two peoples spiralled into a war during which the Caldari seceded from the Federation to found their own Caldari State. The war lasted 93 years, with neither nation able to overwhelm

2805-434: A jump bridge at a player owned starbase (POS) that is in orbit of a moon. Jump bridges allow instantaneous travel to the other system's jump bridge, at the cost of using fuel (requiring supply by the owning corporation) scaled to the mass of ships that use them. This also leads to the accumulation of jump fatigue. As the aging POS systems & code have been phased out of the game, a deployable structure has effectively replaced

2970-455: A loss of security standing; CONCORD, the interstellar NPC police, will arrive shortly to destroy the aggressor's ship. There are, however, legal ways to attack other players in high-security space. Whole corporations and whole alliances can officially declare war on (or "war-dec") other corporations or alliances for a weekly fee, permitting all members of the involved corporations or alliances to attack each other without loss of security status or

3135-407: A middle-to-low end super-Earth. However, these scenarios aren't necessarily true; since Tau Ceti's debris disk has an inclination of 35 ± 10 , the planets' orbits could be similarly inclined. If the debris disk and f's orbits were assumed to be equal, f would be between 5.56 +1.48 −1.94 and 9.30 +2.48 −3.24 Earth masses, making it slightly more likely to be a mini-Neptune . On top of that,

3300-440: A mix of different methods. The ship the player controls is generally larger than that in pure space combat simulator. Notable examples of the genre include Elite , the X series , Wing Commander: Privateer , Freelancer , and No Man's Sky . In some instances, plot plays only a limited role and only a loose narrative framework tends to be provided. In certain titles of the X series , for instance, players may ignore

3465-454: A multinational cast of pilots from the " Terran Confederation " flying missions against the predatory, aggressive Kilrathi , a feline warrior race (heavily inspired by the Kzinti of Larry Niven 's Known Space universe). Wing Commander (1990) was a best seller and caused the development of competing space combat games, such as LucasArts ' X-Wing . Wing Commander eventually became

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3630-514: A passive process that occurs in real world time so that the learning process continues even if the player is not logged in. The skill training queue allows up to 50 skills to be scheduled, with up to a 10-year total training schedule. Before the November 4, 2014 "Phoebe" release, the skill training queue allowed skills to be scheduled to start training only up to 24 hours in the future. Some skills require other prerequisite skills to be trained to

3795-620: A percentage of every member's earnings. Many corporations offer a variety of benefits to their members, such as free or discounted ships, equipment, formal training, and organized corporate group operations. Among the many activities that corporations can organize is piracy. Actions considered piracy generally involve breaking the in-game law, and can come in a variety of forms. Pirates may camp stargates waiting for other players to arrive, attack players operating in asteroid belts or hunt for players carrying out an NPC agent-assigned mission. Because these activities are considered to be "illegal" within

3960-535: A positive correlation between the presence of planets and a relatively high-metallicity parent star, suggesting that stars with lower metallicity such as Tau Ceti have a lower chance of having planets. On December 19, 2012, evidence was presented that suggested a system of five planets orbiting Tau Ceti. The planets' estimated minimum masses were between 2 and 6  Earth masses , with orbital periods ranging from 14 to 640 days. One of them, Tau Ceti e, appears to orbit about half as far from Tau Ceti as Earth does from

4125-503: A powerful array of weapons, or a ship that moves quickly through space; but the fluid, ever-changing nature of Eve Online means that no ship will be perfect at all of these tasks, nor is there any guarantee that the "best ship for the job" today will continue to be the best ship tomorrow. Furthermore, unlike many online games, Eve Online does not feature racial bonuses; that is, characters of different races do not gain intrinsic advantages for flying ships designed by their own races. While

4290-632: A radius of 0.55–1.16  AU , where 1 AU is the average distance from the Earth to the Sun. Primitive life on Tau Ceti's planets may reveal itself through an analysis of atmospheric composition via spectroscopy, if the composition is unlikely to be abiotic, just as oxygen on Earth is indicative of life. The most optimistic search project to date was Project Ozma , which was intended to "search for extraterrestrial intelligence " ( SETI ) by examining selected stars for indications of artificial radio signals. It

4455-1100: A region of space inaccessible to outsiders. In addition to different backgrounds and histories, the races have characteristic philosophies of starship design. Minmatar ships tend to be quite fast but fragile, and rely on their high speed and maneuverability to evade the tracking systems of heavier weapons, while using projectile weapons such as artillery or autocannons, more sophisticated kin to today's munitions technology . Amarr ships are ponderous, densely armored, and pack batteries of powerful laser -based energy weaponry. Gallente ships are sleek and designed to favor armor plating; they specialize in deploying fleets of robotic drones while mounting hybrid weapons that operate using superconducting magnets to accelerate mass toward targets at great speed (see Railgun ). Finally, Caldari ships are typically poorly armored and not particularly fast but utilize powerful energy shields, and make extensive use of torpedo/missile launchers and hybrid guns, favoring engagement at extreme ranges. However, there are exceptions to these general rules in each race. Players start

4620-462: A relatively high-functioning technological society after the collapse of the EVE wormhole and did not need to spend millennia recapitulating ancient societal developments as the others did, and while the other four major races were still grounded, Jovian history saw two major periods of spacefaring imperialism. They expanded outward and eventually turned to genetic engineering in order to mold themselves into

4785-428: A rig cannot be removed from the ship without being destroyed. Rigs come in four sizes, small, medium, large, and capital, which roughly correspond to the size of the ship, and are used to affect other aspects of the ship such as maximum speed or cargo capacity, or to augment the capabilities of other modules installed in the ship. Most rigs also incur a penalty to a certain aspect of the ship; for example, armor rigs reduce

4950-662: A second character for 30 days, equivalent to paying for a 30-day subscription on another account to train a single character. Odyssey 1.2 introduced the more generalized "Multiple Character Training" which allows players to expend more PLEX to activate this feature for a third character on the account. The in-game economy in Eve Online is an open economy that is largely player-driven. Non-player character (NPC) merchants sell skill books used by players to learn new skills and blueprints to manufacture ships and modules . NPC merchants also buy and sell Trade Goods. Some Trade Goods are only for trade between NPC merchants while others have

5115-512: A species more suited for deep-space life and long-range interstellar exploration. Genetic experimentation and manipulation were not without their drawbacks, however: by the time period in which players enter the Eve Online universe, millennia of human genetic manipulation have rendered the Jovians barely recognizable as human; more critically, the Jovian manipulation of their genome has resulted in

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5280-430: A star is its rate of movement across the celestial sphere , determined by comparing its position relative to more distant background objects. Tau Ceti is considered to be a high-proper-motion star, although it only has an annual traverse of just under 2  arc seconds . Thus it will require about 2000 years before the location of this star shifts by more than a degree. A high proper motion is an indicator of closeness to

5445-503: A star is the component of its motion that is toward or away from the Sun. Unlike proper motion, a star's radial velocity cannot be directly observed, but can be determined by measuring its spectrum . Due to the Doppler shift , the absorption lines in the spectrum of a star will be shifted slightly toward the red (or longer wavelengths) if the star is moving away from the observer, or toward blue (or shorter wavelengths) when it moves toward

5610-467: A star map with multiple ports buying and selling 6 commodities. It was written in BASIC . Star Raiders was introduced in 1980 for the then-new Atari 8-bit computers and became the killer app for the system. Doug Neubauer created the game as a combination of Star Wars and the text-based Star Trek mainframe game. Using smoothly scaled 2D sprites and 3D particles to mimic a first person view of

5775-519: A structure, a gate of sorts (which bears the inscription "EVE" on the New Eden side), was built to stabilize the wormhole that linked the colonies of New Eden with the rest of human civilization. However, when the wormhole unexpectedly collapsed, it destroyed the gate as well as the connection between the colonies of New Eden and the Milky Way. Cut off from the rest of humanity and supplies from Earth,

5940-453: A system. Many of the game's most profitable income sources are found in dangerous null or low security systems, giving players incentive to engage in high-risk, high-reward activities in which they must survive the possible harassment of other players who may also enter the system. The game's primary mode of play is flying space ships. Players can dock at stations, where they are safe and can use station services such as repairing, refitting, and

6105-419: A third the solar abundance. Past measurements have varied from −0.13 to −0.60. This lower abundance of iron indicates that Tau Ceti is almost certainly older than the Sun. Its age had previously been estimated to be 5.8  Gyr , but is now thought to be around 9 Gyr . This compares with 4.57 Gyr for the Sun. However, age estimates for Tau Ceti can range from 4.4 to 12 Gyr , depending on

6270-418: A total of 7,800 star systems that can be visited by players. The game is renowned for its scale and complexity in regard to player interactions. In its single, shared game world, players engage in unscripted economic competition, warfare, and political schemes with other players. The Bloodbath of B-R5RB , a battle involving thousands of players in a single star system, took 21 hours and was recognized as one of

6435-407: A volume of space, Star Raiders simulates clearing sectors of enemy ships while managing resources and damage to the ship's different systems. In addition to forward and rear views from the ship, the game provides both a galactic map and sector scanner to show enemy and friendly starbase locations. The game does not pause while these displays are active; they keep updating in real-time. It is one of

6600-439: Is FlightGear 's Space Shuttle project, whose simulation is backed by NASA windtunnel data and is the most detailed and accurate simulation outside of NASA's internal ones. Kerbal Space Program can be considered a space simulator, even though it portrays an imaginary universe with tweaked physics, masses and distances to enhance gameplay. Nevertheless, the physics and rocket design principles are much more realistic than in

6765-486: Is free and open-source - the project receives development from people with scientific and engineering backgrounds, and is open to contributions from any source. FlightGear can accurately handle speeds from subsonic, transonic , through to high hypersonic or re-entry regimes with a flight dynamics engine that can incorporate windtunnel data or computational fluid dynamics , and uses a 3d model of gravity used for spaceflight based on spherical harmonics which can simulate

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6930-530: Is ISK (Interstellar Kredits), which is also the currency code of the Icelandic króna , the real-world currency of Iceland, where the Eve Online development studio is located. The amount of money or materials in the universe is not fixed and, as such, the economy operates under supply and demand . Market manipulation is possible on a large scale, particular examples being ramping and bear raids . CCP does not issue refunds on in-game purchases. Hence, there

7095-447: Is about 2.5 km/s . The relatively low rotational velocity measurements may indicate that Tau Ceti is being viewed from nearly the direction of its pole. More recently, a 2023 study has estimated a rotation period of 46 ± 4 d and a v eq sin i of 0.1 ± 0.1 km/s , corresponding to a pole-on inclination of 7° ± 7° . The chemical composition of a star provides important clues to its evolutionary history, including

7260-519: Is about 11 m/s measured over a 5-year time span. This result excludes hot Jupiters and probably excludes any planets with minimal mass greater than or equal to Jupiter's mass and with orbital periods less than 15 years. In addition, a survey of nearby stars by the Hubble Space Telescope 's Wide Field and Planetary Camera was completed in 1999, including a search for faint companions to Tau Ceti; none were discovered to limits of

7425-1145: Is always the risk of certain types of confidence tricks or other scams. The economy is balanced by the automatic introduction of extra materials in underpopulated areas. This encourages a more even spread of players. The game provides support for the trading of in-game resources, including graphs of item price history, with Donchian Channel and daily average price. Some player characters operate primarily as traders, generating profits through buying, selling, and transporting goods. Others operate primarily as producers, obtaining components or raw materials and transforming them, sometimes on massive scales, into useful items such as weapons, ships, ammunition, items, or various technologies in demand by other players. Some less combat-oriented players operate as miners or salvagers, collecting and processing ores used in manufacturing or collecting salvage materials to make into items, respectively. Finally, some characters operate as mercenaries or pirates, being paid primarily to be battle-ready and either to attack or defend other profitable enterprises. Unlike some games such as Second Life , in-game currency

7590-553: Is evidence of up to an additional four unconfirmed planets, one of which would be a Jovian planet between 3 and 20 AU from the star. Because of its debris disk , any planet orbiting Tau Ceti would face far more impact events than present day Earth. Note that those planetary candidates have been contested recently and recent discoveries about the stellar inclination cast doubt about the terrestrial nature of these worlds. Despite this hurdle to habitability , its solar analog (Sun-like) characteristics have led to widespread interest in

7755-464: Is involved and a few other actions are considered to be illicit griefing by the game's developers. Escaping retribution by CONCORD, the NPC space police force that punishes criminal activity in higher security solar systems, for criminal actions is also forbidden, as CONCORD is intentionally designed by game mechanics to be unstoppable. Ships in Eve Online are organized into classes, from tiny frigates only

7920-457: Is not freely convertible with real world currency. Players may only buy specific in-game items (such as Pilot License Extension (PLEX) tokens, 500 being redeemable for 30 days of Omega time) from CCP with real-world currency. The player can then sell the items on the in-game market for ISK (game currency). The reverse process, selling in-game currency or items for real-world money, is prohibited. The developers' reasoning for this policy, as related by

8085-491: Is only possible by using structures called "Stargates". Each stargate is linked to a partner stargate in another system; most star systems have more than two stargates, forming a network through which players travel. While players can travel to any number of destinations in individual systems, the need to use stargates to travel between systems makes them focal points for combat. Besides using Stargates, capital ships can also utilize jump drives, which require another ship to create

8250-409: Is possible that a large Jupiter -sized gas giant (such as the proposed planet "i") could deflect comets and asteroids. The debris disk was discovered by measuring the amount of radiation emitted by the system in the far infrared portion of the spectrum . The disk forms a symmetric feature that is centered on the star, and its outer radius averages 55 AU . The lack of infrared radiation from

8415-721: Is sometimes referred to as a "living universe" – a dream some have held since the genre's early beginnings. Also with massive battles , Star Citizen , a title in development by Cloud Imperium Games (headed by Chris Roberts , who was involved in Freelancer and Wing Commander ), aims to bridge the gap between the EVE -like living universe game and the fast action of other games in the genre. An additional sub-class of space trading games eliminate combat entirely, focusing instead entirely on trading and economic manipulation in order to achieve success. Most modern space flight games on

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8580-412: Is still under development. Elite: Dangerous was also successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter in November and December 2012. The game was completed and released in 2014, and expansions are being released in stages, or "seasons". Born Ready Games also closed a successful Kickstarter campaign at the end of 2012, having raised nearly $ 180,000 to assist with the completion of Strike Suit Zero . The game

8745-401: Is the slots it has available for modules. Slots and modules come in three variants—high-, mid-, and low-power. Ships of different sizes have different numbers and ratios of module slots. A ship may also have two to three slots for rigs, which are modules that require no power grid or CPU, but instead require a ship resource called calibration . Installing a rig is a semi-permanent action, as

8910-620: Is used for tournaments. A new test server was announced called "Buckingham" to replace "Singularity" as the main EVE Online test server while "Singularity" was used for Dust 514 / EVE Online joint testing. As Dust 514 is no longer active, "Singularity" is now the main test server again and "Buckingham" is a closed test server for the CCP developers. The playing environment in Eve Online consists of more than 5000 star systems, as well as 2500 randomly accessible wormhole systems, taking place in

9075-559: Is used professionally in aerospace engineering and research, with a flight dynamics engine (JSBSim) that is used in a 2015 NASA benchmark to judge new simulation code to the standards of the space industry . FlightGear simulates orbital and atmospheric flight, but as of 2021 does not cover flight between planets (although its flight dynamics engine supports Mars and has been used to model the NASA ARES glider ). The simulation has been continually developed into modern times, as FlightGear

9240-584: Is weak relative to the Sun. Alternatively it has been suggested that the star could be in a low-activity state analogous to a Maunder Minimum —a historical period, associated with the Little Ice Age in Europe, when sunspots became exceedingly rare on the Sun's surface. Spectral line profiles of Tau Ceti are extremely narrow, indicating low turbulence and observed rotation. The star's asteroseismological oscillations have an amplitude about half that of

9405-465: The Catalog of Nearby Habitable Systems (HabCat) under the auspices of Project Phoenix , another SETI endeavour. The list contained more than 17 000 theoretically habitable systems, approximately 10% of the original sample. The next year, Turnbull would further refine the list to the 30 most promising systems out of 5000 within 100 light-years from the Sun, including Tau Ceti; this will form part of

9570-655: The Eve Online game map. Alliances based in lawless space often form unofficial political power blocs with other alliances. These power blocs are typically referred to as "coalitions". Unlike formally established alliances, coalitions are similar in nature to Japanese keiretsu  – an informal 'business arrangement' in which several corporations band together to provide mutual financial, military and/or industrial support. Corporations take up numerous business models such as mining, manufacturing or "ratting" (hunting NPC pirates for their bounties and loot). Corporations can levy income taxes on their members, which skim off

9735-425: The Eve Online universe has a different set of characteristics, and can be fitted with different combinations of modules, subject to their fitting requirements. Ships have a wide variety of characteristics, including power grid, CPU, capacitor size and recharge rate, energy shields, armor, maximum velocity, agility, locking range, and maximum number of lockable targets. A ship's systems also receive bonuses depending on

9900-753: The London Science Museum in the " Game On " exhibition organized and toured by the Barbican Art Gallery . Elite was also named #12 on IGN 's 2000 "Top 25 PC Games of All Time" list, the #3 most influential video game ever by the Times Online in 2007, and "best game ever" for the BBC Micro by Beebug Magazine in 1984. Elite ' s sequel, Frontier: Elite II , was named #77 on PC Zone 's "101 Best PC Games Ever" list in 2007. Similar praise has been bestowed elsewhere in

10065-482: The NES console and arcades in 1985, featured a cockpit view, a radar displaying enemy and base locations, the ability to warp anywhere, and a date system keeping track of the current date. Another notable Apple II game by developer FTL Games was SunDog: Frozen Legacy (1984) which allowed the player to fly through many systems, choose multiple planets to land on in several of those systems, and even walk around on

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10230-477: The Sun's mass . At a distance of just under 12 light-years (3.7 parsecs ) from the Solar System , it is a relatively nearby star and the closest solitary G-class star. The star appears stable, with little stellar variation , and is metal-deficient (low in elements other than hydrogen and helium) relative to the Sun. It can be seen with the unaided eye with an apparent magnitude of 3.5. As seen from Tau Ceti,

10395-481: The Vega Strike engine, and the latter has reached the stage where it is offered as a working title to the public. In 2013 a hobbyist space flight simulator project was realized under usage of the open source Pioneer software. Tau Ceti Tau Ceti , Latinized from τ Ceti , is a single star in the constellation Cetus that is spectrally similar to the Sun , although it has only about 78% of

10560-678: The Amarr, and some, having adopted the Amarrian religion and sided with their masters during the revolution, were released from bondage and incorporated into the Empire as commoners in the Ammatar Mandate. The free Minmatar Republic, taking as inspiration the ideals and practices of the Gallente Federation, is presently a strong military and economic power actively seeking the emancipation of their brethren and all other slaves. The Gallente and

10725-521: The Band of Brothers alliance emerging the winner. The first two weekends in December 2006 saw the 3rd Alliance tournament. This was once again broadcast via live streaming video by Eve TV The tournament saw 40 Alliances pitting five-man teams against each other. Once again, the Band of Brothers alliance emerged as the winner. Of particular note in this tournament was the fielding of an Imperial Apocalypse by

10890-523: The Caldari homeworlds are situated in the same star system. The Gallente homeworld was originally settled by descendants of the French colonists of Tau Ceti ; Caldari Prime on the other hand was purchased by a multinational megacorporation that began to terraform it. The terraforming of Caldari Prime was incomplete at the time of the EVE wormhole's collapse, hence the planet remained environmentally inhospitable for millennia. The Gallente restored themselves to

11055-404: The Gallente Federation and Caldari State are economy- and trade-oriented nations. However, the Gallente favour liberal economic policies, encourage individual entrepreneurship and social democracy , and maintain a progressive approach to social welfare, whereas the Caldari State is organised as a form of statist corporatocracy ; the Caldari State itself is owned by and operated on behalf of

11220-584: The Hen Ostriches. In Chinese astronomy , the " Square Celestial Granary " ( Chinese : 天倉 ; pinyin : Tiān Cāng ) refers to an asterism consisting of τ Ceti, ι Ceti , η Ceti , ζ Ceti , θ Ceti and 57 Ceti . Consequently, the Chinese name for τ Ceti itself is "the Fifth Star of Square Celestial Granary" (Chinese: 天倉五 ; pinyin: Tiān Cāng wǔ ). The proper motion of

11385-687: The Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate. The ship was destroyed in the semi-finals of the tournament by the COW (Cult of War) team. A last-minute attempt to arrange an 8 billion ISK ransom for the ship fell through. Space trading and combat game Some games in the genre aim to recreate a realistic portrayal of space flight, involving the calculation of orbits within a more complete physics simulation than pseudo space flight simulators. Others focus on gameplay rather than simulating space flight in all its facets. The realism of

11550-476: The Jove Empire. The Amarr, a militantly theocratic empire, was the first of the playable races to rediscover faster-than-light travel. In terms of physical proximity, the space occupied by this society is physically nearest to the demolished EVE gate. Armed with this new technology and the strength of their faith in their god, the Amarr expanded their empire by conquering and enslaving several races, including

11715-455: The Minmatar race, who had only just begun colonizing other planets. Generations later, after the intense culture shock of encountering the Gallente Federation, and in the wake of a disastrous attempted invasion of Jovian space, many Minmatar took the opportunity to rebel and successfully overthrew their enslavers, forming their own government. However, much of their population remain enslaved by

11880-456: The State, this population shortage was rectified by a Statewide programme of artificial reproduction, producing a generation of so-called 'Tube Children' raised by the Caldari State apparatus to enlarge the labour pools available to the megacorporations that ruled the State. The Jovians (a non-playable race) were also descended from colonists. Unlike the other races of Eve Online , they maintained

12045-924: The Sun and a lower mode lifetime. Principal factors driving research interest in Tau Ceti are its proximity, its Sun-like characteristics, and the implications for possible life on its planets. For categorization purposes, Hall and Lockwood report that "the terms 'solarlike star', ' solar analog ', and 'solar twin' [are] progressively restrictive descriptions". Tau Ceti fits the second category, given its similar mass and low variability, but relative lack of metals. The similarities have inspired popular culture references for decades, as well as scientific examination. In 1988, radial-velocity observations ruled out any periodical variations attributable to massive planets around Tau Ceti inside of Jupiter-like distances. Ever more precise measurements continue to rule out such planets, at least until December 2012. The velocity precision reached

12210-494: The Sun is 37.2 km/s . This result can then be used to compute an orbital path of Tau Ceti through the Milky Way . It has a mean galacto-centric distance of 9.7 kiloparsecs ( 32 000   ly ) and an orbital eccentricity of 0.22. The Tau Ceti system is believed to have only one stellar component. A dim optical companion has been observed with magnitude 13.1. As of 2000, it was 137  arcseconds distant from

12375-504: The Sun may be the unusual case: one research-team member suggests the Sun may have passed close to another star early in its history and had most of its comets and asteroids stripped away. Stars with large debris disks have changed the way astronomers think about planet formation because debris disk stars, where dust is continually generated by collisions, appear to form planets readily. Tau Ceti's habitable zone —the locations where liquid water could be present on an Earth-sized planet—spans

12540-470: The Sun would be in the northern hemisphere constellation Boötes with an apparent magnitude of about 2.6. Observations have detected more than ten times as much dust surrounding Tau Ceti as is present in the Solar System. Since December 2012, there has been evidence of at least four planets—all likely super-Earths —orbiting Tau Ceti, and two of these are potentially in the habitable zone . There

12705-411: The Sun. Nearby stars can traverse an angle of arc across the sky more rapidly than the distant background stars and are good candidates for parallax studies. In the case of Tau Ceti, the parallax measurements indicate a distance of 11.9  ly . This makes it one of the closest star systems to the Sun and the next-closest spectral class-G star after Alpha Centauri A . The radial velocity of

12870-435: The Sun. With Tau Ceti's luminosity of 52% that of the Sun and a distance from the star of 0.552 AU, the planet would receive 1.71 times as much stellar radiation as Earth does, slightly less than Venus with 1.91 times Earth's. Nevertheless, some research places it within the star's habitable zone. The Planetary Habitability Laboratory has estimated that Tau Ceti f, which receives 28.5% as much starlight as Earth, would be within

13035-402: The age at which it formed. The interstellar medium of dust and gas from which stars form is primarily composed of hydrogen and helium with trace amounts of heavier elements. As nearby stars continually evolve and die, they seed the interstellar medium with an increasing portion of heavier elements. Thus younger stars tend to have a higher portion of heavy elements in their atmospheres than do

13200-850: The aggressor as a free target for other players, and attacks within sight of sentry guns will cause them to fire on the aggressor. Systems classified 0.0 to −1.0 are called "zero space" or "null sec", and feature no law enforcement; individual systems, or groups of systems, may be controlled by player alliances, up to the creation of player-owned empires reaching across entire "regions" (an aggregate group of star systems). Wormhole systems are accessible only by wormholes that randomly appear and disappear, and are also lawless space, showing as −1.0. However, player-run corporations cannot claim sovereignty in wormhole systems. Star systems contain different types of celestial objects, making them more or less suitable for different kinds of operations. Typically, players find asteroid fields, planets, stations, stargates, and moons in

13365-433: The average distance between Venus and the Sun. The chromosphere of Tau Ceti—the portion of a star's atmosphere just above the light-emitting photosphere —currently displays little or no magnetic activity, indicating a stable star. One 9-year study of temperature, granulation , and the chromosphere showed no systematic variations; Ca II emissions around the H and K infrared bands show a possible 11-year cycle, but this

13530-476: The behaviour of the spacecraft, but not orbital mechanics. Space combat games tend to be mission-based, as opposed to the more open-ended nature of space trading and combat games. The general formula for the space trading and combat game , which has changed little since its genesis, is for the player to begin in a relatively small, outdated ship with little money or status and for the player to gain in status and power through trading, exploration, combat or

13695-541: The candidate planets have radial velocities as low as 30 cm/s, and the experimental method used in their detection, as it was applied to HARPS, could in theory have detected down to around 20 cm/s. The updated 4-planet model is dynamically packed and potentially stable for billions of years. However, with further refinements, even more candidate planets have been detected. In 2019, a paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics suggested that Tau Ceti could have

13860-489: The catalogue of stars in the Calendarium of Al Achsasi al Mouakket , written at Cairo about 1650, this star was designated Thālith al Naʽāmāt (ثالث النعامات - thālith al-naʽāmāt ), which was translated into Latin as Tertia Struthionum , meaning the third of the ostriches . This star, along with η Cet (Deneb Algenubi), θ Cet (Thanih Al Naamat), ζ Cet (Baten Kaitos), and υ Cet , were Al Naʽāmāt (النعامات),

14025-425: The colonies of New Eden were left starving and disconnected from one another; many died out entirely. Over the millennia the descendants of the surviving colonists managed to rebuild their own societies, but by this time the memories and knowledge of humanity's origins, of Earth and the Milky Way galaxy, as well as the history of the settling of New Eden, were lost; what little information that survived transmission over

14190-415: The core gameplay elements of directly controlling the flight of some sort of space vessel, generally armed, and of navigating from one area to another for a variety of reasons. As technology has improved it has been possible to implement a number of extensions to gameplay, such as dynamic economies and cooperative online play . Overall, however, the core gameplay mechanics of the genre have changed little over

14355-468: The corporation's assets. The CEO assigns roles to corporation members such as director, accountant and personnel manager. Corporations may also band together to form alliances. Corporations and alliances come in different shapes and sizes. Some player groups write press releases about new business openings and send out IPO information to potential in-game venture capital investors. Alliances can control enough star systems that their territory can be plotted on

14520-728: The definition is expanded to include decision making and planning, then Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space (1992) is also notable for historical accuracy and detail. In this game, the player takes the role of Administrator of NASA or Head of the Soviet Space Program with the ultimate goal of being the first side to conduct a successful human Moon landing . Orbiter and, to an extent, Space Shuttle Mission 2007 , provide more elaborate simulations. They have 3D virtual cockpits and external views. Orbiter has been continually developed into modern times including having modern graphics, while others above have not been. FlightGear

14685-514: The desired configuration, or in setting autopilots . Real time hands on piloting can happen, depending on the simulated spacecraft. For example, it is common to use a joystick analog control to land a Space Shuttle (or any other spaceplane ) or the Apollo Lunar Module (or similar landers). Dockings can be performed more precisely using the numerical keypad . Overall, the simulations have more complex control systems than game, with

14850-703: The development of Elite (the main character in Traveller is named "Jamison"; the main character in Elite is named "Jameson") and Jumpgate Evolution . The Wing Commander (1990–2007) series from Origin Systems, Inc. was a marked departure from the standard formula up to that point, bringing space combat to a level approaching the Star Wars films. Set beginning in the year 2654, and characterized by designer Chris Roberts as " World War II in space", it features

15015-518: The events of the 2nd Caldari Alliance Tournament. The tournament pitted three-man teams from the top alliances against each other. Eve TV provided live in-game footage of the battles along with expert commentary. Analysis of the teams and strategies, interviews with CCP staff and behind-the-scenes specials were also aired between battles. Eve TV was produced and hosted primarily by DJs from Eve-Radio (a player-run streaming radio station) with resources provided by CCP. A total of 95 matches were scheduled, with

15180-445: The eventually fatal "Jovian Disease", an inherited psychological disorder which, despite the best efforts of the Jovians to reverse it, has affected every individual of the Jovian race and thus crippled their civilization. Having experienced a catastrophic population decline (the Jovian societal structure is believed to be barely maintained by their immensely-advanced technological systems), the Jovians have effectively retreated to inhabit

15345-471: The fall. Localized services for Japanese players would enable them to access the game in their native language through the Tranquility server, which currently hosts over 350,000 subscribers from around the world in three languages: English, German and Russian. On May 5, 2013, Eve Online claimed a new record for the maximum number of simultaneous pilots online with 65,303 concurrent accounts logged on to

15510-452: The first truly open-ended game. It is to this day one of the most ambitious games ever made, residing in only 22 kilobytes of memory and on a single floppy disk. The latest incarnation of the franchise, titled Elite: Dangerous , was released on 16 December 2014, following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Though not as well known as Elite , Trade Wars is noteworthy as the first multiplayer space trader. A BBS door , Trade Wars

15675-432: The four races has its own unique ship design preferences and strengths and weaknesses, although all races have ships that are meant for the same basic roles and are balanced for play against each other. This means that there is no "best ship" in Eve Online . According to the player's preferred style of play, the player might want their characters to fly a ship with a huge cargo hold, one that is suited for mining, one that has

15840-465: The future, the background story of Eve Online explains that humanity, having used up most of Earth's resources through centuries of explosive population growth, began colonizing the rest of the Milky Way . As on Earth, this expansion also led to competition and fighting over available resources, but everything changed with the discovery of a natural wormhole leading to an unexplored galaxy subsequently dubbed "New Eden". Dozens of colonies were founded, and

16005-416: The game by either selecting a previously created character or by creating a new one. Each Eve Online account allows for up to three characters. When a player creates a new character, they start by choosing one of the four playable races – Amarr, Gallente, Minmatar, or Caldari. Each race is further divided into three bloodlines that give characters different pre-defined appearances, which can be finely tuned by

16170-532: The game mechanics, pirate characters often will have low security status and may even be branded as outlaws by CONCORD. Likewise, victims of overt piracy may retaliate without intervention from CONCORD, often via an expressed right to destroy the pirate ship (i.e., "kill right"). Although piracy activities are "illegal" within the game universe, they are not against the rules of the game, i.e., there will only be in-game retaliation and punishment for them. Illegally attacking another player in secure space will result in

16335-492: The game that impacted him most on the Commodore 64. Developers of Jumpgate Evolution , Battlecruiser 3000AD , Infinity: The Quest for Earth , Hard Truck: Apocalyptic Wars and Flatspace likewise all claim Elite as a source of inspiration. Elite was named one of the sixteen most influential games in history at Telespiele, a German technology and games trade show, and is being exhibited at such places as

16500-417: The game was highly successful, other publishers had to match its production value in order to compete. This forced a large portion of the video game industry to become more conservative, as big-budget games need to be an assured hit for it to be profitable in any way. Crawford opined that Wing Commander in particular affected the marketing and economics of computer games and reestablished the "action game" as

16665-616: The games that inspired Elite and the Wing Commander series. It also resulted in direct clones, including Space Spartans for Intellivision and Starmaster for the Atari 2600, both from 1982. Elite has made a lasting impression on developers, worldwide, extending even into different genres. In interviews, senior producers of CCP Games cited Elite as one of the inspirations for their acclaimed MMORPG EVE Online . Þórólfur Beck , CCP's co-founder, credits Elite as

16830-532: The generations was misunderstood, lost in translation, or consigned to mythology. Five major distinct societies rose to prominence from the surviving colonies, all growing into interstellar spaceflight-capable civilizations. The states based around these societies make up the five major empires in Eve Online : the Amarr Empire, the Caldari State, the Gallente Federation, the Minmatar Republic, and

16995-561: The genre is very popular, but some people have complained that, in some titles, the leeway given to the player too often is only superficial, and that, in reality, the roles offered to players are very similar, and open-ended play too frequently restricted by scripted sequences. As an example, Freelancer has been in one reviewer's opinion critiqued as being rigid in its narrative structure, being in one case compared negatively with Grand Theft Auto , another series praised for its open-ended play. All space trading and combat games feature

17160-468: The habitable zone and closer to a Venus-like world. Tau Ceti f is a candidate planet orbiting Tau Ceti that was proposed in 2012 by statistical analyses of the star's variations in radial velocity, and also recovered by further analysis in 2017. It is of interest because its orbit places it in Tau Ceti's extended habitable zone. However, a 2015 study implies that it would have been in the temperate zone for less than one billion years, so there may not be

17325-445: The hypothetical Alcubierre drive , but this is implemented in a realistic method to complement the more realistic elements of the game. Most games in the space combat genre feature futuristic scenarios involving space flight and extraplanetary combat. Such games generally place the player into the controls of a small starfighter or smaller starship in a military force of similar and larger spaceships and do not take into account

17490-712: The intervention of CONCORD. The weekly fee can be eliminated if the war declaration is reciprocated. War declarations will clearly flag a player's enemies, so that players can determine who can legally attack and be attacked. In March 2006, CCP made a deal with Optic Communications to start working on bringing Eve Online to the Chinese gaming audience. Closed alpha testing was held on a small cluster for some time, with about 3,000 players chosen from an initial pool of 50,000. The Chinese open beta test began on June 13, 2006, and proved to be very popular, gaining numbers comparable to Eve Online' s main server cluster. In order to avoid

17655-416: The keyboard and mouse combination (or gamepad if such is the case). The lack of uptake among the majority of modern gamers has also made joysticks a sort of anachronism, though some new controller designs and simplification of controls offer the promise that space sims may be playable in their full capacity on gaming consoles at some time in the future. In fact, X3: Reunion , sometimes considered one of

17820-671: The largest and most expensive battles in gaming history. Eve Online was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art with a video including the historical events and accomplishments of the playerbase. Eve Online was released in North America and Europe in May 2003. It was published from May to December 2003 by Simon & Schuster Interactive in North America and by Crucial Entertainment in the United Kingdom, after which CCP purchased

17985-400: The latter games is limited to what the game designer deems to be appropriate for the gameplay, instead of focusing on the realism of moving the spacecraft in space. Some "flight models" use a physics system based on Newtonian physics , but these are usually limited to maneuvering the craft in its direct environment, and do not take into consideration the orbital calculations that would make such

18150-406: The limit being the physical reproduction of the actual simulated spacecraft (see Simulation cockpit ). Early attempts at 3D space simulation date back as far as 1974's Spasim , an online multi-player space simulator in which players attempt to destroy each other's ships. The earliest known space trader dates to 1974's Star Trader , a game where the entire interface was text-only and included

18315-547: The lower the inclination of the planetary orbits the less stable they tend to be over a given time period, as the planets would have greater masses and therefore more gravitational pull which would in turn disturb the orbital stability of neighbouring planets. So, for example, if as estimated in the Korolik et al 2023 study Tau Ceti has a pole-on inclination of around 7 degrees, and the postulated planets do as well, then those planets' orbits would be verging on instability within just

18480-534: The lunar surface in a craft resembling the Apollo Lunar Module , while Perilune (2019) is an example of a lunar landing simulation with realistic physics designed for Android mobile devices. The game/program SpaceEngine includes a realistic space flight simulator within its full scale representation of the universe (including both real and procedurally generated astronomical objects), utilizing realistic orbital mechanics and an atmospheric model for certain flyable shuttles. It also includes interstellar travel using

18645-519: The maximum velocity of the ship. All ships in the game are also classed according to Tech level , from Tech I to Tech III. Players have several interaction options when playing Eve Online . Every activity is possible for solo players but larger and more complicated tasks become more feasible for groups, such as pirate clans or corporations. Players can organize themselves into corporations (similar to guilds or clans in other MMOs). Corporations are run by one chief executive officer (CEO) who controls

18810-407: The media from time to time. Elite is one of the most popularly requested games to be remade, and some argue that it is still the best example of the genre to date, with more recent titles—including its sequels—not rising up to its level. It has been credited as opening the door for future online persistent worlds , such as Second Life and World of Warcraft , and as being

18975-408: The model adopted. Besides rotation, another factor that can widen the absorption features in the spectrum of a star is pressure broadening . The presence of nearby particles affects the radiation emitted by an individual particle. So the line width is dependent on the surface pressure of the star, which in turn is determined by the temperature and surface gravity. This technique was used to determine

19140-455: The more cumbersome and difficult series to master within the trading and combat genre, was initially planned for the Xbox but later cancelled. Realistic simulators feature spacecraft systems and instrument simulation, using a combination of extensive keyboard shortcuts and mouse clicks on virtual instrument panels . Most of the maneuvers and operations consist of setting certain systems into

19305-483: The most lucrative type of computer game. The seeming decline of the space flight simulators and games in the late 1990s also coincided with the rise of the RTS , FPS and RPG game genres, with such examples as Warcraft , Doom and Diablo . The very things that made these games classics, such as their open-endedness, complex control systems and attention to detail, have been cited as reasons for their decline. It

19470-400: The new millennium been considered a "dead" genre. However, open-source and enthusiast communities managed to produce some working, modern titles (e.g. Orbiter Spaceflight Simulator ); and 2011's commercially released Kerbal Space Program was notably well-received, even by the aerospace community. Some more recent games, most notably Elite: Dangerous , have brought new attention to

19635-448: The observer. In the case of Tau Ceti, the radial velocity is about −17 km/s, with the negative value indicating that it is moving toward the Sun. The star will make its closest approach to the Sun in about 43,000 years, when it comes to within 10.6 ly (3.25 pc). The distance to Tau Ceti, along with its proper motion and radial velocity, together give the motion of the star through space. The space velocity relative to

19800-442: The old jump bridge. However, unlike the old POS jump bridges, it allows players to customize who may use the gate based on settings such as standings or corporation / alliance affiliation. It also does not need to be deployed in a POS, and as such is often deployed near player owned Citadel structures. Unlike other massively multiplayer online games , player characters in Eve Online advance continuously over time by training skills,

19965-407: The older stars. These heavy elements are termed "metals" by astronomers, and the portion of heavy elements is the metallicity . The amount of metallicity in a star is given in terms of the ratio of iron (Fe), an easily observed heavy element, to hydrogen. A logarithm of the relative iron abundance is compared to the Sun. In the case of Tau Ceti, the atmospheric metallicity is equivalent to about

20130-478: The orbit of the habitable zone. At this distance, the dust belt may be analogous to the Kuiper belt that lies outside the orbit of Neptune in the Solar System. Tau Ceti shows that stars need not lose large disks as they age, and such a thick belt may not be uncommon among Sun-like stars. Tau Ceti's belt is only 1/20 as dense as the belt around its young neighbor, Epsilon Eridani. The relative lack of debris around

20295-431: The orbits in which the presence of additional, yet-undetected planets are most likely. This analysis predicted three planet candidates at orbits coinciding with planet candidates b, c, and d. The close match between the independently predicted planet periods and the periods of the three planet candidates previously identified in radial velocity data supports the genuine planetary nature of candidates b, c, and d. Furthermore,

20460-401: The other. The planet Caldari Prime was initially retained by the Gallente Federation during the war, and did not become part of the new Caldari State. Much more recently, however, a Caldari offensive managed to recapture their lost homeworld, a fact which is viewed with abhorrence by the Gallente, who see the presence of a significant Caldari fleet about the planet as a mass hostage taking. Both

20625-428: The period of variation measures the time required for the activity sites to complete a full rotation about the star. By this means the rotation period for Tau Ceti is estimated to be 34 d . Due to the Doppler effect , the rotation rate of a star affects the width of the absorption lines in the spectrum (light from the side of the star moving away from the observer will be shifted to a longer wavelength; light from

20790-491: The personal computer allow a player to utilise a combination of the WASD keys of the keyboard and mouse as a means of controlling the game (games such as Microsoft's Freelancer use this control system exclusively ). By far the most popular control system among genre enthusiasts, however, is the joystick . Most fans prefer to use this input method whenever possible, but expense and practicality mean that many are forced to use

20955-507: The physics of space flight, often citing some technological advancement to explain the lack thereof. The prominent Wing Commander , X-Wing and Freespace series all use this approach. Exceptions include Independence War , Independence War 2 and the Star Trek: Bridge Commander series, which model craft at a larger scale and/or in a more strategic fashion. I-War also features Newtonian style physics for

21120-489: The pilot from jumping for progressively longer periods of time after each consecutive jump. Titans are also capable of allowing other ships to instantaneously travel by creating temporary bridges to cynosural fields. Black Ops battleships can create similar, but undetectable, bridges capable of transporting only specific types of stealth ships such as Stealth Bombers. Player-run corporations that claim sovereignty over two null sec systems within range of each other can also set up

21285-455: The player issues a command to warp to an object greater than 150 km away and in the same star system; after an alignment maneuver, their ship will enter warp. Warp speeds are measured in astronomical units per second and vary by ship class and fittings. A ship's warp drive can be temporarily disabled by warp disruption weapons, which is an essential part of combat to prevent a target from escaping. For most ships, travel between star systems

21450-480: The player locks on to an opponent and orders their weapons to fire, and the result is determined through calculations based on factors such as range, velocity, weapon tracking, and a degree of randomness. Travel across distances longer than hundreds of kilometers is mostly done with the ship's Warp Drive, which every ship and escape pod has. Alternatively a player may also choose to "slow boat" across these kind of distances, that is, traveling without warp drive. To warp,

21615-456: The player ship to rotate, and Ginga Hyoryu Vifam , which allowed first-person open space exploration with a radar displaying the destination and player/enemy positions as well as an early physics engine where approaching a planet 's gravitational field pulls the player towards it. Following Elite were games such as The Halley Project (1985), Echelon (1987) and Microsoft Space Simulator (1994). Star Luster , released for

21780-490: The player. Unlike many other MMOs, where there are numerous copies of the game universe intended to run at once (i.e., servers), Eve Online is functionally a single-universe game. There are at least four copies of the universe running: the main server "Tranquility", the Chinese-based "Serenity", the test server "Singularity" (also "Sisi") which is a general, public test server, and an event server, "Thunderdome", which

21945-419: The plot for as long as they wish and are even given the option to disable the plot completely and instead play in sandbox mode . Many games of this genre place a strong emphasis on factional conflict, leading to many small mission-driven subplots that unravel the tensions of the galaxy. Games of this type often allow the player to choose among multiple roles to play and multiple paths to victory. This aspect of

22110-510: The point when home computers became sufficiently powerful to draw basic wireframe graphics in real-time. The game Elite is widely considered to be the breakthrough game of the genre, and as having successfully melded the "space trading" and flight sim genres. Elite was highly influential upon later games of its type, although it did have some precursors. Games similar to Elite are sometimes called " Elite -clones". Space flight games and simulators, at one time popular, had for much of

22275-456: The primary. It may be gravitationally bound, but it is considered more likely to be a line-of-sight coincidence. Most of what is known about the physical properties of Tau Ceti and its system has been determined through spectroscopic measurements. By comparing the spectrum to computed models of stellar evolution , the age, mass, radius and luminosity of Tau Ceti can be estimated. However, using an astronomical interferometer , measurements of

22440-490: The radius of the star can be made directly to an accuracy of 0.5%. Through such means, the radius of Tau Ceti has been measured to be 79.3% ± 0.4% of the solar radius . This is about the size that is expected for a star with somewhat lower mass than the Sun. The rotation period for Tau Ceti was measured by periodic variations in the classic H and K absorption lines of singly ionized calcium (Ca II). These lines are closely associated with surface magnetic activity, so

22605-588: The regional market. All space combat takes place in real time at sub-light speeds from around 100 m/s to in excess of 8000 m/s, depending on ship size and setup. While players can manually control their ships as in space combat simulators such as Wing Commander or X-Wing following the release of the Rhea expansion on December 9, 2014, most opt instead to give commands such as Orbit, Approach or Align to their flight computer, which does its best to comply. Weapon aiming, however, cannot be done manually; instead,

22770-420: The rest of the world) is synchronised, so that feature development is distributed to both server clusters, although the game worlds are not connected. Eve Online fully supports Unicode and has a back-end system to enable localization of each and every aspect of the game's content and UI. In October 2006, the average age of an Eve Online player was 27, and 95% of players were male. The average weekly playtime

22935-434: The rights and began to self-publish via a digital distribution scheme. On January 22, 2008, it was announced that Eve Online would be distributed via Steam . On March 10, 2009, the game was again made available in boxed form in stores, released by Atari . In February 2013, Eve Online reached over 500,000 subscribers. On November 11, 2016, Eve Online added a limited free-to-play version. Set more than 21,000 years in

23100-465: The same server at the same time. This record was set on the eve of Eve Online ' s 10 year anniversary, and topped the previous record of 63,170 set January 23, 2011. Eve Online typically experiences the highest number of users on Sundays and the peak player records have almost exclusively been broken on Sundays. During two weekends in July 2006, a live streaming video production called Eve TV covered

23265-405: The ship's pilot's levels of various skills. These bonuses usually correspond to the role the ship has been designed for, and thus vary widely. For instance, the Caldari "Caracal" cruiser has a bonus to the rate of fire of certain missile launcher types, while the Gallente "Vexor" cruiser has a bonus to the damage and hitpoints of certain types of combat drones. One important characteristic of a ship

23430-490: The shock of quickly adding thousands of new players to the current server (Tranquility), CCP Games decided to launch Eve in China on its own server (Serenity). In 2011, CCP allowed its licensing agreement with CDC Games , which had acquired Optic in July 2007, to expire. CCP created a new partnership with TianCity to relaunch Serenity on December 11, 2012. The code base between Serenity (serving China) and Tranquility (serving

23595-400: The side moving towards the observer will be shifted toward a shorter wavelength). By analyzing the width of these lines, the rotational velocity of a star can be estimated. The projected rotation velocity for Tau Ceti is where v eq is the velocity at the equator , and i is the inclination angle of the rotation axis to the line of sight . For a typical G8 star, the rotation velocity

23760-441: The space combat or trading subgenres. Mods for the game such as Real Solar System, Realism Overhaul and Kerbalism can be installed to add more realism to the game by replacing the standard in-game solar system with a 1:1 replica of the real Solar System as well as adding more realistic rocket engines, radiation, life support and other elements to make the game more realistic. The game Lunar Flight (2012) simulates flying around

23925-672: The space trading and combat game subgenre. Realistic space simulators seek to represent a vessel's behaviour under the influence of the laws of physics . As such, the player normally concentrates on following checklists or planning tasks. Piloting is generally limited to dockings, landings or orbital maneuvers. The reward for the player is on mastering real or realistic spacecraft, celestial mechanics and astronautics . Classical games with this approach include Space Shuttle: A Journey into Space (1982), Rendezvous: A Space Shuttle Simulation (1982), The Halley Project (1985), Shuttle (1992) and Microsoft Space Simulator (1994). If

24090-509: The star's habitable zone, albeit narrowly. New results were published in August 2017. They confirmed Tau Ceti e and f as candidates but failed to consistently detect planets b (which may be a false negative ), c (whose weakly defined apparent signal was correlated to stellar rotation), and d (which did not show up in all data sets). Instead, they found two new planetary candidates, g and h, with orbits of 20 and 49 days. The signals detected from

24255-521: The star. Given its stability, similarity and relative proximity to the Sun, Tau Ceti is consistently listed as a target for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The name "Tau Ceti" is the Bayer designation for this star, established in 1603 as part of German celestial cartographer Johann Bayer 's Uranometria star catalogue: it is "number T" in Bayer's sequence of constellation Cetus. In

24420-595: The study also predicts at least one yet-undetected planet between planets e and f, i.e., within the habitable zone. This predicted exoplanet is identified as PxP-4. Since Tau Ceti is likely aligned in such a way that it is nearly pole-on to Earth (as indicated by its rotation), if its planets share this alignment and have nearly face-on orbits, they would be less similar to Earth's mass and more to Neptune , Saturn , or Jupiter . For example, were Tau Ceti f's orbit inclined 70 degrees from being face-on to Earth, its mass would be 4.18 +1.12 −1.46 Earth masses, making it

24585-408: The surface gravity of Tau Ceti. The log g , or logarithm of the star's surface gravity, is about 4.4, very close to the log g = 4.44 for the Sun. The luminosity of Tau Ceti is equal to only 55% of the Sun's luminosity . A terrestrial planet would need to orbit this star at a distance of about 0.7  AU to match the solar insolation level of Earth. This is approximately the same as

24750-535: The surface within the cities. Many other space sim games have allowed the player to exit their ship on planets, but the "walking" is just clicking on a location such as "Bar," "Ship Dealer," etc. The game also featured a unique story line involving cryogenics . SunDog: Frozen Legacy was also released on the Atari ST in 1985. Some tabletop and board games, such as Traveller or Merchant of Venus , also feature themes of space combat and trade. Traveller influenced

24915-645: The system will result in the appearance of law enforcement. These units will attack and destroy the aggressor, and are designed to reinforce in such strength that they will always win an engagement. However, CONCORD is not preventive, but punitive, meaning there is a short window between beginning an attack and getting destroyed where a player (or group of) can destroy another player's ship. Systems classified as 0.1–0.4 are considered "low security", where CONCORD law enforcement units will not destroy aggressors, but do monitor unprovoked acts of aggression and have automated sentry guns in some locations. Unprovoked attacks will flag

25080-463: The telescope's resolving power. However, these searches only excluded larger brown dwarf bodies and closer orbiting giant planets, so smaller, Earth-like planets in orbit around the star, like those discovered in 2012, were not precluded. If hot Jupiters were to exist in close orbit, they would likely disrupt the star's habitable zone ; their exclusion was thus considered positive for the possibility of Earth-like planets. General research has shown

25245-555: The twisting force caused by gravity varying over a craft. It has an accurate celestial simulation that also feeds star tracker instruments for navigation. FlightGear has the ability to accelerate time supported by the fact that the physics simulation runs on a separate clock than the visuals - this is very important to simulate long space missions. Being modern, FlightGear has realistic graphics and an orbital renderer that can handle calculations of light scattering and auroral emission with huge distances involved. Of particular note

25410-408: The value of Eve Online entities in real-world currency based on the current value of PLEX. One such conversion valued a fleet-ready titan (the most powerful ship in the game) at US$ 7,600, though estimates vary. Generally, no player expends such amounts of real-world currency to acquire such sums of in-game wealth, opting instead to do activities in-game that net high amounts of profit. In 2007, CCP

25575-409: The warmer parts of the disk near Tau Ceti implies an inner cut-off at a radius of 10 AU . By comparison, the Solar System's Kuiper belt extends from 30 to 50 AU . To be maintained over a long period of time, this ring of dust must be constantly replenished through collisions by larger bodies. The bulk of the disk appears to be orbiting Tau Ceti at a distance of 35– 50 AU , well outside

25740-440: The year 23,341. Systems are classified by their Security Status, on a decimal scale from −1.0 to 1.0. These systems are categorized into three groups, each determining the response from CONCORD ( Con solidated Co -operation and R elations Comman d ) NPC law enforcement units. Star systems classed as 0.5–1.0 security are considered "high security" and any unauthorized/unprovoked attack by a character on another character anywhere in

25905-480: The years. Besides the array of space-themed trade and combat games, there also exist a small number of games with similar mechanics, but with a less traditional historical setting. These include the Sid Meier's Pirates! and Mount and Blade franchises. Some more recent games, such as 2003's EVE Online , have expanded the scope of the experience by including thousands of simultaneous online players in what

26070-432: Was 17 hours, or just under 2.5 hours per day. By May 6, 2009, Eve Online claimed to have more than 300,000 active subscriptions and 45,000 active trial accounts. The total active subscription count at end of 2010 was 357,000 accounts. On July 7, 2011, CCP announced that it planned to partner with Nexon Co. Ltd. to bring a "fully localized game client and product services for CCP's award winning... EVE Online" to Japan in

26235-439: Was believed that no major new space sim series would be produced as long as the genre relied on complex control systems such as the keyboard and joystick. There were outliers, however, such as the X series (1999–2018) and Eve Online . Crowdfunding has been a good source for space sims in recent years, however. In November 2012 Star Citizen set a new record, managing to raise more than $ 114 million as of May 2016, and

26400-471: Was completed and released in January 2013. Lastly, the non-linear roguelike-like space shooter Everspace garnered almost $ 250,000 on Kickstarter, was released in May 2017. The open source community has also been active, with projects such as FS2 Open and Vega Strike serving as platforms for non-professional efforts. Unofficial remakes of Elite and Privateer are being developed using

26565-440: Was likely a spurious combination of instrumental systematics with a potential 1000-day yet unknown signal. In 2004, a team of UK astronomers led by Jane Greaves discovered that Tau Ceti has more than ten times the amount of cometary and asteroidal material orbiting it than does the Sun. This was determined by measuring the disk of cold dust orbiting the star produced by collisions between such small bodies. This result puts

26730-596: Was named the #10 best PC game by PC World Magazine . Other notable early examples include Space Shuttle: A Journey into Space (1982), Rendezvous: A Space Shuttle Simulation (1982), and Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (1982), which featured five different controls to learn, six different enemies, and 40 different simulation levels of play, making it one of the most elaborate vector games ever released. Other early examples include Nasir Gebelli 's 1982 Apple II computer games Horizon V which featured an early radar mechanic and Zenith which allowed

26895-470: Was released in 1984 as an entirely different branch of the space trader tree, having been inspired by Hunt the Wumpus , the board game Risk , and the original space trader, Star Trader . As a pure space trader, Trade Wars lacked any space flight simulator elements, instead featuring abstract open world trading and combat set in an outer space populated by both human and NPC opponents. In 2009, it

27060-496: Was run by the astronomer Frank Drake , who selected Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani as the initial targets. Both are located near the Solar System and are physically similar to the Sun. No artificial signals were found despite 200 hours of observations. Subsequent radio searches of this star system have turned up negative. This lack of results has not dampened interest in observing the Tau Ceti system for biosignatures. In 2002, astronomers Margaret Turnbull and Jill Tarter developed

27225-839: Was the first game developer to hire an economist, Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, to oversee Eve ' s in-game economy. Guðmundsson was previously dean of the faculty of business and science at the University of Akureyri. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson left CCP in 2014 to the position of Rector at the University of Akureyri in July 2014. Owing to the game's focus on freedom, consequence, and autonomy, many behaviours that are considered griefing in most MMOs are allowed in Eve . This includes stealing from other players, extortion, and causing other players to be killed by large groups of NPCs. Only malicious, prolonged and concentrated harassment where no material gain

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