• Tau Station-Free Narrative MMORPG

    From Curtis Poe@21:1/5 to All on Sun Oct 21 00:29:00 2018
    https://taustation.space/

    We recently launched Tau Station, a free to play text-based sci-fi MMORPG set in an interstellar post-apocalyptic universe. It's perfect for those who love to read and it runs in browsers, tablets, and mobile (no flash and nothing to install). You just
    need a modern browser running Javascript. Though the game is text-based, the graphics are lovely. And that means it's an MMORPG you can play on your breaks at work :)

    I love science fiction and grew up with Heinlein, Asimov, and the like. I wanted to find web based sci-fi MMORPG with reasonable science, but couldn't find one. So I started to write one. Now we have a full team working on it. You won't find faster-than-
    light travel (though we have wormholes) or artificial gravity, you can calculate the orbital period of stations (but you don't have to), and to figure out how much antimatter we used in our spaceships, we even have E=MC2 in our code. We've had to take a
    few shortcuts here and there (it is a game, after all), but we try to be somewhat accurate.

    I love science and science fiction and I hope it shows through in the game and the rich story.

    If you want a "short" description, think Firefly meets Mad Max with a healthy dose of The Expanse.

    And our players have in-character blogs they enjoy writing: https://alpha.taustation.space/character/blogs

    Backstory:

    "The Catastrophe"

    About two centuries ago (Galactic Coordinated Time), civilization was destroyed and no one knows why.

    After breaking free from the confines of the solar system, humankind spread throughout the galaxy, setting up colonies on distant planets and hollowing out enormous asteroids for use as space stations. A golden era of post-scarcity was attained. However,
    humankind was viciously attacked en masse in an event known as The Catastrophe. Planetary defense systems were turned on the planets they were defending. Stations across the galaxy had their air vented, life support systems shut off, and databanks purged.
    Reactors went critical on ships. Humanity, across the galaxy, was driven to near-extinction in the space of just a few hours. Then the attack stopped.

    "The Aftermath"

    In the aftermath, planets were unreachable by those remaining few who were sprinkled out among the stars. For every station with survivors, there were at least a hundred more without. Most human knowledge was destroyed. Books were an anachronism, so the
    databank purge wiped out most of what humanity needed to continue surviving, as well as the records we had of our past. Those survivors with skills were quickly called upon to spread their knowledge, but their expertise was piecemeal. Without the massive
    databanks, human technological advances came to a halt. There have even been disputes about the current year, but it’s believed to be the middle 2600s.

    Today, no one knows the entirety of how to build a starship, or how to construct one of the massive wormhole jump gates that many star systems have. However, we've retained or relearned enough to at least repair them — if we can scavenge parts from
    dead stations or ships.

    This is humanity today. Most of our history has been lost. Much of our existence is a hardscrabble lot, and we few left trying to recover and to simply stay alive. Humankind's reign has been reduced to a 40 light-year sphere, centered on Sol System.
    Contact with the planets and most of the other star systems has been cut off. Humans are slowly rebuilding their stations, in hopes that one day, we can regain our former glory.

    But who attacked humanity and why? More importantly, are they coming back? There are many theories, but no proof or any solid evidence. Whatever the cause, most of humanity have been raised to be on permanent alert. We're rebuilding, and if the attackers
    return, we want to be ready.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)