Istvan's Update:
The Asteroid Graphics
Upgrades
The new asteroid textures that were
added in patch 1.0097 were a long-awaited change to the look of Jumpgate. The new textures
are double the resolution and have vastly increased color depth compared to the originals.
Those original textures, besides being created more than five years ago,  under older graphical standards and constraints,
were not very realistic. Broad color coding was used to identify the type of asteroid and
its ore content. This was good from a gamist approach, but interfered with Jumpgate's
appearance as a spaceflight simulation, age of the graphics notwithstanding. I've also
heard some of the comments about the color of the common rocks....
The replacement
textures are derived from reality, as seen in our own solar system. NASA's imagery of 951 Gaspra and 433
Eros, rocky main-belt asteroids, were used by our borrowed artist, SpaceMace, to
generate the appearance and color used as the main layer for three of the five new
textures. Photos of 253
Mathilde, a carbonaceous chondrite, and Saturn's moon Phoebe
(which is an icy outer-system object captured by Saturn) provided the basis for our other
two, darker, textures. To mitigate this strongly simulationist approach, elements of the
original gamist color-coding system were kept in place: The old radioactive rocks were
very green, with flecks of other color. Our new radioactive rocks have glowy green
patches, visible in many of the craters. Ice rocks formerly were mostly white, easy to see
from a distance. The new Ice texture includes snowy or icy white patches in many of the
craters, as if the dusty outer layer has been blown away by impacts to reveal the frozen
water beneath. Semifluxors were famous for being dreadfully dark and hard to spot. The new
texture keeps that dark, carbon-coated look. Lastly, our precious metal asteroids used to
be grayish, with flecks of bright colors. The new texture has metallic silvery and coppery
flecks, revealing the ores within.
Much of game design can be viewed
as a balance between simulationist and gamist approaches. Simulationist design seeks to
create games with realistic characteristics. A realistic game tends to make logical sense,
and players can figure out tactics that really work in the game on the basis of their own
intuition about how things work in the real world, or in fantasy or science-fiction worlds
they know of that are like the game they are playing. The gamist approach to design
involves a focus on making sure that the basis of the game is fun, regardless of realism.
  
(place cursor over picture to identify asteroid type)
Asteroids are so ubiquitous in Jumpgate that they were a logical target as we try to
update the look of the game. The decision-making process behind our new asteroid textures
attempted to strike a balance between simulationist and gamist design. I know some players
will disagree with the choices made, but I hope everyone will agree that these fresh
textures compete far better with asteroids seen in other spaceflight games available
today.
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