I'll stick with Eve Online I've played since 2003 for multiplayer
For amazing sandbox single player I'll stick to tried and true X series X3 has higher learning curve than eve but setting up mining / build a space station and hire cargo ships to run your trade routes while you hung pirates in a fighter is fun

TBH they just play catchup to Crytek. IMO the Sandbox Editor of Cryengine has been second to none re: Terrain Modelling/Editing for years.

This isn't an exercise in engineering so much as marketing.

The pneumatic motor is limited by the extreme lack of energy stored in compressed air. All inneficiencies in translating that stored energy into motion are failures in the system. The goal is to carefully remove all unnecessary sources of energy loss from the motor.

So there's an interesting engineering challenge in making this work 'at all' using Legos. There are design compromises that must be made, given the restrictions on form imposed by available parts; as well as the stress limitations of the material. It's like someone giving you a pile of reeds and asking you to build a Manhattan 5-Story Walkup. Can it be done? Is there enough stress resistance in the material for something of that scale? A fun challenge with no practical implications. Manhattan low-rises have been built before, you're not innovating architecture and you're definitely not contributing anything to the future of construction.

The question is, does it require a "technology genius" to accomplish? Someone tell me what a "technology genius" is first. Whatever it is...I suspect you don't need one on your team in order to search the internet for pneumatic piston motor schematics and copy/paste a parallel series of 256.

This exercise is inspiring and fun...until you add the marketing entrepreneur, casting hyperbole around and spending other people's money. It is unsettling to think that the new generation of capitalists are chasing the specter of Elon Musk; self promoting egotists who create nothing and take credit for everything. As a longtime member of the internet in good standing, I reject every stealth intrusion of marketing and entrepreneurship into my sandbox.

Hooray for Raul Oaida, engineering buff and hobbyist. Down with Steve Sammartino, marketer, entrepreneur, "brainchild" originator, keeper of secrete locations, crowd funder, project contact and fathead.

Ok, I want it. Even if it's a pure sandbox game, it looks like it'll be fun for several hours. I also really like the simple, but still techy looking HUD.

Yeah man, sorry @Ryjkyj if I riled yer tender sensibilities mate but her poor attention and timing does not necessitate my going to jail for injury to a child because yer an over-reacting mother and a worse fucking citizen. "Almost killed" inna...ahem, "SKATE PARK!" Kinna different than yer average, let the kids sit in the middle of the sandbox sorta place. Oh, and wear your safety gear, I hear the pavements' pretty hard when it comes-up fast.

Uhh, Mom's a dumb ass and over-reacted, skater 1, mom 0

The Revolution is definitely coming and I'll be there day one.

You do mean, "The Revolution", that new open-world, sandbox video game coming out at the holidays?

Yeah, that looks totally bloody and realistic. Too bad it's a console exclusive. That's cool though because I just got my tablet PC and there's so many games and movies on there I spend like 6 hours a day just getting through the free stuff. It's like almost another full time job just getting through my entertainment library!!!!

Wait! Sometimes the government just gets me SOOO angry!

Holy cow! Speaking of, has anyone been watching shark week? What is up with Animal Planet and their fake Megalodon documentary? That channel used to be totally awesome for vegging out and watching educational programming.

Speaking of....MARIJUANA IS LEGAL IN MY STATE!!! Woohoooo! I can't believe it's taken this long for people to come to their senses...

Wait, what were we talking about? Recording stuff.

TOTALLY!!! My new cable DVR holds so many hours of HD recording it's insane! I've got, like, every CSI episode broadcast since March on there and still only 1/3 full.

....

Revolution maybe, public uprising in the US? ...never.

From http://adland.tv/commercials/biting-elbows-bad-mother-fucker-2013-russia :
*backup=[...snipped...]

Around 5:45 Julian says that free-form strategy games cannot guarantee that the player will always have something interesting to do, and that, in his view at least, you couldn't get away with that sort of game anymore today.

Paradox Interactive with their Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis and Victoria franchises are still up and running. Hearts of Iron 3, in particular, seems more popular than ever, after the release of the third add-on, "Their Finest Hour". And if anything, HOI3 is even more of a sandbox than the original XCOM.

Similarly, Bohemia Interactive's Arma series as a comparable counterpart in the field of first person shooters is gaining massive popularity as well, even though it incorporates extensive "downtimes" for players.

You can't churn out annual iterations and expect AAA-rate numbers of sold copies, but the community is still large enough to warrent a couple of these franchises.

There's obviously an untapped market for ridiculous sandbox MP. That looked like a complete blast

You can get Alpha- and Beta-access as well as the full game for 25€. Considering the pure epicness of OFP and Arma 2, it's a no-brainer for anyone remotely interested in combined arms warfare or sandbox gaming in general.

Lies begin when a non-omnipotent consciousness forms and that consciousness seeks, let's say, truth, yet finds only half truths that require mental gymnastics in order to believe. Sand exists. How? I don't know. God? It's only natural to invent things concept to fill in the gaps.

A civilization of people formed out of collective half truths has unfulfillable expectations in this world which creates the security breach which breeds more lies. Thus it becomes state authority creating lies to appease those that their ancestors lied to since the beginning of our time. Brother kills brother. How did your brother die? A member of the opposing tribe did it! Opposing tribe dies. Known "truth" then becomes fact and history remembers that a violent tribe of brother-killers was sacked.

Truth will ALWAYS be an illusion to mortal beings of limited perspective. Always. Even if you perceptively died and met God in Heaven, it still remains suspect that your experience could be a lie guided by carefully controlled stimuli. If there's a modicum of truth that we have observed with science, it's only truth within the system of our understanding of the universe, therefore not Truth.

Yes, science allows us to observe and our observations have allowed us to record "laws" of the universe, but even someone like Richard Feynman admits to making shit up and then, Presto! it makes the equation make sense. Lies. No matter how small, they can fill in the gaps just enough to create perceived truth. But that's mechanical truth. A mechanism just needs to work or not work. It doesn't matter if you did everything right using precise truth.

So you may think: If life is an illusion, then what about all of the scientific experiments which have allowed us to create civilization as we know it? Well, every game, or sandbox, follows rules, so experiments within that world can be valid in that world according to the laws that govern it, but it doesn't mean those laws are the Truth.

If the world we are in was akin to something like Minecraft, observation would indicate that the world is functional and that there are observations which can be repeated over and over again with the same or similar results, leading to the creation of technology. But what about the concept of a .JAR or .DLL? Checksum? How about a network? If we only know the observed laws of the current server we have access to observe, how do we record the Truth? Black box observation and nothing more. My kingdom for a scientist that can perform unit testing. A string theory unit tester might be a good start.

Anyway, just rambling for communal sanity, as always. Not all of us have picked a side, let alone a position of understanding in the universe to cling to like a crucifix or a meme.

>> ^ant:

Kids?


Yup.

"Sandbox for Sift Tots. This is a realm for videos that are suitable for children to enjoy. Non-kid-friendly videos that simply happen to contain a kid do not belong here."

What do you think the litterbox is for? That's where they sandbox all their theories.

Upvote, but extremely marginal on the suitability for the Sandbox for Sift Tots... certainly unsuitable for smaller children.