Thorium – A Starship Bridge Simulator

A Reimagining of Bridge Simulators

Thorium Nova is a collaborative game where each player takes the role of a
futuristic starship bridge crew member. Each player’s job, such as Captain,
Navigation, Tactical, Engineer, or Communications, is unique and crucial to the
success of the mission. You can play it as part of a larger event, or with your
friends in your living room. It’s like you’re on the set of a Star Trek episode!

Dedicated players can learn to become a Flight Director, the game master behind
the scenes that guides the crew through the mission while playing the part of
all of the characters and aliens that they encounter. Think a Dungeon Master,
but in space.

Are you a web developer, an artist, or a writer? Thorium Nova is an open-source
project looking for contributors! Check out the
code on Github and
join us on Discord. There are lots of ways to
contribute, and we would love to have your help!

Looking for Thorium Classic? Go here.

What is a Bridge Simulator?

Bridge Simulators, like Thorium Nova, are cooperative live-action role-playing
games set in space. Players act out the roles of a spaceship bridge crew, such
as communications officer, navigator, or captain. They work together to complete
a set of mission objectives.

Thorium Nova adds a flight director, who sits behind the scenes to act as a game
master, controlling what happens inside the simulation, acting out the roles of
aliens the crew encounters, and guiding the crew through the storyline.

Many bridge simulators, like Artemis or Empty Epsilon, focus only on arcade
action. Thorium Nova attempts to bridge the gap by offering rich stories in a
dynamic environment, while staying simple enough for anyone to enjoy among
friends in their living room.

Where did this start?

Alex started working on starship bridge simulators when he worked at the
Christay McAuliffe Space Education Center in Pleasant Grove, Utah. He developed
Thorium Classic to help the Utah Space Centers teach young students through the
discipline of wonder.

Thorium Classic was a success, but it didn’t live up to its full potential for
creating realistic experiences in 3D space. It also was intended for experienced
flight directors, not casual players. Unfortunately, Thorium Classic never made
it much further than those space centers.

Thorium Nova is the product of years of building great bridge simulator
experiences for both crews and flight directors. It takes the best parts of
Thorium Classic, like great flight director controls and the timeline, and
combines them with exciting new concepts, like a Star Map and inter-ship crew
maps.

This is combined with a simplified flight director experience that anyone can
learn, along with powerful automation to make it possible for crews of any size
or experience to enjoy a mission together.

These new paradigms are woven into every part of the controls, creating an
entirely new, unforgettable experience — whether flying your flight at a space
center, from home, or over the internet.

What’s Included

Thorium Nova keeps the best parts of Thorium intact:

• Powerful flight director controls, enabling deeply emotional storylines and
  unscripted narrations.
• Expressive mission timeline builder for crafting storylines.
• Easy to use interface — just run the server on one computer and connect via
  web browser.
• First-class show control features, like DMX lighting and sound effects.

Thorium Nova also adds exciting new features:

• A 3D Star Map which enables a beautiful viewscreen showing planets, stars, and
  ships in space.
• Robust crew simulation, tracking the position and actions of every crew member
  on the ship.
• Powerful timeline automations, making flights possible without flight
  directors.
• Simpler, more approachable flight director controls, with a focus on helping
  beginners succeed.
• A sturdy networking architecture, making flights over the internet possible.

Why should I sign up for updates?

Thorium Nova is going to be under development for a little while before it
becomes publicly available. In the meantime, you can sign up for the newsletter.

• Get regular (weekly at most) updates about the progress of Thorium Nova
• Find ways to contribute to Thorium Nova
• Learn what goes into making a starship bridge simulator as it happens
• Get access to exclusive content only available to newsletter subscribers
• Provide feedback and suggestions for how Thorium Nova should work
• Show your support for Thorium Nova, which helps me gague interest

Frequently Asked Questions

What is going to happen to Thorium Classic?

Thorium Classic will still be available and maintained for the foreseeable
future. Thorium Nova does nothing to eliminate the value of Thorium Classic. On
the contrary, things developed for Thorium Nova might end up making their way
back into Thorium Classic.

In the event that Thorium Classic development has to cease, the project is open
source so anyone can download the source code and make their own changes or
fixes.

When will Thorium Nova be completed?

Development started on Thorium Nova in the Summer of 2020, halted in early 2021,
and resumed in fall 2021. It will likely take at least a year before a playable
demo is made available. Fortunately, many of the lessons learned during Thorium
Classic’s development can speed the development process of Thorium Nova.

Why didn’t you just build new features into Thorium Classic?

Building these features into Thorium Classic would be a dramatic departure from
the normal way of using Thorium. Instead of trying to wrangle Thorium to work
with this new paradigm, it makes more sense to create an entirely separate
product.

Doing so has a lot of benefits. We get to start over with the designs and
functionality; old code in Thorium can be replaced with the latest technologies;
poorly implemented or rarely used features can be removed entirely, making the
product simpler, easier-to-use, and ultimately more impactful for flight
directors and crew members.

Additionally, Thorium Nova will be intentionally designed from the ground up to
support the needs of a broader audience than Thorium Classic. While the original
Thorium was focused on supporting brick and mortar space centers, Thorium Nova
is designed with the hobbyist in mind, bringing the space simulator experience
to anywhere that has an internet connection.

Will Thorium Nova be customizable?

Customization is still an open question. I like what customizability Thorium
Classic has, but the features that are intended for Thorium Nova are really
difficult to get right while making it infinitely customizable.

It’s much more likely that Thorium Nova will support a plugin or mod system
which allows intrepid hackers to add or modify aspects of Thorium gameplay. This
would include creating custom themes and layouts, adding new ships, modifying
the properties of ship systems, creating new solar systems and worlds (or an
entirely new universe altogether), defining factions, and writing random
encounters, like second storylines which run parallel to the primary story.

Where did that cool logo and cover image come from?

I made the logo myself, based on the original Thorium logo. That symbol is
called the “Triquetra” and is associated with the god Thor in Norse mythology.
Seems appropriate to use with a product named after the God of Thunder.

The cover image was also generated by myself in Blender, using a 3D model and
planet texture which ship with Thorium and a procedurally generated background
and ring system. This isn’t exactly what the Star Map will look like, but I hope
to make it at least somewhat close.