StarMade v0.199.214 Auxiliary Power, Better Graphics, Better Textures, and Bugfixes

[Lone_Puppy]

Since when is disagreement not allowing you to have your opinion? Your voice is a free as mine.

When you order someone to do something, is not an opinion.

 

[Groovrider]

When you order someone to do something, is not an opinion.

My opinion is that you were exaggerating. Feel free to disagree.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Since when is disagreement not allowing you to have your opinion? Your voice is a free as mine.

And where was I exaggerating exactly?

 

[Groovrider]

And where was I exaggerating exactly?

Like, all of it. People disagree. It's not the end of the world. While I'm not fond of their solution just yet, to imply that any laziness (easy way out) on their part is dishonest. I opted for a milder description of exaggerated.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

To find a solution to a problem, you must first ask questions.
Then, using what information you have gathered you can make a suggestion or provide an opinion. Naturally the suggestion and opinion can be only as good as the information provided.

I have seen very few suggestions and many opinions. True I have offered my opinions and frankly I don't care whether we have docked reactors or use auxiliary power blocks.

All I'm interested in is a good game that works and if I can aid in making it better by asking questions and giving suggestions and opinions then I will.

Since this game is an alpha, I accept whatever the devs decide to do, because I know they have an end game to their logic and trust that they are making good decisions.

Whether you have an issue with my opinions, suggestions or questions is merely a journey for me and hopefully something that can be helpful to the devs in finding solutions.

 

[Keptick]

And how do you get to be able to undock?
Please explain how the undocking causes the problem.

From what I can see, it's the docking/rail system that is at the root of everything lag related here. If you didn't have the ability to dock anything, would you have the issues people refer to?

1. The reactor is docked to the ship, all is going well, no lag.
2. xXCreeperKiller2006Xx pulls up in a shitbrick, and starts shooting the ship with the docked reactor.
3. The reactor's rail docker or rail gets shot, gets obliterated, and the reactor undocks.
4. The docked reactor starts bouncing around inside the ship
5. Said bouncing causes a collision clusterfuck between the reactor(s) and the ship, and causes everyone around to experience 1fps (in the best case scenario).

The problem has absolutely nothing to do with the docking system...

Not that it matters, because thanks to auxiliary reactors and docked reactors being rendered inoperable there isn't a problem anymore. Removing docking altogether is also a terrible solution, since it would essentially remove most of the best features this game has to offer (custom turrets, rails, drones, etc...)

 

[Lone_Puppy]

1. The reactor is docked to the ship, all is going well, no lag.
2. xXCreeperKiller2006Xx pulls up in a shitbrick, and starts shooting the ship with the docked reactor.
3. The reactor's rail docker or rail gets shot, gets obliterated, and the reactor undocks.
4. The docked reactor starts bouncing around inside the ship
5. Said bouncing causes a collision clusterfuck between the reactor(s) and the ship, and causes everyone around to experience 1fps (in the best case scenario).

The problem has absolutely nothing to do with the docking system...

Not that it matters, because thanks to auxiliary reactors and docked reactors being rendered inoperable there isn't a problem anymore.

Awesome! Thanks keptick.
[doublepost=1473719502,1473719297][/doublepost]

Said bouncing causes a collision clusterfuck between the reactor(s) and the ship

So, would you suggest the collision mechanic is the root cause or could it be deeper than that? Maybe a combination of the collision and processing of multiple entities or just the collisions?

 

[Darkkon]

It's more an issue with the underlying physics. We need collision detection. Period. The problem is that the current algorithm checks every block when it gets close to another entity. When the reactor is on the inside of the ship, it is literally checking every block in that reactor to see if it's colliding. It also checks every block nearby in the parent entity. At least thats how I understand it

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Wow, that is a lot of processing. Criss did mention this earlier, but if it's like you say I can understand the amount of clock cycles that would be lost running through every block.
I can now see why they opted for the chunk increase.

It's almost worth doing what somebody mentioned about ghosting the undocked entity so it doesn't collide and make it spin off out of the main/primary entity. This would work for anything. Naturally, you could place a time limit on the ghosting effect. And since the undocked entity is likely to be of no use anyway, it should be acceptable to allow it to fly off out of the way.

 

[Darkkon]

I'm not an expert so im probably missing some details. :P

 

[Lone_Puppy]

It sounds plausible. Perhaps the Schine guys could elaborate, but I believe this makes sense.

This would include activity not only from the collision algorithm checking collisions, but the beam also and any weapons impact.
Altogether a soup of processing chaos that could be dealt with easily by brute force if you had a super computer or farm or cluster of computers.

 

[Darkkon]

Or an alien micro-comp. Cause aliens. They have all the cool gadgets.

 

[kiddan]

So, would you suggest the collision mechanic is the root cause or could it be deeper than that? Maybe a combination of the collision and processing of multiple entities or just the collisions?

Well, it is the collisions that cause the lag, but it's because the two entities are usually a hole and a filler of the exact same size. The game pushes the filler from one wall just for it to meet another as soon as virtually possible, so the number of checks and actions slows the game down relative to the size and number of colliding points.

To solve the problem I'd suggest a sort of "soft collision" on entities when the game detects an entity inside another*. This "soft collision" would dampen movement, make the entities move with each-other a bit more (but not totally) and move the edges of the filler's collider inwards more. I don't know how possible this might be, but in-theory it should speed the game up!

*Would also need a new feature to do that.

 

[nightrune]

Well, it is the collisions that cause the lag, but it's because the two entities are usually a hole and a filler of the exact same size. The game pushes the filler from one wall just for it to meet another as soon as virtually possible, so the number of checks and actions slows the game down relative to the size and number of colliding points.

To solve the problem I'd suggest a sort of "soft collision" on entities when the game detects an entity inside another*. This "soft collision" would dampen movement, make the entities move with each-other a bit more (but not totally) and move the edges of the filler's collider inwards more. I don't know how possible this might be, but in-theory it should speed the game up!

*Would also need a new feature to do that.

This is how you get exploits and warheads clipping into entities.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

I think Criss pretty much had the answer in his explanation for me. And that was to separate the undocked entity from the main entity outside the main entity, so there are no collisions. The undocked entity can then float/fly/spin off into space to die a quiet lonely, but honorable death.

This is where I think the ghosting of the undocked entity would work. Where it is considered not there until well out of the entity.

After reading kiddan's idea, I thought you could process the time based on the dimensions of the main entity.
[doublepost=1473722170,1473721976][/doublepost]Oh further, this would need some way of knowing that the original docking point is no longer there. Some paring processing for the docker/rail/etc in the algorithm.

 

[Darkkon]

the only problem with both approaches is what Nightrune brought up, warheads ghosting inside of ships.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

I think for such exploits you could make it so warheads do not ghost.

 

[Darkkon]

I think for such exploits you could make it so warheads do not ghost.

But say someone puts warheads onto their docked (insert device here). Don't doubt human ingenuity :P

 

[Lone_Puppy]

But say someone puts warheads onto their docked (insert device here). Don't doubt human ingenuity :p

This is true! But if it's inside their ship and the rest of the undocked entity ghosts and the warheads don't, boom! Hello belly ache.

 

[Darkkon]

This is true! But if it's inside their ship and the rest of the undocked entity ghosts and the warheads don't, boom! Hello belly ache.

I'm sure someone would figure out a way to weaponize that system...but you have defeated me in honorable and fair combat so I accede defeat. :P