Auburn's noise

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    Just do away with the whole planet aspect and have all Starmade take place on one large, superplanet-sized planet.

    EDIT: this was a joke at first but then I thought about how fuccing cool that would actually be.
     
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    Auburn

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    Have a look at this video about spherical planets with cube voxels and the issues it has:
     
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    Have you seen the updated tech video explaining how they minimised warping and corner artefacts? Might be applicable to Starmade.

     
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    Just ask them nicely for their game in it's entirety. Then copy it or whatever. Game designing is easy.
     

    Ithirahad

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    You could always just get rid of water blocks and write the terrain generation algorithm in such a way that the four corners are always ocean, then have a large "ocean" that isn't made of blocks. Of course, this would mean programming either water or a solid flat placeholder...
     

    therimmer96

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    You could always just get rid of water blocks and write the terrain generation algorithm in such a way that the four corners are always ocean, then have a large "ocean" that isn't made of blocks. Of course, this would mean programming either water or a solid flat placeholder...
    Would also mean you can't build in those oceans, something people like to do in SM
     

    Valiant70

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    Have a look at this video about spherical planets with cube voxels and the issues it has:
    I saw the voxel planet program in your portfolio. It looked cool but would be a nightmare to build on and the distortion made it feel a little strange walking around. After some long thought experiments and discussions with other players, this was my conclusion:

    I had some good ideas, but it turns out that (as far as I can tell) all flat maps that map to spheres have one or more of the following traits:
    1. Doesn't act like a sphere. Square maps act like a torus. My parallelogram map idea acts... weird.
    2. Bent blocks, because the angles at the edges of segments don't add up to 360 degrees
    3. Double vision. The angle addition problem is repaired, but multiple copies of the same thing at different angles end up getting loaded in different directions when you approach certain parts of the map.
    The best I have been able to come up with is a modification of the torus idea to prevent the thing from essentially having two equators: Instead of wrapping the square map top-to-bottom, wrap the top to a point halfway around the planet on the top of the map instead of the bottom. If you like I can go find the diagram I drew of this. It's as close as you can get with a seamless, undistorted map unless I've overlooked some really brilliant geometry.

    In any case I look forward to the new planets. Whatever they may end up being, I know they'll be better than what we have now.
     

    Auburn

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    I saw the voxel planet program in your portfolio. It looked cool but would be a nightmare to build on and the distortion made it feel a little strange walking around. After some long thought experiments and discussions with other players, this was my conclusion:



    The best I have been able to come up with is a modification of the torus idea to prevent the thing from essentially having two equators: Instead of wrapping the square map top-to-bottom, wrap the top to a point halfway around the planet on the top of the map instead of the bottom. If you like I can go find the diagram I drew of this. It's as close as you can get with a seamless, undistorted map unless I've overlooked some really brilliant geometry.

    In any case I look forward to the new planets. Whatever they may end up being, I know they'll be better than what we have now.
    I'm not sure I quite understand what you are describing, can I see your diagram?
     

    Valiant70

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    IMG_0021.JPG
    Hopefully this is clear enough. The idea is that it more closely approximates a sphere. It's still a compromised solution to allow for a map made of voxels. Ultimately I don't know if making the surface Minecraft-like is really desirable, or if something more similar to space engineers would be more suitable.
     

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    nightrune

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    View attachment 38097
    Hopefully this is clear enough. The idea is that it more closely approximates a sphere. It's still a compromised solution to allow for a map made of voxels. Ultimately I don't know if making the surface Minecraft-like is really desirable, or if something more similar to space engineers would be more suitable.
    I'm still not getting it either. Maybe draw a grid on paper and fold the way you are thinking? If possible that is.
     
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    If it's not possible to draw the grid, make the cuts with a pair of scissors or a pocketknife or a six-foot-tall Scandinavian poleaxe, I really don't care which, and then fold it into the proper shape, you should take another thought about whether or not this is ACTUALLY a functional way to represent a sphere with cubes (Darnit, laws of geometry, work with us here!)
     
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    No. It's waiting until the universe update, as was (I believe) originally planned.
    Thanks, since you said it was originally planned, is it based on gut feeling or did they mention it in a news post I have not seen?