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Convert the elevations of the highest blocks(or highest voxel points, in the case of SE planets) to a heightmap, scale down the resolution on the heightmap to create your LoDs. I think this is how SE does it, actually.

No, I know what they are... Doesn't mean I can't make a bad joke. :P

Yes, it is just a pattern generated by some formula and will always turn out the same number for the same coordinates. However, for all intents and purposes it looks 'random.'

Harpy fighters? What're those supposed to do, launch from a carrier and give the enemies a case of harpies?

Yeah, agreed. But magically buffing allies and debuffing enemies? I think not... All the optimization, tuning, and engineering of ships will mean nothing if you suddenly find yourself forced down in power by some artificial mechanic.

You have to remember that every single... every point, every little bit of land, is a point of data. Suddenly changing hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of those, all at once, without causing problems, may be a bit too much to ask.

Wouldn't it just be a scaled-down, trimmed-down copy of the current block structure architecture? (You can trim out the block HP data, which is a pretty damn big block of the data per block; all that may be usable for something else and if not then it may help performance to completely do away...

This is a weird system. I'm not sure if I like the idea of turning faction points into what is essentially faction mana for predefined and named area spells. I was thinking more along the lines of a currency, to hire NPCs, buy NPC faction ships, hire mercenary ships as part of fleets or for...

That would still look weird because the things don't fill in even layers... They kinda fill up randomly to look like different-sized boxes and crates stacking.

Why would you want boring grids of identical boxes? That's, well, boring...

I mean that I don't like the idea of kilometer-wide salvage titans just eating everything from orbit and crashing servers, because with these planet sizes that is inevitably what is going to happen. A drill for small extractor hoverships would be good, but having multiples should have...

The "Apple Orchard?"

Block IDs are ints (so no 'subIDs'), and no, there is no way to extend the number of IDs without serious core code modification, that being assigning each block more data so it can hold larger numbers. This will most likely be done in the future anyway, but don't hold your breath for it.

StarMade doesn't have (working) collision damage, and physics has never really been a big selling point for the game, so I'd not worry about that. As far as changing the landscape, just as long as we get the ability to edit terrain using some form of terrain build mode, and planets can be mined...

...Which is probably half of why Schine is holding off on doing too much drastic stuff with planets at the moment (aside from prior plans), thank goodness. But some day, at a good time, when the game is more fleshed out and stable, I hope they get around to adding in a smoothed-voxel-based...

Kek, it seems... well, what's new, Keen sucks. I wasn't aware that the suck extended this far, but this is still off-topic and doesn't say anything about their planets' technical structure. That's not to say that procedural mapping has never worked for making things like this; it's been done...

Probably because the game is in development... And the planets aren't optimized... Ditto. Current bugginess isn't really a measure of how the planets would work; SE in general is far worse optimization-wise than StarMade, and seeing as the planets were just released it's even worse. As for...

You would not have to rewrite the game; it's 'just' a new feature. A big feature - an immense feature - but a new feature. This isn't a rewrite-the-whole-engine sort of thing. The new voxel system would just be a new system, not on top of or replacing the old code. The ship voxel system may need...

Yes it is. It would just have to use a completely new voxel system that is not the current block system. Not impossible, though, and with a few tricks it could work fine. Schema's old 'round planets' demo tried to curve the current 'boxels' or whatever he calls them into a sphere, which did not...

They do have better planets. As much as I love hating on people suggesting pulling in features from other games, I'd much rather have Space Engineers planets (and maybe asteroids) than our current system.