Addressing FPS issues with giganticism and fleet spam by using maintenance cost

[Lukwan]

I am quoting myself from Dev blog (because it is on topic)

I worked for fifteen years as an electronic technician and I now renovate older homes. I do my own bike repairs and whatever I can manage on my car. Cars, electronics and homes are all complex systems of interdependent parts. If things IRL did not decay I would be out of a job & the entire economy would collapse. Repair and maintenance are about renewal in a world driven by entropy.

Google

Nothing artificial about it. Entropy is an integral law of the universe.

It is important to remember that we are discussing decay/entropy here in order to use it as a mechanic to make SM more dynamic and interesting. We are not talking about breaking people's stuff because it is more realistic or because we want to punish players. Decay is what makes renewal meaningful. Decay can function as a gentle prod to avoid a static Turtle-verse of pristine ships that never leave the hangar.
Decay can be designed as a restraint against ship & fleet-gigantism without making it an issue for new players. Entropy could help validate the Engineer-class of player as an important member of the crew. Maintenance is unlike other activities so it would expand the 'change-of-kind' game-play.

There are uses for this mechanic that are worth discussing.

Decay/Entropy are:

-Rubber parts drying out because they are static. (EG mashed tires on a car that sat idle for three years.) Belts on a turntable getting stiff.
-Wire breaking due to expansion/contraction from the day/night & seasonal shifts...or changes in temperature.
-Parts getting loose due to constant low vibrations.
-Fluids dry out over time and get used up though usage.
-Moving parts need to move or they get seized.
-Chemicals loose their properties with age.
-Critters like to nibble...on anything.
-Moisture & frost damage.
-Wear & tear on parts, even from gentle use.
-Corrosion & bi-metallic reactions on electrical contact points.
-Leaks that go un-noticed lead to catastrophic failures.
-Complex assemblies drift from their factory specified alignments.
-Crystal oscillators and reference clocks can go off frequency if jarred. Require re-tuning.
-Compression joins can fail over time preventing needed flexion.
-Human operator error and bad engineering have...consequences.

“entropy increases as matter and energy in the universe degrade to an ultimate state of inert uniformity” (source not know)

When you think about it, entropy is the Great Nothing from the Never-ending Story. It expands into the spaces where dreams have fled. It is the enemy of the Builder and a worthy foe. It is what we are all fighting when we strive to make an inspired design.

That is why we need technicians and engineers in the real world. Look on the bright side we will have an NPC to do most of the scutt-work in SM so we can relax and fly the ship.

 

[nightrune]

Plus on average you'll have only half overlap, and you'll find (assuming there's collision) a collision halfway through and stop. That's 32^3. (I realise you've specifically stated "worst case" not average, but I don't think everyone is registering that)

And as smd3 files structure a ship in 32^3 chunks, I assume for collisions it does pull the relevant chunk and only check occupied blocks.

Anyway, players not connected to a server somewhere don't suffer slowdown due to collision calcs do they? (I am actually asking, because all I've done on SM so far is build)

Assuming the answer to that is no, they don't, then network traffic/synching must be the cause of game "lag".....any decent server should be able to handle collisions at least as well as an unconnected client.

Single player is a client and a server, the games actually tends to run better for people with smaller resources if they connect to a server.