Air?

[Timrath]

I hesitate to ask, because of how I got trashed for my last thread, but here goes...

Is breathable air going to be added at some point? After all, astronauts have helmets, so that would suggest that there are environments in which they can breathe, and environments in which they need to wear that helmet.
I think that capital ships should have a life-supporting environment that allows their crew not to suffocate. All the compartments in which crew operate will have to be sealed from the vacuum of space. Proper air locks will have to be built, so that all the atmosphere doesn't escape every time you open a hatch. Bulkheads will be necessary to prevent decompression of the entire habitat if the hull gets damaged.
"Air" could be represented as invisible blocks, like in Minecraft. To simulate decompression, air that isn't touched by other blocks on all 6 sides, will decay. That way, air inside an enclosed space can persist, but when exposed to vacuum, will vanish. The space inside an air lock can be filled with a type of block of air that is immune to vacuum, but which consumes power (so that people don't just fill their entire ship with non-dissipating air.

I know that this would break many existing designs, and I'm probably going to get dogpiled again...

 

[Mariux]

Real men like Dave need no air. Air is for wusses. Jk, of course, something similar to what you explained would be a pretty fun mechanic. Imagine suffocating your enemies by simply making holes in a few precise pleces on the ship (provided the enemies are not fast enough to put their helmets on)

 

[Aecetym]

This is one of those subjects that keeps coming back, like ppl have been asking for a docking fix, fuel, proper AI, ... Not sure if the last thread got shot down or not , but I still support the idea.

The issues I see with it is:

• How will the system register a 'sealed' area?

This would mean the game has to calculate and updated it if or if not a section of a ship is still sealed. Sounds like performance would take a beating if you fly a RP capital ship. Also how will I keep air inside let's say a hanger? If I have a 160x120x30 hanger in my ship, that's A LOT of air I will lose just by opening the hanger doors. Not to mention what if I want to refill that area with air?

• How will be create this atmosphere?

Again a single (new) block added (with some sort of enhancers or something maybe?) that will run infinite without any cost or need?

• How to balance it?

It only stand to reason that a fighter like craft should run out of air, while a capital should be able to sustain itself (A carrier needs planes and vice versa). But ppl will cry and whine about this so we most likely end up with a system that in the end doesn't add or change much to the game, except you need to sacrifice X blocks towards life support on a ship.


Still would love to see it ingame but only if it adds something to the game.

 

[Incap]

I'm having flashbacks to FTL where I would kill the lifesupport on ships and watch them slowly suffocate.

 

[Websterandy42]

I thought about a system where air takes up a x by y by z block that = the maximum size of your ship in each direction. That way you have a box around your ship that has an (atmosphere). Air would just be a boolean based on if your coordinates are inside that box.

This would provide a performance light atmosphere system but is has a lot of drawbacks. Like you could have a gaping hole in your ship and still have air.

I guess the air could be linked to the new ship hp system somehow. Like if you are below a certain hp your air will slowly begin to dissipate.

 

[Keptick]

I'm having flashbacks to FTL where I would kill the lifesupport on ships and watch them slowly suffocate.

And lighting a few fires to accelerate the process :D

 

[jayman38]

For this game, where someone could build any kind of structure they want, air just seems way, way too complicated to be properly implemented. Fluid dynamics is pretty much a hardcore computer simulation unto itself. If you have ideas for how to integrate it (like the air envelope idea above by Websterandy42) in a way that won't crash the average computer, be sure to post your ideas.

 

[SilentRider_14]

Aren't you just using something similar to the defined area of a turret? There is the problem with why it would be worthwhile if you have an infinite oxygen supply in your helmet and if the suit doesn't have infinite oxygen you would quickly suffocate new players that are stranded with out a ship either because they haven't built one, it was destroyed, or the ship flew a way from them. The other issue is how would you even know how to determine if when and at what rate at which oxygen is consumed.

 

[KiloZulu]

I hesitate to ask, because of how I got trashed for my last thread, but here goes...

Is breathable air going to be added at some point? After all, astronauts have helmets, so that would suggest that there are environments in which they can breathe, and environments in which they need to wear that helmet.
I think that capital ships should have a life-supporting environment that allows their crew not to suffocate. All the compartments in which crew operate will have to be sealed from the vacuum of space. Proper air locks will have to be built, so that all the atmosphere doesn't escape every time you open a hatch. Bulkheads will be necessary to prevent decompression of the entire habitat if the hull gets damaged.
"Air" could be represented as invisible blocks, like in Minecraft. To simulate decompression, air that isn't touched by other blocks on all 6 sides, will decay. That way, air inside an enclosed space can persist, but when exposed to vacuum, will vanish. The space inside an air lock can be filled with a type of block of air that is immune to vacuum, but which consumes power (so that people don't just fill their entire ship with non-dissipating air.

I know that this would break many existing designs, and I'm probably going to get dogpiled again...

It's been a while since I saw it mentioned, but I do believe that Schema plans on making atmosphere a mechanic in the game. That is part of the reason Dave now has a removable helmet.

 

[Criss]

I don't feel like reading so maybe this has been said. Perhaps we could have a very small system that only requires 1-2% of the total block count to be dedicated towards life support. Life support systems. If the ship has reached that number then it is capable of supplying air inside the ship (the box dimensions).

Another solution is to install life support systems inside the ship that have an area of effect. Maybe they can be expanded in certain directions like the docking units. This way we can designate which areas will have breathable air.

 

[Websterandy42]

I don't feel like reading so maybe this has been said. Perhaps we could have a very small system that only requires 1-2% of the total block count to be dedicated towards life support. Life support systems. If the ship has reached that number then it is capable of supplying air inside the ship (the box dimensions).

Another solution is to install life support systems inside the ship that have an area of effect. Maybe they can be expanded in certain directions like the docking units. This way we can designate which areas will have breathable air.

That's similar to my idea. I don’t think we will ever have a system that calculates when the ship hull is punctured.

 

[Winterhome]

That's similar to my idea. I don’t think we will ever have a system that calculates when the ship hull is punctured.

Too late, it's already happened.

It's called "Light" - any time a ship gets hit, it already recalculates the lightmap and such.

I don't think it'd be very difficult to have it run a quick pathfind on the "air" blocks - in a similar way to how Dwarf Fortress runs its liquid calculations every tick.

 

[ToyotaSupra]

I'm having flashbacks to FTL where I would kill the lifesupport on ships and watch them slowly suffocate.

Oh yes. We need this.

To OP, it's an old one but I'm sure it'll come soon enough, sorry to hear you got trashed in the last thread.

We need the 'roadmap/planned features' thing back, someone get the devs on the line!

 

[Saxopi]

 

[Websterandy42]

Too late, it's already happened.

It's called "Light" - any time a ship gets hit, it already recalculates the lightmap and such.

I don't think it'd be very difficult to have it run a quick pathfind on the "air" blocks - in a similar way to how Dwarf Fortress runs its liquid calculations every tick.

You just blew my mind. I wonder what performance impact that would have. But yea totally, he could probably reuse a good bit of code too.

 

[Winterhome]

Only problem is adding air blocks to existing ships and such.
You'd have to actually fill in all of the empty spaces in the ship for it to work well, and that's incredibly difficult for large ships.

Perhaps a "generate atmosphere" tool could be added to build mode or something, so it adds massless air blocks to every empty space that isn't open to space.

There would definitely be a performance hit, though, any time a ship gets shot up.

And the code couldn't really be reused - Dwarf Fortress has an algorithm that allows blocks to search for the nearest empty block and move to it, and we might be able to use that trickery to let gases escape - if they exit the ship's box dimensions, then they're gone for good.

 

[Criss]

Only problem is adding air blocks to existing ships and such.
You'd have to actually fill in all of the empty spaces in the ship for it to work well, and that's incredibly difficult for large ships.

Perhaps a "generate atmosphere" tool could be added to build mode or something, so it adds massless air blocks to every empty space that isn't open to space.

There would definitely be a performance hit, though, any time a ship gets shot up.

And the code couldn't really be reused - Dwarf Fortress has an algorithm that allows blocks to search for the nearest empty block and move to it, and we might be able to use that trickery to let gases escape - if they exit the ship's box dimensions, then they're gone for good.

Perhaps in an effort to simplify the resource load, when it calculates sealed containers it fills rapidly. Or empties rapidly. Instead of figuring out each air block on its own, and where it would go, it would just remove large chunks of air at once. After all it wouldn't stick around for long if there was a vacuum sucking it all out. So if you get a hull breach your ship would loose large quantities of air that makes its way further from the hole. To me that sounds better than determining it on a block to block basis. Ships are rendered in segments, maybe it can be segment based?

 

[Winterhome]

Perhaps in an effort to simplify the resource load, when it calculates sealed containers it fills rapidly. Or empties rapidly. Instead of figuring out each air block on its own, and where it would go, it would just remove large chunks of air at once. After all it wouldn't stick around for long if there was a vacuum sucking it all out. So if you get a hull breach your ship would loose large quantities of air that makes its way further from the hole. To me that sounds better than determining it on a block to block basis. Ships are rendered in segments, maybe it can be segment based?

Except vacuums don't suck air :P
You need negative pressure, rather than zero pressure, if you want to do that.

Air would be ejected under its own pressure, or ~15 PSI (at the instant the hole opens - it'd lessen as time goes on) in a real hull breach scenario. Basically, a small hole would be preferable to a really really big one.

Block by block would be preferable when we get fluid physics as we've been told we might get in the future. Dwarf Fortress can do it, so why not us? :P

 

[Criss]

Except vacuums don't suck air :p
You need negative pressure, rather than zero pressure, if you want to do that.

Air would be ejected under its own pressure, or ~15 PSI (at the instant the hole opens - it'd lessen as time goes on) in a real hull breach scenario. Basically, a small hole would be preferable to a really really big one.

Block by block would be preferable when we get fluid physics as we've been told we might get in the future. Dwarf Fortress can do it, so why not us? :p

Because dwarf fortress is 2d. Even if there are 3d elements that third plane in terms of water only directs it one way; down. Also please lets not lecture people on physics. I was being general. Personally I find that type of stuff rude.

Fluid physics is great, but it does not need to apply to air really. It servers no purpose graphically as we cannot see it and may put more pressure on our systems than is necessary. I can't even begin to imagine a good looking fluid system in this game with gravity and whatnot.

 

[Winterhome]

Because dwarf fortress is 2d. Even if there are 3d elements that third plane in terms of water only directs it one way; down. Also please lets not lecture people on physics. I was being general. Personally I find that type of stuff rude.

Fluid physics is great, but it does not need to apply to air really. It servers no purpose graphically as we cannot see it and may put more pressure on our systems than is necessary. I can't even begin to imagine a good looking fluid system in this game with gravity and whatnot.

Dwarf Fortress is definitely a 3D game in terms of voxel positions. Adding an "upwards" direction to its fluid motion isn't particularly demanding compared to how it moves fluids in every other direction as well - just a 15% CPU load increase for it at most, and I don't expect we'll be seeing many 1000x200x5 rivers in the game, which is a rough estimate of what players often see in DF. In a voxel game, determining the volume of a complex room wouldn't be much less demanding than periodically kicking air blocks to the nearest available position.

Really, whether or not fluid dynamics are added to the game depends on how optimized they can be and how schema feels about it in the future.

But I'm not seeing air being added unless it either runs on a very simple system (which may be unbalanced or boring - dunno really), or unless fluid dynamics get added.