Asteroid fields and Trade-able Commodities

[Riggedride]

Thought it would be swell to add asteroid fields into the game, not the group of like 5, planet destroying sized asteroids but rather like an entire field of super small ones. (anyone ever play freelancer? kind of like that!)

On the topic of fields, while scrap is basically a useless material, I'd like to see scrap or junk fields floating around some derelict stations as well.

Last field I suggest would be a ship graveyard, I always thought it would be cool to see one near a pirate station
(I feel these ideas would probably end up being mods but I figured i'd suggest them anyways)

TRADE COMMODITIES
Would like to find some gold inside a mountain or asteroid, or maybe iron or silver, have a reason to chop down trees and maybe gather oxygen and water, if it has no "real purpose" I think it would be a cool way to introduce a trade system.

I'd like to travel from system to system selling coffee I bought from one shop and selling it to another!
I'd like to encounter another player on the way there who scanned my cargo(maybe another idea?) and saw that I had gold in the back and he told me to drop it or lose my ship.
I'd like to feel the tension making it to the shop and finally dropping off the loot and getting the huge payout

right now there's no real reason to be a pirate or trader outside of gaming the system for more credits(looking at you, guys who made 50000 ship cores) or murdering others cause you got the most op ship

I'm a sucker for role playing

it's two in the morning here sorry for any sour english, i'm trying to read books so I can speak gooder

 

[aceface]

I know exactly what you mean and I want it SO MUCH. It will make the game so much more immersive.

 

[ToyotaSupra]

Oh yeah, I felt like the station contests really missed out on this one. They all look the same, jagged edges with crystals everywhere. What about factories who buy raw stuff from you and sell capsules and products at a cut price? Lush, expensive stations who just love crystals for jewellery and always appreciate alien plants? Dirty, groggy war-torn stations who could really use some building blocks right now?

Also agree with asteroid fields, they're...unsatisfying? Can't really think of the right word. They're just there, and it kinda sucks.

 

[aceface]

yeah toyota they need to cover a majority of the sector

 

[Criss]

The problem with that is when people change the default sector size, it will space the asteroids out. When they change the sector size to be smaller those asteroids could very well crash into each other. I've been warned when changing sector size because of this. I have no doubt we could add more asteroids but we would need to do it in a way that accommodates all servers. We cannot just throw more of them in the game and expect it to work for everyone.

 

[aceface]

The problem with that is when people change the default sector size, it will space the asteroids out. When they change the sector size to be smaller those asteroids could very well crash into each other. I've been warned when changing sector size because of this. I have no doubt we could add more asteroids but we would need to do it in a way that accommodates all servers. We cannot just throw more of them in the game and expect it to work for everyone.

I guess there could be a value to the average number of asteroids in an asteroid sector, then according to sector size they are spread out fairly evenly. Then if the sector size were to be transformed bigger, the game would delete/spawn in new asteroids accordingly. Would be a bit glitchy though :/

 

[jayman38]

One could write a method to calculate the percent of complete asteroids left (maybe some have been mined out, either completely or partially) and apply that percentage to the new sector size. Maybe sort the randomly-generated asteroids by size and use some sort of Best-fit, Decreasing-max-length algorithm to fit them into the sector.

Pseudo code:

//  Only adjust the contents if the size is changed more than 10% in either direction to avoid metagame glitches.
If (NewX+NewY+NewZ) < ( ( OldX + OldY + OldZ) * 0.9)
   &&
   (NewX+NewY+NewZ) > ( ( OldX + OldY + OldZ) * 1.1)
  {
    PcntAstroids = OldCountAsteroids - OldMinedAsteroids / OldMaxAsteroids;  // Remove partially mined asteroids.
    //  Missing step: Save partially mined asteroids/asteroid stations?
    NewMaxAstroids = (NewX / 1000 + NewY / 1000 + NewZ / 1000) * 0.5 * AsteroidDensityMod * AsteroidLocMod * MiscMod - 1;
    NewCountAstroids = NewMaxAstroids * PcntAstroids;
    RemoveAstroids (SectorRef);
    PopulateAstroids (SectorRef, NewCountAstroids, NewMaxAstroids);
}

Edit: The admin could use the 10% non-change check to gradually increase or decrease the size of the sector by 9% or less at a time, to end up with a sector with tightly-packed or less asteroids. There might need to be some kind of check for too-small sectors, where excess asteroids might "bleed" into adjacent sectors or overlap. Maybe explode overlapping blocks? Might be cool to see.

 

[молоток]

I want to throw out a HUGE +1 to ship graveyards. They could follow the same salvage rules as derelict stations, and spawn in the same space as asteroid fields. If you see one you like, buy it and fix it up.

We should have another contest for default derelict ships.

 

[PizzaPress]

Maybe, if the sector size is small, you could make the field spread over multiple sectors. Then it can be even bigger than the default sector size.(who doesn't up sector size and speed, anyway?)

 

[IG-1000]

I had the same idea about having Asteroid fields/clusters but that idea about Scrap clusters is truly genius