Better Planets

[Qbert]

At the moment, planets feel very sup-bar compared to the current/future features. I haven't fleshed this idea out completely, because this is just an idea I threw around with a few friends, but I'll try to explain it as best I can.



So, as of now, planets are "disks". I think this works alright, but it adds another bit of blocks to render in the universe. Instead of having it like that, why not have it so the atmosphere bubbles are empty, but once you enter the designated "area" of the bubble, it teleports your ship into an infinite "Minecraft" style world. I know the whole Minecraft comparison is the topic of a few debates. When entering the planet you could get a message like "entering atmosphere" and the warp would happen, similiar to entering a void system



The problem of planets not being something you can easily mine if this is ever a feature, would be solved as well, because you'd have a massive world to mine. Ships could go down and start proper mining operations, there could be spaceport cities. I'm thinking that the planet would basically be instanced, kind of like how the "nether" of minecraft is a seperate world, worlds would be a certain type depending on the color of the atmosphere, and maybe there could be a technical "world destruction" somehow, like maybe mining to the core or something would make the planet unstable.



Sorry if this sounds a bit random and unorganized for a post, I'm typing in a hurry but trying to get across the idea. Worst case scenario I think it's worth some discussion. Apologies if this suggestion has been submitted already.

 

[vaultboyt3]

I like this idea a lot but one of the main problems i see with it is having a large world with at least 50 other worlds inside it, would be brutal on RAM. (Java is a RAM Guzzler as it is)

 

[BUGGIMANo]

Let me \"refine\" this idea a little bit more.

- \"entering atmosphere\" acting like a \"portal\"



1. u could \"ENTER\" the planet wherever u want, that means if someone \"enters\" at the exact or approx point of entry he would in turn land in the area u have landet and tarrain genereation would depent on the planets overall looks (i recognize of cause the burden on the system and the sync of entry points that are possibly scattered across the planet)

2. it is possible to restrict the world size to only have exactly the surface space avilable an averege planete would have (Minecraft max size map = approx 3600.000.000 km² | earth size = 510.072.000 km²) [source \"How big is Minecraft\"] although it could be mutch smaler (the hight of the \"map\" should also be put into consideration)

3. building into space (if even possible)

4. instability of the world (fitting biom with ultible scenarios | like vulkanos ore lavaseas | generated by a \"realistic\" tarrain creater)

- space (outer space) size in general



1. systems would actually be possible

2. in turn higher speed or \"warp\" travel should be implemated, maybe even teleports like \"Stargates\"

3. the building of much larger ships (more realistic ships) could be done (this is, for me particulary, a thorn in my side)

that is all i can think of right now...

with regards

BUGGIMAN

 

[Qbert]

I think you both make some good points. As for the RAM usage, we should look at how often planets are used now, as opposed to how much they\'d be used in the future. To put it into a comparison with something, like say, Minecraft, there are server-side plugins for Minecraft servers that allow players to have entire worlds all to themselves. The biggest performance eater would be the biome generation, however you could get past this seeing as instead of multiple biomes, every planet is its own biome. Basically a desert planet would be ALL desert, forest planet would be ALL forest, ice planet would be ice, etc etc. I don\'t think it\'d take much more performance then default however, and the reason for that is that the server is already doing this generation on a smaller scale.



Right now if you go to a planet, it will load chunk-by-chunk, until it reaches the \"limit\" and tapers off to the edge. With a seperate \"world\" it\'d be working basically the same amount for you to spawn in. The landing zone would be about as big as the planets currently are, and then it could do slow generation in the distance, or quick generation, depending on how much RAM the server wants to allocate.



Also, BUGGIMANo brought up a bunch of good points, different sized worlds could have limitations depending on size.

I wondered about how this could work for a few minutes, without having it just teleport you off the planet if you go too far. I think what could work is you could have the world \"loop\", so if you walked across the entire circumfrence of the world, (think of it like 0 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 0, if you start at the left 0, keep walking past the 0 on the right, you\'ll go right back to the original 0)

Having a finite limit on the worlds is a great idea, and would add some cool elements to choosing home-worlds/resource mines

Additionally, I think that the planets/sun should be larger, but few and far between. It\'s a big universe, I think that most planets should be very barren and not support life. Maybe some gas planets that could rip your ship apart on entry, or slowly heat your ship up/freeze components. There\'s a lot of depth that could come from proper planets. Life-sustaining planets should be rare. I also think that there should be a rudimentary \"sector\" system on the planets surface, purely horizontal, to help navigate the planet. For instance, the spawn zone on a planet could be \"0,0,0\", and then reach out by X amount of sectors depending on planet type/size.



I hope that the planets are improved somewhat in the future. Whether from any of these ideas, or some other clever stuff. As of right now most players look at them like disc shaped asteroids to test massive salvage beams on, which is great, but we might as well have spherical/massive asteroids if it\'s just there for mining.

 

[BUGGIMANo]

i especialy like the \"loop idea\" Qbert pointed out also, the idea of one biom worlds is great (endor ^^)

 

[dezgard]

Must admit this makes more sense than the current way its done.

it add so much depth.

 

[darkhog]

While I like this idea alot, I like mining planets from orbit much more and implementing this idea would make this impossible. You could mine them after entering them, but then, gravity. Meh.

 

[Mr_Crow9000]

Hexagon spheres. each hexagon could have its own gravity and orentation. and gives the option to make the worlds closer to a decent size rather than how it is now.

 

[BUGGIMANo]

1. yes decent size but not close to a real sized planet...it would only be a bigger asteroid

2. it would probably cause performance issues on servers/clients because of its size (thats the reason we wanted the planets to be in a different \"dimension\" to take the weight of ur hardware)

 

[BUGGIMANo]

in my opinion mineing lasers (as they are now) should only by used to mine astroids...however i understand ur displease of gravity (its a pain xD)... this could be solved with a \"hight entry\" meaning ur ship spawning at higth altitude (way above the clouds) to ease u in to the gravity...bigger and more sufficient mineing operations could than be started on the surface

 

[jzimmerman4]

While i like your idea alot, I think that the same effect could be created with just larger two sided planets.

 

[Zie77]

Its an intersting idea, its definatly worth discussing. I do agree that currently planets are relatively boring and i mostly use them for test subjects for my dreadnaughts weapons or minning the over priced cactus. Having a reason to build a large fortress with an array of turrets is the only thing i really want at this point since my focus is on ship building. Regardless, im interested in seeing what the devs have planned for mobs(?) and other AI\'s on planets. Also i hate loading screens

 

[Wonyky]

But I don\'t think its one that will work very well. The point of being able to get on and off planets so easily is so that ships can better interact with it from space. For example, lets say we have 2 factions. Faction A and faction B. They are at war with each other, Faction A\'s base is on a planet. Faction B goes to planet and bombards from the planet from space turning it into space dust.

However, if a planet was concidered a whole new plane of existance then many problems will accour. Faction A\'s base cannot be seen from space, so in order for faction B to bombard the planet they need to go into the new plane. This means a large number of ships are going into a new plane. And lets say, X is the size of each ship. That means the size of a ship could be three times as large as the biggest current ship on here. And now lets say Z is how many ships there are. Currently in the forms, on average the smallest number of members a faction could have is 5. So the end equation is sort of like (Z+5)X. Now the answer is something big and something I think is bad for computer\'s in the game\'s current state. Or possibly any state.

 

[BUGGIMANo]

@Zie77 there wouldnt be any \"loading screens\" just a brief black srceen and than immediate chunkloading

ergo almost no waiting time (like with the Mystcraft mod for minecraft OR nether portel teleporting)

@Jzimmerman4 two sided planets ARE NO PLANETS

 

[Qbert]

With the whole interacting from space thing, I agree, this would be an issue. On the flip side, you could have it so that you need a proper \"planet buster\" weapon, ala Death Star. Mining from orbit (On proper planets at least) doesn\'t really happen in scifi movies very often, and I think that the idea brought up about incremental gravity could solve this. Also, with the loading screens, in theory it would load like a voidsystem, so you\'d have your orientation switched when you come in, and then you\'d have a sort of \"re-entry\" type deal. It could be like a \"low orbit\" bit, so you could still mine from space.



Keep in mind that a lot of these ideas are assuming that planets are MUCH larger. Like a sun would take up an entire sector for itself, the planets would need to be massive. It needs to FEEL like a collossal planet. As of right now, there\'s lots of ship builds that put planets to shame in terms of size. I downloaded a Star Destroyer the other night that was bigger then 3 planets put together. There needs to be a sense of scale, this is space!



Some things you guys brought up are very valid, there would be problems with this system, it would need a lot of clever solutions to solve problems like what you listed there. For the atmosphere-entry of large ships, keep in mind that if this were to be implemented, there\'d need to be a good 2000 block \"height\". From 2000-1500 there would need to be low gravity, and you wouldn\'t see the sky color yet, just stars, and the atmosphere \"effect\", 1500-1000 the gravity would increase, you\'d see the color of the sky (this is all \"extra effects to combat the awkwardness of having large ships enter orbit), from 1000-500 the gravity would be 90% of normal, 500-0 you\'d have full gravity. This \"height\" would not be representative of the planets \"circumfrence\" on the ground, but just as a transitional period. You could still have orbital operations, keeping well above the gravitational effects of the planet, mining from very far up. Maybe the planet could have lava at the bottom, like minecraft has bedrock, and if you expose more then 50 percent of the lava \"core\" on the planet, it initiates a destability in which you have a few minutes to get off the planet before it blows, this could delete the planet from the universe, or replace it with lava asteroids.



So when entering the atmosphere (Like when I mentioned flying into the planets \"bubble\" you would be spawned according to which angle you entered. For instance, you enter from the left side of the planet atmosphere (not in \"orbit\" yet) it will put you as far left as it can. If you enter from top or bottom, it\'ll put you above the center of the planet, at varying altitudes, etc etc.



It\'s better not to think of this idea as \"teleporting to ___ location\", but to think of it as entering a sector-sized voidsystem, where instead of space, there\'s a whole planet taking up that section, with its own gravitational effect. I don\'t see it as very hard considering we already have this in a very basic form. Essentially what I have in mind is scale and polish.



That\'s not to say that it doesn\'t come with issues, those of you that brought up problems are right to do so, the current system makes sense But I think there are theoretical work-arounds to stuff like where a ship spawns, how much world renders at a time, etc. I\'ll see if I can throw some little diagrams together to explain what I have in my head.

(EDIT: BUGGIMANo has made a few image examples of the concept, which explain it much better then I could)

I think worst case scenario, maybe planets could just be bigger, and have mountains on the edges or something, so it doesn\'t feel like you\'re walking around on a big disc. That\'d at least give the illusion of being on an actual planet.

 

[BUGGIMANo]

...but

- the hight had to be much highter than just 2000 blocks (keep in mind 10000m -12000m is the original cloud hight| 1 block= 1x1x1 m) im not saing that it had to be 10000 blocks hight

- the basic sphere is already implemented (if u ever flown into the sun ud notice)

- the planet itself would only be a coloured sphere that has adequate size (size of an actual planet)

- u would fly into the upper atmosphere and than \"transition\" into the next sector that is a part of the planet

 

[BUGGIMANo]

ENTER : enter with ship or playermodel form space dimension (and vice versa)

SPAWN : reappear with ship or playermodel to planet dimensiom (and vice versa)

 

[Qbert]

You\'re right. I forgot that we\'re not using Minecraft measurements here, 256 blocks in that game is very big so that\'s where my head was at. It sounds like you understand exactly what I\'ve been saying though, which is great!



Also that link isn\'t working for me.

EDIT: Nvm, you fixed it hahaha



Upon seeing the picture, this looks exactly like what I had in my head

 

[BUGGIMANo]

yea figued out how lol