Dodecahedron Planets, easy implimentation.

[me2005]

@Neo_Genisis - Zaflis\' solution a few posts up wouldn\'t require wonky graviy or the player to be on a sphere. The player would be on a flat world map, basically a fixed-size wrapping MC map, when on a planet or in it\'s atmosphere. It\'d be simple to make that map any size, since the world could be loaded in chunks, but really tremendous planets (hundreds of thousands to millions of blocks in each direction) shouldn\'t be nessecary since most of the gameplay takes place in space.

In space, all that would be rendered is a spherical representation of the planet, with the ground map projected onto it. When you enter the atmosphere you\'d transition to the planet - level, something like loading a new sector now. The sphere could be just about any size, since it wouldn\'t take nearly as many system resources to render. The sphere could also be disconnected from the actual map size on the planet - depending on how gameplay is supposed to be, a planet 100x100 could have a sphere 1km in diameter, or a planet 100,000x100,000 could have that same sphere.

Personally, I\'d rather have spheres that you can\'t land on than the discs that there are now, but I know the above solution works - I\'ve seen it used in Pytheas. Planets of varying sizes and positions would be more likely and make for a much more interesting game.

 

[DimKaff]

I apologise for the sarcasm but when you suggest a radical system like this please consider the programming and developing requirements and capabilities.

I\'d love to turn my bike into a car but...

As for graphics and physics let\'s face something: Do not expect to have realism to an unrealistic game like this. Planets are huge and in a star system, one planet is relevant with the other planets. So, destroy one planet and face the Butterfly Effect!!!

And please refrain from mentioning a game like Minecraft™, where there are almost no physics. Even water is block and there are Floating Islands and there is no center of the earth. I don\'t mean that Minecraft™ is a bad game. On the contrary, it is so successful because it is not about physics!

Just bigger planets with more diversity in biomes would be nice. And some living beings, like aliens with tentacles would be nice!

 

[J7]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN-FfJKgis8&feature=player_detailpage&t=0

 

[GROOV3ST3R]

The planet isnt specifically \'\'welded\'\' together at the edges, instead there are segments floating next to each other, really close. Each one is its own planet with its own gravity field.



Alternatively, a custom non-voxel model could be made as a framework to accomodated the segments inside.

Eitherway, it\'s a good idea ^^

 

[KillerOfPie]

Lets be smart people... minecraft has a mod(http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1402701-125-gravitycraft-mineup-11-%C2%A0higher-worlds-planets-rotated-gravity-more-world-generation/) that makes gravity work perfectly as we want it to...if its(after making it work with schine) implemented into this with a planet looking like this(http://minecraftworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/minecraft-planet-parkour.png)(ignore the stuff to the side...its a parkour map) then we have our round planets with grvaity on all faces.

now to the trees. we have diagnal blocks do we not? make a tree using the diagnol blocks that when mined would give you a normal block so you can make a tree going up diagnally.

now for the core. there are 2 main things we can have wiht a core, undestroyable...or destroyable.well start with undestroyable...

the core would have a lava block exterior(which can be mine) then magma(which cannot be mine and will kill you. then just for shits ang giggles a center that once reached(by magic?) would crush you under its gravity...so u die no matter what.and maybe if you destroy all destroyable blocks on the planet its starts to cool, loses its gravity and becomes an astroid.

now onto destroyable...the core would have the same lava to magma except both would be mineable, however when magma is mined it takes a random amount of time then turns into a random ore with a percentage for each level and an even chance for the different types(possible lv 1 being 20% and lvl 5 being 15%[just random numbers i have no clue what they would be]) then in the very center would be a extremly rare block that could only be mined after the rest of the planet is gone(kinda like a ship core). but when u destroy this last block the planet implodes(pushes you back 40-50 blocks) and disappears.

Now all that being said i really dont care if it gets implemented and know it would probably be hard to code. aswell im perfectly fine with the current planets as well as planets that just have another planet on their bottom(like some said a little bit up)

 

[Stasis]

I don\'t know how they do it, but it shows spherical planets can be done.

 

[omelet]

ksp- cool havent heard of that one might check that out, thanks,

but looking at it, it is not a voxel game, am i mistaken?

perhaps gravity and round planets is not impossible, but can it be implemented in This game?

 

[Florrible]

Correct, KSP isn\'t a voxel game so it is easier to implement then at sm

 

[John Sheridan]

A solution is just make two planet facings.



Right now planets are TOP only. Bottom is nothing.

Just make the bottom like the TOP. Gravity pulling you down to the center. Make the center XZ block plane have no gravity.

What is the programming related issue with doing this..?

Done?

 

[Snapems]

This would be my favorite solution, 2 sided planets.

 

[moontheman]

I had to build it!

 

[Etc_Guy]

Coin planets would be a good idea. Planets might have to be twice as thick and maybe render two times longer, but there could be day and night cycle and most of the ores aren\'t exposed. And if you fall, you can hop on the other side, or keep switching gravity forever. I don\'t mind if the biomes are different on one side or the same as the top. Plus, you can always dig down.

 

[CrazyVulcan]

I do like the idea of the doubled sided planet as it solves many of the afore mentioned problems. I would like to add this to the discussion. what if each side of the disk had a gradual slop rising toward the middle with regular variations in it for hills and valleys? This \"bump\" on both sides will from a distance give the impression of a round planet without literary having the blocks face outward in a sphere or polygon.

This however will need planets to be much larger to allow this optical illusion to work so when you are walking on the surface it has a general evenness but gives the horizon a curve. this bump would not be so oblique that it would be like you were just on the side of a mountain.

Another important feature would be the introduction of a indestructible \"Bedrock\" that will keep you form going all the way though a planet. How thick this is and its layout needs hashing but I am thinking of having it inverse to the slope of the surface although I\'m not to sure of that yet. the important thing about the bedrock is that it allows for there to be two objects with gravity without worrying about how to make the transition form one area of influence to the next, it is having two gravity fields back to back.

In summery, I would like to see a two sided planet with the overall thickness increasing toward the center but have a divide in the core to make the gravity issue work.

 

[Ithirahad]

Fixing planet aesthetics, in my opinion, isn't really that hard. Turn the planets' flat undersides into hemispheres ("floating islands"), STAHP rendering the stupid planet discs when you're outside the atmosphere, and teleport any entity that tries to enter/collide with the shell-sphere from the bottom to a random point on the "true" sky hemisphere's shell. To solve the mining out of the world problem, encase the lower rock dome in "adminium." BOOM. All issues fixed (to a point I find tolerable), with relative ease.

 

[ardiel]

Just leave them as discs. They are fine.

I do not want wierd gravity or stuff sticking out the sides of a still tiny planet, nor indistructible blocks that will be floating remnants in space when a planet cracker comes along and strips away everything else.

As far as I\'m concerned they\'re just a place to plop a build block and/or faction module and act as a foundation to build stuff, which also doubles as a convenient resource cache to gobble up.



I don\'t think terrestrial stuff needs to be a big focus because we have spaaaaaaace! Having actual life on the planets eventually should be enough. I don\'t want to hang out there, I want to hang out with my ship, or station. The whole point of ships is to not be on planets. -.-

 

[Zenithas]

This would seem to imply that it was either discovered by orangutans, or is somehow made of/extracted from orangutans and I don\'t like any of those possibilities.


In science fiction, it\'s quite possible to have orangutans made sentient. Though with that, it still doesn\'t explain the monkey\'s lack of naming in the process. Are they all named \"Orangutan\"?

Which means only one real possibility. The element was named after, or in honor of, a scientist named \"Orangutan\". Not that hard to believe for me, since there are people named things like \"Jay\", \"Sparrow\", and similar.

 

[Ithirahad]

Actually the point of ships is to be able to get between planets and other bodies... And stations, which are normally used because it\'s hard to get stuff into space, are actually unneeded from a practical standpoint because the planetary escape velocity is so low. If anything, planets should actually get more new content than space.

 

[ardiel]

Yeah well this is a game about building ships for space combat and getting resources.

This other stuff is true but it can just be assumed to be happening to jumpstart the process of getting into space.

This isn\'t Space Shuttle Delivery Service. This isn\'t KSP where you need a rocket the size of a building to launch a cargo the size of a trash can. Low gravity makes sense so that you don\'t have to go through a gigantic rigmarole to leave a planet - if this were really about planetary travel itself, you wouldn\'t be able to chuck out a ship core and leave gravity with it.

Also it could be argued that there\'s no reason to go to planets other than to gather resources or have a place to put a factory or shipyard with static defenses. There\'s nothing actually on a planet to give you a reason to hang out there unless you\'re building or manufacturing.

Yeah you might have a ship to go to other planets, but the reason for going to other planets is mainly your ship.

 

[Sergeant Base]

What if gravity turns off if the mid-layer is destroyed anywhere?

 

[Ithirahad]

I never said that the escape velocity is bad, I was just making a comment about it. This IS a ship game, after all, and a building game, not a survival game with ships as a final tier of technology. But that doesn\'t mean the planets should just be glorified giant asteroids.