There is a other possibility. Near 1980, a game was created, called elite2 frontier. This game take place in space, and in this game, all distances are reall... The planets have scale of true planet, and you can landing on it. The game was very light (1MB), and it was created with assemblers langage. So i think, the planet can be round, with true cubes, and for the render, it can be simple: when you landing on it, the map can be generated whith a chunk system, as in minecraft...
Flat planets are absolutely horrible. An idea on how to make them round. changed
- Thread starter Innocent Flower
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I would also like to see the planet redone, but not round. I rather see them a little bit thicker allowing factoins/player to make a Underground base, for Hangers and such. Allowing for safer construction of ships, but also to see a Double sided planet so I wont fall off a planet by exiting a Planets build mode.
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I like the flat planets as I can understand the problems of gravity based on a cube with a sphere. The only way I could think about doing a sphere is this.
Centre of Gravity is a Vector point at the centre of the planet. When gravity pull is calculated (strength > closer to core) the planet with Square off the pull of gravity to the sides of the cube. Though this would create some interesting problems with a character standing on one side and another could be stood on the next face perpendicular at certain angles. To combat this the flat based planet is better B UT make the planet thicker and double sided where the gravity switches to Zero Gee in the centre and reverses towards the other side.
Centre of Gravity is a Vector point at the centre of the planet. When gravity pull is calculated (strength > closer to core) the planet with Square off the pull of gravity to the sides of the cube. Though this would create some interesting problems with a character standing on one side and another could be stood on the next face perpendicular at certain angles. To combat this the flat based planet is better B UT make the planet thicker and double sided where the gravity switches to Zero Gee in the centre and reverses towards the other side.
Winterhome
Way gayer than originally thought.
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Add FTL travel, and make the distances somewhat akin to Vega Strike.
Starting sector would be similar to what it is now, jam packed with asteroids, stations, etc., so you can eventually work up to a ship that can support long range sensors and fly to actual large scale planets.
Starting sector would be similar to what it is now, jam packed with asteroids, stations, etc., so you can eventually work up to a ship that can support long range sensors and fly to actual large scale planets.
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I like the oreo idea, but the planets definitely needs to be far bigger. The actual size allow to make a base or a few houses on it, but for a city of a correct size, it\'s far too small. And having planets of different sizes would be cool too (with different gravity strenghts). 1000-5000 blocks of diameter (maybe more), 200-1000 blocks of thickness (the 2 sides are counted in those numbers). 1000 is big as thickness, (and big enough for cool underground bases) but i scaled it to look good on a 5000 bocks of diameter planet. They may become too big with the actual distance between them, but this could be increased (and the max ship speed be buffed, there are some good topics about this in the suggestions section).
And having them rotating so the day/night cycle based on the sun would be cool too.
TL;DR : Whatever planet model is choosen, we need bigger planets.
And having them rotating so the day/night cycle based on the sun would be cool too.
TL;DR : Whatever planet model is choosen, we need bigger planets.
Some people here reject considering some of the suggestions like the six sided cube because they can\'t imagine how that would work.
Think about the possibilites of a six sided cube. 2 factions can have a war and each has one side of the planet. Would be so awesome
Wanna contribute to the bigger planets idea:
Imo less planets but bigger. 30 planets close to eachother around the same star is overkill.
Think about the possibilites of a six sided cube. 2 factions can have a war and each has one side of the planet. Would be so awesome
Wanna contribute to the bigger planets idea:
Imo less planets but bigger. 30 planets close to eachother around the same star is overkill.
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As far as I know, all cubes have six sides :P
I prefer schema\'s idea of a double sided planet, with round borders. Could make the planets larger yeah, but they\'re not too bad atm either.
I prefer schema\'s idea of a double sided planet, with round borders. Could make the planets larger yeah, but they\'re not too bad atm either.
I\'m already avioding planets because my system starts dying whenever I approach one. Until there\'s a solution to that, I\'d rather not have planets double or triple the size.
Maybe loading the whole planet is unnecessary if there\'s more than one side?
Maybe loading the whole planet is unnecessary if there\'s more than one side?
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The half planets seem to be a good idea. I like the oreo-approach but that means that we have a gravity switch in the middle of the planet. Well, there could be a disk of undestructible material in the middle of the oreo-planet, but that would look odd. The hemisphere planet allows us to build deep into the planet, without having to worry about a gravity switch.
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oreo planets with bedrock layer in the middle, a bit thicker and wider is where it\'s at (I hope it gets more optimalized though( and a far far less planets per solar system, maybe sometimes there could be a solar system where there would only be one or two planets, or just a lone star + some space debree
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@schema
OK, I\'m going to say something rediculous but true. Just follow with me. Flat worlds ARE realistic the surface of the Earth is flat(ish). No, I\'m not a flat-earther, but I paid attention in geometry. Gravity is the distortion of three spacial dimensions into a fourth dimension. Curve space in 1 dimension and a transecting flat plane appears to be a half-round bump. Curve space in two dimensions and a transecting plane appears to be a bowl shape. Curve space in three dimensions and a transecting flat plane appears to be.... yes, a sphere! The problem we\'re having is that our game isn\'t modelling spacial distortion in a comfortable way.
Let\'s keep our flat mine-crafty worlds, just make them a bit bigger and recursive (not infinite). As you walk towards the eastern edge of the map, the client loads chumks from the west. As you approach the north, the client loads chunks from the north, but from half the diameter of the world to the East.... or to be simple have north fold back on south. I like the way Galaxy 55 did it\'s world mapping, but maybe the world doesn\'t have to look THAT curved. Just curved enough that you don\'t see your own head poking over the distant horizon.
There you go, flat worlds with no annoying gravity seams. From space the worlds appear round. Just use a projection of the upper layer of blocks as a texture map on a sphere. As a ship approaches within 1 planetary diameter, the server starts downloading the surface chunks to the client. The client unfolds the planetary surface, under the approaching ship until it comes to rest on an apparently flat world.
I get that this is tricky, but I think it\'s doable without melting the server, the client, or the network between. essentially you would need to have the client shift between two modes. In one mode, you are in an interactive space and planetary surfeces are a projection mapped onto the outside of a sphere. In the other mode you are on an interactive back-folded planetary surface, and space is a projection mapped into the inside of a hemisphere. Maybe the mode transition could be accompanied by a low-impact special effect... third person view of your ship plowing through ionized atmosphere as it descends, or lifting into a blackening sky on ascent.
In the event that your answer is \"no\", may I humbly make one alternate request? As a rare feature of our server-generated disk worlds... could some of them be supported on the backs of four enourmous elephants who in turn are standing on the back of an enormous space-bourne seaturtle?
EDIT: I should also say that I LOVE your game. My 13 year old son and I are having a rediculous amount of fun with what you have made. I am looking forward to release on Steam where I will happily buy this game again.
OK, I\'m going to say something rediculous but true. Just follow with me. Flat worlds ARE realistic the surface of the Earth is flat(ish). No, I\'m not a flat-earther, but I paid attention in geometry. Gravity is the distortion of three spacial dimensions into a fourth dimension. Curve space in 1 dimension and a transecting flat plane appears to be a half-round bump. Curve space in two dimensions and a transecting plane appears to be a bowl shape. Curve space in three dimensions and a transecting flat plane appears to be.... yes, a sphere! The problem we\'re having is that our game isn\'t modelling spacial distortion in a comfortable way.
Let\'s keep our flat mine-crafty worlds, just make them a bit bigger and recursive (not infinite). As you walk towards the eastern edge of the map, the client loads chumks from the west. As you approach the north, the client loads chunks from the north, but from half the diameter of the world to the East.... or to be simple have north fold back on south. I like the way Galaxy 55 did it\'s world mapping, but maybe the world doesn\'t have to look THAT curved. Just curved enough that you don\'t see your own head poking over the distant horizon.
There you go, flat worlds with no annoying gravity seams. From space the worlds appear round. Just use a projection of the upper layer of blocks as a texture map on a sphere. As a ship approaches within 1 planetary diameter, the server starts downloading the surface chunks to the client. The client unfolds the planetary surface, under the approaching ship until it comes to rest on an apparently flat world.
I get that this is tricky, but I think it\'s doable without melting the server, the client, or the network between. essentially you would need to have the client shift between two modes. In one mode, you are in an interactive space and planetary surfeces are a projection mapped onto the outside of a sphere. In the other mode you are on an interactive back-folded planetary surface, and space is a projection mapped into the inside of a hemisphere. Maybe the mode transition could be accompanied by a low-impact special effect... third person view of your ship plowing through ionized atmosphere as it descends, or lifting into a blackening sky on ascent.
In the event that your answer is \"no\", may I humbly make one alternate request? As a rare feature of our server-generated disk worlds... could some of them be supported on the backs of four enourmous elephants who in turn are standing on the back of an enormous space-bourne seaturtle?
EDIT: I should also say that I LOVE your game. My 13 year old son and I are having a rediculous amount of fun with what you have made. I am looking forward to release on Steam where I will happily buy this game again.
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If you\'d do the cube, say the even size of 10 (for this example) the would mean that the \'core\' would be a 4x4x4 cube, of extreamly hot metals, there would be no gravity at that point and the gravity will proced outwards in a pyramid fashion meaning there would be a sort of zigzag between them where the gravity swapps.
The same could be done with a somewhat shpearical octagon (Or something) with the current planets tacked on eachothers but with a somewhat cone bottoms
The same could be done with a somewhat shpearical octagon (Or something) with the current planets tacked on eachothers but with a somewhat cone bottoms
What about the oreo approach with the edges beveled to 1 block thick at the edges? If you go over the edges you just flip 180 this way the planet is roundish and coninious
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Oreo planets are a good, possibly great solution. I just think round/flat worlds would be _AWESOME_
I\'d make one tweak to oreogravity. You have gravity pulling you from two directions toward the creamy bedrock filling, perhaps there should be a \"ring\" of gravitational effect areount the edge of the oreo pulling you toward the center of the disk so if you jump off it nudges you back onto the other side.
Call me wierd... I just don\'t think you should be able to jump off of a planetary body that holds atmosphere.
I\'d make one tweak to oreogravity. You have gravity pulling you from two directions toward the creamy bedrock filling, perhaps there should be a \"ring\" of gravitational effect areount the edge of the oreo pulling you toward the center of the disk so if you jump off it nudges you back onto the other side.
Call me wierd... I just don\'t think you should be able to jump off of a planetary body that holds atmosphere.
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@GaeasSon
This is by far the most realistic implementation of the \"round worlds\", although it would require several steps of preparations and research. Current Star Sytem will have to be reworked. Instead of having 17x17 sectors of 2600m dimension, it would be required to have at least 5000m sectors in 9x9 matrix. That would be required to house bigger worlds with transition space and, in fact, will be more suitable to make more consistent sector features such as dense asteroid fields of certain type, more feasible for long-term mining, than it is now, or nebulaes, and also more convenient for large scale battles without dropping in-and-out between sectors.
Planets then can be made about to 3000m diameter, or 1500 radius. In this space the transition zone is placed looking like an athmospehere-shrouded terrain, just like we have it now, but as a sphere. When player goes trough the atmosphere, the transition is being run. Planet itself is completely flat 3000x1500 or something plane, that is basically Earth\'s flat map (google it), where North-South poles are stretched to form a rectangle. In order to accomodate the stretching, it would be reasonable to swap the positions of poles and equator in terms of terrain generation, so that stretched areas would stand for larger spaces, and give less space for generating poles.
To give you an image, that will generate a 3000x1500 map, in which each 1500x1500 square stands for North and South hemispheres, poles are taking circle in a middle of each of two, and equatorial area is generated all around these circles - in between them and on all map edges. For each angle of the planet the chunk is selected, so that when player enters the atmosphere, the engine will place his ship above the proper location, and when he takes off, it will move him in proper location near the planet.
Finally it will require a system that wraps the map around. When player reaches the edge of the world, that system loads the chunks from appropriate place and connect them to the visible world making a seamless connection. Right edge is continued by the left edge, and past top or bottom edges the player will see the same edge segment, but of another hemisphere turned 180. This will effectively make the world seamless and proper, just except that the only thing that stands in the way of ANY particular method of making seamless 3D world, if exactly, inability to wrap blocks to form seamless connections, is negated by ignoring the angular warping of the surface.
The substantial nature of the landscape remains the same - you have a flat world some blocks deep, theres an undestructible layer on botton, and gravity works straight down. It might be hrad to navigate those, but I guess a compass can be made that simply points toward North point, which is determined coordinate.
This is by far the most realistic implementation of the \"round worlds\", although it would require several steps of preparations and research. Current Star Sytem will have to be reworked. Instead of having 17x17 sectors of 2600m dimension, it would be required to have at least 5000m sectors in 9x9 matrix. That would be required to house bigger worlds with transition space and, in fact, will be more suitable to make more consistent sector features such as dense asteroid fields of certain type, more feasible for long-term mining, than it is now, or nebulaes, and also more convenient for large scale battles without dropping in-and-out between sectors.
Planets then can be made about to 3000m diameter, or 1500 radius. In this space the transition zone is placed looking like an athmospehere-shrouded terrain, just like we have it now, but as a sphere. When player goes trough the atmosphere, the transition is being run. Planet itself is completely flat 3000x1500 or something plane, that is basically Earth\'s flat map (google it), where North-South poles are stretched to form a rectangle. In order to accomodate the stretching, it would be reasonable to swap the positions of poles and equator in terms of terrain generation, so that stretched areas would stand for larger spaces, and give less space for generating poles.
To give you an image, that will generate a 3000x1500 map, in which each 1500x1500 square stands for North and South hemispheres, poles are taking circle in a middle of each of two, and equatorial area is generated all around these circles - in between them and on all map edges. For each angle of the planet the chunk is selected, so that when player enters the atmosphere, the engine will place his ship above the proper location, and when he takes off, it will move him in proper location near the planet.
Finally it will require a system that wraps the map around. When player reaches the edge of the world, that system loads the chunks from appropriate place and connect them to the visible world making a seamless connection. Right edge is continued by the left edge, and past top or bottom edges the player will see the same edge segment, but of another hemisphere turned 180. This will effectively make the world seamless and proper, just except that the only thing that stands in the way of ANY particular method of making seamless 3D world, if exactly, inability to wrap blocks to form seamless connections, is negated by ignoring the angular warping of the surface.
The substantial nature of the landscape remains the same - you have a flat world some blocks deep, theres an undestructible layer on botton, and gravity works straight down. It might be hrad to navigate those, but I guess a compass can be made that simply points toward North point, which is determined coordinate.
I Don´t really like the Idea with the Oreoish Planets. Mainly because of the possibility to fall of the edge.
I like the Idea of the cubic Planets, but I do also understand the gravity Problem that comes with Planets of this shape.
I also like the Idea of a flat World with reapeating chunks, that would make some kind of a \"travel around the world effect\". So i´ve thought about how to merge both Ideas.
If you just unfold a 3 Dimensional Cube into a 2Dimensional Plane and repeat the sides of the cube you get a Problem with chunks that dont really fit into each other. You need to extra sides to fill the gaps (A and B) and some of the chunks (1 and 3) appear not as often as the rest does. I hope this picture illustrates what i mean:
http://i.imgur.com/NXtVcla.png
So the idea i have is the following:
When you stand on the surface you get a pattern of repeating chunks as shown in the picture above. If you now build a Ship and get to a height of foe example 200m the gravity stops. You are now in some kind of an orbit around the flat surface of the planet (Maby even with a force pulling you sideways over the planets surface?). This is usefull to attack targets on the surface of the Planet. I like the Idea of having Bomberships attacking a Planet, but an orbit like this is not nessecary.
If you get even higher (lets say 350m) you enter the space as we know it. Maby with a loading Screen, since at the moment i have no better Idea. From Space the Planet looks like a cube. on the 6 sides it has rendered Images of the Planets surface (sides 1-6). Arround the Planet is an invisible sphere, that, when you enter it, gets you back into the orbit.
The only problem i see with this Idea is the Loading Screen wehnever you enter/leave the Planet. You could even save computer reccources by not loading the whole surface at a time, but only the landscape ~100 meters arround you, like minecraft does.
The Orbit is just an optional Idea I had. Maby it´s to much, but as i said, i like the Idea of attacking a planet from the orbit.
I hope this post was understandable. It´s kinda complicated and my english is bad. Sorry for that.
I like the Idea of the cubic Planets, but I do also understand the gravity Problem that comes with Planets of this shape.
I also like the Idea of a flat World with reapeating chunks, that would make some kind of a \"travel around the world effect\". So i´ve thought about how to merge both Ideas.
If you just unfold a 3 Dimensional Cube into a 2Dimensional Plane and repeat the sides of the cube you get a Problem with chunks that dont really fit into each other. You need to extra sides to fill the gaps (A and B) and some of the chunks (1 and 3) appear not as often as the rest does. I hope this picture illustrates what i mean:
http://i.imgur.com/NXtVcla.png
So the idea i have is the following:
When you stand on the surface you get a pattern of repeating chunks as shown in the picture above. If you now build a Ship and get to a height of foe example 200m the gravity stops. You are now in some kind of an orbit around the flat surface of the planet (Maby even with a force pulling you sideways over the planets surface?). This is usefull to attack targets on the surface of the Planet. I like the Idea of having Bomberships attacking a Planet, but an orbit like this is not nessecary.
If you get even higher (lets say 350m) you enter the space as we know it. Maby with a loading Screen, since at the moment i have no better Idea. From Space the Planet looks like a cube. on the 6 sides it has rendered Images of the Planets surface (sides 1-6). Arround the Planet is an invisible sphere, that, when you enter it, gets you back into the orbit.
The only problem i see with this Idea is the Loading Screen wehnever you enter/leave the Planet. You could even save computer reccources by not loading the whole surface at a time, but only the landscape ~100 meters arround you, like minecraft does.
The Orbit is just an optional Idea I had. Maby it´s to much, but as i said, i like the Idea of attacking a planet from the orbit.
I hope this post was understandable. It´s kinda complicated and my english is bad. Sorry for that.