Read by Council New planet type suggestion to supplement dodecahedrons

[Ithirahad]

Indeed, but if it is a blanket over the world, then wouldn't you inevitably end into the ocean if you dig down too far? Or will it not impact on land?

It would not have to exist on segments occupied by 'continents,' no.

 

[Blakpik]

It would not have to exist on segments occupied by 'continents,' no.

Fair enough. I like this then.

 

[aceface]

awesome idea!!! hope it gets added in game

 

[SilverAgeFan]

Guess I'm in the minority here.

From a design perspective, I actually like the decision to use dodecahedrons as planetary bases. Do the current planets need another round of refinement? Absolutely, both from aesthetic and technical perspectives. The dodecahedrons provide 12 equally sized planetary faces upon which to build. It's the fourth of five platonic solids, with only the Icosahedron (a 20 sided shape made up of equally sized triangles) and does a decent job of conveying a sense of roundness. As someone already stated, the gravitational transitions are more reasonable than a cube.

One thing I'd love to see explored by the dev team is a special block shape for the seams between planetary faces. It would bend to fill in the seam, giving a clearer edge. On a dodecahedron, you would only need 2 bits of custom irregular geometry to do this—one for where 2 faces meet. Another for where 3 sides come together. Ideally, these seam blocks should automatically appear, with whatever is placed upon a boundary between plates with conflicting orientations, regardless of block identity. This would give us the option to build roads, structures, bridges, etc. that at least feel to be contiguous, even if bent.

To further smooth out gravity, I would love to see these seam blocks function as "hinges", so objects moving across them behave more like David Bowie at 00:53 in this clip. (This is a 180º gravity hinge, but it conveys the idea.)

Anyways, I'm digressing. I get the impulse behind the OP and the desire to see planets improved. But I personally find the current dodecahedrons to be a more playful and elegant base for a solution than this shape globe of converging trapezoids that reduce in size with latitude.

 

[jstenholt]

Guess I'm in the minority here.

From a design perspective, I actually like the decision to use dodecahedrons as planetary bases. Do the current planets need another round of refinement? Absolutely, both from aesthetic and technical perspectives. The dodecahedrons provide 12 equally sized planetary faces upon which to build. It's the fourth of five platonic solids, with only the Icosahedron (a 20 sided shape made up of equally sized triangles) and does a decent job of conveying a sense of roundness. As someone already stated, the gravitational transitions are more reasonable than a cube.

To further smooth out gravity, I would love to see these seam blocks function as "hinges", so objects moving across them behave more like David Bowie at 00:53 in this clip. (This is a 180º gravity hinge, but it conveys the idea.)

Anyways, I'm digressing. I get the impulse behind the OP and the desire to see planets improved. But I personally find the current dodecahedrons to be a more playful and elegant base for a solution than this shape globe of converging trapezoids that reduce in size with latitude.

The problem with current planets is that they will never be substantially large. Every single medium sized base you build dwarfs half the planet before you're even half finished. And I have no idea where you came up any of the "shape globe of converging trapezoids that reduce in size with latitude," thing.

 

[SilverAgeFan]

The problem with current planets is that they will never be substantially large. Every single medium sized base you build dwarfs half the planet before you're even half finished. And I have no idea where you came up any of the "shape globe of converging trapezoids that reduce in size with latitude," thing.

The shape comes from observing the mockup. It clearly shows face plates on a complex polyhedron. That's not a sphere. And if each of those plates are made up of cubic voxels, there will be fewer on one side as you move towards either pole.

If the size of planets is the issue, I don't see how this solution would really resolve the load issues. I get the request for oceans between continents. But I personally don't see how oceans that are essentially window dressing and inert are attractive. Level of detail solutions and chunk loading order seem much more relevant to making larger planets work IMHO.

 

[jstenholt]

Yes, but planets are already essentially just a sphere at the core, with a dodecahedron built around it using physical blocks. OP is suggesting a much larger sphere made out of a planet core mesh that could be water, gas, sand, or whatever with plates made of blocks surrounded by planet mesh.

 

[jayman38]

The shape comes from observing the mockup. It clearly shows face plates on a complex polyhedron. That's not a sphere. And if each of those plates are made up of cubic voxels, there will be fewer on one side as you move towards either pole.

If the size of planets is the issue, I don't see how this solution would really resolve the load issues. I get the request for oceans between continents. But I personally don't see how oceans that are essentially window dressing and inert are attractive. Level of detail solutions and chunk loading order seem much more relevant to making larger planets work IMHO.

Actually, my idea is to cut out holes in the "ocean" mesh (either as a standard static mesh, or with dynamically-generated cutouts) so that the "continents" would not have to line up with longitudinal lines. In fact, if the dev team were to be able to work out real-time mesh cutouts, the "continents" could be any shape, from pure square to a crescent-shape that fits within the longitudinal lines, even to more organic, more natural, semi-random landmass shapes. With meshes, you aren't limited to specific shape problems. So you wouldn't have to worry about fewer voxels as you move towards the pole. Besides, players will alter the shapes of the landmasses faster than you can say "It looks like Africa now."

This solution would not significantly change the current load times. However, because there would be so much more space between the "continents", it would allow planets that are no longer dwarfed by even moderately-sized ships. More importantly, the mesh could "absorb" any effects that blast past the continental block mass. (Until it is destroyed, over-mined, or otherwise vaporized.) Think: salvage beams. With the dodecahedron planets, the devs have to consider what will happen when effects blast through one continent and hit another, so it's like punch-through blasting multiple ships. With this mesh solution, the mesh, as a single entity, can take the effect without the effect touching more voxels. This is what gives this solution greater potential for optimizations, and that is what can resolve load issues in the future.

On a side note, I would like to see oceans (that are liquid) being accessible to astronauts and ships and being populated with fish-like fauna. So I don't want the oceans to simply be inert window dressing. There should be stuff in there! You should be able to swim with the space crabs! (Hopefully not the laser ones, but why not?) And the whole mesh could be "minable" for organic stuff or fuel or something and slowly regenerate.

 

[Ithirahad]

I'd imagine that there could be the occasional block entity on the seafloor, too. Space kelp forests, anyone? Or... Spaceshipwrecks?

 

[ltmauve]

Hmm...
The image in the OP shows a polygonal ocean surface. Maybe have a heightmap for each face that simulates the water rather than actually having "blocks" of it? Though of course what happens if you wind up with multiple surfaces of water?


Like:

~~~~~~~~|
~~~~~~~~|
~~~~~~~~||||
~~~~~~~~|  |
~~~~~~~~~~~|
~~~~~~~~||||
~~~~~~~~|  |
~~~~~~~~~~~|

How would that work using a heightmap? And of course you'd only do it for the chunks that have something in them.

I'd imagine that there could be the occasional block entity on the seafloor, too. Space kelp forests, anyone? Or... Spaceshipwrecks?

Yes!

 

[SilverAgeFan]

<Snip>

Jayman38, thanks for taking the time to explain your idea more thoroughly. I appreciate it and it gives me a clearer picture.

For me, Minecraft is my main frame of reference when it comes to voxel sandboxes. I've not tried a number of the other "inspired by Minecrafts" coming out, but I did play and build in MC for many years.

When I think of oceans in a voxel sandbox, I want to be able to explore them. I also want to be able to tunnel under them, build domed outposts on the seabed, etc. If I'm reading your suggestion correctly, the sea floor would not have voxels on it because it exists in game similarly to how the dodecahedron planet cores exist: as a separate giant polygonal entity. So there won't be sand bars, kelp forests, rocky ocean floors, etc. that we can build or modify...just something more akin to bare planet core surface. To me that feels inert, at least from a sandbox building perspective.

Conversely, though, I do like your suggestions for other activities within oceans. They mirror a number of ideas that have been swimming around in my head (ha!) for gameplay life within the upper atmosphere of gas giants.

And even if I'm not getting or digging every aspect within this thread, I'm glad that people are kicking around a range of ideas for how to improve planets. The thought of discovering, exploring, and developing planets was one of the things that brought me to Starmade. I get that the game has focused on getting the spaceship component working really really well compared to any other option out there in voxel-sandbox land. But I hope that in time, planet play will also get a lot of love as the game develops. So I'm really happy to see people who also inspired by planets but want to see them made into a much richer part of the game.

 

[jayman38]

Jayman38, thanks for taking the time to explain your idea more thoroughly. I appreciate it and it gives me a clearer picture.

For me, Minecraft is my main frame of reference when it comes to voxel sandboxes. I've not tried a number of the other "inspired by Minecrafts" coming out, but I did play and build in MC for many years.

When I think of oceans in a voxel sandbox, I want to be able to explore them. I also want to be able to tunnel under them, build domed outposts on the seabed, etc. If I'm reading your suggestion correctly, the sea floor would not have voxels on it because it exists in game similarly to how the dodecahedron planet cores exist: as a separate giant polygonal entity. So there won't be sand bars, kelp forests, rocky ocean floors, etc. that we can build or modify...just something more akin to bare planet core surface. To me that feels inert, at least from a sandbox building perspective.

Conversely, though, I do like your suggestions for other activities within oceans. They mirror a number of ideas that have been swimming around in my head (ha!) for gameplay life within the upper atmosphere of gas giants.

And even if I'm not getting or digging every aspect within this thread, I'm glad that people are kicking around a range of ideas for how to improve planets. The thought of discovering, exploring, and developing planets was one of the things that brought me to Starmade. I get that the game has focused on getting the spaceship component working really really well compared to any other option out there in voxel-sandbox land. But I hope that in time, planet play will also get a lot of love as the game develops. So I'm really happy to see people who also inspired by planets but want to see them made into a much richer part of the game.

You are welcome.

Oooo Buried underwater biomes! (Just like continents, but without the cutouts.) If a continent can sit on the bedrock, so can an underwater biome. Excellent additional idea and it would add a lot to fluid ocean areas! (Wish I had thought of that. Maybe conventional salvage beams cannot penetrate the ocean mesh, so maybe the personal mining beam is the only way to salvage these underwater blocks. It's definitely worth thinking about.

 

[Valiant70]

Guess I'm in the minority here.

From a design perspective, I actually like the decision to use dodecahedrons as planetary bases. Do the current planets need another round of refinement? Absolutely, both from aesthetic and technical perspectives. The dodecahedrons provide 12 equally sized planetary faces upon which to build. It's the fourth of five platonic solids, with only the Icosahedron (a 20 sided shape made up of equally sized triangles) and does a decent job of conveying a sense of roundness. As someone already stated, the gravitational transitions are more reasonable than a cube.

One thing I'd love to see explored by the dev team is a special block shape for the seams between planetary faces. It would bend to fill in the seam, giving a clearer edge. On a dodecahedron, you would only need 2 bits of custom irregular geometry to do this—one for where 2 faces meet. Another for where 3 sides come together. Ideally, these seam blocks should automatically appear, with whatever is placed upon a boundary between plates with conflicting orientations, regardless of block identity. This would give us the option to build roads, structures, bridges, etc. that at least feel to be contiguous, even if bent.

To further smooth out gravity, I would love to see these seam blocks function as "hinges", so objects moving across them behave more like David Bowie at 00:53 in this clip. (This is a 180º gravity hinge, but it conveys the idea.)

Anyways, I'm digressing. I get the impulse behind the OP and the desire to see planets improved. But I personally find the current dodecahedrons to be a more playful and elegant base for a solution than this shape globe of converging trapezoids that reduce in size with latitude.

I'm with you here. I have tried to think up different ways to improve on the dodecahedron, but have come up with very few ideas for alternate shapes that don't have more problems. As much as I like the continent idea, I think it would be easier to fix the current issues with dodecahedrons and expand the content presented on them.

Let me outline the problems with the continent-based planets. You can have fun batting ideas around even if they don't get anywhere. I enjoy that too.

1. Contour problems. Voxels are flat. The mesh is curved, or is a polygon. It is therefore impossible to form a structure with a width that is significant compared to the planet's size. In other words, I couldn't build a road or tram around the world because it would stick out into space instead of wrapping around the planet.
2. The mesh wouldn't line up well. To line up the curved ocean surface with the flat continents, you'd have to bend it near the edges of the continents. That would look really weird with a liquid ocean, and would still look rather awkward with a rock/sand one.

 

[jstenholt]

1. Contour problems. Voxels are flat. The mesh is curved, or is a polygon. It is therefore impossible to form a structure with a width that is significant compared to the planet's size. In other words, I couldn't build a road or tram around the world because it would stick out into space instead of wrapping around the planet.
2. The mesh wouldn't line up well. To line up the curved ocean surface with the flat continents, you'd have to bend it near the edges of the continents. That would look really weird with a liquid ocean, and would still look rather awkward with a rock/sand one.

1. You currently can't build a structure that is larger than the planets size without looking dumb, and assuming that the continents are as large (or larger) as the current plates, that really doesn't seem like a real problem.
2. The mesh between continents already looks absolutely dreadful. And you wouldn't have to bend the ocean surface near the continents, they could seamlessly wrap around the blocks the continents are made up of.

 

[RavenWT]

Maybe we have to accept "strange" things with our dodecahedron planets... like oceans on 2 faces, crossing an edge... It's ugly, but maybe normal in Starmade's universe ^^

 

[Ithirahad]

Maybe we have to accept "strange" things with our dodecahedron planets... like oceans on 2 faces, crossing an edge... It's ugly, but maybe normal in Starmade's universe ^^

We do have to accept strange things with making planets out of blocks... However the strange things resulting from this suggestion's planets (Limited plate/island size, basically, because it needs to be small enough not to look strange as a plane sitting on a sphere) would be far superior to what we have to deal with with current planets (Ugly edges, extremely limited practical size, multiple large entities in close proximity causing issues, etc.)

 

[RavenWT]

Off course that's a good idea, but sphere are hard to map they tolds us soooo many times... so i'm not sure they will change our dodecahedron But i'm with you guys, to find a good solution to improve our planets

 

[BiGEdge]

I like your idea, but the cubic Continents look little bit strange.
wouldnt it be nice to have random Planet plates instead of cubic ones?
The planet would be formed more natural.

 

[jayman38]

I like your idea, but the cubic Continents look little bit strange.
wouldnt it be nice to have random Planet plates instead of cubic ones?
The planet would be formed more natural.

Yeah, I placed squares to show how relatively easy it would be. It would be nice to have more natural-looking continents. I'm not sure how dynamic meshes (and associated water blocks) work versus static ones, so I'm not sure how more natural continents would work.

 

[Ithirahad]

Yeah, I placed squares to show how relatively easy it would be. It would be nice to have more natural-looking continents. I'm not sure how dynamic meshes (and associated water blocks) work versus static ones, so I'm not sure how more natural continents would work.

Just cut some space out of the square segments and shape them to look like natural island/continents. Potentially, given a large enough planet size one island could be twice the size of one of the old planets with minimal lag issues on decent computers, so things getting too small isn't really a concern.