Read by Council New planet type suggestion to supplement dodecahedrons

[jayman38]

I have finally rendered my idea for a different planet style.



What are those at the poles? Why, yes, they are polar ice caps, thanks for asking.

My idea for a planet is an expansion of the 3-D planet idea. It consists of 14 parts: north and south poles. 8 square "continents", an atmosphere layer (not visible in the render above), a middle layer, usually an ocean, a bedrock layer, and a core. (I think current planets also consist of 14 parts, including core, atmosphere, and 12 continents.)

The core is unchanged. It should have all those wonderful changes folks talk about (mining), but should mostly be unreachable until something happens to the bedrock layer....

The bedrock layer will be a solid mesh. For gas planets, it would be just like the "ocean" layer, but with instakill for all astronauts, other fauna, and ships. (Heavy pressure). Can be mined. Slowly, slowly regenerates, but provides one of each resource to a capital-level mining operation (one maximum) on each of the 10 continental plates, including the ice caps. So you can get a maximum of 10 of each ore and crystal on each planet you own. When this layer is destroyed, either through over-mining or damage, the ocean and atmosphere layers above it are instantly destroyed, the continental plates are thrown off as asteroids, and the core is exposed as the only remaining piece of the planet.

The ocean layer will be a mesh, and can be solid or fluid, depending on planet type. (Example: conventional M-class planets will have a swimmable, "flyable" ocean, while desert or rocky planets will have un-swimmable, unflyable bedrock "ocean".)

The polar ice caps will usually be ice, but this may not be true for all planet types. It's just a cubic biome going down from the surface of the ocean layer down to the surface of the bedrock layer.

The regular continents will be cubic biomes that also go down the depth of the ocean layer. I guess they could be pentagon-shaped like the ones on Dedecahedron planets, but I consider StarMade a rather cubic metaverse.

Because there is a big giant mesh separating all the different plates, optimization should be easier. Mining and ramming and landing will no longer affect more than one plate at a time, so this is why it will become much easier to handle optimizations.

Gravity will be normal (straight down) on each plate. On the other hand, if you drive or float across the surface of the ocean layer, the game should be able to set "down" to always point at the center of the planet.

tl;dr: I think this solution, where planetary plates are embedded in larger meshes will allow for larger plates, much larger planets, and a more satisfying planetary encounter. This solution will still require significant optimization to reduce lag on each plate, but that optimization will be easier on plates separated by larger meshes than on the current dodecahedrons.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Awesome! I've been pondering building my own planets from scratch too. This is way better than any of my own ideas. Nice work!

 

[Blaza612]

Too much yes, the planets would be vastly superior than current ones in almost every way. (Someone will find a flaw, they always do, thus it's only an almost every for you :P)

 

[Lone_Puppy]

You could build this onto an existing planet.

While thinking of ways to build my own, I came up with this method.

All you need to do is use turret docking and have each plate docked to a relative plate on a spawned planet. You could use a small planet too and strip all the blocks off it to use as material for the surface of your new planet.

The turret docking would allow you to position the plates relative to each other. Once in place, they should stay fixed.

Oh, the only issue I had was gravity. :-(

 

[BiGEdge]

have you got a solution for gravity on every part of the planet?
And what about the size? as long as i know, and i know nearly nothing about java, but it takes too much ram
to render such a big planet?
But it would be so nice too see those planets, great one

 

[jstenholt]

This has a huge amount of potential, if only those few parts of the planet are made out of blocks, this would eliminate the performance issues most people associate with a larger planet made entirely of blocks. The possibilities are endless here. Here's hoping schema sees this.

 

[Valiant70]

Continents... Definitely an interesting idea, but it only works for planets with much of their surface covered with liquid.

 

[sayerulz]

I would perhaps make the plates hexagons, as while starmade is a cubic game, Most people, myself included, like to break up that cubeism when building.

 

[Blaza612]

have you got a solution for gravity on every part of the planet?
And what about the size? as long as i know, and i know nearly nothing about java, but it takes too much ram
to render such a big planet?
But it would be so nice too see those planets, great one

For gravity problems, use the system in place now, just have each plate automatically set the player's Y to the Y of the plate.

Optimization would be more difficult, I personally don't know much about optimization, but considering that you won't see a lot of the other plates, the chunk loading system (to a greater level) would work just fine, I think :P.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

I think dodecahedrons may have been chosen, because there are 5 cubes at the heart of this 3D shape. Which also creates five 5 pointed stars in each pentagon. Some useless info for you.

 

[jayman38]

have you got a solution for gravity on every part of the planet?
And what about the size? as long as i know, and i know nearly nothing about java, but it takes too much ram
to render such a big planet?
But it would be so nice too see those planets, great one

Thanks!

I touched briefly on gravity in the OP, and Blaza612 agreed that we could probably use the existing gravity system, plus a new dynamic gravity system (which always points towards the center of the planet entity) for when you aren't directly in the gravity of a plate/continent.

As for RAM, it will not require much more RAM than planets already do now, depending on how the individual plates/continents are made. If they are made just like the current dodecahedron plates, then they would use approximately the same amount of RAM, plus an extra couple-of-hundred 3D points in space to represent the points of the meshes, plus the mesh texture.

Continents... Definitely an interesting idea, but it only works for planets with much of their surface covered with liquid.

Non-oceanic planets were touched on in the OP. Consider Earth's moon. It has oceans that aren't liquid. (Reference: Sea of Tranquility) You would still be able to build on them, but it would be a matter of making something, dropping it onto the mesh where it's held down by gravity pointing to the center of the planet, and building from there. (It might look a little funny when you look at the foundation, depending on the "ocean" mesh.)

I would perhaps make the plates hexagons, as while starmade is a cubic game, Most people, myself included, like to break up that cubeism when building.

I imagine the continents could be any shape desired. In fact, if you wanted to escape the simplicity of cuboid shapes, they could be cut up in any shape desired. Furthermore, to cut out boring polygon shapes altogether, it might be interesting to just create dynamic continents that are shaped more like real Earth land-masses. This will require dynamic cut-outs in the ocean mesh, or dynamically-placed mesh-matching water blocks where there is no current continent.

Dynamic ocean-filling will need to be a thing anyway, because one of the first things a player will do with these new planets is to dig the edges of the continent to see what happens with the ocean water. It should somehow fill in any spaces from the surrounding mesh with water, whether that be a dynamic mesh or individual water blocks. (On the other hand, "solid oceans" like on rock planets will not need to fill in the space. Spaces between the continent and the solid rock mesh would remain open space.)

Example of how water might work: in MineTest, when a space is surrounded on three or more sides by water blocks, the space becomes a new water block. Otherwise, the space is filled with "flowing water".

I also had a neat idea as far as ocean meshes. Imagine that ocean meshes are in a folder, and players can add new meshes, so dynamically generated planets may be covered with giant craters or waves/ridges. You could make all kinds of custom planet meshes. However, if that's the case, the game will probably need to check for the number of triangles in a mesh, and reject anything that is too over-the-top complex. Also, these meshes will be limited to planets with solid rock "oceans". That way, you won't have weird "craters" or "mountains" in liquid oceans.

 

[Blakpik]

Too much yes, the planets would be vastly superior than current ones in almost every way. (Someone will find a flaw, they always do, thus it's only an almost every for you :p)

So glad to oblige.
Allow me to say 'OH THE HUMANITY!' Kindly explain how this won't execute our frame-rates even more than the Dodecahedron planets? I'm yet to meet someone able to land on a planet yet in SM, adding more sides, and making them bigger like this is going to run us out of memory instantly.

Or that's how I see it anyway.

 

[Ithirahad]

So glad to oblige.
Allow me to say 'OH THE HUMANITY!' Kindly explain how this won't execute our frame-rates even more than the Dodecahedron planets? I'm yet to meet someone able to land on a planet yet in SM, adding more sides, and making them bigger like this is going to run us out of memory instantly.

Or that's how I see it anyway.

Nope. The memory and framerate issues are a symptom of somewhat derpy/unfinished loading. Even without changing planets at all, if the game didn't load segments that you literally cannot see from where you are within the limits of physics (without a build block) there would be far less issues - even with gigantic planets.


As for the suggestion... So, planets will all be covered in small islands? This would be pretty unique, and would fit this game really well IMO. If there was some solution that allowed for larger landmasses without them going off the plates that would be nice, but if this system can be smoothed out, then... really, who cares? Small islands on huge, awesome planets is better than awkward, potentially-laggy dodecahedrons.

 

[Blakpik]

Nope. The memory and framerate issues are a symptom of somewhat derpy/unfinished loading. Even without changing planets at all, if the game didn't load segments that you literally cannot see from where you are within the limits of physics (without a build block) there would be far less issues - even with gigantic planets.

Vielleicht. Okay. Wouldn't that issue still be present in a ship just outside of the planet? You can see about 50% of the plates then, so it will try to generate those and murder your memory.

 

[Ithirahad]

Vielleicht. Okay. Wouldn't that issue still be present in a ship just outside of the planet? You can see about 50% of the plates then, so it will try to generate those and murder your memory.

50% (Less, I think) is a heck of a lot better than what we have now. Consider: If the most your GPU can feasibly handle currently is R300 planets, then with loading optimizations you can now handle R600 planets. But this is kind of off-topic.

 

[Blakpik]

50% (Less, I think) is a heck of a lot better than what we have now. Consider: If the most your GPU can handle currently is R300 planets, then with loading optimizations you can now handle R600 planets. But this is kind of off-topic.

I'm skeptical, but okay. Other than excellent, the idea seems to be excellent.
[DOUBLEPOST=1440807274,1440806873][/DOUBLEPOST]Might I ask about water, I believe it is still solid, I know it goes without saying, but I think water should behave more... like water, in order for continental planets and islands, or else it will basically still be a plane that you can walk on.

 

[Ithirahad]

I'm skeptical, but okay. Other than excellent, the idea seems to be excellent.
[DOUBLEPOST=1440807274,1440806873][/DOUBLEPOST]Might I ask about water, I believe it is still solid, I know it goes without saying, but I think water should behave more... like water, in order for continental planets and islands, or else it will basically still be a plane that you can walk on.

Water will be changed, this is complicated but it is planned. However, intercontinental water probably wouldn't be/shouldn't be blocks, necessarily, if it's going to wrap around a sphere or sectional globe shape... Otherwise there will be strange border clipping at the segment edges and we're back where we started but with even more laggy segments to bump into each other.

 

[Blakpik]

Water will be changed, this is complicated but it is planned. However, intercontinental water probably wouldn't be/shouldn't be blocks, necessarily, if it's going to wrap around a sphere or sectional globe shape... Otherwise there will be strange border clipping at the segment edges and we're back where we started but with even more laggy segments to bump into each other.

True... Perhaps water being blocks doesn't make much sense... Water is something that is going to be debated quite a bit, I imagine.

 

[Ithirahad]

Block water would be good, and that's probably planned, but we'll need a spherical, non-block water surface between continents. Two different kinds of water... A bit odd, but it can be made to work and (again) is still a better solution than our current planets.

 

[Blakpik]

Block water would be good, and that's probably planned, but we'll need a spherical, non-block water surface between continents. Two different kinds of water... A bit odd, but it can be made to work and (again) is still a better solution than our current planets.

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?