On the Subject of Planets

[WaffulMann]

They do need a lot of improvement. I think that it would really help if the game saw the planet core and its segments as one entity. That would mean that the occlusion culling would finally prevent the game from loading all the segments.

And if they never saw the lava core unless there's a hole. The lava is the biggest reason I never touch planets at the moment.
Schema plz 3d mapping

 

[starhaiden]

how can you hate the planets. I mean they are good in some ways, if you have a big faction you could have a segment each and if somebody destroys the core the segments still survive so you won't lose that much. The only real problem I have with the planets is their size, bugs and the lag

 

[WaffulMann]

how can you hate the planets. I mean they are good in some ways, if you have a big faction you could have a segment each and if somebody destroys the core the segments still survive so you won't lose that much. The only real problem I have with the planets is their size, bugs and the lag

>sees core without hole which is just yuck
>segments intact after planet's blown up? come on
>huge cities take up space which means increasing size by a lot for just one segment to get a little bigger
>no proper orbit
>no 3d mapping
>really the biggest problem for me is the being able to see the core AKA the entire planet not loading in --> solved by 3d mapping

-- removed arguments: lag, because that can be fixed --​

3dmappingplz

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Now it is my turn to say come on.
This has been said who knows how many times, and eventually everyone agrees that the planets will be fine or even brilliant when they have been optimized.
If ever there was a time for an optimistic rating this would be it.

 

[WaffulMann]

Now it is my turn to say come on.
This has been said who knows how many times, and eventually everyone agrees that the planets will be fine or even brilliant when they have been optimized.
If ever there was a time for an optimistic rating this would be it.

K den.
I hereby remove all my arguments except the ones that people agree on
things that are staying: 3d mapping and seeing the core. And the part about blowing things up.
Here's something, I'm going to edit my signature.

Edit: @NeonSturm liked this, so I'm guessing there's no lag/coding issues with 3d mapping?

 

[NeonSturm]

Here's something, I'm going to edit my signature.

LOL, you really know how to get off-topic into the news section where schema is present


There is one big problem. Cubes vs Vertices, Edges and Faces.
But I hope schema could just create a Vertex (=corner) in the middle of the topmost block which is thicker than the air beneath in case it's a vien-string.

I try out SE (space engine, not space engineers :D) but I guess it is another windows[junkie]program.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Maybe there could indeed be some damage. There should be whole chunks out of the bottom of the segment and the edges should also have some chunks take out of them. That would make it seem more realistic.

And please edit your signature to make it a bit nicer. Otherwise nobody is going to take you serious.

 

[WaffulMann]

Maybe there could indeed be some damage. There should be whole chunks out of the bottom of the segment and the edges should also have some chunks take out of them. That would make it seem more realistic.

And please edit your signature to make it a bit nicer. Otherwise nobody is going to take you serious.

I thought people would get it... but oh well ok den

 

[FunnyBunny14]

It looks a lot more friendly now. As long as you post a lot of times, sooner or later you will attract someones attention

 

[clawson200]

Getting planets to be useful, not cause lag, and not have a loading screen is a huge problem that will eventually need to be dealt with. My suggestion is to not have the blocks rendered while your in space looking at the planet, and instead have a "show" planet that only loads the chunks once you fly into it. To decrease the load time, that you only see as flying through thick clouds, have the planets broken into flat sections that way you can both avoid huge amounts of load time and avoid the weird block glitching you get with the current planets on the boundary lines to create the roundness of the planet. I think this is a fare compromise between Schema's goal of not having loading times and having real planets, this would give us real planets and, hopefully, minimal loading time. As for being on the ground with this you could basically have Minecraft with borders that smoothly transfer into the next planetary section. However big or small the sections is up to Schema but there is then a huge amount of things you could do to reduce lag and make planets a nice place to be, Proxima_Centauri's idea looked really nice with the 3D mapping. I hope Schema reads this and considers this compromise.

 

[ltmauve]

Having cloud cover and only loading the chunks above it would help loading, but it would not help appearances if all the planets just looked like clouds. Perhaps the server could generate images of the top sections of planets and use those.

 

[clawson200]

You could also do that with 3D mapping right? Being able to see what the planet generally looks like from space that is.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Getting planets to be useful, not cause lag, and not have a loading screen is a huge problem that will eventually need to be dealt with. My suggestion is to not have the blocks rendered while your in space looking at the planet, and instead have a "show" planet that only loads the chunks once you fly into it. To decrease the load time, that you only see as flying through thick clouds, have the planets broken into flat sections that way you can both avoid huge amounts of load time and avoid the weird block glitching you get with the current planets on the boundary lines to create the roundness of the planet. I think this is a fare compromise between Schema's goal of not having loading times and having real planets, this would give us real planets and, hopefully, minimal loading time. As for being on the ground with this you could basically have Minecraft with borders that smoothly transfer into the next planetary section. However big or small the sections is up to Schema but there is then a huge amount of things you could do to reduce lag and make planets a nice place to be, Proxima_Centauri's idea looked really nice with the 3D mapping. I hope Schema reads this and considers this compromise.

Already done. The occlusion culling takes care of that problem. Unfortunately it doesn't see the planet core and segments as one entity, which results in it trying to load all the segments even if you can't see them. The game really needs to see the planets as one entity before anything else gets done to impeove the planets.

 

[clawson200]

Ok but that is not what i was suggesting. I would want Shcema to have the planets shown in space but not actually render any of the blocks while in space, only once you enter the planet. Once you've entered the planet you no longer render space, there is a loading time. The goal is to make the loading time so minimal that you barely notice it. This is done by splitting the planets into flat sections that are entered ether through the atmosphere or on the ground to the next section via a loading period. These loading periods would be masked by somthing like flare from enormous amount of heat created by entry or thick cloud cover. Bottom line is when you are in space there are no blocks of the planet rendered. Its like going through a door into a loading screen to get to the next section of a map, just making the load time so small it can be masked be some kind of entry animation.[DOUBLEPOST=1411347309,1411346918][/DOUBLEPOST]Each of these sections are completely flat like a MineCraft world there is no digging into block from another part of the planet or getting stuck between to blocks each from a different section. The way you can tell your in a round world is because if you plant a flag where you start and walk in a straight line you will eventually get to it again.

 

[DarkTatka]

I really miss the cookie planets. They were interesting, mysterious even. How are they possible? Were they made by some lost civilization?


New ones are boring.

 

[ltmauve]

Actually, I think having oreo planets (what was planned before someone suggested the d12s) would actually be for the best, because a) no arbitray flat bottom, and b) much less lag than the d12s without a huge amount of lag.

 

[WaffulMann]

Actually, I think having oreo planets (what was planned before someone suggested the d12s) would actually be for the best, because a) no arbitray flat bottom, and b) much less lag than the d12s without a huge amount of lag.

or or or 3d mapping would reduce lag make planets bigger and better and everyone would be happy.

 

[Valiant70]

Honestly, if it looks good, doesn't lag, doesn't have weird edges, cracks or seams, and feels vaguely real, I don't know why anyone would complain. If this stuff is indeed feasible, I can see that happening. Of course, people would find SOMETHING to complain about for sure, as people are so good at that, but there would be few legitimate complaints.

I think the best course of action in the case of a planet overhaul is going to be some combination of the many ideas displayed here.
This would require a lot of work and coding and take a long time to implement, but in my opinion it would be worth it. Planets really seem like an underused feature right now, and making them this amazing would cure that in a flash.

1. Increased realism of having far larger and far, far rarer planets (as few as three in a star system, and fewer star systems).
ADVANTAGE: Reasonable level of realism and makes planets more valuable.

2. Seed-based fast-generation to save data and save only chunks that a player has added blocks to. Generate ONLY the surface chunks unless something lands or the surface is disturbed by something like weapons fire or mining beams.
ADVANTAGES:

• Will not use much save data - in fact it may use less than the current system which generates entire planets and saves them!
• Ore is replenished when the area regenerates. This could be refined to delete/regenerate abandoned areas after all manmade blocks are removed. This fixes "Minecraft syndrome" where the world near the spawn area is slowly used up and turned into wasteland.

3. LOD compression to hide the lack of blocks in the distance while maintaining frame rate. Any distortions to blocks needed to conform to the sphere happen in this region beyond any loaded blocks. This could be configurable to just having the distance invisible or perfectly flat to help older computers.
ADVANTAGES:

• No need to generate surface when flying at high altitude
• Configurable to perform reasonably on most machines
• Immersion

4. Angle relativity to planet surface (see my previous posts) with no gaps or overlaps between most segments. Ships can be obscured by the atmosphere from above and below (except on radar) to hide the abrupt transition from universe-relative to surface-relative angle from outside observers (angle remains the same for observers onboard a ship). A re-entry effect could be added so it doesn't look like a ship appeared out of nowhere.
ADVANTAGES:

• Immersion
• Fewer or no annoying overlaps or gaps to disrupt construction.
• No distortion of blocks

 

[aceface]

Ah ok I'll add an idea! To make planets feel even more spherical they use a special kind of smoothing on each plate to make the planet look as much as a sphere as possible!

as you see a sphere wrapped around a dodecahedron - each plate needs to just be slightly more smooth than it is now!

 

[Valiant70]

Ah ok I'll add an idea! To make planets feel even more spherical they use a special kind of smoothing on each plate to make the planet look as much as a sphere as possible!
View attachment 4601
as you see a sphere wrapped around a dodecahedron - each plate needs to just be slightly more smooth than it is now!

That looks interesting. Actually, if we were to go that route, I'd prefer having more sides and larger & rarer planets with varying climates from poles to equator. Right now planets are too small to vary between poles an equator. Unfortunately, this still doesn't solve the issue of plate edges interrupting construction.