Physics expansion?

[Wook]

Hi. I'm new here, so I'm sorry if I've missed something and these features are already planned/implemented/denied, but I didn't find anything, so...

Anyway. I just thought that it might be good to expand the physics a bit.

1. Asteroids.- I may be wrong, but as far as I can tell asteroids are static objects. I've rammed plenty in my day with massive ships, and they don't seem to move, so, thus, my conclusion. Perhaps these should be physically active?

2. Fracture-instigated rigidbody division.- I just mean that when something is shot in 2, they could split into 2 separate physical bodies. It's kinda odd to see a massive cluster of unconnected dots floating about in unison... And then, perhaps, you could reattach them with some tool to repair ships. It's not like it would cause much lag-- everything in the Starmade universe slows down pretty quickly on its own, and once it's done that physics can be suspended, effectively making it just a static object.

Thanks, any feedback appreciated, if this has been suggested a lot lemme know and I'll delete it (if I can. I'm not sure how that works here yet)

 

[MultiDavid]

...i doubt it even should stay intact, if they do get rammed and survive i think they should have a speed of 10-20 so they can\'t go half an universe on planned hits, for the rest i don\'t think the current starmade can handle multiple small-block explosions on a massive scale ( i think )

 

[Wook]

Indeed, it\'d be nice if things could shatter.

By things splitting in two, I didn\'t mean necessarily dynamic explosions-- just that when one part of a space ship was effectively split from the rest of it by having the blocks between them destroyed, that part would float away as a new physical object, rather than remaining \"attached\" to the ship.

 

[Archer6621]

The whole shatter idea is a great thing I support, it would be awesome to see some big capital ships break in pieces, especially when the core overheats.

I think it\'s a bad idea to make asteroids dynamic with the current state of the physics engine.. Once that improves, I support that as well.

 

[Wook]

Yeah, I\'m with you. I\'m perhaps not so familiar with the power of the physics engine as I should be to make such propositions... However, there is the idea of particle-esque physics-- like in Kerbal Space Program. Ships will fly through space as a single particle, without necessarily rotation/angular velocity. Besides, everything drifts like 30 meters before slowing to a hault anyway in Starmade. At that point the physics could just be disabled, and only activated if another active object is within, say, 100 meters of it. Mass optimization!

 

[MultiDavid]

Your idea may work. the problem is how the makers CAN MAKE IT WORK, its not simple xD

 

[Travesty]

No. For a generic, box ship this sounds all fine and dandy. A single chunk of stuff getting split in two. People get really creative with their builds, though. It\'s not uncommon to see a ship with interior parts that aren\'t directly connected, life floating cores or rings around a ship. One of the most interesting ideas I\'ve seen recently has been a fighter built as three smaller ships to look like a small squadron. This would all be ruined if you had to physically connect everything into one chunk.

 

[Wook]

Then perhaps one should be able to create gravity wells or force fields to hold things in place within a ship, and should be able to form squadrons of multiple ships... Or there should be a way to make one ship into multiple via some \"extension core\" or something. I dunno, maybe I\'m the only one with such an obsession with seeing things fly to pieces. But seriously, it\'d make more sense, and it\'d be more... Explosive. Interesting. Just my ten cents.

 

[Wook]

Perhaps it would only split when shot off its original location. Like a ring around an engine or something... It would stay in place, but, say, a segment was shot off by being split at 2 ends... That piece would separate. That approach could work... And would likely be better for optimization...

 

[MultiDavid]

...what about each time an asteroid is split it turns into a difrent entity so it can have its own physic properties, id also think that the salvage cannon chould split indeed an asteroid in half but choulden\'t separate it, some force whould be required to.

 

[tubadancross]

When a ship\'s core overheats, rather than the current anticlimactic disappearance, I had an idea revevant to this topic. Upon core destruction the core explodes like a missile with some proportion to the total size of the ship (bigger ships, bigger explosions). The core then all the blocks directly on the x, y, and z planes in relationship to itself, breaking most ships into 8 pieces. Finally, as the final part of the explosion, the ship does a scan and turns all pieces of the ship that have no other blocks directly connected to them into seperate entities that act as un-boardable ships (in that they will move when contact with them is made) with a bit of force sending every one of them in opposite directions. A similar effect could be applied to asteroids hit at high speed (ideally with a \'ramming tool\' so not all ships could simply fly through. Just give every asteroid a \'core\' of sorts and upon any block being contacted by a ramming tool or the core being hit by a missile or amc the asteroid would shatter. Some denser asteroids may not have cores to add some variety.

 

[OpposingForces]

The physics as is eat up alot of cpu. you start moving asteroids and having ships breaking apart and the lag will increase big time.

 

[Wook]

But still. Plenty of other game engines handle much more without the hassle. Most of the lag comes from rendering, and given that my computer (quite a crappy one) can run this at 200fps, I think they have room to spare. Just having 20 rigidbodies floating around at once shouldn\'t be a problem. Maybe it should have a \"debris cap\" for how much debris is physically active at once, after which stuff just stops splitting.

 

[Morrigi]

Java is shit. Your argument is invalid.

Trolling aside, Minecraft can do it to some extent.

 

[Wook]

It\'s not like we\'d need many, though; nonetheless, a good point. I\'m done