Planet Immersion

[jzimmerman4]

As recently announced, Schine is going to start focusing more on role play features, something I am very excited about. One thing that can benefit from this is planets. I know these have seen tons of changes and I truly enjoy having them in game but currently plants still feel more or less like over sized asteroids.

One thing Schema has rejected is having a loading screen when going onto a planet and then having a minecraft style world. Thanks goodness he is against that because loading screens are simply the worse!
My suggestion is to improve how players and ships react with the planets atmosphere.

First off we would need a new look when viewing planets from outside their gravity. Instead of being able to see the fine details of structures and terrain elements, there should be a non-transparent texture, eliminating the need to load any chunks which causes lag for players. This texture would ideally form to the layout of the planet and be animated with clouds and the likes but at a minimum a generic texture of a blurred landscape for each planet type would work.

Spoiler: Examples

The next change would be what entering the planet is like. A more dynamic entrance including a stronger force accelerating the players ship(similar to worm holes and real life) and adding a slight effect of damage(similar to suns and real life) if the player is entering to steeply or quickly with a ship too heavy. Because the planet wouldn't have to load until someone entered the atmosphere each plate could be exponentially larger as only one would need to load at a time, and only a few layers of blocks deep at that.

Please leave some feedback and suggestions to make this suggestion better! Did my best to clarify but if you dont get what I am trying to describe ask below!

 

[Keptick]

Hmmm, the problem with this is that it'd completely remove interaction between the planets and space. Being able to interact with planets from space is something that Schema has always aimed to keep afaik.

But yea, a better and larger atmosphere would be awesome, right now it looks like derp. The size of gravity wells should also change according to planet sizes too, I tried a 1000r planet and had to practically hug the plates to get in gravity, as in I was much closer to the plate proportionaly to it's size. The atmosphere was also incredibly whacky.... Combined with reentry effects, this could make for an amazing feature!

 

[SilverAgeFan]

Shameless plug of a suggestion thread from a couple months ago about some low hanging fruit help make each planet more unique.

Not exactly the same as what the OP is suggesting, but I think it's relevant.

 

[jzimmerman4]

Hmmm, the problem with this is that it'd completely remove interaction between the planets and space. Being able to interact with planets from space is something that Schema has always aimed to keep afaik.

But yea, a better and larger atmosphere would be awesome, right now it looks like derp. The size of gravity wells should also change according to planet sizes too, I tried a 1000r planet and had to practically hug the plates to get in gravity, as in I was much closer to the plate proportionaly to it's size. The atmosphere was also incredibly whacky.... Combined with reentry effects, this could make for an amazing feature!

Not necessarily since a missile shot from space would still blow a hole in the planet and vise versa but in my opinion there is too much interaction currently. A bit of separation would make it so much more immersive but the interaction would still play a role as a small shuttle with decent thrust wouldn't feel these effects much at all.