Planets: Discs or Balls?

[DrTarDIS]

Is it actually minecraft? Is it a minecraft sub-area running on the same server, or an entirely separate server? Do my lock-on missiles and jump drive stop working then?

It would be awesome if planets could be so... expansive. I think that's waht we all want. The issue I see with disconnecting planets from the universe is that now how do things like orbital bombardment and PTS (planet to space / surface to space) weapons work then? Is there a way to do that without it feeling disjointed and contrived?

I'd be totally down for planets to be a load-in sub-world IF (giant if) intuitive, smooth operating workarounds could be devised for planet-space and space-planet interactions. Because the sectors are already basically sub-areas and the sector transition we already deal with is pretty jarring. And that's in (theoretically) seamless space, the main venue in which we interact dynamically, fight, etc! So a transition between space and planet would be no big deal within the actual context of the game. But I like to fire a missile from orbit and be able to see the damage. I like that things link up well. If it meant a giant leap in planet usefulness, I could settle for some loss there... but not much.

hah, like Starmade's current client is used as a master persistant universe, and each planet redirects the server netcode to another dedicated server. I dig that.

You could take a screenshot of the planet area and wrap a scaled-down version as a mesh around the planet-render in the main server. Update at scheduled intervals (instance restart?).
Atmosphere collision sets the "warning landing" dialog after x many seconds (abort! abort!). slow scaling-up and unwrap of pre-bake mesh as you load a designated landing zone.
planet-server is a fixed cubic size, edges of map wrap-back in server selected manner. some funky shapes like sphere, or torus, or ringworld, or mobius strip. reflected back by model depiction in main client
let the planets have a selected hard cap dimensions for a ship that's landing, play fluff of you bounce off the atmosphere if your ship exceeds those.
Would need a good server synch and hand-off netcode, but i think most of that could be copypasta from the one we got now.
Warhead entities being "dropped from orbit" would be your planetary bombardment. Or land and start doing the boom boom.

 

[KiloZulu]

Keeping in mind that this is all just an exercise in wishful thinking, and not an actual suggestion for the devs, I'd say that the interruption in play while a Minecraft server is loading could be explained away as "entering the atmosphere." This is a trick that sci-fi games used in the past, and is only recently changing. As for orbital attacks, you could again say that the atmosphere interferes with weapons fire and that it isn't possible.

If it were an actual Minecraft game, you couldn't land your ship, or fly around in the atmosphere, anyway. The game doesn't have the code in place to allow something like that. a.) you would have to be able to translate blocks from StarMade to Minecraft, and b.) the closest I've seen to flying ships in Minecraft has been Archimedes Ships mod, which is to say you would lose the ability to exit the ship core while you were airborne. The more likely approach would be that you beam down to the planet surface, or perhaps load into the world inside a "landed shuttle".

Could Schine make Minecraft-like worlds using the same engine? Perhaps, but I don't know that they want to tackle a project of that scale. Sounds like an expansion pack.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

All this talk about Minecraft reminds me of how badly I want StarMade planets to have a ton of things* to do on! Right now they're just meals for my salvager and gravity physics pits of doom for any smaller ships.

*Properly defining "ton of things to do" is left as an exercise to the reader, or to another thread if one exists.

 

[Spoolooni]

We need to think avant garde. Stick planets.

 

[sayerulz]

Schema has long been against instanced planets, for the reason that he want's surface-to-space interaction to be a thing. But I have to say at the moment, while there is nothing stopping you from doing orbital bombardments and building planetary defense cannons, there is no reason to do that either. In terms of making a base, planets are pretty much just inferior to stations, except as a very early game base for gathering the credits and resources needed to build a station. At that stage in the game, PvP warfare is a non-starter, and while planetary defense weapons might shoot down some pirates, those resources are much better spent making ships and stations. Planet-to-space interaction is currently limited to planeteating and blowing them up just for the hell of it, both of which are generally frowned upon because of the lag and mess they tend to create.

So at the moment, the sacrifices made to make planet-to-space interaction possible are the very things that make it undesirable.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I find that it's not that hard to make a colony on the 12-sided planets look good but I agree that the lag it generates, coupled with the lack of auto orientation offsets any benefit from using them. As such, I've been working on a station that functions like a smaller version the old disc planets; sans automatic gravity.


Personally, I see the merits of both systems. The problem is that the 12-sided system; while better looking, is ineffective due to lag and orientation issues but we do not have anything that is functionally equivalent to the old system. I think if we had the option to leave gravity blocks in an 'always on' state, we could easily replicate the disc planet experience on our stations while waiting for Schine to fix the current planet system.

As always, I tend to build around the game and its developers but I think an 'always on' gravity system, would make most players willing to wait for what Schine comes up with next.
[doublepost=1482504879,1482504201][/doublepost]

Warhead entities being "dropped from orbit" would be your planetary bombardment. Or land and start doing the boom boom.

(Smiles evilly)...

Spoiler

 

[Borr]

Whats the point of planets other than being laggy?

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Whats the point of planets other than being laggy?

The 'point' of planets is whatever you want it to be. It all depends on the individual builder's needs and intentions.

To me, planets are a combination of art, massive amounts of building space, and a mini environment, full of resources.


I used to use them as a way to express my creativity on a much larger scale than what is usually done with space stations. I also used them to provide a large immersive environment where other players can visit and conduct business.

There's also something to be said about the idea of actually having a "homeworld" rather than just a station or nomadic fleet. Something about it just seems more "official". I believe that was originally one of Schine's intentions. Unfortunately, the system isn't ready for wide spread use so we'll have to wait and see what solutions Schine can figure out.

 

[Wolverines527]

By getting rid of the core you would resolve 90% of the issues with the planets and just having blocks put there instead which would make mining planets with mining beams and get a massive supply of ore and other stuff thing if a planet was un shielded or have a block when placed give one ore type every game hour or how ever game timing is determined that would make owning a planet a viable thing with its own benefits and negatives

Benefits you have a scenic resource rich environment with limitless resources that you and your faction would want to protect indefinatly an npc spawning place that you can befriend other npcs for crew with a slightly more easier access to them but at lower levels

And invading a faction planet would alert all npcs on planet and any faction npc would converge on the attacking player if set to soldier status or will drive a tank if set to driver

 

[xxpowerofsoundxx]

Is it actually minecraft? Is it a minecraft sub-area running on the same server, or an entirely separate server? Do my lock-on missiles and jump drive stop working then?

Shine really hates the idea of anything being instanced like that but ive brought it up around here before. Use the "Scanning" system to give a map of the instanced "Planet" and allow ships to pick targets. Fire weapons. server transports fired shots into instance and they hit target, Jumping just teleports you and whatever entity your in so no issue there. Instanced planets really would be the best, but maybe shine has something awesome planned.

 

[Spartan4845]

Be kind of cool if there was an added upscaling to the fire from space to the planet. If they are big enough that is.

Shine really hates the idea of anything being instanced like that but ive brought it up around here before. Use the "Scanning" system to give a map of the instanced "Planet" and allow ships to pick targets. Fire weapons. server transports fired shots into instance and they hit target, Jumping just teleports you and whatever entity your in so no issue there. Instanced planets really would be the best, but maybe shine has something awesome planned.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Be kind of cool if there was an added upscaling to the fire from space to the planet. If they are big enough that is.

Scaling will always be a weakness of this game since people can't stay away from titans/capitals. I specifically hover around the 100-120 meter size range to give some semblance of scale when operating around planets. That way, the planet doesn't like it's orbiting me instead of the other way around.I think if they get their act together with regard to collision checks, planets might be usable as the are. We'll have to wait and see.

 

[Spartan4845]

What I meant was if they did make instanced planets, which will most likely never happen, it'd be cool if the weapons fire from space got scaled up in size. Like xxpowerofsoundxx had the idea for a planet scanning system showing what was there, and we'd select a target and fire on it. Well in space that blast might take out a 3x3 section, but when hitting an instanced planet it goes up by five or ten times. Not in damage but just cosmetic size so it'd look cool during the bombardment.

I personally have no idea what's the best way to handle planets but I just wish they'd let us in on what's going on with them and what the time frame is. Because other than beams being broken and bounding boxes growing to server killing sizes, planets are the most broken thing in game. So much so that players fear them and won't go near them.

Scaling will always be a weakness of this game since people can't stay away from titans/capitals. I specifically hover around the 100-120 meter size range to give some semblance of scale when operating around planets. That way, the planet doesn't like it's orbiting me instead of the other way around.I think if they get their act together with regard to collision checks, planets might be usable as the are. We'll have to wait and see.

 

[qball]

Hi Folks,

OK, not a solution to the 'how to fix planets' issue but I have an idea on how to make planets useful in the game... here's my idea:

1. You need a 'Home Planet' to be able to form a faction - i.e. faction blocks won't work unless you have a home planet.
2. Home Planets are invincible like your home stations are currently (assume you can make plates invincible currently...?), however, to be able it to be invincible, the faction must 'own' other systems other than the home system, thus driving expansion.
3. Once the home planet is destroyed, the faction is disbanded and any factioned ships / entities are now unfactioned. (ripe for pillage...)

Anyway, let me know what you think...

Q

 

[Mortiferum]

Hi Folks,

OK, not a solution to the 'how to fix planets' issue but I have an idea on how to make planets useful in the game... here's my idea:

1. You need a 'Home Planet' to be able to form a faction - i.e. faction blocks won't work unless you have a home planet.
2. Home Planets are invincible like your home stations are currently (assume you can make plates invincible currently...?), however, to be able it to be invincible, the faction must 'own' other systems other than the home system, thus driving expansion.
3. Once the home planet is destroyed, the faction is disbanded and any factioned ships / entities are now unfactioned. (ripe for pillage...)

Anyway, let me know what you think...

Q

Hmm, no no and no?

Anything that requires anyone to be anywhere near a planet atm is a no. And even then, a faction disbanding "loss" is rather ridiculous. ._.

It also wouldnt make any sense if your "faction" is a company and not an "empire". :p