Planets: Discs or Balls?

[Lukwan]

'Round' planets may have sounded like a good idea but are they really an improvement?

The current planets are laggy due their being assembled from 12 plates. They are not round as such so they don't actually look that good. I would argue that they look no better than the old version. There are gravity issues and gaps where the plates meet. They are too small for excavation and city building (three city-blocks to the horizon...really?). They afford no room for meaningful building or pedestrian role-play.

A larger disc-planet that was just one entity (with two-sides and slightly vesica-shaped to suggest a horizon) would be less laggy and more immersive, when it counts; while you are on the planet itself. Really, who cares what it looks like when in space? On approach the planet is just a bracket, then you are close enough to mine it (poof, it's now gone) or you pass it by like a large asteroid. It is when you are on the planet that the planet matters!

I know that Schine had envisioned SM as a space and space-ship game but that is an artificial distinction. Many players and admin would want to spend time on other elements of a galactic civilization to give those fleets some context and RP.

The current small and wonky planets are holding us back. Flora and fauna will need an environment to exist in and these planets offer a token and marginal environment at best.

Could the solution for planets actually be to flatten them again?

 

[MacThule]

Maybe replace those horribly laggy cores with maybe a 13th plate made of lava instead or something like that. I feel like the core is the lag-maker, and removing that would allow larger 12(13) plate planets that could be fun to play.

I'd also be fine with disc worlds. The one thing I do like about the 12 plate planets is that each plate is a unique entity, so if we ever get to the point where playing on and around planets is viable, planetary warfare will already have a set of 12 regions that can be separately controlled and fought over, which would be cool. If having 12 plates means inevitable lag though... discs sound great.

 

[Batavium]

Maybe replace those horribly laggy cores with maybe a 13th plate made of lava instead or something like that. I feel like the core is the lag-maker

The core is a major part of the lag. The combination with gravity trying to drag ships from the surface right through the plate and into the center of the none solid core is brutal. The rotation of the whole sphere of plates and the space around it also gives rise to all sorts of wonky and bizarre events. With ships in orbit jumping all over the place.

Disc worlds would solve a lot of problems the old cookie planets so to speak. Though you could make them more eye candy friendly if you go for a more floating Island look. Without adding any weird physics that can go mad.

Spoiler: Floating Island

 

[Dire Venom]

+1 to this.
Idealy we'd have something like this:

The old planets were far more useable as well, I don't think Ive ever built on one of the new ones but often built on the old ones with good success. I could have seen them being very good for as NPC faction worlds as well :3

However some of the new planets do look very good but are simply too much of a lagfest/sides are too small to be useful.

[doublepost=1480018810,1480018576][/doublepost]Also, schema looked at this a while back. Thread is from 2013 but stilll good reading and includes borg planets

 

[Lone_Puppy]

You could make a cube planet look round or even oblong like Earth by shaping the plates. I wonder why Schine abandoned it?

Start Citizen use connecting plate planets, but I think they switch engines when moving from space to planet. I remember they mentioned using a modified Cry Engine for the planet plates.

Perhaps this is where Shine were trying to get to.

 

[Lukwan]

You could make a cube planet look round or even oblong like Earth by shaping the plates. I wonder why Schine abandoned it?

This sounds like a good compromise. I like.

 

[Bench]

New planets is already being worked on. We have no plans to go back to disc planets.

 

[MacThule]

New planets is already being worked on. We have no plans to go back to disc planets.

Awesome!!!

 

[Levarith]

New planets is already being worked on. We have no plans to go back to disc planets.

That's unfortunate I liked disc planets

 

[Lone_Puppy]

That's unfortunate I liked disc planets

You can blow up planets and continue to use the disks. You don't have atmosphere though.
[doublepost=1480042198,1480042161][/doublepost]I mean plates.

 

[Amadeus]

New planets is already being worked on. We have no plans to go back to disc planets.

Any hints on a particular shape?? I'm dyin' over here

 

[Jojomo]

I have no strong feelings about the shape of planets, I just care about the size. The bigger the better.

 

[Lukwan]

Gee, size matters...who knew?

 

[Batavium]

I just care about the size. The bigger the better.

Gee, size matters...who knew?

That's all fine as long as they are a lot more server friendly. Else the whole server population will still tell you to get of your planet. The server owner/admin will then either limit their size/use or do away with them all together should that option be added.

Any time spend on coding the new planets should focus on them being of real realistic practical use in the game. So that they produce little to no lag. They should not require like 2000 chunks something just to load the planet itself. Since you want people to live and build on them. They will probably dock their ships to it to. The result can be that a lot of data needs to be send from the server to the client every time that sector gets loaded.

Sometimes planets spawn close to each other. Two or even three planets together is not uncommon. Either the map seed algorithm is changed to let a planet spawn a least four sectors away from each other at any one time. Or the occurrence of them being in load range of each other is taking into their design.

 

[MacThule]

Yeah, I'd rather have small planets that can be used and work, than huge ones that we have to avoid like the plague and yell at all the noobs to stay away from.

 

[Lukwan]

Can we at least agree that for as long as planets generate tremendous lag they remain useless at any size?

Given that the lag issue must eventually be fixed...we want 'em big as can be.

 

[DrTarDIS]

New planets is already being worked on. We have no plans to go back to disc planets.

 

[Unnamed25]

How about Disco Balls then?

 

[KiloZulu]

I like the suggestion that a friend of mine made once in conversation - when you break through the atmosphere of a planet you are transported to a Minecraft world.

 

[MacThule]

I like the suggestion that a friend of mine made once in conversation - when you break through the atmosphere of a planet you are transported to a Minecraft world.

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.