DrTarDIS
Eldrich Timelord
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2014
- Messages
- 1,114
- Reaction score
- 310
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.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.
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.