Planets

[boom5674]

I have been playing StarMade a lot lately and think it is great. I want to make a suggestion for the way planets operate. Right now they are flat cylinders where you can fly to the underneath of the planet and such. My idea was that upon reaching a planet, a 'entering the atmosphere' phase would occur where space would disappear and be replaced with the sky, and then the planet could be rendered in during this time. The planet would be flat but would not have edges because it loops around on itself (when you get to the edge you are actually just back on the other side of the map, as if it were a round planet) The direction you enter the planet from determines where you are when it loads in. This would eliminate many glitches and give a lot more room to work with on planets.

 

[Greaterix]

This imo would be too technically difficult - how would you determine if a ship could leave a planet if it just teleports to the opposite side all the time?



I\'d like to see some planets be large asteroid-like shapes, not just flat discs, so you could fly around which would be easier to integrate, and maybe it could have an atmosphere-skybox which is only viewed from the planet out etc.

 

[Rekit]

the devs have spoken about this before. witht the current engine this would be to hard to implement effectivley.

He has said that He would place two disks together like a biskit, so the planets would be double sided.

Still not round, but an improvement i think

 

[shadowcrusnik]

Due to the aesthetic nature of the game i think that, or cubes, would be the only effective way to have better planet shapes.

 

[KuramaFox]

My suggestion would be to make them a little larger. A bit wider for instance, and deeper as well. Also, add something to the generation that adds a solid wall to the sides so you aren\'t looking straight into the planet\'s \"guts.\"

I like the two-sided idea. Make them two-sided. So both sides have surface on them, like a coin. Should be doable to make gravity work for those well enough. And it will remove the mildly laughable situation of coming up on the planet from underneath.

Way I see it working well enough would be to have a 3-section planet. Side A, Center Area, Side B. Main differentiation is the gravity. The center has none (and is relatively thin), and the two sides have it pointing \"down\" (i.e. towards the center area).

 

[Zxaber]

What if the planets were instead made to be cubes? The current terrain on the discs would instead be applied to each face, with trees growing away from the center, and canyons of ice planets leading inwards. This would also allow greater hidden bases inside planets, which my (admittedly small) playtime has found limiting.

 

[Subtrance]

Having planets shaped in a cube should actually be quite interesting. I support that and the double-sided coin type. For variety sake I would accept both, as with varying sized planets to travel to. It would make exploring all that more interesting while giving space that \"uniqueness\" when colonizing.

Would be perfect when we get planets 5-10 times as large to explore in with all kinds of things orbiting said planet(s).

 

[boom5674]

I guess the cube option would really be the best then, since i can\'t get past the idea of having a \'side\' to a planet. Approaching a coin and seeing the layers of the planet from the side just doesn\'t seem very natural to me. Planets aren\'t naturally cubes, true, but the whole universe isn\'t made of cube blocks either. So, its befitting.

 

[Spinoza]

Two sided discs would work well if the terrain generation algorithm would crate a tapered or rounded off edge.
Cubes would be very amusing as well, but would need a lot of consideration into how the edges work.
Here\'s a classic Escher engraving of a cubical world:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GOmr-u2JPhg/TPBTLhq4ObI/AAAAAAAAABk/SQhQ3kSRrbM/s1600/mc_escher_gallery_6.jpg

 

[Zxaber]

Cube edges would be something to consider. While crisp, clear corners would be better for gameplay, since they would mark the point where gravity would rotate and allow for a maximum surface area for terrain generation, \'rounded\' corners would look nicer. Gravity on its own is something else to think about. My opinion would be to divide each cube world into 6 five-sided pyramids (that\'s four sides pointing in, and the fifth side being the surface). As you tunnel into the core of a planet, if you pass the pyramid edge, your gravity would flop. In addition, the closer you are to the center of a planet, the less gravity would affect you. Near the center, the pull would either be very small or non-existent.

A mock-up I threw together, showing the idea in 2D: http://i.imgur.com/scgc5lQ.png?1

Another similar subject, planet destruction. What happens currently if you mine a disc planet in its entirety? Is there a \'core\' block, that holds the place and information about the planet? Will the atmosphere and gravity linger if a planet has no blocks? I\'ve yet to try this. Something that would be neat, though; if the planet center is harvested or removed to a degree, that planet begins to fall apart. I don\'t know the technical limitations on this, or if it would simply take too long to implement, but I\'d love to see dying planets sort of break up and explode. Maybe break down into chunks that form asteroids.

 

[D-Car]

This topic is being handled here: http://star-made.org/content/flat-planets-are-absolutely-horrible-idea-how-make-them-round-changed

 

[tylermowbray]

I recon that you should firstly add npcs that u can talk to on planets, stations and shops,who would sell you stuff, crew your ship or send you on missions. you could then do variations on them so you could have some very smart npc\'s wich give you very advanced stuff and craft stuff for you along being a better crew member on your ship if u pay them or you could have very cute and not very clever species wich will sell you bad stuff and salvaged hull, shield desperser: etc and be cheap or even free on your ship. them crewing your ship would relly heavily on your ship size, if u hade a small ship (3x3x3) you could only have like 1 extra crew however if u had anything bigger you could have more depending on size. you could allso hollow out the pirate ships and fleet ship and make pirate and fleet npc\'s who can request to board or dock your ship (fleet) for somereason and then you could then ither help or leave them(f u help they might reward you and join your chrew) or they could take out your shields and drain your power and then loot your ships chests, allso add weapons and things to fight them off. it would allso be quite a good idea to make the world a bit more circuler by mirrorring the top to the bottom, this could allow on one side mayby friendly colonies holding the previusly mentioned npc\'s, these colanies could span from a small camp to a village to a giant city wich would act like a dock and a shop so that you can then get the missions and crew. Just a thought, it would make the feel of the game a bit more realistic and a bit more structured

thanks for reading, tyler