Round Planets!

[jath]

It's not how it works unless you program it that way. You may need to go deeper into the code to do it without warping the coordinate system, but it's possible. And if the planet is big enough, you wouldn't notice any warping effects anyway.

I was also thinking, if you created several different crusts with the number of blocks on the outer radius updated, you could make the planet surface deeper.

 

[Lecic]

It's not how it works unless you program it that way. You may need to go deeper into the code to do it without warping the coordinate system, but it's possible. And if the planet is big enough, you wouldn't notice any warping effects anyway.

I was also thinking, if you created several different crusts with the number of blocks on the outer radius updated, you could make the planet surface deeper.

@schema would need to rewrite the entire block code to allow for curved block grids, as far as I understand it. Please read the link I sent and understand why we can't have spherical planets. Your posts are hurting me and I'm only an amatuer coder; I'd hate to see what it does to someone who codes well.

 

[jath]

probably wouldn't hurt them at all.... :-\

 

[BeefBacon]

I still wish cube planets were a thing. I understand that the sudden change in gravity at the corners would be jarring, but I don't see why there can't be some interpolation between one plane of gravity to the next. It'd sure make gravity lifts less disorientating.

 

[NeonSturm]

That's not how the game works. You've either got an unbent grid, a spherical coordinates system (which doesn't work here, as shown in my earlier posted link), or millions of individual entities. We've currently got a bunch of unbent grids stuck together in a roughly spherical (dodecahedron, in this case) shape.

But you can do something like this:

Draw the planet bended on the screen, if a projectile is launched at the planet, the user usually clicks with the planet on his screen behind.
Ff the image of the planet on your screen is provided with coordinates, you can also set a projectile destination.

If a projectile now not travels with inertia, but between an origin and destination, you can't miss the spot you targeted.

To avoid the issue that blocks get smaller near the poles, we could have tectonic plates (as we have now) but as they are wrapped around a sphere where x and y equals relative x and y to the segment below you it might work ...
... have to think a bit more about this [DOUBLEPOST=1412207748,1412207586][/DOUBLEPOST]Well, another solution would be bended cubes (these you can render flat and you don't have issues with bended block shapes, but may have a diagonal weird area starting on the edge of your current segments corner.

 

[Lecic]

But you can do something like this:

Draw the planet bended on the screen, if a projectile is launched at the planet, the user usually clicks with the planet on his screen behind.
Ff the image of the planet on your screen is provided with coordinates, you can also set a projectile destination.

If a projectile now not travels with inertia, but between an origin and destination, you can't miss the spot you targeted.

To avoid the issue that blocks get smaller near the poles, we could have tectonic plates (as we have now) but as they are wrapped around a sphere where x and y equals relative x and y to the segment below you it might work ...
... have to think a bit more about this [DOUBLEPOST=1412207748,1412207586][/DOUBLEPOST]Well, another solution would be bended cubes (these you can render flat and you don't have issues with bended block shapes, but may have a diagonal weird area starting on the edge of your current segments corner.

You're talking about spherical coordinates, yes? Schema has already explained why that doesn't work.

Seriously, guys, there's nothing wrong with dodecahedron planets. Can we stop pushing for spheres? We got this compromise because spheres cannot be done without gameplay or lag issues.

 

[starhaiden]

sphere planets sphere planets I want sphere planets! ( annoyance over)
I think the planets at the moment are quite good they just need to be bigger and have no bugs

 

[NeonSturm]

I have an idea how to do it ... I will test it some day when I know how to use OpenGL with a decent programming language (right now I only did it with JavaScript but I don't like JS).

Do you know Haskell?
If you want something done, do it yourself ... And overcome the sadness about bad tutorials :D

 

[Lecic]

I might change my mind if someone could show me a good looking dodecahedron planet made to look spherical, but I'm keeping my stance for now.

 

[Valiant70]

What I think is most likely to happen is that dodecahedrons will be refined, or that they will be made into a different shape that still uses segments or plates. I can think of at least one possibility for that. The biggest issue is the edges, as almost everyone will probably agree. They are rough and awkward at best, and ugly chasms that eat your avatar for lunch at worst. Either way, you can't easily build across them. Worse yet, if you dig out a natural block too close to the edge, you can't even put it back. The edges are just a mess.

//wishful thinking
On the other hand, we should really just have planets large enough that bending the surface wouldn't look strange, and implement all kinds of optimizations to make sure it doesn't lag anyone out, simultaneously fixing all of the issues with Intel graphics cards.
//end wishful thinking

So in reality, spherical planets might very well be possible, but there are a plethora of issues that must be overcome for them to work, and they would have to be quite large. Added to that, any significant change in altitude when using bent blocks would cause some bizzare appearances. It is unlikely that the issues will ever be solved to a satisfactory degree.

Imagine building a 100m skyscraper on this: http://i.imgur.com/0NFTEnt.jpg

The blocks at its foundation would be less than half the size of those at its top. I think this is the main issue with curved planets, and there's no real solution to it unless the planets are incredibly huge, which has its own issues. If those issues could be solved in an elegant way it might be possible. However, the likelihood is very low and the time cost would be high. Plus, I don't think the community wants planets on that massive scale. At some point I may write a manifesto on spherical planets and post it in general discussion for people to bat around some more, but I honestly don't think we're going to see spherical planets in starmade, as sad as that is.

with big enough planets, spheres become relatively simple. The overlap at the bottom of the individual blocks wouldn't even be noticeable down to the deepest crust you can mine. No warping required. The block density to area would be slightly higher at the bottom of the crust, and the top may start to spread out a bit, but with a large enough planet, these effects will not have any serious impact on the game.

Yes, the block overlap would be noticeable, and there would be really bad gaps at the top of the theoretical skyscraper I mentioned above. Good idea, but it won't work with any significant altitude. Even if planets COULD be made big enough for that to work, I don't think the community will want them that big. We're talking hundreds or thousands of square kilometers here for that to really work well, and if you built a structure a kilometer up from the surface, there could be issues even then.

I still wish cube planets were a thing. I understand that the sudden change in gravity at the corners would be jarring, but I don't see why there can't be some interpolation between one plane of gravity to the next. It'd sure make gravity lifts less disorientating.

I agree completely. Cube planets would be great and I wish most of the community would quit bashing the idea as even a possibility. Building stuff over the edge would even be somewhat viable.

 

[Saber]

Seriously, guys, there's nothing wrong with dodecahedron planets. Can we stop pushing for spheres? We got this compromise because spheres cannot be done without gameplay or lag issues.

So much this, it's getting very old seeing a "new" thread about how planets "should be". They're fine as dodecahedrons, they will be improved as time goes on, please everyone be patient and stop bashing your heads against a wall trying to think of "new" ideas for them. I absolutely do not want spherical planets in for a variety of reasons, a big one being how much of a nightmare it would be to have to build structures on a sphere, you would either have to build on a surface curved in every direction, or spend a ton of time cutting out a foundation just so it can be flat. There, rant over, please chill out the talk about planets, just wait and see what schema has in store for us.

 

[aceface]

you read my thread?

 

[Vengeance42]

Cube, dodechahedron, or sphere, all these planets look the same once my salvager gets done with them

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Cube, dodechahedron, or sphere, all these planets look the same once my salvager gets done with them

Why you so mean? Planets are beautiful objects in space. Why on earth would you just think of them as salvagable objects? That just breaks my heart

 

[jath]

My final opinion: make planets larger, reduce loaded area slightly, and use a truncated icosahedron instead of what we're using now.

 

[aceface]

just change the config and lower your max draw segments[DOUBLEPOST=1412400522,1412400306][/DOUBLEPOST]Guys can you please stop talking about bended blocks, as that will absolutely not work in StarMade and is completely not what I am proposing. It seems like some people did not not take reading comprehension so I will explain again.

From the image, you can see a sphere fits in a dodecahedron. Because of this, I think that it will be good to shape each planet segment in a way to fit the sphere frame as accurately as it can with blocks.

 

[jath]

He did that like 3 updates ago dude.[DOUBLEPOST=1412416419,1412416315][/DOUBLEPOST]Google "truncated icosahedron"
I think you'll like my suggestion.

 

[aceface]

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Why can nobody just wait and see what schema has in mind for the planets

 

[FlyingDebris]

Aceface, stop trying to propose bended blocks!

/trollface deactivated

/commence actual comment

Personally, I think that they're gonna look bad to one group or the other, no matter how Schema does it. There will always be those ones that want spheres, the ones that want docahedrons, the ones that want modified poobahs, and the ones that want it all in one gigantic planetary mess.

How about we try and come up with other ways to improve the current ones?