Ship/Station Atmosphere aka air systems

[kookster]

I saw a few other threads that dabbled in having such a system. But I felt like a more in depth idea was deserving. I would propose the following system for having on-board environment systems.

1. Have blocks that generate atmosphere in the empty area that they are adjacent too.
   1. Possible block name: "Atmospheric Generator", "Environment Generator", "Atmosphere Generator", etc..
      
   2. They use power.
   3. The more of these a ship has the faster atmosphere is generated in their respected area.
2. Have atmosphere tracked by percent or a finite number representing how thin the air is per empty area in a ship/station.
3. Make it so if a door opens/ hole in the ship happens it starts venting atmosphere. To keep things simple I would base the rate of venting based purely on the door/hole size that is directly next to the atmosphere. As it vents the atmosphere percent starts to drop.
4. Make a system for actually breathing/ your air usage. Lets call this personal atmosphere.

1. You have 20 seconds of personal atmosphere aka holding your breath.
   
2. If you have a helmet on you your personal atmosphere gets multiplied by say 100 or something, so you have a half hour of breathing roughly. Representing having your space suit fully on.
   
3. This personal atmosphere does not get replenished until you enter a full atmosphere environment, say a station or ship.
4. Once your personal atmosphere runs out you start taking damage to your hp. Eventually killing you if you don't get more personal atmosphere.

I would also have a option for enabling/disabling this on a per server/single player mode.

[Edit]
Now a few people have voiced concerns about strain/load on the server/client, this was my reply:
This should only be "taxing" when you place a "Atmospheric Generator" it would parse the empty blocks its associated with just like when selecting multiple modules, it would take a few moments depending on the area space. Now when you get a hole in your ship or open a door, the atmosphere area does not change, only the air density goes down based off the hole/door size over time. This way should be very untaxing on the server and client.

[Edit]
Another feature that was suggested below, is personal air tanks, say you can strap on a few and each adds up to like 30 minutes. This could make it easier for new players if they start with these so they dont die right away.

I would also propose that all shops have a atmosphere area, so there are safe areas through out space.

[Edit]
While in a core it provides free air. So if you have a core you wont suffocate to death.

Some further clarification about how the mechanics would work. When you start building a ship and say you have finished a room/section you now place a "Atmospheric Generator", it now starts iterating through the open space in the room a few blocks at a time finding what is considered the whole room. There should be a cap on how many blocks of space it can handle before needing more modules or whatever. Once it has found all of the space that will take air, it starts increasing the oxygen level ( or we can just say its done and oxygenated). So now we know what area of space we are dealing with, now how we handle ship damage is, when your ship loses blocks it checks if any of those blocks were next to a oxygenated area, if they are it starts venting 1% a second per block or some other percent until either you seal the hole or all your air goes poof. If more holes are added the rate increases. This way calculations while in combat are next to no load, all the load would be when initially adding the system. Now to take into account sealing holes I would say the following. When you vent air your "Atmospheric Generator" goes offline and will not turn back on until you reset it, which should be able to be done with logic. This way it doesn't try to recalculate space when you get damaged.​

 

[Wolverines527]

This is a cool idea granted i would also put in air scrubers which would add an hour to the time you would have

 

[SpaceChief]

Adding breathable air to the game contributes to StarMade's survival aspect, and I like it. This idea has been suggested before, and one potential problem is that the game currently has no way of determining whether a ship is 'enclosed' or not. Adding that system could also impact the performance of game clients or a server.

See this thread for details: http://starmadedock.net/threads/computational-feasibility-of-ship-atmosphere.7978/

What I would like to see for atmosphere:

• 'Atmosphere' creating blocks that take power
• Planets automatically refill atmosphere (maybe 'alien' planets don't?)
• 'Infinite' air if your astronaut has a helmet on

I go back and forth on that last point. On the one hand, there are enough things in space trying to kill you, if the helmet has infinite air you get a freebie. On the other hand, there would be no reason to generate an atmosphere at all if you just leave your helmet on forever.

Also, it could be a toggleable option in server.cfg, e.g.:

helmet_atmosphere = 100 // Seconds of air in an astronaut's helmet, change to -1 for infinite.

 

[BDLS]

Would be nice, but really too taxing on servers. I'd rather have server processing power going towards making the game run more smoothly.

Maybe in the far future?

 

[kookster]

This should only be "taxing" when you place a "Atmospheric Generator" it would parse the empty blocks its associated with just like when selecting multiple modules, it would take a few moments depending on the area space. Now when you get a hole in your ship or open a door, the atmosphere area does not change, only the air density goes down based off the hole/door size over time. This way should be very untaxing on the server and client.

 

[StormWing0]

So it'd map out the space right before generating the atmosphere and servers shouldn't care after that. Also make it so when a BP of the ship or station in question is saved it also saves the atmosphere mapping of it so the thing doesn't have to be regenerated on spawning of it. So unless the block is removed or destroyed the server shouldn't be bothered by this too much.

 

[kookster]

So it'd map out the space right before generating the atmosphere and servers shouldn't care after that. Also make it so when a BP of the ship or station in question is saved it also saves the atmosphere mapping of it so the thing doesn't have to be regenerated on spawning of it. So unless the block is removed or destroyed the server shouldn't be bothered by this too much.

That is what I was picturing as the most efficient way.

 

[Andem]

Pressure systems! certain blocks can hold in 1 atmosphere, while others can contain many, like water instead of air, or hydrogen.

 

[Blodge]

OK, I really like adding to Starmade in a way which increases the immersion but, we also need to think about how it will affect game-play.

If you add an Atmosphere block, that's one more thing to put into your small ship build. Lots of players like to build compact designs and it's getting increasingly hard to do this.
It's also yet another way to die. Unless you build your ship with atmosphere generating escape pods, you're basically going to die a few minutes after you get a combat related hull-breach. I imagine this could get quite frustrating, especially after you've spent several weeks levelling up your NPC crew giving them names and shiny uniforms etc. only to have them all sucked into space the moment someone makes a penetrating shot on your Bridge.
This is more realistic, yes. But is it more fun?

 

[StormWing0]

maybe not an atmosphere block but some kind of way to map the space inside a ship or station when saved to generate a space labeled as atmosphere. Could also use a generator with a limited range creating a bubble around the thing.

 

[MacThule]

I like it.

Not something I'd call high priority, but Life Support is up there with fuel as something I'd like to see.

 

[kookster]

OK, I really like adding to Starmade in a way which increases the immersion but, we also need to think about how it will affect game-play.

If you add an Atmosphere block, that's one more thing to put into your small ship build. Lots of players like to build compact designs and it's getting increasingly hard to do this.
It's also yet another way to die. Unless you build your ship with atmosphere generating escape pods, you're basically going to die a few minutes after you get a combat related hull-breach. I imagine this could get quite frustrating, especially after you've spent several weeks levelling up your NPC crew giving them names and shiny uniforms etc. only to have them all sucked into space the moment someone makes a penetrating shot on your Bridge.
This is more realistic, yes. But is it more fun?

Very valid points. Do you have any suggestions for balancing these things out?

 

[Blodge]

Very valid points. Do you have any suggestions for balancing these things out?

Not really! To me, the only real point of adding atmosphere is to increase the danger level to the Player.

Maybe if we get an expanded role-play-style inventory, one of the items of personal equipment you could add would be an air-tank which would greatly expand the oxygen capacity of your helmet? Say, by 30 minutes? You could strap one on before entering a hazardous situation or piloting a small fighter knowing it'll give you extra time for rescue if your ship gets breached and disabled. Of course, if every Player is wearing one of these all the time, then it greatly reduces the effect of having artificial atmosphere in the first place.

 

[nightrune]

OK, I really like adding to Starmade in a way which increases the immersion but, we also need to think about how it will affect game-play.

If you add an Atmosphere block, that's one more thing to put into your small ship build. Lots of players like to build compact designs and it's getting increasingly hard to do this.
It's also yet another way to die. Unless you build your ship with atmosphere generating escape pods, you're basically going to die a few minutes after you get a combat related hull-breach. I imagine this could get quite frustrating, especially after you've spent several weeks levelling up your NPC crew giving them names and shiny uniforms etc. only to have them all sucked into space the moment someone makes a penetrating shot on your Bridge.
This is more realistic, yes. But is it more fun?

I'm gonna have to agree with Blodge, I don't think it adds as much to the gameplay as it restricts. I want very little micromanagement in this game, and adding air is another micromanagement. SE has air, and I've heard its tedious at best. It might add a little to the immersion but doesn't add much gameplay value.

 

[StormWing0]

There are ways to add it so it doesn't feel like you've got to micromanage it all the time.

 

[kookster]

I'm gonna have to agree with Blodge, I don't think it adds as much to the gameplay as it restricts. I want very little micromanagement in this game, and adding air is another micromanagement. SE has air, and I've heard its tedious at best. It might add a little to the immersion but doesn't add much gameplay value.

This would support other aspects in the game. Say a fire starts in your ship. No air no fire. If a fire happens you could vent all the air fire goes out, etc.

Not really! To me, the only real point of adding atmosphere is to increase the danger level to the Player.

Maybe if we get an expanded role-play-style inventory, one of the items of personal equipment you could add would be an air-tank which would greatly expand the oxygen capacity of your helmet? Say, by 30 minutes? You could strap one on before entering a hazardous situation or piloting a small fighter knowing it'll give you extra time for rescue if your ship gets breached and disabled. Of course, if every Player is wearing one of these all the time, then it greatly reduces the effect of having artificial atmosphere in the first place.

I added your suggestion of air tanks to the original post, good idea.

 

[nightrune]

This would support other aspects in the game. Say a fire starts in your ship. No air no fire. If a fire happens you could vent all the air fire goes out, etc.

Right and that's fun in FTL, but you are generally a lot more busy as a captain in Starmade, and have little time to actually deal with fires, deck breaches, etc. Micromanagement is not fun (at least for me)

 

[kookster]

Right and that's fun in FTL, but you are generally a lot more busy as a captain in Starmade, and have little time to actually deal with fires, deck breaches, etc. Micromanagement is not fun (at least for me)

And that's where server configs and changes come in, cause there are always people who don't enjoy certain things, so they turn them off. For myself I would love the immersion this would bring to the game. Yes it might make some things harder, but I like challenges.

 

[Raisinbat]

• If you have a helmet on you your personal atmosphere gets multiplied by say 100 or something, so you have a half hour of breathing roughly. Representing having your space suit fully on.

• This personal atmosphere does not get replenished until you enter a full atmosphere environment, say a station or ship.

So basically you build a small area on your ship for replenishing air then ignore it? Sounds like food in minecraft, just a dumb irritant you have to deal with every 30minutes unless standing still in your "breathing room"

And that's where server configs and changes come in, cause there are always people who don't enjoy certain things, so they turn them off. For myself I would love the immersion this would bring to the game. Yes it might make some things harder, but I like challenges.

Ideas need a good reason to see implementation, adding shit to the game isn't "free" and dumping tons of trash features into it adds a whole bunch of things that can break the game.
Not to mention your sugestion requires recalculations every time a ship gets shot to check if a breach occured, screwing up combat.

Right and that's fun in FTL, but you are generally a lot more busy as a captain in Starmade, and have little time to actually deal with fires, deck breaches, etc. Micromanagement is not fun (at least for me)

THIS. Not to mention environmental hazards do not function in a game where you design your own damn environment.

 

[kookster]

Immersion is the reason, every other space sim out there has environment stuff.