Ship/Station Atmosphere aka air systems

[Ithirahad]

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.

Actually I think that constant updating and checking for holes is the very performance issue that has to be solved.

 

[kookster]

Actually I think that constant updating and checking for holes is the very performance issue that has to be solved.

This is where air locks come in, in other words, have 2 sets of doors, open one walk in, close it, then you can open it up to space. Otherwise yeah everything gets vented and now you have 0 air. About the rail doors, yeah that could be troublesome. Perhaps when you place the air generating block it also checks if a docked entity is there, if there is, it doesnt include that block. This would make it so you have to check air on entities being damaged, being undocked, and moving.

 

[jayman38]

The dev team is planning to implement "rooms". I'm not sure how that will work, but maybe as rooms are built and calculated, they could be checked for perfect "enclosure", letting the game know that this room can hold air.

A big problem is combat: This is the last place you want a sudden flurry of recalculations, such as when a ship is breached. Therefore, as a shortcut, if rooms are implemented, the air could be considered instantly vented if there is any damage whatsoever to the room's list of blocks. This may not make sense in certain cirumstances (E.g. double-walled room and only the outer walls were damaged or a block unrelated to the walls is damaged inside by an astronaut or shot at while a door is open), but it would at least provide some kind of air option without excessive recalculation..

As far as rooms with doors, including doors that simply open out into space, you might have to just hand-wave that one, saying that doors are automatically built with air-tight, completely-transparent forcefields that let larger things pass through unimpeded. This takes away some of the fun of malfunctioning or trap-type airlocks, but that's just how the cookie crumbles when creating a simulation.

 

[kiraen]

(wrote this yesterday, forgot to post)

Random thoughts

We do have space helmets. They don't work right just yet, but we have them. If the NPCs are smart enough to fly a space ship, I think they could handle a helmet.
I think the big problem with atmosphere in the past has been the computations necessary. ie. it'll melt your computer.
BUT I recall there being plans to move the ship blueprint into the core for repair mechanics, so why can't the calculations be done once and dropped in there a well? Possibly it's a data limitation of some sort.
I'm not sure how this would effect venting tho. How would the server know if you are venting without doing system melting computations every time a single block breaks. Probably in combat when it's already doing huge amounts of calculations with missiles and shields and maneuvering and such.

Atmosphere sounds easy, but it's not. Atmosphere is a long requested feature, but the even the simplest of ways is way more complex then you think. And pressure just adds to that complexity.

While it's something I would love to see in the game, I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Valck]

Just a thought addressing concerns about adding additional block requirements to small ships - every ship core comes with a basic free resource buffer, like 50k power, 1 e/s recharge, 220 shields with no free recharge, some armour, structure, et cetera. I don't see why it couldn't bring a minimal amount of atmosphere as well, such that you'd only need additional blocks once the ship crosses a certain size limit.

 

[kookster]

Just a thought addressing concerns about adding additional block requirements to small ships - every ship core comes with a basic free resource buffer, like 50k power, 1 e/s recharge, 220 shields with no free recharge, some armour, structure, et cetera. I don't see why it couldn't bring a minimal amount of atmosphere as well, such that you'd only need additional blocks once the ship crosses a certain size limit.

I agree, but I would say, free air in cores period.

 

[GRHayes]

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.​

Looks like it is already planned going by Bench's response to me on this.
http://starmadedock.net/threads/starmade-development-direction.21615/page-11#post-251798

 

[kookster]

Looks like it is already planned going by Bench's response to me on this.
http://starmadedock.net/threads/starmade-development-direction.21615/page-11#post-251798

Hope so, but he could of been replying to the crew leveling part, he said some of those are planned.

 

[GRHayes]

Hope so, but he could of been replying to the crew leveling part, he said some of those are planned.

Bench is pretty good at pointing out stuff that isn't going to happen. He tends to actually read posts from what I seen.

 

[Blodge]

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

Such as?
[DOUBLEPOST=1449932944,1449932643][/DOUBLEPOST]

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.

Fires don't already exist in the game though?

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

Thank you I think there should be some detriment to equipping an air-tank though, otherwise everyone would just wear one all the time. Maybe it prevents you from taking other equipment, such as extra body armour?
Yet again though, this idea only act as a balancing feature if something like a full role-play inventory is eventually added. I think there's something in the works for this, but no idea when or what form it will take.

 

[Colt556]

I want more survival aspects, like oxygen. Make ships actual ships and not just oversized remote controlled toys. Having an oxygen system would go nicely with the planned crew updates as well.