The 20-sided planet?

[Lord_Greyscale]

After a bit of a chat with NeonSturm, in the AAAAh, space engineers has better planets thread, I've decided to suggest the 20-sided planet.

The biggest single advantage of such planets, is the Pretty-ness when seen from space. They actually look "more" round than their 12-sided counterparts, even with the same radius.

The downsides? More plates, with less individual landmass per plate. (I believe NeonSturm said that they'd have 50% landmass per plate compared with the current ones)
EDIT: I'd originally thought he said 71%, I was wrong.

Oh, and they're Triangles, instead of Pentagons. (for some of us, triangles are hard to work around)

Assuming for the moment that it would get implemented, I'm thinking it would need to be a server-configurable set of options, that all default to "keep the existing 12-sided worlds".
(This mostly so as to not break existing servers, and so the admins don't get blindsided with an obscenity of questions about the "funky" new planets.)

A quartet for Newly generated universes:
all 12-sided
all 20-sided
50-50 mix of both. (any given planet will decide on initialization whether it will be a 12 or 20 sided planet, and this decision would be remembered for "replacements")
Size-dependant. (this would result in the planets falling into the lower third of the allowed sizes being 12-sided, so they have more useable landmass. I'm aware that triangles are harder to utilize to their fullest.)

A more complicated 2-parter for existing universes:

Part 1:
Keep all existing planets.
Replace all existing planets.
Replace existing planets only on destruction. (I've heard that a completely mined planet, when destroyed, will eventually generate a replacement planet in it's sector. That's what this would control, what kind is the replacement)

Part 2:
The same quartet as for New Universes, but respecting the settings chosen in part one.

Planet Biomes (Terran, Mars, Ice, Desert, Alien) and plate-types (mountain, plains, valley) would not change with these new planets.


That would keep most of the work thus far done for planets, AND give server admins the option to have "prettier" planets as an add-on to an existing universe, or from fresh start.

Again, I'm aware that this would be "more work" for the dev team, and that a great many are likely to go "why bother".

I just think it'll help with the looks issue that crops up now and then.

 

[NeonSturm]

(I believe NeonSturm said that they'd have 71% landmass per plate compared with the current ones)

I've said 1/2 landmass, 71% was the radius.
It's obvious when you divide the same surface-area over nearly 2x as many cubes.

Personally I prefer the ones with 18 rectangles and 8 triangles or perfect cube-worlds - or whole different planets with building-sites and otherwise high-map-based terrain.​

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

Ah, my mistake then. Correcting that now. (and I can't believe I screwed that up either.)

 

[Master_Artificer]

I think a d14 might make a good planet and only have 2 more faces than what we have. :P

Has unique triangles and then rectangles!

Spoiler: This is what 20 sided object would look like to the people who possibly don't know

Wow a d20 is the most common 20 sided object, go figure. Couldn't find anything else as a good representation.

Spoiler: Why not go all the way? 32 sided planets!

 

[Keptick]

I think a d14 might make a good planet and only have 2 more faces than what we have. :p

Has unique triangles and then rectangles!

Spoiler: This is what 20 sided object would look like to the people who possibly don't know

Wow a d20 is the most common 20 sided object, go figure. Couldn't find anything else as a good representation.

Spoiler: Why not go all the way? 32 sided planets!

32 sides pls schema. It'd look awesome if the plates are large enough :D. Would probably require some additional optimization though.

 

[jgames666]

Nice idea. I am in full support of rounder planets. I do think they should develop a way to make the most round planets that they could at some point, but I understand they are very busy with the game.

 

[NeonSturm]

32 is only ok for me when plate-plate-transitions are no problem anymore.

Else I vote for the 14 sides, a cube planet, etc … not repeating it all over again

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

Ah, interesting counter-suggestions.
Of those, that 32 one is admittedly "rounder", but it has one of the problems I was actively trying to avoid with my D20 suggestion.
(but, if truly colossal planets ever get to be a thing, I think Id vote for it.)

That being the differently shaped plates. Yeah, most decent computer hardware should be able to handle the displaying of it with no more trouble than the 12 or 20 siders.

But coding it in ought to be much easier when they're all the same shape, and merely need to be rotated like with the current one.

That, and if they're all the same shape, then there's no "obviously better" plate to claim as your own in a group colonization effort.
(like in many a video about making a "trade planet", just imagine the fighting when some plates are distinctly bigger than others)

I can see the other side of that argument too. The "lesser" plates get used as nature preserves, and that's a decent argument.

NeonSturm
That's one of the downsides of the current planets, the transition is rough, due to the acuteness of the angle.
Plate-to-Plate transitions likely would be better the more plates you have, if only because the angles become less and less acute between them.

If you mean the canyon that forms between plates? About the only way to fix that is to allow planet generation to have intersecting blocks at the borders.
It'd be ugly, but it would smooth it out a little.

 

[NeonSturm]

Yes, but they are too small on most planets.

I cut them out and put bridges and stuff so that only tiny gaps remain.
You have to fly through them, fly through 1 or 2 Y-sections and then you can fly just forward on another Y-section into the entrance on this plate.
The easiest way is to create these is using massive pulses, but they have to be modded for a good radius.
But I would like more canyons and tunnels, similar to the underground ones of Matrix-Reloaded.
​

In SM, I miss the awesomeness of planets being objects a size no single man can build.

 

[serge1944]

Yes, but they are too small on most planets.

I cut them out and put bridges and stuff so that only tiny gaps remain.
You have to fly through them, fly through 1 or 2 Y-sections and then you can fly just forward on another Y-section into the entrance on this plate.
The easiest way is to create these is using massive pulses, but they have to be modded for a good radius.
But I would like more canyons and tunnels, similar to the underground ones of Matrix-Reloaded.
​

In SM, I miss the awesomeness of planets being objects a size no single man can build.

You can increase the size of planets,last time I think I went to 60 or 800 don't remember and got no crash,I've been testing itch updates performance,and with an intel core i3 whith and intel hd 4000 driver.

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

Hmmm, I should have responded to that last bit a while back, mostly because I can't actually run with planets bigger than radius 400 or so, and I've got the better computer than what you've posted.

Core I7 @2.4 GHz
8 GB ram, with 7.89 Useable
Win 10 Home 64-bit (the blegh part, I hate Home editions with a burning passion)
64 bit JAVA (version 8 update 45 {build 1.8.0_45-b15])
Nvidia GeForce 610M 2GB.
(yes, this is a Laptop card, and so has it's own limitations. It's still a damn sight better than Intel graphics)

Back when I was running 8.1 on this same machine, it couldn't get up above a 300 radius planet.

Tested with both Generating a new planet, and with loading one from memory that someone else had discovered and fully genned.

TL:DR : I've got a better computer overall than you, but it chokes to death on radius 400+ planets.
I've tested this in both Singleplayer and Multiplayer, so the planets still need an ass-ton more optimizing to bring 'em up to the colossal sizes we all want to see on Everyone's machines.
Generating, loading from memory, didn't matter, shit choked.

I apologize if this post seems, rude, but I've felt a little irked about how every time someone mentions that the planets feel small, everyone and their dog says "just increase the radius then" as if that alone is a magical cure-all. (not exclusive to this site, heck, it's actually rarely heard here)

It's not, and can actually prevent some of the monetarily poor-er players from ever enjoying the game.

Would YOU like playing if every time you got near a planet your game "mysteriously" crashed? and on the "best" computer you own no less?
No, you probably wouldn't.
Half of what's wrong with planets right now is genuine bugs, and the other half is "WE NEED MORE OPTIMIZING!!!"



... damn I'm a wordy old sod.