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- Mar 18, 2015
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There are plenty of things we can think of to use planets for in the future, and I think/hope that eventually we are going to see them become MUCH more interesting and useful. That said, there are currently very limited things we use planets for now. Temporary starter bases, resources, and decoration.
They are only really suitable for ground bases for a short period due to the fact that the server load for having the entire planet loaded is already pretty large, and it only gets worse when large ships are brought near one. Not to mention things like load delays causing unfortunate side effects like ships falling into the cores of planets when they spawn before the chunk of ground underneath them does. Even without that, collision checks between ships and the ground (not to mention things like trees and those weird alien planet loop de loop structures) can be extreme.
Previously, planets were the main source of raw materials for large builds (although with the asteroid size update and respawning asteroids being a thing, the need for this has been drastically reduced), they run into some of the same problems as the ground base. Namely that taking a ship large enough to easily eat a planet near enough to one to actually do any mining creates a lot of server load, and therefore lag. To the point most servers either flat out forbid you from going near planets, or strictly regulate the size of ship you can take.
I added decoration because, lets be honest, this is a space game and we're expected to have planets. Lot of time they are just background scenery as people quickly establish space stations that are easier to use. I know even back in the day when eating planets was the best way to gather resources that I'd keep any earth like plants in my systems as almost a kind of pet.
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So, the uses of planets right now are pretty limited, and the negatives on them are pretty large. They're basically lag bombs. So, how can we both reduce the system impact of having planets while increasing the usefulness of them?
What if we remove them from the universe as objects entirely?
Replace them with actual large spheres, and have going down to their surface be an action that is essentially a camouflaged loading screen to transition from open space to a more Minecraft style surface? They could have "insertion points" where certain types of smaller ships (with limited size) could go down to. Shuttlecraft could land, you could even have an exact spawn point so that transporters could be used. Treat the planet's surface as a public teleporter. I mean, after all, the Enterprise never landed on a planet, they always beamed down or took a shuttle.
Would also mean that the insertion points could be built up to be defended areas. You control a planet, you could build a base at the insertion point to defend it, making planetary assault a much more difficult proposition. Especially if the limited insertion ship size meant you couldn't take down more than glorified shuttles and fighters, it could make for some interesting new avenues of gameplay that don't resort to brute force super weapons.
Or could even go so far as to have two entirely different gameplay modes. You could launch a shuttle from an orbiting ship, insert down to the planet, but that ship lands and is mostly inert and decorative. You'd have to build entirely different ones for planetary use. Heck, going back to Star Trek, one of the movies actually had a shuttlecraft with a glorified dune buggy in it for use on the planet's surface. Could do the same, have insertion craft with docked ground units, or even docked air recon units.
Which could lead to some interesting builds, actually. Especially if interesting things were spread out more like they are in Minecraft so that you'd have to build trains to move you at speed from the insertion point off to say prime mining areas or other interesting stuff. Like areas that are better for farms, or for industry, etc. Things you'd have to go explore for on foot, or bring/build vehicles to reach.
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But all of the interesting things we could do on a planet's surface seem to require us to cut the surface off from the rest of the universe. Need to have big open areas for exploring, but we can't really have that when it means loading an entire system's worth of chunks in while flying around in huge ships.
Seems we can either take planet surfaces out of the universe at large and have big wide open planets to explore and build on, or we can have integrated planets that are really too small to be of any real use.
They are only really suitable for ground bases for a short period due to the fact that the server load for having the entire planet loaded is already pretty large, and it only gets worse when large ships are brought near one. Not to mention things like load delays causing unfortunate side effects like ships falling into the cores of planets when they spawn before the chunk of ground underneath them does. Even without that, collision checks between ships and the ground (not to mention things like trees and those weird alien planet loop de loop structures) can be extreme.
Previously, planets were the main source of raw materials for large builds (although with the asteroid size update and respawning asteroids being a thing, the need for this has been drastically reduced), they run into some of the same problems as the ground base. Namely that taking a ship large enough to easily eat a planet near enough to one to actually do any mining creates a lot of server load, and therefore lag. To the point most servers either flat out forbid you from going near planets, or strictly regulate the size of ship you can take.
I added decoration because, lets be honest, this is a space game and we're expected to have planets. Lot of time they are just background scenery as people quickly establish space stations that are easier to use. I know even back in the day when eating planets was the best way to gather resources that I'd keep any earth like plants in my systems as almost a kind of pet.
---
So, the uses of planets right now are pretty limited, and the negatives on them are pretty large. They're basically lag bombs. So, how can we both reduce the system impact of having planets while increasing the usefulness of them?
What if we remove them from the universe as objects entirely?
Replace them with actual large spheres, and have going down to their surface be an action that is essentially a camouflaged loading screen to transition from open space to a more Minecraft style surface? They could have "insertion points" where certain types of smaller ships (with limited size) could go down to. Shuttlecraft could land, you could even have an exact spawn point so that transporters could be used. Treat the planet's surface as a public teleporter. I mean, after all, the Enterprise never landed on a planet, they always beamed down or took a shuttle.
Would also mean that the insertion points could be built up to be defended areas. You control a planet, you could build a base at the insertion point to defend it, making planetary assault a much more difficult proposition. Especially if the limited insertion ship size meant you couldn't take down more than glorified shuttles and fighters, it could make for some interesting new avenues of gameplay that don't resort to brute force super weapons.
Or could even go so far as to have two entirely different gameplay modes. You could launch a shuttle from an orbiting ship, insert down to the planet, but that ship lands and is mostly inert and decorative. You'd have to build entirely different ones for planetary use. Heck, going back to Star Trek, one of the movies actually had a shuttlecraft with a glorified dune buggy in it for use on the planet's surface. Could do the same, have insertion craft with docked ground units, or even docked air recon units.
Which could lead to some interesting builds, actually. Especially if interesting things were spread out more like they are in Minecraft so that you'd have to build trains to move you at speed from the insertion point off to say prime mining areas or other interesting stuff. Like areas that are better for farms, or for industry, etc. Things you'd have to go explore for on foot, or bring/build vehicles to reach.
---
But all of the interesting things we could do on a planet's surface seem to require us to cut the surface off from the rest of the universe. Need to have big open areas for exploring, but we can't really have that when it means loading an entire system's worth of chunks in while flying around in huge ships.
Seems we can either take planet surfaces out of the universe at large and have big wide open planets to explore and build on, or we can have integrated planets that are really too small to be of any real use.
