Universe Update: Star Systems, Territory, and Space

[Valiant70]

I. Remove the "Star Grid"
One thing about Starmade that's always kind of bothered me is how small space feels. You can still travel the galaxy without FTL in minutes or hours. You can help this somewhat by increasing sector size, but that doesn't change the fact that star systems are SMACK next to each other, all the same size, and arranged in a weird grid. That just makes the situation a hundred times worse, and it can't be fixed by config settings. Even galaxies themselves are arranged in a grid.

I believe the following should be added as a goal of the universe update: "Remove system and galaxy "blocks" in favor of randomly-located stars and randomly-sized star systems, as well as randomized galaxies."

II. Enhancing the Region Ideas
Instead of just generating stars in a shape, why not make the core and the outside consequential? In real life, the core of the Milky Way galaxy is very different from the rest. (Mass Effect 2 made reference to this.) In Starmade, I think the galactic core should be a dangerous place filled with lots of crazy anomalies, but also lots of rare stuff to find if you're willing to brave the danger. This is not only semi-realistic, but good for gameplay.

III. Universe Generation Ideas

I would suggest generating the universe in four stages to facilitate these ideas:

1. Determine galaxy positions and sizes, with one always at the center where players start.
2. Star systems. Generate spherical regions of sectors throughout the galaxy, which may not overlap each other.
   • Systems get larger or smaller regionally to increase or decrease density of stars. (Generally denser close to the galactic core.)
   • Assign each system a type, which determines its characteristics.
3. Generate bodies within each star system according to its type.
4. Upon entering the sector, create the physical objects in that sector.

EDIT: Star systems should not be completely filled, but should use at most half of their radius for generating orbiting stuff. The rest can be considered interstellar space after generation. This will ensure that the systems are spread out enough to feel right. Interstellar space should of course be filled with random weirdness and quite a few frigid rogue planets to keep things interesting.

 

[Admiralkio]

+1

Some ability to mess with the worldgen would be fun.

 

[dwwojcik]

I assume you don't mean literally delete the grid from the map, because I think it's safe to assume that would be a pretty extreme change to the way the game works. But I see no reason why star system super-sectors can't be generated less uniformly, and be interspersed among empty void super-sectors in a galaxy instead of being arranged like squares on graph paper. Galaxies should be less dense and much more spread out, except in the core perhaps, with star systems as (albeit still quite frequent) points of interest. It's ok if the galaxy is mostly empty space, as long as players have to tools to travel between places they want to go. (I assume void sectors don't have any significant performance impact until something is built in them, so there's no reason not to add more.)

 

[Valiant70]

I assume you don't mean literally delete the grid from the map, because I think it's safe to assume that would be a pretty extreme change to the way the game works. But I see no reason why star system super-sectors can't be generated less uniformly, and be interspersed among empty void super-sectors in a galaxy instead of being arranged like squares on graph paper.

I do mean completely remove the system grid, but not the sector grid. Sectors are needed by the engine, but I believe the system grid is detrimental to gameplay and aesthetic.

 

[Briaireous]

Well, I am going to assume that the blocky blocky sectors are for optimization purposes currently, that way you won't be loading what is happening in another sector in detail (at least) .... I'm not certain about my assumption tho.

If you take away the grid like sectors, wouldn't it be much harder to identify where you are? Because you could just call out to others saying you are at coordinates x,y,z of sector x,y,z. (Not too certain about order since I have not looked too in-depth into the appearance of the map. Just speculations based on my few glances at the numbering of sectors.)
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Well, I am going to assume that the blocky blocky sectors are for optimization purposes currently, that way you won't be loading what is happening in another sector in detail (at least) .... I'm not certain about my assumption tho.

If you take away the grid like sectors, wouldn't it be much harder to identify where you are? Because you could just call out to others saying you are at coordinates x,y,z of sector x,y,z. (Not too certain about order since I have not looked too in-depth into the appearance of the map. Just speculations based on my few glances at the numbering of sectors.)

Wait... Nvm, realized u only wanted the system grid removed.... Maybe it would come one day when the game is more optimized so you can load everything in the sector.

 

[dwwojcik]

I believe the system grid is detrimental to gameplay and aesthetic.

Maybe so, but I would be surprised if it was feasible to remove it.

Wouldn't scattering star system cubes randomly among empty cubes have basically the same effect as star system cubes scattered randomly in empty space?

 

[Valiant70]

Wouldn't scattering star system cubes randomly among empty cubes have basically the same effect as star system cubes scattered randomly in empty space?

No, that would allow for very little variation in system size.

 

[dwwojcik]

That's not something I see happening.

And even if it does, having a star system span multiple super-sectors is a problem that would have to be solved either way. Even if void space isn't made up of super-sectors, large star systems would still have to be.

 

[Valiant70]

That's not something I see happening.

And even if it does, having a star system span multiple super-sectors is a problem that would have to be solved either way. Even if void space isn't made up of super-sectors, large star systems would still have to be.

Why is that? How do you know?

 

[dwwojcik]

I don't know, I'm just guessing. I assume it would be difficult.

And even if it's not difficult, regardless it's still a problem that would need to be solved.

 

[The Judge]

You could just retain the grid system, but randomly sprinkle star systems instead of having it be a grid.

 

[dwwojcik]

That's exactly what I've been saying. I think you were more eloquent though.

 

[Valiant70]

You could just retain the grid system, but randomly sprinkle star systems instead of having it be a grid.

that would allow for very little variation in system size.

 

[Skwidz]

Several weeks ago I looked at some galaxy generation algorithms which would work pretty well in place of the boring static galaxies we have. Basically it places a bunch of randomized stars in a selected area and shapes them. In sm a 3d elliptical space can be selected for galaxy generation. Something similar can be done for star systems. A spherical region in space can be selected for a star system with the star at the center or so and its orbiting bodies can follow a similar galaxy algorithm but without the clumping in the middle and with elliptical orbits (static for now). Then the galaxy algorithm takes all the generated systems and shapes them into a random galaxy and proceeds to make galaxy presets which are "filled in" when the player visits them.

 

[MacThule]

I.

No, that would allow for very little variation in system size.

Little, but some. If the scattering of stars amongst super-sectors were more randomized at least it would be nice. And super-giant stars could get giant systems of 27 super-sectors, for some variation.

That said... I think your approach would be best, but I also believe that it is liable to be outside of the scope of the revisions they are doing. I believe that it would be viable... it probably wouldn't be insanely hard to code... but it would almost certainly be A Project. Like, I imagine it would take a couple months in itself to work out in a way that doesn't break the game.

I can't express how nice it would be to ditch the grid and have the amazing new planets in an amazing new free-range galaxy, but I could definitely understand why the dev team might want to pass on that one, at least for the foreseeable future.

II.
Sounds cool. I'm very excited to see what they do with regions. I think that they now have the potential to substantially gradate difficulty levels for regions of space. Quiet, boring, easy (low resource) areas like sparse regions of a galactic rim would be mostly empty with the occasional weak pirate station. More interesting (and profitable) regions would have more pirate stations of all kinds and maybe a few small (handicapped) NPC empires. The most valuable would probably not have pirates at all, but rather large, overpowered NPC empires (with huge warships) that players generally will not want to piss off (have you all noticed how the NPCs will hunt you even into the neighboring galaxy sometimes if you trash a few too many of their ships?). I could totally see the core being densely packed with huge stars, black holes, binaries, wormholes, leviathans, dangerous anomalies, nebulae and novae, and ultra-valuable resources, but surrounded by large empires constantly competing over it (so very risky to access because of constant flux and narrow safe zones from which to access all that temptation).


III.

I agree that there should be more space between star systems as you move outwards from the core, and that that space would benefit from a random, sparse scattering of random roids, pirates, leviathans, and rogue planets.


Are we still getting leviathans?

 

[Byamarro]

My input

Galaxy is a crowdy place
let's make galaxy bigger. We also don't need another galaxies, they're cool in concept but they're not really necessary for a good gameplay.

Galaxy is hard to navigate
You may have grid, but navigation shows too many things at once. It's messy, and personally, my eyes hurt when I try to navigate in SM galaxy map. Instead let's remove grid guideline, generate star systems randomly, not in grid, and make 2 modes of navigation: for viewing whole galaxy, and for viewing local area. I'm not sure how the code looks now, and I presume that it would require rewritting tons of stuff, but galaxy is realy poorly made already, and Schine is known for rewriting everything from scratch all the time, so meh.

Points of interest
I think that it's been already stated by Schine, we need a reason to travel through galaxy, and fight over territory. Special, rare resources are perfect for this..

Galaxy biomes
Galaxy looks the same everywhere. There's no joy in exploring. Sure, there are different planets but it's not enough
Adding more things like nebulaes, gas giants, black holes, separate biome for galaxy center etc. Would be good, adding rare resources specific to these places - even better. These things are easier that it much looks like, we can reuse existing logic.

Gas giants - we just need similiar mechanisms that renders molten planet core, add already existing gravity pull, add damage after diving too deep into surface, and make fog shader after crossing the surface which is the only new logic needed. Add some special salvage beams to get gas resource, and you have great new point of getting resources

Nebulaes - Pretty much just a fog shader which would already be used in gas giants, nebulaes can exist as multiple spheres of fog shader clumped together, you see a shader after crossing the border, or it might just be stronger the more you're to nebulae center. Not sure how to make it look like nebulae from outside, since blurring is computationally expensive, probably rendering some distant particles which have texture of blurred clouds would do the job.

These are only examples, the point is to show, that we don't need to write everything from scratch, and that we can use already existing logic for most of it. Writing new code should be last resort, since it's expensive.

 

[MacThule]

I also think that confining the game to one (or even a cube of 27) enormous galaxy still leaves so much room that even on busy multiplayer servers large territories can exist without ever coming into conflict, but I think Schine is locked into the whole "Infinite Space" thing as a hook.

One epic-big galaxy, with more deep spaces between stars, vast nebulae, super-dense core and very sparse rim with a huge border of emptiness outside is already more than any one player can explore.

 

[Nosajimiki]

I assume you don't mean literally delete the grid from the map, because I think it's safe to assume that would be a pretty extreme change to the way the game works. But I see no reason why star system super-sectors can't be generated less uniformly, and be interspersed among empty void super-sectors in a galaxy instead of being arranged like squares on graph paper. Galaxies should be less dense and much more spread out, except in the core perhaps, with star systems as (albeit still quite frequent) points of interest. It's ok if the galaxy is mostly empty space, as long as players have to tools to travel between places they want to go. (I assume void sectors don't have any significant performance impact until something is built in them, so there's no reason not to add more.)

This would make visualizing and interfacing with the GUI much harder with the number of solar systems there are in a galaxy. From any given perspective, you are normally looking at anywhere from 5-30 star systems along your viewport's Z-Axis. The grid system may make the universe seem a bit static, but it makes navigation and visualization much easier when dealing with this many layers.

 

[Skwidz]

The problem with not creating more galaxies is the finite size of such a universe, not that sm isn't limited already. It can be fixed by making the galaxy larger but that would be boring and it would take some of the content away and we could miss out on cool things such as quasars which could be excellent sources of thermal energy, rare materials, and hot nebula plasma and home to many dangers such as easy entity overheats and terrifying, hard-to-kill space monsters able to survive the harsh conditions. Normal galaxies can have things like that but it would be cool to be able to find a rare galaxy like that with boatloads of rare stuff instead of just one galaxy and empty, boring space extending infinitely in all directions around the galaxy.

 

[Nosajimiki]

The problem with not creating more galaxies is the finite size of such a universe, not that sm isn't limited already. It can be fixed by making the galaxy larger but that would be boring and it would take some of the content away and we could miss out on cool things such as quasars which could be excellent sources of thermal energy, rare materials, and hot nebula plasma and home to many dangers such as easy entity overheats and terrifying, hard-to-kill space monsters able to survive the harsh conditions. Normal galaxies can have things like that but it would be cool to be able to find a rare galaxy like that with boatloads of rare stuff instead of just one galaxy and empty, boring space extending infinitely in all directions around the galaxy.

This is a double edged sword, if you encourage people to explore too much, then factions will not be in any competition with each other. 1 galaxy = finite resources/territory. While quasars are an interesting concept, I think you ideas would be far more practical as localized anomalies within a single limited galaxy.