Topic: Just Something to Think About Dev's

http://imgur.com/4OTZO

This is what we all want, it opens up so many possibility's, but you have to re write your code, or whatever to get it done.

This would allow for caves running under islands as well, opening up many possibility's.

The Gifter
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2 (edited by Martha Stuart 2012-12-29 04:39:38)

Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

I second this!

Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

Awesome graphic!!! I like your style

Sparking to other games

4 (edited by Line 2012-12-29 08:29:39)

Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

I third this!

However, I think it's not possible with current mechanics, cuz the world we have is actually 2D

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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

if you consider that they have rewriten a good part of that code just a year ago to make player terraforming possible.

but Line already wrote it - the game is 2D and in some parts 2.5D. only the grafical representation is 3D. tricks like in 20th century "3D" Games wouldnt work together with the terrain generator.

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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

Annihilator wrote:

if you consider that they have rewriten a good part of that code just a year ago to make player terraforming possible.

Terraforming has been a part of the engine since the very beginning, you just didn't have access to it because we didn't have the proper player tools and rules and mechanics for it.

Being able to create natural bridges and dig caves does not only require a rewrite of the engine, but a complete conceptual shift from 2D (pseudo-3D) to real 3D. I can't even think of all the issues we'd have to solve, starting from the storage of the islands: 2D bitmaps wouldn't cut it anymore, we'd need 3D voxel volumes, and with the current resolution that would mean _at least_ 1 GB of raw data per island (that's just the terrain, without mineral, plant and whatever data). And then we'd still only have the blocky looks of minecraft, though I'm sure there are some nice smoothing algorithms for that. But then we'd also need some proper physics, because how would it look like to have floating chunks of terrain in this game. There are games that do it, but as far as I know they are situated in space where this doesn't matter, and they do it on a much smaller scale than us (Miner Wars 2081 and Blackspace come to mind).

And that's just the terrain itself, you also have to consider the way you move the robots on the terrain, how blocking and line of sight works, how plants and minerals are distrubuted, and so on. It's not like it wouldn't be awesome, but it would be a completely different game already.

Of course there is a much simpler way to have bridges and caves, the way the majority of games do it, with predesigned terrain. But then we'd have to say bye to terraforming.

*edit: that said, there is a small chance that we might have model-based bridges eventually (no promises).

Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

I really just posted this as something to look forward to, yes this would be a massive change, but look at who else does it.

No other game comes to mind, that can do it on a massive scale.  IN a mmo, and make it look good, and persistent, on one server.

ETA 2015?

The Gifter
Top  Killer 2013  - 01: 334 -- 17 -- 317  : Merkle
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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

The big mistake of the gamma expansion feature '(terraforming/MPC) was the exclusivity to only gamma islands. At least player housing should be available to all.

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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

Celebro wrote:

The big mistake of the gamma expansion feature '(terraforming/MPC) was the exclusivity to only gamma islands. At least player housing should be available to all.

I disagree.

Risk Should always be involved in any structure.

The Gifter
Top  Killer 2013  - 01: 334 -- 17 -- 317  : Merkle
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10 (edited by Celebro 2012-12-29 19:52:35)

Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

Merkle wrote:
Celebro wrote:

The big mistake of the gamma expansion feature '(terraforming/MPC) was the exclusivity to only gamma islands. At least player housing should be available to all.

I disagree.

Risk Should always be involved in any structure.


I agree with the risk, some level of risk in alpha would not be game breaking. It does not need to be combat pvp risk but their are other mechanics, so you could lose your structures, either market wars, or sheer NIC amounts.

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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

As someone who lives on Gamma.  I don't like this idea.

-1

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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

Ville wrote:

As someone who lives on Gamma.  I don't like this idea.

-1

Bridges? You fail to give any reasons ,as always.

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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

I merely state my opinion.

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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

Ville wrote:

I merely state my opinion.

Your opinion is invalid it would seem. tongue

I think a "bridge" would be a cool thing to have. There must be a way to trick the current engine into doing something like this.


So i take it the terrain Engine fakes the "Z" axis? I guess if you wanted to make a bridge there would have to be a way for you make make "Ghost" tiles so the engine would still allow a bot to walk underneath the bridge.

Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

Let me restate, I realize this most likely will never happen, and nor should the bridge really be a a high priority.

Would much rather see more bots ect.

This was more for the Dev's, I'm sure they have thought of this, but just in case I wanted to bring it up.

The Gifter
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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

Lets imagine, bridge would be no terraforming thing, build structure which I assume to be easier to bring into game.  With this module you could easily bridge on Gamma over a lot defense structures in a rather fast way.

If Bridge would be terraforming structure, it would be common to build towers on top and Ewar/repair/energie below, so enemy would be _forced_ to dig into base instead of shooting into base.

I see both ways changing the base defense mechanic completely. It would render most bases worthless and force you to either terraform in your existing base which is hard and time consuming or building a new base.

Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

Nia is flat and lies on 4 turtles back, that's it.

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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

Goffer wrote:

Lets imagine, bridge would be no terraforming thing, build structure which I assume to be easier to bring into game.  With this module you could easily bridge on Gamma over a lot defense structures in a rather fast way.

If Bridge would be terraforming structure, it would be common to build towers on top and Ewar/repair/energie below, so enemy would be _forced_ to dig into base instead of shooting into base.

I see both ways changing the base defense mechanic completely. It would render most bases worthless and force you to either terraform in your existing base which is hard and time consuming or building a new base.


Um, we already forced to dig in, you basically have to build a base around another base to kill it.

Not saying its a bad thing, but that's just how it is atm.

The Gifter
Top  Killer 2013  - 01: 334 -- 17 -- 317  : Merkle
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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

bridges will happen when pigs, err, scarabs learn to fly tongue

note: thats no cynical or sarcastic remark - its basicly the same issue. 2.5D doesn't allow multipe Z per XY coordinate.

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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

ATM we have all terrain stored as a couple of layers. So in theory we can duplicate those layers and store a distance between them, so with some specific instruments we will be able to make bridges and caves between those layers. Same mechanic can be used to allow Scarabs fly - they will just use third set of layers, "sky" one.
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R.I.P. Chenoa, you'll never be forgotten.
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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

Scarabs already fly

Hover class could technically fly across water. But I doubt that would make connecting islands any easier

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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

Rex Amelius wrote:

Scarabs already fly

Hover class could technically fly across water. But I doubt that would make connecting islands any easier

scarabs dont fly, they don't even "hover". they are just robots with "invisible" legs. for the game there is not difference between glider and grounded bots.
If they would fly, the DEVs could make them able to glider over terrain that is impassable for other bots that is not because of slope limit.

But if they would make them fly, the DEVs would face the problem with the buildings like terminals or gates. If you haven't realised yet - they dont have a hitbox, only impassable terrain "pillars" with a certain hight where they stand on the ground. anything that you can pass through beneath with a robot, does neither block LoS or in case of flying robots, they would not collide.

thats why i said - if they would solve THAT, they could also solve "bridges"

after 3 years following this game - i cannot understand why impassability/los block can only add to the hightmap-value, and not have a minimum and maximum above ground-value (probably for the same reason i have stated in my mineral layer topic)

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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

I know Scarabs don't fly in 3D. I'm guessing that since there is a mechanic to adjust passable train to different slopes, a bot class could be set to pass all slopes. Also guessing water can be adjusted to some type of passable tiles.

I'm just talking about stretching the limits of the existing 2d world. Would love to see a hover bot cross water, at least on single island server.

Not really interested in the 3D pipe dream when there is still so much to create on the existing platform.

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24 (edited by Merkle 2012-12-31 22:01:45)

Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

LoL new Meme,  WHEN SCARABS FLY *** smile

The Gifter
Top  Killer 2013  - 01: 334 -- 17 -- 317  : Merkle
Top  Killer 2012  - 01: 027 -- 472 -- 445 : Merkle

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Re: Just Something to Think About Dev's

the thing with water can also be explained with two mechanic limits:

1. Water is just a texture-plane with a certain fixed elevation a few meters above the real "zero" of the hightmap.
allowing robots to pass it would mean they would have to change the code so they dont walk on the ground, instead using the water plane, which was once moving up and down -> and that would be the horror for the LoS/Range calculation code(r).

2. Water is the natural barrier that prevents player from reaching the zones (aka instances) outline. make water passable - what happens when you reach the outline of the map? What about the empty space between islands?

a warning when getting close to the real barrier and then destruction? would feel out of place on some gamma islands that are using almost 90% of the given space - towards the corners of the quadratical map you would have like a few meters into the ocean before reaching the danger zone, while other coastlines are far away from it.
before you start thinking about allowing to drive out of the zones -> zoom somewhere mentioned how much success they had with connected zones (aka the 4-tile-island)

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