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NPC swarms or Collision physics accuracy?

Hundreds / Thousands of NPC's, very basic collision detection (possibly limited to a radious around the player).
Total votes: 57 (52%)
Dozens / Hundreds of NPC's, very accurate collision detection (system-wide).
Total votes: 53 (48%)
Total votes: 110
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Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi

#32
What happens if YOU are flying the giant ship through the asteroid field at high speed? :monkey:
Wouldn't that kill the CPU? :?

If asteroids are immovable what happens when a ship many times the mass of the asteroid hits it? :problem:

It would be like a train hitting a motorcycle and the motorcycle staying put while the train goes off the rails? :eh:
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Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi

#34
Cha0zz wrote:
lmaluko wrote: It would be like a train hitting a motorcycle and the motorcycle staying put while the train goes off the rails? :eh:
What would happen if you drove your car into a wall?
Yeah, it'd be about like that.

It would be possible to make asteroids movable without much of a loss of framerate, though. It would work like this:
All asteroids are immobile objects, unchecked by anything except basic collision detection for ships and weapons, until a particularly large ship hits one. At that point, the asteroid has movement algorithms enabled, has its speed adjusted so that it looks like it was hit, but quickly slows to a stop (space drag, lulz). As soon as it stops, all the collision detection/movement stuff is disabled again, and it runs just as fast as it would if all asteroids were permanently immobile.

With a large enough ship (and not really caring how much damage you take), you could "snowplow" a path through an asteroid belt. You could also take an asteroid and smash it into the surface of a planet... which would be interesting... or into a space station... or a jump hole. etc.


Now, here's the thing. Realistically, if a spaceship hits an asteroid, the spaceship isn't going to remain rigid. It's going to splat. I don't care how big the spaceship is. Spaceships are hollow - and asteroids tend to be very, very solid. If you try to snowplow an asteroid, you're not going to push it out of the way. The wreckage of your ship is going to crumple and bounce off, hundreds of your crew members will die from anoxia, and you'll be forced to limp back home. If you try to snowplow an asteroid with a Borg cube, as a best-case scenario, you now have an asteroid-shaped hole straight through your vessel. Woot for physics.
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Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi

#35
Talvieno wrote: Now, here's the thing. Realistically, if a spaceship hits an asteroid, the spaceship isn't going to remain rigid. It's going to splat. I don't care how big the spaceship is. Spaceships are hollow - and asteroids tend to be very, very solid. .
I think this would be probably one of the main reasons for ships to have shields (besides from fighting).
It also would really depend on the mass of the space ship vs the mass of the astroid and their relative speed to each other (and the strength of the hull and shields).
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Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi

#36
Cha0zz wrote:
Talvieno wrote: Now, here's the thing. Realistically, if a spaceship hits an asteroid, the spaceship isn't going to remain rigid. It's going to splat. I don't care how big the spaceship is. Spaceships are hollow - and asteroids tend to be very, very solid. .
I think this would be probably one of the main reasons for ships to have shields (besides from fighting).
It also would really depend on the mass of the space ship vs the mass of the astroid and their relative speed to each other (and the strength of the hull and shields).
It wouldn't really depend on the mass... hollow is still hollow. Think of it this way: imagine a house falling from around 5k feet. The house splatters, right? Now imagine dropping a house the size of a skyscraper. Is the earth going to shatter? Is there even going to be a crater? Nope, house still splatters.


The shields might change that, though, I don't know. In some games they do, in others, they don't. Personally, I can see myself bulldozing an asteroid field into a tightly-compact clump just for the heck of it.

Anyway, if shields act like a solid wall, then the mass of the ship matters. (When I said "size" earlier, I meant "mass". I just got lazy.) I do imagine that the shield ought to take a ridiculous amount of damage, though. I also don't like how shields are generally expected to stay at full strength until their bar hits zero, but that's a pet peeve of mine that can be saved for another day.
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Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi

#37
Talvieno wrote:It wouldn't really depend on the mass... hollow is still hollow. Think of it this way: imagine a house falling from around 5k feet. The house splatters, right? Now imagine dropping a house the size of a skyscraper. Is the earth going to shatter? Is there even going to be a crater? Nope, house still splatters.
It would matter to the astroid ;)
Also, a small hole in a giant ship would probably be not that much of a problem.
Talvieno wrote:
The shields might change that, though, I don't know. In some games they do, in others, they don't. Personally, I can see myself bulldozing an asteroid field into a tightly-compact clump just for the heck of it.

Anyway, if shields act like a solid wall, then the mass of the ship matters. (When I said "size" earlier, I meant "mass". I just got lazy.) I do imagine that the shield ought to take a ridiculous amount of damage, though. I also don't like how shields are generally expected to stay at full strength until their bar hits zero, but that's a pet peeve of mine that can be saved for another day.
Well, there is another, highly controversial idea that would possibly push astroids away without any physical interaction with shields or the ship itself, here I propose a force induced by the propulsion mechanism proposed by thymineC; the H-drive (with associated H-field).
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Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi

#38
Cha0zz wrote:Well, there is another, highly controversial idea that would possibly push astroids away without any physical interaction with shields or the ship itself, here I propose a force induced by the propulsion mechanism proposed by thymineC; the H-drive (with associated H-field).
Pushing asteroids away would force them to become dynamic, but that's fine if you can dynamically make them dynamic and then revert them back to being static later. I propose how the H-drive should handle passing through differently-sized/different-mass objects here.

To expand further:
  • If you hit an asteroid much smaller than your ship, the asteroid gets destroyed (in a puff of dust cloud) and your ship sustains minor damage (which your shields absorb if they're up). Your ship's forward velocity diminishes slightly.
  • If you're passing through an asteroid a simialar size to yourself, your ship sustains quite a lot of damage (which shields may absorb) and is brought to rest. A large dust cloud is generated around the asteroid, which obscures it from view. While it is obscured, it is destroyed and replaced with a smaller procedurally-generated asteroid, preferably taking into account the direction of impact, and using similar ore distributions.
  • If you hit an asteroid much larger than yourself, the asteroid does not change, though a minor dust cloud may appear. Your ship sustains heavy damage and may be destroyed.
None of this requires asteroids to become dynamic objects.
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Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi

#39
So if I have a giant ship, and I go through an asteroid field, the asteroids say *puff*, and turn into dust clouds. Couldn't think of anything less epic. :lol: I would prefer asteroids changing to dynamic objects, and reverting back. No inertia needed, due to the nature of H-fields. They would be pushed along, until contact with the ship's surface stops, and then they would freeze again.
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Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi

#40
Throwing this here because YES.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=431&p=4726#p4726

Tractor beams make a lot more sense than bulldozing asteroids. (I'm also not much of a fan of asteroids that go poof. Sounds like some sort of kiddie game, honestly, all science behind it aside. :\ )
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Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi

#42
Huh, makes sense, yeah... Shields + pushing would bulldoze, tractor beam + pulling would just pull things around... One would be dependent on ship thrusters + shield strength, and the other would be dependent on ship thrusters + tractor beam power.

And then we can have our fortresses of asteroids pulled into position.
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Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi

#43
The "asteroids going puff" is only the minimal thing that would happen if Josh's engine couldn't handle anything more complex. Otherwise you can make debris spew in all directions as you plough through an asteroid, accompanied by appropriate sound and visual effects. It wouldn't be a kiddie game - this is just what would happen if a massive object crashed through a much less massive object.
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Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi

#45
Eery Petrol wrote:Two words:

Trench Run.

I want collision detection to be good enough to do trench runs. I want to target the core. I don't know if LT will have system specific damage, but I want to find, aim at and eradicate them one by one.
I appreciate the idea, and would like to add that it would be inconceivably annoying to crash against solid walls while flying over a ship... easily solved, really, but. I don't think that procedurally generated ships will necessarily have a little hole in the wall after a long trench. (also, that whole scene in Star Wars was extremely unrealistic in a ridiculous number of ways. :P (that said, it was still very cool.))
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