Terrain Voxel Maps

[tater]

1 hour ago, shdwlrd said:

From what has been said, all scatter but the smallest rocks and bushes will have colliders.

Small rocks and bushes need colliders.

[shdwlrd]

36 minutes ago, tater said:

Small rocks and bushes need colliders.

How small do the rocks have to be to have colliders? Gravel? Fit in your hand? Flag stones or land scaping stones? That's what I consider small.

 

Edited October 10, 2019 by shdwlrd

[tater]

4 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

How small do the rocks have to be to have colliders? Gravel? Fit in your hand? Flag stones or land scaping stones? That's what I consider small.

 

Small enough to impact the ability to land with anything that can land.

[shdwlrd]

9 minutes ago, tater said:

Small enough to impact the ability to land with anything that can land.

From what I understand, all the rocks that are casting shadows have colliders. So there is more than enough scatter with colliders to be a hazard to land or drive around.

[tater]

Just now, shdwlrd said:

From what I understand, all the rocks that are casting shadows have colliders. So there is more than enough scatter with colliders to be a hazard to land or drive around.

A huge plus, don't get me wrong.

I just want the Apollo 11 moment of having to shift my landing area to avoid boulder fields.

 I want craters on airless worlds down to small scale sizes (a few meters across).

I want other terrain---rilles, streambeds (Kerbin), sinkholes, whatever, that are hazards.

[tseitsei89]

7 hours ago, cgw said:

 

The planets may be small (99% people no one will notice.), But physics is for large planets.
 

Listen to me carefully: This. Is. Not. How. Physics. Work.

Just look at current ksp and compare Kerbin to Earth. Kerbin's mass and diameter are balanced so that it has the same surface gravity as Earth, but since Kerbin is ~1/10th the diameter of Earth, the orbital velocity at low Kerbin orbit is only ~2.3km/s while on low Earth orbit it is ~7.7km/s...

If they had kept Kerbins radius the same and balanced the mass so that it has that same 7.7km/s orbital speed at low orbit, it would have had significantly higher surface gravity (like several times of what it has now).

It is simply mathematically impossible to balance both surface gravity and orbital velocity just by changing the mass of the object and keeping the size constant. The only way to do it would be to fundamentally change the way gravity itself works in the game, but that would be an awful idea for a game that is all about orbital mechanics... And that is why we need big planets

EDIT: also 99% of KSP players will notice...

Edited October 10, 2019 by tseitsei89

[shdwlrd]

20 minutes ago, tater said:

 I want craters on airless worlds down to small scale sizes (a few meters across).

I want other terrain---rilles, streambeds (Kerbin), sinkholes, whatever, that are hazards.

Only star theory knows what types of scatter there will be, and who knows when/if they are going to reveal that to us.  

[cgw]

12 hours ago, steuben said:

You gotta choose one. The calculations are either correct or not. 

Maybe, I dont know. I judge simply by the game which is already.

 

11 hours ago, DStaal said:

How often in that game do you have to calculate how much fuel you need to reach orbit?  Or to change orbits?

It’s not like in KSP, there is no physics there, you fly just like in a car, 5 liters of prometium = 100 watts to the moon in 10 minutes, or 5-25 pentaxid crystals to another sector i.e. another planet.

 

[cgw]

6 hours ago, tseitsei89 said:

It is simply mathematically impossible to balance both surface gravity and orbital velocity just by changing the mass of the object and keeping the size constant. The only way to do it would be to fundamentally change the way gravity itself works in the game, but that would be an awful idea for a game that is all about orbital mechanics... And that is why we need big planets

fundamentally change the way gravity itself works in the game, brilliant solution, Why not???
In any case, the game cannot be 100% realistic. 
Сhange gravity is a brilliant solution. So no one will notice, small planet. because Kerbin also less Earth. Kerbin also no realistic.

Edited October 10, 2019 by cgw

[GoldForest]

29 minutes ago, cgw said:

fundamentally change the way gravity itself works in the game, brilliant solution, Why not???
In any case, the game cannot be 100% realistic. 
Сhange gravity is a brilliant solution. So no one will notice, small planet. because Kerbin also less Earth. Kerbin also no realistic.

There's actually more realism in KSP than you think. It uses relatively real physics, barring a few things here and there of course. The planets are based off real planets. Kerbin is an analog of Earth. 

Kerbin may be smaller than Earth, but it feels and acts mostly like Earth would. Making the planet smaller would make it less realistic, even more so than it already is.

And you can't change how gravity works. It would break the game, not literally, but metaphorically. Having a planet that's the size of 5km with 1G of gravity? That's utterly ridiculous. People don't want tiny planets, they want medium to large planets with maybe a dwarf planet sprinkled in here or there. They want to explore every square kilometer of a planet before moving on to another one. Tiny planets = boring fast. Medium to large size planets = fun for years! Want to know why? Because you can't explore all of a planet in hours! I mean, you could land in many spots around a planet and only explore 0.5% of it within weeks. Exploring is fun! Plus, easter eggs makes it more fun! They could have hidden away a statue of Opportunity on Duna, and on a regular sized KSP planet, it would takes days to weeks to find it. On a tiny planet, it would just take hours. People don't want easter eggs to be easy, they want them to be hard to find so they get a sense of satisfaction. 

On top of exploring, you can get some amazing shots with big planets. People like cinematic shots or beautiful shots. You can't get that with Voxel Maps because the textures are always either pixelated or are very very simple. With height map, you can make textures of any quality you want, and it makes for gorgeous shots. Look at anyone's screen shot of planets, and most of them are really good, because the planet has realistic textures. Voxel maps will ruin that for people, and thus ruin KSP for a lot of people. 

[Guest]

@cgw no offence, but it seems to me the game you want to play is so different from KSP it's not really KSP anymore. KSP isn't No Man's Sky, Minecraft, or Dwarf Fortress. It attempts something different. Voxel terrain is at best peripheral to what it does attempt, and at worst makes it much more difficult or even impossible. 

The scale of the planets for example -- that's a decision that needs to be made based on game balance, not the limitations of the technology chosen to represent the planets. It's central to the KSP experience. You pick the technology that lets you do what you want, even if it means trade-offs in less important areas.

And in any case, you're tilting against windmills here -- Star Theory have directly said that terrain works like in KSP 1 (depth map + texture map), explicitly ruling out voxels. It's not happening, and there are good reasons it's not happening. If that's a blocker for you, then that's just the way it is -- every game has its target player base, and some people will always be outside it. I'm sure there will be other games with voxel terrain for you to enjoy.

[Dirkidirk]

19 hours ago, cgw said:

 

I play Empyrion - Galactic survival with Voxel MAP I do not notice the size of the planet.
And 10 planets occupy less than 5 gigabytes. therefore, the calculations are not correct.

for example

 

how do you not notice the difference of size between a planet with a diameter of 10km (which is less than the length of manhattan or gilly!) and one with a diameter of 1200km. you would probably be able to see the planet's curviture just by climbing a large hill or tower.

Edited October 10, 2019 by Dirkidirk

[.50calBMG]

I was able to notice the difference going from a 2.5x to a 3.2x scale when I first started playing, and that's not even close to the amount that you want to change it, so I would bet that every single person would notice it. As someone who plays exclusively RSS with RO, I physically cannot play the stock system anymore because it's too small.

Edited October 10, 2019 by .50calBMG

[DStaal]

3 hours ago, cgw said:

It’s not like in KSP, there is no physics there, you fly just like in a car, 5 liters of prometium = 100 watts to the moon in 10 minutes, or 5-25 pentaxid crystals to another sector i.e. another planet.

Which is part of why you don't notice the size of the planet - the physics where it matters aren't being applied in that game.  Given that the physics where it applies is the *base* of KSP, that's a very different game.

10 minutes ago, Dirkidirk said:

how do you not notice the difference of size between a planet with a diameter of 10km (which is less than the length of manhattan!) and one with a diameter of 1200km. you would probably be able to see the planet's curviture just by climbing a large hill or tower.

I'll bet there's no curvature at all - it's just a flat plane that wraps it's edges.  There doesn't need to be curvature because you never interact with it as a sphere - you either fly/walk around the surface, or you are in space and it's a point that you aren't allowed to get within a certain distance of.

10 hours ago, tater said:

I just want the Apollo 11 moment of having to shift my landing area to avoid boulder fields.

They specifically mention in one of their interviews that you can have an Apollo 11 moment.

[cgw]

39 minutes ago, Dirkidirk said:

you would probably be able to see the planet's curviture just by climbing a large hill or tower.

No, because the fog is far invisible.

 

Edited October 10, 2019 by cgw

[Guest]

1 minute ago, cgw said:

No, because the fog is far invisible.

And how well do you think that solution would work in a game where the entire point is getting off the planet?

[tseitsei89]

3 hours ago, cgw said:

fundamentally change the way gravity itself works in the game, brilliant solution, Why not???
In any case, the game cannot be 100% realistic. 
Сhange gravity is a brilliant solution. So no one will notice, small planet. because Kerbin also less Earth. Kerbin also no realistic.

Everyone will notice. It is a game based on orbital mechanics(you yourself said that earlier in this topic). Orbital mechanics is completely based on gravity. If you change gravity you change orbital mechanics and the whole thing the game is based on starts to break down. That is MUCH more severe problem than not having voxel terrain...

Edited October 10, 2019 by tseitsei89

[tater]

30 minutes ago, DStaal said:

They specifically mention in one of their interviews that you can have an Apollo 11 moment.

I'll be believe that when/if I see it (if because I have a Mac, and even though I also have a PC, I won't buy KSP2 if they don't have a Mac version).

[DStaal]

9 minutes ago, tater said:

I'll be believe that when/if I see it (if because I have a Mac, and even though I also have a PC, I won't buy KSP2 if they don't have a Mac version).

As a Mac user without a PC - I feel your pain.  (There's a whole thread on that the console port will be late: I keep wanting to go 'at least you know it'll come out'.)

[tater]

3 minutes ago, DStaal said:

As a Mac user without a PC - I feel your pain.  (There's a whole thread on that the console port will be late: I keep wanting to go 'at least you know it'll come out'.)

Yeah, I can bootcamp as well, but I refuse. I'll not support them with my money without a Mac version, even though I could just as well play on my PC.

[Arugela]

3 hours ago, GoldForest said:

There's actually more realism in KSP than you think. It uses relatively real physics, barring a few things here and there of course. The planets are based off real planets. Kerbin is an analog of Earth. 

Kerbin may be smaller than Earth, but it feels and acts mostly like Earth would. Making the planet smaller would make it less realistic, even more so than it already is.

And you can't change how gravity works. It would break the game, not literally, but metaphorically. Having a planet that's the size of 5km with 1G of gravity? That's utterly ridiculous. People don't want tiny planets, they want medium to large planets with maybe a dwarf planet sprinkled in here or there. They want to explore every square kilometer of a planet before moving on to another one. Tiny planets = boring fast. Medium to large size planets = fun for years! Want to know why? Because you can't explore all of a planet in hours! I mean, you could land in many spots around a planet and only explore 0.5% of it within weeks. Exploring is fun! Plus, easter eggs makes it more fun! They could have hidden away a statue of Opportunity on Duna, and on a regular sized KSP planet, it would takes days to weeks to find it. On a tiny planet, it would just take hours. People don't want easter eggs to be easy, they want them to be hard to find so they get a sense of satisfaction. 

On top of exploring, you can get some amazing shots with big planets. People like cinematic shots or beautiful shots. You can't get that with Voxel Maps because the textures are always either pixelated or are very very simple. With height map, you can make textures of any quality you want, and it makes for gorgeous shots. Look at anyone's screen shot of planets, and most of them are really good, because the planet has realistic textures. Voxel maps will ruin that for people, and thus ruin KSP for a lot of people. 

Doesn't gravity change with the density of the core or planet in general... I thought it was realistic to have different planets of different sizes with the same or different gravity?! We also don't know what kerbal or anything in the system is made of, where it is, or anything else.

If so , maybe they drilled or modified their own planet. We don't know how long kerbals live. They may be immortal. And we don't know what goes on or what the little green men are truly capable of. Plus it doesn't really matter. Maybe they have advanced tech and change the gravity artificially. Maybe they maintain an artifical gravity. Maybe they learned of earth and set kerbal to earth gravity for fun. Maybe they gave up or never needed pc's and simulate with real life.

 

Edited October 10, 2019 by Arugela

[DStaal]

58 minutes ago, Arugela said:

Doesn't gravity change with the density of the core or planet in general... I thought it was realistic to have different planets of different sizes with the same or different gravity?! We also don't know what kerbal or anything in the system is made of, where it is, or anything else.

If so , maybe they drilled or modified their own planet. We don't know how long kerbals live. They may be immortal. And we don't know what goes on or what the little green men are truly capable of. Plus it doesn't really matter. Maybe they have advanced tech and change the gravity artificially. Maybe they maintain an artifical gravity. Maybe they learned of earth and set kerbal to earth gravity for fun. Maybe they gave up or never needed pc's and simulate with real life.

There is a range - you get a planet with high Osmium content, it'll be denser than one with more silicon, for instance.  But it'll still be within an order of magnitude or so.  And hollowing out a planet would lower it's gravity, while requiring stronger materials than we know of.

KSP's appeal is generally it's realism.  Modifying it's physics in unrealistic ways would reduce that appeal - you can try most of these situations (at least the world sizes and the gravity) in Kopernicus.  Try them out, see how they behave.  Feel free to post them as mods - but note that I've seen criticism of planet packs for even being slightly to dense, and I would expect very extreme packs wouldn't garner much of an audience.

[Arugela]

What if we assumed a black hole was at it's center. And the planet is a crust on the surface after enough debri collected near the event horizon. Like a lot of debri. or it's an artificial planet.

[DStaal]

3 minutes ago, Arugela said:

What if we assumed a black hole was at it's center. And the planet is a crust on the surface after enough debri collected near the event horizon. Like a lot of debri. or it's an artificial planet.

Then the planet would collapse into the black hole.

And see my post above for the artificial planet - to make one significantly different from a real planet would require materials that don't exist.

[Arugela]

4 minutes ago, DStaal said:

Then the planet would collapse into the black hole.

And see my post above for the artificial planet - to make one significantly different from a real planet would require materials that don't exist.

Unless you are imaginary little green men. Or you tame krakens to make the artificial planets. maybe thy have to get away from kerbin before the planet is destroyed. That is the real reason for the space flights.

You could have an equilibrium with a small back hole potentially. Or it filled to capacity and formed a core and then planet. How much could a black hole fill up and condense matter before it fills. How much would a tiny black hole be able to be filled up?! Either way of topic probably. With voxel we could dig to the core and explore this! 8)

See, kerbils were once a genius species of extra terrestrials. they made planets and solar systems out of rare materials or as desired and made fantastic normally unrealistic system. But then they live on them for too long and got comfortable. Then dumb. And what you see now is the end of this systems life and they ahve to escape and look for a new system with barely any knowledge compared to the past.

Edited October 10, 2019 by Arugela