Terrain Voxel Maps

[mcwaffles2003]

1 minute ago, Arugela said:

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)

Black holes dont "fill" up, they get bigger as matter falls into them. Also, all the matter in a black hole is infinitely condensed always.

[tseitsei89]

2 hours 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.

 

gravity changes with mass of the object yes, BUT it also changes with the distance (radius of the planet).

If you have a set radius you can adjust surface gravity by changing planet density to whatever value you want. The problem is that then you change the orbital velocity (speed needed to orbit said planet) to some value that will be inconvenient if the planets are too small. No amount of density changing can fix both orbital velocity AND surface gravity. You can fix either one you want but not both.

Just look at Kerbin. Kerbin is balanced so that surface gravity is same as on earths surface, but since Kerbin is smaller than earth, orbital velocity on low kerbin orbit is significantly lower than on low earth orbit... To fix both values you need to adjust both density AND radius of the planet.

[mcwaffles2003]

6 minutes ago, tseitsei89 said:

gravity changes with mass of the object yes, BUT it also changes with the distance (radius of the planet).

If you have a set radius you can adjust surface gravity by changing planet density to whatever value you want. The problem is that then you change the orbital velocity (speed needed to orbit said planet) to some value that will be inconvenient if the planets are too small. No amount of density changing can fix both orbital velocity AND surface gravity. You can fix either one you want but not both.

Just look at Kerbin. Kerbin is balanced so that surface gravity is same as on earths surface, but since Kerbin is smaller than earth, orbital velocity on low kerbin orbit is significantly lower than on low earth orbit... To fix both values you need to adjust both density AND radius of the planet.

technically you could change the density profile of an arbitrary planet to have a matching surface gravity and a matching orbital velocity (at one specific altitude) but the rest of the gravity well would be very unnatural

EDIT: think of fitting a quadratic curve to only 2 points on a graph

Edited October 10, 2019 by mcwaffles2003
correction

[tseitsei89]

Just now, mcwaffles2003 said:

technically you could change the density profile of an arbitrary planet to have a matching surface gravity and a matching orbital velocity (at one specific altitude) but the rest of the gravity well would be very unnatural and non quadratic

True but as you said it would "break" the gravity elsewhere...

[mcwaffles2003]

Here is a simple example of what the gravitational well of a planet looks like to anyone interested

So in essence kerbin could be tweaked so that its surface gravity is the same as earths and  its density profile could be manipulated so that at a specific altitude it has a similar orbital velocity to that of earth. But every other point would seem unnatural. For instance lets say it were possible that a black hole were at the center of a shell planet and somehow its stable (it wouldnt be as the poles of the planet would want to fall into the black hole) you could end up with a profile like this

This  is a very rough and simplified example of the problem given, essentially all other orbits will be unnatural according to the fact that the peak of the quadratic curve is inside the planet as opposed to on the surface. technically the black hole model would only have an orbit with the same gravitational potential as an earth one if the planet is smaller (like kerbin is smaller than earth) as the quadratic would constantly be running "flatter" after its past the surface  than an earth-like larger counterpart. Theoretically you could make a non uniform density profile within the planet to where, once again, the surface gravity and the gravitational force at one specific orbital altitude would be the same but all other orbits would be quite unnatural.

 

You could also do the reverse and hollow out (or make less dense) a core in a planet and make a Jupiter like planet have a similar surface gravity and one equivalent specific orbital altitude

Edited October 10, 2019 by mcwaffles2003
correction

[DStaal]

32 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

technically you could change the density profile of an arbitrary planet to have a matching surface gravity and a matching orbital velocity (at one specific altitude) but the rest of the gravity well would be very unnatural

Does KSP do density profiles?  I would figure it just models an ideal sphere.

[mcwaffles2003]

Just now, DStaal said:

Does KSP do density profiles?  I would figure it just models an ideal sphere.

no, kerbin doesnt have an interior in the game, its just a shell with a sphere of influence attributed with a gravity profile out to the sphere of influences edge. 

[Superfluous J]

3 hours 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).

Well you can watch others play it

[tater]

4 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Well you can watch others play it

I don't watch other people play games.

[Superfluous J]

1 minute ago, tater said:

I don't watch other people play games.

Fair. It can be equal parts boring and frustrating.

Would you believe it if you read about it here after the game came out?

[mcwaffles2003]

3 hours 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).

Why? Isn't that a bit pretentious?

Unless this game, that none of us were expecting to even exist, meets the requirements of reaching all of the platforms I have. Did you skip out on pokemon red/blue because it wasnt released on SNES, Sega Genesis, or PC as well? O_o

[tater]

3 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Would you believe it if you read about it here after the game came out?

Why not? To meet that example, it will have to be possible to head towards a munar landing, then have to substantially alter your landing spot because there are large areas where your lander would not fit. Seems unlikely with scatter.

4 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Why? Isn't that a bit pretentious?

Unless this game, that none of us were expecting to even exist, meets the requirements of reaching all of the platforms I have. Did you skip out on pokemon red/blue because it wasnt released on SNES, Sega Genesis, or PC as well? O_o

I skipped all pokemon, because why would I ever want to play pokemon? I also skip all console games, because I hate the controllers.

I've built gaming rig PCs just to play specific games, but this is KSP2, and KSP was cross platform, so KSP2 should be cross platform. It's the sort of thoughtful, quiet game I can actually play in the room where my Mac is, unlike loud games I play downstairs on the PC. My only way to vote in this regard is with my wallet, and I will. No Mac version, and I won't buy it, even though I have a gaming PC in my house.

 

[mcwaffles2003]

1 minute ago, tater said:

I skipped all pokemon, because why would I ever want to play pokemon? I also skip all console games, because I hate the controllers.

I've built gaming rig PCs just to play specific games, but this is KSP2, and KSP was cross platform, so KSP2 should be cross platform. It's the sort of thoughtful, quiet game I can actually play in the room where my Mac is, unlike loud games I play downstairs on the PC. My only way to vote in this regard is with my wallet, and I will. No Mac version, and I won't buy it, even though I have a gaming PC in my house.

You're not one for analogies I suspect, but yes I was definitely supposed to know your tastes in gaming despite never having been in contact with you...

None the less it just seems like a strange protest to me. Most are just happy to see something quite unexpected and possibly great happening, but then I see someone saying they have the means to play it but refuse to unless they can play it among all their means.

Whatever though, it's your $

[Arugela]

1 hour ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Here is a simple example of what the gravitational well of a planet looks like to anyone interested

So in essence kerbin could be tweaked so that its surface gravity is the same as earths and  its density profile could be manipulated so that at a specific altitude it has a similar orbital velocity to that of earth. But every other point would seem unnatural. For instance lets say it were possible that a black hole were at the center of a shell planet and somehow its stable (it wouldnt be as the poles of the planet would want to fall into the black hole) you could end up with a profile like this

This  is a very rough and simplified example of the problem given, essentially all other orbits will be unnatural according to the fact that the peak of the quadratic curve is inside the planet as opposed to on the surface. technically the black hole model would only have an orbit with the same gravitational potential as an earth one if the planet is smaller (like kerbin is smaller than earth) as the quadratic would constantly be running "flatter" after its past the surface  than an earth-like larger counterpart. Theoretically you could make a non uniform density profile within the planet to where, once again, the surface gravity and the gravitational force at one specific orbital altitude would be the same but all other orbits would be quite unnatural.

 

You could also do the reverse and hollow out (or make less dense) a core in a planet and make a Jupiter like planet have a similar surface gravity and one equivalent specific orbital altitude

What about something more complicated. Assume it's tech or some phenomenon and mix the two to control it! If it's already unrealistic you could assume intelligent control at minimum. They could do a story mode with the need to get out of the system by so and so date or you loose. Reminds me of the game alien legacy. Which you could use for a superficial upper strategy for story. Then add voxel for the ground level new game.

Edited October 10, 2019 by Arugela

[mcwaffles2003]

3 minutes ago, Arugela said:

What about something more complicated. Assume it's tech or some phenomenon and mix the two to control it! If it's already unrealistic you could assume intelligent control at minimum. They could do a story mode with the need to get out of the system by so and so date or you loose. Reminds me of the game alien legacy. Which you could use for a superficial upper strategy for story. Then add voxel for the ground level new game.

So basically, why treat Kerbin as its own planet with its own features when instead we could create an elaborate contrived mess to make Kerbins sphere of influence act like earths despite it being 1/10th the size of earth?

I think a better road to run down would be yelling at the devs to make Kerbin and its respective solar system 10x bigger so it's to scale with our own. To which the devs would likely reply "Go download Real Solar System if that's what you want"

[shdwlrd]

8 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I think a better road to run down would be yelling at the devs to make Kerbin and its respective solar system 10x bigger so it's to scale with our own. To which the devs would likely reply "Go download Real Solar System if that's what you want"

I can see an Easter egg system added that is the Sol system. 

[mcwaffles2003]

1 minute ago, shdwlrd said:

I can see an Easter egg system added that is the Sol system. 

Personally I'm also hoping one of the new systems will be a more realistically proportioned to our own. I'm also hoping for exotic systems and non-system features i.e: planetary/emission/etc..  nebula, black holes, red giants, hot jupiters, rogue planets, white/red/black dwarfs, neutron stars, pulsars, black holes... the whole shebang 

[Bej Kerman]

On 10/9/2019 at 10:07 AM, cgw said:

Not in one game there is not what you have, it is a flight trajectory, orbits, real physics.
Space engineers are not that.
Empyrion – Galactic Survival is much better than Space Engineers.
Space Engineers, Empyrion – Galactic Survival, No'Man Sky, Astroneer, they do not have what is in KSP (this is the flight trajectory, orbits, real physics.).

So, voxels aren't as important as when you started the thread?

On 10/10/2019 at 12:14 PM, Brikoleur said:

@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.

Well said! Anyways, I am looking forward to launching massive interstellar motherships from massive space stations under mostly the same physics from KSP 1, and not a tiny planet from NMS.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Bej Kerman