Tunnels and Caves?

[Matuchkin]

10 hours ago, KerBlitz Kerman said:

WHAT!? No. It wouldn't tank fps, it would tank your spf (seconds per frame). By the way, tanks are good. Almost as good as a nuclear bunker....

SPF is now going to be the term I use to describe my FPS.

As for the post above, I agree: what the hell is that thing and why does it look hostile...

[IncongruousGoat]

2 hours ago, Matuchkin said:

SPF is now going to be the term I use to describe my FPS.

As for the post above, I agree: what the hell is that thing and why does it look hostile...

"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add our technological and biological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

Someone, it would seem, hasn't been watching enough Trek.

[The White Guardian]

Caves and tunnels would be a neat feature, but it won't be happening anytime soon.

You see, KSP currently uses a system called 'Procedural Quad Sphere' for the planets. Basically, the system creates a bunch of built-in Unity terrains and links them together to form a deformed sphere. The thing is that Unity terrain does not support caverns. It is of course possible to rewrite the PQS system to use a voxel-based terrain instead. This would result in terrain more similar to that of Subnautica. The thing is that it would demolish computers. Voxel terrain is pretty heavy.

 

Now, the Tylo cave. Tylo's cave is nothing but a premade object slapped onto the surface. It's not actually part of the terrain, it's an object imported into Unity with a texture slapped on and a mesh collider component. Of course, you can make a mesh for a planet and use it to create caverns, but that would mean carving the entire planet by hand. Besides that, KSP cleverly renders terrain and terrain detail depending on distance. It does not load the entire planet, but only the visible terrain quads. This prevents computers from dying en masse. The mesh planet approach would be so immensely hard to render that only the most powerful supercomputers would be up to the task.

 

So, sad to say, a voxel update will not be happening anytime soon because it would require remaking the game from scratch.

[The_Rocketeer]

I'm the first to admit I don't have a clue about Unity or game engines in general. That said, I do feel like there's a lot of stuff that could have be done with what's available than that has been done, and a lot of 'reasons' why not that don't quite add up, or at least aren't fully explained, and I haven't seen anybody actually asking for voxels yet.

So my first thought is about another feature that's lacking, tides. Why is the ocean sphere exactly the same size as the planet's arbitrary sea level? Why can't it be near spherical, and rotate slowly, so that the sea rises and falls gradually? And given that the planet isn't made of one spheroid but two (land and ocean), why aren't terrains made of multiple Unity terrains? Why can't it be made of several overlapping sets, some of them having holes in them, so you can get in to lower levels, and some of them facing inwards instead of outwards, so you can see or touch the ceiling?

I'm totally willing to accept the 'well nobody tried that yet' answer, but I read a lot of 'can't be done' without any of the outside-the-box thinking that made planets and orbits possible in Unity in the first place.

[Red Shirt]

18 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

And given that the planet isn't made of one spheroid but two (land and ocean)

If this is true (I have no idea), why couldn't something like Sigma Binary be used to wobble the ocean just a bit. I don't know that I care about this so much as just find the idea interesting. What advantage / peril would tides add to game?

[Jarin]

1 hour ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I'm totally willing to accept the 'well nobody tried that yet' answer, but I read a lot of 'can't be done' without any of the outside-the-box thinking that made planets and orbits possible in Unity in the first place.

The problem is less "not possible" and more "not going to be made by the devs, and is blocked from modding by engine hardcoding". Much like how we can't add axial tilt to custom planets because planetary rotations are hardcoded to the solar north/south axis (or... something like that? It's been a while since I dug into it).

[Corona688]

On 12/5/2017 at 6:45 PM, roboslacker said:

 

So, doughnut shaped asteroids

Is that where all those arches came from.

On 12/6/2017 at 1:08 PM, Red Shirt said:

If this is true (I have no idea), why couldn't something like Sigma Binary be used to wobble the ocean just a bit. I don't know that I care about this so much as just find the idea interesting. What advantage / peril would tides add to game?

For starters, the KSC is on the coast and just slightly above sea level

[Red Shirt]

2 hours ago, Corona688 said:

For starters, the KSC is on the coast and just slightly above sea level

Who needs tides for global flooding when we have Kopernicus!  

[KerBlitz Kerman]

On 12/6/2017 at 6:12 AM, Matuchkin said:

SPF is now going to be the term I use to describe my FPS.

Well, um, look everybody, SUNSCREEN!!!

SPF is a measure of how long it is you can be in the sun. Equation is: SPF rating·10= time before you begin to burn.

On 12/6/2017 at 1:08 PM, Red Shirt said:

If this is true (I have no idea), why couldn't something like Sigma Binary be used to wobble the ocean just a bit. I don't know that I care about this so much as just find the idea interesting. What advantage / peril would tides add to game?

Falling rockets... Being swept out to sea....

[DoctorDavinci]

On 03/12/2017 at 1:45 PM, Red Shirt said:

I've wondered about something for a while. Since I don't understand this PQS of which you speak, maybe you can explain - Taking the awesome Dres canyon as example, why can't a surface level model be made to cover all but an open end? It would anchor along the side walls of the canyon and be level with the surface. If the planet texture could be used the cave surface, it might appear to be part of the planet. I'm guessing it doesn't work this way or someone would have done it already - but why not?

Kopernicus code could be adjusted to create a multilevel planet (think hollow earth) with holes at the poles or at other locations

The problem with doing this is that certain modders do not want their code to be adapted to do this (even though the license does provide for it) ... I was exploring this idea a month or so ago but decided to not bother due to the backlash I recieved just for proposing the idea

I even thought about creating hollow asteroids, swiss chees like asteroids, derelict space stations, borg cubes and the like ... however, apparently you need the blessing of the 'elite' modders on the forum or else you will get slammed

Wasn't worth the headache so I gave up on the project

[The_Rocketeer]

On 07/12/2017 at 8:39 PM, Corona688 said:

For starters, the KSC is on the coast and just slightly above sea level

IIRC, KSC is about 70m above sea level...? Largest tidal ranges on earth are less than 20 meters, so lets be generous in assuming the whole change is upward from normal sea level. KSC is still in no way endangered by the introduction of realistic/semi realistic tidal sea level changes.

Edited December 10, 2017 by The_Rocketeer

[Guest]

On 12/6/2017 at 12:12 PM, Jarin said:

Much like how we can't add axial tilt to custom planets because planetary rotations are hardcoded to the solar north/south axis (or... something like that? It's been a while since I dug into it).

Principia can do it. It's not a problem with the game, it's a problem of developer time and perceived benefit.

[Eric S]

30 minutes ago, regex said:

Principia can do it. It's not a problem with the game, it's a problem of developer time and perceived benefit.

 

Principia fakes it by rotating the orbital plane, making all the celestial bodies have the same inclination, as I understand it.

 

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, Eric S said:

 

Principia fakes it by rotating the orbital plane, making all the celestial bodies have the same inclination, as I understand it.

 

That's how RSS did it. The frame of reference in Principia may make it appear similar but it is properly tilting the planets. They could not have achieved the 2017 eclipse with such precision when integrating within the game from 1951 without axial tilt.

[Eric S]

4 hours ago, regex said:

That's how RSS did it. The frame of reference in Principia may make it appear similar but it is properly tilting the planets. They could not have achieved the 2017 eclipse with such precision when integrating within the game from 1951 without axial tilt.

Ah, cool, sorry for getting the two confused.

 

[Matuchkin]

On 06/12/2017 at 9:27 AM, IncongruousGoat said:

Someone, it would seem, hasn't been watching enough Trek.

I actually watched somewhere around four or five of the very earliest films, and the two last ones that came out, as well as most of the Star Wars series. I just never payed any attention to them, or cared for the matter.

[Piatzin]

Just now, Matuchkin said:

I actually watched somewhere around four or five of the very earliest films, and the two last ones that came out, as well as most of the Star Wars series. I just never payed any attention to them, or cared for the matter.

I've never watched the original star trek (I probably should) but the reboot/new movies were great in my opinion

[HebaruSan]

On 12/10/2017 at 11:19 AM, DoctorDavinci said:

Kopernicus code could be adjusted to create a multilevel planet (think hollow earth) with holes at the poles or at other locations

The problem with doing this is that certain modders do not want their code to be adapted to do this (even though the license does provide for it) ... I was exploring this idea a month or so ago but decided to not bother due to the backlash I recieved just for proposing the idea

I even thought about creating hollow asteroids, swiss chees like asteroids, derelict space stations, borg cubes and the like ... however, apparently you need the blessing of the 'elite' modders on the forum or else you will get slammed

Wasn't worth the headache so I gave up on the project

Really? I'd be interested to read that. I checked your profile and all I found was this:

... which just has regex telling you "you can already do that" three times. Was there another discussion involving Kopernicus?

[Scoutman1121]

This is something I'd like to see. Being able to mine caves would also be awesome. Imagine making an asteroid base, where the base was built using KIS inside a Hollowed out Asteroid where you could launch docked spaceplanes. In Terms of Pre-Maid ones, that could be cool but caves tend to be rocky so getting something down there would be very difficult.

[DoctorDavinci]

On 16/12/2017 at 7:33 PM, HebaruSan said:

Really? I'd be interested to read that. I checked your profile and all I found was this:

... which just has regex telling you "you can already do that" three times. Was there another discussion involving Kopernicus?

Not all KSP modding conversations take place on this forum

As it stands, it isn't worth the headache to have other modders going off and having a coranary when some hack such as myself has an idea that might infringe on their mods as all ideas that even have a slight relation to these other mods are theirs even if they didn't come up with the idea

The KSP modding community are great people although there are those few who believe that a person needs their permission to create a mod for KSP ... like I said, not worth the headache

What I was told by @regex and the others lead me down a road where there are others just waiting to put up roadblocks

Like I said above, not worth the headache

Edited December 19, 2017 by DoctorDavinci

[Guest]

1 hour ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Not all KSP modding conversations take place on this forum

As it stands, it isn't worth the headache to have other modders going off and having a coranary when some hack such as myself has an idea that might infringe on their mods as all ideas that even have a slight relation to these other mods are theirs even if they didn't come up with the idea

Oh please, we have licenses for a reason, so long as you're not outright stepping on someone's shoes (like re-releasing their mod while they're working on it) you should have no real issues. I wrote PreciseNode back in the day because the current mod that did the same thing didn't suit my needs. Then Sarbian asked if he could use concepts within PreciseNode in Mechjeb. Then I handed it off. Then someone created a new mod that did mostly the same thing because PreciseNode didn't suit their needs. Anyone who tells you that your idea is already covered without explanation aside from "it's too close to X mod" is a jerk you shouldn't listen to.

Quote

The KSP modding community are great people although there are those few who believe that a person needs their permission to create a mod for KSP

Either those people are terribly misinformed and misleading you intentionally or we're not getting part of the conversation. Which is it?

Quote

What I was told by @regex and the others lead me down a road where there are others just waiting to put up roadblocks

Explain. Please. Because this statement makes no sense.

As I stated in that earlier thread everything you already need is in the game code, and other mods prove that. You don't need to use those mods' code to make what you want to work happen; you can write it all from scratch and at worst you'd be duplicating code.

E: And seriously, insofar as Kopernicus is concerned, you should have no problems with adding a feature:

1. Clone the Kopernicus repo.

2. Make your changes.

3. Test your changes and your code thoroughly while keeping your changed repo up-to-date with the master.

4. Get in touch with those devs and make a pull request. if all goes well...

5. Enjoy seeing your changes in the main repo and your name as a contributor.

Edited December 19, 2017 by regex

[HebaruSan]

1 hour ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Not all KSP modding conversations take place on this forum

Obviously, hence the question mark.

1 hour ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Like I said above, not worth the headache

Sorry, continuing this as if you had not PM'd me about it would be too weird. I'm not going to post exact quotes from that conversation without permission, but I see no reason to pretend it doesn't exist.

15 minutes ago, regex said:

Explain. Please. Because this statement makes no sense.

DD misunderstood the authorship of Kopernicus, then blamed Thomas for it and blew up at him. There was also something about another mod allegedly borrowing asteroid spawning code that Thomas wrote without crediting him.

15 minutes ago, regex said:

As I stated in that earlier thread everything you already need is in the game code, and other mods prove that. You don't need to use those mods' code to make what you want to work happen; you can write it all from scratch and at worst you'd be duplicating code.

The weird thing was that the conversation actually ended with Thomas saying he was OK with the code being used. So even if it was somehow impossible to do what DD wants without borrowing Kopernicus's code, that's not a roadblock either.

[mikegarrison]

I'll just point out here that caves are made by liquid water, so for most planets they wouldn't be strictly-speaking "realistic" anyway. Tunnels do sometimes get made by liquid rock, however. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_tube