Rejected Spawn Posted October 3, 2019 Share Posted October 3, 2019 Finally we have the "like system" back, that was really about time. Figured it was better to leave the whole forum alone and wait for it to come back than go on a commenting spree quoting everyone who said something good, @IncongruousGoat deserved a like much sooner and I'm probably going to re-read a whole mess of threads looking for more comments I found to my liking. Getting down to business on the main topics of the thread it's very clear to me that no single one of the participants has a good enough handle on all three keys needed to make it work. Key1: The real life specific properties that must be matched to substantially alter a planet by way of an impact event. Key2: How this needs to be modeled (simplified) in a game to make it work properly. Key3: How much work goes into doing this at a professional level. For the record I'm missing Key1 to a degree that can't just be ignored, I already hinted at this earlier in the thread but to ensure no misunderstandings; I don't know the specifics well enough to get into that stuff beyond knowing that it takes way more than most people would think. What I can get more specific about is Key2 and Key3, at least to a level that can clear up a big pile of faulty assumptions already posted in the thread. Key2 is never going to be a complete match for reality, we will have to settle for something that looks like a very simplified version where there is no "real" cloud of shrapnel spraying back into space and no atmospheric phenomenon beyond shockwaves and minor cosmetic stuff. For a single planet being the only one possible to get hit by an impact you can get away with not having to model the impact site - you can ninja swap the entire model of the planet if it's one sitting close enough to its sun to only have a thin crust on top of a molten interior. The moment we include any other type of planet on the list of possible impact targets there is going to be a huge bump in how much modeling needs to be done to make it work. At a minimum there needs to be a crater generated where the impact was, this crater generation needs to be possible to apply to any spot on any of the presumably dozens of planets that will be in the game so they ALL need to have some way of getting their meshes deformed - we can't just switch out the entire planet mesh for a premade one. The next issue after that is how to make it work even if a player drops another asteroid in roughly the same spot, the crater generation needs to be really smart and not just keep raising a ring and making a hole deeper. The impact can't send millions of planetary and asteroid fragments flying back to space (mainly for performance reasons but other reasons as well) but there needs to be some remnants of the impact so there must be a scatter system in place that sprinkles fragments from both the planet and the asteroid in a huge area around the impact site. For planets with life on them there must be a scorching around the impact, removing any life forms in a radius. For planets where the impact hits an ocean there needs to be either a way to send a colossal wave from the site or the planet must be covered by dust and mist for a long while until everything has "settled down" and the planet is revealed again. Any icy planets would need to thaw near the impact for some time and then gradually freeze again over time. Key3 is where we see if this entire thing ever has a chance of being included in the game. For a single target planet with no other effects than replacing the surface; yes it can be done in a relatively reasonable time frame. For the "full version" we can with total confidence say that it would be a monumental undertaking that is absolutely impossible to get into the game before launch. Some of you have probably started to realise what a mountain of work is needed but I'm betting nearly all of you still think it's not even 10% of how much it actually is, if you thought of mods as a comparison just STOP because you clearly don't understand the enormous differences between what's acceptable for a mod and what's acceptable as official content for a game that has to live up to the expectations set by a global hit as its predecessor. As a somewhat dull but realistic conclusion the Asteroid Swarm Game Mode is not economically justifiable as anything less than its own DLC. I'm not enough "in the know" about development budgeting to start throwing exact figures around but I don't think anyone who understood my post here would expect to get ASGM included for free via patch anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcwaffles2003 Posted October 4, 2019 Share Posted October 4, 2019 (edited) On 9/22/2019 at 1:05 PM, [email protected] said: Ok enough with the mutual pettynes guys. There developing KSP2 Not US2 KERBAL edition . I feel like a touch of universal sandbox 2 would be a nice addition Edited October 4, 2019 by mcwaffles2003 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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