Interstellar Space

[KlatuSatori]

I've mentioned this in one or two places but thought it would be good to get it in a thread of its own.

 

Dual Universe is to be a seamless single shard game world with multiple star systems. That means that the space between stars is somewhere players can go. What would be the point in filling vast regions of the game world with nothing but empty space?

 

It follows then that interstellar space should be packed with content. Since DU is to be procedurally generated this shouldn't be difficult to implement. All that's needed is ideas for what to put out there. Some ideas are rogue planets, rogue gas giants with moons, brown dwarf systems, huge asteroid fields, some the size of small solar systems, mysterious wreckages of alien technology such as space stations and spacecraft, or even battlefields. Any other ideas for this kind of content welcome.

 

NQ have said that it will probably be several months after launch before players manage to get into space. While getting into space is an end in and of itself, it is really a stepping stone to the much more glorious end of getting to other worlds. If it takes several months to advance far enough to get to space, how long before the entire starting solar system has been explored and partially colonised?

 

The next step of getting from one solar system to another dwarfs the task of getting from one world to another. Having a rich and dense interstellar medium means getting a foothold on a nearby rogue planet can serve as a stepping stone for getting further out and eventually reaching another star system. This helps with having exploration of the game world flow nicely without requiring sudden leaps in what is possible. It also keeps the sense of wonder alive and maintains that feeling of there always being another frontier to strive for.

 

Having a rich interstellar medium has far reaching gameplay and immersion implications. Keeping the struggle for each greater step into the wider universe is one. But imagine discovering an asteroid field so vast and varied that it's resources could sustain a large group of players for months. You could set up bases in space or on one or two of the larger bodies, become self sufficient, gather riches, grow strong and expand further. A solo or small group of players could find somewhere completely out of the way to construct a base of operations that is unlikely to be found. Or at a more advanced stage of the game, a large organisation could set up secret bases on rogue planets outside a system dominated by a rival organisation in preparation for an attack. The differences in play styles and natural asymmetry that would develop between rivals because of where and how they live and survive would be stark. The possibilities are endless.

[Slaxx]

well to be honest, i want empty space because it lets me create a outpost somewhere in deep space and is also more realistic.

 

occasionally a rogue planet maybe if novaquark goes that much into realism, but having alien artifacts is a game breaker because it gives players an unfair advantage.

 

plus novaquark would have to create alien assets and all that stuff.

[KlatuSatori]

I think you need to get a sense of the scale here. Somewhere between 80% and 95% of the galaxy is considered interstellar space based on my fag packet maths (the other 5-20% that is solar system space is also approx 100% empty space, star/planets etc make up 0% of the solar system by volume). Even if they threw in around 1000 interstellar points of interest for every solar system in the game, the total amount of empty space in the game would still come to 80-95% - I mean it would have virtually no effect on the vast emptiness

 

My point is that there will still be plenty of empty space for you to have a space station in the middle of nowhere. Though how you would build it I don't know because there would be no local resources to use. It would be slightly more possible if there were content in the depths of space as resources would be closer.

 

As for realism, we don't really know what is realistic in this regard. We know there are probably more rogue planets in the galaxy than stars but that doesn't say much.

 

I completely agree about alien artefacts. I was just thinking they would be a source of materials, and perhaps a place to stash a few things, or in the case of large structures, actually build on top of them. I was thinking that any advanced tech on them would be beyond our comprehension or completely decayed and useless.

[OnePercent]

I am Intrigued and Curious how Novaquark will tackle Galaxy shaping in a way that can host a multiplayer environment without loading screens at least between star systems.

We know Space Engine is capable of simulating space with a 64 bit engine from universal scales all the way down to a few meters on a planet without losing floating point precision, BUT, Can this be done on a multiplayer server full of player created assets? 

 

Only time will tell. 

[vylqun]

i'd vote for shrinking the space between the stars by a lot, so that if we can travel within 24h with our normal sublight engines to neighboring solar systems. As for random encounters, few are ok, but if you find them literally everywhere its just boring.

[norab7]

I think you need to get a sense of the scale here. Somewhere between 80% and 95% of the galaxy is considered interstellar space based on my fag packet maths (the other 5-20% that is solar system space is also approx 100% empty space, star/planets etc make up 0% of the solar system by volume). Even if they threw in around 1000 interstellar points of interest for every solar system in the game, the total amount of empty space in the game would still come to 80-95% - I mean it would have virtually no effect on the vast emptiness

 

My point is that there will still be plenty of empty space for you to have a space station in the middle of nowhere. Though how you would build it I don't know because there would be no local resources to use. It would be slightly more possible if there were content in the depths of space as resources would be closer.

 

As for realism, we don't really know what is realistic in this regard. We know there are probably more rogue planets in the galaxy than stars but that doesn't say much.

 

I completely agree about alien artefacts. I was just thinking they would be a source of materials, and perhaps a place to stash a few things, or in the case of large structures, actually build on top of them. I was thinking that any advanced tech on them would be beyond our comprehension or completely decayed and useless.

 

I saw a video once about the actual scale of the solar system and they had little marbles almost a kilometre apart to show it correctly. You needed something like 11 Kilometres to show the entire solar system to scale using marbles...

 

That's a lot of empty space.. and I'd like it to be either filled with things to do, or closed down into a more manageable size. The first one more though.

 

Things to do and places to see if better than nothing (meaning space) in my books. Asteroids fields, rouge planets and all that. Especially moving from system to system, if the FTL doesn't work instantly then you're going to be travelling through nothingness a lot without it.

[KlatuSatori]

i'd vote for shrinking the space between the stars by a lot, so that if we can travel within 24h with our normal sublight engines to neighboring solar systems. As for random encounters, few are ok, but if you find them literally everywhere its just boring.

 

I wasn't thinking literally everywhere - they should be littered throughout space at reasonable, variable distances.  Interstellar space would still be largely empty, definitely emptier than interplanetary space.  For a rough guide of what I imagine, I'd say someone dedicated to looking for them would be able to find one or two per hour on average in a "primitive" FTL drive.

 

Personally I don't like the idea of being able to get to a neighbouring system at sublight speed.  I'm for making the stars quite well clustered together but it should still take an FTL drive to get there in any reasonable length of time (i.e. up to 24 hours or so).  But I think our difference here is just in semantics.

[KlatuSatori]

I saw a video once about the actual scale of the solar system and they had little marbles almost a kilometre apart to show it correctly. You needed something like 11 Kilometres to show the entire solar system to scale using marbles...

 

That's a lot of empty space.. and I'd like it to be either filled with things to do, or closed down into a more manageable size. The first one more though.

 

Things to do and places to see if better than nothing (meaning space) in my books. Asteroids fields, rouge planets and all that. Especially moving from system to system, if the FTL doesn't work instantly then you're going to be travelling through nothingness a lot without it.

 

Yeah I completely agree.  Empty space is definitely a lot more boring than "stuff" even if you do reduce the distances.  But you can't go too crazy reducing distances because then the awesome scope and wonder of space is lost.  Plus NQ have said on a couple of occasions that the technology in the game will progress as time goes by.  

[DevisDevine]

Why be concerned with how empty space is at all. Space is empty, and there is no point in controling the majority of it. Only things like planets and asteroids are of interest as they contain valuable resources. Other than that, one empty space is like another, and even to be in proximity to a planet, theres vast amounts of empty space near by. Even in the asteroid belt, you are thousands of Km from each entity. The cassini probe flew THROUGH the rings of Saturn. While it was a thin band, the calculated risk of hitting something was so low that they just flew through it. And that is something we see as densely populated in terms of space. 

 

While I do hope theres rogue planets and hidden content you can discover through things like scanners (hmm, I havent seen any discussions on scanning yet) I dont care how empty the area in between is. 

 

What matters to me is travel time to each point. Look at EVE, most of the systems were vast emptyness, and you can get there if you cared by dropping bookmarks in warp, but theres nothing there. What mattered is how long it took to warp from point to point, gate to station to asteroid to POS. 

 

So, as long as you arent warping for hours on end to get anywhere, the area in between the jumps could be as empty as they want. 

[Slaxx]

I saw a video once about the actual scale of the solar system and they had little marbles almost a kilometre apart to show it correctly. You needed something like 11 Kilometres to show the entire solar system to scale using marbles...

 

That's a lot of empty space.. and I'd like it to be either filled with things to do, or closed down into a more manageable size. The first one more though.

 

Things to do and places to see if better than nothing (meaning space) in my books. Asteroids fields, rouge planets and all that. Especially moving from system to system, if the FTL doesn't work instantly then you're going to be travelling through nothingness a lot without it.

HOLY SHIT!

I SAW THAT VERY DOCU AND TALKED TO MY DAD ABOUT IT HAHA!

 

HOLY FUCK I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT DOCU YOU REFER TO!

[Ripper]

1st.... What are you smoking?

 

2nd... See this thread:

https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/431-thoughts-on-stargates-and-ftl/

[Experia]

Maybe we shouldn't even think of interstellar space as a category on its own, because it's just part of the same continuous universe. The only difference is that there are no stars, so it should just be what space would be like without stars. Things may be 'rogue', and if there are alien artifacts, those should also be able to be found in star systems.

[KlatuSatori]

@DevisDevine
Yes, it is travel time between points of interest that really matters. And that is partly what inspired this thread. However, how do you reconcile the time it takes to get from one planet to another at a given speed with the time it takes to get from one star to another at that same speed? Suddenly exponentially increasing the speeds that are possible is a bad solution for many gameplay reasons. Plus who could possibly be against more content in any case?

@Ripper
No wacky baccy for me for like 5 years. Already made my points in that thread.

@Experia
I don't see there being any boundary between interplanetary and interstellar space. It would be seamless. They are just convenient labels that describe how far away you are from the nearest star / planet orbiting a star.

[norab7]

I understand all the points in here about space being space and the others about how we should fill the space ect.

 

Alot of them are based upon real life and scaling it to match, but this isn't real life, this is DU and DU is a space game.

 

What's the point in having a space game if the only content is on planets, or the rare asteroid?..

 

I do think that there should be things to do in space, because we should be in space or there should be an incentive to be in space.

 

It's a space game and should be in space.... in my book at least.

 

Also, can we try to refrain from swearing?. Makes the place a little more pleasant when theres none of it

[Zen001]

I've mentioned this in one or two places but thought it would be good to get it in a thread of its own.

 

Dual Universe is to be a seamless single shard game world with multiple star systems. That means that the space between stars is somewhere players can go. What would be the point in filling vast regions of the game world with nothing but empty space?

 

It follows then that interstellar space should be packed with content. Since DU is to be procedurally generated this shouldn't be difficult to implement. All that's needed is ideas for what to put out there. Some ideas are rogue planets, rogue gas giants with moons, brown dwarf systems, huge asteroid fields, some the size of small solar systems, mysterious wreckages of alien technology such as space stations and spacecraft, or even battlefields. Any other ideas for this kind of content welcome.

 

NQ have said that it will probably be several months after launch before players manage to get into space. While getting into space is an end in and of itself, it is really a stepping stone to the much more glorious end of getting to other worlds. If it takes several months to advance far enough to get to space, how long before the entire starting solar system has been explored and partially colonised?

 

The next step of getting from one solar system to another dwarfs the task of getting from one world to another. Having a rich and dense interstellar medium means getting a foothold on a nearby rogue planet can serve as a stepping stone for getting further out and eventually reaching another star system. This helps with having exploration of the game world flow nicely without requiring sudden leaps in what is possible. It also keeps the sense of wonder alive and maintains that feeling of there always being another frontier to strive for.

 

Having a rich interstellar medium has far reaching gameplay and immersion implications. Keeping the struggle for each greater step into the wider universe is one. But imagine discovering an asteroid field so vast and varied that it's resources could sustain a large group of players for months. You could set up bases in space or on one or two of the larger bodies, become self sufficient, gather riches, grow strong and expand further. A solo or small group of players could find somewhere completely out of the way to construct a base of operations that is unlikely to be found. Or at a more advanced stage of the game, a large organisation could set up secret bases on rogue planets outside a system dominated by a rival organisation in preparation for an attack. The differences in play styles and natural asymmetry that would develop between rivals because of where and how they live and survive would be stark. The possibilities are endless.

I like what you are saying but my understanding is there will be millions of star systems to colonize, mine and fight over, but if there is no one there then DU becomes for the most part co-op mode or a single player experience, much like Elite Dangerous is now outside a small sliver of space. So I would have to ask why make the galaxy so big in the first place if there are so many assets in the interstellar regions? Not that I don't mind the concept of heading out into the void and finding a secluded planet/and or moon to build on (I plan to do exactly that) but it would be nice if I had the occasional passerby, even if it meant fending them off. But this scenario becomes much less likely if there is plenty of content between systems - why bother to colonize the galaxy when everything you need is within reach? 

 

Anyway, love the idea but think it would work better on much smaller scale, maybe 1000 systems as opposed to millions. 

[KlatuSatori]

I like what you are saying but my understanding is there will be millions of star systems to colonize, mine and fight over, but if there is no one there then DU becomes for the most part co-op mode or a single player experience, much like Elite Dangerous is now outside a small sliver of space. So I would have to ask why make the galaxy so big in the first place if there are so many assets in the interstellar regions? Not that I don't mind the concept of heading out into the void and finding a secluded planet/and or moon to build on (I plan to do exactly that) but it would be nice if I had the occasional passerby, even if it meant fending them off. But this scenario becomes much less likely if there is plenty of content between systems - why bother to colonize the galaxy when everything you need is within reach?

 

Anyway, love the idea but think it would work better on much smaller scale, maybe 1000 systems as opposed to millions.

I definitely understand where you're coming from. However I think NQ are looking at gradually expanding the frontiers of the game universe rather than immediately making everything accessible. My understanding is that this will be done by revealing new technologies or improving existing ones as the player base grows. Initially everyone will be on a single planet - the frontiers will be remote regions. Then people will make it to space and in-orbit will be the frontiers. Then perhaps the closest planets will be visited and frontier towns will appear there. And this process will continue as long the player base grows. There will always be a central core of heavily populated and we'll tread areas, gradually trailing off as you extend out from that to frontier towns on the edges of civilised space, perhaps some crazy hermits further out from there, and a few intrepid explorers reaching further than anyone else ever has.

 

I say this not with any insider knowledge, but this is the impression I have just from having followed the game development and NQ's communications over the past year and a half or so.

[norab7]

I definitely understand where you're coming from. However I think NQ are looking at gradually expanding the frontiers of the game universe rather than immediately making everything accessible. My understanding is that this will be done by revealing new technologies or improving existing ones as the player base grows. Initially everyone will be on a single planet - the frontiers will be remote regions. Then people will make it to space and in-orbit will be the frontiers. Then perhaps the closest planets will be visited and frontier towns will appear there. And this process will continue as long the player base grows. There will always be a central core of heavily populated and we'll tread areas, gradually trailing off as you extend out from that to frontier towns on the edges of civilised space, perhaps some crazy hermits further out from there, and a few intrepid explorers reaching further than anyone else ever has.

 

I say this not with any insider knowledge, but this is the impression I have just from having followed the game development and NQ's communications over the past year and a half or so.

 

You are making me think of Firefly. Central core planets, and outer ring planets.

 

This is exactly what I think will happen also. Because Alioth is the central hub for all new players it is probably going to become the capital world of the universe and be the main place for trade and commerce ect. then everything expanding away from it will be populated by fewer and fewer people giving rise to central and outer planets. Densely populated and lightly populated, it is by a players own choice to go further out than the central hub of players interacts with, and since it is 3D space and not 2D a 2D plan (i think) this gives a smaller and smaller chance of interaction the further you get away from Alioth.

 

So if you are a hermit or explorer be prepared to lose track of all other people in the verse....

[Goemoe]

As the devs refer to EvE things often, we might get two different means to travel fast. We know about the stargates which sound similar to the evegates connecting star systems and in EvE there is some free warping up to a visible object, which moves you much quicker than normal.

 

I agree, as we talk about a space game, there should be something to do in space other than flying from planet to planet. We need stuff to explore and a way to reach the results of our scanners in time. In time refers to a certain amount of real time bordering on 'boooooring' If it is too quick the fealing of real distances are destroyed as well.

 

When I had to move in EvE from say gallente space to deep minmatar (back in 2004) it took me easily more than 30 minutes. You do this once, you do this ten times, but it grows really boring and it does not help if you get attacked on your journey. This should be shortened in a meaningful way. (EvE has learned this as well. It is much quicker today) But when you head the nose of your ship somewhere in the dark and 'engage' in exploration there is no point in quicken things up. If you want to head in this direction for two hours to see what might be at the edge of the system... go for it