Micro Machinery, Physics, Collision, and Random Suggestions.

[Dxeo]

Small Intro

I'm the type of person who enjoys playing SI-FI survival games, space sims, and some voxel building games. I've played a handful of them including:

- Space Engineers

- Elite Dangerous

- Modded Minecraft(?)

- Landmark

- Scrap Mechanics

- (and let us pretend starforge didn't happen)

I played more than those but those are the ones that came to mind

 

Now let us get to the suggestions. My suggestions are going to be based on what I loved and hated about the games I played before and what I wish this game would have. Please be warned that some of them are on a large scale.

 

Physics:

From the games I played, I really enjoy an in depth physics system where everything has to be accounted for. Gravity, inertia, trajectory, weight, mass, velocity, etc. I would love to see that implemented in the game, I would personally enjoy it less if the ship I'm flying turns and shifts as fast as the camera. However, there is a certain point in the game where you have to allow for bypasses to make the gaming experience more enjoyable.

 

Collision:

Collision is a sensitive topic. While it's fine and dandy in theory, it is not easily implemented in games, *cough* Space Engineers *cough*. but I would enjoy a precise collision system to allow the creation of complex machines that can have gears and bearings. I would love to make machines that can do different tasks using basic materials and the in-game physics mechanics such as sliding doors and rolling windows. And while we're on the topic of collision, adding pistons and rotors would be nice.

 

Pipes and Conveyors:

This is a weird topic for debate. While it may not be in the game's scope, it's nice to have the idea out there

Pipes and conveyors can change the way the in-game items are transferred. Having Fueling valves for ships (and anything that uses said fuel) and conveyors to unload cargo for processing or storage. Now this is where the physics bypass I mentioned earlier comes into play, allow the items to be transferred using conveyor tubes (within reason of course), such as limiting the tubes to certain volumes, for example: tube A can carry a maximum of say 10, and tube B can carry say a 100, the volume of a rock cluster is let's say 50, thus tube B can transfer the item but tube A cannot. And maybe the extra layer of: if it's too big break it down using a machine to allow smaller pieces to pass through. (This is just a random idea)

 

Micro Machinery:

This is a fun little idea I got when I read that the game would allow you to script to a certain degree. Now I don't know the details of this but this is a version I find interesting. Programming is not for everyone, some people like it, some people don't. So why not make it for everyone to enjoy. Allow scripts to be contained in "chips", a small item that can carry a snippet of code, and then allow them to be assembled onto  boards. These boards would provide an I/O (in/out) functionality for the chips and allow them to work with each other if the snippet accepts it. And take it a step further, boards can be grouped on a computer unit where it would facilitate the I/O functionality of the boards working together. This would result in the market containing chips made by people, addons to existing chips, and blank chips. Now there is a flaw in this system, what happens when someone makes a chip that does everything. A solution for that would be consequences, if the chip's code is too long the chip is more expensive to craft, if the chip needs more I/O ports it adds up to the cost, have different boards support different chips. More expensive chips need more expensive boards, and thus a more expensive computer unit. This would not solve the "problem", it would just make it significantly harder to achieve so it would be reserved for the end game. (Oh and have it so the chips cannot be edited after finalization. Of course allow the author to do it using a coding machine of some sort).

 

Spawning Mechanics:

I don't like the idea of everyone starting in the exact same spot. I understand that the starting planet has to look a certain way. So why not have different identical starting cities on different planets, so the city is the same but the planet is randomly generated. People can choose a starting planet from a list of planets that have a pseudo limit on them. say a planet can only have 2000 players start on it, then it disappears from the list of planets to choose from and gets replaced by a newly generated planet. That is to allow friends to choose the same starting planet from the list. (and maybe allow invites so they can start on a planet their friends are already playing on).

[MasteredRed]

So I read your post and I must say. Well thought. Let me address it in order.

 

Physics

As far as we know and have seen in dev blogs, physics will be well simulated with how you have said. So there isn't a major concern in this matter.

 

https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2016/02/20/builder-gameplay-voxel-tools-elements/

Dev blog reference.

Collision

So that dev blog shows a large number of thing here. We can inquire from here that this game will have a collision system, but we don't know specifics so we'll find out more later.

 

Pipes and Conveyers

We don't have any information but it would be cool to see this, assuming it isn't tedious to set this up. Now the devs did say they will allow ways to design ships that make them more efficient. This might mean some system like this, but we'll have to see.

 

https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2015/09/18/lua-script-and-distributed-processing-units/#more-512

Micro Machinery

Now the devs went ahead and said this. Scripting will be a large portion of the game and everything will use one pretty much. This means that scripting will be key and you need to use it. They did say that players will be able to share and sell scripts, so you don't need to do it yourself. Your idea won't get far sadly.

 

Spawning Mechanics

Now, it has been said in the lore that the arkships were plotted for one planet, not plural. However, it did refer to multiple as well, so I guess we'll find out.

 

Also, welcome to the forums and forgive me, as I am on a phone at the moment to type this.

[vylqun]

Just a little opinion on the spawning locations, the planets aren't exactly small and it will take quite a while (that means months) to be able to fly to different solar systems (if they keep it realistic then there wont be more than 2 or 3 planets in the habitable area around a star). Dividing players and let them inhabitate different solar systems would be a huge set back for the development of the ingame world.