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They do? Which, where?
Some asteroids orbit about a point. These same asteroids rotate. You know which ones they are. To see for yourself, measure distances with trilateration.
It would be a neat trick if they orbited around the sector on a much wider scale.
It would be a neat trick if they orbited around the sector on a much wider scale.
yes it would.
i think the problem lies within the framework itself. if the universe is set up in sectors there is no way to accomplish the realism you are trying to achieve. its the nature of the natural universe to move, so you can't slap a grid on it and expect the asteroids in one sector to be their in x amount of time. the body will have moved to a different sector depending on its orbit (fi: around a central sun). to achieve this kind of realism would mean the entire universe is completely dynamic (like in reality) nothing would stay the same... you could not say in sector xyz there is this or that. navigation would completely change. instead of being in a sector you would now be at an arbitrary spot in the universe. all directions would need to be relative to your current position. if you wanted to go to a certain station you would need to know the three dimensional heading to that station, or to a worm hole that can get you close to it... in short... you will obviously have problems portraying a DYNAMIC 3D universe on a STATIC 2D plane. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it deserves a different approach. a dynamic 3d universe obviously has it's own challenges as well, how do you draw a map? also 3d?, what about loading times... its not like you can load the entire universe at once (no sectors means only one... the universe)... If however these issues are conquered, Vendetta-online will have created something truly unique and brilliant. i have my own ideas on how to solve most of the problems from a gameplay point of view... but thats a different story... Hope you can give me feedback!
Krios.
Krios.
Kreios, I think you just said it perfectly.
There is a rather simpler way to handle a dynamic universe, although it would be more taxing server-side than our current setup(though less taxing than a single sector setup).
Each star system is a sector, and perhaps each star system is a server. At the center of this imaginary star system is, holy cow, a star. It is, for coding purposes, stationary. Planets orbit this star. No unruly gravity-physiks model required, a simple orbit path will do. Around each one of these planets, there may be stations, moons, asteroid belts, gas clouds, or bands of cosmic radiation that may instantly kill you. Who knows! The point is, that each of these entities will also have their pre-set orbital paths. Now heres the tricky part. When you go to plot your jump, you won't be jumping to some predefined location, since that would be impossible. For example, a moon may orbit a planet at one or two kilometers per second, and to further complicate things, a planet may orbit the star at twenty to, say, fifty kilometers per second. Instead, you jump to where the entity IS in space, in other words, you jump to where it SAYS it is, which most likely will be correct.
Now you have a ship that goes five hundred miles per hour against an object moving a relatively unholy fast speed. No problem, if you can dictate what your speed is in relativity to what object. For example, you jump into a system, and you are linked to the star, which is stationary. So, if you go 220 meters per second, you are in fact going 220 meters per second. Now when you jump to an entity, you are linked to ITS speed, and therefore that becomes YOUR zero-speed. So while you might think you are going 220m/s near a moon, you are in fact going many multiples of that.
That would allow a sort of dynamic star system that would in fact change every second.
Gameplay wise, it would be about identical to what we have now, after a lot of work, and probably more lag. As I understand, EVE-Online uses such a system, and it's worthless.
My verdict? Time better spent elsewhere.
Each star system is a sector, and perhaps each star system is a server. At the center of this imaginary star system is, holy cow, a star. It is, for coding purposes, stationary. Planets orbit this star. No unruly gravity-physiks model required, a simple orbit path will do. Around each one of these planets, there may be stations, moons, asteroid belts, gas clouds, or bands of cosmic radiation that may instantly kill you. Who knows! The point is, that each of these entities will also have their pre-set orbital paths. Now heres the tricky part. When you go to plot your jump, you won't be jumping to some predefined location, since that would be impossible. For example, a moon may orbit a planet at one or two kilometers per second, and to further complicate things, a planet may orbit the star at twenty to, say, fifty kilometers per second. Instead, you jump to where the entity IS in space, in other words, you jump to where it SAYS it is, which most likely will be correct.
Now you have a ship that goes five hundred miles per hour against an object moving a relatively unholy fast speed. No problem, if you can dictate what your speed is in relativity to what object. For example, you jump into a system, and you are linked to the star, which is stationary. So, if you go 220 meters per second, you are in fact going 220 meters per second. Now when you jump to an entity, you are linked to ITS speed, and therefore that becomes YOUR zero-speed. So while you might think you are going 220m/s near a moon, you are in fact going many multiples of that.
That would allow a sort of dynamic star system that would in fact change every second.
Gameplay wise, it would be about identical to what we have now, after a lot of work, and probably more lag. As I understand, EVE-Online uses such a system, and it's worthless.
My verdict? Time better spent elsewhere.
zamzx zik, thanks :D
Fediroc, My verdict? Time better spent elsewhere. | your probably right :P
i just realized all the other stuff that comes with a dynamic universe myself :/. lets say you have a star in the center of the sector! and then a station orbiting it... if you want to dock with the station you then need to a) chase after it (around the sun) or b) orbit along with the station...
option a is ridiculous... and option b would make you really really fast, relative to something closer to the star... both options are not suitable for both gameplay and technical reasons (the twitch style control and lack of inertia mostly, needed in order to orbit...)
again i think this can be solved differently. but first i have a question...
why must you jump say from j-1 to j-2, are those not adjacent sectors? can't i just boost over there?
a note on relativism... if a planet orbiting the sun, and your orbiting with it, the planet is stationary(to you). so why must it move in the first place? (relative speeds within a solar system itself are rather slow anyway) what I'm trying to say is: why move the entire universe if we can 'trick' areselves(and others) into thinking it is moving by just moving small parts of it, like say a station around a planet. or better yet the station itself, tricky to dock i know, a slow spin would be nice.
some more on my idea: We assume the neighboring sectors move at relatively the same speed. so we don't need to actually move them because the effect can not be realized(move the background instead, i remember freelancer had some nice graphics as a sky box that would move :] ). then integrate some finer movements inside the sector... asteroids bumping into one another, stations orbiting with asteroids of like mass, etc...
also i think a docking feature like in freelancer would be nice. seeing your own ship move (verses first person) against the background and other objects gives you a real sense of movement and speed! also would help at docking with moving stations! i kind of like the command tower feal too :p, "permission to dock granted. please proceed to bay 4", you could color everything up with some fancy voice interaction with the station... since voice chat is on its way!
Kreios.
Fediroc, My verdict? Time better spent elsewhere. | your probably right :P
i just realized all the other stuff that comes with a dynamic universe myself :/. lets say you have a star in the center of the sector! and then a station orbiting it... if you want to dock with the station you then need to a) chase after it (around the sun) or b) orbit along with the station...
option a is ridiculous... and option b would make you really really fast, relative to something closer to the star... both options are not suitable for both gameplay and technical reasons (the twitch style control and lack of inertia mostly, needed in order to orbit...)
again i think this can be solved differently. but first i have a question...
why must you jump say from j-1 to j-2, are those not adjacent sectors? can't i just boost over there?
a note on relativism... if a planet orbiting the sun, and your orbiting with it, the planet is stationary(to you). so why must it move in the first place? (relative speeds within a solar system itself are rather slow anyway) what I'm trying to say is: why move the entire universe if we can 'trick' areselves(and others) into thinking it is moving by just moving small parts of it, like say a station around a planet. or better yet the station itself, tricky to dock i know, a slow spin would be nice.
some more on my idea: We assume the neighboring sectors move at relatively the same speed. so we don't need to actually move them because the effect can not be realized(move the background instead, i remember freelancer had some nice graphics as a sky box that would move :] ). then integrate some finer movements inside the sector... asteroids bumping into one another, stations orbiting with asteroids of like mass, etc...
also i think a docking feature like in freelancer would be nice. seeing your own ship move (verses first person) against the background and other objects gives you a real sense of movement and speed! also would help at docking with moving stations! i kind of like the command tower feal too :p, "permission to dock granted. please proceed to bay 4", you could color everything up with some fancy voice interaction with the station... since voice chat is on its way!
Kreios.
krieos, because in real life it would take a bazillion years to go from j-1 to j-2 without some kind of warpdrive.
It'd still be neat if the 'roids had wider orbits. It would give the illusion that they were constantly flying in and out, to anyone who didn't sit down and study them for several cycles. Granted it'd be unrealistic, whatever that's worth in the VO universe.