Sooo... There are already quite some suggestions about this topic out there (see this: http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/its-ingenious-its-destructible-blocks.1434/), but I felt like I wanted to make a good thread about all of the possible realistic physics of the game. Here it goes. - Destructible blocks: Read the link, it's already quite detailed (momentum, explosions, etc). - Trees: I'd love it if trees would actually fall down when lugged (or generally destroyed), not like in Terraria where simply all of the tree becomes wood ready to use, or in Minecraft where you have floating trees. It would actually be impressive when, for instance, causing explosions in forests, seeing all the trees fall around (and potentially causing damage). - Fire!: Fire should spread, period. Not only burning trees, but every plant/grass/wood/wood-like blocks which it touches. So yeah, mind where you aim with your flamethrower if you don't want to torch your own colony - Weather: Rain should create water (that could evaporate after some time of sun exposition, or simply disappear), snow should make it all snowy and maybe even freeze water sources, lightning-storms should be able to strike the ground with thunder and maybe even create fires. - Electricity!: Electricity should actually "travel". If you shoot some kind of electrical gun in water, brace yourself, and be ready to collect grilled fish. Same through metal blocks. - Corrosive liquids/gasses: It would rock if acid actually corroded other materials to the point of slowly destroying them. - Liquids: Not much to mention here since I'm already sure that liquids will move and all, lol. Oh yeah, having multiple types of liquids would be really great (not just lava/water, but who knows, toxic water, acid, etc... Liquids with different exploitable properties). -Viscosity of liquids: If procedurally generated materials were implemented, another stat could be the viscosity of liquids, which would determine the spreading speed of the liquid (for instance, in Minecraft lava spreads slower than water). - Melting/Solidifying materials: I'm gonna go wild here and suggest the melting of materials. Since I'm sure procedurally created materials are being considered, one stat of them could be their melting/solidifying point, so that every material, with the apropiate heat-source or cold-source, could be turned into liquid or solid. Imagine a lake of melted iron in which you'd have trouble swimming because of its viscosity. I know for a fact that this is represents an IMMENSE ammount of work and probably isn't even compatible with the engine or something like that, but hey, better to say it than not to have it because no one had the idea ^^ - Magnetism: This could be hard to process, as even players would probably get attracted to big magnets (or their gear), but it's still a nice idea with regards to physics. This one is by Mercgilado and TeoTheDriller. [Addenda by Alpha_Squad] There could be a very simplistic system for magnetism, mostly being opposite charges attract and like charges repel. For the area it would affect would be a simple circle and anything that would be attracted would move towards it at an accelerated rate. Whereas the object that repelled within the circle would accelerate negatively with some positive velocity until it reached zero. Of course this would offer some problems with realism, but it would be rather simple calculation would be made. Also magnetic material is attracted to magnets. - Vacuum: Basically works like some sort of compensation between ambient of different pressures, sucking air and thus EVERYTHING with a certain strength until it gets stabilized. Good for planets with different air pressures and the space. By TeoTheDriller. - Ragdolls: (Initially suggested in this thread http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/death-animations.1624/ by Jackalope, here reminded by Dasaki). Ragdoll physics would be a nice way to have an equivalent of death animations. "Death animations are usually kinda hard to work with, but tagging in a few 2D rigs of skeletons for all the different style of beasts and man, then letting physics do its thing would be cool." -Dasaki dixit. That's all for now. I bet most of these have already been suggested (and many thanks to the contributors) but hey, at least now they're all in one post. Anyways if someone wants to add something just tell me and I'll edit the list!
Ice? It spread with low temperature, freezes liquids when cold enough for them, makes things slippery and can possibily break stuff by sheer force of contraction.
Thanks guys. I was thinking again about the melting point thing. It seems complicated at first, but really it would only alter one stat in the material: its temperature. Say the melting point of Iron (or Solar iron or whatever) is 500º (whatever again). Once melted, the melted iron is at 500º every time. So for instance when coming into contact with another material, it could heat it and melt ir too (or not). Basic materials such as Dirt or Stone could have an abnormally high melting point to avoid the melting of a whole planet, of course. Again, if you solidify the iron again, say at 20º, it will stay at that temperature. Maybe even weather conditions like extreme temperatures could raise or lower their temperatures a bit (thus resulting in freezed water or whatever). I guess I'm going a bit too far but hell if it wouldn't turn the game into a LEGEND. This applies to your idea, Teo, basically materials would interact between them related to their temperature.
Not really my idea, i'm remembering the thread about procedurally generated blocks and their attributes. One of the attributes was a melting point if i'm not mistaken, so... i don't know how the game engine would deal with cold and heat transfer between stuff, but if well implemented, we will have enough emergent stuff to be happy for a LONG time... ...and yeah, magnetism! o/ Great for losing items, being stuck at ceilings, walls and messing with computers! I really don't want to have cyborg parts. Really.
Magnetism could be nice, maybe with the possibility of placing big magnets, but I think it would be quite hard to make the actual effect (even players should be affected since they'd be wearing metal). I'll add it anyways ^^
I like the tree idea alot. like you could take a hunk of the tree with you and have to use some type of mill or something to turn it in to smaller usable blocks of wood. it would make it more of a processes but maybe you could do certain things with "raw" wood and "cured" wood or something
Usually I have a small rant to throw in to these suggestion articles, but you always think things out remarkably. This is brilliant.
These are some nice ideas you have there, Drithyl! I especially like the tree-idea. It always seemed fishy when the tree blocks were hanging around in the air, or the whole tree got destroyed!
Yeah, I mean imagine an all-out warfare in the woods in which rocket-launchers would be involved. How badass could that be?
Hands up everybody who thinks the rocket fight deserves a wallpaper? *Hands up* Also... vacuum. Basically works like some sort of compensation between ambient of different pressures, sucking air and thus EVERYTHING with a certain strength until it gets stabilized. Good for planets with different air pressures and the space.
I would like to see different physics for different planets. Also, I'm not to sure about certain physics, if things become "to realistic" in games, they can become just annoying. Like in the early days of Minecraft, the whole forest would burn down, and that was annoying. As well as the tree thing, if it tumbles over and then you can get the wood by chopping it up even more, then it may just take up to much time to collect even the most basic of resources. So its a bit itchy in my opinion :/
That we will know surely when alphas and betas start kicking. There's also the question about how the game will deal with all that simulation and how good a computer will need to be to do it all without lagging... but so far, it's very good to work in the ideas o/
It'd be cool if trees fell like sand in Terraria; except, you can't walk into them. It would make it so they "fall", but they don't all fall at once.
I agree that the fire thing could get annoying, but the difference with minecraft is that this is planet-based, rather than only having one world, so the fact that a whole forest on a planet burns to ashes would not be such a big deal. Also, I'm pretty sure there will be some nice planting methods to regenerate them. About the tree thing, I think that having the tree fall down to the side and then transforming into chopped wood once on the ground would be fine (like Terraria, but actually falling). It's true, I'm sure most of those won't be implemented because of too much complexity or because of performance. But still, I'd rather suggest them and have them discarded than not suggest them and lose the chance to make the game even more awesome ^^
