Solar Systems should be what coordinates are for

From what I understand, planets are tied to coordinates, and are found isolated, with a star, moon(s), and pretty planets in the background to provide a system of night and day as well as a backdrop. But, planets don't work like that. Every planet belongs to a solar system with adjacent planets. I should be able to go to that blue planet that I see in the sky. But, having largely identical coordinates for nearby planets seems unworkable for a procedural generator.

The flaw is in the coordinates being tied to the planet itself. With the coordinates tied to a solar system, the coordinates would contain data on how many planets there are, as well as planet keys. The planets use these keys to become unique, by mixing up and/or expanding the coordinate data in different procedural ways before using it to procedurally generate the planet itself for categorization. This of course implies that planets in different solar systems with the same key (how lucky) can still be very different.

For story related planets and such, the previous coordinate data would be like, pre-reverse engineered to be encapsulated into planet 3 of the new coordinate solar system. Keys would be hidden, since calling it planet 3 instead of planet XKRNE just makes sense. This also encourages lots of realistic exploration, via going to planet 7 because it looks interesting on your in-game solar system map, rather than going half across the galaxy every time you want to visit a new planet, which is rather ludicrous.

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Please post ideas and criticism. I'm not sure if it makes sense to read after all the edits I made randomly.
But yes, it's coordinates in coordinates based on arbitrary decryption determined by the coordinates. (The way they generate a planet doesn't get changed, just the way coordinates are given to their planet generator)

 

i support, it would be awesome to have solar systems in the game!

 

This sounds awesome! It would be cool if first person on a planet got to name it too though it might be hard to prevent profanity.

 

I do not agree with this, If you see a planet in the background, you can't just build a giant tower to it, also we won't be able to see the planets when we are typing in the coordinates, you could type in one coordinate and land on a planet, change one number and land on another, so really just seems pointless to have solar systems

 

Liked it so much I included it in my idea of a space level.
http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/space.5514/
Hopefully we do get them in. xD

 

A tower to it?! This is the future! we use our ship!

 

No one said anything about a tower, that would only make a fraction of a sense, if it was a tidally locked geosynchronous moon or some mess.
It simply suggests that we get several planets nearby. Which would make for multiplanet quests.

 

You can see planets in the background, doesn't mean you can go to them! you wouldn't know if 2 planets are near eachother

 

The 'see planets nearby' is an acceptable break from reality to give skies something to look at, but if they ever get to be travel-able it would be via ship, and surely those in the background would be non-indicative... unless they code it some sort of correlation.

 

You travel using coordinates, not flying your ship there

 

I know, I am considering a space area additionally.
http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/space.5514/

But even if not so, there could be like a list of the planets to choose from and maybe some details about it like if it is a lava world or something.

 

I'm not sure Serp knows exactly what you mean, but I definitely agree. It wouldn't be too much effort to change their current system to work with solar system co-ordinates instead of individual planets, and it would be easy to have each solar system randomly generate a number of planets (with a limit imposed obviously).

Not that you really suggested it, but I don't think making the surface backgrounds of planets correlate with the solar system would be worth the effort. Ie if you can see a blue planet from the surface then there has to be a blue planet in the solar system. It would take far too much effort to make sure everything matched up, and I think overall it would negatively affect their creativity with regards to backgrounds.

 

You underestimate my power

 

LOL.

I think it wouldn't be too hard, when the coordinate generates the system it first makes the worlds, and then the backgrounds, running a check of what type of planets are in the system (aside from the one the background will be on) add allow it to choose from the many ones in that type folder.
I may be wrong though, but true, if it is too hard, it is not worth it, I personally will not care if they do not match, just like I will not care that they are all visible from the surface of a planet.

 

It seems like it would be simple to incorporate. I'm not too sure how the coord.'s work but I imaging it's all based on distance from something.

All they would have to do is:

1. Upon planet generation, make all planets generated have a "background" sprite that relates (maybe through file tags, i.e. "gas planet" "green rock planet") to what is procedurally generated on that planet (i.e. blue gas planet shows up in the distance as a blue circle with lighter-blue gas swirls).
2. During the final step of planet generation, use a formula that performs a check on the distance of planets in relation with each other (i.e. Is blue gas planet within a 100 light-years distance of green water planet?).
3. If the check returns that the planet IS within a specified limit and deemed "close enough" coordinate-wise, the distant planet's "background" sprite is then displayed in the horizon of the planet compared with it and vice versa.

That way if you see a planet on the horizon you'll know you'll be able to travel to it or that its coordinates are similar to the planet you're on because it is nearby making it easier to travel to it. And the image in the background will match the actual conditions of the planet.
Like I said, I have no idea how the coordinates are going to work, whether you will be able to change one number a little bit and stumble upon a new planet. They did mention that there will be coordinates that contain empty space so I'm guessing it has to be somewhat specific. Maybe you can get it's coordinates from NPC's or hidden "journals"/"log entrees" from the planet you're on. Either way, I can't wait for this game!!!

 

This is already on the list of accepted suggestions.[Community.Playstarbound]

 

Errr that isn't a list of accepted suggestions, that's just a list of good suggestions that's been compiled. The only one out of that that has been confirmed is sneaking I think. And we're mostly under the impression that the system that they have now just generates individual planets for each co-ordinate.

 

Oh, my mistake. Thanks for the correction.

 

100 light years is kind of far...
I am fine that all planets in the solar system are visible even if that is ridiculous by real world physics, not everything in real life is good for games, sure, some does work, but there is a reason we do not need to go to the bathroom or eat in rpgs for example.
Take from reality what improves fun and gameplay, nothing more, I say.

 

I feel accomplished

That is all