crazy idea: artificial planet ring

[cim]

Bug: shipdata specifies ringDemo_segment.dat but the file is called ringdemo_segment.dat

Note that the OXZ format is case-sensitive on all platforms to try to avoid this sort of problem in future.

[Thargoid]

Thanks - fixed and re-uploaded.

[JD]

That's actually a brilliant picture that Norby captured. It nicely illustrates the way events take place in system, and situations follow their own course, regardless of what the player gets up to.

It also feels like there's a real story behind it, something that might be reported on the Snoopers channel - a component failure has placed a large-scale engineering project in jeopardy, and its contractor has admitted that it is now struggling to complete the work by GalCop's end-of-year deadline etc.

[cim]

As regards the mis-positioning: if I launch from the main station and head to the nearest ring station, all segments are aligned perfectly. If I fly around the planet, they're out of line on the other side; then, when I get back, they're out of line on the first side too. It ends up much worse if I use TAF rather than injectors to do the circuit, too.

It's the collision detection approximation. I've turned that off in commit d5f99b6 for tonight's nightly: it didn't appear to have any noticeable effect on frame rate to do it properly even with a ring in system, but it means that they are all perfectly aligned now.

[Diziet Sma]

[*]Moved the ring up to mid-way between the planet surface and the main station orbit height, to stop NPC issues with low altitude warnings (allow them to launch and dock).[/color]

They wouldn't dock, but were still able to launch ok in the earlier versions, though I suppose they hurried to gain some altitude! If you'd rather lower the altitude a bit to reduce the entity count, it's enough to keep it above 10% of planetary radius.. the low-alt alert kicks in at 9%.

BTW a thanks to everyone who has chipped into this demo - I just love how these fun little ideas grow into such community projects

Heck, thank you for creating a demo for something almost everyone had assumed wasn't possible!

As regards the mis-positioning: It's the collision detection approximation. I've turned that off in commit d5f99b6 for tonight's nightly: it didn't appear to have any noticeable effect on frame rate to do it properly even with a ring in system, but it means that they are all perfectly aligned now.

Woohoo! The bugs are dropping like flies!
<pun intended>

That's actually a brilliant picture that Norby captured. It nicely illustrates the way events take place in system, and situations follow their own course, regardless of what the player gets up to.

It also feels like there's a real story behind it, something that might be reported on the Snoopers channel - a component failure has placed a large-scale engineering project in jeopardy, and its contractor has admitted that it is now struggling to complete the work by GalCop's end-of-year deadline etc.

You'll love this screenshot, then.. a couple of minutes of continuous drifting and explosions have now reached the point where some segments are burning up in the atmosphere! Engineering-heads are gonna roll!

[pagroove]

Looks like some orbital bombardment.

[Thargoid]

Just built the latest trunk, and the positioning looks a lot better.

Kept it running under TAF x16 and even with a 200m gap the ring does very slowly disintegrate still from collision radii. Not sure what the best way to deal with that may be, as using a timer per segment to reposition each would generate ~350 or so timers which isn't I think too good an idea, and one timer doing the lot would be complex. Thoughts there would be appreciated.

One other thing I did notice was a weird effect with the sun when under TAF for an extended period:



Looks quite nice, but not really wanted. After going back to TAF x1 it slowly shrunk back to its normal size/shape, but thought I'd report it although I think it's a TAF effect.

[cim]

Kept it running under TAF x16 and even with a 200m gap the ring does very slowly disintegrate still from collision radii. Not sure what the best way to deal with that may be, as using a timer per segment to reposition each would generate ~350 or so timers which isn't I think too good an idea, and one timer doing the lot would be complex. Thoughts there would be appreciated.

Give each of them a ship script that:
- on appearance, records its position
- on collision damage, resets its position to the recorded one, and cancels all damage from the collision.
That should be fairly lightweight (and would even fix up 1.77.1, sort of)

One other thing I did notice was a weird effect with the sun when under TAF for an extended period:

I've only ever seen that in nova systems. I assume it's the long frame time combined with a quick corona shimmer meaning that it tries to skip more than one corona cycle in a frame and overshoots. That should probably be fixed since it could theoretically occur without TAF.

[JD]

You'll love this screenshot, then..

Absolutely. I love it when software starts to take on the appearance of a life of its own (well, within reason of course).

[Thargoid]

@cim - yup, that seems to work nicely. New updated version is available here for people to try.

Also got some weird messages from a Galcop ship (one of my manta ray's ironically):



He seems a bit confused about things, trying to accuse first the system station (this was at Lave) and after that his colleagues...?

[pagroove]

Ok I worked on the Texture for Tetiri.



I'm not satisfied yet with the texture but it is going in the right direction.

BTW when you witch in the main station and the Superhub (if you use the OXP) are on the night side of the planet so you see nothing of the texture. I think this is actually good because we can then add the Ring hotel (or hotels) by Zieman on the path between the sun and the planet thus providing an excellent view on the ring.

The ring itself looks pretty good. I think the segments need a more detailed texture with windows an illumination maps.
And indeed a special ring gateway station could be good.

New idea: Maybe these stations could provide a gateway to galaxies 9 to 16? So that the ring is actually a big artificial wormhole?

Here is my Idea for the history of the Tetiri hoop. Maybe Disembodied could do a good version of my basic idea: ( a story or a good F7 description)
I plan to adapt Famous Planets with a fitting text.
---
After an ecological disaster Tetiri became a barren wasteland. in 2084 the Tetirians where visited by an advanced race. These space farers from pre-Galcop era gifted several technologies to re-teraform the planet and promised to give an extraordinary present when the project made progress. The Tetirians developed enormous terraforming units from the alien blueprints. When planet became livable again the aliens returned and constructed a ring. The artificial ring housed several gateway stations. The ring is the only known artificial ring in the 8 and became a major tourist magnet in the Galcop-era. Several Hotel stations where built to accommodate the guests.
---

[Diziet Sma]

New idea: Maybe these stations could provide a gateway to galaxies 9 to 16? So that the ring is actually a big artificial wormhole?

I dunno.. I rather liked your original idea, of it being used as a gigantic enclosed racing-circuit..

[Diziet Sma]

Bug: shipdata specifies ringDemo_segment.dat but the file is called ringdemo_segment.dat

Note that the OXZ format is case-sensitive on all platforms to try to avoid this sort of problem in future.

Thanks - fixed and re-uploaded.

This bug has re-appeared in the latest version.. I've renamed the .dat file accordingly.

[Thargoid]

Oops. I'll fix it (again) this evening, and maybe even remember to rename the file on my actual build folder

@PAG - Looks nice, although I think we need a proper new model for the gateway stations, rather than re-using the Cori (especially as it inserts itself sideways for the docking - although that's easy enough to fix).

I was wondering if anyone would like a go at remodelling the whole ring (new segment, joint and station models) as a possible different application to yours.

[JazHaz]

I was wondering if anyone would like a go at remodelling the whole ring (new segment, joint and station models) as a possible different application to yours.

Perhaps this image from Starship Troopers might kick start some ideas?