If only there was an easier way to contact devs without PMing.
If only there was an easier way to contact devs without PMing.
Looking at that boat rock, i hope they add a stronger gyroscope lol
did you see the water inside the boat?
that would be effecting the rocking ontop of preventing it floating
that would be effecting the rocking ontop of preventing it floating
Doesn't matter because WATER
and how the blocks aren't forming watertight attachments.
I like the idea of bodies of water being in terratech because then boats and ships could be built and it sounds like fun.
These tips would be useful as the devs don't even know what their doing right now...
Sadly, I sort of have to agree with that sentiment.
Many, many times when I see the devs say not to something or explain why it is so complex for them to do I can't help but think back to basic programming lessons that I have taken or tutorials watched, about thinking through a design before-hand, maximizing expandability and modularity of code sections.
I often find myself wanting to quote the development blogs from other games at them or directing them to an Extra Credits video, but I tend to hold my tongue.
Ultimately, I don't think that multiplayer will help with that problem at all, and I don't think that the game will be all that successful on full launch.
People are much more tolerant of poor systems and bugs during early access, and we older players keep posting more and more messages like this one, despite that.
The game simply isn't good enough, they don't have enough coders and haven't built in enough automated processes to help development, as far as it's possible to see from out here, and they need to seriously overhaul a lot of the game.
They then also need to establish a standard and detailed design and testing procedure for the corporations, blocks and weapons and balance the hell out of them.
And, on a slight side note, they don't seem to have enough time to seriously play or get good at the game. I suspect that most of us here have longer play times and are better than any single dev, and some of us might even exceed the total playtime of the development team (thinking of the mega-project builders here).
Anyway, there is still time for things to be changed and improved, but I grow ever less hopeful that they'll get the message in time or, even if they get it and agree, have the finances to make it happen.
P.S. Please don't ban me for this message, as I know you have done to other people in the past for similar messages.
I'm stating my honest opinion in an open discussion to another player, without being disrespectful to anyone, as far as I can tell. It contains useful information for you and for other members of the community and is accompanied by my respect in what you have achieved, even if it's not amazing.
P
Pink Kitty
Guest
It's totally easy to include water in a unity game.
If you do so from the get go.
If you do not, you often have to undo huge amounts of stuff just to get back to that point.
and then rebuild everything new on top of that.
And only then do you get to actually start work on things like blocks acting on water.
TLDR: the devs have most likely painted themselves into a corner. By not planning water from the get go.
Oh well. Never mind.
If you do so from the get go.
If you do not, you often have to undo huge amounts of stuff just to get back to that point.
and then rebuild everything new on top of that.
And only then do you get to actually start work on things like blocks acting on water.
TLDR: the devs have most likely painted themselves into a corner. By not planning water from the get go.
Oh well. Never mind.
For water, wouldn't it be simple enough to just spawn it in when the game loads, and have it follow the player? (If only I had my computer to try and mod water in now...)
It's relatively straightforward to render decent looking water. The issue is more about the extent to which you simulate fluid dynamics with the Techs.
If you were to build a Tech as an open box with wheels for example and then drive that into the water. Assuming we give every block a buoyancy attribute, you'd expect the Tech to start floating right?
If you were to then remove a block from the bottom of the Tech i.e. make a hole in the bottom of your boat Tech, the expectation is probably that the water starts coming through the hole and starts filling the Tech up with water before the Tech sinks. As a non-expert in fluid dynamics, for me, that does not sound like something straightforward to implement.
If you were to build a Tech as an open box with wheels for example and then drive that into the water. Assuming we give every block a buoyancy attribute, you'd expect the Tech to start floating right?
If you were to then remove a block from the bottom of the Tech i.e. make a hole in the bottom of your boat Tech, the expectation is probably that the water starts coming through the hole and starts filling the Tech up with water before the Tech sinks. As a non-expert in fluid dynamics, for me, that does not sound like something straightforward to implement.
(Water does not have to be held in anything. The blocks aren't meant for holding the water, as seen by it's design. )
Also, I did some digging in Unity, it turns out that there are literal water prefabs right in the assembly. Which look like the terrain tiles.
I dont know how hard it would be to add the water so that its simulated similarly to From The Depths but it seems like that would be easier than a more accurate simulation of water.
I think it's completely ok if TerraTech doesn't get very realistic water physics, I'll be very happy if water is just a flat blue plane which gives you buoyancy, even if it goes through blocks.
Perhaps bouyancy shouldn't be calculated by how much "air" you have inside your tech, but with how much bouyancy each block in the water has, even if it would be weird.
EDIT: I just thought of something, water can be like water in KSP.
Perhaps bouyancy shouldn't be calculated by how much "air" you have inside your tech, but with how much bouyancy each block in the water has, even if it would be weird.
EDIT: I just thought of something, water can be like water in KSP.
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that ... actually might work.
Assuming you don't implement any sinking, i.e. techs can't sink beneath the waves (as a design choice) because of some magical unobtanium that keeps them all floating:
Doing rough bouyancy with regards to how many blocks are on a side might work. I.e. apply more force on one side if there's more blocks on that side than another. What effect this gives is that it simulates water rushing into a "hole"
If you start off with a balanced ship, it stays roughly upright, with some rocking. If a hole gets blown in the left side, water sinking would likely cause the ship to tilt to the left, right? If you go with this system, then more force is applied to the untouched right side, causing the ship to rotate to the left.
Of course, by "force", I mean calculating how said bouyancy counteracts given gravity, to keep all ships floating on the surface, at about the same elevation, just at different angles.
Recommend doing the torque calculations around original center of mass, not current. Original being C.O.M. before entering combat. Theoretically, this might be able to simulate capsizing. Maybe.
Problem here is, what happens when combat is over. Do you continue simulating sinking until new blocks are placed? What do you do then? Do you recalculate the balance? Or do you assume the player made it balanced and treat it as such?
Of course would also need to simulate natural viscosity of water (a large ship isn't going to feel the effects of recoil from weapons firing as much a land tech does)
If you really want to implement sinking, just trigger a special sinking sequence after boat tilts more than x degrees. Because irl, that boat wasn't going to survive anyway.
The problem, of course, is performance. Each physics time step, you would need to apply an upwards force for every block below the waterline. You would need to see the distribution of these, and adjust them, so the tech stays roughly at the same height.
Possible optimization would be doing this only when a block is blown off, and continuing until equilibrium, but even that can be performance heavy during combat.
But it should be possible to go below the waterline. The thing about water I'm most excited with is submarines and underwater mining.