Author Topic: Newtonian Pulsar  (Read 9764 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline exdeathbr

  • Petty Officer
  • **
  • e
  • Posts: 18
Re: Newtonian Pulsar
« Reply #15 on: May 06, 2016, 02:17:11 PM »
Since we are talking about newtonian stuff, is 3d space planned on the future or its out of question.
 

Offline Hamof

  • Leading Rate
  • *
  • H
  • Posts: 13
Re: Newtonian Pulsar
« Reply #16 on: May 06, 2016, 02:31:32 PM »
Do you want your computer to burst into flames? This is going to be resource intensive enough with only 2 dimensions to worry about.
 

Offline exdeathbr

  • Petty Officer
  • **
  • e
  • Posts: 18
Re: Newtonian Pulsar
« Reply #17 on: May 06, 2016, 02:34:50 PM »
Do you want your computer to burst into flames? This is going to be resource intensive enough with only 2 dimensions to worry about.

to me 3d space is a important thing of space games,
games without 3d spaces feels like a "futuristic airplanes" game in my opinion
 

Offline Hamof

  • Leading Rate
  • *
  • H
  • Posts: 13
Re: Newtonian Pulsar
« Reply #18 on: May 06, 2016, 02:43:55 PM »
Quote from: exdeathbr link=topic=8583. msg90663#msg90663 date=1462563290
to me 3d space is a important thing of space games,
games without 3d spaces feels like a "futuristic airplanes" game in my opinion

You do realize that the instant you have so much as two possible "levels" for things that exist at the computer has to do twice as much work? Games that incorporate 3d space usually have much less stuff in that space (Homeworld for example. ), Pulsar is going to involve a lot of very complex equations all the time, and if you add in a third dimension it will require much more processing power.  (I don't think any of us would be satisfied if they added in 3d space just to give us a depth of 2 meters. )
 

Offline Thanatos

  • Warrant Officer, Class 1
  • *****
  • T
  • Posts: 97
  • Thanked: 2 times
Re: Newtonian Pulsar
« Reply #19 on: May 06, 2016, 07:17:52 PM »
I believe it is actually a quadratic increase, but do not quote me on that.

As far as resources, it's not actually that bad, unless you are trying to model physics. Orbital motion is not really part of the problem, if you use simplified solutions, but the nth body problem is a thing. However, defining a dot of some sort to orbit around a celestial body at a given distance, is not very resource intensive, 2D or 3D, neither is trying to figure this out based on a speed of the celestial body.

However, in a stable system like this, if you added another large object, and had to recalculate all the gravity effects (Which you shouldn't do)... now that's gonna be a problem.

Even Navier-Stokes needs a simplification, and it is mostly a efficient 2D solution. Navier-Stokes is the movement of gas, by the way.

TL;DR 3D space is not that bad so long as you don't use celestial mechanics, and instead use simplifications like 'orbit distance' or 'body velocity'.
 

Offline se5a

  • Lt. Commander
  • ********
  • Posts: 288
  • Thanked: 30 times
Re: Newtonian Pulsar
« Reply #20 on: May 07, 2016, 01:36:49 AM »
I'll quote myself again shall I?

Quote
I'd like a 3d system map. but definitely not in this iteration.
Newton is not getting any more of a lookin in this iteration either.

both of these are hard maths.
both of these are hard UI.

I'd also like to point out that most star systems are flat. So adding the third dimension wouldn't add as much as you'd think, other than a bit of pretty, and hard work.
 

Offline se5a

  • Lt. Commander
  • ********
  • Posts: 288
  • Thanked: 30 times
Re: Newtonian Pulsar
« Reply #21 on: May 07, 2016, 07:07:53 PM »
actually, I'll clarify that a bit more, since it keeps coming up.

Many of the time consuming calculations can be threaded, the way we've set up the ecslib should make that easy to do safely.  (the threading, not the calculations).
I'm less concerned about the processing load as I am about the programming load.

To do either would be extremely time consuming, for someone with both the mathematical background AND with the user interface experience to do in a way that wouldn't be a buggy, kludgy, annoying to play mess.
not only does it have to be not buggy, kludgy, and playable from the users perspective, it has to be clear, concise, and expandable from the coders perspective, so that somone else who comes along and wants to add a new/planned *something* feature, doesn't throw up their hands in disgust because they can't figure out what's going on. 

currently none of the regular coders have *either* the math background or the user experience background, let alone *both* to want to even attempt this.

If someone came along with both those things who wanted to attempt it, they'd still need to work with us to get the current code to a place where doing these things even makes sense.
we've still got a handful of medium sized problems to work through before we even get to the place where we can do non-newtonian in 2d (in a non buggy, fun, playable, clear, concise and expandable, we currently do have a buggy, not yet playable somewhat messy 2d implementation of colonies for example).
We need to solve those problems first. we need something simple, small, playable, and fun.
All the indi games that I've come across that were successful grew from something small, simple, and fun, then iterated on it.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2016, 07:34:10 PM by se5a »
 

DPO

  • Guest
Re: Newtonian Pulsar
« Reply #22 on: June 28, 2016, 06:00:03 AM »
Found a great thread discussing the formulas involved in 3D newtonian plot interception.

hxxp: boards. straightdope. com/sdmb/showthread. php?t=16114

It comes down to differential equations, which I can't say I understand as well as I would like.
 

Offline iceball3

  • Captain
  • **********
  • Posts: 454
  • Thanked: 47 times
Re: Newtonian Pulsar
« Reply #23 on: June 28, 2016, 02:43:42 PM »
The problem with 3D precision is that, a lot of the time, trying to view this 3d depth is going to result in a loss of precision and certainty that we originally had. Defining points in 3d space is going to be a lot more of a pain than 2d space as well, as well as making AI that can handle that and UI that can consistently meaningfully tell you all the distance information you'd need at a glance will be a lot harder in 3d space than in 2d space.
 

Offline Anubis_Prime

  • Able Ordinary Rate
  • A
  • Posts: 1
Re: Newtonian Pulsar
« Reply #24 on: August 16, 2016, 10:10:49 AM »
Quote from: iceball3 link=topic=8583.   msg93185#msg93185 date=1467143022
The problem with 3D precision is that, a lot of the time, trying to view this 3d depth is going to result in a loss of precision and certainty that we originally had.    Defining points in 3d space is going to be a lot more of a pain than 2d space as well, as well as making AI that can handle that and UI that can consistently meaningfully tell you all the distance information you'd need at a glance will be a lot harder in 3d space than in 2d space.   

I agree, unless we were using something like Unity it would be pretty difficult to get to a playable level of precision.    Not that it couldn't be do-able but at this stage of the project you should be more focused on the mechanics and completeness of the game and work on aesthetics later.    Or even provide ways to have the user change the look of it, much like Dwarf fortress and its multiple tilesets have done.   
 

Offline TaliesinSkye

  • Leading Rate
  • *
  • T
  • Posts: 5
Re: Newtonian Pulsar
« Reply #25 on: September 02, 2016, 08:38:10 AM »
What about just getting a pretty good intercept estimate rather than worrying about an optimal one?  It sounds like stopping the process early could save a great deal of computation.