hmmm ever notice that in OUR solar system its pretty much flat as well... while there is some fluctuation between the up/down plane, most is just concenctric rings which is formed because of the gravity and inertia...

besides, it's hard to design a truly 3D environment... thik about it, HW was about as close to 3D as you can get but it wasnt perfect... most space sims have a pretty thin plane of existence.

Remember, on a scale of 1 to Awesome, I'm Totally Great

if they did do that they've had to ad a fourth coordinate or adjust the space map

but what I find personally rather irritating is the auto leveling fuction
It's just not right If it could be done I would like to take the auto level out on the next patch and make it a an option with a button linked to it

...

I agree that the auto-level is a bit unnerving. I would love to see the systems be 3d with a 3d map...wireframe or something would work. But think about how much empty space there'd be if it were 3d. I don't know how large the systems are, so let's just say they're 50k across. That's 250 sq. km of area to deal with. Now if they were all 3d, that'd be 125000 cu. km to fill up. Instead of spending 5 minutes getting where you need to go, you'd be spending 10. Every time you want to go somewhere. That would make gameplay kinda boring if you ask me.

About the sounds, they are to add drama to the game. In Star Wars, the Tie Fighters have engine noises and the lasers have sound to add dramatisity to the fights. Now to Artic, do you mean a LaGrange point?

A couple things :

1) if it took 5 minutes to go somewhere on a 2d plane, it'd still take 5 minutes to get to that same place in 3d (you didn't change the distance to the object).

2) solar system formation is a combination of gravitic stress and electromagnetic balancing, the combination of which finds a balance along the axis of the rotation of the local EM source for the system (the sun), which would be the equatorial plane.. which leads to a planar formation of celestial bodies in the system. Bodies that do not follow paths on the plane are either results of cataclysmic events or were formed with the rest of the system's bodies.

- Pfhoenix

Edited by - Pfhoenix on 31-03-2003 01:50:41

I just meant that to even out the stuff in systems they'd have to "scatter" stations, planets, etc. in all three dimensions, so instead of going straight "west" to somewhere, you'd have to go west and up, and they could potentially increase the distance to places (think Pythagorean here: 45-45-90, sides are 1, 1, 2^1/2, so if something is as far "above" you as it is horizontally distant, it is 1.5 times as far as it would be were it all 2d)


Edited by - bbrock81 on 31-03-2003 17:53:56

"if it took 5 minutes to go somewhere on a 2d plane, it'd still take 5 minutes to get to that same place in 3d (you didn't change the distance to the object)."


Take three points in a 2d space:

A - B - C

A, B, and C are on the same plane in the Z axis. For simplicity's sake lets say that B is almost directly between A and C.

Now convert this to a 3d layout. Move point B up along the Z axis. If B is going to be the same distance from A after moving B up the Z axis then you need to slide it towards A on the X (and/or) Y axis. This is fine since B is still the same distance from A.

But now we have to deal with C. Lets keep C in the same place on the Z axis as it was before, but we'll have to slide it closer to point B on the X (and/or) Y axis so that it's the same distance from B as it was before.

But now it's closer to A than it was before. In fact, the *only* way to maintain the same distance between points B and C and not change the distance between C and A is make your changes on the Z axis so that even though their locations on the Z axis are now different from eachother, they're still all effectively on the same plane (that plane just isn't lying flat on the Z axis anymore). So, in effect, the only thing you've accomplished is making the auto-align code more difficult to impliment (but once that code was implimented a player would never really know you changed anything at all).

Ah, but what about the systems with more than three objects? Then it would be possible to place them in such a way that one could create no plane that contains them all and the auto-align code would be useless. Which would be more than fine with me. The only point I was trying to make was that from the designer's standpoint, a 2d universe is much easier to create and fill.

"Ah, but what about the systems with more than three objects?"

Ok, the biggest flaw in that post was of course that three points *always* share a plane... but my point was really only that if you have more than (three) objects and you decide to spred them so they nolonger share a plane, then you *can't* maintain the same distance between all the objects. Some of those relationships have to change.

Further, the more you deviate them from a single plane the more those distances between some points will have to change.

And even further, if you try to keep one pair of objects the exact same distance from eachother then some other objects are going to have to be *much* closer together than they were in the first place.

That's what I was trying to get at, too. It was just a lot easier for the dev's to make it 2d and they figured it'd sell to more customers that way, is my guess.

ACK!!!!

Geometry and Physics!!!!!

I have a headache now...I just want to play the game....Don't do this to me...or I will join in on Theorhetical Physics, Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Physics!

lol

-Arg



Something Awful