The official "Seamless Planetary Flight" thread

[Moonsword]

Cool. Thanks for the swift answer. I figured something like that, but I thought I should ask.

Never know until you ask and all that rot.

[charlieg]

You really want to keep the detail LODs consistent. If that means using a pre-generated seed [or combination of seeds] then so be it. Random terrain just won't work well. If you revisit a planet, it should be the same planet you visited before.

[chuck_starchaser]

There are a whole family of noise generators that take a seed as input and produce deterministic "noise" at the output. In fact, if you take latitude and longitude, chain them together and compute a hash function, you'll get just that; except that it could be "too noisy" depending on how many bits or decimals of precision you take as input. There are better solutions, though I'm not sure what they are. There's an open source project I ran into a couple of months ago, to put together a set of good, useful and often needed noise functions into a library; and there's plans of having noise functions in glsl. I tried to use them but my video card didn't support them. Basically, we need "smooth noise", so that if a latitude or longitude is not the same as before, but very close, it will produce a very similar result.

[mat_yarrow]

Would some of these issues be alleviated or worsened in multiplayer Vega Strike if or when the client-server idea is implemented (ie. bnet style)?

[chuck_starchaser]

Only effect of multiplayer with regards to seamless flight will be to confuse the hell out of npc traffic controllers, leading to on-air collisions and other fatal accidents, but we're all used to dying by now ... Unless you're worrying about the effect of farming on the terrain...

[Guest]

Wouldn't multiplayer rule out basing the coordinates on the camera? Or would different users just have different coordinates for stuff?

Also, regarding concerns about "random" planets -- all software random number generators are inherently pseudo-random. They have a "seed" number, and they use an algorithm to produce non-random but seemingly "disconnected" numbers. This is why, in fields where randomness is critical (like encryption), getting a relatively random seed is important. But it also means that if we give the same seed to a planet over and over, the terrain will always be identical to the last time.

-- Wisq, unactivated

[chuck_starchaser]

Good question.
I would think that, in multiplayer mode, client side physics and ai are speculative anyhow. The client computes the next frame in advance of getting confirmation from the server, for the sake of speeding up responses and masking lag; but the server has the last word.
The server(s) would compute physics taking a convenient frame of reference. So, for space navigation it might use sun-centric coords and compute things in double precision. For a fight in space it might chose to use a moving frame of reference centered on the battle theatre, and single precision. In a city, it might use city coordinates, and ignore the planet's rotation, for instance. Not good if your hobby is pendulums and gyroscopes, but efficient.

[oneru]

Just a little Blurb of psuedoscience...

Correct me if I am wrong, but...

Not every ship will be able to land, or even enter the atmosphere of a planet. Imagine a plowshare trying to fly
You wouldn't try to fly a capship into a planet either. The space elevator definitely has it's place. (Or perhaps an astroid base with a ferry service?)

On the remaining ships, you wouldn't really want to spew radioactive waste in the atmosphere by turning on the Sub-light drives.


According to an article in the Popular Mechanics, a nuclear powered turbine engine is theoretically possible. (This is from memory now) It uses the heat produced from a nuclear decay to power the engine. If in VS we are truly talking about nuclear reactors powering these ships, it seems to me that for a couple thousand credits you could mount a pair of much more powerful turbines, enabling atmospheric flight. Of course aerodynamics would have to be considered, and all that.

However, that should enable multiple G accellerations in the atmosphere. Thrust would decrease as altitude increases, because of the air density. at some point, high in the sky, an orbit altitude is reached, and you kick in the sublights.

I know this doesn't really help get the engine coded, but coding isn't my forte.

[chuck_starchaser]

I see. I'd never heard of the concept. You'd need something more along the lines of a nuclear-powered ram-jet. This would help reach high atmospheric altitudes and pretty good speed; but would still require chemical rockets to make the jump into orbit, I would think. Say the nuclear ram-jet can take you up to Mach 10 and 50 km altitude, but you still need to make it to about 150 km altitude and like Mach 25 to reach "orbit". Ion drives would not have enough push for that; Even assuming a little upward momentum, you'd accelerate to say to Mach 11 by the time you're at 60 km and Mach 12 by the time you're falling back through 50 km altitude, where the air drag slows you down. So, the atmosphere can only help you so much; at some point you need reaction thrusters with a lot of push to get you from atmospheric to orbital speeds and altitudes. Which also takes a lot of fuel. Part of the reason why the Space Shuttle doesn't take off horizontally like a plane... Wouldn't be able to carry such a huge fuel tank while climbing the atmosphere on its wings.

[Anax]

I see. I'd never heard of the concept. You'd need something more along the lines of a nuclear-powered ram-jet. This would help reach high atmospheric altitudes and pretty good speed; but would still require chemical rockets to make the jump into orbit, I would think. Say the nuclear ram-jet can take you up to Mach 10 and 50 km altitude, but you still need to make it to about 150 km altitude and like Mach 25 to reach "orbit". Ion drives would not have enough push for that; Even assuming a little upward momentum, you'd accelerate to say to Mach 11 by the time you're at 60 km and Mach 12 by the time you're falling back through 50 km altitude, where the air drag slows you down. So, the atmosphere can only help you so much; at some point you need reaction thrusters with a lot of push to get you from atmospheric to orbital speeds and altitudes. Which also takes a lot of fuel. Part of the reason why the Space Shuttle doesn't take off horizontally like a plane... Wouldn't be able to carry such a huge fuel tank while climbing the atmosphere on its wings.

and that's only for earth-strength gravity....

[zaydana]

<OT>

well, thats presuming the ion thruster are anything like todays thrusters. Once we are able to generate enough power and store it, we will be able to use magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters. They can apprently get isps of around 11,000s and thrusts equivalent to decent chemical rockets from today. Only problem is they'd need about 4 prometheus-type reactors to run at their optimum efficiency.

Still tho, i presume that wouldn't be too large a requirement for a vegastrike time-frame... so maybe its not too much of a far shot to let scramjets power things to about mach to and 50km, and a pulsed magnetoplasmadynamic thruster to get it into orbit. After all, for the very small amount of time it will take to actually get into orbit relative to what these things will be planned on being used for in today's world, you could probably store that power in a huge capacitor bank.

The thing i've thought about... is in the future we would probably be able vacuum or heated hydrogen baloons as "ballast tanks", just like a submarine. I doubt it would be possible with today's technology, but what would happen if suddenly we could make tanks with the same strength that we can make carbon nanotube ribbons? We have floating tanks, thats what we have

So, if we equip vacuum filled tanks with scramjets and massive magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters, i don't think it is too much to ask to have capships capable of atmospheric flight. And who says they need wings? Just apply the principles of lifting bodies to them.

</OT>

[AeonOfTime]

@zaydana: So, if we equip vacuum filled tanks with scramjets and massive magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters, i don't think it is too much to ask to have capships capable of atmospheric flight

Let's say for argument's sake that VS has capships capable of atmospheric flight, there are a few things to consider then:

1) Landing on spaceports

1.1) The planet you want to land on would have to have at least one spaceport with enough space for such a monster to land, and then I guess there would only be space for a limited number of capships. Some planets would not be able to afford such expensive installations, see 2)

1.2) The spaceport would have to authorize your landing - there's quite a difference between a Llama landing and a Leonidas, for ex. I guess you would also have to give a legitimate reason for wanting to do so.

1.3) It'll probably cost you a lot! Servicing a huge vessel like that is no small matter, and it seems only natural that you would have to pay a fee and taxes for your stay (I think that should also be the case for any other vessels even on bases) - after all, that shiny spaceport has to be paid for!

2) Free landing without spaceport

1.1) If the planet is inhabited, the planet authorities would still have to allow the landing, and maybe even designate appropriate landing zones.

1.2) If the planet is ot inhabited, no one will hinder you - except if it is a natural reserve and landings are prohibited, then you may find yourself looking into the gunbarrels of confed vessels.

1.3) Landing a capship without a spaceport is a very tricky thing: such a monster weighs a lot, and you would need some very specialized landing gear to avoid it sinking into the ground - depending on the type of ground

1.4) Again, you need a lot of _even_ space, don't try to land a capship on the tip of a mountain - even light slopes can be a huge problem.

Then again, I only see very few reasons for landing on a planet with a capship. Enjoy the view? You can easily launch a fighter and land with that. Blast away the local wildlife? Come on, that's like fishing with dynamite! Impress the locals? Okay, why not - but what a waste of energy

A few valid reasons I see are the following:

1) You need the cargo space to load all the precious metals you want to mine with the mining equipment you have on board - and you need the turrets to protect your claim

2) You need to do repairs that can only be done on ground with all systems offline including life support

3) To hide from enemies whose scanners can't penetrate the planet's atmosphere

4) Because you are a pirate and need a place to hide your giant stash of loot until things cool down again

5) Because you bloody can

I think it would be cool, but I also think it is a feature that would have to be limited to stay realistic.

[Accu-Accelerated]

When you start landing in the atmosphere, of course you would have to handle your ship diffrently, and how diffrent ships behave in the air would be a whole lot diffrent than how different ships behave in space. Consider the difference between landing an Ancestor and a Llama. Also, battle could be implemented in the atmosphere. Say you are landing and your ship gets chased and hit by a missile. Could you save yourself by crash-landing your ship in the right way? How would a survivable crash be determined? Could you eject your cargo to make your ship lighter? Could you be rescued if you ditch in an area far away from spaceports?

Weather conditions, such as wind and visibility, could make it more difficult/dangerous to land a ship. The planet's gravity would also affect how you could land. And it would look awesome if you could eject in an emergency and see your ship crash into the ground!

Also, I think it is inevitable that there will need to be space elevators, and I think that these will be used much more often than a direct planetary landing.

[chuck_starchaser]

Exactly.
People think they want seamless atmospheric flight in the game, but they don't, really; they merely want to be able to experience it; big diff. Going through the whole process of reentry, flight and landing every time would be insane; people would just stop going to planets altogether.
And the thing is, space elevators will make as much sense in the year 3000 as they will shortly. The amounts of energy bringing stuff to orbit or down from orbit are ridiculous, and there will never be a need to land on a planet, once we have manufacturing, extraction, repairs and service infrastructures in space. Extracting materials from asteroids or low gravity moons can be 100 times cheaper than extracting those same materials from deeply buried ores, and tens of thousands of times cheaper to transport than bringing them up with a rocket. The main link between planets and space will be space elevators.
Having said that, I'm all for having the ability to fly down to a spaceport (with a ship capable of it). But it should be as expensive as the ship itself to do so. Something you do once or twice if you have very good reasons; --probably some main plot situation that requires it. And you'd have an autopilot mode for the operation.

[Duality]

My idea for a planetary flight has been explained a while ago.

non-atmospheric fighters that are originally starfighters(which don't have aerodynamic looks), they are limited in pitching and rolling but they can still yew 360 degrees. Well lets say there is some kind of futuristic technology installed on most spave vessels to make it at least have the capability to fly on a planet's atmosphere without rolling or looping. For starfighters that has technology to have the more of an ability to roll,loop on a planet's atmosphere should be overpriced.

Atmospheric only fighters cannot go into space, according to the gameplay dynamics, it will explode it if really does. Well in reality we have never tested planetary flight that has atmosphere more or lesser dense than H2O.

[charlieg]

People think they want seamless atmospheric flight in the game, but they don't, really; they merely want to be able to experience it; big diff. Going through the whole process of reentry, flight and landing every time would be insane; people would just stop going to planets altogether.
And the thing is, space elevators will make as much sense in the year 3000 as they will shortly.

Yeah but you just nailed it on the head... year 3000, that's 3000. We'll have moved beyond space shuttles and arduous transitions between space and atmospheric flight. Sure ships will handle differently and sure only some ships will be fitted with the capability [which is where space elevators come in anyway, so capships can dock and people shoot up and down in them].

I still think overall this is an important feature and the entry into an atmosphere should not be that difficult.

[chuck_starchaser]

Well, this is perhaps OT, but never quite OT in general; a topic of futurology in general, that we tend to very easily make the mistake to project the values and priorities of our own lifetime into the future. Sure, the past 50 years have been years of technological and scientific conquest; but the focus of humanity won't stay constant for the coming 1000 years. It's as if we were back in the year 1000 seeing churches and cathedrals getting bigger all the time and said "in the year 2000 there will be churches and cathedrals the size of countries and reaching to the stars in height", or in the days of bell-bottoms we had said "in 50 more years the bottoms of pants will be so big we will have to roll them to be able to walk", or when oil tankers were getting bigger all the time we'd predicted that in 50 more years they'd be kilometers long". Without going that far, back in the days of the Apollo program there wasn't a shread of a doubt in anybody's mind that by the year 2000 we'd be living and working on the moon, mining it, and would have sent a manned mission to Mars, and there'd be spinning space stations with hotel accomodations at all of Earth's Lagrange points. History doesn't work like a linear thing.
And the next big thing for humanity will be survival: Environmental catastrophies are in the menu.

WATER
Water supplies are running out around the world, underground water tables are a resource that renews very slowly. In many parts of the world, groundwater is pretty much gone; the US has used well over half its supplies, and rainwater will continue to decrease, due to the fact that while ocean water evaporation accounts for part of the atmosphere's humidity, the main source of clouds is water evaporation through plant leafs, mostly from rainforests, which are being reduced in size at an unprecedented rate. Turning sea-water into usable water for farming takes energy; --large amounts of energy, which is also a dwindling resource.

ENERGY
Needless to say, oil is a non-renewable resource. There are other things, like coal and trapped gas at the bottom of the oceans; but there's also the problem of greenhouse gases. Over the past 100 years, global temperatures, which had started to move towards a cold cycle about 10,000 years ago, spiked back up to the peak value of high temperature between glaciations; --i.e.: back to the global temperature of 10 millenia ago. Not necessarily a bad thing at the moment, but the trend is accelerating, not slowing down.

GLOBAL WARMING
Melting of the ice caps is pretty much a given. When I first arrived in Canada, 25 years ago, there was plenty ice. Lakes used to freeze across, snow use to pile up many feet high during winters, as snow removal crews were overwhelmed by the quantities of the stuff. These days you hardly see a foot of snow ever, in winter, and you have to remind people about the days when lakes used to freeze over. Ice is thinning so much in the arctic that white bears have problems getting around without falling through thin ice. 50 more years and you'll see a foot or two of sea level rise, which will put most cities in the world under water.

TOP SOIL
"Desert encroachment" they call it; but deserts don't have an ill will towards us, it's more like we ruin the land until it cannot sustain life and becomes desert. Too much "cash cropping" and animal pasturing, and kiss the top soil good bye. And all because there's more money in producing cotton than there is in producing a more varied stock of foodstuffs that would be less damaging to the land. Take the case of Biafra, when, on the same year of the big famine there, when the whole world were donating food to save millions of starving people, Biafra was the world's top producer of cotton. Makes sense? Not to speak of wheat, or of what companies like McDonalds and CocaCola do to the agricultural lands of the world. People think of the World Bank and IMF as benign institutions, and may wonder who are those "paramilitaries" in many third-world countries, but basically, when families have owned good pieces of land for generations and won't agree to sell it to the big corporations (that buy advanced farming equipment on credit, directly or indirectly through international monetary funding, for the specific purpose of producing crap for such companies), then militaries are told to change hats to "paramilitary" and go in, unofficially, to drive those peoples out of their land, so that we can have our favorite drink --coffee in my case, all the same. End result is that land that was being used a more sustainable way, becomes available to cash-crop production, and in 10 years becomes useless.

POLLUTION
This is so big I won't ellaborate much, but suffice it to say garbage disposal is the biggest problem of most cities around the world. Nowhere to put the stuff, not to mention the amount of toxic stuff mixed with it, from paint removers, drain uncloggers, household insecticides, you name it. And then there's all the corporate stuff, the toxic stuff they used to just bury somewhere. Later they started dumping it in oceans, until it became non-kosher, so they started paying the mafia for them to take tanks to metropolitan garbage dumps and bury them there. Big business. But bigger business and governments or militaries like the trick of dumping tanks in Antartica. I read somewhere that if you navigate around the coast of Antartica, you don't see white, due to the quantities of abandoned drums along the coast. I guess they hope earth-warming will cause those drums to be dumped in the ocean by "natural causes".

OCEANS
Too big a subject to mention. Life cycles depend largely on coral reefs, but coral reefs are on their last legs.

OZONE LAYER
Too big a subject to deal with.

ECONOMICS
Let's just say that the whole concept of having money supplies that are loaned into circulation was a good idea at the time (18th century) as far as the ability to control inflation, but the expectation of interests accrued necessitates *growth*, which in the centuries to come is bound to be a negative figure; so we'll have to figure out a system that allows for negative growth without driving the entire world to bankrupty.

/OT

In other words, we'll have stuff to worry about besides the speed of computers and the conquest of space, in the centuries to come. By the year 3000, hopefully we will have figured out a way to have progress but do so sustainably. If indeed Earth will still bear life then, and we're alive at all, that is, as a species...

[oneru]

@Chuck: I will resist the urge to debate you on the ultimate fate of mankind.

The last 50 years of technological achievement is really a part of the last 400-500 years of cultural and scientific advancement. All of this stemmed from a single invention: the printing press. maybe in a couple hundred years someone will look back and see the internet as another earth shattering invention.

You're absolutely correct, history is not linear. Progress is not uniform. Our society has grown in jumps, in stages. Predictably it will continue to do so. However, judgeing from history, your own logic defeats your arguement. Most, if not all, great inventions sprouted from crisis. Their was a need, a looming catastophy, what have you. The printing press was invented to save the Bible from destruction. The Internet was invented to save the United States from thermonuclear war. Think of all the things invented while trying to go to the moon. Mankind thrives in adversity.

(so much for not debating you)


Now, again you are right, people think they want atmospheric flight, but they don't really want all the things that go along with it. I could see dogfighting in an atmosphere, or ducking into a planet while running contraband. If there is a pirate on your tail, you could run down some alien equivalent of the Grand Canyon, and hope he can't make it. But, doing 27 orbits just slowing down enough to land? Or, having to land by hand every time? take the whole 30 mins, or an hour to take off, and get into space? No You're absolutely right, people don't really want to go through all that. We have to make it fun and realistic at the same time. Space elevators are realistic, but what fun is that? Dogfighting in the atmosphere, or doing a trench run down the Grand canyon is all kinds of fun, but it isn't really all that realistic.

I don't know the solution yet, but I am sure it is out there. We could turn to Psuedoscience for our answer, but that would only satisfy us geeks who really care if you can actually take off like a plane, and get into space.

I did have a quick comment about the psuedoscience...

it would take a lot less chem fuel to launch to space if you were at 50 K doing mach 10 rather than ground level at a standstill. If it was a nuclear powered ramjet... maybe I should save this for another post... OK, I'm done.

[chuck_starchaser]

In reverse order:

You're right it would take less fuel to go to orbit from 50 km at Mach 10, but obviously not enough less fuel that could be carried in the shuttle itself, otherwise the shuttle would be doing so already. With future fuels, maybe. But still, it would be chemical fuel on ejectable booster rockets, unless something unfathomable (to me anyways) is invented in terms of particle drives.

Exactly, but there's a lot of us geeks, and non-geeks will have to be patient, because, to someone who knows the actual density of nebulas in space, it can be quite disappointing to find storm cloud -looking things in a space game. The "it's just a game" phrase is a bit meaningless, I find; because it presumes that finding storm-clouds is "fun", but what's fun or isn't varies from person to person, and I can attest to the fact that finding something totally unrealistic is usually the atithesis of "fun" for me.

And while on the subject of the subjectivity of fun, perfect example: for you the elevators would be boring; for me they'd be fun; while fighting in the atmosphere would be fun for you, but not for me. There we go...

Often invention is the doughter of looming catastrophies, but some catastrophies die child-less. Well, I'm sure someone will prove me wrong but I can't think of a benefit to science arising from the recent tsunami near India, or the Black Plague that decimated Europe. True, those are unexpected catastrophies rather than looming ones; but while the environmental catastrophy is technically a looming type, it will effectively be unexpected, since economic forces see no way to deal with it and prefer to use political manipulation to keep the problems out of public awareness and debate. The Environmental Movement was effectively squashed through dilution. Masterful. Every corporation became a friend of the environment overnight. Recycling bins everywhere. And it's all nothing but lip-service.

[kitovyj_us]

I remember the the old game named "frontier". Planet-side flight and seamless landing was amazing... About 10 years has passed since its release... But when we will see this feature in VS?

[CoffeeBot]

I remember the the old game named "frontier". Planet-side flight and seamless landing was amazing... About 10 years has passed since its release... But when we will see this feature in VS?

Are you talking about the Elite Trilogy? How did it work? There might be some ideas there for us that we haven't thought of

[kitovyj_us]

I remember the the old game named "frontier". Planet-side flight and seamless landing was amazing... About 10 years has passed since its release... But when we will see this feature in VS?

Are you talking about the Elite Trilogy? How did it work? There might be some ideas there for us that we haven't thought of

Search "elite frontier" in google. Take a look at screenshots. It is possible to play it under windows(the game is free for download). The planetary flight and landing is completely seamless and easy. Gravity becomes a significant factor then you reach planet's atmosphere. Clouds, mountains of random-generated landscape is amazing. Base's buildings, roads and other structures rendering is very impressive for such an old game. Day-time dependent lighting also was implemented.

[oneru]

Frontier elite 2 is a very cool looking game. Suggest: grab dosbox when you go to install.


OK... take a look at this thread, then imagine a scramjet powered by the nuclear equivalent of a car radiator.

http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Ca ... o=0&fpart=

My question is: if you have a nuclear reactor in your ship, why can't you superheat the atmosphere going through your "nuclear ramjet" and get greater thrust.

The projected top speed of a scramjet is around mach 25. It scoops up air, then injects hydrogen, and ignites, all flowing at supersonic speeds through the engine. If you had the "magical" power production of a nuclear reactor, you could dump all that heat into your airstream. Your flow of air would be superheated and expand like crazy, providing insane thrust.

Perhaps you have a reserve tank of supercooled atmosphere, and when you get up so high, you inject it into your engine, and then heat it.



Okee dokee... Big picture:

You engage your nuclear reactor, it begins generating electricity. You get clearence, and engage turbine engines, like a turbofan on a commercial jetliner, but instead of burning fuel, you dump heat from off of your reactor into the turbine.

At this time you fill your "fuel tank" with atmosphere.

Once you hit mach 2 or so, you must disengage the actual turbine, and the engine becomes a scramjet, again using heat from the reactor.

You continue to climb, and accellerate. at a speed of mach 20-25 you reach the upper limits of the atmosphere(as well as the scramjet)
You use your fuel supply of air to push you all the way to orbit, and away you go.



Now, I realize that is for earth-like planets. and only a few ships are aerodynamic enough to pull that off. It is simply a rational for planetary flight.

I didn't mean to say that a space elevator wouldn't be fun, you could use the time to do any number of things, but it just wouldn't seem right if you couldn't launch from a planet.
Now... that could use a LOT of your nuclear fuel, i haven't looked at that angle yet, just an idea anyway...

Just a game... yeah... tell that to my poor sleep deprived brain.

[klauss]

OT

Exactly, but there's a lot of us geeks, and non-geeks will have to be patient, because, to someone who knows the actual density of nebulas in space, it can be quite disappointing to find storm cloud -looking things in a space game. The "it's just a game" phrase is a bit meaningless, I find; because it presumes that finding storm-clouds is "fun", but what's fun or isn't varies from person to person, and I can attest to the fact that finding something totally unrealistic is usually the atithesis of "fun" for me.

I think I solved the Nebula dilemma.
See how the stars are created from universe.xml to actually represent the systems? Well, universe.xml could have a list of nebulas of all kinds, and they could be part of the sky. Dynamically generated skyboxes. We render a high-quality look of a nebula, store it into a texture, and place that in the skybox. If we ever implement interstellar SPEC travel (some people were talking about it, and how it should be possible to reach other starsystems in SPEC), the skybox could be dynamically updated, and... tada!

I guess that's a realistic view of nebulas, and a pretty one too. If you reach them (starsystems could lay inside them), you see them from inside, and the entire skybox would be covered with pretty clouds.

And while on the subject of the subjectivity of fun, perfect example: for you the elevators would be boring; for me they'd be fun; while fighting in the atmosphere would be fun for you, but not for me. There we go...

Perhaps you're missing the point on atmospheric combat, otherwise you would see how fun it can be: It would be totally different from space combat. That alone makes it fun: whole new techniques, new possibilities.

I remember the the old game named "frontier". Planet-side flight and seamless landing was amazing... About 10 years has passed since its release... But when we will see this feature in VS?

It was a complete unrealistic hack. IIRC, the planet scaled up as you approached it, until the ground became flat. These days, it was impressive (hey!, it still is), but that amount of simplification, IMNSHO, is unacceptable today. However, something can be learned from it: implicit storage - that's my fancy way of saying that terrain features, buildings and stuff should remain implicitly specified by a random seed. That way, you only generate what you need, and ignore the rest, making possible virtually infinite detail, huge worlds, all without requiring either huge downloads, obscene amounts of memory or CPU power.

[Duality]

Well heres my debate for planetary flight.

If you were to put seamless planetary flight and space flight together in an open-ended multiplayer world, and have realistic distances with planets and space, then I would say Vegastrike would not be a feasable gameplay because with realistic distance compared to earth, you probably need like 5 billion people to fillup earth.