I would really like to have planetary maps.

Discussion in 'Mechanics' started by Vindris, Jun 27, 2017.

  1. Vindris

    Vindris Space Hobo

    A map similar to Terraria's world map. You simply press M while you're on a planet to open its corresponding map. Areas are revealed as you go to them, and remain revealed.
     
  2. scaper12123

    scaper12123 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Definitely would appreciate this, although given how many planets we visit this could create a lot of data.
     
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    @scaper12123 is correct in every respect. The implementation of a map system for individual planets would be very useful but because of the sheer amount of planets that we'd visit and the space that we traverse as players, it'd be a waste of data usage and ultimately reduce FPS. I'm not sure if the changes in performance would be anything near drastic, especially for high performance computers and whatnot, but it could become a hindrance. There would have to be a way around the data consumption, because otherwise it'd be a problem. Perhaps if we had the ability to remove maps that are unwanted, which in theory would water it down.
     
  4. scaper12123

    scaper12123 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    The issue with that is a lot of players would probably not bother removing maps, failing to realize how badly that would affect their game
     
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    Agreed. Whilst I'm sure if the implementation was significant enough it could be whittled down to only a minor problem, it'd be a problem nevertheless to those unaware of how to change it or completely oblivious to its existence for that matter. We'd have to find an alternative that is data-friendly and works for everyone.
     
  6. scaper12123

    scaper12123 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I don't think it could happen in the context of this game, sadly.
     
  7. Sciencefreak

    Sciencefreak Master Chief

    I'm waiting for map too. It was the main feature i hoped for in 1.3.1 update. Devs added pause in solo mode, but the map is more important, especially in a late game.
     
    sagenth likes this.
  8. sagenth

    sagenth Pangalactic Porcupine

    Are you saying this a planned feature already?

    It probably wouldn't be all that expensive to implement really, since the world files are already act as a sort of history. I think the world files mainly track what changes have been made to a world, and possibly what loot was generated - assuming that loot is random and not predetermined for a given planet. So that would just mean we need them to track where we've been. A travel, or index file to cross reference against the world file and generate the map on beam down or orbit. Maybe even just save a map outright, probably wouldn't be all that big. What is a few megabytes these days anyway.
     
  9. scaper12123

    scaper12123 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Actually, I want to retract my previous statement. A map would make sense for planets that we bookmark and thus likely intend to visit again, although again due to the fact that this would create a lot of data there would have to be some sort of limit to the number of planets we're allowed to have maps of.
     
  10. GorunNova

    GorunNova Pangalactic Porcupine

    ... it could probably be implemented as simply as a coloured bitmap rendition of the world map (one pixel per tile, or even one pixel per cluster of four), with transparency channel as 'fog of war'. As tiles are changed, the bitmap is changed. If it's stored and loaded with the world files, I don't see how it would 'bog' anything down - it's only present in memory while the world is. Changes could even be batched at timed intervals - a little map accuracy lag, but less random pixel writing to bitmap. The overhead, I would imagine, would be an extra operation when tiles are added / destroyed in queuing up cumulative changes, plus periodic writes of pixels to the bitmap.

    Anyways... that's how I'd probably implement it. Compared to the actual planet tile data, the world map bitmap would not take up much room, especially if a 1/4 scale just to give general features is used, or you split the bitmap into 'cells' and only load the ones in a particular range for viewing via some sort of map UI.
     
    Rookas likes this.
  11. scaper12123

    scaper12123 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I like how this has evolved from a suggestion for a map into a discussion about programming and memory management.
     

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