08-06-2019, 09:06 PM
The Laptev Proposal
(07-22-2019, 08:11 PM)Durandal Wrote: [ -> ]If you have suggestions for stuff that could be added to the system without a complete redesign, yes, I am open to it.
Introduction
The introduction of the Laptev system caused rather harsh reactions within the community. For months and years, people are hoping, begging and demanding for more/new content, and after the latest cuts (Cayman, New Hampshire, Omicron Omega, etc...), the sight of a new system getting added to Discovery was something many people have been looking forward to.
![[Image: unknown.png]](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/510197633009319936/608367124079181854/unknown.png)
![[Image: unknown.png]](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/510197633009319936/608367093393522688/unknown.png)
The Laptev system was introduced as snub/freighter-only system with two jump holes, connecting Galileo and Bering. This means an effective shortcut to 67.5K - that is the distance from the Galileo hole to the Bering hole in Laptev - instead of Colorado-New York-Texas. The system itself is supposed to be a part of the Bering system and features a very pretty (and buggy) sun, two planets, a nebula, two asteroid fields, four ice asteroids, one nice wreck and a whole lot of nothing.
The Laptev system was introduced as snub/freighter-only system with two jump holes, connecting Galileo and Bering. This means an effective shortcut to 67.5K - that is the distance from the Galileo hole to the Bering hole in Laptev - instead of Colorado-New York-Texas. The system itself is supposed to be a part of the Bering system and features a very pretty (and buggy) sun, two planets, a nebula, two asteroid fields, four ice asteroids, one nice wreck and a whole lot of nothing.
Critique
![[Image: unknown.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/510197633009319936/608367276755910677/unknown.png)
For this proposal, we're going to skip over all the disappointment about what people have been hoping for Laptev to be and focus merely on what is given. Sadly, not much. Laptev feels, despite being a rather small system, very empty. My point of critique is all about this emptiness, because Laptev has a very unique setting in Discovery, being pretty much the only system out there that is part of another system - Bering. Laptev is at the very edge of the Tanner Belt, a fragment field that fills the entirety of the Bering system. The Tanner Belt is covering only a bit less than a half of the Laptev system, the outer region is covered by the Kara Ice Asteroid Field. Both asteroid fields are flat, which is a nice change to the usual bubble-ish asteroid fields. For a system intended to be an exploration system, it does a very bad job at it, lacking interesting objects or sub-regions. The only interesting things are: the sun, the wreck and maybe the planet in the nebula for the nice shock moment - it appears almost too late infront of you, giving you just enough time to turn away.
There is also a zone in the top left area that is a copy of a zone from another system and was forgotten to remove in the current game version.
There is also a zone in the top left area that is a copy of a zone from another system and was forgotten to remove in the current game version.
Proposal
I've put much thought into possible changes to the system. What could be added to make the system feel more unique, without changing what the purpose of the system is. That is a sort-of difficult task, as we can't just give every single boring system some nomad ruins or Baxter objects (although most BOs have been removed without replacement...). The system also doesn't contain any bases, and we can't really add more wrecks to it, at least not at this point. Maybe later, especially with my proposed version.
In the end, I've come to the conclusion that the location and connection make the system an ideal transit system. As such, I've put my focus less on possible exploration in each corner of the system and more on giving the players a nice ~3-4 minutes fly-by-environment, with a possibility of adding a mining zone in the central area between the jump holes, since some players were interested in that possibility, except Karst.
In the end, I've come to the conclusion that the location and connection make the system an ideal transit system. As such, I've put my focus less on possible exploration in each corner of the system and more on giving the players a nice ~3-4 minutes fly-by-environment, with a possibility of adding a mining zone in the central area between the jump holes, since some players were interested in that possibility, except Karst.
Theory
![[Image: unknown.png]](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/510197633009319936/608367246443806737/unknown.png)
We're having, as mentioned earlier, a unique situation here with Bering and Laptev. Bering is covered fully by a fragment field, Laptev partially. As the infocard of the Tanner Asteroid Belt in Laptev suggests, something very big happened here. Big badaboom! Two systems filled with fragments of worlds, but you don't see big chunks in Bering. In the current version, you see more big chunks in Laptev, namely Tiksi and Taymyr, a planetoid and a gas giant, the latter not being affected by the Tanner Belt as it is moving sorta stray, other than literally anything else in Bering and Laptev. And then there is the fact that Laptev has a Brown Dwarf. So we have Bering's pretty sun, a stray Taymyr and a Brown Dwarf as big sources of gravitation, Tiksi only to a very, very limited degree. The infocards of Taymyr and Tiksi don't give much information, they are pretty generic. So where is all the big stuff? People call me out on being obsessed with the Heaven's Gate/Obsidian rocks, but damn, if Laptev and Bering aren't the most qualified systems to use them, I'll let Nyx do all the horrible sexual stuff she constantly threatens me with.
Since Laptev is very empty, I thought this would legitimately be a good empty space to fill with big rocks. So I added, uh, ~300 rocks and stopped when I noticed the visual object count limit. The idea is to provide a uniquely dense atmosphere when you use the transit system. It is a straight corridor from Hole A to Hole B and can be flown by autopilot.
Big rocks mean big collisions. Many big rocks mean many big collisions. I was playing around with possible "deployable effects" - effects not bound to specific models - and thus created steaming/leaking stationary magma rocks and asteroid volcanos. This isn't even far-fetched in terms of realism, as asteroid collisions create huge amounts of thermal energy, while empty space is pretty bad for losing temperature.
Space is not cold, space is empty, meaning there is nothing that can take thermal energy away. As such, a human body in space wouldn't freeze instantly but very, very, very slowly. In fact, real life space combat would be horribly boring, as distances would be hilariously huge and the main weakness of any combatant would be heat generation. See the huge panels the international space station deployed in space? Their main purpose is to radiate heat away to prevent the ISS from overheating.
Similarly to the huge rocks with their little volcanos, I change the planetoid from a black De-Aar-type planet into a similarly dark planet with multiple lava streams on the surface, similar to Chisos in Texas, and also reduced the size for now. This was mostly a decision because of the presence of all the huge asteroids in the system, and also lead to a significant upscaling of Taymyr from 3000 to 10.000 radius units. The gas giant serves no purpose other than being pretty, so this change is purely cosmetic and to outsize the asteroid rocks. Since Taymyr is far enough away from the Tanner Belt, it doesn't need to be paved with craters or other signs of damage, other than Tiksi. The whole point of a planetoid is the fact that it has a very dangerous path infront of it.
The other half of the system is dominated by the Kara Ice Field. This gave me the idea of turning Laptev into a themed system: Fire and Ice. When you enter the system from Bering, you'll be met with a warm area. Hot dust, space volcanos, Walker cloud in your back, the pink shine of the Brown Dwarf to the front-left. If you enter from Galileo, you're still halfway covered by Dark Matter Wisps from Galileo. Infront of you are ice spikes emerging from the rocks, the pretty sun in the distance is blocked by rocks in the view. It feels cold and behind you are the void and the perverted heavy breathing of Wolfgang Weisen on Leiden Base. Or you're really unlucky and have Yoshida himself make you an offer you can't refuse. Or in the worst case, John Silverstone.
I've always thought it would be cool if we could make it visually more obvious that certain jump holes are dangerous and can only be used by smallcraft. So I put small rocks directly at the holes. Usually you avoid putting any rocks there and even make an exclusion zone around jump holes, however snubs will always be placed ~490 meters away from the jump hole and the path to enter the holes isn't obscured either. We could also add lighting effects to the holes, or other effects to make them look more risky than normal holes.
Since Laptev is very empty, I thought this would legitimately be a good empty space to fill with big rocks. So I added, uh, ~300 rocks and stopped when I noticed the visual object count limit. The idea is to provide a uniquely dense atmosphere when you use the transit system. It is a straight corridor from Hole A to Hole B and can be flown by autopilot.
Big rocks mean big collisions. Many big rocks mean many big collisions. I was playing around with possible "deployable effects" - effects not bound to specific models - and thus created steaming/leaking stationary magma rocks and asteroid volcanos. This isn't even far-fetched in terms of realism, as asteroid collisions create huge amounts of thermal energy, while empty space is pretty bad for losing temperature.
Space is not cold, space is empty, meaning there is nothing that can take thermal energy away. As such, a human body in space wouldn't freeze instantly but very, very, very slowly. In fact, real life space combat would be horribly boring, as distances would be hilariously huge and the main weakness of any combatant would be heat generation. See the huge panels the international space station deployed in space? Their main purpose is to radiate heat away to prevent the ISS from overheating.
Similarly to the huge rocks with their little volcanos, I change the planetoid from a black De-Aar-type planet into a similarly dark planet with multiple lava streams on the surface, similar to Chisos in Texas, and also reduced the size for now. This was mostly a decision because of the presence of all the huge asteroids in the system, and also lead to a significant upscaling of Taymyr from 3000 to 10.000 radius units. The gas giant serves no purpose other than being pretty, so this change is purely cosmetic and to outsize the asteroid rocks. Since Taymyr is far enough away from the Tanner Belt, it doesn't need to be paved with craters or other signs of damage, other than Tiksi. The whole point of a planetoid is the fact that it has a very dangerous path infront of it.
The other half of the system is dominated by the Kara Ice Field. This gave me the idea of turning Laptev into a themed system: Fire and Ice. When you enter the system from Bering, you'll be met with a warm area. Hot dust, space volcanos, Walker cloud in your back, the pink shine of the Brown Dwarf to the front-left. If you enter from Galileo, you're still halfway covered by Dark Matter Wisps from Galileo. Infront of you are ice spikes emerging from the rocks, the pretty sun in the distance is blocked by rocks in the view. It feels cold and behind you are the void and the perverted heavy breathing of Wolfgang Weisen on Leiden Base. Or you're really unlucky and have Yoshida himself make you an offer you can't refuse. Or in the worst case, John Silverstone.
I've always thought it would be cool if we could make it visually more obvious that certain jump holes are dangerous and can only be used by smallcraft. So I put small rocks directly at the holes. Usually you avoid putting any rocks there and even make an exclusion zone around jump holes, however snubs will always be placed ~490 meters away from the jump hole and the path to enter the holes isn't obscured either. We could also add lighting effects to the holes, or other effects to make them look more risky than normal holes.
Gameplay
As a transit system, Laptev is streamlined for repetetive visits. I had to move the Galileo jump hole a very tiny bit for the sake of the scenery, meaning the distance from hole to hole is 69.4K now. If a freighter with 400M/s moves through the system in a straight line, that means, including jump animation and asteroid dodging, a flight of three minutes. VHFs and bombers take a bit longer, but as a person who hates VHFs, I don't feel any mercy for you. Ha!
The exploration of Laptev as a first-visitor is roughly estimated around 15-30 minutes, which is pretty okay. Of course, there is nothing really worth the exploration, but with the added asteroids I personally feel like you get some nice scenery to enjoy for a few seconds.
The central space of the map, right in the very middle of the transit path, would be perfect for a mining zone. These huge rocks might offer some interesting ore. There is the possibility of adding drag zones to the system, maybe caused by radiation or something, to reduce the speed in the center of the system at the mining zone, combined with a possible sensor reduction. People from outside can EK in and have a better sensor range from outside, being able to find a freighter mining something rare, while the freighter only notices it when it is too late - or we stop pretending people aren't using the player list as much for their own defense as other people use it to hunt down ships or players. Or that miners want to get pirated with two lines.
Fighting in this system is difficult. The asteroids are dense, the huge rocks inviting to hug them, and the fact that there is only so much you can do in this system will make it easy to a miner to know when people are coming for them. But if we always assumed the worst case to happen, we could just shut down the game entirely.
The exploration of Laptev as a first-visitor is roughly estimated around 15-30 minutes, which is pretty okay. Of course, there is nothing really worth the exploration, but with the added asteroids I personally feel like you get some nice scenery to enjoy for a few seconds.
The central space of the map, right in the very middle of the transit path, would be perfect for a mining zone. These huge rocks might offer some interesting ore. There is the possibility of adding drag zones to the system, maybe caused by radiation or something, to reduce the speed in the center of the system at the mining zone, combined with a possible sensor reduction. People from outside can EK in and have a better sensor range from outside, being able to find a freighter mining something rare, while the freighter only notices it when it is too late - or we stop pretending people aren't using the player list as much for their own defense as other people use it to hunt down ships or players. Or that miners want to get pirated with two lines.
Fighting in this system is difficult. The asteroids are dense, the huge rocks inviting to hug them, and the fact that there is only so much you can do in this system will make it easy to a miner to know when people are coming for them. But if we always assumed the worst case to happen, we could just shut down the game entirely.
Issues
Uh, I've run into a few and by the time I write this, I didn't bother trying to fix things yet. I have a rough idea on what is going on, though. I write these issues down and will try to fix them later, should I get enough positive feedback that encourages to continue on this system. The last thing I want is spent another few days on research and system building just to have the products end up not getting into the game.
1. The sun. If you watched the video or took a look at the picture above. you'll notice (maybe) that the sun is glitching. The Dwarf suns (Poole, Cologne, Laptev) are using actual planets inside the sun hitbox. Freelancer doesn't really like that, and I thought we got rid of that with the removal of the sun effect Toledo used to have until, uh, late 2016 or so. Freelancer really, really doesn't like that and often glitches as such. For example, some players experience the Red Dwarfs of Poole and Cologne as texture-less planets covering the sun, while they are actually supposed to have a texture. I never found out why it sometimes happens. I've noticed the same happening with Laptev's sun sometimes even since the first instance of the system. While especially the Laptev sun is very pretty and really deserves to work without glitching, it angers me.
The actual issue I myself ran into when I built Laptev today was that I hit a limit I didn't know it existed: Visual Object Count Limitation. I'm pretty certain generated rocks count into this just like any stationary object and ship. When I faced the sun in a specific perspective, making sure most of the system's objects are in the view as well, the planet-sun disappears entirely. If I move a bit, it reappears. It's well visible in the video.
There are multiple ways of fixing this. I believe the limit removes the most distant objects for the sake of keeping anything closer to the player in view. That either means I move the sun closer so something else with less importance disappears instead, or I reduce the general count of objects that can be in the view. I'm not sure what to do first here, though, either the reduction of objects generated by the asteroid fields (bigger cubes or just less objects per cube) or altering the drawing distances of the smaller Heaven's Gate rocks (they have a huge drawing range, even the small ones) or replacing the tiny lava rocks I placed manually by either generated rocks or simply bigger manually placed lava rocks - these would be needed to be added to the solararch though. I usually try not to add new objects to any list and just work with what we have.
2. Tiksi and the nebula
I feel like Tiksi and the nebula need a certain something to make visiting the area worthwhile. As mentioned earlier, I believe the region in general invited to place Baxter Anomalies or nomad ruins or something. Generally, nebulae also are a nice spot for big rocks, as seen in Delta or the removed Omicron-82 (iirc) system, where the Phantoms were housing.
My main problem here, at the current time, hwoever is not a lack of ideas or possibilities, but that I haven't solved the visual object count limit. While it doesn't really matter what happens outside the nebula when you are inside of it, objects inside a nebula are counting towards the visual object count, and I wouldn't want things to disappear because of objects the player can't even see yet. Big thonk.
1. The sun. If you watched the video or took a look at the picture above. you'll notice (maybe) that the sun is glitching. The Dwarf suns (Poole, Cologne, Laptev) are using actual planets inside the sun hitbox. Freelancer doesn't really like that, and I thought we got rid of that with the removal of the sun effect Toledo used to have until, uh, late 2016 or so. Freelancer really, really doesn't like that and often glitches as such. For example, some players experience the Red Dwarfs of Poole and Cologne as texture-less planets covering the sun, while they are actually supposed to have a texture. I never found out why it sometimes happens. I've noticed the same happening with Laptev's sun sometimes even since the first instance of the system. While especially the Laptev sun is very pretty and really deserves to work without glitching, it angers me.
The actual issue I myself ran into when I built Laptev today was that I hit a limit I didn't know it existed: Visual Object Count Limitation. I'm pretty certain generated rocks count into this just like any stationary object and ship. When I faced the sun in a specific perspective, making sure most of the system's objects are in the view as well, the planet-sun disappears entirely. If I move a bit, it reappears. It's well visible in the video.
There are multiple ways of fixing this. I believe the limit removes the most distant objects for the sake of keeping anything closer to the player in view. That either means I move the sun closer so something else with less importance disappears instead, or I reduce the general count of objects that can be in the view. I'm not sure what to do first here, though, either the reduction of objects generated by the asteroid fields (bigger cubes or just less objects per cube) or altering the drawing distances of the smaller Heaven's Gate rocks (they have a huge drawing range, even the small ones) or replacing the tiny lava rocks I placed manually by either generated rocks or simply bigger manually placed lava rocks - these would be needed to be added to the solararch though. I usually try not to add new objects to any list and just work with what we have.
2. Tiksi and the nebula
I feel like Tiksi and the nebula need a certain something to make visiting the area worthwhile. As mentioned earlier, I believe the region in general invited to place Baxter Anomalies or nomad ruins or something. Generally, nebulae also are a nice spot for big rocks, as seen in Delta or the removed Omicron-82 (iirc) system, where the Phantoms were housing.
My main problem here, at the current time, hwoever is not a lack of ideas or possibilities, but that I haven't solved the visual object count limit. While it doesn't really matter what happens outside the nebula when you are inside of it, objects inside a nebula are counting towards the visual object count, and I wouldn't want things to disappear because of objects the player can't even see yet. Big thonk.
![[Image: unknown.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/407577428731363349/603625178991296513/unknown.png)