Friday Facts #385 - Asteroid Collector

[tyaigan]

Beautifull work on the tentacles !

if i may, about the item duping in space. i feel like the item animation is missing something.

Maybe a random rotation speed/center ?

[Qon]

And of course they wouldn't make random animations that would completely corrupt the game state, replays and multiplayer.

• Wiggling each arm slightly at random to stop them turning a corner in unison.

Randomness is fine, as long as the same seed is used consistently. "Real" randomness is almost never seen in video games, for just the reasons you mention plus it's quite slow. Often very simplified pseudo-RNGs are used, since performance is usually more important than cryptographic security. Heck, early console games used tricks like "the number of steps the character has taken" as their RNG, which makes for some fun TAS runs.

Well I know what PRNGs are and how they work. I don't need the explanation.

I didn't say introducing "any randomness" would break the game. I specified and said that "the kind of randomness that would break the game" would never be added to the game, so the user I answered wouldn't have to worry.

And no, they could even use "real" randomness, different on each client and each replay. Tiny wiggles don't have to affect the game state, so doesn't need to be synced. If the wiggles are only visual then you don't need a PRNG (but you use one anyways ofc) and you don't need to sync the seed.

[Qon]

Mining lasers in video games are almost always tractor beams too. A bit silly if it shows up in a somewhat realistic game, but an understandable simplification.

Well I'm not saying that we should have tractor beams. Laser mining sounds reasonable. We have laser turrets that can instantly kill behemoth biters with the size and armor of a tank. Collection of the melted/vaporized material could still be mechanical.

[Xarfo]

Short answer, wtf is this crap for Factory?
Please get rid of the platform idea.

[Qon]

Well I know what PRNGs are and how they work. I don't need the explanation.

[Moderated by Koub] If you have something to say to someone, please do so in private. I don't want yet another public fight on this forum.

[Moderated by Koub] Response to a moderated post

[Ohz]

Im deeply impressed

[adam_bise]

I'm sure everyone will be enjoying all of your hard work for many years to come.

[Twisted_Code]

Looks great, and nice optimizations. The Navmap Navmesh was really good thinking IMO. Minecraft uses something like that like your tile navigation, the thing you were doing BEFORE and I misread the post(thank you Qon) to great effect to allow homeless villagers to find their way to a nearby village if they end up in the middle of nowhere. Each chunk assigns a number indicating the number of chunks between there and the nearest village, then villagers wander in whatever direction has a lower number than the chunk they are in.
I also like your use of a registration event when the asteroid entities are created. Using events like this is also a good way to decouple objects from one another, from what I've seen so far of software engineering.

[Demoniacc]

I loved the "behind the scenes". And loved the snake final desing.

[Qon]

The Navmap was really good thinking IMO. Minecraft uses the former to great effect to allow villagers to find their way to a nearby village if they end up in the middle of nowhere. Each chunk assigns a number indicating the number of chunks between there and the nearest village, then villagers wonder in whatever direction has a lower number than the trunk they are in.

The nav mesh and the minecraft villagers village finding algorithm seem completely different to me. Maybe I should re-read the FFF to check for any details I missed...? Or what similarities do you see?

But the nev mesh solution was new to me, I also found it interesting. The issue with the jagged path of A* on a grid for entities that aren't actually bound to a grid for movement has come up before for me. I haven't had a need to solve it, but I've wondered what a good solution could look like.

For the village finding algorithm, I have actually done the same thing with combinators and sushi belts with all kinds of items, with production cells on a grid. Items were pulled with inserters from one cell to the next based on distance numbers to where the items are needed. I would like to develop this idea with more advanced techniques later.

[Dark_star]

SUGGESTION: advance model of spidetron, would be a spaceatron.
same capability but with ability to travel in space without dangerous need for attachment points.
More like current EVA suits/equipment

[Ogro]

Does anyone know the software he used to create the moving arm math proof of concept? Very impressive, half dozen slides and you have a moving arm! Imagine the time he saved not having to program that.

[mmmPI]

Does anyone know the software he used to create the moving arm math proof of concept? Very impressive, half dozen slides and you have a moving arm! Imagine the time he saved not having to program that.

Not 100% sure as one of those look very similar to another one, but i am under the impression that https://www.geogebra.org/m/a8hj6fxs was used.

In the example you can drag the "angle a" and place it as a slider on the grid, and you can also "play/pause" the change in angle a so that the piece rotate while you could modifiy other things. If it's not the one that was used, at least it look like it could do the same.

[Twisted_Code]

The Navmap was really good thinking IMO. Minecraft uses the former to great effect to allow villagers to find their way to a nearby village if they end up in the middle of nowhere. Each chunk assigns a number indicating the number of chunks between there and the nearest village, then villagers wonder in whatever direction has a lower number than the trunk they are in.

The nav mesh and the minecraft villagers village finding algorithm seem completely different to me. Maybe I should re-read the FFF to check for any details I missed...? Or what similarities do you see?

But the nev mesh solution was new to me, I also found it interesting. The issue with the jagged path of A* on a grid for entities that aren't actually bound to a grid for movement has come up before for me. I haven't had a need to solve it, but I've wondered what a good solution could look like.

For the village finding algorithm, I have actually done the same thing with combinators and sushi belts with all kinds of items, with production cells on a grid. Items were pulled with inserters from one cell to the next based on distance numbers to where the items are needed. I would like to develop this idea with more advanced techniques later.

Yeah, you're right, I misread the post. I've updated my post to reflect that. (Then I lost the rest of what I was going to say in this reply due to technical difficulties. Computer bricked and apparently I didn't save a draft)

[Dr.Jay]

Instead of going to Planets, Asteroids or empty space using a space ship, what about using a "wormhole" (warpgate)? I love the books of Peter F. Hamilton, esp. his Commonwealth Saga, where he describes a human civilization based on such wormholes. They connect planets, stations in the orbit, etc.

A tiny wormhole allows just a power line and data connection, a small one allows one belt, a normal size one either 2 belts or one railroad track, etc.
One end is fix at the wormhole generating machine, the other can be moved around. If connected to a 2nd machine, energy consumption is strongly reduced and two-way movement becomes possible...

There was already a post "Teleportation Tunnels for vehicles/trains" by ExcessionOz from 2016!

[0xE1]

Any ideas how "Ribbon world" map setting will work with Space and other Planets?

[Qon]

Any ideas how "Ribbon world" map setting will work with Space and other Planets?

Each planet will be a ribbon world, what else could it be?

[FuryoftheStars]

Any ideas how "Ribbon world" map setting will work with Space and other Planets?

And to add to what Qon said, space looks to be nothing more than a top-down scroller. We're not going to be freely pointing the spaceship/asteroid thing around and exploring.

[kratum]

As a solo developer the collector arms are very inspiring. I'm working on a 2D spider game and I would love more information on how you calculated the arm angles. I have a spider that moves somewhat realistically but the arm calculation isn't nearly as graceful.