P0-MS4: Part 244: Infinite Universe, FTL Travel

by PhoenixGames on Sep.24, 2017, under Astral Realms, P-0, Software and Games, Spiritus Astrum

The main goal for this week is to get the zone-based travel system working.

I need to extend and improve the existing FTL-based system, and add the ability for the player to travel vast distances using zones. I intend each zone to represent an area approximately equivalent to a solar system. Not every zone will contain a solar system, but this size should work well for dividing the universe.

I need the player to be able to traverse zones, and travel within zones, with no issues.

The first step, which I have completed, is to generate a unique zone id from the XYZ coordinate position of each zone. This will allow me to use that zone id as a seed, to generate every object within that zone, and to assign the attributes of each object.

I intend to use my existing database system as well, since generating the objects from a random seed would be static, IE, the objects would be the exact same for each zone all of the time. This is fine for planets, stars, etc, which would not change (except for their position as they orbit their star, but this could be dealt with fairly easily) but I also want to be able to create dynamic objects in the game world, such as derelict ships, comets passing between multiple zones, objects constructed by the player or AI characters, or any other dynamic objects that would be created and destroyed during the game.