/tg/Station 13

cool feature in concept but in reality:

-get spaced/jump off
-get trapped in an infinite loop of space (thats not how cubes work??)
-proceed to cry

Its been awhile with this and I'm honestly surprised its still the way it is. The paths make no sense, and there's been multiple times where the 'cube' just either creates an infinite space loop, or somehow wraps around (leaving the right of the station and ending up on the left side).

basically the space""""""""""""""""cube"""""""""""""""" is nothing but lies and burial grounds for broken hopes and dreams as they drift endlessly in the infinite space loop.

Not all the zlevels are the same width and height AND it doesn't switch your direction when you'd move, say, left from the top level, say, the station level, to one of the side levels, say, the mining level.
You don't arrive at the mining level from the top of the mining zlevel, you arrive from the SIDE. This really fucks it up, yes.

Anonus wrote:Not all the zlevels are the same width and height

Wrong, a limitation of byond is Zlevels must be the same size, they will add the default turf (world.turf) to fill in the gaps on smaller Zs.

Anonus wrote:it doesn't switch your direction when you'd move, say, left from the top level, say, the station level, to one of the side levels, say, the mining level..

This is VERY true.

and the final thing is, Incoming did not set the cube up in a manner as to avoid loops, so it has loops in it, enjoy that shit!

MMMiracles wrote:-get trapped in an infinite loop of space (thats not how cubes work??)

yes it is
here i drew you an actually neat diagram (spoilered because the image is huge, here's a direct link to open it in a new tab) basically MMMiracles you're saying "i ded pls nerf the concepts of geometry" which is understandable since space doesn't have to be a cube. we could just use random z-level transitions again, but those were severely worse than the cube imo

i mean thats how you'd think it work but it just ends with you looping between the same 2 z-levels or, even worse, the same z-level, over and over again.

what part of the cube does the infinite loop translate onto it, i don't really see it.

woah there, if it's looping with only 2 z-levels without turning and it's a cube then something has gone very wrong
are you sure it only pings you between the same 2 z-levels because if so it's fucked

PKPenguin321 wrote:woah there, if it's looping with only 2 z-levels without turning and it's a cube then something has gone very wrong
are you sure it only pings you between the same 2 z-levels because if so it's fucked

I can recall multiple times either from getting spaced or just space traveling where its just ended with me wrapping around the same 1-2 z-levels. Even better when you use the mass-driver and are now stuck forever going that direction, never-ending void of space with no hope of rescue.

it's fucked

Yes, it can loop you across the same z-level for some unknown reason. I've tested this by spawning a pizza on a guy who ahelped he was stuck in space and he kept trying to grab the pizza as it went by.

ADDED HILARITY. For some reason Basil is prone to having infinite immovable rods rip the same length of the station apart forever which sometimes ends up killing the entire server as the next guy that wanders by sees 3 dead bodies in a line of broken walls, stands there to check on the bodies, and ends up getting blasted when the rod loops back around.

Posted on a request from operative:

it can definitely loop between just 2 z levels.

Also if its a cube shouldn't going straight ahead bring you back to the point you left the station at some point? (without obstructions)

During one particularly boring Shaft Miner round, I mapped the entire cube of that instance. It consisted of the following transitions:
While we're doing a bored-Photoshop-Saturday, judging from the rest of the thread, here's it in spaghetti format:



I probably did a real shitty job at arranging it into a cube, but I'm pretty sure I got the top and bottom right. If anyone wants to take a stab at arranging them properly, here's the PSD.

Of note is that Z-levels 4, 6 and 7 all had infinite loops within themselves, so in a single z-level.

Yes the space cube is janked because while all the connects FROM a z-level match up fine the relative bearing and momentum of how the z-levels "fold up" into a cube isn't respected properly.

I never fixed this because:

1.) Heading across most z boundries would result in you seemingly turning and heading in a different direction, which makes sense on the cube but seems backwards to a local spessman
2.) I didn't know how to translate momentum at the time because I was/am a scrublord
3.) The bastard in me liked the strange non-eucilidian cube I had spawned.

That said if anyone wants to fix it that's more than fine with me. Bravo to the guys who made maps.

The static not-cube is fine, the only problem is being looped endlessly on a single z-level. That's really all that should be fixed.

A while back someone had posted a "swirlcube" where there were no north-south or south-north connections, which is where the looping occurs. I should try to dig it up.

So what's wrong with a normal cube?

CPTANT wrote:So what's wrong with a normal cube?

Take a cube and orient the z-levels on it so on every border between two sides a local z-level east side meets a local z-level west side and a local z-level north meets a local z-level south side.

Spoilers: It's not possible. The best you could do with what we have right now would be a hexagonal prism with no top or bottom where east/west transition works perfectly but all north south transitions repeat.

If anyone has any cool polygons with five or six sides that avoid the problems listed here, let me know, but I'm fairly certain there's no such thing in 3D space.

Incoming wrote:

CPTANT wrote:So what's wrong with a normal cube?

Take a cube and orient the z-levels on it so on every border between two sides a local z-level east side meets a local z-level west side and a local z-level north meets a local z-level south side.

Spoilers: It's not possible. The best you could do with what we have right now would be a hexagonal prism with no top or bottom where east/west transition works perfectly but all north south transitions repeat.

If anyone has any cool polygons with five or six sides that avoid the problems listed here, let me know, but I'm fairly certain there's no such thing in 3D space.

wut. You got 6 planes of course you can make a cube out of them.

You got 4 planes in a "tube" where each west meets an east side

put a top plane on top map every north side of the tube planes to either the S,E,W or N plane of the top plane (make sure the connection to planes opposite in the tube are also opposite on the top plane)

do the same for the bottom

CUBE

You CAN make a cube out of them, but there would need to be special handling code for the top and bottom faces so that they entered out from the right side with the right direction and I'm not sure that's especially easy to do.

Just make a teleport that lacks a visual effect and changes direction? I mean the edges of the Zs are so low detail I doubt few would care.

if i'm understanding this right, this is happening because in reality, a cube can be oriented in many different directions (rotated). if you travel up the right side of the cube and go over it, you would go back down the left side. if you travel up the front and go over, you come down the back.
in the game, however, the top and bottom z-levels cannot be rotated like that. they always face up and down, never left and right. if you enter from the right side and go over, you'd come down the back instead of the left, because the top plane of the cube doesn't rotate with the rest of it

tl;dr: read this diagram i made, it explains why the cube is broken
also here's the diagram spoilered, but note that the picture is likely too large to be fully seen on this page unless you have a massive monitor bonus: path of travel in a straight line across a space cube. understandably, it appears almost random and makes very little sense.

Incomptinence wrote:Just make a teleport that lacks a visual effect and changes direction? I mean the edges of the Zs are so low detail I doubt few would care.

to the player it would seem as though they've entered the bottom of one z-level and exited from the right side of another and would be really disorienting
on one hand, it's ugly and awful and will probably be buggy
on the other, space travel IS pretty disorienting because there's pretty much nothing to orient you in space in real life, so it would make sense at least

topology is fascinating isn't it

Turning the player is disorienting in a bad way. Also the idea is for people to not know exactly when they've changed z-levels.

MisterPerson wrote:Turning the player is disorienting in a bad way. Also the idea is for people to not know exactly when they've changed z-levels.

then it's not possible to fix the space cube

PKPenguin321 wrote:

MisterPerson wrote:Turning the player is disorienting in a bad way. Also the idea is for people to not know exactly when they've changed z-levels.

then it's not possible to fix the space cube

It's technically possible but only if we finish making client.dir not look like ass.

Also the transitions are kind of noticable since space tiles don't line up nicely. The tile on z1 y252 isn't the same as the tile on z4y4 that replaces it when you wrap around, basically.

Why not create a double hexagon then with 2 randomized axis? It doesn't make sense physically but its just fine for gameplay. If you go into one direction you will pass all 6 planes eventually.



2 random axis, one east/west the other north/south. The blue lines in the left picture is the south/north axis on the right mapped onto the east/west axis

Gameplay over immersion man.

We've already had immersion breaking shit like coming to a dead stop while drifting in open space in some versions.

I support a completely static anything.

So tired of RNG determining what happens when I go into space, so many hijinx and plans ruined because the z_levels RNG wouldn't cooperate.

Oldman Robustin wrote:I support a completely static anything.

So tired of RNG determining what happens when I go into space, so many hijinx and plans ruined because the z_levels RNG wouldn't cooperate.

Yeah but it used to be even worse than that. Getting shot out the mass driver would put you somewhere new every time. During the same round.

Space cube IS completely static though, it just shuffles up every time a round starts.

We haven't had true space RNG in at least a year.

space grid would probably be the least confusing solution, but for randomness we would have to add a number of new space z-levels or space exploration becomes REALLY easy.

I just want derelict cult bases back

I want it to be confusing and complicated but ultimately surmountable. Grids are too easy.

Incoming wrote:I want it to be confusing and complicated but ultimately surmountable. Grids are too easy.

Literally impossible. It'll be solved within a week and put on the wiki. Then it just becomes another skill gap between new players and experienced players.

cptants solution seems best

going in one direction making you pass all planes eventually makes space exploration REALLY easy though.
really, adding a few more z-levels so we have 9 total or something and then just making a 3x3 space grid would probably be best.

And loop then together as a space torus?

At one point someone suggested 8 z levels in the form of a 3x3 grid slide puzzle and once I got done laughing at how ridiculous it was I thought it was a pretty fun idea.

Optimally we'd have a few geometries to choose from for each round.

I really don't get how a little possibly disorientation/rotation hand waved direction changing is less immersive than being trapped between two points.

JackHunt wrote:And loop then together as a space torus?

yeah. its straightforward and probably not very hard to code. we'd just need some more space z-levels.

Miauw wrote:going in one direction making you pass all planes eventually makes space exploration REALLY easy though.
really, adding a few more z-levels so we have 9 total or something and then just making a 3x3 space grid would probably be best.

but then you'd have arbitrary walls in space, unless you cause it to loop, which would mean either easy space exploration or the spaceloop problem that the spacecube has

if you have 3 z-levels going in either direction you'll probably hit *something* eventually. we would certainly make the new z-levels not empty, so the problem would be reduced, even if its not solved completely.

if you shuffle the 3x3 grid at roundstart it should be okay

Miauw wrote:

JackHunt wrote:And loop then together as a space torus?

yeah. its straightforward and probably not very hard to code. we'd just need some more space z-levels.

I like this idea too, you could even do it with just 6 z-levels:

N-S connections:

1N <=> 2 S
1S <=> 2 N

3N <=> 4 S
3S <=> 4 N

5N <=> 6 S
5S <=> 6 N

E-W connections:

1E <=> 3W
2E <=> 4W

3E <=> 5W
4E <=> 6W

5E <=> 1W
6E <=> 2W

You also can't explore space by drifting in one direction this way, unless that direction is diagonal (and off-center).