Space Torus

[oneechan]

Stealing this from the space "cube" feedback thread (https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 9&p=116375)

Everyone on /tg/station knows that the hairy balls theorem says that you can't have a non-zero constant (or nonzero continuous) north vector field on a cube. But you could have it on a torus:

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).

This would be better than the space something that we have now, where entering in a side and leaving through the same side might take you somewhere you didn't start. A torus allows sane Z-level connections while still connecting all west sides to east sides and north sides to south sides, and you could do it with the current count of 6 z-levels (or any number of z-levels, by arranging a grid and having it wrap).

[TechnoAlchemist]

Someone draw a picture

[PKPenguin321]

Someone draw a picture

toruses (tori?) are hard to draw in MS-paint and the connections are insane looking, but i tried just for you
the gist of it is that if you look closely, you can see that every square (a square being a section of the torus (aka SPACE DOUGHNUT)) links into another square north/south, and a different square east/west, meaning if you went straight up or down/left or right you would loop between two squares, but if you go diagonal and slightly off to the side you'd eventually go across all of them

i dislike this idea because it makes space loops way way way more common and space travel impractical and much more difficult
i get that it works in concept and makes sense on a physical level (which the space cube does not), but it wouldn't work as well in-game

[oneechan]

Someone draw a picture

toruses (tori?) are hard to draw in MS-paint and the connections are insane looking, but i tried just for you
the gist of it is that if you look closely, you can see that every square (a square being a section of the torus (aka SPACE DOUGHNUT)) links into another square north/south, and a different square east/west, meaning if you went straight up or down/left or right you would loop between two squares, but if you go diagonal and slightly off to the side you'd eventually go across all of them

i dislike this idea because it makes space loops way way way more common and space travel impractical and much more difficult
i get that it works in concept and makes sense on a physical level (which the space cube does not), but it wouldn't work as well in-game

You could make an easy-to-explore torus if you just loop everything E-W and loop each Z level N-S on itself

[PKPenguin321]

yeah but then you have to make a sharp 90 degree turn every transition, meaning you can't use a mass driver/disposal chute to launch into space, and you pretty much have to have a jetpack of some sort (and a way of being able to tell when you transition across a z-level)

[oneechan]

yeah but then you have to make a sharp 90 degree turn every transition, meaning you can't use a mass driver/disposal chute to launch into space, and you pretty much have to have a jetpack of some sort (and a way of being able to tell when you transition across a z-level)

You don't have to make a 90 degree turn, you just go one direction and go through all the Z-levels

[Malkevin]

Someone draw a picture

[newfren]

OK so this is how a torus works basically - each number connects to the same number north to south, and each letter connects to the same letter east to west.

While YES you'll necessarily get more loops in this configuration it actually makes it way easier to explore space, especially if we're going with a 3x3 square torus. If you exit out of the station in ANY direction, you'll loop back to the opposite end of the station without any weird direction changes at the edges of Z-levels - it doesn't matter what square in that diagram the station is in.

So if you want to fully explore space, all you have to do is go each cardinal direction from the station - if you hit something, go back and go out the opposite side, if you don't hit something don't bother - then repeat with all the diagonal directions. That'll guarantee you hit every Z-level we have in space eventually.

Of course we don't actually need to have a square torus! Oneechan touched upon it with their idea of a single straight line EW of Z-levels where if you left the north or south of a Z-level you'd enter from the opposite side of the exact same Z-level, but the torus can be formed from any rectangular arrangement of Z-levels - simply wrap the top edge of the rectangle to the bottom and the right edge to the left.

Obvious disadvantages with this system:
Throwing bodies out of airlocks will often result at them landing at the opposite corner of the station - you just need 2 z-levels out of 9 to be empty for it to happen.
Space loot is easy as piss to get using the system I outlined above unless we make the torus much bigger, and thus introduce more empty Z-levels to make the body dumping problem more common.
Obvious advantages:
Space travel is less confusing bullshit than it was before.

[PKPenguin321]

-snip-

i get what you're saying, don't get me wrong, but easier space exploration and more space loops for corpses is the opposite of what we want to accomplish

[newfren]

-snip-

i get what you're saying, don't get me wrong, but easier space exploration and more space loops for corpses is the opposite of what we want to accomplish

I thought what we were trying to accomplish was easier space exploration instead of bullshit "I left the station directly vertically then got stuck in a loop forever never getting close to the station again" travel we have now. The only infinite loops you can get stuck in in this system are if you leave the station and then turn after you've hurled yourself into space, whereas in the previous system you didn't really have to try to get stuck in a loop.

Like I don't really care if we're trying to make space travel more impenetrable or less so but it would be helpful if we agreed on what the problem was!

[Miauw]

we'll probs need more space junk to stop corpses or randomize the edge transitions per-round

[Stickymayhem]

Looping corpses are totally ok they are just lost to space.

[Miauw]

by stop corpses i mean "stop them from hitting the station when thrown out of an airlock"

[newfren]

Looping corpses are totally ok they are just lost to space.

In a torus it's... probably impossible to make a moving body lost to space without leaving the Z-level? I think so at least - no matter which way you throw the body it'll eventually loop back around unless something stops it - thus, more space junk would be needed.

[Screemonster]

Tossing bodies into space should get rid of them really, but it's awkward to do that without also screwing up space exploration.

I'm reminded of that old Seymour game on the spectrum - there's a section called the "railroad to nowhere" that comes from your train having stalled in the desert, and no matter how far you walk it goes forever - but once you give up and turn around you'll just wind up back at the train. Would something like that be worthwhile for people that leave the grid of "near-station" z-levels?

ie. surround your randomised 3x3 or 2x3 grid of actual levels with a wall of "if you keep going west you just appear on the eastern edge of this level again" (or whatever) levels. Whether you want to have 2/3 whole levels on each edge to represent "Deep Space" or just have 1 level that catches all traffic on each respective edge and returns it back to a random level on said edge if it turns around is really a question of how much of a pain in the ass extra levels are resource-wise.

obvious disadvantages:
a bunch of extra "empty" levels are needed
not obvious to someone that drifts into them that they've entered deep space (though really that's a hazard of fucking about in space)

obvious advantages:
trash/bodies/whatever that people want gone, stay gone
muh realisms, sorta

edit:
Here's a craptastic mspaint diagram.

Spoiler:

Exiting levels 1, 2, 3, W or E to the north will take you to the bottom edge of the "N" z-level. Leaving off the northern edge will just bring you back to the southern edge again, effectively travelling north forever. Leaving via the southern edge will dump you back somewhere on 1, 2 or 3, while changing direction and heading east or west will put you in the Deep Space levels for those respective directions.

Travelling diagonally will be a fun one since it'll essentially have you constantly swapping between the two levels.

[JackHunt]

Have the station stay in the center but randomize the other 8 tiles.

[newfren]

Have the station stay in the center but randomize the other 8 tiles.

If we're going with a torus then there is no centre - that is, every tile is exactly the same as every other one.

[Razharas]

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/11643

Its done, per-round randomized multifold tori space travel instead of cube

[oneechan]

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/11643

Its done, per-round randomized multifold tori space travel instead of cube

I am not math enough to know about multifold torii but I like how it generalizes rectangle grid -> torus to any configuration of grid squares

I am guessing multifold torii have multiple holes in them or something

[Razharas]

Yes, foldness of torus is amount of holes it has
All unusual looping in the 2d plane can be explained by the torus faving more than one loop