[Bryan See]

Hello,

I'm a programmer, and I'm looking to implement a maximum asteroid number increase as supported by Starforce (see http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Feature_Requests#Maximum_asteroid_number_increase). As I increased to 1024+ (32768 or perhaps 262144), the other objects (such as laser/missile fire) cannot be rendered as it reached its object limit. Nowadays, I've raised the limits, and it appears to be working well, though depth culling and geometry instancing is not used). I'd like to use SCP as a benchmarking for future processors, and this would prove my worth for me to join the SCP team after all.

[Herra Tohtori]

Hm, I would think the increased amount of objects would be useful especially for works such as Galactica TC's that use rapid-fire weapons on massive scale. In fact I once experienced the object limits already on Beyond the Red Line with the Archangel missions where a capital ship is streaming a lot of projectiles into the void.

Isn't this in wrong forum though?

[asyikarea51]

move to the SCP forum! lol XD...

Yeah... a limit of 300 really isn't enough for fierce cinematic battles...

[DaBrain]

I think so too. *Moved*


Hi, Bryan. The increased object limit is a great improvement. I'm looking forward to have really big and dense asteroid fields.

[karajorma]

Are you sure the new object limit works in multiplayer?

[Bryan See]

Sorry, I'm late. It may work in multiplayer.

[The E]

Sorry, I'm late. It may work in multiplayer.

Currently, we're using a max number of asteroids of 512. Given that we do not have geometry instancing support, and given that the overall number of objects in a mission is fixed, we do not plan to raise this at this time, as asteroids are already a very expensive feature, and are bound to become even more so with shadow support.

Also, given that noone seems to have cared about this for four years, that tells me that actual demand for this is pretty low.

[docfu]

May I go on the record just to say that I don't like the traditional Freespace asteroid implementation?

1. Due to clipping they always seem to appear out of nowhere.

2. If you blow one up, another one always seems to take it's place.

3. They always felt like some kind of a cheesy mission filler, moving unrealistically and spinning rapidly to keep your attention.

4. They are usually always the same size: bigger than you but smaller than an Orion.

Obviously these points can be fixed but not without breaking canon. The last thing I would want is more of these floating around and being generally annoying.

[JGZinv]

Needing something and not being able to use it is one thing.
Having something available, but not needing it, is another.

At least hear him out on how he plans to do it.

[The E]

Needing something and not being able to use it is one thing.
Having something available, but not needing it, is another.

At least hear him out on how he plans to do it.

Unless that plan is "Reduce the impact asteroids have on performance", I am not at all interested in it. We can bump limits until the sun comes down, but it won't make the game intrinsically better.

[Dragon]

Performance improvement is always good. Raising limits is also always nice, though depending on context, it might end up not being used much. Object limit would definitely be of interest to gatling gun fetishists like me. Never enuff dakka, as they say, and realistic gatlings do provide quite a lot, at relatively little cost (they don't usually need to many flashy/hi-res effects). Mods like Diaspora or Dimensional Eclipse could probably use this.

It'd be a nice to see the asteroid system get a serious rework. The current implementation is very limited. For example, you can't have multiple fields in a mission, or multiple "inner boxes" (areas where asteroids don't appear). Also, as mentioned, they're quite a drag on performance. If you're willing to tackle that part of code, you can improve a lot.

[karajorma]

I have no interest in any solution that breaks multiplayer. Especially since it will probably fall to me to fix it!