🚀 go-pugleaf

Ross Ridge <rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> looked up from reading the
>It was implicit, if you don't have them colliding then you don't need
>modern CPUs or GPUs to model them.  A Commodore 64 could do it.

Xocyll  <Xocyll@kingston.net> wrote:
>A lot of distinct, detailed asteroids you can land on - each one of
>which would be modeled and require a hefty GPU to do so.
>It's not just a round rock.

In the original Starflight (which was ported to the Commodore 64) you
could land of lots of distinct planets.  It doesn't take a lot of CPU or
GPU to implement this, it just takes more power to make it look prettier.
More detailed asteroids are just chrome, not any sort of new gameplay.
If Chris Roberts wanted to implement landing on asteroids and setting
up mines he could've done so in the original Privateer.  It would've
looked bad but everything you described in terms of gameplay could've
been done back then.  The 1994 game Alien Legacy did almost everything
you described, you could land of distinct asteroids, each rendered
differently, and set up mines on them, just not from a space-sim
perspective.

In my original post I said that I couldn't think of any reason why
you would need better CPUs or GPUs to implement new sorts of gameplay,
nothing that you couldn't have done ten years ago, you'd only need it
to implement better graphics.  You presented your idea for improving on
asteroids in that context as if it were a counter example.  As a gameplay
idea what you've described could've implemented on PCs more than 20
years ago.  If all you really want here is better asteroid rendering,
then modern technology can make a difference, but I'm suprised if this
minor graphical detail is what you consider so important.

>Most Games' asteroid belts (or fields) are made up of nothing but the
>exact same rock (or 2 or 3 different rocks) randomly placed over and
>over again as obstacles you can run into.  
>
>They often cannot be damaged, and in the few cases where you can damage
>them, when you come back to the area, they're all back again since they
>aren't tracked.

Since you've never seen an asteroid in another solar system then by your
own arugment you cannot say that any of this is unrealistic.  You don't
*know* that asteroids don't all look alike or don't suddenly reapear
when you're not looking.

Even asteroids in original Wing Commander could be a realistic depiction
if the laws of physics can change so that everything looks pixelated.

Like I said, this discussion is pointless.  If you're going to define
what's realistic is based on what you imagine to be real and not based on
what we know to be real then anything anyone imagines can be considered
equally realistic.  Asteroids could actually be the droppings of space
unicorns and mined for rare and precious rainbow-coloured gummi bears.
At least that wouldn't require changing the laws of physics.

					Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //