[MUD-Dev] Re: Universe Design Notes, version 061098

[Mike L Kesl]

> [Mike L Kesl:]
> 
> [lotsa description stuff omitted]
> 
>  >cool world stuff, want a 3d world not a 2d one.
>  >   perhaps, code this into the gif2wilderness so that it will
>  >   build rooms above land and below water...
>  >	above land idea...
>  >		allow flight all over
>  >	below land idea...
>  >		allow mining, perhaps race skill, spells
>  >		mine entrances placed in wild rooms like objects above
>  >	below water idea...
>  >		allow swimming down all over where water.
>  >
>  >(a pretty much open ended file)
> 
> Your data files are gonna be humongous! Have you got one of those new
> 23 Gig hard drives on your machine? I think you'd want to do all of
> your arrays as sparse arrays - only those that cannot be algorithmically
> generated are present at all.

I do not think they will be so huge. There can be however many worlds in
the universe (most likely going to be one for a long time). Each world will
be 255x255, 2 dimensions, 60 thousand zones (wilderness for my setting). 
Each one of these zone, may or may not have an entrance to an area, in
over 80% (at least) there will not be an area in the zone, in those few
zones that do contain areas (in my setting they will be cities and caves
and such) the areas will have a maximum of 255x255x255 rooms, In all
actuality an area of average could be a hundred rooms, and not even span
into the third dimension. Then on the other hand, in another area, say it
is a giant vine going into the clouds, the thing would span upwards a
hundred rooms and not do much in the other dimensions. Most areas, like a
city or something will probably fit into a 20x20x5 space. Since 255is the
smallest grain I can represent I chose that, plus it allows for more
unique (which i consider normal) areas rather than just having all areas
flat and small. The reason the max is 255 is because the coordinates will
be represented as bytes, not because I am using an array initialized to
that size. The data structure I will use will be dynamic in it's ability
to add/remove rooms, and it will also not force assignment of 255^3 rooms,
which would be insane and require one of those 23 gig drives as you say. I
am thinking about some sort of multi-way tree for the data structure, any
suggestions would be great.

> 
> There has been discussion of these issues before, and a couple of people
> are doing experiments, I believe. I'm a fan of a full fractal world, with
> specifically stored exceptions, myself. Work on it suspended a couple of
> months ago as I implemented a byte-code system to make it go faster, and
> then moved over to a new architecture/OS.
> 
> -- 
> Chris Gray     cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA

I think having people draw the maps will allow for a more specific world,
complete with the dragon shaped lake or whatever... :)

Mike