Plateaus & Trenches

[Twelvefield]

If you've seen Microsoft Flight Simulator, you've seen the plateaus and trenches when the ground mesh that surrounds a plopped building, usually an airport and its runways, is set to the same altitude. MSFS for a very long time could not support airports that were not perfectly flat and level, at least not without heavy modification. As a result, if there were discrepancies between the airport altitude and the mesh, you'd get these crazy plateaus or Death Star trenches where the sim tries to put a flat airport into a non-flat terrain mesh.

Since the DEX maps aren't 1:1 with the globe of the Earth, I doubt we will see these plateau effects when assets are plopped, but even so I hope that this doesn't become a problem.

[Jimmy Arcade]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

If you've seen Microsoft Flight Simulator, you've seen the plateaus and trenches when the ground mesh that surrounds a plopped building, usually an airport and its runways, is set to the same altitude. MSFS for a very long time could not support airports that were not perfectly flat and level, at least not without heavy modification. As a result, if there were discrepancies between the airport altitude and the mesh, you'd get these crazy plateaus or Death Star trenches where the sim tries to put a flat airport into a non-flat terrain mesh.

Since the DEX maps aren't 1:1 with the globe of the Earth, I doubt we will see these plateau effects when assets are plopped, but even so I hope that this doesn't become a problem.

Hopefully it should be ok. I already have a system that marks where the terrain is fairly flat which is how installations are placed currently.

Most of the time they align pretty well with the ground so it's really just levelling a little bit, but I won't really know until I try it.

[Jimmy Arcade]

Good news - no sight of trenches or plateaus! Even where the base may intersect some higher/lower terrain it still blends really well.

[Twelvefield]

That's good news! Thank you for the update.

Reading your update, the terrain rewrites itself on map generation and un-rewrites itself after the mission is complete - as I understand it. What happens if (heaven forbid) the game crashes mid-mission?

[Jimmy Arcade]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

That's good news! Thank you for the update.

Reading your update, the terrain rewrites itself on map generation and un-rewrites itself after the mission is complete - as I understand it. What happens if (heaven forbid) the game crashes mid-mission?

That's a good question but fortunately it's not an issue when the game is built as all the terrain data is stored in packed files that can't be edited

The saving of the terrain data only occurs in the editor for reasons I really don't understand but it is a well known "feature" of Unity and I do have to be careful of how I exit the editor to ensure everything is restored - plus I have backups!

[Twelvefield]

I see. Some files that need backing up, I send to friends in different parts of the world. You never know. I used to burn the really valuable stuff onto discs and put them in the safety deposit box at the bank. I accidentally cracked one of the disks, but you know what? What was really important data in Y2K is junk now anyway.

The other day, I found my 30yo iOmega Zip Drive files. I think I can buy a replacement external Zip Drive at Goodwill to read them.