perhaps there is a way to do a form of destructable terrain without skrewing up gameplay: a bunch of "chunks" that are inanimite and non physics based check the chunk beneith them and the chunks to the side of them.
if the chunk beneath them is removed, but both chunks on the side are there, it has a 2/3 chance turning into a physics rock and deleating itself. if chunk below is gone, there is a full chance it will fall. if all chunks are gone, it will also fall.
after they stop moving for sevral seconds, the rocks re-settle.
this way, making tunnels would be increadbly hard if not impossable, (unless they went downwards, which could actually be used for gameplay(ie, there is a hidden vault beneith you, but if you dont have jetpack fuel or grapplegun or whatever, you wont be able to make the jump and will have to teleport back to your previous location))
edit:
can i help code this?

Supports coulda been used that you deploy down on the ground and they support the roof.

lafe, I was planning a mixture of "chunks" and fully painted landscape. That way, it isn't a pain and I don't have to construct everything, but we can still have destructible bits. Sediments, plants, and some rocks, should work in a way similar to that. It also means we can be sure of the level flow (if we want the player to dig to somewhere, we can indicate that it's possible by using many chunks of gravel and rock in a clear pathway. I want to give the feel of distructibility without allowing the player to ♥♥♥♥ up my levels

If you want to start coding, make sure you do it coherantly, I don't want to be doing refactoring in a minor project. I'd also appreciate it if you'd use LOOP for classes.

Sorry this has been so slow, I've been caught up in school. I'll try to get something done soon, I'll probably do more design before coding anything though, maybe get a small test area scribbled down and make it so I have to scroll it so I don't skimp out on that. Heck, maybe I'll do a menu, I never bother with them

So I learned lua, and decided to try making a collision map (isn't that what everyone does when they first learn a language?)

I created a 1-bit bitmap to mask the mockup that Geti made, with the idea that the bitmap would represent the actual solid objects on a map, as opposed to the decoration. I fed this bitmap in to Lua (manually reading it, that was a pain), and stored it in memory. So, for every pixel on the map it can call string.byte on the in-memory bitmap, and get whether that is a solid object or not.

Here is the result of iterating over every single pixel on the screen, and testing if it is defined there:



I'm not quite sure what all of the weird lines and gaps are from. Probably a mistake with reading the .bmp file. Was a problem in the byte choosing algorithm.

Obviously calling love.graphics.pixel and string.byte 707,000 times per frame is insane. I get about 3 seconds per frame.

I'm not sure of the actual efficiency of calling string.byte on the in-memory bmp, since in game there would only be a handful of tests per frame. There could be additional optimizations.

The mask file is a 90kb bitmap file.

Edit: Fixed the strange lines through the map.

you can write pixels to ImageData and draw that by calling love.newImage on the data (or something along those lines). Sorry if this is irrelevant, in a rush; I'm drawing something for this, brb.

Linked for HUGE and WIP. (3000x1400)
I'll keep working, plant/object rough plans are in lighter grey, but I'll do more in the caves. I think I'll do the background now though, before everything gets too cluttered and I can't see (though they are on separate layers, unlike last time)

Quick question, how do you think projectiles should interact with plants? I'm currently thinking a random chance of hitting them, higher when hipfiring, so if you spray at someone running through the bushes some of your shots will be blocked, but if you're taking a shot at, say, a sleeping rhinobeetle or something and have the time to sharp aim and whatever else you're less likely to get your shot ricocheted by a bush or worse, blocked entirely if you're using energy weapons. Thoughts?

Two parts per plant? Thin and thicker, like, stalk and leaves.
Stalk is harder to hit?

Well, depends on the type of plant. Are we just talking bushes/shrubs here? I think even a chance of penetrating through moderately-dense foliage would be fine.

Trees, though, should definitely stop most bullets. Maybe energy weapons vs plants = fire? If you're willing to go that far.

I like the idea of projectiles interacting with foliage, but I don't know if it would detract from the gameplay. Don't want to have "Where did half of my bullets go!?" happen. It's it's made very obvious that the bullet was deflected, that would be nice.



That would probably be faster for rendering, but it's not really meant to be rendered. It's easy to call love.newImage just to render something.

Edit: I did forget to say though, Geti, that looks great so far.

Plants getting chopped down by bullet fire and then regrow?
Would be fun if this game is to have a lot of interactability with the enviroment

Plants likely wouldn't regrow in front of the player's face, but I suppose they could if you leave the region; I think keeping them dead would make the game feel more persistent though.
Also, ballistic weapons and energy weapons should behave fairly differently on any penetration issues. It'd be fun if bullets were refracted a little when entering small plants, and yeah, I think tree trunks should be able to stop bullets on a % chance (you missing along the plane that would be "depth" essentially, but energy weapons should probably cause fire and not be able to penetrate. I think it'd be better to just have set types of damage something can do for armour ratings (eg energy is less effective against field armour but good against plate armour, reverse applies for ballistics)
I'll do a sheet of how I'm seeing the player and plants look, as well as some other objects. I've still got to draw in all the important parts of that level <_<

LINK TO LARGER IMAGE

Further work, need feeback, and have to get to school

Beautiful, though the blue does not really fit.

Looks great.

So, I mashed Geti's mockup with a 5-minute collision map:



The grey box is showing the overlap between the collision map and the actual map. They're pretty close (the map was actually offset 7pxish, not sure why, had to adjust).

Yeah, you can move around, and jump and stuff. Movement isn't very smooth. I'm not sure the best way to calculate movement. Anyone know a good way?