Physics System Overhaul Tracker

[VMSolidus]

Description

Space Station 14 has a key feature available to it that gives it a significant advantage over coding for Space Station 13, that being a fully fledged Physics System. Under this system, every entitity in the game has access to information such as Mass, Density, Size, Hitboxes, and so on. This information gets referenced by other systems, which allows the game to have a sort of tactile responsiveness to a player's actions. Yet unfortunately, the core game of SS14 doesn't have consistent applications of it. Objects are missing correct mass values, systems that could account for it don't, some systems have incomplete usage of it.

I have been for awhile seeking to expand upon the game's usage of Physics, and have been pushing for a series of PRs that add complicated interactivity to the game. The start of which is my Space Wind Rework, which has gradually turned into a substantial overhaul of the game's Atmos system. But SWR isn't the whole story, because a whole host of other systems have emergent interactions with Space Wind.

Imagine, a security officer is sucked out of space by a nukie's C4 explosion. Armed with his own Lector, the security officer uses Newton's 1st Law to get himself back to the station. If this security officer was a short or lightweight character such as a Harpy, he might have been thrown farther from the station, yet at the same time he will need to shoot less mass from his gun to change his direction. Yet if this security officer was a heavier character like an Oni, his higher mass might have saved him from being propelled to space in the first place. Yet if he is thrown out, changing his direction by throwing mass is harder to do, owing to his own higher mass. Imagine he only has a handgun instead. The lighter mass and force of the handgun should be less effective than the heavier rifle at propelling him through space.

What if he was instead an engineer carrying floor tiles? Plastic tiles? Steel tiles? One of these two should have substantially higher mass, and would therefore be more useful to throw!

Related Issues:

• #460 Objects need variety in mass, not everything should weigh a uniform 5kg. Differently massive objects are thrown at different rates by space wind

• #461 Objects should have actual variety in hitboxes, which will change the behavior of them coming into contact with barriers and such.

• #352 When I throw a steel tile at a wall, it shouldn't make the same sound as a sheet of paper.

• #337 Supermatter is the undisputed king of creating atmos system chaos, whether someone uses it to make an air cannon, or it spawns a tesla ball that in turn creates a vast number of holes in the station for air to escape.

Related PRs:

• #464
• #458
• #457
• #342
• #341