So, I’m sure on one f the live streams this was mentioned, but to as much as I would have liked. Will there be actual physics in the game? I don’t mean, when you throw something the further away it is throw the lower in flies, but I mean a full blown physics system like catapults throw stones up it for air, and the stones can land on people, or if you don’t build supports for a tunnel well enough, it will collapse and the ground ave actually falls from the sky, and doesn’t just appear. Hope this can be answered.
A full blown physics engine, I’m not sure, I think they’ve stated probably not an extensively indepth one.
But in relation to the construction of buildings they want a system implemented that means certain materials can support a certain amount of other materials. And if you build the wrong thing, or go to remove that thing, then the building can collapse, or at least that specific part of the building can collapse.
They’ve also thought about the possibilty of water physics, but that’s something that’s up in the air at the moment and is probably not worth thinking about for a few months
So, to answer your question, yes there will be some sort of physics system in the game, how extensive is that system? I couldn’t tell you.
if it helps, i’ll give you what @Geoffers747 has captured in the very helpful Q&A thread:
Answering questions regarding water and water physics.
“Re water: We’re working on it! Water is…hard. There will certainly
be water in the game, and we want it to behave in water like way, with
flow, dams, etc.”
Will there be physics based destruction of houses, trees, etc?
“We would like to add physics for these kinds of things eventually.”
I’m so glad what I said was backed up by this, I had a horrible feeling for a second there that my own Q & A thread was about to be my undoing and completely contradict me!
Edit: Just so you know if some of the links in the Q & A thread seem a bit off at the moment, I’m currently altering it, adding new sections and generally doing things to it.
I remember hearing Tom talk about building physics in a live stream. He was saying they are looking at physics that would find key structural points in a building and if that section is destroyed your whole building could come down. If this ever becomes a reality is yet to be seen, but it sounds awesome!
This is something that should be “optional” or at least something that can be tweaked by players in their individual games.
If you really want to get into the physics of things, you could put in some sort of static load test that would measure how much “weight” is being put onto a particular block… and if there is “air” below that block or several other kinds of pseudo physics that would be simply a part of the game. For example, a doorway or window a few blocks long could be permitted, but a cantilevered house would likely be a real problem. To show an example (I’m not sure if this is photoshopped or not) you might see this as an extreme:
Eventually doing stuff like this reaches a limit and collapses. If you really wanted to get dirty, you could also put in compression strength limits on some building materials (like wood) where building too tall will completely collapse.
