I like it. The core would have to be slapdash approximation of existing real-world simulations. Chemical reactions, particles moving in fields, light polarization, all that jazz. Simplify those equations for real-time performance. Then you just need particles with negative gravity, and crystals that make all light green, and other wacky nonsense the player can learn, use, and abuse.
Potential complexity goes up exponentially with each ridiculous thing that can interact with all the other things. The hard part is keeping symptoms consistent - applying these rules to medium-scale, everyday situations, like the color of the air inside the ship. There must be visible weirdness to point people toward the fact that something’s fucky. Scientifically speaking.
So far the best thing I had come up with that would realistically work is coming up with a set of “properties” like hardness, mass, conductivity, etc and making the individual bits (matter and energy) have random properties that you could mix and match to get stats for things you’re making… But that still sounds too simplistic and boring to me. But I tend to be a perfectionist so maybe it would be something others would be fine with and I’m just sabotaging myself.
I like it. The core would have to be slapdash approximation of existing real-world simulations. Chemical reactions, particles moving in fields, light polarization, all that jazz. Simplify those equations for real-time performance. Then you just need particles with negative gravity, and crystals that make all light green, and other wacky nonsense the player can learn, use, and abuse.
Potential complexity goes up exponentially with each ridiculous thing that can interact with all the other things. The hard part is keeping symptoms consistent - applying these rules to medium-scale, everyday situations, like the color of the air inside the ship. There must be visible weirdness to point people toward the fact that something’s fucky. Scientifically speaking.
So far the best thing I had come up with that would realistically work is coming up with a set of “properties” like hardness, mass, conductivity, etc and making the individual bits (matter and energy) have random properties that you could mix and match to get stats for things you’re making… But that still sounds too simplistic and boring to me. But I tend to be a perfectionist so maybe it would be something others would be fine with and I’m just sabotaging myself.