Reasoning behind a sphere

I vaguely recall that at one time someone from Uber explained why they used a sphere and not a torus projected onto a globe. Does anyone remember why? Likewise, does anyone recall if Uber stated anything about their decision to move from flat maps to sphere (other than they felt it didn't work)?

I believe it was easier and more practical in the long run but don't quote me on that.

A torus is ultimately square/rectangular (edit: when unwrapped). You'd get a lot of warping and distortion to make it fit onto a sphere (try wrapping a small ball in a piece of paper neatly ).

Torus worlds only work when you view them flat (or with visual hacks, like Populous). I imagine they also don't work if you want to have your worlds arbitrarily deformable (eg., more than just having mountains or small craters).

The current planets are working quite nice, so it was probably for the best.

Btw, speaking of a torus, i wouldn't mind alternative planet forms. E.g. a halo-styled ringwold would be pretty cool. You could create the craziest maps, especially with customizable equator/width.

I do remember a conversation about ring worlds (as well as box worlds). Don't remember how it went though

I don't know where he's referring when he says this, someone find out?

(I'm referring to his"Uber" quote, @garat?)

Probably 'to much work in light of more important features, completely different technical base, optimization, bugfixing, AI, etc'. Imo just a cool idea, would be great if Uber can - and wants - to work long enough on PA play with that kind of stuff. Might even be something for a Addon/bigger DLC.

I've got a torus map for you:

If I remember it right, then it was the discussion whether planets should be cylinders bent into spheres - with poles blocked off - , or cubes mapped onto spheres. In the end, planets became cubes mapped onto spheres for Alpha.

Now however that the entire planet is finally stored as a voxel like format in a tree structure, even that restriction is mostly lifted. Yes, the planet generator still starts out with a sphere and uses a noise generated height map to transform it into a planet (before adding/subtracting CSG), but other shapes should actually be long possible.

Why not entirely flat maps? Doesn't play nice with random map generators and always gives an unnatural defensive advantage to map corners. Which btw. was also the main argument against a torus, as it would have made the northern/southern "end of the world" more favorable for base construction thanks to an impassable region - even impassable for air, so it would have been more limiting than metal planets.

No, I was talking about actual cubes for a planet and ring worlds