Update dynamic terrain system

[nstgeorge]

Short Description

I designed the temperature-reactive terrain system very quickly, and it's not very good. Let's update it with better coding practices and more terrain possibilities.

More Details

When I created the terrain system, I was working on the game for class and had a sprint due that night, so it's not very good. There are only a few terrain types which get switched out. @rvanasa suggested creating something like an AdaptableTerrain class that can hold a currentTerrain value or something similar, which I think is a good idea.

Related Ideas

If we're going to work on this, we might as well also add more dynamic terrain types! Please let me know if you have any ideas.

[rvanasa]

A few ideas for terrain components, just for brainstorming:

• Supervolcanic wasteland
• Polar / arctic (low temperature, possibly frozen collectible life forms)
• Desert (high temperature)
• "Forests" (planets with a large ecosystem)
• Underground caves / tunnels
• Craters (mining)
• Planetwide ruins (previous civilization)
• Spooky anomalies and science stuff (research data)
• Warzone (based on economic state)
• "Living" terrain (talks to you)
• Especially prominent mountains, waterfalls, canyons, cliffs, etc. (based on survey features)
• Geysers (recharge ship)
• Hurricanes / superstorms (research data, shipwrecks afterward)
• Emissive phenomena (only visible with certain equipment or via specific light wavelengths)
• The Galactron
• Agricultural fields (buy or sell domestic life forms)
• Planetwide zoos / nature conservatories
• Testing grounds (nuclear fallout, unique items / data / ecosystem)
• Semi-scripted worlds with very specific stories behind them (Markov-chain style background context and features)
• Terraformed "shrine worlds" designed for forgotten purposes
• Artificial terrain suspended by balloons, airships, etc.
• Higher-dimensional portal worlds
• Planet-scale industrial accidents (crafting materials)
• "Real estate planets" (option to buy land in case a faction decides to colonize)
• Sludge / mud plains
• Artificial close-orbiting belts of terrain above planet
• Thick fog or mist above surface
• Floating islands (electromagnetism or something)
• Channels or footprints created by gigantic extinct creatures
• Special terrain structure for tidally locked planets (scorched day side, frigid night side, habitable twilight ring between)
• Highly magnetic surface (interferes with landing / takeoff)
• Terrain with an associated mission or puzzle (oddly specific description of landmarks, etc.)
• Crystalline terrain (high-mass planet)
• Tourist planets (ability to visit interesting landmarks)

Maybe we could reverse the control flow so that a planet has a Terrain, which generates and maintains a list of Location objects. The LandingSite logic could then become a subclass of Location, which makes it possible to have different parts of a terrain react differently based on the planet's state. For instance, a settlement might become abandoned if the temperature rises, but other locations such as geysers or caves would still be available to visit within the terrain.

I'll have a go at making a JSON or XML configuration system for this, so that way we can have lots of flexibility without having to manually code each transition between terrain features.