Quadrants

Building an endless universe is a new challenge for me. I want to manage data much like signal processing plugins do. They work with thousands and thousands of sample points so referencing them is a challenge. To deal with this they reference relatively. The current sample is the reference point and the next and previous are +1 and -1 etc. I am trying to do similar with quadrants. I have the active one and relative compass coordinates to it.

If the player moves up (north) the north quadrant is loaded or defined and its related south quadrant is the current one. One challenge is speed. I don't have the Zelda luxury of pausing to load the next screen, it must happen smoothly, in real time. If this proves impossible I will have to switch from a 'player always in the center' interface to a Zelda in space type scenario. In this case the player would move around the screen until they hit the edge, then everything shifts to the new quadrant.

I want to avoid this if possible.

I'm using files to house the data to try to keep it fast. Sqlite has proven slow in my previous attempts. Another problem is rendering the quadrant contents, currently I have one active quadrant but I'll need to handle multiple for when the screen is shifting between them.

All this without creating any processing lag.

And then there are planets. Players can land on planets, switching the game view to planet surface mode. This will be similar quadrant behavior, except that is a finite set of quadrants. And there's the added complication of the player having the ability to build bases on the planets. I haven't even begun to ponder that conundrum yet.

Well, we'll see if Java can handle it...