ECS-style 2D Physics / Rendering Engine in ROBLOX

About

I thought it might be more elegant if I developed my own physics engine for Ship Crew RPG, so I experimented with gravitational physics and collision mechanics using an Entity-Component-System framework. I was able to build gameplay features much faster using ROBLOX’s physics and constraints system, so I have stopped working on my own engine.

Gifs

Using Separating Axis Theorem to detect overlap between 2D rectangles

I never found a good source on how to resolve these collisions, so I developed it myself. As it stands, there is a common edge case where the colliding body gets pushed too far. I stopped working on the engine before I could resolve that bug.

This is what bad collision mechanics look like :)

The ships in these gifs are applying forces to stay at the same gravitational potential. It’s analogous to using rockets to never fall to the ground, but more generalized.

I don’t have a good gif of the transition, but the inside of a planet is a separate environment than the solar system, and objects can enter/exit the planet. The white background meant you were “inside” the planet.

Camera controls can be decoupled from your spaceship