Orbital Colonies
 

Does anyone know how to mod an orbital colony (I am thinking the ISS, Gundam Wing, ect.) well? Specifically, I am trying to make it be able to produce something (shipyard, solar generators, ect.), require population, and have hit points to be destroyed (i.e. not need a planet destroying bomb). Any ideas?

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Well, you could put resource miners on a ship/base, to produce something from any uninhabited planets/asteroids it might be floating over. This could also have a spaceyard, and solar generators to produce supplies. It can have cargo space to hold population, but there isn't anything that would *require* population. Since it's a ship/base, it follows the same damage rules.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Yup, I'm afraid what you're asking for is not possible in SEIV, and most likely never will be. Bug MM enough though nad you might see it in SE5.

In the meantime, take a look at the pirates and nomads mod, which does about the best job possible with the modding tools available to mod space-borne communities.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Well, I think I figured out a couple of ways to mod this.

1. Mod a new constructed planet size called a space colony. Then make a star that's all black (or has some representational marker on it) and call it a Lagrange Point. Then add Lagrange Points to your existing maps in the same "rings" as the planets, or mod the systems file. Then mod a large component that can create the space colony constructed planet (ala ringworld generator).

Now start the game, build a ship with a space colony component, fly out to a Lagrange Point and "construct." You can even build sphereworlds and ringworlds on them if you want to.

Only problems are they affect solar supply gen, solar resource gen, planets can be created there with Lagrange Points in the system and no star, and Lagrange Points can be destroyed by star killers.

OR

2. Mod a super tiny planet size called a "space colony." Then mod a planet generator component that can only create those super tiny planets (space colonies). Fire up the game, build the right ship, find some asteroids, and "generate."

Only problems is space colonies can only be built in asteroid sectors.

[ December 12, 2002, 15:35: Message edited by: Urendi Maleldil ]

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

I like the second idea, it's kind of neat.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

It could be used for asteroid colonies.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think this one a fantastic idea. At least, I did once I looked up what a Lagrange point was. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

The shortcomings you mentioned of having an invisible star don't really bother me too much.

I wonder if Imperator Fyron would put some of these points into his Mod as one other of his many Galaxy types.

[ December 12, 2002, 19:01: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

your LaGrange point could also go unstable and explode.

these could both be used in the grit-tech mod, though. I am thinking of disabling many of the features that would cause conflicts with this. imagine each planet having a LaGrange point in the same sector, and being able to create orbital colonies there. this would indeed ***-up stellar supply generation, though.. in a big way. maybe if each system had the same number of fixed LaGrange points in orbit of the star, that way supply generation would be constant, and components could just generate porportionatly less supplies. say, if each star had 3 (or is it 4? i forget) LaGrange points. and if 4 then solar pannels would have to generate 1/5 as much per star. binaries would have to have twice as many points.. i dont know if thats realistic, but its would be the only way to balance out the supply generation.

Imagine also, being able to construct asteroid bases by converting them into a special size of planet, as described. all asteroids would have to be the same, custom, size. im not sure how the variables on the planet creator component would handle a custom planet size, though.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

I really prefer the second option. The idea of a low tech planet creator that can make asteroid colonies appeals to me. And if you destroy them with a planet buster you get asteroids again, as it should be.

The lagrange point idea is neat, except for being able to destroy the system by blowing them up. That seems very hokey to me.

Geoschmo

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Technically, there are 5 Lagrange points between two massive objects -- probably more I just skimmed that definition. But we don't need that many. We could claim that most of them would cancel each other out, and there were only a few, or they could be even rarer -- only some systems would have one.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Ok after more thought there is another problem with the space colony asteroid idea. For a planet to be created out of asteroids you need a comp (no problem) and an available planet size to turn the asteroids into. You can make a planet size smaller than tiny, that's no problem. But if you do the the game will use it when it makes the random maps. You will have these already created planet scattered about.

What you would need to make this work right is to create the map, or do the first turn using the sotck data files, then play the game using your mod data files that has the planet creator and the astrooid colony planet size.

I don't even think you need a special asteroid size. Just allow the colonies to be created on any asteroid size. I don't see that as a problem, that is a feature. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif If somebody blows the space colony planet up it will probably make a small asteroid belt. Have to test that I think.

Geoschmo

[ December 12, 2002, 19:30: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

What if you gave the planetsize.txt entry a special ability ID or set contructed to "false" - would that cause the map generator to ignore it like sphereworlds?

The space colony can then easily be specified for exclusive use by the new component.

[ December 12, 2002, 20:02: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

the problem with having asteroid colonies as a standard size, is that you might create a regular planet out of them, instead of an asteroid colony. maybe if only SOME asteroids could be colonizeable, and these were a special size.. but you would still have planets of that size scattered about. rats. unless random planet generation is disabled, and all planets are of a fixed size, i dont think this is going to work.

edit: but if the component can create only an 'asteroid' sized colony, it would not matter what size the asteroid field was, right? Feh, you would still have random wierd planet sizes floating about.

[ December 12, 2002, 20:09: Message edited by: Puke ]

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Ohh... random thought along the lines of Lagrange points ... then I gotta go do work.

Ok we got an invisible star or two in some systems so we don't overload on orbital colonies. Give it level 5 cloak, since it's not really an object, but level 4 cloak in gravitic.

So you could find the point once you researched high enough in the Gravitational tree. (Yeah, I know anyone who can draw an equilaterial triange can find Lagrange points, just working on technobabble explanations here - it takes some work to find a stable point in the system)

Say, here's where I'm getting my Lagrange point information: NASA web page

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Planetsizes don't have abiliites. Entries in the Sector types don't have abiliites. For the planet to be chosen in a random map it just has to have these two things.

Do you mean set the created to true? That would probably keep it from being placed randomly, but IIRC there is a hardcoded restriction making all planet size entries with "created=true" require being made from a star. I don't think you can make them from asteroids.

Geoschmo

[ December 12, 2002, 20:16: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">actually, you would want to set constructed to true. the component would have to create planets of that size, and asteroids would have to be that size or larger. and of course, the game would have to let you create planets of a size Category reserved for stellar constructions, which it might not. its worth a try though.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">IIRC Giving the star a cloak abilitiy doesn't work. You can still see the star. Same for planets, warp points and storms.

You can give a facility on a planet cloaking ability.

Geoschmo

[ December 12, 2002, 20:15: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">IIRC Giving the star a cloak abilitiy doesn't work. You can still see the star. Same for planets, warp points and storms.

You can give a facility on a planet cloaking ability.

Geoschmo</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ah, oh well -- I still like the idea of some rare Lagrange point invisible stars -- but then someone would try to build an orbital colony on an ordinary star, oh well

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't see this as a problem. I like the idea of them being regular asteroids than can be made into planets later once you develop the stellar manip tech. I see the asteroid colony as a new tech comparable to the colony techs needed for colonizing different atmospheres. But it gives you a component that you can use to turn a standard asteroid filed into a colonizable asteroid field. As far as the game is concerned this colonizable asteroid field will just be another planet. But it will have the image of an asteroid field and be colonizable, or destroyable and turned back into uncolonizable asteroids.

The random placement of this new type of colonizable asteroid planet is a problem. But can be easily bypassed by making the maps before the game. You can make a random map, not look at it, save it and load it into your mod game when you set it up. Not hard at all.

Geoschmo

[ December 12, 2002, 20:25: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Here are the results of my test:

The special ability number does not affect the map generator from placing a planet.

Setting constructed to "true" restricts the planet from being place by the map generator. If you set the sphereworld/ringworld to false, it will place them on the map.

So, it should be easy to create a component that converts asteroids into the specified size.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Continuing:

Create a new entry for planetsize.txt (not the position # of the entry) and set constructed to TRUE. The map generator will not place it. Create an entry in sectype.txt that corresponds to the new size with a pic.

Create a new component that generates planet with the ability set to the position # of entry. This should create the "new planet".

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Kwok, you missed my previous point I think. THe created=true planets have to be made from stars. They cannot be made from asteroids.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

It might be Place Constructed Planet that specifies it needs a star.

However, I did some in game testing. Not successful. The Create Planet must conflict with Constructed=True setting, because it reverts to the next viable entry and counts that as the position # corresponding to the value for Create Planet ability.

[ December 12, 2002, 20:45: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

hmm.. other problems with LaGrange points:

as mentioned, space colonies will be able to be created on top of a star. not so bad, except that means the star goes away. also, as space colonies are constructed, solar supply available in a system goes down, because the number of stars drops.

if regular stellar manip is enabled, then sphereworlds can be constructed at lagrange points. grr.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

new idea: LG points can be asteroids instead of stars. this makes since, since clutter tends to gather up at these points, and most of them have their own little asteroid fields. they can be beyond huge asteroids, to differentiate them from normal asteroids. then space colonies can be created on that special extra-big size (as long as their facility numbers are kept low)

or, they can be asteroids that are marked as constructed worlds. or, they can be constructed worlds that are planets but look like asteroids. or look like nothing, if thats possible. then you would just need some way to do something with them that would not involve randomly placed space colonies during map creation.

or, it can be a 2 part construction process, where its a constructed world that you need to blow into asteroids, that you need to turn into a planet. naw, thats just silly.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Now this I like -- some rare new asteroid type, using no asteroid picture (or a starfield background) called a Lagrange point, that a special planet creator component will use exclusively to create a space colony.

Can we:
1) make a new size of asteroid field
2) make a component that only works on this size field (unlike the current one which uses any size field to make an appropriately sized planet

Anyway, how big is this space colony going to be? A large or huge planet of optimum climate? Or what?

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Why should you need a special type of asteroids to make an asteroid colony? All you should need is to research special techniques that would give you the skills needed to colonize an asteroid field, like SE3. That's one thing we all wish hadn't been left out.

Geoschmo

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah well thats a separate question. An asteroid colonizer would be nice. We're just trying to mod in a purely space based habitation.

It would be noce if there was a stellar construction smaller than a ringworld, it could be faster to build. A begining stellar constrution tech

I read about how impractical in real world physics a sphereworld would be -- but a construted surface, surrounding the planet Jupiter, at an appropriate distance from the planet to make 1 g of gravity -- would be plenty of (domed) living space -- we could extract energy from the heat of Jupiter.

Let me save you some time. Do we need this in SE4? No.

Would I like a component that turned a gas giant into a huge airless rock world? Sure. An earlier than ringworld constructed planet would be fun.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

I see another problem with option 2. If we use the create standard planet method (asteroid colony), the atmosphere will be random. But you can mod the planet size so there's no difference between a domed colony and an undomed colony.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually this can be avoided. Assuming we make a brand new planetsize for the colonizable asteroids, you simply only put entries in the sector types file that are none/rock for this planetsize. The game can't choose a random atmosphere if there are none to choose from.

Geoschmo

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

i really wish we could get the space colony / LaGrange thing worked out. I have been wanting to find a use for the gas/none colony component pic since forever.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Very cool ideas guys. I am going to see if I can throw some more ideas/comments out there that might be useful:

I was primarily thinking space colonies NOT in asteroids, but I like the asteroids idea very much too. It just hadn't occurred to me.

Does anyone know if/how abilities.txt can/may be modified?

One possiblity for space colonies might be to ->
1: make a new asteroid size with a star field picture that is smaller than a tiny field
2: set the map generator to place one of these with every planet and possibly at LaGrange points as well. Nifty stuff about LaGrange points, thank you Arkcon for posting the NASA link.
3: make a new planet size for the space colony with space colony pictures. Here would be incoropated Urendi Maleldil's idea about making it have the same stats whether or not it is domed.
4: create the new component which could then specifically target the new not-asteroids to make them into space colonies. (1 fac, 100M pop max)
Is this possible? If not, why not?

A possibility for asteroid colonies ->
1: make 5 new planet types with asteroid pictures, corresponding to the 5 basic planet sizes. Here can be used geoschmo's idea about only putting map generator entries with rock/none or ice/none. If your race does not breathe none, then changing the atmosphere can represent the area being made more habitable / larger domed habitats.
2: make a new component that can turn specific asteroid colony sizes out of specific asteroid types. If these are randomly generated by the map generator, I do not see a problem. So what if there are some asteroid fields that already are suitable for colonizing?
3: blanace this by making a level one or two planetary weapons tech component that can destroy astroid colonies relatively cheaply.
Is this possible? If not, why not?

Thank you very much - LostCommander

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Abilities.txt is nothing more than a reference for modders.
It is never loaded by the game.

The first idea might be possible, though the space colony generator would be able to turn huge asteroid fields into teensy little space colonies.
I suppose if the player wants to waste all that valuable real estate, its thier choice.

I haven't had much luck with teensy planet types, though, so don't ask me for details.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

1: So, will matter gravity spheres condense any asteroid field size into its level of planet making ability?

2: Another idea for asteroid colonies -> Could one make Gas Giant / None planets with asteroid pictures? How about low level components that can create and destroy only these particular "planets"?

- LostCommander

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This could be done. However once you have made this "not-asteroid" the game will use it for random placment of asteroids as well. You can specify it anywhere you want, but you can't prevent it from also being randomly placed. This may or may not me a problem though.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, but as SJ says it could also be uised to make space colonies out of regular asteroids too. Again this may or may not be a problem depending on your POV.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If you don't have entries in the sectortypes.txt file coresponding to the new space colony planet size with anything but none atmosphere, then building an atmosphere converter on the planet will have no effect. It's the same reason you can't convert a gas giant to a none atmosphere. They don't exsist as far as the game is concerned.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">planet creator comp cannot be limited to the size of asteroids it can change, only by the size of planet it can create. So any size asteroid can be converted to whatever size planet that creator is capable of making.

Geoschmo

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

The hurdle is getting the map generator to avoid placing the specialized planet entry, while allowing a planet generating component to create one.

We can set the Constructed=True for the planetsize.txt entry to stop the planet from being placed by the map generator - but that nullifies the Create Planet ability!

We also know that the value for Create/Destroy planet corresponds to the planet size entry position, i.e., 1 for tiny, 2 for small, etc. However, changing ringworld to constructed=FALSE (and even after special ability to zero) and using the Create Planet value of 6, it still did not create a single ringworld in many tries. Hmm, what does this mean? Not sure.

Also, the size of the planet create IS BASED ON the size of asteroids that it is made from!

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

you may have needed a bigger asteroid field to create the ring from.

regarding manualy placed gas/none planet types that look like either nothing or asteroids, i think the game explodes if you try to place gas/nones.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm not sure that is a problem. The Precursors left all these other ruins scattered all over the place, a few abandoned asteroid colonies would hardly be noticed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

What would happen if you placed a Remote Miner in the same sector as a colonized asteroid? Would it recognize the colony and not mine?

[ December 13, 2002, 20:40: Message edited by: capnq ]

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

yeah, because it would be a colonized planet at that point, not an asteroid.

so if tiny sized planets are 1 on the planet creation ability, what happens if you want to make something smaller than that? you could create a smaller planet size, but i think the component would always try to make small planets. you would have to set the asteroid size smaller too.. so you would have to make sure all asteroids were of that same smaller size. then of course, regular planet creation would not work.. but im not worried about that.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">When you make the new make the new smaller than tiny planet size it becomes size 1. You have to bump all the exsisting planet creators up one. Then your new astro comp can make any asteroid field into the new micro size planet, but the other comps make planets from tiny on up. You don't need special asteroids.

Actually, the concern I had was that the game would sprinkle these new teensy planets all over the place at game startup . And this is true, however since we only need to add one entry to the sectortypes file they wouldn't be placed very often. Much less than other planets.

Geoschmo

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

so as long as we are willing to ignore asteroid colonies from the progenitors floating about, we dont have a problem.

now how do we work those space colonies and LG points?

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

No, we do have a problem. I just ran some quick tests. When you add a planetsize smaller than tiny, there is a wierd side effect. In the system types file that regulates randomly generated systems almost all planets are the size of "any", meaning a random selection. However, in some cases the planet size is specified as "huge", and then some moons are placed in the same sector. (Apparently Malfador didn't grow up om the same planet as the rest of us and thinks moons only orbit Huge planets. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

Anyway, if you add a planetsize smaller than tiny, then any where you specify "huge" as the planet size you get a null planet. That is, something is there, but it's unusable, and has no image. Very strange. If you change the entries in the system types file to "Large", or "any", you get planets there.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Geoschmo

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

GEO! I think you may have discovered the problem behind my horrible experience in trying to add micro moons back in February!

Does this sound like the same problem as back then?
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=004712#000010

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Yep yep. I ran into the same problem Last year working on Admirals system mod. Didn't figure out why till just now. Well, still not really sure why, but at least I know what is happening.

Geoschmo

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

thats not so bad. we can solve that a few ways:

find and replace on "huge" with "large"

create a duplicate "huge" planet type, resulting in a possible error, or double the number of huge planets out there

create a planet size larger than huge, so that planets specified as huge will be the next size up (maybe).

this does beg the question though: are planets that are specified as "tiny" (like moons) now being represented by the smaller sized asteroid things? do we need to change this to 'small?'

and what does this do to planet selection at game creation? do poor and great starts still give you the same planet types?

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

I don't know what results you get by removing some/all of the standard sizes. I do know you have to go through the SystemTypes.txt file and remove any references to the old types. You also have to go to DefaultColonyTypes.txt (I think that's the name} for each AI that has one and remove planet type entries for those sizes.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Gee... This is a lot more complicated than I thought it would / could be... I think I am going to stick to resource stations with cargo space...

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

Ok, great news!

First, another discovery. Adding a planet size smaller than tiny does cause the moons that are specified as tiny to come out as small as you guessed it might Puke.

But adding the new planet size has no effect on the player planets. An "average" start results in a medium planet, and a "Good" start results in a large planet. The same as the stock files.

I modified the systemtypes file and every where it called for Huge I changed it to Large, and every where it called for Tiny I changed it to the new smaller than tiny planet size. The results were better than I expected.

The planets that are specified as Large come out as Huge, like they are supposed to be anyway, and the planets(moons) specified as micro come out as tiny, like they are supposed to. So we end up with the new planet size and everything else exactly as it should be. And no need to add any new Huge planet sizes as you suggested Puke. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

The game does add a few of the new planets in a random map, Typically one or two for a small map, and 4 to 5 for a large map. I don't think that is all too bad. Even if a player got lucky and had one in their home system it's not like it would be a tremendous advantage or anything. Actually it could be a slight disadvantage because it would take the place of a larger more usefull planet.

Geoschmo

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

cool! thanks Geo!

now for the LaGrange points. what if we made them as a starfield shaped planet type, that you could colonize? and if the game placed more of them, no big deal: more naturally occuring stable gravitational points. maybe they could be gas giant types - gas colonies are described as being orbital anyhow.

Re: Orbital Colonies
 

The LG points can't be planet types. If they were you could just colonize them. If they are stars you can use "build constructed planet" on them and if they are asteroids you could use "create planet" on them. Either way we need an extra planet type to be the space colony.

The problem with the first one is that some systems could end up with an LG point at the center instead of a star.

The problem with the second one is that the map generator will place planets (not constructed planets) just like normal stellar objects. And you can build a space colony on asteroids too.