Orbital Colonies

[Puke]

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.

[LostCommander]

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

[Suicide Junkie]

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.

[LostCommander]

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

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by LostCommander:

2: set the map generator to place one of these with every planet and possibly at LaGrange points as well.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

[Captain Kwok]

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!

[Puke]

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.

[capnq]

The random placement of this new type of colonizable asteroid planet is a problem.

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.

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 ]

[Puke]

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.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Puke:
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.

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