Gas giants Good or Bad?

[DirectorTsaarx]

For those floating colonies, I picture something like Cloud City from SW:ROTJ. Just imagine many of those floating around a gas giant, and you have a non-native colony.

BTW - a variant of this discussion was carried on at length many months ago, and led to MM adding a feature that allowed you to set "Colonize only home planet type" or "Colonize only native atmosphere". So, if you really don't like rock planet life forms colonizing gas giants (or vice versa), just choose the "Colonize only home planet type" option at game setup.

If you're looking for an option that allows certain races to colonize anywhere (why should energy beings care what kind of planet it is?), that's a bit trickier. Probably would have to mod the colony techs to be racial techs, and chosen at game setup. The problem is that the first colony tech should be free, but not the second and/or third. Anyone tried this?

[geoschmo]

We made a uni-colony component for Devnull mod that became available when all three colony techs had been researched. I suppose you could easily make this a racial tech and allow the race choosing it to colonize all three types earlier.

I think in terms of what will be technically possible in the far future, colonizing gas-giants is a lot more likely than many of the other things that we take for granted in SEIV and other Sci-fi literature and games.

In terms of strict realism I think it's way less likely that a species native to a gas giant could develop the tools nessecary to build ships to leave their planet than it would be for us to go there. But if you try to make the game fit into strict realism, it wouldn't be very fun.

Geoschmo

[mac5732]

I like to play Gas Hydrogen, or Ice Hydrogen, I just feel it gives me a small handicap against the AI, as there are not usually that many good ones close to each other especially Gas, but when you do find one its usually a 20-25 facility world. Use these for base in that system or area until you either research, steal or trade for one of the other colony types to expand.

In regards to reality, don't judge other races, species or their possible capabilities by what the human race does or thinks. An Alien culture would be just that and possibly everything about them would be strange or impossible to our way of thinking, but yet anything is possible. It wasn't that far back in our history that landing on the moon was considered sci-fi and never happen.

just some ideas mac

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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In regards to reality, don't judge other races, species or their possible capabilities by what the human race does or thinks.

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Right. But if we can do it with today-ish technology, then it can't be that hard for a spacefaring race.

[ 31 January 2002: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]

[Egregius]

I'm glad for the 'can only colonize home planet type' option, as taking over a neutral or just conquering a race with a different planet type gives you way too much advantage.

Anyway, if Gas giants are inhospitable because of the winds, the poles should be large enough and windless enough.

[Egregius]

Actually there should be an option to make colonizing other types possible via research but not capturable.