Orbital Colonies

[Urendi Maleldil]

It could be used for asteroid colonies.

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Urendi Maleldil:
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).

I think this one a fantastic idea. At least, I did once I looked up what a Lagrange point was.

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 ]

[Puke]

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.

[geoschmo]

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

[Arkcon]

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.

[geoschmo]

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. 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 ]

[Captain Kwok]

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 ]