Thoughts about sphere worlds

Baron Munchausen · #1 November 28th, 2003, 07:23 PM

More than economically (though that is a problem too) it's just not physically realistic. As pointed out, there is no material strong enough -- cannot be a material strong enough -- to make it work, and even if you could build it there would be other problems like the effects of rotation on the non-equatorial regions and like where does the solar wind go? The Ringworld idea by Larry Niven is much better.

SE V is going to be a very different game. Maybe there won't be ringworlds/sphereworlds at all, or maybe just as 'artifacts' that you can configure in the map instead of buildable in the gameplay.

Fyron · #2 December 1st, 2003, 04:49 AM

You could use all of that solar energy to create fields strong enough to hold the SW together.

narf poit chez BOOM · #3 December 2nd, 2003, 06:17 AM

Quote:

and what is this about flying dolphins!?

well, i made a remark about a (short) story i read once that had people flying in an orbital habitat using (suits designed off dolphins) dolphin suits.

Makinus · #4 December 2nd, 2003, 12:27 PM

Talking about sphereworlds: there is any way to create a map in SE4 where all the empires, or just some of them, start the game in a sphere or ringworld?

Or to create unihabited ring/sphereworlds in random locations in the map?

Fyron · #5 December 2nd, 2003, 05:51 PM

You can make a custom map where each race will start on a specific RW/SW that MUST have the correct atmosphere and planet type for the race that will start on it, or else it will be converted to a huge planet.

Baron Munchausen · #6 December 2nd, 2003, 05:56 PM

Theoretically, you could just put 'ringworld' or 'sphereworld' into a new system in SystemTypes.txt and this new system would be generated in the usual way according to how you setup the QuadrantTypes.txt file. The problem would come when the empires were placed. If you were just relying on random placement there would be no guarantee that a ringworld or sphereworld would be selected.

And even when it was selected the way the creation of a homworld works is hard-coded (will not respond to the AI file settings) and you'd end up with the default number of research and other facilities and 100+ mineral miner facilities. If you started with some good organics/radioactives planets nearby I suppose you could scramble to get those started and start to exploit your resources but it's still a bit clunky.

You could design a map with deliberately placed ring/sphere worlds and set starting points on them to insure that empires were placed in them. This doesn't fix the above problem, though.

Fyron · #7 December 2nd, 2003, 11:11 PM

Actually... half of the space after the SP, RD and SY and one Organic Farm and one Rad Extractor is used for Mineral Miners and the other half is used for Research Facilities (with the extra facility if there is one for MM). So, you would not get 100+ mineral miners, youd get 50+ mineral miners and 50+ research facilities (assuming a planet size of a bit over 100 facilities).