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  #1681  
Old November 29th, 2004, 07:08 AM
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Default Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List

Fyron I really do hope that in some small way Aaron will get board with working on SEV for a day or so and address at least this one bug.

I know why he won't, and it makes me kinda sad to think about it. Oh well, will just have to live with it.
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  #1682  
Old November 30th, 2004, 02:41 AM
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Default Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List

Quote:
Renegade 13 said:
One thing in SEV I'd absolutely love is something that other people have suggested previously: Very detailed planetary/solar descriptions. For example:

Name: Sol III
Gravity: 1.00 standard G's
Atmospheric Composition: 74% Nitrogen, 22% Oxygen, 3% Carbon Dioxide, 1% Other gases
Planetary Conditions: Optimal
Planetary Surface: 77% Water, 17% Landmass, 6% Polar Ice Caps

...and so on, and so on. These wouldn't necessarily even affect how your race is able to thrive (or not) on the planet, or use it for resources, but it would add a lot of realism and its just plain more interesting that way!
Why wouldn't it? You could determine a planet's habitability based on these numbers. Or even on the part of the planet that is useable by you. This would limit the number of people capable of living on there in much the same manner as atmosphere type currently does. Worlds would then be classified as gaseous or solid, I suppose.
Hell, you could even get aqautic worlds.
Thusly, a Land dwelling race would be able to colonise the land parts of a world, and you'd have population restrictions based on the availability of land.
This means that while you could colonise practically any solid world, you'd be better suited to colonising those worlds that have a greater amount of land.
In addition, subsequent research of Ice colonisation, and possibly aquatic colonisation would open up those areas of the worlds for habitation, thus increasing the population limit. Also, you could restrict the ocean, or surface areas for aquatic races, based on atmosphere, since aquatic life is going to need domes on the surface, but not undersea, and vice versa.

Additionally, I would like to see domes removed for races not needing to breathe, since it makes no sense for an android race to be restricted to domes with no atmosphere in them because they can't survive in atmosphere.

Regarding star system description, I think it should be flexible, depending on the state of the star system at the time.

Also, again regarding planets, it would be nice for star systems to possess habitable bands, and for the worlds in these bands to have better planetary conditions than those outside of it. This should affect the planets themselves, too. Those planets further out should have more polar ice caps and land than water, as well as planetary conditions.
Those planets closer to the star should have considerably worse planetary conditions but only land. So while land would indeed be abundant, it would be abundant in less hospitable places.
Because of this, giving the planet a distance from the star(s) would be required. Also, giving the stars a strength factor, which of course increases the total system star strength, would be required to set the habitable band.
Also, the description of a dyson sphere, which is what I assume sphereworlds are, is that it is a massive interlocking set of platforms, and while it wouldn't block out the sun completely, it should at least decrease its strength for the rest of the star system, meaning the habitable zone would be shifted inwards.
To deal with the ramifications of this, you could in fact create multiple 'bands' based on how far the world is from the habitable zone, and the further it is, the worse the initial planetary conditions, and the faster any change in this will be over time. So although you could conceivably alter planetary conditions using climate control facilities for a world a stone's throw from the sun, getting rid of them to build other things would mean that this work would rapidly be undone by nature.

In the same vein, you could increase the stars per system limit to 3, and it would be a good idea to limit their construction to be at the centre of the system, so it just doesn't look weird (also, creating a star at a distance of say, Mars, in an already existing system would destroy the system, which would be silly. Anyway, the 9 innermost sectors should be the space limited for this.
Also, construction of more stars, while it would increase the effectiveness of solar collectors in that system, would rather dramatically shift the habitable zone, so while in a system with mostly distant worlds this would be a good thing, it wouldn't be so good for systems with worlds closer up to the habitable zone.
On the worlds themselves, there would be gradual shifts in planetary conditions and in the amount of liquid water or ice. It seems strange that there can be ice worlds in a trinary star system where there are 3 intense stars. If anything, they should be barren desert worlds, possibly with the water locked in clouds that never rain, like Venus, but maybe without the poison.

Also, through this, one could change an ice world to a rock and water world. Using terraforming facilities or ships, you could push for the species' ideal habitation type, though it would have to be kept there for all time, to stop nature from taking its course. Having a starbase in orbit that not only defends the planet but also keeps it snowballed sounds like an achievable tech.

Also, in regards to Atmospheric percentages that were presented in the above quote, I would suggest that allowing a race to breathe the atmosphere if there is at least a 30 or 35% presence of their required atmosphere. For the hell of it you could throw in 'Atmosphere toxicity' as an attribute that could be resolved by the atmosphere convertors alongside the normal atmospheric makeup.
For example, an atmosphere with say, 40% oxygen would be breathable by humans if it weren't for, say, the chlorine gas that makes up another 20%.

Also, on a different subject, there needs to be a better reason to capture a planet, than there currently is. Right now, in SE4, it seems so much easier to just kill everyone and repopulate with your own people. I think this should be addressed.
Also, if the combat is indeed going to be real time, may I suggest that Imperium Galactica 2 has an excellent method of doing this. It is fully 3D as well, and doesn't require extravagant system requirements to be this way, as the ships have low poly counts.
Weapons have recharge times as well, and there are also fighters. Above a planet, the battlements on the planet are also capable of hitting the starships. And while I realise that the idea of having satellites and starbases orbit during the battle sounds a good idea, the reality is that the orbit speed suggested is likely to fast for the time period the battle supposedly occurs in. Perhaps a movement every couple of turns would be better representative of this.

Wow, long first post.
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  #1683  
Old November 30th, 2004, 03:12 AM

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Default Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List

Long post indeed, and good suggestions in it! Welcome to the forums
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  #1684  
Old November 30th, 2004, 03:31 AM
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Default Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List

Just some notes on astrophysics:
- If you break up one star into a binary, the energy output (after it settles from the action) will be dramatically lower. You'd be turning one yellow star into two dim red ones, or collecting massive amounts of hydrogen from somewhere.
- Planets can easily be ice in a bright/multistar system, they'll just be farther away.
- Orbits in multi-star systems will generally be unstable. Really close to one star, or really far from the group of stars, or locked into a resonance with a binary's orbital periods would work though. (Planets at the lagrange points of a pair of cool stars?)

-----

As an extention to the breathing thing, perhaps a couple of classes of breathability:
- Optimal
- Filter/concentrator-Assisted (passive, gas-mask style)
- Isolated-assist (active, scuba tank type stuff)
- Fully Domed ("space suits" for outdoor activity)
- Deadly (Just too nasty, people in domes still die off regularily)

Some sort of piecewise curve for productivity/reproduction/death rate/pop maintenance costs

You'd need to be in the first two categories to have no major penalties to population limits on that part of the planet, the first three to avoid major work penalties, etc.
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  #1685  
Old November 30th, 2004, 07:50 PM
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Default Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List

Talking about crew and such...

Maybe a flag or indicator for components that will designate a component as being able to carry crew (ie: small portion of population, or individual crew type units) like a cargo space would....

And if that component is destroyed, then the 'cargo'/'crew' would be destroyed and have to be replaced....

Kana
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  #1686  
Old November 30th, 2004, 11:38 PM

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Default Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List

Quote:
Suicide Junkie said: can easily be ice in a bright/multistar system, they'll just be farther away.
An Ice planet could also survive in such a system if it had a REALLY dense atmosphere.
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  #1687  
Old December 1st, 2004, 12:40 AM

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Default Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List

A dense atmosphere could also trap the heat, along the lines of Venus. Surface hot enough to melt lead.
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  #1688  
Old December 1st, 2004, 01:10 AM

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Default Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List

Quote:
Renegade 13 said:
A dense atmosphere could also trap the heat, along the lines of Venus. Surface hot enough to melt lead.
True but it can work both ways.

Anyways I have a little Idea, Atmospheric Fighters:They would be able to enter the atmosphere of a planet and much more easily to take out space ports and such... also you could use them to help Troops
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  #1689  
Old December 1st, 2004, 02:47 AM
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Default Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List

Mayday, I quite like your ideas on planetary conditions. The idea of a habitable band within the solar system where the planets most suited to your race would be found would make a great addition to SE5. The only thing is that we would need more than just a little green star over a planet to let us know it's habitable if things as complex as atmospheric composition were taken into account.
I can think of two ways of adding this level of detail without making it too complex for new players.
1) A slight rework of the Conditions Category. Assuming a planet is roughly habitable, the Conditions will be compared against your homeworld to determine it's habitability. So a planet with a bit more sulpher in the atmosphere than Earth's might be Unpleasent, and so forth. If a planet doesn't match your race's requirements (ie: Methane atmosphere for a Oxygen race), the conditions will read Uninhabitable, though that wouldn't stop you from putting down a dome colony.
2) Underneath 'Planet Size' add 'Available Landmass Size' (ALS). This expressed as a percentage of the planet's 'normal' available space. So you would have 50%, 75%, 100%, 125% and 150%. For simplicities sake we could use Small, Medium, Average, Large and Huge, with the percentage in brackets. ie:

'Planet Size: Large'
'Available Landmass Size:' Small

This would describle, for a terrestrial race a large planet made mostly of water, for example. This would of course require that a player pick whether they will be a Terrestrial or Aquatic race when creating their empire. One also have technologies that would eventually eliminate the penalties and increase the bonuses from ALS.

Just for an example of the Large/Huge ALS, imagine a planet the size of Earth (considered to be Medium size), but covered mostly by land. That planet would have a lot more space for terrestrial races to build stuff, even though it was the same size as Earth.
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  #1690  
Old December 1st, 2004, 11:28 PM
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Default Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List

I had a lot of free time at work today, so I came to thinking up this design for a 4X game... feel free to steal any of my ideas
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File Type: txt 314678-imperia stellarum.txt (13.5 KB, 198 views)
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