Planets and Resources

[jars_u]

Originally Posted by MarcoPolo

...I also hope pre space faring worlds and civilisations are an option...

I think that an excellent idea that I would also like to see implemented in some fashion in SL - could add some real depth to the game on a number of levels.

[MarcoPolo]

If theres one other thing that I would like to see in this game. It has to be a wider variety of stars and terrestrial or gas planet types as in games like Hegemonia, and maybe include the different orbits if there are binary or trinary systems. The models used in Free Orion Planets and stars are inspiring but i would enjoy orbits displaying habitable zones and the like. Adding more of a realism not yet seen in games of this type.

I think adding these levels of realism can create a new game dynamic that could open other tactical considerations akin to Civ4 terrain types, where each planet type has its advantages/disadvantages, whereby resources and production are balanced on these properties. Hopefully creating a richer game environment that adds another consideration for planet hunting other than just seeking the richest earthlike planet and hording such worlds willy nilly.

Without a balance in place of resources vs habitability the game would quickly become a mad dash for earth havens. By this I mean some players may have a huge number of habitable worlds but very little mineable resources, because it could be feasable to say all the rich mining and resource gathering for a space faring civilisation would happen outside terrestrial worlds. Primarily on asteroids belts and gas giants. Of course this doesn't negate the importance of terrestrial worlds offering sufficient resources at least to get your civilisation off the ground and onto the next rock. But if its abundance and a strong economy that the player is after then one can surmise that the rest of the solar system is where these riches are to be made.

[Xrati]

Ever play SE4 with the finite resources turned on?
Entirely a different game, requiring a different build strategy.

[pydna]

On the other hand MarcoPolo, I could design my race to live on Gas Giants. Hey let those hooomans have their rocky water worlds. I'll take Jupiter :-)

[MarcoPolo]

Yeh hehe. I was also thinking the same thing. I believe I posted something about having 15 races split up into 5 distinct types, each type being able to have different more favourability to living in hostile barren or acidic or as you put it gas giants, so that not every race will be seeking the same world types. Kind of like a Starcraft-esque feeling to having that diverse dynamics allowing for completely different conditions for victory and conquest. According to my little list your race type would probably fall closest to my race 5 denomination, being methane worlds and hot jupiters as a habitat.

If it were upto me I would offer those different race advantages and disadvantages in order to spice things up and have a richer universe of alien types. Can you imagine how that throws a spanner in the works for players? Just think, if your human in the sol system, you not only have to think about safeguarding your homeworld and colonies, but perhaps also routinely making sure your gas giant planets that are primarily only used for mining with orbital platforms... suddenly infested with low orbit settlements from some gas entity. Would make for some interesting tactical considerations in the game Or 2 gas planet dependant species vying for the same jovian worlds in some titanic battles.

Good idea dude. To this point I had only considered terrestrial worlds and their variations from hostile acidic, barren, volcanic, water worlds, to artic ice worlds as variation enough to get aliens vying for their preferred rock types :P

Well keep the ideas coming people.

[pydna]

Perhaps rather than hardcoding the definitions of 15 races maybe each race is based on 3 or 4 hab range characteristics, this determines the type of planets they like.

These have are not absolutes, for instance lets say I find a world that meets most of the criteria for being habitable by my race with only one criteria just outside what I need. I could colonise the world and aim to terraform it to make it fully habitable.

Ofcourse some other race may have liked just how it was...gee I wonder how wars get started??

[Gregstrom]

That could create interesting dynamics. Your colonists aren't going to be arguing over real estate, but there's some potential for serious disagreements over mining rights.

[Gregstrom]

That'd be pretty much like the system Stars! used. It's good, but I'd like to see the differences between rock worlds and gas giants represented better.

[jRides]

I would prefer at least some control over the planets. I would agree with the idea put forward to scale it up into zones. Either the player selects or the planet defines the zones. These zones then increase in effectiveness with population and tech - limited by the amount your willing to spend on planetary improvement.

Besides the staples like Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial, Mining and Research you could get more defined with zones like Shipyards, System Capitals, Religious Centres, Military Bases and so on.

As you research and unlock new building types, they are just added to a zone as a bonus as it builds up increasing the output of the zone with multipliers. Refinement could come by allowing you to focus specific zones - like a research zone into a military research complex giving bonuses to weapons research or adding second slipway to a shipyard (can now build two ships of the same type at the same time and ofc doubles its resource use).

You could get quite deep into it, optional choices like amount of focus a specific zone gets: percentage of improvement budget, percentage of workforce assigned etc. if you wanted to change it from your empires default.

As to the resources - again I agree that SE's three resources worked well, it would be nice to see a few more maybe as a second tier in that they are rare and would only be used in such things as trade, luxuries or some weird weaponry type. It would mean systems/planet abundant in this rarer tier of resource might become more desirable, or research focus into better extraction/refinement of these resources an option, just not a required one.

[MattII]

What's going to be the smallest object that we can colonise? Something around the Size of Pluto? Or is it going to be smaller, around the size of 2-Pallas/4-Vesta, or 31-Euphrosyne, or, hells how about 13-Egeria (still over 8 million cubic Km)?

As for resources, 3 works well, although I wouldn't say no to having some rarer ones in as well.