Planets!!!!!

[Mark123jansen]

What are your thoughts on the planets in the game:
-different classes of planets and their properties
-Alpha centauri what clas of planet wil it be
-will earth be in the game and will it be M class (maybe barren because destroyed by aliens/nuclear war)
-need for special facilities on different kinds of planets(pressure domes and the like on moonlike and barren planets, special bioprotecion measures on Mclas (killer alien virus??)etc)

[Vultur]

These ideas are in "design phase": we have already decided to have an enhanced "weather system" that will allow to have different climat condition (polar zones, desertic plains, etc.), so will be possible generate desertic/icy planets for expert gamers/advanced colonization/specific scenarios.
We have decided to consider also different kind of pollution (dust, chemical, nuclear fallout...)
Any idea/comment/suggestion will be ever welcome.

[Mark123jansen]

how about terraforming any ideas on that so far

[Mark123jansen]

I have a thougt about non earthlike planets:
for example a moon class planet: you have to do a lot of work to make a city on that rock, build hydroponics for foor, domed cities, but... moon class planets are very rich in minerals, +1 or maybe +2 or 3 minerals per square. so you have to do some serious terraforming or food import to create a city there but youll have an industrious powerhouse at the end.
also gas giants could have orbital cities wich barely have any minerals or food (some minerals from moons/asteroids and food from hydroponics) but they produce HUGE amount of energy (by siphoning deuterium from the upper atmophere of the gas giant)
and the earthlike planets will produce quite a lot of food and will thus become your population centres.

[DeathByTheSword]

i like the idea of different kind of planets but one problem is gravity...to colonize planets that are bigger than earth will be very hard because of the bigger gravitational pull. we would need some very high tech stuff to over come that! planets smaller than earth (the moon, mars) will be much easier...only problem there is that after the first generation of settlers they can not go back to earth because of there weakenend muscles....so i do like the idea but i would say a lot of different techs will be have to be made!....maybe besides the normal tech tree (build, discovery, military, explor) also a colonize tech tree. because every different kind of planet needs different kind of units and equipment. it would give rise to a lot more units and facilities....i think that if you have 2 different kind of planets you need to different kind of rovers/infantry/airplanes and even weapons.....so i like the idea! (again!) but we need to do it right! and that would mean a lot more diskspace needed for al the new techS!

[Disparat]

I think you must be careful to tread the fine line between intricacy and convoluted mess. Too much unnecessary complexity can frustrate players and possibly turn them away from the game. Furthermore all these extras equate to more coding time, more bugs, more testing etc.

Now while I think all these ideas are good, it might be worthwhile to tone some down. Having completely different units and facilities for every type of planet is a lot of work, however a couple unique units and abilities may make the game more fun. The thing with the gravity is an interesting concept but I'm not sure that it would do anything other than frustrate the player. Perhaps having different names for the facilities and units for the different planets may do the job. Different art as well maybe. If you make everything different and completely unique balancing gameplay may become a nightmare.

Keep in mind these are just my thoughts; please don't take anything personally, I'm just trying to help.

[DeathByTheSword]

so am I disparat and i am not saying we should do what i proposed but if we want to have a realistic game (as realistic as sci-fi games go ) we need to think about the gravity concept!

[Mark123jansen]

we need to think about the gravity concept!

if gravity is to be incorperated into the game, I would suggest the MOO2 solution: planets whit extra high or low gravity suffer a production and/or popultation handicap, and later in the game certain facilities will elavate the G-restrictions.