worlds thread

[targon]

Originally posted by Jeremy Buloch
Yes Oceans aren't exactly needed.

Unless you want some geological activity at platetary scale.
With uncovered rifts, always oxygen-hungry mantle will keep oxygen level really low (as it did during early stages of Earth history, hundreds and hundreds million years).
Of course, you may "switch off" all the geology (say planet has small core; or even initial metal content was so humble that core formation does't count). This means no mountains, no rifts, no continents other than "primal crust" created during heating accompanied planetary accretion. Someting like Moon but with atmosphere. Dull smooth ball.
Yes, you may also remove ocean water via some bizzare process (like Venus or Mars), but this can't be true for "M-class" as it's joined with very threating things like very high/very low temp.
Oceans also are very useful for maitaining of planetary themperature at near-constant value. You see, water eats much more solar readiation compared with terrain, and keeps that heat during long times. Oceans transfer heat via flows of enormous scale, which work like heat radiators for near-polar regions. They are planetary-scale conditioning system. Without oceans, equator regions will be fried while polar frozen.
So ocens are vital for any "M-class" plantet, IMHO. And thanks Nature, water is't especitaly hard thing to find in space. So completely ocean-less planets may be dramatical mistake.

[Blake]

I think the 3 things to classify [colonisable] worlds by are:
Size <- Random
Temperature <- Random
Water Coverage <- Determined from Size + Temperature + Random

Atmosphere density is mostly a function of size and temperature, the quality of the atmosphere mostly water coverage.

Altough the world generator should be able to generate any sort of world, I would broadly classify worlds as:

Water World: Less than 5% land. Warm and wet.
Jungle World: 5-20% land. Warm and wet, but with more land. Mostly long stringy island chains and the like. A diverse biosphere, but mostly variations on creepy-crawly jungle dwellers.
Earth-Type World: 20-50% land. Quite a lot of arid land in the interiors of continents, coasts are mostly fertile. A diverse biosphere.
Desert World: 50-80% land. The coasts are fertile, but most the land is desert.
Barren World: 80-100% land. Biosphere is likely to be poorly developed, with most the land being devoid of all but the hardiest life. The oceans and coasts harbor life.
Dead World: 100% Land. Too small or cold oceans to form and life to prosper, which is not to say life isn't there, but it's not too happy with it's lot.
Ice world: Stuck in a permament iceage, virtually all the surface is covered in ice or frozen rock. These places are downright miserable places to live, colonists like them least of all. They make for wonderfull prison colonies.
Too Darn Hot world: Too close to it's star and with a dense atmosphere, these worlds are extremely hot!. Mostly classified as "too hard" to colonise, altough with a nice solar shade the temperature can be reduced to acceptable levels.
Airless worlds: Small worlds, too small for atmpshere. Cloudless days, nights and eternities make these worlds great for observation platforms and mining.

[DeathByTheSword]

er..blake size is importent to large a world cant be landed on because of the gravity pull. to small a world would mean almost no gravity pull and would mean decreased immunity system and decreased bonestructure

[Blake]

And what was on the top of the list.

[DeathByTheSword]

ok then i dont understand what you mean with random....size cant be random

[Blake]

size of world = random
I mean it's not determined from any other parameter of the world, comprehend?

[DeathByTheSword]

oh ok then to all

[Jeremy Buloch]

Sounds good blake. I agree to the fullest extent.
-J.B.-