I wonder if the game engine could support the movement of land mass over time, or maybe something like floating islands that can drift around. I know its not realistic to see that happening in real time, But as we are aiming for awesome, I think this could open up a few new new strategic opportunities. Like new mountain ranges being formed, or huge canyons tearing through the terrain.
well, putting aside the fact that even in a game during 24 hours you would'n probably see the effects of tectonic movements (unless you want to unleash the effects on those 24 hours), i don' t think it' s a complexity degree of the game that the developers will want to implement. But hey, probably a Programmer/modeler/geologist combo of modders will do something about it. Same thing for the floating islands. With the chosen implementation of the planet generator, making floating terrain should be pretty easy ( or maybe not? during the union operation between the planet and a new model, do they need to intersect?), but then again, modders could easily do the work, so Uber will focus on the core mechanics of the game
Those are not really strategic opportunities, but more a constant application of a random number generator to the playing field. Ok I am exaggerating, but I can't really see how this adds anything good to the game, besides being a non-serious fun feature.
Just remember the game isn't aiming for realism, its aiming for awesome. So long as its fun to play on then why not? The movement doesn't need to be random, it should be possible to be very deterministic, causing the same set of mountain ranges to be created on each play through.
This would have a very large impact on the game, Uber already said that they do not want to incorporate (too much) random events during gameplay. Bases which split into separate islands, volcanoes and earthquakes, which are linked to plate techtonics sound exactly like something we do not want while interesting on its own, it simply does fit with the current design. This is something that fits a god-game like populous/from dust/black and white. On the technical side, I also think this would be very hard to do as this would be very resource intensive to do real-time. So even if it were possible, it would just not be worth the cost. Maybe next generation of PCs (16 thread CPU cores being mainstream) it won't be a problem anymore, but until then, someone may try to mod it, but my guess is that it will kill the framerate. On the other hand plate tectonics (or an emulation of plate tectonics) could be used during the generation stage of the planets to create more believable mountain ranges for instance. But you would not be really seeing it in real time.
I bet Scathis wishes he'd never said that noow, and I bet the person that edited the video wishes he'd done it differently. Scathis said that in response to a question about whether there would be sound in space, not about every aspect of the game. Please stop taking it out of context, and please stop using it as justification for otherwise undefendable suggestions.
The issue is people are suggesting additions that make the game complicated and take resources away from developing the important stuff.Sure we can do this but why? We will already be able to destroy planets and there is only so far you can go in simulating an environment and adding features before a game like this becomes an irreducibly complex mess. For me when a game becomes stressful to keep going I don't want to play, PA will be hard enough to track across multiple planets if we add in random disasters and things like plate tectonics there are too many factors to take into account and people will go mental lockdown. These things take place over extremely long lengths of time too so it isn't viable to add. The game is going to be complicated enough based on its premise and testing a new type of game so its best to keep it rich but still simple as possible.
Earth is the only planet in the solar system to have tectonic plates, and they move at a rate 1/1000th as fast as your hair grows. If I see them moving at all over the course of a game, my suspension of disbelief will be replaced with pure rage. What happens if your shipyard is in a subduction zone? What about a tank sitting on an orogeny? So many units would have the potential to get stuck or destroyed that it would feel like fighting the world instead of the opponent.
Plate tectonics makes sense in context of large-scale actions, for example, kinetic bombardment and other massive weapon effects that can radically alter planet's landscape. Background simulation of litospheric plates movements is probably unnecessary because of nearly-zero effect of that process relative to game duration - location and spatial orientation of plates just need to be updated on corresponding ingame effect (i.e. weapon strike).
I am all for (awesome) Plate Techtonics! But I am the kind of player who likes a challenge, and not to be pandered to. I've spent hundreds of hours playing the dark souls games so I could be wrong person to ask too.
You pretty well summed up my thoughts on this. People toting around "Because awesome" banners with their subjective views could really make for some horrendous game play once implemented, as well as significant feature creep issues. One of the design tenets right from the start was to have a 'readable' battlefield. That starts with unit design and game play not having hidden modifiers that are invisible to the player and ensuring that at all the times "what you see is what you get" particularly when you are playing across multiple battlefields. This is also the reason why dynamic weather which impacts game play has received a no. It introduces random events which would mess with players through no fault of their own (or another players). Weather for cosmetic purposes may come later, but not in a way that impacts game play. Something like plate tectonics is something that introduces randomness for no game play gain. Asteroid weapons ARE "Awesome" but they are also something that is started by players and can be stopped by players. It is a completely different situation to implementing randomness.
maby this could be a super weaponir metal planet weapon type that can open a large rift on a planet to destroy one enemy base but then the metal planet self destructs from core meltown
but then we will also need an unit type "titanic" with a serious weakness to icebergs. ..a few weeks later...screams concerning the imbalanced, overpowered icebergs will echo through these forums, the first iceberg commander mod will rise...icebergs will be nerferd, discussions on how unrealistic iceberg-immune titanics are come up ... (and somewhere in between hell will freeze over (complete with icebergs on underground lava oceans ))
