I had a brief perusal but what I'm asking is too close to being a binary system to find much. Would it be possible to have two solar systems which are independent of each-other (but close enough to travel between)? Just curious if this would be possible, or if everything has to orbit a single point 'star' (regardless of it being binary). I'd imagine a game mode with 12 - perhaps one team per system (imagine having an entire planet free to prepare for war!) or 3v3 in each system until one team held a system each. Then the two systems would fight it out, flinging asteroids and shooting death rays... Basically this mode would likely make for either a brief lull in a 3v3v3v3 as people prepared their asteroids for warfare/interstellar (close!) travel, or provide a long 'No Rush' mode, which would make for some much bigger economies/battles and ultimately more explosions. I'm aware these solar systems are planned to be enormous enough to hold like 40 people in one - I'd imagine these to be smaller. I'm just wondering if this is possible - it might make for a cool transition/continuous gameplay if you could play (for example) a 3v3, win and immediately merge your game with another 3v3 that just ended and keep whatever remains of your econ and army, and fire it at the next nearby star on an asteroid. Of course this mode would be completely optional - tea is important too.
Kinda'. It may be possible to throw two stars onto the one server, and then throw planets at each star. But it's literally on the one server, at the same time. I don't consider it to be multiple solar systems, just a rather unique single solar system. It wouldn't be a case of win and instantly move on to a new fight as that other fight could easily come and rain on your parade when you're not ready for it.
I'm sorry man.. I just really can't get past your handle. Regarding actual question, at least for now, it's well outside the scope of current plans. It's not impossible, and in some ways, not even that hard, but.. for it to feel like two separate solar systems, we'd have to vastly expand the celestial view, and probably even create some kind of gameplay verbs to support moving between solar systems.
Poll in this topic just remembered me Fallout 2. : - ) Most people have evil spirits. You? You have stupid spirits. Go see shaman, get hole in head... Big hole... Very big... Huge. - Sulik
In game terms, no, it is not. It's a metagame-overview-map thing. You don't play within a galaxy. You only ever play a match on the solar system level. The Galactic War (like boneyards) is just a way to link your smaller battles. The Galactic War is not a fully realised galaxy. 'Galactic Warfare' as you put it, consists of clicking on a planetary system and then going to a loading screen while you load into the actual game.
I know it wouldn't feel like actually separate solar systems, but would the engine right now already support multiple suns? I'm talking about hiding the default sun, adding the suns in the planet positions and putting the actual planets in the moon positions. That is of course, if the sun is actually just a regular planet and if the lighting model supports multiple suns.
Speaking of light, is having a binary system going to influence planetary generation or orbital speeds? 'Realistically' having twice as much radiation could allow for greater deserts/jungles on a planet depending on the amount of water available/the planet's orbit.
I'm not sure if the sun determines the regional center of gravity, or if that's simply a point a 0,0,0. I'd have to ask Gaf about it, though I assume it's tied to the sun itself. So making multiple suns/binary/trinary systems might be possible, but it would play serious havok on the orbits of things. If we do that, we'll want to take the time to do it right so you can make sensible orbits of all your celestial bodies.
To be honest, while the grand scale of being able to travel between solar systems looks good. The headache I will get from managing all of that is not.
If it were created then I'd envisage a scenario in which you didn't start solar-hopping until you had settled whatever was going on in your own solar system.
