I love that you can see large structures from orbit or from another moon/planet. However, I would also love to see a planet that has a layer of clouds so thick that you can't see the surface. It'd also be interesting how this affects radar and vision radius of any number of units. Or maybe, once you're on the surface, there's really no difference, but there would be a disconnect between orbital units and ground/naval/air. Imagine attacking the planet, you wouldn't know if someone had already landed, even if you used a radar satellite. Defending the planet may be more of a challenge as well? Is this something that could be implemented easily? Should someone work on a mod rather then incorporating it into the official release in December? Or maybe a patch down the line?
I remember hearing/Reading about clouds somewhere. Ha, yes, it was in a discution about random effects (don"t ask for the exact source, can't pinpoint it :-( ). I know the dev team is not in favor of random effects. Clouds could block the vision for one player but not for an other one, giving the last one an unfair advantage, thus things like that are unlikely to happen in an official release. But i'm sure someone will mod it if possible
I'd be fine with this so long as the effect only reduced unit vision and (to a lesser degree) radar distance. Obstructing actual visibility is a good way to bury an entire planet's worth of art assets under "so lame," comments or "clouds imba, nerf nerf".
Do you mean something like this??? If done right the transparency should keep everything visible but still add some awesome depth to the look of planets. ---Edited--- Yes, i really like stellar rings on planets if you can't tell!!
Now that you mention it, there really should be clouds on the planets. It would be pretty cool if there was weather too. Like you said, there should be a planet with clouds so thick you can't see the surface unless you are under a certain zoom level. It could be a lava world with intense ash storms on the surface or an ice world with blizzards going on, stuff like that.
Clouds would be cool, as would rings (Can't have Saturn or Uranus without them, though Uranus needs to have the rings on a different axis). I think something like TA's acid tileset would work for Venus as a terrain type. It's a harsh environment, even machines degrade over time there. I don't know if it'd be a great game mechanic, constant slow damage over time, but maybe. It'd just take having a few builders patrolling around repairing things I suppose. Well, as long as you remember to have someone fix your builders too. I like the idea of a cloud cover mechanic though too. Obscure view from satellites and so on. Could make it real interesting, since advanced radar sats give you perfect view now, would force it to normal radar dishes and a lot more surprises.
Any visual effects like clouds,rain,thunderstorms,hail and snow should not influence visibility, it should be an aesthetic effect only. Perhaps by making clouds only visible at the celestial view and the horizon. While not visible on the side of the planet you're actually looking at. Icons should remain visible enough to easily distinguish them. Now I can only dream, but it would be pretty cool if weather played an actual role in terms of energy collection. Imagine rainclouds giving bonusses to waterplants, and sunshine could favour solar panels.
now that I think on it, a cloud layer or some other high atmospheric disturbances could be an interesting element in the interaction between ground and orbital, e.g. without influence on suborbital stuff. It would add a certain "limited" orbital approach to certain planet types. Think launch windows for ground to orbital, or localized detection protection from orbital satellites etc. Ok, it falls somewhat into dynamic/random-ish behaviour (static clouds/effects might work too for certain cases), but I think it would be a nice variation for the inter layer activity from an orbital perspective, kind of like terrain effects for that layer. you might have to spent some thoughts on the visual representation, but hey nothing nice is for free.
I am pretty sure the devs said there would be no weather, not for gameplay influences or only aethetics when the game releases. Not really their priority. To make this a mod would be really cool though, like Chronoblip said.
I'm thinking something uniform across the planet. Not so specific that only a single player would be affected at any given time. A single cloud layer between air units and orbital that is "so thick" you can't see though it (from orbit). Not sure how I feel about the same cloud features on the ground. I know the dev's have stated they don't want to worry about clouds/weather, but I don't think it'd be that difficult to add something like this. I like the idea of ash/ice causing the "clouds".
Made another video Demonstrating Dynamic Atmosphere's. I made the planetoid very rough and spikey so you can see the depth of the dynamic atmosphere.
maxpowerz, can you make the clouds so thick that from orbit you can't see any land or water? what happens when you zoom in enough to start controlling your armies?
Yes i can make the coulds soo thick it limits visibility. its easy all i need to do is up the could diffusion it will make them Thicker. it can be done realtime So in the end if its added to a game it can be dynamically enabled/disabled, and dynamically lightens and darkens or thickens and thins out. i will render a THICK atmosphere for you and post a pic. Ahh there done,, Panet "Fog Of War". When you zoom in you can see the ground but its very hazy and white, limited visibility distance.
Ok Zoomed out with OverKill Fogging/Clouding With the camera at the spot arrow points to in above pic. This limits player and maybe unit visiblity HEAPS, good for those who want hard to play games , where you can hide units in cloud/fog cover. good for hiding things visually , but wont work on radar you'll still see icons, as you should be able to see the icons on radar just not see the units visually as the fog should block your view or limit it. Radar in real life isn't limited by weather, Radars that track planes can still track aircraft through thick fogs and clouds, you just can't see the planes from land or above when there in the clouds but radar knows the location still and very accurately too.
i myself think that they shouldn't affect visiblity, not just because its the future and robots would be able to map through fog, but because it hinders gameplay. I would much prefer light fluffy clouds that don't affect visibility (very transparent) like in my video above. I think having thick dense clouds like in the pics i posted just above is too much, cool idea but i would hate playing in those conditions, but not everyone is like me some would maybe enjoy being able to stash or hide units/commanders even whole bases in fog.
I had envisioned it where the clouds didn't actually make it all the way to ground level. They were only in the upper atmosphere. Only after I thought of this, did I think that it 'may' be interesting if they limited visibility on the ground. Though, I'm not crazy about the idea myself.
ok.. I'm retyping this again at home since my phone derped out and never posted: I'm all in for clouds greatly reducing vision, both from orbit and in air battles. This would add to air battles when terrain features add to ground battles and it would have a similar, but lesser effect on orbital battles (it only blocks the advanced radar satellite LOS, it doesn't hide satellites). But I disagree with clouds limiting radar. This would balance them since you still get to see that there's something in the clouds, additionally this would make (basic) radar satellites viable on cloudy planets since advanced radar satellites won't be able to see.
