Planet Diversification

Some beautiful illustrations on the first page. I hadn't thought of those colour and atmosphere options but I think they would add so much diversity and now that I have seen them I will miss them if they aren't in the final game

Hope one of the devs acknowledges the ideas, hopefully with an affirmative.

Another thing I would like to suggest for planet diversity is mountain and plateau size. Currently, both of these things are relatively small, with normal sized buildings towering over them.

I would love to see, once the pathfinding for mountains and plateaus is hammered out, gigantic versions of these things. You know, mountains you can walk artillery up the side of and fire on enemy bases down below, mountains so tall and jagged that they defeat radar and some air units, that you can launch satellites off of with minimal resource use.

It would really capitalize on the importance of height advantage, which is one thing I absolutely loved about Advanced Wars.

"In war, one should seek to take and hold the high ground. From there, the enemy's movements are clearly visible, and he will struggle just to reach you, let alone fight you. High orbit is the highest ground there is."
— The Codex Astartes, Warhammer 40000

Yeah, the terrain is currently a bit too flat. It'd be nice to have big hills, mountains, canyons, etc.

I'm thinking of a Command and Conquer Generals map which had a long canyon going through the middle. It was the fastest angle of attack, but very vulnerable to units on the high ground on either side.

Yeah the thought of fighting on top of a huge mountain seeing units fly off when they explode, or fighing in a deep canyon. oh man

There are some good ideas in this thread.

Personally, I would like to see some planets tidally locked to their host star so that one side is always in daylight and the other side is always in darkness. This is actually very realistic as this would be the likely outcome for planets that orbit close to dwarf stars. Such planets would have their biomes located not symmetrical about a equator but instead arranged hot to cold from sun side to void side. Depending on other factors there might even be a habitable zone at the terminator. tidally locked worlds may also still move a little by oscillating in the X and Y directions which would blur the line between the biomes.

I would also like to see worlds so close to their suns that their day side is not tolerable to units which instead need to hide in the shadow of the night side. When these worlds rotate or oscillate the units would need to to keep moving or they'll get caught by the day light firewall. An advanced tactic might be to use a moons shadow to cross the day light side as cover so a small army could approach the enemy from a unexpected direction.

Sun variability is very important too. It's not really planet diversification, but it might be part of the map generator. There should be everything from blue super giants to red dwarfs at least, but additionally protostars, brown dwarfs, white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes too, not to mention double and triple star systems which combine these types. Star variability would be more then just a cosmetic difference as they could change a range a factors that may effect gameplay. For instance they could also change the likelihood of things like solar flares or the chance of being struck by a rogue comet. The worst case scenario would be a predicted supernova but this would just add a ticking clock to the match, which could be convenient for people who like a short game.

This thread is cool.
Its the kind of thing that should be in the Backers Lounge.

Now only if we can get the dev's to look at it.

yes tidal-affected biomes would be great

Yes, but it won't be a real biodiversity until you include yeti's, lamas, birds, and giant squid that eat large ships to a pirate theme (and chase your hat).

Very good thread ! I was just thinking the Same thing.

"Downtown LA" for the atmosphere thickness xD

Hey, me again. Sorry about the necro, but with the recent livestream, I think it's a good time to revive some of the topics brought up here.

tylerseacrest, earlier in this thread, you showed some neat screenshots where you changed one of the biome textures to blue. I would highly suggest that you continue on this, possibly making an in game utility that would allow you to change the biome color in the planet maker if possible. This was the main thrust of my OP, so if any devs are reading this, please run it up the flagpole!





Environmental Hazards: I remember in the past, the devs shot down the idea of environmental hazards like tsunamis and random meteor strikes, because they really don't contribute to the game, they just randomly screw someone over. What I suggest is something like a global hazard, or modifier that otherwise makes a planet more or less desirable than another planet, leading to a greater strategic assessment of which planets to settle upon. Hazards such as:


High gravity- slows unit movement, may prohibit air units or rockets.

Global radiation storms/EMP- disables ALL units and buildings on a planet, or causes them to malfunction. (nukes should have some EMP effect too)

Global warming- flooding of coastal regions due to too many units or buildings on a planet, asteroid impact, etc.

Nuclear winter- following a nuclear war or asteroid impact, ice caps expand, covering ocean and land.

Orbital eccentricity- planets in highly eccentric orbits may freeze and thaw annually, wreaking havoc.

Global firestorms- from nuclear war, eccentric orbits around a star, or asteroid impact, damages units.


Before sending builders or commanders to a planet, you will be able to tell what the hazards, metal content, etc. are before landing, so you don't get caught with your pants down. Maybe an observatory structure would reveal these details.






I think it's high time we talk about stars, specifically the variability and distribution of them. Of course, the main objective of the game is to be awesome, even if realism has to take a hit, but we've known for some time now that the number of red dwarf stars far outnumber larger stars, by nearly 10 to 1:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_dwarf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_cl ... sification

I'm not saying that PA go so far, as to populate the galaxy with 10 times as many red dwarf stars as Sun-like stars, but I do think there should be a distinct outnumbering of larger stars by red dwarfs. Sun-like stars would almost be an uncommon commodity, while red dwarf systems would be more plentiful, but less productive. We know that red dwarf stars are very 'termpermental', emitting gigantic sun flares in minutes. Some of the intrinsic properties of a red dwarf system:


Reduced metal extraction- tidal effects sink useful metals to the core, leaving little on the surface.

Increased energy generation- tidal effects generate increased geothermal power (energy)

Increased radiation- red dwarfs can erupt giant sun flares in minutes, or be covered by sunspots.

Tidal locking- one side of the planet continuously faces the sun, leaving a small habitable ring (for organic life), perhaps the sunlit side could be too hot, or have too much radiation to build on?

High wind speeds- high wind speeds from hot and cold sides cause aircraft control issues.

Useless gas giants (hot Jupiters)... or... Maybe MORE useful gas giants? So red dwarf systems can be fuel depots between oases.


*I think tidal effects should come into play with moons, like how our own moon shows one face to the Earth at all times, so should the moons of PA




Seasons: In the recent video, one of the devs showed how orbital distances can vary hugely. On Earth, the seasons are caused by the tilt of the planet, in fact the winter season in the northern hemisphere is when the Earth is CLOSEST to the Sun. I think in one of my previous posts, I suggested an option to adjust the tilt in the planet maker utility. Seasons can also be caused by highly elliptical orbits, severe seasons. Like, oceans freeze over, or boil away. Not saying you should go that far, no one would want to settle a planet that periodically resurfaces itself, but I think there definitely should be some noticeable changes:


Ice caps expand and recede.

Green grass turns yellow.

Oceans heat up/cloud cover increases.

Foliage/plankton blooms.


It's also a neat visual way to tell the passage of time. As far as the biomes changing color at the onset of new seasons, it goes back to having some mechanism to change the biome coloration, be it a tool in the planet maker utility, or some in game thing that automatically adjusts or randomizes the color based on the distance to the star, size of the planet, etc. so the closer it gets to the star in it's orbit, the yellower the grass, or the redder the trees, the larger the deserts etc. all dynamically. Presumably, asteroid impacts or nuclear war will cause climatic changes on a planet, so I think this should be possible.



Comets: like icy asteroids, virtually the same except with a lower mass, less health (against antiasteroid missiles), and of course a vaporous trail when it gets close to the star. Just a small tweak of a normal asteroid.

Maybe there ought to be some differences between different asteroids, for instance real life asteroids can be metallic or carbonaceous. Maybe metallic ones can be heavier, stronger, and slower to accelerate, while the stony asteroids can be weaker and faster to accelerate.

sorry double post

WOW ... that's exactly what I had in mind for the final planeteditor. Espacially the slider or selection options for how the landmasses are created like more continential or more pangea-like. Really great work there.
And the ring-creator is a MUST :-D

Thanks!

I remember PA supported Planetary Resources' Arkyd 100 telescope, I was thinking mining metallic asteroids would give you a HUGE amount of metal. Like a metal extractor on an asteroid would give you 5-10X as much metal as one on a planet. There wouldn't be much area to build them, and you would have to choose between mining an asteroid and hurling it towards your enemies depending on your situation.

Also, larger planets would have fewer metal, but more energy, and vice versa for smaller planets. Based on what we know of planets in our own solar system, smaller bodies cool faster, so they wouldn't have as much geothermal energy.

I love your ideas for the planet generator, but I highly doubt there will be anything like seasons in this game. They would look cool, but ultimately add very little game play compared to the effort the devs would have to go through to make them. ESPECIALLY if they were to be procedurally generated in a realistic way. I'm all for making the planet editor have more options, but I honestly wouldn't be concerned if there was an earth biome planet where pluto is in our solar system, it wouldn't break immersion for me because I'd be too busy destroying anything resembling a habitable zone to notice where it was. I know it would for a lot of other people though, but there are always custom solar systems where you can place all the habitable planets in the goldilocks zone and put gas giants out farther and whatever else to build your perfect solar system.

Now your point about different planets having "environmental effects" like high gravity, or meteor showers is something that I like a lot. I've posted a few times about the need for planets to have a definable difference from each other as far as gameplay rather than just appearance. I want to make tactical decisions about which planet I try to conquer next based on more than just "I need more land" or "that's where the enemy is".

So I guess this idea is dead?

+1 to the original poster, really nice idea and great art work!

Definitely bumping this topic. Amazing ideas all around here. Do want.

Curious if this was a topic touched upon by the devs yet..

Epicness approved. +1

kind of reminds me of Spore GA, which also gives you options for colours & stuff like that.

Has to be in the game. I hope they can do this.

I don't think any devs have posted in this thread, but I would be really interested in what they think.

I have a few additional ideas, one being to have terrain deformation wherever there's a boolean function. So if you have a crater subtraction, you will have a small hill under it, so the rim of the crater is elevated, instead of flush with the terrain. It might add some polys to the terrain mesh, but nothing too extreme:



So wherever there's a crater, there will be a small hill before. Another way to think about it is that in the process of making a crater, a hill is made in the terrain mesh first to match the size of the crater carving mesh. It's just for aesthetics, but this could be applied to mountains, to elevate the terrain and somewhat overlap with the additive mountain mesh (for blending the terrain with the additive mesh) , or with canyons, so you can taper down the rim of the canyon, so it looks a little more weathered. I guess this kind of deformation could also happen from nukes, asteroid impacts, etc. you just need to add a hill to the process.

Is there a dev-mode where you can see the wireframe of a planet? I don't have alpha or beta access, so could someone post a screenshot?