Planets: square or spherical?

How about if you zoom out above a certain level you get a full view of all planets, using some kind of projection to map them to the flat 2d view and when you zoom in one a specific position of a planet at a certain point it changes to show the actual spheric-planets, with the planet that you zoomed in to rotated in a way that actually directly shows the place you were zooming in to begin with?
You also could add a possibility to rotate the planet when you are zoomed in, but it would be possible to just zoom out completely, get a quick overview over the whole map and zoom back in to a specific position on a specific planet.

I guess that is fine.
As long as players are not forced to use the 2d option.

Then it should be above the solar system level, cause we still need to know the distances between celestial bodies.

There might be some small questions about visuals with it, how do you animate the procession of zooming out to the max level? How do you fill the blank between those flat maps properly?

And I still don't like map projections, knowing a enemy unit or enemy missile's speed is quite important in some situations, those things would be distorted in a map projection, especially at the top and the bottom of the map. It might be not a matter in spore's simple rts stage, but it might be a matter in real rts games.

I'm not totally sure about that, macro games can be quite intense or even fast paced.

Doing the flat game area visually projected on to a sphere helps with whole minimap "issue", however it causes some oddities when trying to reconcile a 3d world around what is supposed to be a planet.

Going fully 3d solves those issues, but makes simple mini-maps more difficult. Cartography research for showing an entire planet has generally been able to work with the assumption that the poles aren't important areas, so major distortion is acceptable. That's not a reasonable assumption for PA.

I've given some thought on doing a mini-map for a fully 3d sphere. We could do an azimuthal style projection based on your current view to show the entire planet in one circle. Or we could show each half of a planet, or use a cube map like cross. Another option is of course to not show mini-maps at all and simply rely on a fully zoomed out view showing units on all sides of a planet with those not visible faded or darkened.

As for which option we choose, flat square or fully 3d sphere, that'll be determined by early prototypes to see which is most viable. As such we can't make a definitive comment on which we choose at this time.

I like the sound of azimuthal style projection with two halves of the planet shown, one centred around your position and the other centred on the opposite side of the planet. It is clear where the discontinuities are and all units would appear exactly once on the minimap.

Sounds good. Maybe players could even choose the minimap projection they like best.

Is there any practical way to turn a spherical planet into a flat map in the main view? I assume with square planets you will be able to view the whole planet as a map like in Civ 4.

edit: Doh, guess that was already answered. My bad!

True 3D RTSes can be done on a planet/asteroid way up to interstellar level. A good indie example is Light of Altair:

http://www.saintxi.com/

That Light of Altair screenshot is exactly the kind of underlying topology I am hoping for.
I want to be able to use the poles exactly the same as the equator, for base building and launching attacks. For example, many of the planned cold war routes for bombers were polar precisely because the earth is spherical.

The hexagonal construction of the map still allows for templates, although you lose the ability for right-angled bases which I guess might worry the americans among us more if you want to go by city design :lol: (I jest, please no offense :mrgreen: )
In terms of mini-map design, either accept a distorted rectangle, or how about a spherical mini-map that you can rotate.

As we are fighting on spherical planets, there is no perfect solution and compromises will have to be made. I would just prefer that the compromises didn't affect the polar areas of the planet. I want to fight on balls dammit!!

The two halves view sounds ok, but I think it's possible you won't need a minimap.

A scenario just popped into my head:

There are 2 main windows. Window 1 shows a zoomed in view and window 2 is always zoomed out. People with 2 monitors have a window on each screen. People with one monitor have window 2 in the corner, like a minimap, but with a view of the actual game world, not a diagram or representation (except that it shows unit icons including radar view).

On the zoomed out view, notifications appear e.g. "high enemy activity detected" "units under bombardment" "enemy airstrike incoming" etc., some of which rely on radar type buildings. Clicking on a notification in window 2 takes window 1 to a zoomed in view of that action. Also, right clicking anywhere on window 2 takes the zoomed in window 1 to that point.

The whole solar system can be rotated by click and drag. Ideally this window would show the full solar system but I guess that would depend on how big solar systems can get.

A minimap of the individual planet you're on might be helpful in addition, even though that makes 3 windows.

TL;DR: Make minimap a full rotatable solar system.

Trouble is, that you can either use the same rectangular grid for bases all over the globe OR you can use the poles.

Free movement, free alignement
Sure, you could go the spore-way and freely place building all over the planet and offer free rotation of the sphere in all directions and axis, but it is incredible hard to navigate on such a structure and you will end upside down in the end. Didn't matter for spore since the "RTS"-phase was only focused on micro managment und you rarely needed to traverse to the other side of the planet, but that type of controlls is not suited for a game where you need to construct complex bases spanning the whole globe. You also loose the ability to build structured bases since there is no grid on such types of planet!

It is also impossible to create a proper minimap of such type of world since there is no representation which is in the right scale for every spot of the planet.

• Most flexible
• No grid for base layout
• Terrible controls
• Minimap can not be created

Mapping cylinder to sphere
The second possibility to build a planet is to start with a cylinder, pinch the bottom and top sides together until they form single points and you get a nice, almost distortion free zone along the equator where you can use rectangular base layouts. The camera only rotates around one axis of the planet and you can not traverse over the poles. As a result this type of mapping is the most simple to understand, you never end up side down and you keep a good overview all the time.

Problem is, that you can't use the poles, but you have a neat rectangular grid for your bases which spans the whole planet.

• Rectangular grid for base layout, but distorted
• Useable minimap can be created
• Intuitive controls
• Poles are not usable

Geodesic dome
There is a structure which offers a kind of regular grid and resembles closely a sphere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic_dome
Trouble with that one? You have a grid, but its not rectangular. Execept for 12 spots on the globe it resembles a hexgrid. The trouble with hexgrids is, that you can't combine buildings of different size without wasting space, there all structures would need to have a uniform size. Also there are 12 spots on every planet where the hex grid gets disrupted, possibly breaking your baselayout.

And again, like the pure sphere, you can't unfold this type of map without loosing the scale.

• The whole planet can be used
• Grid is not rectangular, but almost distortionfree
• Propper controlls are possible
• Grid breaks on small planets like asteroids
• Minimap is impossible

Dynamic grid
Well, there is yet another possibility. Stick with the limited camera movement we had when mapping a cylinder to the sphere, but instead of trying to force a single grid onto the whole planet, we use multiple, local grids instead, one for every continent. Allthough this adds a new restriction, a planet must allways have natural borders which allow you to break the grid at that point. And again: Mapping this type of layout into a plane makes you loose scale again and you will need to rip appart lokal grids.

• Grid is pure rectangular
• Propper controlls are possible
• Grid breakes on planets without oceans
• Minimap is difficult or impossible

Mapping cube to sphere
If we wan't to use all sides of the planet but not loosing our rectangular grid, when could "simply" map a cube to the sphere: http://mathproofs.blogspot.de/2005/07/m ... phere.html
Except for 8 points on the sphere (the spots where the former edges were) we have a allmost rectangular grid with only little distortion. This map can actually be unfolded into a T, but it will ripp appart any bases which have been build on the edges of the cube.

• Grid is rectangular
• Single grid on the whole planet
• Propper controlls are possible
• Minimap is possible, but not intuitive
• Grid is highly distorted at 8 points per planet

But there is still one problem every mapping has in common: You can't display the whole planet at once without disturbing the scale or ripping the map appart. It's simply impossible, you can never present the 3D-surface of a sphere in 2D.

I like this idea.

Both could be proper 3d projections of the planet in question.

But then there's the question of having moons, asteroids and other planets in the same game... This is going to be one of the major considerations, how to make all of this work in terms of being playable for the average player on a regular flat screen?

I don't think we're ready to don 3D goggles and plunge into a fully 3D virtual world just yet, lol.

If a build grid has weirdness I would rather not have a build grid. Mapping the faces of platonic solids to a sphere will result in distortion and points where less buildings can share a corner than usual. I think planning your base then realising that you've spawned on one of the vertices of the icosahedron would suck and break immersion.

Why couldn't we have a structure placement system like the one in Generals? Buildings could even line up automatically and snap if placed close to each other.

I don't see camera movement as a large problem, just give people the ability to rotate the camera. I think people would eventually get used to looking at things from different angles every time they scroll, if not then they can realign their camera.

As for the minimap there are a lot of ways to project a sphere onto a plane. None of them preserve everything but I don't think the minimap needs to preserve everything.

What if, say, Shift + scrollwheel would, instead of zooming in or out, move over the planet, so to say? So you can easily view the other side of it?

I am not technically minded so I can't suggest ways for you to achieve it but...
PLEASE have it so the game plays/feels like TA and SC with the square/rectangular maps where all can be seen when zooming in and out.

I do not want it to look like the demo/spore with a spherical world where you can't see beyond the horizon and you will have to forever be spinning the globe left and right and up and down to see where you are going and what you are shooting at.

I would think most of your backers are fans of TA and SC and are hoping for more along those lines. To completely change the way the game feels and plays with a globe like in the kickstarter demo would not seem a good idea to appeal to those masses in my mind.

Ultimately though I think you, as the developer, will have to decide because the voices on these forums and even those on the kick starter page are still the minority when compared to the silent 90% of the 20,000 backers and all the potential buyers of the completed game so I and we will have to trust you with it...now please make it the way I say haha

if it doesnt look like planets in the final game, why would you call it planetary annihilation, i hope it looks something like in the video and I think it will.

Well, the player doesn't view the whole map at once if it's a sphere, he views from only one point. This suggests to me that a pretty good projection can be used since he only needs to focus on a relatively focused area.

Well, ideally in my mind you would be able to zoom out far enough that it might switch into the solar system view and then you would see the planets. Then you could zoom back in on another planet or moon switching back into the traditional view. Or you could have the planets favourited and so you could jump from one planet view to another directly.

Seconded.

I want real planets, not some hack :|

That didn't work in spore either, you literally got sick of this type of camera movement and you always needed multiple attemps to get to the right spot of the planet.

No, free camera movement except for screenshots is an absolut nogo. The camera movement must somehow addept the controls of SupCom, zoom out for a view of the full surface and zoom in on the location where you want to go. You need to be able to get to every point of the planet just by scrolling and moving the cursor. Also the angle of view at a distinct zoom level must always be the same, it may not change unless the user decides to change the angle.

Sure, real planets would be realy nice, but spheres are troublesome when you try to find a propper 2D representation. And the average PC monitor is still 2D.

A lot of what's being discussed now has already been brought up in previous pages. So far it pretty much boils down to:

- With squares you can see everything, but looks strange (flat planets?!) and interplanetary actions would be a little strange to watch
- With spheres it's 'actually' planets, but can't easily see everything

Most arguments stem from these two points. Obviously there have been other points made, so sorry for the generalization.

Perhaps they could make the poles impassible, so maps are cylindrical and wrap at each 'end' (though there isn't really a true end of the map). Very much like Civilization 4 and 5's, but remaining 'flat' when zoomed out. When zoomed out even further, it would change to the solar system view and show spherical planets/objects.