Will metal planets ever get oceans?

But what's the default? What is the 'Standard' that the core game is designed around?

Mike

I had the expectation that PA would be a modern TA remake without the old engine limitations. What I see now is a completely different game, that tries to redo everything and I dont see how its any better or at least as good as TA was.

Where did you get that idea?

Mike

If liquid/water is implemented for metal planets, it would look awesome if it was a liquid metal like mercury.

yes but radioactive potentially viable source for a new resource as well for even more units and unit ideas!

I think they should have liquid coolant or liquid metal for oceans... that's just me.

I thought we had already gone over this in the 'Should Metal Extractors Be Buildable Anywhere' thread. The short answer to what the standard amount should be is, it doesn't really matter right now, and an option isn't really dependent on it because a standard will very likely be revised in future patches of the game. As a reminder, early in that thread, Neutrino said: "What about making it be optional?" in response to the Yes/No polling. I mean, that's like saying there shouldn't be an option to adjust ocean coverage, because there is no 'Standard' amount of ocean coverage. It's not as important as you're making it out to be, certainly not enough to discount the option outright. There's already options to adjust to adjust the height range, the water level, the biome scale, a whole host of things, and yet can any of you express the STANDARD amount of these characteristics numerically? The answer is whatever's at the middle of the slider, lol.

It's a really weird criticism to leverage against these suggested options. Should there be an option to adjust the amount of X on a planet, or if X is even present on the planet? No, because you can't tell me the standard amount of X. Time and balance will yield a 'standard' amount, not someone's best guess on a forum.

But if we are going on best guesses here, I decree the standard amount shall henceforth be... 5

Now let's get that option in game!

Looks like we got a couple ideas here for what the oceans could be made out of.

Oil: Ignites, damaging units in range of an explosion, maybe it helps fuel ships?
Coolant: Slows down ships, makes them vuenerable to attack. Power gen bonus.
Acid: Slowly degrades unit health.
Water: Plain ol' water.
Lava: Cannot be built on, mainly eye candy. Maybe can be mined on?
Nanites: Glowing green goop that heals your units/buildings and speeds up construction and repair.
Non Newtonian Fluid: Bots can run across, while ships travel extremely slowly.
Mercury: Tanks can float across, while ships travel extremely slowly.

I'd love to see all these as options in the planet creator. I imagine it would be a matter of taking water and tweaking the colors and shaders around, as well as some minor property tweaks. Something like oil would have similar properties to forests which burn down, while Acid and Nanites would be mainly color changes with minor property tweaks.

Don't give me that, the clear argument here is whether or not Metal Planets should have Water Features, when I say what should the standard I'm not talking about how much water, I'm talking about water being available at all.

Mike

How about green toxic coolant instead of water?

I already covered this:

The default would of course be no water. Even the people who want this option don't think all metal planets should have oceans by default, or even that the majority of them should. Personally I'd just like to see a small portion of them in the randomly generated galactic war map, and an option in the planet maker.

I would HOPE there's going to be some for the galactic war to change the makeup of the galaxy. If you don't want metal planets with oceans on them, you can just turn them off. I'm confused by what you mean by 'default'. Do you mean in a randomly generated galactic war map, the default is whatever metal planet type, with oceans or without, is more numerous? Or as in when you fire up the planet maker and select a metal planet template, it automatically has oceans? Both of these norms can just as easily be flipped around so the opposite is the default. Problem solved!

But there's a good deal more nuance than Water: Yes/No. The discussion has moved a little beyond that.

For the planet maker, OF COURSE it should be an option! It's not like these custom planets are going to somehow work their way into the randomly generated galactic war map without your wanting it, or that you'll be FORCED to play on metal planets with oceans in multiplayer. You can make and play on whatever planet you want, that's the idea. What is the possible downside to having this option?

It's an extremely basic/fundamental mapmaking option, along with resource density. Talking about water 'being available at all'... give me a break.

Sounds good to me! I'd love to be able to make all kinds of planets.

I can't believe how controversial this topic is, heh. I just asked a simple question and then people proceed to build mountains out of molehills. Oh well, I got my answer at least...

Continue building mountains if you wish...

Now there's an idea, mountains on metal planets!

I think metal planets should be land (and orbital) only. Why?

Earth-type: All unit types
Gas-type: Only air
Water-type: Only naval
Metal-type: Only land

It would encourage different strategies for each type of planet.

Gas giants will be orbital only.

And you forget moon worlds that are land-air.

Actually, Neutrino stated himself that PA is what TA would be if it was made with the technology of today. It's in one of the livestreams or something. I remember that quote vividly, and was one of the reasons that helped me decide to back the game at least at the $200 tier. PA living up to the legacy of TA is what will keep me around and hopefully continue to draw me in the future.

That said, right now I do believe the standard metal planet randomly generated should be the current implementation, and still stand by my choice that I want to have some type of option for naval ability on them in the planet builder. I know Uber has plans to differentiate them in other ways, so I'll await their implementations before judging further.

This has been hashed pretty well. In the name of hearing from the people;

For me, I can take or leave the liquid option. I will say i'm leaning on no liquid in the literal sense. While some of the options mentioned in this thread could be cool, I think there are other options to be had. Which at the end of the day, what we want is customizability regardless of water or not.

Height - The thing i would want to see the most is a solution to the height problem. I think having metal cliffs or plateaus that you have to fly or transport to would be rad. In effect these could be an "island" scenario. With that could also come crevasses.

Construction - With the height would come the liquid level. In my mind that could be the amount of construction showing and not determined by the size of the planet.

(Side bar thought) Unless, You "grow" the planet or certain areas in some way. Maybe build out, and/or change areas into large weapon fields, or build the planet as a whole into a Mass Weapon of Annihilation. But I guess that is what you already do with all planets…

Digital/lighting - Another option for the liquid level could be an amount of digital/led type areas that show through crevasses, construction or paneling. At 100%, maybe the whole planet is a digital surface. Just brainstorming. Or maybe this is the other end of rust.

Rust (or Something) - Cola mentioned rust as an option. I can dig that if it was tied to the temperature ratio like ice and desert is.

I think the Metal planet can be one of the more creative planets and is why it's so hard to nail down. It's clearly a work in progress but you can see they are thinking of paneling and such already. And, thinking with that, the Death Star is one option, but, maybe at 100% panelling you have a ominous carbon onyx sphere with shine. Or with all the options, something in between.

anyway...

I think he means like a biome.

Anyways, there could be cool place for decayed metal planets that have natural landforms.

I just thought of an awesome idea! What if they had variations of the barriers you can build in the game so thatyou could build artificial landforms!