Combining outer space with seas using LM terrain

Already for along time I wondered if it were possible to have both vanilla sea tiles and Lukree's space tiles (and I'm not the only one). And thanks to thanks to embryodead's hex-edited biq file it was actually a very easy thing to do by turning LM coast, seas and oceans into different kinds of space...

The only question is how to keep ships in the sea and spaceships in space? It is possible to set the the movement cost of the space tiles very high, but even then a galley can still go to the moon one tiles at a time...

Any ideas on how to do it?

This would be great for a truely epic mod where you start on Earth and then colonize space. Some kind of space race scenario...

Maybe set some system of impassable and ignore movement cost..? I'm not sure myself...

Just make another LM terrain that is impassable. In TCW El Justo has a ton of impassable volcanos. Then make the space settler with the paradrop ability, and use it to drop the settler on the moon (possibly auto-produced by a small wonder to avoide them being over powered).

I got an idea on how to keep sea ships from space in a similar way it was done in Age of Piracy scenario, though it won't keep space ships from sea...

Using the same stylesheet that came with my edited BIQ, you can find the tile code of each tile. The tile code is what the game uses for gameplay purposes, but not for displaying graphics. In other words, you can turn any tile into another tile, and it will still look the same in the game e.g. change plains into a volcano - it'll behave like a volcano, but will look like plains.

Assuming you don't use oceans anywhere else (just sea/coast), make oceans impassable by wheeled units (sea ships) and change all "space coast" into oceans in the hex editor. That will effectively keep sea ships from entering space.

Like with all hex changes, modifying the map in the editor will cause bad things to happen, so it has to be done last.

though it won't keep space ships from sea

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Well space ships can fly over the sea, so that shouldn`t be a problem

Flamand ..

responded to your post on other thread, but i was wondering, if you border the planet map with tundra, make this so cannot bld city on same and then mod plant tree to occur at a future tech that enables space exploration ... thus a civ can plant trees and bld city .. whoops AI probably won't do this although they plant trees in mod i'm working on (i've made forests mineable and they like to do this, i'll have to see in mod working if they ever plant forests in tundra). I'm finding it easier to do what i indicated in other post as control of entry into space.

best

jsnider

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys!

This is what I came up with myself based on what said: need to make the terrain at the edge of the space tiles "impassable for wheeled units" to avoid that cities are built there until a certain "space" tech is researched, resulting in galleys in space. After this tech all sea units are obsolete and only space ships can be made...

THis is certainly a hard scenerio to create.

Lemme know if I can help...

I had a vague idea for a "World of Tiers" scenario. This would certainly be way to build such a map.

Blue Monkey said:

I had a vague idea for a "World of Tiers" scenario. This would certainly be way to build such a map.

Click to expand...

Then you'll get a kick out of a map I've been working on for a steampunk scenario (if the steampunk group approves, of course). Called "Lost Worlds", I based it on the Edgar Rice Burroughs stories, with some Verne thrown in:


The map layers are, top to bottom: Barsoom (Mars),[space] The Moon, [space]England,[deep sea] the underground,and Pellucidar - the lost world.

Philip Jose Farmer used Barsoom as a model for the moon in the "World of Tiers"

Very interesting... How did you make it?

I've been toying around with the idea of a Dante's Divine Comedy/Inferno scenario, myself. Essentially, it would be a Medieval fantasy scenario, but the only way to win would be a very high victory point limit. From the depths of Hell could then come many high-cost units and also many Holy Relics (which must be returned to one of the three holy cities- Rome, Constantinople or Jerusalem). The terrain to get to hell could be impassable to wheeled units, and most units would be wheeled, apart from units which can only be built after "Dante's Divine Comedy" great wonder has been built (by using the Nuclear Weapon flag)

Still, the idea is very much just "in embryo" right now...

Flamand said:

Very interesting... How did you make it?

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Which part? The maps were all drawn by hand. The maps of Pellucidar (the lost world) and Barsoom (Mars) are from maps found on the Erblist website. The space terrain is ocean (and sea, wherever it meets ocean, hence you do not find ocean terrain below, where the sea is used as deep sea). I hope to have some screenshots soon, when image shack decides to cooperate.

I was talking about the terrain... Which one is which?

Flamand, I'm sorry it's taken so long to reply (I've had guests this weekend). Here's how I did the terrain:

I used the base terrain for the English Isles, only modifying the Mountains Forests pcx so that I could use Ares' LM Mountains in Scotland.

The Moon is tundra with the tundra forests modified to look like Mountains (I have some work to do on those mountains yet). Modified the Craters file to get some larger craters and pulled some of the color out so that they would blend better with both Mars and Moon terrain. Mars terrain is pretty much entirely LM terrain: I tried doing LM coasts so that I could get "canals" on mars, but there were lots of problems with that - the game wants to use non-LM terrain whenever possible especially when it comes to water.

Space is just ocean. The deep sea is just sea. Screenshots here.

The underground is made up of desert and plains files where the plains are the tunnels. I've been trying to make the desert impassible and checked that in the editor, but the AI keeps walking on them anyway; there's a step obviously, that I've missed. The seaweed on the sea side is added directly to the desert/coast terrain, so it reappears on the south side of the underground sea, but I figured that's ok with me. I'm hoping to add some resources to the sea bottom to liven it up.

Finally there's the lost world. It's just regular grassy terrain with jungle graphics that have been modded into prehistoric forests. I used more mountains and fewer hills to give it an 'older earth' look. Cattails and rocks are bonus resources. Since Volcanoes are used only in the Lost World and on Mars, I made them browner; the tactic seems to be working in the lost world because they look like 'newer' volcanoes there. I toyed with the idea of using Embryodead's hex editor technique to make the Mars Volcanos into LM Volcanos, but abandoned the idea. The biq rules allow it now, though, if I change my mind.

I've posted more screenshots here
and here.

Thanks for the explanation, Balthasar...

Flamand: posted the map here.

Downloaded it... Looks really interesting... I might use it for something, not sure yet what though...

Flamand said:

Downloaded it... Looks really interesting... I might use it for something, not sure yet what though...

Click to expand...

Yea, unmodded maps are like that. It will be used in the Steampunk forum, at least.

But the reason I presented it here (and in keeping with the subject of the thread, i.e., LM terrain and space) was to demonstrate the possibility of using layered maps like that with completely different terrains. For instance:

I had an idea that I'd like to explore of doing a Star Trek: First Contact scenario as a mini-mod. LM Terrain would be used to create a reasonable facsimile of the Enterprise at the top, a depiction of the earth camp in the middle, and perhaps holodeck or even Borg ship layers below (your fallout irrigation could be "Borg'd up" for that!). Airports are teleporters, teleporters are doorways, railroad is elevator, etc. This idea is why I asked you if there were any Federation units available some months ago.

The point is that the surface has barely been scratched when it comes to using this game engine, and the LM terrain, to do different and interesting things. "Separating" different terrain types is just one way to do it. Of course, you've been doing that all along with the Star Trek mod, so I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. . .