C2C - Galactic Era

Steam technology could have produced personal cars before combustion.
Luck of fate that didn't happen.
Charles Babbage invented the computer, it took a while before someone actually built one, but it could have been done earlier.
The Chinese invented fireworks and basically gunpowder long before people realized they could use it for warfare. Could have happened sooner.
Maybe some technologies should not have automatic pre-req's and could be researched out of order. Flight may have had some pre-req's but still could have been discovered sooner - maybe in Leonardo DaVinci's time or even later.

Gearwork clockwork robotic machines were used in Ancient Greece/Egypt to influence crowds in temples.
The Victorian age has lots of examples of robotic gearworking machines, which could have made to do more.
The Greek Antikythera mechanism was basically an astronomical computer built in ancient times.
Its time of construction is now estimated between 150 and 100 BC.
Any of these could have blossomed into other variations at an time.
What if Nicola Tesla had funding insted of Thomas Edison.
What if the Library of Alexandria never burned? What if the Dark Ages never happened, was smaller or longer, or happened at a different time?
Imagine if Rome had invented Gothic Cathedral architecture.
All interesting WHATIF's.

Please stop posting alternative timelines in this topic. This is for the Galactic Era, not alternative timelines.

If you want to talk about it make a new topic for it.

EDIT: Here I made one for you. Go nuts.

I agree. Thanks for the feedback. Actually more interested in talking about science fiction being incorporated.

What about adding a galactic map to the top of the normal map (north of the northpole) similar to what the main map in mods like Final Frontier looks like, which is generated once the first player reaches the galactic era.
All spaceships built in normal cities are spawned on the earth plot in the galactic map.

A pact of all nations, "Pax Terrania", prevents all space ships from interfering in battles on the normal map or fighting in a certain radius around earth.

Cities built on the galactic map (only buildable on planets) get a different set of buildings and units, representing entire colonies. Maybe also some other special mechanics that treat them differently from normal cities.

I'm in favour of a collection of 2D maps in a "Galactic Advisor screen". Would probably be easier to implement easier on the computer, which would allow for more elaborate things. (maps for each planet, moon ect... )

Randomness said:

I'm in favour of a collection of 2D maps in a "Galactic Advisor screen". Would probably be easier to implement easier on the computer, which would allow for more elaborate things. (maps for each planet, moon ect... )

Click to expand...

Using the normal map allows to reuse a lot of existing code and mechanics which make it far easier to implement than new screens and you can also reuse content from space mods that way.

EDIT: There is probably also the possibility to swap between both maps but that means updating a lot of code that only expects one map to exist at a time and likely quite some delay when you swap between the maps. So I think I prefer using one big map with unpassable plots in between.

AIAndy said:

What about adding a galactic map to the top of the normal map (north of the northpole) similar to what the main map in mods like Final Frontier looks like, which is generated once the first player reaches the galactic era.
All spaceships built in normal cities are spawned on the earth plot in the galactic map.

A pact of all nations, "Pax Terrania", prevents all space ships from interfering in battles on the normal map or fighting in a certain radius around earth.

Cities built on the galactic map (only buildable on planets) get a different set of buildings and units, representing entire colonies. Maybe also some other special mechanics that treat them differently from normal cities.

Click to expand...

While that was one idea in the beginning, the problem comes with what about colonizing in inner solar system? Final Frontier just has solar systems but not individual planets. The other problem is that such a map would be a limited size.

What we will do is have a menu where you can send out your stuff to other worlds. Being that you cannot actually see these worlds being it can be unlimited in scale and we can have you actually colonize the inner solar system.

The problem now is who can make this menu now that Civ_Fuhrer is not active.

The screen needed would be ...

Main Screen:
Astropedia

Tabs:
Discovery
Tells your people where and how to search the skies.

Planetarium
Tells you what you have discovered and gives you the demographics for each entry, sorted by Galaxy/Sector/System/Subsystem

Command
Allows you to communicate with your colonies and direct ships stationed at those colonies.

Ship Augment
Allows you to research how to create better ships. The more of one branch you have, the more difficult it is to attain the other. Split between Speed, Armor and Damage. These will allow for the player to discover new synthetic material to use on their ships.

Click to expand...

Here are some he made for Civ5, but the idea is the same.





Can you make new menus like this AIAndy?

Would you really prefer having the entire galaxy in tables to having at least some of it in graphics?

AIAndy said:

Would you really prefer having the entire galaxy in tables to having at least some of it in graphics?

Click to expand...

Yes, since more graphics means more slow down. Already I have to use Standard size maps to avoid memory allocation errors. Plus the power of imagination is not to be underestimated. If you can get the player to imagine what is going on in the far off colonies just by text and say still image events, it can be just as good as having graphics. its what all the old classic games use to do like MOO2. Though MOO2 did have a battle mode.

In short yeah please use the menu system planned out here. It should both do what we need it to do and potentially have unlimited places since you can always add another line on the list where a fine map of the universe has limits to how many space you can explore.

For the list I imagine you would build spaceships that go out to explore. As they explore you would get events now and then telling what you explored or encountered. Both propulsion and communications would be key since you would be limited to only knowing what info made it back to Earth. This makes it much more realistic since you cannot be omnipotent and know what's going on everywhere.

MoO and MoO2 were great but besides tactical combat they also had a galaxy map.
Yes, you could only be in solar systems or on the way to there but all that was graphically represented. I don't think you can replicate that with purely tables in an adequate way.

AIAndy said:

MoO and MoO2 were great but besides tactical combat they also had a galaxy map.
Yes, you could only be in solar systems or on the way to there but all that was graphically represented. I don't think you can replicate that with purely tables in an adequate way.

Click to expand...

1. Yes I know there was a galaxy map and even a colony screen for MOO2.

2. Final Frontier maps don't allow for say the planets to be colonized. Also the scale of their maps are much to small. Its much easier to set distance values for things in space than is is to map a visual map for it. I mean look at games like Spore where they only had one galaxy and it was way bigger than any Final Frontier map. And a real galaxy would be much huger. Then factor in if you actually have more than one galaxy.

Please lets just go the menu way instead of trying to adding a space region to the map. Civ_Fuhrer and i debated the methods back when and I was actually on your side to begin with but he convinced me that menu would actually be better for the following reasons ...

1. Unlimited Space.
2. No adding stress to the graphics.
3. You can add anything you want and are not limited to 3D models you may not have.
4. You can discover things in earlier eras such as the inner solar system if its just on a table.
5. Imagination will always be better than graphics. This is why books are always better than the movies.

Of course a real galaxy map would be far bigger, but then it would also have millions of planets or likely more and you don't want to model those, do you.

The question in the end is what you want the gameplay to feel like.
And can you have proper space battles without any space to set them in?

AIAndy said:

Of course a real galaxy map would be far bigger, but then it would also have millions of planets or likely more and you don't want to model those, do you.

The question in the end is what you want the gameplay to feel like.
And can you have proper space battles without any space to set them in?

Click to expand...

I would like to use the powers of 10's sort of feel for the Galactic Era. The early space stuff will you exploring your own solar system by sending out probes and eventually colonies.

The next phase is your building your colonies in your solar system and then sending out more probes to other stars. At this stage you will be sending out colonize ships that can colonize entire planets.

After that you will be sending out even farther probes and colonize entire solar systems at once. And even reach the ability to use worm holes by late game.

This whole scale of local/small to distant/huge is probably beyond space battles in the map sense of things. Remember space is also 3D no flat like for earth battles. I would also like to have the colonies to have some autonomy too. Where while you are on the homeworld much of what they do they will have the handle on their own. Especially when traveling between world can take so long.

In short I would like things to be more NASA-ish than say Star Wars or Star Trek-ish. Where you send stuff out and get reports back on how things are doing.

How do you expect the stuff you do in the galaxy to interact with what you do on earth?
What will they contribute?
Will there ever be any conflict in space?
How will players interact in space?

Also why should we have visual space battles when you cannot have battles on the alien planets too? At least with a table you can simulate such battles off screen no matter if it take place in space or on the planet themselves.

AIAndy said:

How do you expect the stuff you do in the galaxy to interact with what you do on earth?

Click to expand...

You would get stuff like population to your empire, trade, access to resources, increased science from labs on other planets, etc.

AIAndy said:

What will they contribute?

Click to expand...

At first Earth will be sending supplies, colonists, spaceships, probes, satellites, etc. As you go on Earth will have to send out less and less and they will become self sufficient and all your really doing by late game is giving them orders such as explore this, colonize that, etc.

AIAndy said:

Will there ever be any conflict in space?

Click to expand...

Of course, not just space but on planets too. Anything not on Earth will have to be done off screen and use similar dice rolling style play. For instance X colony has whatever defenses and thia many units and is attacked by this enemy. You loose X they loose X and things either get destroyed or not and they either get to gain Territory or not.

AIAndy said:

How will players interact in space?

Click to expand...

I am not sure if I understand. Players will always be on Earth. If you loose on Earth then you die no matter if you have colonies. Thus any thing you do in space will be either sending stuff out (info or probes or units, etc) or getting stuff back (trade, resources, info, etc).

you can use something similar to the RFCE colony system. each colony project takes a long time to build, but you get a few resources not found on the map. the apollo program gives the country one "space access" resource which allows the player to build the colony. the colony screen could also be used to keep track of the colonies of all players.

nightcreature said:

you can use something similar to the RFCE colony system. each colony project takes a long time to build, but you get a few resources not found on the map. the apollo program gives the country one "space access" resource which allows the player to build the colony. the colony screen could also be used to keep track of the colonies of all players.

Click to expand...

That's sort of the idea, however I am not familiar with the RFCE colony system.

each colony is a project requiring access to the ocean, or in this case, space. on the colony screen, a map showing all colonizeable areas and who ever owns a colony has their flag on the planet. each colony provides a unique bonus to the colonizer.

This is what it looks like:

Similar except no visual map. You will have things like Mars or Moon (possibly with limited locations on the surface).