C2C - Space Terrain

[Faustmouse]

EDIT: This would mean that the latitude of animal spawns still work but the longitudes would have to be all recalibrate. I am not even sure if it would be possible without putting the Earth map directly on the equator of the map. Which means you may want the moon on one side and then Mars on the other. So there is just not total empty space on one side.

Probably... We could make another terrain: Near Earth. This would passable faster than the way to mars.

I think maps have always more horizontal plots than vertical, or is this adjustable?


Edit:

Is your z axis tweak can help to display underwater cities?

A bigger problem with those is that your ships could attack units inside underwater cities. Also, Transports can deposit units in tunnels and on underwarter cities...

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Hydro

Is your z axis tweak can help to display underwater cities?

I think the whole sea vs land is the big problem for the AI. However I think a few mods have done it somehow. (see the underwater city topic)

Example: Genetic Era Mod ...

 

[Faustmouse]

This skinny moon looks so ugly... Didn't you discussed teleporters a while back? Then we can make the moon map less stretched and teleport the units from one side to the other.

And what would happen if you launch a rocket from the earth? Will it be directly in the orbit or will it have to fly over the earth when you launch it from the southpole?

This would give the northern hemisphere a totally stupid advantage.

 

[Faustmouse]

I don't know where you discussed it, but there was the problem that you don't want to be able to have things like a factory on the moon before you have appropiated life support systems.

I found the BEqual tag in the expression system that would allow buildings only to be build if one of the following is true:

has A AND B
has neither A nor B

If only A or only B is there, a buildings can't be build.

If you use A for Lunar Terrain and B for Lift Support Building, and make the Life support Building require Lunar terrain, a building can only be built if there is no Lunar terrain and no Life support (like it is normally on earth) or if both are there.


Edit: Or maybe an "if"?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11598257&postcount=27

 

[Hydromancerx]

This skinny moon looks so ugly... Didn't you discussed teleporters a while back? Then we can make the moon map less stretched and teleport the units from one side to the other.

And what would happen if you launch a rocket from the earth? Will it be directly in the orbit or will it have to fly over the earth when you launch it from the southpole?

This would give the northern hemisphere a totally stupid advantage.

1. If it was it wasn't me. Unless your referring to multi-map telporting in which it would make this moot. And we could have separate maps for each thing.

2. Sadly the latter since there no z-orbit layer. However if we had Graded Invisibility it might work as well as llow us to do both underground/underwater and orbital units.

Basically one map would have different layers. Depending upon which layer you were on would determine what you could see. For instance on an underground/underwater layer all surface stuff would disappear and all you could see would be say underground/underwater units/features such as tunnels, submarines, underwater bases, underground mines, ore deposited, deep sea vents, lava, etc.

The surface would take up the same space on the map but just be unaware of them. An visually they would be hidden from view until the layer was seen.

 

[Faustmouse]

1. If it was it wasn't me. Unless your referring to multi-map telporting in which it would make this moot. And we could have separate maps for each thing.

I was talking about the teleporting like what Airports do. Like missiles had a mission that would launch them and teleporting them directly to a space plot. Is it possible to doublicate the Airlifting code?
If not, the paradrop code might work even better. Especially if you could restrict the landing area to a certain terrain (orbit).
And aren't there any (fantasy) mods that uses teleporters?

 

[Hydromancerx]

Hmm the paradrop code might be useful. Note that units that can do that do have a limited range. Which is in "range" rather than "movement".

So I suppose it would make a lot of sense for a rocket to have a range then. Since they would have a limited amount of fuel to get there. However unlike aircraft who re-base they would need no city. So I guess like the bombing code. Again back to missile code or even paratrooper code.

 

[Faustmouse]

I'd go for the Paradrop code. IF it is possible to limit the target plot on certain terrains (is it?) The range can be almost endless, if we split the orbit terrain into earth orbit, moon orbit and martian orbit.
Then the rockets can be build in any city and perform the "paradrop" / launch mission to get into space. I think you need an Airport in a city in order to perform a paradrop, which would be very usefull for rockets too. A building like Launch Ramp or whatever which is only buildable at max 30 degree. Satellites should be buildable in every city, but you need a traderoute to a city with a Launch Ramp. (This is possible with expressions. At least the explaination of expressions in the Modder's documentation says this.)

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Be careful using range it used to be one value applies to all units. Which was strange since it is on the XML for units. I had that problem with the hawks way back when, their recon range ended being the same as the fighter and balloon ranges.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Be careful using range it used to be one value applies to all units. Which was strange since it is on the XML for units. I had that problem with the hawks way back when, their recon range ended being the same as the fighter and balloon ranges.

BTW how do those work? Its the <SpecialCargo> tag right? So whatever is transporting the unit will hold specific types of units right? Such as an aircraft Carrier will carry aircraft. So if we wanted a rocket to carry a special payload we should put the <SpecialCargo> on the unit carrying and <Special> on the unit being carried. Correct? Such as a Rocket carrying a Lunar Lander.

 

[Thunderbrd]

BTW how do those work? Its the <SpecialCargo> tag right? So whatever is transporting the unit will hold specific types of units right? Such as an aircraft Carrier will carry aircraft. So if we wanted a rocket to carry a special payload we should put the <SpecialCargo> on the unit carrying and <Special> on the unit being carried. Correct? Such as a Rocket carrying a Lunar Lander.

Correct. There's also a Cargo space volume tag and it will mean the unit can hold any other type of unit unless the SpecialCargo tag is defined.

AI becomes the tricky part, as has been discussed many times before regarding land units carrying other units.

 

[Faustmouse]

AI becomes the tricky part, as has been discussed many times before regarding land units carrying other units.

1. BUT the AI can transport units over water, correct? So what would happen if we'd define Orbit (near earth), Space (between earth and moon) and far Space (between the earth moon system and mars / astroid belt) as "water"? This work similar like coast and oceans:
Ships can enter coast terrain. With Navigation, they can enter Coast and Ocean. With Advanced Rocketry, they can enter Orbit. With Astronautics, they can enter Space and another tech that unlocks far space.

The main problems I see here are:

- Units can enter Oceans before Navigation if these tiles are within cultural boarders.
-> Make orbit and space terrains in a way that they will never be in cultural boarders of anyone.

- When Rafts are able to enter Oceans after Navigation, they would be able to enter space after Astronautics... Which is theoretical possible (when someone decides to launch a rocket with it), but I can't see any scientific use with that experiment.
-> Caravels can enter Oceans before Navigation. Sooo... You could make Orbit etc be "enterable" with a very very late game tech: String Analysis. Or even better a pseudo tech that can't be researched. Then you can create units that are able to enter orbit etc. at the appropiated techs. I hope this is clear, but I'll give an example:

Caravel can enter Ocean when you can build them. Rafts can enter Ocean after the research of Navigation.
Rockets can enter Orbit etc when you can build them. Rafts and other Ships can enter Orbit etc after the research of "Tech that's non researchable.

Would this solve the Transport AI problem?

-----------------------------------------

Something completely different:
I'm about to make a three planets map (as discussed with Hydro). Unfurtunatly, the Southpole of the Moon (which IIRC is a very interesting area of the moon) won't be on the map. Also, I had a new idea about resources on other plantes:

Helium 3 and other ET (extra terrestrial) resources should not be visible after a certain tech. Instead you should have to send probes to the moon and mars and discover them. I was thinking of a modified great farmer code:
You can send a probe to a specific area of the moon. Then, there is a chance that they will find a ET resource reservoir. In game terms, they won't find any, but places one on the map. Later satellites and advanced technologies allow probes to prospect a greater area, like 3x3 plots where a resource can be found. It would be best if the chance of "finding" a resource is depending on a) the type of Probe, b) the type of resource and c) the terrain type. Like you can find Helium 3 more often in crates for example.
Of course, there has to be a cap on how many resources could be found this way on a given map.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'm not sure if that would be as easy as it sounds for the AI but Koshling may be able to comment more when he returns.

 

[Faustmouse]

Just another problem with the current idea of a 3 in 1 map:

If you want to go from Earth to Mars, you would have to land on the Moon.
To avoid this, the rockets must be able to mass lunar and martian terrain at the same speed as space (or even faster since a space tile would be more kilometers in diameter then the surface of a celestial body.)

I could also think of putting earth at the equator and the moon south of the earth and mars north of the earth. But then you would still have the problem on how to reach the astroid belt?

Any other ideas how to handle that?

 

[Snofru1]

It is really exciting to read about this approach. Finally at least some "Cosmos" before multimaps are in!

My suggestion for the 3-in-1 map: Don´t make Moon and Mars such a narrow strip. Wraping isn´t so important for me as transportation on the surface should be so quick when colonization starts that it shouldn´t matter when you have to travel across the map (especially when the colonization probe starts from earth). It should be way different compared to earth in 1500 or 1600 when you had to travel by ship or on land. So make Moon and Mars rectangular comparable to Earth and put more space to the right and/or left of it. (just my 2 cent)

 

[Faustmouse]

It is really exciting to read about this approach. Finally at least some "Cosmos" before multimaps are in!

My suggestion for the 3-in-1 map: Don´t make Moon and Mars such a narrow strip. Wraping isn´t so important for me as transportation on the surface should be so quick when colonization starts that it shouldn´t matter when you have to travel across the map (especially when the colonization probe starts from earth). It should be way different compared to earth in 1500 or 1600 when you had to travel by ship or on land. So make Moon and Mars rectangular comparable to Earth and put more space to the right and/or left of it. (just my 2 cent)

That's what I thought, too. At first, the Landers are so slow that they hardly move more than one plot if at all.
But there WILL be a phase when you can move around the whole planet but can't move so fast that it doesn't matter if it is wraped or not.

I still think I'm gonna do it with rectacular Mars and Moon...

 

[Snofru1]

So what is the current state of the sub-maps?

I´d love to start a new game on such a "sub-maps in one map". Is there already one available that could be used as a scenario? Are there already units that are able to travel from one map area to the other? Can we already found settlements on moon or marsian terrain?

I wouldn´t mind if it is still in an unfinished state and I would like to test it and give feedback. And starting on such a map now would take probably 2 weeks anyway before I could start with space travel, so you could provide a lot of changes until then ...

 

[Faustmouse]

Well, I'd still LOVE to make a scenario with 3 planets and an earth with the size of the GEM, but I can't make such a big map (210*240-300). I asked several times if someone could edit a mapscript, make such a map and send it to me, but no one replyed.
If you could do this: I'll start right away!

 

[Snofru1]

Well, I'd still LOVE to make a scenario with 3 planets and an earth with the size of the GEM, but I can't make such a big map (210*240-300). I asked several times if someone could edit a mapscript, make such a map and send it to me, but no one replyed.
If you could do this: I'll start right away!

I have absolutely no idea how to do this. But wouldn´t it be better to start with a smaller map size like with the Standard Earth Map? Maybe that´s easier...

 

[Sparth]

Easy way to get Space in C2C
change oceans titles to space (only graphic, not need any xml changes). Then start in galactic era and choose archipelago.

Little more complicated - change some terain graphics with space one (for example kelp to asteroids).