C2C - Space Terrain

Yeah the rarity comes out when more stuff is implented I guess. I'm afraid that the first civ that is able to fly to the moon will completely take control over it anyways unless we make space exploring somewhat expensive.
 
Early Spaceships / Modern Era:

- Can only be launched by a maximum degree of 30°
- They are expensive (:hammers:) to build and have a lot of upkeep (:gold:) per turn
- Launch them via a mission (costs a lot of :gold:) that requires a launching site
-> once launched, they will be placed in the Orbit directly north (or south) of your current location.

Spoiler :

There probably need to be two missions: Launch south and launch north. I think this should be quite easy with a loop function. It basically should do this:
1) Get coordinates of the launching city
2) Loop:
a) Either increase or decrese (depending on mission) the y-value by 1.
b) If the terrain is not Orbit, return false.
c) If the terrain is orbit, return true.
3) Place the Unit in the orbit.


- In space they can only fly a straight line. Early spaceships can't change directions!
- When they reach the Moons orbit, new missions will be available: Land or Orbit. [Same could be available in earths orbit]

- Orbit can collect data. Maybe we can have a new property that can only increase; you'd need to have at least a property of 10 to perform landing missions and at least 100 to perform manned missions and at least 1000 to perform colonization missions [only talkign about the moon here].

- Landing can select a plot where the spaceship should land. This radius should be big enough to cover the whole moon, but not big enough to land on earth from the moons orbit. So it's mapsize dependend.
- Landing is a bit tricky, you probably won't land on the plot you wanted to. I'd think at first you will land anywhere in the "fat-cross" (or "near") (of) the selected plot. With increasing technology (or the property), this will shrink to the adjected tiles and finally you can safely land on the exact plot.

Spoiler :

I think you can have random functions. So the code should take the coordinates from the plot, randomly add n, where n is {-2,2} and later {-1;1} or just zero, depending on tech. So probably:

1) Get Coordinates of landing spot.
2) If Tech XXX is known, return false.
3) Randomly add n {-1;1} to both x and y coordinates
4) Place landing unit on the new coordinates.


- There is still a chance your spacecraft will crash.
- The first units that lands there can not walk around, just collect probes/perform experiments (which will increase your Space Property)
- later units can going on adjected plots (but not further). Not sure how to do this actually...
- The very first units won't be able to, but later units have a "launch" mission again on the moon. This mission is city and lantitude independend and put's them into orbit again.

- Now they can fly back excactly as above and reach earths orbit.
- Here is also a landing mission, like on the moon. You can only land on sea plots at first, later (like Spaceshuttle) can land in cities.
- A landed probe in the sea needs a ship to be picked up again and return to the city, were it can perform a mission to deliver the probes (:science: towards a space tech) or let the astronauts get out. These can be attached to later rockets and give an XP boost like attaching a Warlord.

------------------
The Space property:

- Is needed to prevent civs from just rushing to the moon-colonization techs and settle the moon directly without ever sending a rocket into space before.

- It will increase with certain techs / buildings, but to get to the really cool space-stuff, you HAVE to launch rockets! Space exploration is somewhat expensive and if you want the benefit of taking control over the moon, you have to pay a lot :gold: and :hammers: for it.

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

This would us give at least the tool to develope more space units, once the mechanism is established. At first I don't think we really need AI for it, it's just to see if it actually works.
 
@Faustmouse

- Can only be launched by a maximum degree of 30°
Click to expand...

This would be fine for multimaps. In fact it would just be good if they launched from Spaceports or Space Agencies. However at the moment the "spacecraft" we have move around like helicopters and can go into orbit and space terrain on the special Earth/Mars/Moon map script.

-> once launched, they will be placed in the Orbit directly north (or south) of your current location.
Click to expand...

I have no idea how you would limit that on any map. But I could see with multimaps where once launched you would get a turn dely. Such as it takes X number of turns to reach the Moon or Mars. You would not see the unit flying to them but then it would appear on the other map after so many turns passed. Or possibly even not appearing and giving you a message it burned up in the atmosphere or other such disaster in transit.

- Is needed to prevent civs from just rushing to the moon-colonization techs and settle the moon directly without ever sending a rocket into space before.
Click to expand...

Is there a way to bypss those techs?
 
Hydromancerx said:
This would be fine for multimaps. In fact it would just be good if they launched from Spaceports or Space Agencies. However at the moment the "spacecraft" we have move around like helicopters and can go into orbit and space terrain on the special Earth/Mars/Moon map script.
Click to expand...

This could also working, true... But when you are enclosed in let's say mexico and had no open boarders with the USA and South-Armerica, you couldn't launch your spacecraft. And in the Helicopter-case, it would be most beneficial if you launch your spaceships from Sibira or the antarctic. And it would be worst to launch them from countries near the equator. Which is obviously wrong.

Hydromancerx said:
I have no idea how you would limit that on any map. But I could see with multimaps where once launched you would get a turn dely. Such as it takes X number of turns to reach the Moon or Mars. You would not see the unit flying to them but then it would appear on the other map after so many turns passed. Or possibly even not appearing and giving you a message it burned up in the atmosphere or other such disaster in transit.
Click to expand...

I had a look at DH's mission guide and AI Andy say something about PlotProperties that appearantly is a prereq. And I try to have a solution with that with the looping around plots, have you seen it? Not sure if it would work thou...

Hydromancerx said:
Is there a way to bypss those techs?
Click to expand...

That's a problem of how techs are defined in civ. Are they defined of "Mastery" or just "as much as you need to know?" For example, would you say we have the tech "Bacterial Engineering" in real life? We can do pretty amazing stuff with them. We can make them produce drugs to a very efficient degree, let them do all logic funcitions (AND, OR, NOT, etc...) and can even make them play sudokus! But we have still NO way to create full pathways in their biochemestry...
How is this related to the Space thing? Well, a civ that researched Space Flight, is it ABLE to TRY a first run after researching? Or did it try so during the actual research so that it has mastered this technology now? If you'd researched it and trade it to another civ, is it instandly able to perform space flights? Just form the theory you gave the civ? Or is it necessary to earn experience with space flights before it can perform some harder tasks (like bringing a human on the moon and back)?
 
Faustmouse said:
That's a problem of how techs are defined in civ. Are they defined of "Mastery" or just "as much as you need to know?" For example, would you say we have the tech "Bacterial Engineering" in real life? We can do pretty amazing stuff with them. We can make them produce drugs to a very efficient degree, let them do all logic funcitions (AND, OR, NOT, etc...) and can even make them play sudokus! But we have still NO way to create full pathways in their biochemestry...
How is this related to the Space thing? Well, a civ that researched Space Flight, is it ABLE to TRY a first run after researching? Or did it try so during the actual research so that it has mastered this technology now? If you'd researched it and trade it to another civ, is it instandly able to perform space flights? Just form the theory you gave the civ? Or is it necessary to earn experience with space flights before it can perform some harder tasks (like bringing a human on the moon and back)?
Click to expand...

Is it though? We have people on the International space station from countries which did not have to go through all the rocketry testing that the USA and Russia did back in the space race. They learned from their mistakes. Sure we have space agencies all over the world now, but now that it has been done, those that are are behind can learn from them.
 
Well ok then... But what about the mechanism to get to the moon then? THe launching and landing for example? I think it's too simple with "helicopter-like" units that can just go there... and it has the problems I mentioned earlier.
 
That's true. However it was just put in place so we could test out the maps, not as a long term feature. Ideally we would want a re-base type of function like aircraft have. Where they jump to the planet or even just to orbit if on a solar system map.

1. Long term solution would be "map jumping" in its various forms.

2. Short Term solution would be wat we have now.

3. Middle term soultuon would be figure out tile jumping on the same map to jump to orbital terrain at the pole without having to cross into other borders.

4. Alternate solution would be using TB's idea of layered maps. Where units appear or disappear on the map depending upon their location on a Z axis. Thus orbit would be a very high Z axis layer while aircraft could fly some where between and underground could be deep down on the z axis. Basically you could have a bunch of units on the same tile but you could only see those on the same Z axis as you were at.
 
chess-3d-custom.jpg


It would basically be like 3D chess. But you can only see one level at a time on the map.
 
yeah, I know. Ok, so what I wanted to say is: I can't really say if I like it before I saw it ingame. But still, this would favour high lantitute regions over equatorial...

So, do you have a "to do" list for fleshing out the 3 Planets map? Or, what would be your next goal (this can include several tasks)?
 
Well the first task was to get the Lunar terrain fixed.

Then we need someone who knows how to make map script to fix them so they produce more types of terrain and resources.

After that we need someone who can make custom spawning for animals.

Also we need to add Space Goodie Huts which would be probe wreckage.

There is a lot more but those are the main barriers.

EDIT: However a more universal way to apply space, at least temporarily, would be not to have units go anywhere. But instead do everything through Projects. Since projects are not civ specific they could simulate going to other planets. Things could get very costly too. For example ...

Mars [Probes] [Project]
Various Mars probes, rovers, etc that give info about Mars.

Mars One [Project]
Be the first colony on Mars. Maybe a Golden age or Free tech or both. Unlocks all the other Mars Location Projects.

Mars [Locations] [Project]
Req Project: Mars One
Various locations on Mars that can be colonized. Has different resource benefits.

Note all these will be VERY expensive to make and since they are projects you cannot just rush build them either.
 
I asked PrimeOver about the mapscript and he said despite he don't like python this should not be too hard. Not sure if he is going to do that soon (probably not since he has a lot to do).

And the Lantitude is a problem indeed. We'd not only need custom spawnrates but also custom buildings prereqs. Or, even better, in such maps the lantidude was adjusted so that the northpole is still 90°N while the southpole is 90°S.

It's funny you wanna start this way. I was thinking of just making a scenario (already done) with the 3 Planets and then add stuff. And once there is some content we could make the mapscript working. Mainly because when there is no content it isn't necessary to have a 3 Planets map..


Edit:

Urg... doing everything with these Projects looks totally ugly for me. If I was told there would be now space content and then see this, I would be totally disappointed. Sorry :( I just want to see buggies on mars driving from one base to the other. A project is not really needed for this I think...
 
And I'm not sure if the Alpollo Project work out well with the coming changes to space flight...
Probably it would, since it would be very boring and repetitative to have 20 different spaceships during the small time range to simulate advances in flights to the moon :crazyeye:
But I'd prefer it steps would be more "natural" gamewise. Like you really had to bring unmanned probes to the moon before the first human. And that you not just build a wonder "Mars coloniation" and puff, here you go! I'd much more prefer if you have to send several units to it, let them build a permanent base and perform research missions there. and then, slowly, the base grows, you get another one, connect them with "roads" or tunnels and naturally, it will grow into a colony.
 
At what point would basic space fighter units become available? Lets say the solar system map was active and civs were launching their probes to explore the moon tile which might be about 10 spaces away. Would you be able to build space fighters/defenders at this point in the game?

Imagine all these probes from different civs trying to reach the moon but unable to due to all the enermy spaceships continuously attacking them. You would need to buy space ships to defend your probes so they don't get destroyed on the way to or from the moon. Those with more powerful spaceships would be the ones dominating the moon first.

Due to orbit/planet rotation I believe that when your spaceship lands on a planet tile your unit should enter that tile on a random point of that map. For example if an enermy entered the moon tile then you entered the moon tile a turn later you would enter the moon at a different point. This would prevent one civ landing on the moon and setting a base right where everyone enters it. It would also be interesting for earth reentrys as your probe may appear anywhere on the earth such as above another civs powerful city... you better have good luck where your probe re-enters lol :)
 
@Faust
You're absolutely correct about Apollo. I was thinking that same thing. Although, I was also thinking of the 'Apollo Project' and 'Mars Colonization' type projects would be more of a token of your achievement - like a statue automatically built in your city to recognize that this city was the first to do this thing. That way the statues could also act as a medium to give benefits like extra space movement speed or scanning range(vision).

@12padams
Technically anyone can have fighters in space when they get the right techs. Although advanced rocketry (liquid fuel rockets) is enough to go into space (the moon), ideally civs would want ion propulsion minimum for rapid accelerations and zero-g agility. For giant battleships, destroyers, carriers and the like, solar sails/mag sails would be more ideal since torque scales off size and isn't limited by the mass of the ship.
 
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