PlanetsMod

[Tholish]

The first mod in this series is the solar system overview. It will be followed
by separate closeup scenarios of each of the planets. To play this mod you
must first download two other mods:

NeoOmega's Pentagenesis for C3C
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=102263
and Daftpanzer's SpaceWars.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=81022

(I figure if you are into a sci fi mod, you already have these, and I can keep
my file size down and reduce redundancy if I use them--though later I may
upgrade this mod to mask more of the Pentagenesis stuff that doesn't really
apply to it.)

Then you must download these two zips.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Planets.zip
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/PlanetsTerrain.zip



One is the main download, containing the mod folder and the biq, which you just unzip and shuck in scenarios; the other is just the terrain folder
(credit Hikaro Takayama for the cities), which you must unzip and place in the Art subfolder in the mod folder.

 

[Neomega]

Could you explan a little more how the next two zips work? Do they just use scenario pathing for the artwork? I am not sure I completely understand the install process, and am a little afraid of overwriting.

Oh, and we want screenshots!

 

[Tholish]

Put both zips on your desktop. Unzip the first one. Pull out the folder "Combined" and the biq "Planets," and put them side by side in

programfiles/infogrames/civ3/conquests/scenarios/

then unzip the other zip, pull out the folder "Terrain" and
put it in

programfiles/infogrames/civ3/conquests/scenarios/Combined/art/


It simply uses other scenarios. Originally I was experimenting with how this
works, which is why the folder is called "combined"--I was playing around with
combining.


In the editor, in the space for "Scenario Search Folders," I typed in:

Combined;SpaceWars;Pentagenesis_Beta_v1_0

This means that the engine first uses anything from "my*" folder "Combined," then if it doesn't find it there, it uses the item from "SpaceWars," and if it doesn't find it there it uses the one from "Pentagenesis." If you already have both SpaceWars and Pentagenesis installed in Scenarios there should be no overwriting. I guess that's what you call scenario pathing, and it winds up using more than the artwork.

You want screenshots? Gulp. My mod is UGLY right now, full screen pictures are too big to show in the screen without somehow downsizing, and I'm approaching my attachments limit (need to clean out some old stuff), so I'll just upload it. And a save game too.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/planets1.JPG

*There are a few others that I need to give credit to for this and that:
Pirate flag leaderhead by Unexisted, some of the terrain from King Micheals mars mod; the science, domestic and culture advisors from Piernik. The others are from star wars, ill find them. The irrigation is adapted from something called "space cities," which i'm still looking for.
(the rest of the credits will go here once I look them up)

 

[blackheart]

I'm guessing that planet there is earth, whats the black sphere by america though (I like the SMAC cities BTW), and what's the green ooze?

BTW, I'm guessing the gov Bureocracy is supposed to be beauracracy (?)

 

[Plotinus]

Dear me. "Bureaucracy"!

I have to say I have never seen anything quite like that in Civ before. Funky stuff indeed!

 

[Tholish]

Is that how you spell it? I can't seem to fit an encyclopedia disk in the my cd drive. Conquests is always in the way.

Is that where HT got them? I got them from his post on the Smoking Mirror thread.
They are too good to not use, the only cities that could serve both in space and on a planet. Never have had the fortune of playing SMAC, and it is no longer available, though I downloaded a free sample and may loot it for icons and stuff.

Green ooze? Do you mean the grassland around the edges of terraformable planets, the asteroid belt, or pollution?

Yes, the 5x5 squares are Earth, Mars, and Venus, shown in cross section: the perimeter is the surface, the interior squares are literally the planetary core, though when spacecraft pass through it they are passing around the planet , in the foreground. Surprisingly, it works.

The black sphere is Heavy Metals resource, an icon from SpaceWars, and it is in the mantle. Currently it functions only as a bonus resource for the Americans, but once they build HoverDrones and develop the CoreTap technology, they will be able to build a Shipping Lane to it. It represents metals heavier than iron, such as lead and uranium, which are necessary for constructing Fission Colonizers and other Fission Rocket craft, though you can make Fission Colonizers without this resource if you construct the ORION PLANT minor wonder, which uses sheer bulk for shielding.

The 3x3 south of Europe is Luna, the ring of green crumbs are the asteroid belt (which is only 40 million miles away, since it goes all the way around, whereas the average distance of mars is 120 million or more, since it goes all the way around)
The big square ocean is the sun, the other 5x5 planets nearby are Mars and Venus, the big squares in the outer solar system are Saturn, Jupiter, etc...

The 180 by 180 map wraps in both dimensions, to represent the wierdness of orbiting the sun. (Ever chase Mercury in Microsoft SpaceSimulator?)

 

[Tholish]

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/planets2.JPG
Heres the first era tech tree. There are 160 techs.

PS. Included in this post is a patch to improve game balance. It adds one to the commerce generated by all terrain types without any development and gives the first two government types a free unit or two. Also sets the terran civs to emphasize food. This should make the AI civs and minor civs a little more competitive. The AI is just not an economist.

 

[Tholish]

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/LunarTerrain.zip

This is the terrain set for the first planet: Luna.

The biq included doesn't play at this time, but in the editor you can see where I'm going. All terrain is greyish. Forest is city terrain. Newly cratered looking terrain will replace jungle, and only appear on the map as a pollution effect. Hills made to look more cratery and replace all kinds of terrain. Ag domes are irrigation, dirt tracks are road, subway stations are railroad, parabolic solar mirror furnaces (courtesy Nasa) are mines.
Polar terrain will have a smaller movement cost, equatorial terrain will have a higher one. Units will have a higher movement rate to compensate. The effect will be to compensate for global curvature. The equator and more polar temperate zones will be averaged out so one map width will equal two equatorial diameters, while the pole to pole distance will represent half of pi times an equatorial diameter. On luna each tile is 50 miles, so the dimensions are 80 by 60, though the last few bands tiles at top and bottom are reduced movement cost polar regions. That map is not included and I repeat the biq will not play, because I put in tech names and no pediaicons.

I will use the dropship as the animation for Army and it will be cranked out by a Building and have both a bombard and like a 13 movement, all terrain as roads, so it can basically go anywhere.

The subsidize immigration building will produce 13 ATAR colonistars and have a huge maintenance cost. The mass drivers will be financial buildings.

Civs will be corporations on the moon.

 

[Neomega]

Pretty neat. I am curious to see what it will look like in game.... especially the forest. I was thinking of making forest represent city for a scenario, and experimented with modifying the forest graphics in PSP so the city would flow like forest, but it didn't turn out too hot... (like the "krystalis" fields in the Pentagenesis modpack, those were just a couple of Paints Shop Pro artistic and texture effects done to the jungle terrain, and then cleaned around the edges).

I never tested it of course, as I am not sure if the AI would actually try to cover the world in city, like a human player would, (assuming city would be far superior to regular terrain).

I also have a whole bunch of arial photos of Seattle, skewed to diamond shapes I was going to try to use as irrigation. Spent alot of time trying to make it look neat before giving up. Also tried a little of BMP to terrain imaging in Open FX with these photos. The results were intriguing, but I couldn't get soemthing that looked right...... Allthough I have just got an idea of something I may try in Blender.

 

[Tholish]

The AI will do any terraforming that increases productivity. If you make forest good enough they'll go crazy planting it. Oh, and did I mention the city as forest terrain was all just cut and pasted from Pentagenesis cities using Gimp. Its just THE resource for sci fi stuff, and why reinvent the wheel.
Though you can make different styles of wheels.

 

[Neomega]

I'd be very interested in seeing the results.

I haven't done any modding since I released the mod. Taking a big break.

 

[Neomega]

I remember why now I decided not to use forest as urbanization...
because it is almost impossible to directly destroy forest. The only way you could do it is hope globalwarming pollution deforests, or have a human specific destructor unit (the AI would be clueless) to go in and "chop" urbanized tiles.

Plus it would look strange in a mod to start a planet off with urban centers.

 

[aznmonkeyass99]

niceee... finally someone came up with a planet/solar system mod