Space Empires

[Cyborganics]

What I am just sitting down to work on right now is a scheme where the major planets are made of four terrain tiles, it seems to work well as the AI likes it and will settle a city on it. It also allows some play for partially conquring a major planet as the planets are now even bigger, still round but still prevent landlocked civs (bad for a space game I would think).

something like this...



Me personally, I wanted the major planets to be as big as possible... without being square landish abhorations.

As for pollution no longer being a gameplay factor, with what I had been working on previously, true. Pollution was something that I figured out of the design given that cities exist on islands of one terrain with no adjuctant tiles to pollute (water) but with the mandatory four terrain tile I need to make the AI happy - pollution is now back in play.

So I need to rethink the stars now, I had an idea on how to use the mountains and hills for that... blah blah blah.


Oh and sorry Vadus, I hope I didn't hijack your thread too much.

 

[Vadus]

Well, I like the Idea of bigger planets So then it will be possible to create more than one city on it, more resources on one planet and so on ...

As I said, in some hours I'll try to combine big Land Terrain Planets with one tiled Land planets.

Idea for Stars : Marshes are good. If you take hills or Mountains (like me in my first SpaceMod Version) you give a TerrainType away, which doesn't change, if you build a city on it. So hills and Mountains are good candidates for Moons or Planets, and Marshes, which change to grassland by building a city on them, are good for stars (because, I guess, a City on a Star is most unrealistic)

Oh and sorry Vadus, I hope I didn't hijack your thread too much.

Of course not! You give important informations to develop my SpaceTerrain. I have to thank you for that

 

[embryodead]

@Vadus
Firaxis does strange things sometimes, they added LM Sea, but there's no LM Ocean or Coast. There is LM Forest but no LM Jungle and so on

 

[Vadus]

yes, because of that I hope to add new terrain-types using the still unused LM files ..

 

[Cyborganics]

I'm realizing an interesting way to make many many many variations of a planet without needing extra terrain beyond the meager plains/grass/desert/tundra limits. Since the scheme I'm working on is going to use a quad based planet terrain tile (thanks to the AI) I can use the middle terrain 'filler' for smaller planets that can also support mixed terrain types and still be round!

Does this make any sense?

Probably not, I think I just started talking in tongues.

But just think... hundreds of unique looking planets (no silly resources needed either) AND I can use the LM terrain for the really big planets still! Mountains / forest / marsh can also be used for further customizing the planets to reflect thier unique bio diversity (more as icons though, like 'airports' or 'barracks').

I'm going to be so busy with lots of new planet art soon I think.


=D

 

[Vadus]

I'm realizing an interesting way to make many many many variations of a planet without needing extra terrain beyond the meager plains/grass/desert/tundra limits. Since the scheme I'm working on is going to use a quad based planet terrain tile (thanks to the AI) I can use the middle terrain 'filler' for smaller planets that can also support mixed terrain types and still be round!
Does this make any sense?
Probably not, I think I just started talking in tongues.

So for example there is a terran planet with a desert-tile in the middle. Because of the transitions from desert to terran that might be look quite cool. But then there will be never the chance to place to planets side by side, because then they would "grow" together

Mountains / forest / marsh can also be used for further customizing the planets to reflect thier unique bio diversity (more as icons though, like 'airports' or 'barracks').

Sure, but think of other space objects. There are still Asteroids, Nebulars and such stuff...

An pollution Idea : Trash-Fields in Space (though Space is Water and pollution is only seen on Land it could look on one tiled objects like that a Planet is surrounded with a Ring of SpaceTrash?

 

[Arne]

Hm, vadus asked for posting it here. So I do. Here is a small preview of three other city-styles. Hope this is okay.

 

[Vadus]

Wow ! Great Arne !
I have to do another CityUpdate

 

[Vadus]

Finally I have some time to make some Civ Stuff, but I can't load your Terrain-zip File , Cyborganics !
Could you check the Link to your terrain ?

 

[Kenta'arka]

Nice work Arne Unfortunately none of them look like Borg

 

[Cyborganics]

Whoops, fixed.


Try now.

 

[Kenta'arka]

I made civilopedia icons for the planet types, Stars, Asteriods and Nebula. I made them for the Star Trek Mod, but would work without Star trek backgroud too

Download

Prewiev:

Instable Star/Terran Planet/Desert Planet/Gas Giant/Nebula

 

[Vadus]

Ah yes, thats quite cool, thanks

I'm still thinking how to create one-tiled and more-tiled plantes in one terrain-type.
The problem is, that a one tiled planet has it's own angles (top, left, right, bottom). The bow of the planet in the top-angle must be suitable to the bows in the left and right angles to result a circle form.

But a four (or more) tiled planet has other bows, and also they have to be suitable to another. The problem is, that a four tiled planet could use a top angle from a one-tiled planet. The bows in the angles aren't suitable to another

you see here :

 

[Vadus]

@Kenta'arka

Hey Vadus, do you think you can remove the black "aura" (don't know how to call it, see screenshot) around stars? It's annoying to keep a distance of one tile between star and planets...

well, I tried to make a nice star, which has no black aura. If you need I could make a palette (red, blue, white, orange..) of that (especially for the StarTrek Mod)
Or maybe the stars from cyborganics ?

 

[Vadus]

Hi

here the next planetary update !

- LMMountains : a Lava planet and a cold rocky Planet
- LMHills : two toxic planets
- LMGrassland : nicer Gaia Planet
- Bonus Grassland : greener terran Planet (former gaia)

- Now you have the chance to choose, whether the stars are big and have a "black aura" lapping the next tiles of the star or really one tiled stars, which are from cyboranics terrain.
Just look to for file marsh.pcx or marsh1.pcx and rename the file you want to play with to "marsh.pcx"

you can download the newest version from the first post of this thread.

 

[Kenta'arka]

Space Terrain God

...just the new planets are bigger than the old...the gaia is even bigger than a gas giant...

Oh, and tnx for the new stars, really beautiful, and look perfect with your terrain

Hmm, one suggestion:
Remove Moons as terrain, maybe make 2 new planet types, and moons as recources (maybe different? 1 moon, 2 moons, 3 moons?), I guess that would look much better, as the moons would be in the same tile like the planet and really orbiting it.

 

[Vadus]

the new planets are bigger than the old...the gaia is even bigger than a gas giant...

well ... yes !

here a comparison :

big planets

but this only concerns the gaia , lava and cold-rocky planets. The gaia planet is the best planet in space, so it's not a problem to make it bigger to the other planets

the lava and cold-rocky one ... hmm, I guess you're right...

so, for anyone who want's that two planets a bit smaller, download the attachment

Hmm, one suggestion:
Remove Moons as terrain, maybe make 2 new planet types, and moons as recources (maybe different? 1 moon, 2 moons, 3 moons?), I guess that would look much better, as the moons would be in the same tile like the planet and really orbiting it.

nono, I love moons in space-games. Almost all strategy space-games haven't moons and I always miss them while playing such a game. (I have to think on StarWars6. The most important Empire-Base Endor is a moon )
The other point : if a planet has a moon-resource, it can't have a special mineral anymore or a native civ...

 

[Kenta'arka]

Originally posted by Vadus


The other point : if a planet has a moon-resource, it can't have a special mineral anymore or a native civ...

Good point...

Tnx for resizing the new planets, but I still think the gaia should be the same size too. Just because it looks weird if all planets got the same size, except for one

 

[Vadus]

hmm.. you're right. It looks a bit strange now as you see ...

resizement tomorrow

 

[Vadus]

ok, a new package with resized planets is available on the first post of this thread