Space Empires

[Vadus]

Hi Folks

The last days I extended the space-mod "True Space Terrain" with Planets and human spacestations(cities).

I guess, the Terrain looks very pretty by now (see the screenshot below), but there is still much do to, till one can create a real Space Mod (like "Space Empires", which I have in mind)..

So the facts :

This is a completely new Terrain-Set:

Water(coast, sea, ocean, LM_sea) : deep Space
Grassland : Terran Planet
Desert : Desert Planet
Tundra : Ice Planet
Plains : Fruitless Planet
Marsh : Stars
Hill : Moons
Mountain : Moons
Iced Mountain : Moons
Volcano : instable Star
Jungle : Asteroids
Forests/Pines : GasPlanets
LM_grassland : gaia planet
LM_desert : ocean planet
LM_plains : swamp planet
LM_hills : toxic planets


american Cities : human spacestations
asian Cities : organic spacestations

Irrigation : SolarCollectors
Mines : small Outpost (Mining-Platform or so..)

I hope there are some people, who might help me with the other grafics, so that some kind of a "Civ3-Moo-Mod" or similar things could be created !
But for a complete Space Mod one have to recreate amost all Civ3 grafics .
So there are new Buildings, Resources, Alien-Cities (spacestations), Tech-Images, Streets and Railroads and spaceships! needed.
So my thoughts of that grafics :

1. Buldings : I guess, some StarWars-Buildings are useful
2. Resources :
- Maybe like in Reunion we need special metals for Units and Buildings
- what about "ultra-rich"-Recources, and "Gaia"-planets (found on terran planets) ? (hmm, Moo-Feeling in Civ3 .. )
3. Alien-Cities : I like the spacestations, so why not some for other Races ?
4. Tech-Images : so we also need Techs (... and a hole Techtree?)
5. Streets and Railroads : A brown/grey line across the space-map looks stupid. So maybe a little Star-Portal (or Star-Gate) on each Street-Field ?
6. spaceships : I only found starwars units..
and there is a subdivision of units :
Systemships (small Fighter, Colo- and Workships, Transporter (to attack planets)) and
Interstellar-ships (big Battleships and small drones)

The cool thing having a separation in Deep Space (water) and System Space(Land) is, that there is a expansion-border
(The first epochs : Interstellar-Ships could only reach near Solar-Systems (because auf coast-moving) , then in the middle-game you discover better drives to reach middle ranged Systems (sea-moving), and first in the end-game you cold reach the hole space (ocean-moving)

so, here at last the zip-package. I hope on your support

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1. Planetary Update 14.12.03
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1.a) second Upate-Version

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2. Planetary Update 06.01.04
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3. Planetary Update 11.01.04
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Attention : This update contains some grafics from
Cyborganics
If you want to use the old (bigger) stars, just rename the marsh1.pcx to marsh.pcx !

Space4.zip

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4. Planetary Update 20.06.04
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Here is a set of SpaceCities, I have made for the StarTrek Mod
City-styles:

american - federation
asian - klingon
roman - romulan
europe - borg
mideast - a mixture of different cities (organic, cardassian...)

SpaceCities.zip

 

[Vadus]

here the screenshot

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1. Planetary Update 14.12.03
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Two new Screenshots :

1. The new Landmark-Terrain (3 new Planets and Nebular)

LandMarked Space

2. The new Stars and new Alien Cities : (asian : organic, european : ufo-like)

Alien System

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2. Planetary Update 06.01.04
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1. The final Terrain

final Terrain

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3. Planetary Update 11.01.04
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ok ok, the 2. planetary update wasn't final

more LM Stuff, other stars

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4. Planetary Update 20.06.04
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here some City Stuff:

ST Cities

 

[spincrus]

wow.. gj!

 

[aelavac]

Just a thought, take it as it is: Maybe lights on the planet would give the affect of a growing population. A few bright spots for less-populated planets and long chains all over the surface for over-populated planets (ever see the "Earth at Night" picture?). You could put the lights instead or in addition to the space station. I'm not sure it will look right when its put on the planet image, but it might be worth a shot.

 

[Vadus]

A few bright spots for less-populated planets and long chains all over the surface for over-populated planets (ever see the "Earth at Night" picture?). You could put the lights instead or in addition to the space station.

Yes, maybe it looks cool on the fruitless planet (screenshot - venus). I could try it

And I remember :
This Space-Grafics-Set is free to alter, so anyone, who makes a nice change or extension should post it here

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[Kenta'arka]

Awesome! Now I really want a Star Trek or MoO MOD

 

[Madeira]

Looks cool!

 

[The Last Conformist]

Beautiful!

 

[J-S]

Excellent work Vadus! This is really one of the best modding projects I have ever come across! cheers

 

[JtheJackal]

Great Job! Are you thinking of taking advantage of the landmark graphics to create more terrain?

 

[Vadus]

the landmark- terrain, I never used it before .. : I'm not sure, can I use for example the landmark-grassland for a completely new Terrain-Type by modifying the Civ3 rules ? Because I can set it on the map, but in the rules it is connected to the "normal" Terrain...

If it's possible, we have the chance to create more planets (swamp-planet, litte gas-planet, gaia-planet and so on )

 

[sprnv8]

Dude that Terrain looks kill.
Great Job!!!!

Is there a tutorial on the Landmark Terrain? because I am puzzled myself on how to work the modifications.

 

[Warlord 101]

This is probablly the best Space Graphics Mod there is. Most handle it by having coastlines as edges of planets and have different degrees of depth of space. This one, however, is all quite original and, because of the new Cities mixed in with it, I have to say I like it even more.

 

[JtheJackal]

There's thread about this around somewhere, anyway the Landmark terrain apparently has seperate graphics file then its non landmark counter part. So you could make more different types of terrain.

Also a suggestion I thought the stars were too small compared to the planets maybe making them bigger will look better

 

[Vadus]

Also a suggestion I thought the stars were too small compared to the planets maybe making them bigger will look better

You're right, but if I made the stars bigger, they wouldn't look like just a light-source in space anymore...


an example (a bigger star would look like) :




the star would look more than a "lava-planet", or so

but I might find out, what my Draw-Programm says about bigger stars

 

[Chris85]

Fantastic job on the terrain!

 

[Vadus]

Hi all,

This weekend I made the first Update :

Changes :

Marsh : Stars (more, bigger, more beautiful )
Hill : Moons
Mountain : Moons
Iced Mountain : Moons

News :

1. Added Space LandMark Terrain !

LM-Water (coast, sea, ocean) : deep Space
LM-Grassland : Green Planet (gaian like)
LM-Dersert : Swamp-Planet
LM-Plains : Ocean-Planet
LM-Forests : Nebular

Attention: To use the new Landmark Terrain, you have to change the area (in which you want to put the LandMark-Stuff) firstly in LM-Sea ! Otherwise there are mixtures between "normal" and "LandMark" terrain.. I don't know, how to solve this better, but on this way it works

2. New Cities :

- "modern" Human Cities (american)
- "acient" Organic Cities (asian) - looks organic
- "acient and medival" Alien Cities (europe) looks more ufo-like


I posted two more screenshots in the second post of this thread !
Download the update : look to the first post of this tread

 

[Vadus]

second Update Version :

- no green lines with landmark terrain
- changed marsh.pcx (...forgot something )

 

[Smoking mirror]

Vadus;

Wow, these are exelent terrains!

You must have been working on these at about the same time as me, My own space mod is back at the drawing board at the moment, but I intend to carry on with it as soon as I get a bit more time.

I am currious, Are the planet graphics resources, or modified CSO.pcx ?


I've been thinking about how to handle such a project, and am still researching, so I'd be interested in any problems and soulutions you come across during your development.

 

[Vadus]

Hi Smoking mirror

the planets are all modified CSO.pcx files, so that for example regular grassland is a terran planet now

I choosed that way, because so I have much free resources (still all) for other cool things like "native Civ's" on Planets (hmm, Moo ), or special Recources ( Reunion ).

That means for the Gameplay: There is still Water (deep space) and land (planets, moon, asteroids, nebulars). To make it easier for the AI it is necessary to have "land-bridges" between the planets and moos
(the AI has problems with single Landfields ..)
And this also means, that there will be System-Ships (Land-Units) and Interstellar-Ships (Sea-Units), but I guess this will be quite cool for a Mod

Problems : Oh yeah, many !
There are problems with LandMark-Terrain. You have to use(put) it carefully to have no incorrect transitions to other connected terrain-tiles

Then you have to be carefull, with which terrain you are planning to use terrain-upgrades and city-places. For example, you have a Planet based on the grassland-forest-grafics. When you are building a City on that Planet, the forest is gone, and the city stands on grassland (another Planet ) . Thats the reason, why I had to change march-terrain with hill/mountain - terrain (moons with stars)
Other example : You want to put mines on your planet based on forest-terrain. I don't know, if you can change the Rules to do so, otherwise I have to change another two terrain-types

Your'e also working on a Space-Terrain-Mod ? I'm anxious to have a look on your terrain