[Ornlu Wolfjarl]

Master of Orion 3 did it this way. It turns out, you didn't care about any of that stuff, just whether it was in the green, yellow or red habitation ring. Can I put my dudes on this world, and if I do how much will they hate it? That's what you want to know. Not "Survay report: Bellerophon IV. This world appears superficially habitable, with 0.87g, 19% O2 in the atmosphere and large bodies of surface water. But the bizarre biology of the local flora means that the atmosphere also contains at least 37 chemical compounds never before encountered by science and each of which is spectacularly fatal to humans. The 300 mph winds may also prove challenging to colonization efforts. The soil is laced with arsenic, and there's only a weak magnetic field so the surface is wildly radioactive. In summery: no."

[...]

I prefer vague definitions, actually. Without being specific about what makes a toxic world toxic the game can potentially encompass far more planet types than it could if it came up with some metrics about atmosphere and temperature and so on. There's more to habitability than just atmosphere composition and temperature.

I liked what MoO3 did. As far as immersion goes it's a great idea. It still had the information you needed (which yeah, it could have been more clear) but it had that added flavor that really made it like you were playing space Magellan. Vague definitions are always throwing me off in any game. I want the dev to take the time and craft a world I can explore, particularly in 4x/GSG/Building sim games. My imagination can fill in some blanks, but I'd much rather use it to play the game than to experience the game.

 

[mwyeoh]

Hmm, cant wait to see what sort of resources will be out there! And the modules that will be available too

 

[Leo2]

Cant' await this title. Not so complex like Distant Worlds Universe but it looks pretty good. And the multiplayer will be awsesome as a ruler of a Federation.
Keep up the good work. And who knows, maybe with the upcomming DLCs it will be more complex.

 

[Jormungandur]

Question for any devs. Is the wormhole station linked to spacestations? Or is it a different mechanic?

They are not directly linked. Wormhole Stations are built outside a systems gravity well (a minimum distance from the star) and are not attached to a planet.

If we capture a spaceport from another empire, can we use (not build) the modules that they have put on it that we cannot due to our ethos or scientific reasons, or will they be rendered useless?

If you take control of a planet with an intact spaceport the modules will function even if you can not build them yourself. If the module requires a resource to function, you will have to be able to provide that resource.

 

[henzington]

I assume 1 spaceport per planet?

 

[Tim_Ward]

I liked what MoO3 did. As far as immersion goes it's a great idea. It still had the information you needed (which yeah, it could have been more clear) but it had that added flavor that really made it like you were playing space Magellan. Vague definitions are always throwing me off in any game. I want the dev to take the time and craft a world I can explore, particularly in 4x/GSG/Building sim games. My imagination can fill in some blanks, but I'd much rather use it to play the game than to experience the game.

I think putting that stuff in for pure flavour purposes is a good idea. There's a "habitability" number which is a percentage, would be nice to hover over and see how it has been derived.

 

[Guilu]

They are not directly linked. Wormhole Stations are built outside a systems gravity well (a minimum distance from the star) and are not attached to a planet.

Actually that's another question : How are distances handled ? Can you only go on pre-defined tiles like your historical games' provinces, is there a grid that we've yet to see, or is space continuous ? If the latter is true, how do you determine if a battle should be occurring and who's participating ?

 

[hewhoispale]

I do agree that while it might be fun to have a wide range of "survey results" instead of discrete classes, it would really just boil down to do I colonize this planet first, later, or never?

SotS used a climate number instead that represented how unpleasant to live on a planet was, each race had a different preferred climate value and planets were displayed as how far from the viewing species' "home" value they were. Initial colony industrial output was directed to terraforming which reduced that number towards 0, and the lower the number the faster the population growth. In the end basically all it meant was when it came time to dispatch colonists, you mostly just sorted the planets list by climate value and sent them to the lowest number until you reached the uninhabitable dustballs and hellworlds.

Personally, I really liked what Endless Space did with planet classes. Each one had a purpose: Fertile planets were pleasant to live on and provided food for a system, tundra & lava planets & asteroid belts provided industrial opportunities, barren and arctic planets were effective scientific outposts, arid & desert planets were effective for trade and commerce (Spice must flow!), and gas giants were essentially later-game resource outposts depended on the type of gas.
By giving each planet type a reason to be used, it kept the player from later on just having a zillion differently sized home-class worlds Like in MoO.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Actually that's another question : How are distances handled ? Can you only go on pre-defined tiles like your historical games' provinces, is there a grid that we've yet to see, or is space continuous ? If the latter is true, how do you determine if a battle should be occurring and who's participating ?

I would be shocked if their representation of space had an underlying tiling or grid. It's easy to calculate distance between two ships on a 2d plane, so you can use these for weapon range calculations. I suspect that if two belligerent fleets were in the same star system, they would be considered to be in combat, or at least maneuvering to engage in or escape combat. It basically depends on the range of weapon systems relative to the scale of the system, but the way the ships are drawn, I think missile range will cover a good chunk of a system.

 

[Jormungandur]

I assume 1 spaceport per planet?

Yup, each inhabited planet can only have one spaceport.

 

[Wulfburk]

Do planet tiles works like holdings in Crusader Kings 2 when it comes to sieges? Meaning an army has to capture all the used tiles one at a time, like CK2 with the baronies and etc?

And considering that, can 2 different factions have tiles on the same planet de jure speaking? (like not because of an army occupation and etc)

 

[Mauer]

So every planet will have it's own spaceport optimally or are you making it work so players rather focus fleet production to a few key planets? I don't want to have 50 planets each one producing a ship every other turn because otherwise the production goes to waste, too much micromanagement.

 

[SIEGE-109]

"Survay report: Bellerophon IV. This world appears superficially habitable, with 0.87g, 19% O2 in the atmosphere and large bodies of surface water. But the bizarre biology of the local flora means that the atmosphere also contains at least 37 chemical compounds never before encountered by science and each of which is spectacularly fatal to humans. The 300 mph winds may also prove challenging to colonization efforts. The soil is laced with arsenic, and there's only a weak magnetic field so the surface is wildly radioactive. In summery: no."

That actually sounds like a GREAT flavor text. I think this would be even better:

"Survey Report: Bellerophon IV. This world appears highly habitable, with 0.87g, 8% Nitrous Oxide, despite frigid tital darkside containing toxic water oceans. The planet's complex symbiotic biology produces all vital atmospheric vitamins. The planet is richly irradiated due to a Sovaraph-like magnetic field that attracts and amplifies solar wind. On the dayside, vast arsenic fields are home to edible flora, nourished by rains of molten lead and caressed by gentle 300 mph winds. In summary: the world is a paradise."

 

[aitaituo]

So every planet will have it's own spaceport optimally or are you making it work so players rather focus fleet production to a few key planets? I don't want to have 50 planets each one producing a ship every other turn because otherwise the production goes to waste, too much micromanagement.

I've sort of always hated that about Civ games and copycats. Any kind of immersion is extremely difficult when you are always Soviet Russia levels of state economic control, complete with accompanying corruption/waste/inefficiency.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Perhaps one of the expansions will expand the set of toxic planet types and introduce a group of species that find them delectable. For now it seems like all the playable species we meet will very roughly agree about what sort of conditions are habitable, if not about what's ideal.

 

[Tim_Ward]

Personally, I really liked what Endless Space did with planet classes. Each one had a purpose: Fertile planets were pleasant to live on and provided food for a system, tundra & lava planets & asteroid belts provided industrial opportunities, barren and arctic planets were effective scientific outposts, arid & desert planets were effective for trade and commerce (Spice must flow!), and gas giants were essentially later-game resource outposts depended on the type of gas.
By giving each planet type a reason to be used, it kept the player from later on just having a zillion differently sized home-class worlds Like in MoO.

The downside of each planet type having a use in Endless Space was that each planet type only had one use; there was always one type of planetary exploitation that just worked some much better than any others, so it became a no brainer to take it if you wanted to optimize your FIDS. Which you should, because that's basically how you win the game.

I prefer the approach Stellaris seems to be taking, which is that habitable worlds are relatively rare and you don't just end up with every single world on the map colonized by late game, and planets are differentiated as much by the people that live there as by their "type" or resource output. I spoke in the last DD about how I wish they'd taken it further by reworking the slightly gamey tile system but what they already have is much preferable to what's in the likes of Endless Space.

That actually sounds like a GREAT flavor text. I think this would be even better:

"Survey Report: Bellerophon IV. This world appears highly habitable, with 0.87g, 8% Nitrous Oxide, despite frigid tital darkside containing toxic water oceans. The planet's complex symbiotic biology produces all vital atmospheric vitamins. The planet is richly irradiated due to a Sovaraph-like magnetic field that attracts and amplifies solar wind. On the dayside, vast arsenic fields are home to edible flora, nourished by rains of molten lead and caressed by gentle 300 mph winds. In summary: the world is a paradise."

Thank you.

The point I was trying to make, though, was the there's a lot more to planetary habitability than just things like atmosphere composition and temperature. Simulating this would be very complex, but in the end it boils down "colonization with current tech y/n". Thus it's better to paint very broad strokes than trying to be "realistic" and failing.

Flavour text like the above would be very nice but given how so much of the game is randomly generated, including planets and races, I don't think producing the required amount of content is practical, and randomly generated text is notoriously hard to get to read well.

A few stats like gravity, atmosphere, atmospheric pressure, radiation levels, temperatures etc would be nice as pure fluff though.

 

[CptWilly]

Perhaps one of the expansions will expand the set of toxic planet types and introduce a group of species that find them delectable. For now it seems like all the playable species we meet will very roughly agree about what sort of conditions are habitable, if not about what's ideal.

Extremophiles DLC.... I like it.

 

[Darkath]

Yup, each inhabited planet can only have one spaceport.

Can i have both a spaceport on earth AND on the moon or is it one for the planet and its satellites ?

 

[Vanhal]

The planet looks fairly pathetic next to such a massive space port. I do hope there's some more thought into rescaling the models.

It's because, you know, that's no moon...

 

[Tim_Ward]

It's because, you know, that's no moon...

Textbook.