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Sp0ck
Voyager
Joined: 26 Oct 2004
Posts: 7
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 Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 12:11 pm Post subject: Galaxy layout questions |
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First: Hi all, this looks like a very promising game, I can't wait till it's out!
I would like to know how large the galaxy will be. I do not like the concept of MOO3 (yes I came over here from the atari board too), when you reached turn 100 every planet in your borders was colonized. In terms of realism I would rather have the galaxy contain thousands of stars but many without any planets and only 1% of the planets colonizable. IMHO a galaxy with large parts unknown even untill the end of the game and cool random events would create a nice atmosphe.
Whith random events I don't think of something like in MOO3, I think something like this:
You don't exactly know what's happening beneath the ice hull of an ice planet in a system where you have a colony. Your scientist say the ice under the hull melts due to the heat coming from the core of the planet. Someday an alien lifeform breaks through the ice and starts attacking your colony. |
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Therlun
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Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 137
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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i would prefer a very limited number of systems and planet in a game, making the management less tiresome and the individual systems more valuable.
i dont know about the galaxy size, but what i heared the number of colonies will be somewhat smaller then in normal games.
(which i like!)
what do you do with such a huge galaxy, where only so little is usable? (1% colonizable?!).
would it become a feeling of epic size, or boring emptyness?
depends on the game i guess.
the point of random events is, after you play a game a while you know them all.
galciv had some interesting events, even with choices. but after a few games you knew most of them, and didnt cared much about it anymore.
i cant imagine a random event engine being entertaining for a long time.
(moo3 promised something like this...)
a truly good random event would be like a little novel, really rare and with several chapters....
btw welcome in the forums! |
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Sp0ck
Voyager
Joined: 26 Oct 2004
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| btw welcome in the forums! |
Thanks!
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| i would prefer a very limited number of systems and planet in a game, making the management less tiresome and the individual systems more valuable. |
I agree with you that too many colonies are tiresome, I hate to micro in MOO3. But I still think there are way not enough systems and planets in MOO3 so my conclusion is that there should be very many systems and planets but most of them are not colonizable and many should have a too hostile enviroment to even build an outpost. Combined with a good random event generator it would give you the feeling that the galaxy is something huge, unknown and unpredictable. The same thing making scientefic articles about astrophysics so interresting, I even think that's the point why people will play this game and not civ3.
Oh, and while talking about physics, what about dual stars, neutron stars, whorm holes, quasars, and space pullings? |
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Therlun
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Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 137
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 7:12 pm Post subject: |
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i wouldnt put worm holes into this list but some differences would indeed create some athmospheric background.
in our galaxy more then half of the stars are alligned in mutiple star systems!
on the other side, planets physics are much more complex in mutiple star systems, making life and life substaining eviroment less probable.
and of course it would be more work to design it....
to the sciences:
isnt a quasar just the luminescent matter that got accelerated by a super massive black hole, and pushed into space? so there should be max one per galaxy, and afaik there is none on ours... (at least not anymore) |
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Sp0ck
Voyager
Joined: 26 Oct 2004
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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on the other side, planets physics are much more complex in mutiple star systems, making life and life substaining eviroment less probable.
and of course it would be more work to design it.... |
Yes, the problen starts with the orbit of planets in dual star systems. It's still not clear if everything falls into the stars.
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to the sciences:
isnt a quasar just the luminescent matter that got accelerated by a super massive black hole, and pushed into space? |
The scientist first discovered (sry forgot the name...) that astronomic object thought it was a star. Later on, scientists discovered that it has to be a black hole, only visible, as you say, due to the matter and radiation "jets" steaming out of it (hope I used the right words....  ).
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| i wouldnt put worm holes into this list but some differences would indeed create some athmospheric background. |
Maybe fluctuating worm holes can be interresting in view of random events. You could suddently have contact with a new maybe dangerous faction not known in your part of the galaxy and that contact can be lost as suddently as it came. Maybe you and your foes have to lay down their diffrences due to some new dangerous power threating you. |
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Zaimat
Dev. Team
Joined: 08 Aug 2003
Posts: 357
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 10:52 pm Post subject: |
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Welcome Sp0ck  Good to have you here.
You know (large galaxies with lots of stars) it's one of the first things that I wanted when first throwing out ideas on the core design. There are millions or billions of stars in our galaxy so we can't (atm at least) represent it that accurately in a game but so long as we can impart that feeling that's what I wanted.
As for the number of planets, more stars means a lot more planets, in Horizon you will simply pick the best planets, instead of colonizing everything which also imo mimics what we would do if one day we were able to travel the stars.
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Sim-Mania
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Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 93
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:56 am Post subject: |
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when you reached turn 100 every planet in your borders was colonized. In terms of realism I would rather have the galaxy contain thousands of stars but many without any planets and only 1% of the planets colonizable. IMHO a galaxy with large parts unknown even untill the end of the game and cool random events would create a nice atmosphe.
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I too did not fancy moo3's set out, but I was more concerned with how close each empire was to each other. There was no sense or feeling for the true size of a galaxy. Once you expanded a few systems out, you were already next to the borders of another empire, and that was pretty poor in my opinion. From what I've learned about Horizon, this is definitely not the case, however it will be interesting to see just how the Horizon team have designed the galaxy layout, to incorporate so many systems and planets.
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You know (large galaxies with lots of stars) it's one of the first things that I wanted when first throwing out ideas on the core design.
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I too have wanted a game to truely represent this, or as accurately as possible. |
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Sp0ck
Voyager
Joined: 26 Oct 2004
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 6:03 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| There are millions or billions of stars in our galaxy so we can't (atm at least) represent it that accurately in a game but so long as we can impart that feeling that's what I wanted. |
Of course, you allway need to siplify things, the only question is how...
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| You know (large galaxies with lots of stars) it's one of the first things that I wanted when first throwing out ideas on the core design. |
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| As for the number of planets, more stars means a lot more planets, in Horizon you will simply pick the best planets, instead of colonizing everything which also imo mimics what we would do if one day we were able to travel the stars. |
Nice! that's exactly what I wanted! 
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| I too did not fancy moo3's set out, but I was more concerned with how close each empire was to each other. |
I thought the impudently way the AI set up colonies in your territory was the most annoying thing.
I would still like to know some things about the concept...
Is there a random event gererator?
What about wormholes?
What about the Gravitation field of dual stars? |
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Sobriquet
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Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 118
Location: Reno, NV
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:06 pm Post subject: |
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| What about the Gravitation field of dual stars? |
I am all for adding as much realism as possibble, but isn't this getting just a wee bit anal? Should the devs model dark matter/energy, as well? There are myriad astronomical phenomenon (sp?) that could effect every aspect of gameplay.
How far can a programmer go until they have modelled so much that there is no room left for a game? 
What are your thoughts? How far would you like to see them go?
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DeckPrism
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Joined: 06 Oct 2004
Posts: 33
Location: Near Washington D.C.
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Sim-Mania wrote: |
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when you reached turn 100 every planet in your borders was colonized. In terms of realism I would rather have the galaxy contain thousands of stars but many without any planets and only 1% of the planets colonizable. IMHO a galaxy with large parts unknown even untill the end of the game and cool random events would create a nice atmosphe.
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I too did not fancy moo3's set out, but I was more concerned with how close each empire was to each other. There was no sense or feeling for the true size of a galaxy. Once you expanded a few systems out, you were already next to the borders of another empire, and that was pretty poor in my opinion. From what I've learned about Horizon, this is definitely not the case, however it will be interesting to see just how the Horizon team have designed the galaxy layout, to incorporate so many systems and planets.
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You know (large galaxies with lots of stars) it's one of the first things that I wanted when first throwing out ideas on the core design.
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I too have wanted a game to truely represent this, or as accurately as possible. |
People are free to dislike MOO3, but I wish they'd be fair. In the MOO3 backstory IIRC it was explained that the stars shown were the "interesting" stars. Interesting stars almost always had planets and were connected by starlanes. Presumably, uninteresting stars had neither. In other words, the designers choose the option of large galaxy, but whittled the display of the uninteresting down in order to avoid boredome.
When it comes to how close you are to your neighbor in MOO3 it is a combination of 3 factors: how big is the galaxy (max 256 stars), how many neighbors do you have (2-17), and are you in the senate -> crammed into the center. So, if you want the feeling of space, play huge galaxy with maybe 4 opponents, and choose not to be in the senate. And on top of that, since the galaxy got created each time, you could restart if it was unsatisfactory to you. Granted, these are not the default conditions, but it is possible.
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Sp0ck
Voyager
Joined: 26 Oct 2004
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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I am all for adding as much realism as possibble, but isn't this getting just a wee bit anal? Should the devs model dark matter/energy, as well? There are myriad astronomical phenomenon (sp?) that could effect every aspect of gameplay.
How far can a programmer go until they have modelled so much that there is no room left for a game? Question
What are your thoughts? How far would you like to see them go? |
Moddeling dark matter/energy would be pointless cuz no one ever seen it, it's only based on mathematical theories.
But the orbit of planets in dual star systems is at least something you can see and I'm interrested in how the devs handle the problem.
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| People are free to dislike MOO3, but I wish they'd be fair. In the MOO3 backstory IIRC it was explained that the stars shown were the "interesting" stars. Interesting stars almost always had planets and were connected by starlanes. Presumably, uninteresting stars had neither. In other words, the designers choose the option of large galaxy, but whittled the display of the uninteresting down in order to avoid boredome. |
Hmm... I didn't know that. I don't like the galaxy layout only cuz of terms of realism, as i said before there is alway some sort of simplifying necessery, it's mainly a matter of atmosphere.
To prevent missunderstanding, MOO3 is a good game there are just many possibilities of enhancement. |
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Sobriquet
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Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 118
Location: Reno, NV
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 5:03 pm Post subject: |
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| . . . it's only based on mathematical theories. |
** nitpik = on **
All astronomical phenomena are only based on mathematical theories. These theories are constantly being revised. Even Einstein's unified theory of gravity is being revisited because of anomalies in the flight paths of Pioneer 10 and 11. See related story.
** nitpik = off **
My question was not whether it could be modelled correctly, but rather what your thoughts were on the modelling impacting gameplay. What benefit do you think conditional gravitation fields would have on gameplay?
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Sp0ck
Voyager
Joined: 26 Oct 2004
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 5:35 am Post subject: |
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| My question was not whether it could be modelled correctly, but rather what your thoughts were on the modelling impacting gameplay. What benefit do you think conditional gravitation fields would have on gameplay? |
None. But that's not a reason to not ask. I didn't want to offend someone like "HAHA, how will you solve this problem when no scientist knows how?". I'm no star trek fan hwo need everything explained (even if my nick&avatar suggest that). I was just curious.
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| All astronomical phenomena are only based on mathematical theories. |
I only wanted to show that moddeling orbits of planets in dual star systems and moddeling dark matter/energy is something diffrent cuz even when it has no effect on gameplay the orbit of planets in dual star systems is at least something you can see, you can't compare theese two things in the aspect my question was asked.
[edit]btw, interresting article. Apologies for my bad english[/edit] |
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Zaimat
Dev. Team
Joined: 08 Aug 2003
Posts: 357
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 5:48 pm Post subject: |
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The way the galaxy is setup in Horizon: We've divided the galaxy into sectors and each sector can have a maximum of one star (black hole, neutron star, etc). Not all sectors need to be populated. This makes things simple interface wise on the galaxy map, whether to order a taskforce, to see what's in a sector etc.
A sector is pretty huge in itself spanning many screens (afterall it has to contain the star and planets in orbit).
The galaxy, stars, planets are all randomly generated (except for the major races system planets). As for random Events, we have not gotten around to it as of yet. There are wormholes yes.
Regarding other stuff such as dual stars or other anomalies/space bodies etc. It's good to hear your suggestions if it's something relatively minor we will consider it or at the very least something we can look into in the future.
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Therlun
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Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 137
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 7:39 pm Post subject: |
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how about inter planetar travel, is your fleet in one sector "all at once"?
can two fleets that belong to enemies of each other be in the same sector, without or after a fight? (orbiting different planets for instance) |
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Sobriquet
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Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 118
Location: Reno, NV
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| Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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Zaimat said:
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| A sector is pretty huge in itself spanning many screens (afterall it has to contain the star and planets in orbit). |
What will be on each of these screens? Will there be a screen for the parent star, then one for each planet? Will there be any "empty" screens in between planets (as a way to illustrate size)? Will we be able to travel through all three axis in these sectors?
Any ideas as to how big you'll make each system/sector? From zero to how many planets are possible in each?
Will we be able to colonize moons if the adjoining planet is inhabitable?
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Zaimat
Dev. Team
Joined: 08 Aug 2003
Posts: 357
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:17 pm Post subject: |
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There are no artificial barriers between stars or sectors, it's one whole continous galaxy space.
Your fleet can be between two sectors, a ship can enter or move to a different sector at anytime, you can fire weapons from one sector to the other if you happen to be at the edge, etc.
It's total open space.
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Sobriquet
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Location: Reno, NV
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| Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Zaimat wrote: |
| It's total open space. |
I am so very intruiged as to how this will play out in game.
How close are you to releasing a screenshot? I gotta see this.
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Zaimat
Dev. Team
Joined: 08 Aug 2003
Posts: 357
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:48 pm Post subject: |
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We've set the limit to 9 planets max per system. No colonizing of moons.
Movement is in 2-axis, planets are on a different (background) plane (off the 3rd axis. in effect to show further in the distance). And yes stars are in the center and planets orbiting around. There is quite a bit of empty space, no fear of planets colliding with each other due to gravitational pulls. Which I know was your concern! 
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DeckPrism
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Joined: 06 Oct 2004
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Location: Near Washington D.C.
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| Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 11:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Sobriquet wrote: |
How close are you to releasing a screenshot? I gotta see this. |
I want to see it too, but a simple screenshot does not sound like it will give us a feel for a sector since...
| Zaimat wrote: |
| A sector is pretty huge in itself spanning many screens (afterall it has to contain the star and planets in orbit). |
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