Tiny rocks and gas giants question

[AMX]

Just remembered another old game - Perry Rhodan: Operation Eastside.
Gas Giants there could not be settled - but they had moons, and the moons were treated exactly like planets.

No chit? Somebody made a Perry Rhodan game? Man I remember reading those books as a kid. Can I blink on "tell me more"?

Yeah, back in '98 - it was more a "PR flavored" game than an actual PR game, featuring no established charecters and only a very tenuous connection to the plot; but I always rather liked it.

Basically it's a 4x game where you are trying to settle a part of the galactic east right at the time of the Second Empire story - so in addition to the other playable factions (all based on races from the books) you have to deal with the native Blues who start out literally invincible.

Turn-based with optional turn time limits, 3D strategic map*, hex-based tactical combat, multiplayer capable, but only ever published in German and with two completely game-breaking bugs that were never really fixed.

FTR, there have been some actual PR games since than - but they were all point-and-click adventures, also only available in German, and I'm told they were rather bad.


*I may have annoyed Arioch before asking if we could get something similar; it doesn't really have much practical advantage, it just always seemed really neat to me

[DanTheTerrible]

Argh. It figures they'd be in German. I'm your typical ignorant American who only reads English. I am not sure, but I doubt the "second empire" books were ever published in English. The highest number I ever read was something like #88 in the Ace editions.

[AMX]

Argh. It figures they'd be in German. I'm your typical ignorant American who only reads English. I am not sure, but I doubt the "second empire" books were ever published in English. The highest number I ever read was something like #88 in the Ace editions.

Let me check the list on perrypedia...

Well, that's annoying; the last published translation (Master Publications #137) is issue 145, and Second Empire is 150 through 199.

[Serenitis]

We might add moons at some point as some kind of planet special that gives some kind of bonus. But we would not want to make them colonizable for the reasons mentioned above, in addition to the UI/graphics issues that this would present.

Make the moon(s) effectively an addition to the planet. So that colony might have enough room for a couple more pops depending on the type of moon, and has the chance to roll a number of specials (some of which can be tagged as only_on_moons etc if required).

The colony display could then have each moon show next to the planet itself using the same mapped texture and overlays, just scaled down to a fraction of the size. (Re-using textures.)
There might not need to be any player interaction with the moon graphics beyond a tooltip containing the things it adds to the colony.

Quick hash together of what it could possibly look like: https://i.imgur.com/V8ViXM4.png
Used the space directly under the planet description which is currently empty.

[Arioch]

Make the moon(s) effectively an addition to the planet. So that colony might have enough room for a couple more pops depending on the type of moon, and has the chance to roll a number of specials (some of which can be tagged as only_on_moons etc if required).

Yes, that's the general idea... in gameplay terms moon(s) would just be another type of planetary special (like Mineral Rich, etc.) which depending on the type could offer various bonuses, including possibly some additional biome slots. Some different moon types could be: Large Moon, Multiple Moons, Metallic Moon, Habitable Moon, Tidelocked Moon.

The colony display could then have each moon show next to the planet itself using the same mapped texture and overlays, just scaled down to a fraction of the size. (Re-using textures.)
There might not need to be any player interaction with the moon graphics beyond a tooltip containing the things it adds to the colony.

Quick hash together of what it could possibly look like: https://i.imgur.com/V8ViXM4.png
Used the space directly under the planet description which is currently empty.

I think the simplest way to display the presence of moon(s) is just with another planet special icon to the upper left of the planet. I think that setting up a sub-UI for examining each moon would be both (perhaps unnecessarily) complex, and might set up the expectation in players that moons can be more fully exploited, when they can't. As is the current problem with Tiny planets.

[PrivateHudson]

...could offer various bonuses...

Additional Planetary Defense slot. Negative event: invasion of hellmarish creatures due to experiments with teleportation, completely overrunning the moon and causing heavy losses on the planet (up to evacuation).

[Arioch]

...could offer various bonuses...

Additional Planetary Defense slot.

Good idea.

Negative event: invasion of hellmarish creatures due to experiments with teleportation, completely overrunning the moon and causing heavy losses on the planet (up to evacuation).

Less good idea. But funny.

[Serenitis]

Just as a bit of a curiosity thing, I started playing around with some of the files in LUA/orders and ended up enabling the colonisation of tiny planets by commenting out 6 lines for the 2 instances where if size=='Tiny' is called in colonization.lua.
And honestly, even though the planets in themselves aren't super useful. They are not entirely useless, and I've found that I'm far less bothered by thier somewhat limited use than the previous entire lack of use.

As part of the same venture, I also removed the size limitations from terraforming.lua and was impressed by how good the small planets look fully terraformed.
I was also a bit disappointed to see that the tiny planets couldn't also do this - I'd love to see how that looks/works.
Haven't found what's stopping this yet. (P. sure it's not needs.min_size as that's not being called, none of the types have size restrictions anymore.)

Not that any of this matters given the upcoming changes.
I'm just making a vague mockery of other people's pristine masterwork with my casual bumbling nonsense. Nothing to see here.

[siyoa]

I was also a bit disappointed to see that the tiny planets couldn't also do this - I'd love to see how that looks/works.

sorry, do what exactly ?

[Serenitis]

sorry, do what exactly ?

I commented out a couple of colonisation checks so I could colonise tiny worlds just to see if I could. Which worked.
But I couldn't find what was stopping colonies on tiny worlds from showing terraforming options, even though I'd also commented out the size checks for terraforming.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's a silly thing with no real purpose other than my own amusement.

[siyoa]

ah, I read small in both sentences, my bad ... tiny, it's tiny

[siyoa]

Haven't found what's stopping this yet.

planet_types.lua, vanilla has Tiny=0, you want to make default size_mult anything bigger than 0

Code: Select all

local size_mults = {
  Small = .5,
  Medium = 1,
  Large = 1.5,
  Huge = 2,
   Tiny = 0.25,
}


I am not 100% if that was the only thing holding you back, as there is also this (that b) is quite important) in terraforming.lua

Code: Select all

   -- a) the population cap of the planet as a whole will
   -- increase.  or b) the planet's capacity to hold members of
   -- the empire's dominant species type will increase.
   
      if (planet:species_max(species,type) > current_max) or (planet:inhabited_max(type) > imax)


but I was able to terraform Tiny

[Serenitis]

Looks like it was just that one size multiplier. Seems to be working the same accross all sizes now.
Thank you once again for indulging my curiosity.

[e]
An interesting quirk (that doesn't matter for the current base game due to not being able to use tinies anyway) is that the hab multiplier for tiny worlds needs to be at least 0.3, otherwise Humans can't terrform them due to all the available options not changing the pop cap in any meaningful way. None of the options appear until you import a race with an arid boost.
Gremak and Phidi just can't terraform them at all as they are the only races who don't have any kind of "preference" for glacier or arid biomes.

More of a curiosity than useful.

[Viscid]

R ORPV ERHXRWH GLL UIRVMW

[sishelper]

You can actually colonize tiny planets and even warp nodes in vanilla.
You just have to be Tinkers or ally annex the Tinkers. Then build Mobile base with two habitats and orbit the planet and you have 4 population plus a renaming option. Unfortunately you can only do basic trade/ mining but not transforming or other build slots.

I like the future idea to remake the tiny planets into Asteroid belts. This way you can send there special mining outposts and maybe unique options like build asteroid and pirate bases same like a ring Planet. Maybe build those bases with a mobility option much like Tinker ones, so that you can mass produce such asteroids there and move around your domain.

Regarding Gas Giant moons - I would prefer not to be just an Icon but a fully animated moon or moons with different sizes and biomes . I.e barren moon or inferno moon or iceball moon or titan like type of moon etc. I would propose also other planets to have a moon feature. I.e recreating Sol system better with Earth and its moon or a double planet small system like Pluto-Charon. Moons would be mostly tiny in size but sometimes maybe they can be Small in size thus colonizable by themselves. Moons of Yago, Endor, Titan, etc.