Arioch wrote:I would like to include the ecological damage model in the updated terraforming mechanics, but we'll see how it works out.
If the model is independent from the terraforming attributes of the planets (temp and pressure), it can be implemented independently right?
Like if it uses a different metric of a planet such as "devastation" or "pollution" (though I got a bad taste in my mouth for the latter due to MoO
Or just name it straight up "Ecological damage" and reduce habitabiltiy and fertifility (or just fertility and habitability might derive from that I dont exactly know)
But if you plan to inegrate the ecological damage model with the above changes necessary for the terraforming model I would advise against it as it would be strange to have a planet change type due to damage - I feel this should be something visible and unique not just a drop in planet type
I love the sheet of your concept: there is so much thought and work put into it, it is truly great to read through
See you find yourself in a predicement for the Orthin as they can only go from Iceball to Ocean there. How you might get from Ocean to Island is a good questions: building artificial islands seems a bit too out there.
How abouth this: "Dehydration": some tecnological means of getting rid of huge amounts of water, yes:
"Fusion terraforming" (unique or not to Orthin): By separating the water molecules and fusing together H atoms into He, this technology allows the:
1. Constant reduction of water mass (bringing natural eleavations of the seabed above surface=islands)
2. Produces energy which can be used to heat up the atmoshere and threby inrease mean temp
3. Produces Oxygen which is both good four your breathing AND it forms Ozon on the higher atmosphere making the newly formed islands habitable for life
BLACK HOLE: yes, this sounds awesome, are you really planning to have some, or are you just very diligent in the concept?
On the tech side: I imagine having read through the concept that you plan to have different technologies for the various terraforming actions: this is great (especially if art goes into tech with it always should otherwise the tech window is dry), but how would the player know which tech is best for them under the current faction and planets they have?
If you are keeping in line with your principle used during habitabiltiy of havign a solid if complex system largely hidden from the player and only showing vital information to them I would imagine this would mean that sohwing such complex and thorough graphs and flowcharts not viable (though it would and does look awesome).
When terraforming a planet directly today, we can see what the options are and by showing how much the total pop increase/decreases solves that part of the process (just make sure to use the same fat +green or -red indicators like during pop transport in the end
), but tech is a bit more difficult.
Something like: Tech: "Planetary Heating Concepts": "Allows terraformation into Arid and Dessert type planets" but feels dry a bit
Ideally, the color coding is kept and the player is trained in the workflow by showing the diagram, where the current planet is and having to select the next stage within the diagram but that woudl mean new GUI window/concept and a bit of complexity. Though selection from such a chart should be intuitive for most and if they see: I would realyl like a Megacity, that sounds great, you could see right away what tech you need to research for that
Lastly on visualisation of terraforming: I feel that terraformed planets need to be visualised as such somewhere. Does not need to be on systme view, maybe just on the planetary info page. If you have icons for the terraforming tech that could be stamped on this window to show what was applied and on what level the planet is. Giving levels to the planets also would give hte feeling of working towards some ideal concept and gives progression. Both would make terraforming stand out and when you conquer a planet you would see: Wow, this planet has been terraformed by the AI and made much more valuable thank you AI!
Ship concepts are flawless like always: Design is very alian (almost Arda like but more techy which I was hoping for
). From the colors, I found Triton to suite them bettter as Musel seems to come off a bit more blurry to me.
MY favorite design is the Escort: great proportions and streamlined form, with close second for Dreadnought: this guy seems truly formiddable and the double tail gives it a stand-out siluette from the others: did you consider already giving two tails to the Battlecruiser and 3 to the Dreadnought?
The Explorer I find too big for its role and alongated: sohrter and stubby version might be more appropriate
Similarly: Partol Cruiser could do with a bit of shorter tail to fit right between the lenght of Partol Cruiser and War Cruiser
Smalls crafts interceptor on the right looks very cool (is the one on the left an alternate concept to that?), shuttle awesome and bomber is ok but how giving this also two and much more stubby tails?
On station: I would suggest some assimetry in the design for mleft to wight (like in case of the other races) as currently it is geommetrically very perfect which might suite the race perfectly, but looks less intersting to look at (we need some assimetry in one way or another to find things really interaging)
Transport is interesting, I try to imagine how you will visualise the empty, civil/military carg for this: are they using hte same cargo format (would make sense but also strange for a race with this design)
Speakong of design: the whole race looks awesomely alien especially the pops
I hope you will find a way to show off the Adult Cluster somwhere, but hope to see the Adult version as the pop icon when managing them on planets and transports as Worker and Hunter might be a bit strange there but Adult represnetation would fit in nicely I think
Sorry to ramble along so much - as you can tell, really excited for the content
