Will the planets on the Supremacy UI be animated?
Or will they be a static image?
Do you want/need images/animations for these?
What formats? What sizes? What limitations?

Actually, I was just toying with animated planet meshes the other day. I'd say it's likely that the planets will be 3D spheres instead of static images. I haven't had the chance to do any solid research into WPF/3D, so I'm not sure about texture sizes yet. As for image format, PNG is always my top choice.

Mike

Looks like you can help him then, ZDarby!

Go on, show him your Planets!

I did full planet meshes as well if you want them. I made AVIs of them as well.

Unfortunately, if it's a 3d planet I'll have the same problem I have with Jig: the maps for the plantes I have look bad at the poles because of projection distortions... I think I'm gonna have to recreate them -- the ones that look good, anyway -- as I've yet to find a way to modify them appropriately...

However, planet textures for our solar system are pretty good: JPL, dontcha know. If you want those...

Well, I've successfully implemented a system view panel with 3D rotating planets, so unless I run into problems later on, we will definitely have them.

For now I'm using the planet textures from the FreeOrion project, since they were kind enough to grant me permission to use their artwork. However, it would be nice to gradually phase them out with our own textures. Ideally, I'd like to have 3 different textures for each planet type (for greater variety).

I've uploaded the textures for you to take a look at: Click to Download

Note that the planet types don't quite match up with the BOTF2 specs, so we are missing a few. Below is a mapping of the BOTF2 planet types to the textures that I currently have:

Barren -> Barren
Desert -> Desert
Gas Giant -> Gas Giant
Volcanic -> Inferno
Oceanic -> Oceanic
Jungle -> Swamp (?)
Terran -> Terran
Arctic -> Tundra
Crystalline -> ???
Rogue -> ???
Demon -> ???

You can find the BOTF2 planet specifications here: http://www.trekmania.net/temp_files/planets.htm

If you'd like to to work on textures, it'd be most useful for you to work on the ones that don't have a proper mapping yet. Also, I would like to get some good textures for the Sol system, so send me a PM when you get a chance .

Cheers,
Mike

Hmm so in our solor system will there be 8 planets, 9 or 8 with 3 "drawf planets" :p

ehehe.... no, none of that nonsense. There will be 9 planets, as in the original BOTF .

Hehe...I wonder if there's gonna be a BOTF mod for that? There's already been talk of it over on Armadafleetcommand...

I don't see what kind of mod you could do for that. I don't think you can add a new planet size. I don't really see the point, either.

Hey, all;

Great to see another game in the works!!
I have a comment and a question...

1. Oh come ON! surely we nerds would find
that a way to define the word planet to be
a GOOD THING! Even if it makes us fix our
little maps

2. Now, a serious question arising from the
above rant: If it is possible to play with the
new home systems, why not use the oppor-
tunity to improve the accuracy of our solar
system? We could have 8 planets, as
it should probably be, and even start off
with ONLY Earth colonized. Besides, is there
anything from Trek that mentions that there
is a colony on Pluto?

- Will we be able to colonize moons, too, or
is that too complicated for what we're going
for here?

- Will it take more advanced technology to
colonize, say, Venus than it would to start
a colony on Mars? (Venus is a much harder
place to live...) So will there only be certain
planet types open for colonization at any
given tech level? (of course by the time the
best colony ship is developed, they're all
open)

Just some thoughts!

You've asked some very good questions, Jarok, and I'll try my best to give you some good answers.I suppose I could change the wording of "Tiny Planet" to "Planetoid" or something. It would hardly affect gameplay though.Sometimes it's better to sacrifice a little bit of accuracy for the sake of gameplay. I think colonies on Pluto, etc would fall into this category.You will be able to "colonize" moons when you have reached a sufficiently advanced technology level. At that point, you will be able to begin a construction project that will build habitation domes on the moons of your star system. I don't remember the exact numbers, but you'll probably see population increases of around 3, 5, and 8 for each small, medium, and large moon, respectively.I've been tossing around different ideas for handling terraforming and colonization. Basically, the idea I'm leaning towards is as follows:

All of the planet types can be logically connected together to form a sort of "ring". It might look something like this:

<pre>Barren -- Volcanic -- Desert -- Jungle
| |
| |
Arctic ------- Oceanic ------- Terran</pre>
Each race has an environmental preference--that is, the type of planet that race evolved on. For Humans, that would be Terran. For Cardassians, that would be Desert. If a planet type is the same as the race's preference, then the conditions are Ideal, and the max population would be the highest. If the planet type is one link away in either direction, then conditions are Comfortable, and the max population is a little lower. Two steps away is Adequate, and three steps away is Inhospitable. An Inhospitable planet would theoretically require the inhabiting race to live in domes, and thus the max population would be very small.

There would be no terraforming during the colonization phase. Instead, there could be terraforming projects available as construction projects once a race has reached a sufficient level of technology. These terraforming projects might allow the race to convert a planet into whichever of the two nearest types is closer to the race's environmental preference. For instance, Humans might terraform a Volcanic planet into a Desert planet, which could later be terraformed in to a Jungle planet, and eventually a Terran planet.

Any thoughts?

The 'hospitability ring' idea is a VERY good one!! I really like that!

Do we have any ideas of any other empires that might take advantage of different planets? Some of the minors would CERTAINLY benefit from this
idea, like the Sheliak.

Of the majors, here is my take on them.
1. Federation (Humans) - Terran (class M)
2. Klingon Empire - Terran? Forest (Class L)?
3. Cardassian Union - Desert (Class H)? Terran?
4. Romulan Star Empire - Terran?
5. Dominion (Founder's Homeworld) - Barren? Rogue? (Class Q)
6. Ferengi - Swamp? Forest? Terran?

I like the general idea behind this, but not your "ring" idea. It doesn't realy fit if you know what I mean. In theory, Vulcanic and Arctic should be on complete oposites of the ring. The problem is that there is no way this ring can connect to itself. What I propose is the following: Take your same idea but spread it out in a line, based on average temperature:

Vulcanic - Desert - Jungle - Terran - Ocean - Barren - Arctic

This is a lot more realistic. The only probem I see is with balance issues, as a Terran is in the middle of it, while the Cardassians have more planets which are more inhospitable using your proposed structure of colonisation and terraforming.

About terraforming, I wouldn't change the number of max. population per planet. That might be difficult if planets are captured and such. I would just make it so that you need more advanced colony ships to terraform everything. Like for the Feds and Roms: colony ship 1 can only terraform Jungle, Terran and Ocean planets - colony ship 2 can also terraform Desert and Barren worlds an colony ship 3 can terraform everything.

For the Cardassians, for instance: a colony ship 1 can terraform Desert, Jungle and Terran worlds, a colony ship 2 also Volcanic and Ocean worlds and 3 everything.

Use something similar for the Klingons and Dominion. (I don't know there starting homeworlds...)

I think that would be most fair and realistic.

I believe they would be as follows:

Federation - Terran
Klingon Empire - Volcanic
Cardassian Union - Desert
Romulan Star Empire - Terran
Dominion - Jungle (Vorta/Jem'Hadar) or Rogue (Founders)

I'm not sure abou the Ferengi--probably Terran. I think it makes more sense to go with the Vorta or Jem'Hadar as the primary race for the Dominion, as the Founders never really leave the Great Link. Plus, there aren't that many Rogue planets in the galaxy, if any (it's not guaranteed).

So we're basically saying that with this system, the actual planetary types would be changed if you were to terraform the Planets.

I like the sound of that, as I thought the BOTF system was a little too simplistic, with the Planets magically being habitable after terraforming even though there was no visible difference in the Planets.

Still, this system means that by the end of the game, EVERY Planet would be class M, (If you were Federation) class L (If you were the Klingons) and so on.

That's a little bit boring, really.

You also have to think about special bonuses. What happens to the energy and food bonuses of a Planet when it is terraformed? Does an energy bonus become a food bonus and vice-versa depending on terraforming type? Are the bonuses simply lost? Can bonuses be gained?

The habitation project idea was mine, and I simply envisioned this to be an "expansion" project; it was meant to allow Moons to become colonisable, rather than allowing less habitable worlds to become habitable.

I could imagine a system with multiple projects would work well though.

As an example, we could set it like this:

Ideal Planets
Federation Terran Planets.
Klingons Jungle Planets. (We know the klingons hunt their food in Jungles and forests)
Romulans Terran Planets. (Desert Planets could be acceptable as well though because of their Vulcan heritage - perhaps we could make this a Romulan bonus, at least in the early game?)
Cardassians Desert Planets.
Dominion Barren Planets. (Since Rogue planets aren't in this list)

Tech 1
Can Construct: No additional habitation projects available.
Can colonise: Ideal Planets.

Tech 2
Can Construct: No additional habitation projects available.
Can Colonise: Ideal Planets.

Tech 3
Can Construct: Colonial Expansion Project.
Can Colonise: Ideal Planets, Comfortable Planets.

Tech 4
Can Construct: No additional habitation projects available.
Can Colonise: Ideal Planets, Comfortable Planets.

Tech 5
Can Construct: Lunar Habitation Modules.
Can Colonise: Ideal Planets, Comfortable Planets, Large Moons.

Tech 6
Can Construct: Colonial Expansion Project 2.
Can Colonise: Ideal Planets, Comfortable Planets, Large Moons, Adequate Planets.

Tech 7
Can Construct: Lunar Habitation Domes.
Can Colonise: Ideal Planets, Comfortable Planets, Large Moons, Adequate Planets, Medium Moons.

Tech 8
Can Construct: Lunar Habitation Biospheres.
Can Colonise: Ideal Planets, Comfortable Planets, Large Moons, Adequate Planets, Medium Moons, Small Moons.

Tech 9
Can Construct: None
Can Colonise: Ideal Planets, Comfortable Planets, Large Moons, Adequate Planets, Medium Moons.

Tech 10
Can Construct: Colonial Expansion Project 3.
Can Colonise: Ideal Planets, Comfortable Planets, Large Moons, Adequate Planets, Medium Moons, Inhospitable Planets. (Rogue Planets?)

Tech 11
Can Construct: None.
Can Colonise: Ideal Planets, Comfortable Planets, Large Moons, Adequate Planets, Medium Moons, Inhospitable Planets.

Tech 12
Can Construct: None.
Can Colonise: Ideal Planets, Comfortable Planets, Large Moons, Adequate Planets, Medium Moons, Inhospitable Planets.

Obviously we could rejig the names so that they sound right for the various races, as we did in my System-Wide Dome Construction Project Thread. What do people think?

*Edit - hmm...people posted whilst I typed this.

The Ferengi aren't really an isue coz they won't be an Empire. I think it was mentioned several times in DS9 that Ferenginar was a Jungle Planet, though.

I also agree with what you said about the ring, Centurion. Perhaps it needs to be though out a bit more and made less simplistic.

What benefit do you refer to? I don't realy think this idea needs to be stretched to include minors as well. I presume they will spread like they did in BotF (aka they suddenly appear on a different system to colonise it) or do they have something like colony ships of their own?

Well SOME of the minor races will be able to expand to other systems - but I never saw ANY of them do that in BOTF1, Centurion.

I imagine that the minors will either have a generic colony ship, or they will simply "appear" in a system as you suggested.

Jarok could be on to something though, because the Sheliak are masters of environmental modification. They would have an advantage in this respect, eg. they can colonise a Planet one level earlier than the other races, or they have a higher growth rate on inhospitable Planets etc.

Wow, what a debate all of a sudden

Anyway, I wouldn't make this concept more difficult than it's nescessary. It is impossible to terraform an Arctic planet all the way to a full class M world or even further down the line. The of terraforming in BotF worked fine in my opinion.

Your idea about the tech levels could work as well, Matress. I just think it can be done a lot more simpler by simply giving each successive colony ship the ability to terraform more planet types.

In the end, it all depends on preference, though. As all ideas in this thread could work in theory.

Nah, I was only reffering to planets in a minor's system become "instantly" terraformed and colonised and figured that colonisation of minors in this game will be similar. It is something that I'd rather avoid, though. Imagine you just wanted to colonise a system, terraformed all planets you can only to find out some minor race "colonised" it just one turn before you. I'd opt for something of colony ships (or normal ships with a terraform function), or advance warning to say the least before minors expand.

I agree, but it all depends on how the AI is programmed...and that's all up to MStrobel.

...

Ok then, why don't we throw up a few possible suggestions and see what system people think would be best?

1) My proposed system above. You build special projects to expand into a system, but the Planet/Moon must first be Terraformed BOTF1-style.

2) My proposed system above. You build special projects to expand into a system, but the Planet/Moon must first be Terraformed. Terraforming would be a gradual process, where you'd start off with any type of Planet, and it would eventually be Terraformed until it was Ideal. This process would take many terraforming attempts, so an Inhospitible Planet would require to be terraformed three times.

3) The BOTF1 system. You need to terraform a Planet to colonise it. All Planets can be terraformed as soon as you can build Colony ships, but the time needed to terraform will vary depending on how suitable the Planet is for colonisation.

4) A modified BOTF system. You need to terraform a Planet to colonise it. You can only colonise Planets if you have sufficient technology to do so; a basic colony ship can only Terraform comfortable worlds whilst the most advanced colony ships can terraform all Planet types. The time needed to terraform will vary depending on how suitable the Planet is for colonisation, and the tech level of the colony ship.

I personally would go for either 1 if we use buildings, or 4 if we don't.

...



Why have you listed Oceanic Planets as being cooler than Terran Planets, Centurion? I'd personally list it as being slightly warmer, especially when you think about global warming...

You forgot my idea on the previous page (you might have overlooked it as multiple people posted simultaneously).

So, option 5: planets are terraformed the BotF1 style but each colony ship can only terraform so many types of planets (depending on preferences and habitability of each race) with the most advanced colony ship only being able to terraform them all.

EDIT: noticed this is almost the same as your option 4, so perhaps you did read it after all

EDIT2: I don't realy know about the Ocean planets. It just feels right to me that way as I don't see an Ocean world with 30 degrees celcius oceans, even not on the equator. They are just planets with an awful lot of water.

Lol this is getting confusing!

Anyways, that's what I meant in option 4. I guess I didn't word it very well.



I'll reword it so it's more obvious.

*Edit - done.

Okay, here is another thought (maybe)

Because of the complexity of the environments we're talking about, I think the expansion process should be more intuitive. The way we're talking now, the workload of expanding into a system even after colonization would almost be a game in itself (albeit a fun one!)

So here is my proposed solution:

1. Colony Ships will NOT be able to terraform....ever. However, they will be able to colonize whatever planets your tech level allows. For example, a Level 1 empire can only colonize 'Ideal' planets, a Level 2 empire can colonize 'Ideal' and 'Comfortable' planets; at Level 3, 'Ideal', 'Comfortable', 'Adequate', and so on in whatever manner the planet classifiation system requires. It could be such that one would have to wait for quite a few tech levels to be able to colonize really inhospitable planets.

So in this system, you take your colony ship to a new system, and when you order colonization, they will deploy on whichever planets have 'green' letters. That number would increase as you have the tech to live on more planets.

Because the terraforming potential of a colony ship is thus eliminated, the advantages of Colony Ships II and III would be in number of colonists and numbers of structures on the new colony.

From this point, there are now a few options as to how we might proceed.

2a. BOTF-I expansion model. As you terraformed more planets in a system you had already colonized, the population would be automatically assumed to expand onto them, since the later colony ships could not 're-colonize'. So in this system, as your tech level allows you to colonize more planets in the system, they would automatically appear 'green' (as 'colonizable'), and the population would naturally be assumed to expand onto the new planets.

I like this system because once you have colonized a system, there is nothing else for the player to worry about. This is certainly the simplest way of expanding colonies.

However, I think that a player should do SOMETHING to expand and not just land on the biggest system around and wait....

Soo.....

2b. Follow Matress' suggestion regarding construction projects, but modify it for simplicity. When your tech level allows you to expand onto other planets in your colony, (you will be notified by the research screen telling you about the breakthrough), you will be able to construct a "Colonization Project". This would automatically purchase whatever basic items you would need to live on the new planet.

The cost and time would then naturally vary by the amount of biospheres and pressure domes you would need. (so colonizing an inhospitable planet would take more doing than colonizing a comfortable planet, for example). When it is done, all of the planets in the system you can colonize at your new tech level turn green and the population naturally moves onto them.

I suppose you could control which planets you wanted to colonize, and do one at a time and thus save money. But I think it would be easier if you just selected the "colonization project" in the build queue and the computer calculated how much it would cost and how long it would take. Simple, at least for the player (but I pity the programmer )

I like this because it makes the player do something to colonize more planets, but that something is still really straightforward.
____________________

So in summary...

1. Colony ships won't terraform, but you can automatically survive on any planets that your tech level allows you to colonize. Planets you can colonize will appear green ala BoTF I. (If you can't colonize any planets in the system at this time, tough luck! )

Because you can now only start colonies on one or a few planets, we need a way of expanding them when technology allows you to live in harsher places.
I propose two options.

2a. The computer does it for you, and the newly-accessible planets turn green and your population moves onto them without you lifting a finger.

2b. You get a 'Colonization Project' in the build queue that takes some time and costs money, but when it is done whatever new planets in the system in which you built the project you can now live on turn green and your population moves onto them.

It really is simple, even if I wore out my keyboard explaining it!!!

I suppose that any new system we use would need to figure out exactly what the planet types are and how hospitable they would be for various races. I really DO like the circle-of-planets idea, and will mostly work within that, if I can manage it. I'll start with a list, though, so everyone knows where I am coming from. All information is from DITL.

Class A - Young planet far from star. Cools and freezes.
Class B - Partially molten due to proximity to star. No atmosphere.
Class C - Small, frozen planet. Frozen atmosphere.
Class D - Rocky and airless. Basically planet-sized asteroid.
Class E - Molten Surface. Young. Only in newly-formed systems.
Class F - Volcanically active. Evolve to Class G.
Class G - Crystalline surface. Evolves into rocky planets.
Class H - Arid, may be bathed in radiation. Marginally habitable.
Class I - Gas Supergiants.
Class J - Gas Giant, May or may not have rings.
Class K - Inhabitable only with pressure domes
Class L - Plant life only with limited oxygen.
Class M - 'Minshara' or Terran.
Class N - Reducing. Runaway greenhouse effect. High surface temp.
Class O - Oceanic. 80%+ liquid water.
Class P - Glaciated. 80%+ ice cover. (Essentially frozen Class O)
Class Q - Variable, rapidly changing climate.
Class R - Rogue planets. No star system.
Class S - Ultragiants. Failed stars, almost brown dwarfs.
Class T - Gas Giants with unusual ring systems
Class Y - Demon Planet. Uncolonizable. Radiation damages ships in orbit. Rich in resources.

<http://www.ditl.org>

We can drop the gas giants for our purposes (I, J, S, T), as well as any which only exist in young systems and evolve (A, E, G). We can also probably drop Rogues (R), and the utterly uncolonizable Class Y. Finally, we will not discuss Class Q, because even if it exists in the game, it would act as whatever climate phase it was going through.

This leaves us with Class B, C, D, F, H, K, L, M, N, O, and P as planet classes any colonization method the game adopts will cover. I assume that moons will be treated as either Class D, F, or C.

Our Solar System would look like this.
Mercury (B), Venus (N), Earth (M), Mars (H), Jupiter (J), Saturn (J), Uranus (J), Neptune (J) Okay, Fine......and Pluto (C).

8O

PART THE SECOND....

Now for that habitability system. Here is the Circle of Planet Classes as I see it. If you disagree, let me know.

................[*M*].....[O*]

.....[L*].............................[P*]



.[H*]...............[D!]................[C*]



.....[K*]..............................[B]

..................[N]........[F]


FINALLY!!! STUPID KEYBOARD!!!

Anyway, the space your species evolved on is 'Ideal', the next space either way is 'comfortable', two spaces away is 'adequate', three spaces away is 'marginal', and anything beyond that is 'Hostile'. Bear in mind that all classes will eventually be colonizable, it just takes higher technology to do so.

** Human (and many races) start from M-class planets.

* At least one major or minor race is known to start from these other planet classes.

! I put Class D in the middle, because as a barren rock, it is equally uninhabitable to everyone! I would put it three 'spaces' from everyone.

I had another thought while I was typing all that stuff. I am almost sure this will be my last one on this thread - at least for tonight!!!

Can we make sure that the AI doesn't do stupid stuff like have planets in reverse order of where they should be, like having an arctic-type planet closer to the star than a volcanic or molten one?

Trek sites tend to divide solar systems up into zones in which certain planet classes show up. These zones could vary in size and number of planets in them for a given star, so it would not really effect what the computer wanted to create. It would only dictate, given a number of randomly chosen planet classes, where they can go in the solar system model!

HOT ZONE:
Class B, F, N, D

TEMPARATE ZONE:
Class L, M, O, H, K, N, F, D

COLD ZONE:
Class P, C, D, maybe K.

Gas Giants can be anywhere, as could Class Q if they are in the game. Class R, even if in, obviously wouln't be here.

I hope that something like this could be put into the system generator or whatever creates the map.

Alright, this thread has grown quite a bit while I was working on my Prob/Stat homework, so allow me to chime in.

Jarok's proposal for colonization is very much what I had in mind. No more terraforming with colony ships. Instead, you would be able to colonize immediately, but your maximum population and growth rate would be negatively impacted by a planet's deviation from the Ideal environment. There could be advanced construction projects to improve your growth rate and max population on less hospitable planets later in the tech tree. Maybe transforming planets from one type into another via terraforming projects wasn't a great idea, but we could achieve a similar effect by adding new building projects (bigger domes, better atmospheric processors, etc). Those innovations could increase your growth capacity without changing the planet type.

As for the longer list of planet classifications, I think it would be best to keep things simple by restricting the number of planet types to those defined in the BOTF2 Database. Even though the galaxies will be bigger than BOTF1, we'll have a lot more minor races, and we don't want so much variation between star systems that it's too difficult to find appealing colony sites. If I added any more planet types, we'd need a lot more planet textures, and I'd probably have to go back and tweak the galaxy generator a bit.

As for the positions of various planet types within a star system, the distributions are calculated based on a set of tables and random elements. I wrote up an explanation of how it works before, so I'll try to dig it out. If I recall correctly, however, I choose the planet size first (influenced by the orbital "slot"), and then the planet type (influenced by the planet size). So strictly speaking, there are no temperature zones in the current implementation.

There is a test of the galaxy grid and galaxy generator available in the other Supremacy forum, if you'd like to see what kind of star system configurations are created.

i'm guessing you had fun, typing all that, Jarok? You <almost> put me to shame with the length of it...

Could you try to avoid multi-posting though? If possible, just edit your pre-existing post, rather than making a new one. If you're worried about people posting whilst you're typing, write it up in notepad then edit your post and copy-and-paste it in. That's what I usually do.

...

Having the Planets put into "temperature zones" is actually something that i've mentioned myself in the past. Whilst it would be really nice to have such complexity in the game, I also understand that it would require a lot more programming, so if you don't want to do it, MStrobel, then don't.

It's really just a cosmetic improvement, rather than one that improves gameplay...but seeing as we're all sci-fi fans, accuracy is also esential so put it in!

...

Reading Jarok's proposals, I agree with the simple-system-but-with-buildings approach to colonising systems. Since you also agree with it, MStrobel, we're agreed that this should be the system implemented.

I always found BOTF's Terraforming system was too simplistic anyway. This would avoid us having to worry about that.

2b is the system that seems to work the best, so let's use that. We could use my tech level system and the projects (If people like them) to specify when Planets become "usable", and what the projects are/do.



As another thought, we could also give some of the projects population bonuses.

For example, the basic Lunar Habitation Modules allow you to colonise large Moons, but they are basic technology. When you can build Lunar Habitation Domes, surely you would upgrade the already-existing modules to accommodate more people?

We could say that large Moons gain +10 population or something like that. What do people think? I've included possible bonuses in the list above.

Adding temperature zones in the solar system would only affect one component of the game--the galaxy generator. I can always make it more realistic later on, or someone else can modify it.