Thank you!

Note that I can only offer my opinions and ideas based on my knowledge. But hey, it’s your game.


I think a central black hole would be a nice touch.


From a real-life perspective, planets within the habitable zone are not likely to be that horrendously different from one another in terms of temperature, regardless of exactly where they’re situated within it. The carbon-silicate cycle (recycling of atmospheric carbon dioxide by geological processes) would ensure that they’d be all roughly the same temperature (at least, within the magnitude of the current climate zones on Earth). A farther-out planet would retain more carbon dioxide in its atmosphere and be warmed, while a closer-in planet would retain less and be cooled. Hence, it’s probably more realistic to have the different class of planets being radically different from each other, as aforementioned.


Actually, I like the idea of all the other planets, and of them not necessarily being all that Earth-like. The likely real-life variables of temperature and water abundance fit with these well. “Arctic” planets could be planets that are frozen over (but probably wouldn’t have oxygen atmospheres due to a lack of vegetation), while “oceanic” planets could be “water worlds”, planets with so much water that it constitutes a significant layer of the planet (imagine bringing one of the distant rock-ice bodies in the solar system closer to the Sun: you get a water world, a landless planet with very deep oceans). “Desert” planets could be planets that lack water, while volcanic planets could be hellscapes (as, I’d imagine, “demon” planets would be as well). “Barren” planets are airless worlds for whatever reason.

The only class that doesn’t fit at all are oceanless jungle planets. Either changing the graphics to feature oceans or scrapping the planet class altogether would fix the problem. Considering that most planet types that are remotely habitable would be variants of “terran” planets anyway, as noted, “jungle” planets are superfluous.

I will note that the game currently seems to generate lots of large and huge "barren" planets, which really shouldn't exist.


Actually, I’m not sure you really need to have the different species preferring different types of planets. As noted, in reality, the conditions on their home worlds would, for the most part, be not that horrendously different from Earth.

But if you do want to implement this, perhaps one way to do it is to have the different types of planets have different max populations and different growth rates depending on which species colonizes it?


Well, considering that any warm rogue planet would need to have a very THICK atmosphere, perhaps featuring them as more shrouded and hazy would be a good idea.


Well the charge collectors as a concept seem to be a bit wonky, because would colder planets have electrical storms like that (colder Earth-like planets with frequent snow squalls might, but clearly not Pluto)? Perhaps tweaking the population capacities of the other planets in the solar system (and the moons) might have the same effect?


Well, I know the star color thing is primarily cosmetic. In my opinion (and feel free to discard), making them closer to true color would be better from an “educational” point of view (if most people think the Sun is yellow, why not take the opportunity to clear this misconception up). I’d suggest have the stars be colors centered on white (or yellowish-white, for the Sun), and three shades bluer (for hotter stars) and three or four shades redder (for cooler stars), with a bias towards the red end. And absolutely no green stars (which are non-existent).


You’re welcome, thanks for making a great game!

Well, that doesn't really matter, as oceanless jungle planets aren't really possible anyway. My main point is that it's not actually necessary to include a specific jungle planet category for the purposes of being faithful to what's portrayed in Trek.

My thoughts on the Dominion colonization thing:

The Dominion is rather unique in that its dominant species, the Founders, aren't interested in creating large and populous societies like the humanoid species are. This makes the whole issue of colonization a tricky one, as we see here.

Addressing this involves answering a couple of questions. The first of these would be do the Dominion colonize other worlds? The second question would be who would live in Dominion colony?

I think the answer to the first question is yes. The Dominion is portrayed as a vast empire, and even with the Jem'Hadar, one would imagine that their existence would be imperiled if their subject species (both the willing and unwilling subjects) were allowed to expand and explode in population without the Founders doing so themselves.

The answer to the second question is less clear. The Changelings seem to be able to tolerate a very wide range of conditions (as exemplified by Odo). They indeed may be more adaptable than humanoids, who are generally restricted to very Earth-like conditions. So, if the Founders want to establish new "Great Links" (which would probably be wise), it seems many different types of planets would do.

There is nothing special about a warm rogue planet, other than the presence of vast amounts of hydrogen (and presumably, helium, and hydrogen compounds such methane, ammonia, and water). Such planets would have the advantage of being inhospitable to humanoids, which maybe helpful for the Founders in keeping off-worlders away.

If their empire is focused on strict military and industrial domination, then they basically only need four classes of people: soldiers (the Jem'Hadar), workers, scientists, and leaders/commanders (the Vorta). They don't really need throngs of civilians, just people to fill these roles. The Jem'Hadar and the Vorta fill two of those roles. I don't think it's ever made clear on screen who fulfills the worker and scientist roles in the Dominion. One would imagine that it's unwise to trust their subject species in some of those roles, particularly scientists. They don't need to worry about spies, as the Changelings perform that role all too well. Your colonists would consist of the individuals to fill these niches in the Dominion economy.

Those are my thoughts.

Thanks JayMan


Does this present an issue with us making our wind turbine image look to be on a barren and likely airless world?

http://www.botf2.star-trek-games.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=4856

Hmmm, it says I'm not authorized to view that forum....

Yes, now that you remind me, that was always one of my exceptions with BOTF. A planet with no atmosphere cannot have wind.

I'm thinking that when they cooked up the concept of "barren" planets for BOTF, they were probably thinking of Ceti Alpha V as seen in Star Trek II. I would regard such a world a "desert" planet.

It's the private development forum. I can't post the image here right now, I'm sure Kenneth will attach it in this thread when he can.



Hehe, exactly what I said some time ago.

That's why they can only colonize Rogue planets, and have other ways to generate credits (which they obviously need to support their fleets).
The rationale for the Rogue planet restriction could be the need for a particular set of conditions to form the Link, namely an inhospitable planet and/or the existence of the nebula, or whatever else. In the end, it's a different gameplay style, one that "forces" you to play in a distinct way than you normally would another empire.




A problem we don't have because minors don't really expand.
Also, every empire has its own weakness. The Dominion is no different. In fact, historically, huge empires tend to break up.




Notice that Odo was one of the few changelings that left their home in order to explore the galaxy. They all (the ones that left) have the "urge" to go back to the link. Fact which was exploit to try to wipe them out using precisely Odo.
The only planets we actually know the Founders settled were the Links.
Also, they're adaptable indeed, but we also know they cannot stay away from the link for too long, and they can't keep their humanoid forms indefinitely.

What we're talking is planets where the entire population is composed of Founders, not planets where a few Founders went to live in for some time and with a purpose.




Right. Also, the nebula protects against scanning, and negates shields, which could be reason enough for their own self-preservation, with the low population and all.




That's something we have to waive in their native systems; in fact, colonizing only rogue planets makes it a lot less complicated, as the issue only presents itself in a few systems
We could even have it so that they don't require food, and so that would free up population for the other production types in their native systems (since they're generally smaller); their food production facilities can still be built in non-native systems obviously.
Also, one can argue that their "native researching" is done by the link, to which non-native species add their own contribution.
Industry might be more tricky to explain, but one can think of fully automated factories, with Vorta overseers.

Of course, and they're very welcome! In the end though, we need to keep gameplay in mind, while trying to be as accurate as possible. You will notice that I agree with you in most if not all issues, and I've actually mentioned pretty much everything you did, in the past.



I kind of agree. The problem is there isn't a central sector in galaxy maps. A BH in the 4 central sectors would be tricky. And we'd lose the impact of having BHs spread around the starmap.
We also should have the Cytherians in the centre of the galaxy, and that BH would be a problem



They're not horrendously different. They just have different compositions; their habitability is pretty similar, given that temps are similar (jungle and oceanic).
If earth's temp would change by a couple degrees, it'd be a different planet not a horrendously different one though.



More realistic yes, and more "boring" too. Less planet types means system creation would tend to become monotonous; I actually suggested creating new planet types like Arid and Swamp, to fill the 3% "gap" in growth rates.
Further down in development, we should really look into making system and galaxy generation be moved from text files to XMLs. Modding and adding stuff would be tremendously improved.



I think arctic planets (and other types) give a nice twist in that if you want to glass say Breen or Andoria and resettle with your own species, you'll get a very low population growth, which impairs development. Just a twist, but one that makes you think.
Also, we *have* to observe "canon" now and then.



I made that same point some time ago. In the end, planets like Qo'noS and Ferenginar are a nice touch, so jungle planets are actually nice. Though Ferenginar actually looks terran.



Already on my todo list.



That's how the game already works. Always has. The habitability ring adapts to the race's prefered habitat.



Like I already mentioned, the images for Native structures (hence buildable only in rogue planets) have a purplish/reddish background; the thin atmosphere I mentioned is only the atmosphere texture used in the system panel, which has really little effect.



That'd change all the other systems too, and frankly the tables are really tight right now, it's not really worth it for just one system - even Sol.
Besides the Federation could use the Charge Collectors in Sol, it's a nice energy boost to a system that can build lots of stuff.



In gameplay terms, I have to say it looks better as we have it. I don't think most people would care for the educacional part of it, and we'd probably have a bunch of "bug reports" over it



Totally agree, and said the exact same thing in th past. But BotF had them, so we must have them too, heh.

Iceman said: "If earth's temp would change by a couple degrees, it'd be a different planet."
I say: I believe we'll live to see this change.

To JayMan: Eveything you said so far regarding certain aspects of this game is scientifically sound. But this is science-fiction. Some science-facts need to be put aside in order for science-fiction to work. For example, subspace. Without it, there would be no instant communication in Star Trek. Or dilithium... no long-range space travel. All, things aside, those fictional green stars look nice. I'd love to see some pink stars too!

Neil deGrasse Tyson's and Phil Plait's heads would explode upon reading that...

Now, while I know this is science fiction, and naturally some liberties need to be taken with some of the physics for the sake of in-world functionality, you have someone here who is in-the-know pointing out some obvious real-world inaccuracies in the game that would seem to be easy to fix and which are, really, not needed for gameplay purposes (e.g., the star color thing). Trust me, you WILL hear about it later from more than a few people...

To deal with this problem, I’ve undertaken a simple categorization of possible terrestrial planet types (with several simplifying assumptions, such as ignoring variation in orbital and rotational characteristics). I’ve assumed three-dimensional matrix of 5 temperatures (defined as level of insolation), 4 sizes, and 4 levels of water abundance. I’ve attached a spreadsheet with the planets this produces.

This actually gives us four new types of planets (most of which are marginally habitable, at best):

T: Titan-like: Generally cold planets, atmosphere contains hydrocarbons; surface may feature small liquid hydrocarbon oceans. Reddish appearance.
H: Sub-gas giant: Solid surface, but atmosphere contains hydrogen, helium, and hydrogen compounds (methane, ammonia, water); hot to temperate. These are similar to Stevenson rogue planets.
C: Cthonian: Comet-like Hot to very hot. Volatiles being blown away leaving comet-like trail. Uninhabitable
S: Steam planet: Planet has a water vapor-rich atmosphere and hot water oceans.

Y-class “demon” planets can be imagined to be “torch” orbit planets, planets on very tight orbits around its host star, and likely feature completely molten surfaces with “rock vapor” atmospheres. These planets would always be uninhabitable, and should be generated always being the interior planets of the system.


Qo’nos has oceans. Indeed, according to Memory Alpha, it is actually a planet with a single supercontinent and a vast ocean (like Earth when Pangaea existed).

Ferenginar appears to be a similar planet.


Well a couple of things about the rogue planet appearance: First, as noted, they should always be dark (even if in a nebula they would be dark unless lit by some star). Second, I was thinking more like the appearance of a gas giant, preferably a bluish/purplish one.



Actually, IMO, I don’t really think it does look better. On the main map, the star colors are pretty faded (as they should be) and the color isn't that eye catching (which is accurate, and looks good). Extending that down to the level of the system panel itself as well would do the trick.

Indeed, if you wanted an extra touch, in spiral galaxies, the game can be set to generate bluer stars in bands only in the spiral arms. Nebulae would also only be found there.

Something that has always kind of bothered me, might as well bring it up here since it's somewhat related.

We have the Cardassians prefered habitat as being Desert. Not sure it makes much sense - or any at all. Cardassia is even described as having a darker, warmer and more humid environment. Also, Desert is really "far" from Terran in the habitability ring (with a GR of 2% for terran preference races), which makes the Cardassians have a "strange" habitability ring.

Also, Cardassia is set as being the 3rd planet in the system, and Memory Alpha states both that it is the 2nd and the 6th orbit.

So what I'm thinking is to change their preference to Terran, and tweaking the system composition a bit.
Something like, from:


to



Which should make the Cardassia system have a lower max pop and GR. The Cards have an Industry bonus, which coupled with the current large max pop makes them really good; this will help balance it a bit. Also, they get one less base Trade Route, which is not really a bad thing since it shouldn't be their primary concern in terms of gameplay.

Just some thoughts, feedback welcome, as usual.

Sounds good, but since the Cardassians enjoy humid and warm climates, they should be native to a jungle-type planet. Cardassians used to complain that on board DS9 the temperatures were too low (ideal for humans[which are native to terran planets {which is why I believe that Cardassia Prime should be jungle-type}]). This change would also make their preferences for planets less "unusual".

Sounds good! The homeworlds of most species should be terran anyways.

Well, since I'm proposing scrapping the (completely unrealistic) jungle planets, that would be difficult.

This can be accomplished on a terran planet. An Earth-like planet with a carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere would be pretty warm and humid. There would be considerable variation in planetary climate on different terran planets, and considerable climatic variation on parts of any given planet.

All the major empire species (with the possible exception of the Changlings) should "prefer" terran planets.

Since we're not going to scrap jungle planets that was my first thought too, yes. But what we have from Cardassia doesn't seem to indicate a jungle planet.

I guess I can make a new texture that looks more brown-greenish with a swamp/jungle feeling