 |
| |
|
|
Ozymandous
|
 |
Atlanta, GA
Aug 2001
time: 00:15
|
|
Hi!
This may have already been covered over on at moo3.com but I haven't finished reading all of the stuff over there yet (especially the forums, good gawd at all the posts!).
Anywho, my question is this... Will players be able to land on any planet as soon as it is discovered? I remember fondly back in MOO how you'd find a great world, except it was radiated, toxic, barren, etc so you had to wait until you had the technology to land there.
In MOO2 the player could land virtually anywhere right off the bat, which to me took some of the "exploration" spice out of the game.
So how will this be handled in MOO3? Since it is supposedly taking place after the first two games I would think the ability to land anywhere would still be there (since it was in MOO2) but I am hoping there will be some difficulties a player has to overcome before they can just land a colony ship, pod, etc on any planet and start a new city/colony.
Anyone know for sure?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Stormhound
|
 |
New Jersey
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
|
|
I'm going to try to keep this answer brief, which will be tough because the system is SO different in MOO3.
First off, the terraforming: forget everything you ever knew about terraforming from MOO1/2. Yes, EVERYTHING. Even that. And that too. Got that mind empty? Good. 
There is a two-dimensional grid in MOO3, one dimension for temperature, and the other for atmosphere. Each planet occupies a specific point on that grid. Each species has a preferred point on that grid. Ranging out from that point are multiple zones: green, yellow, red. A planet in the green zone is good for your species, and can be settled without any problems. A planet in the yellow zone will require some additional support; a planet in the red zone will require extensive extra support (like domed cities). Thus, a perfect planet for you could be a real hell-hole for your neighbor, and some technology will be required to colonize certain worlds (though it won't follow the same system as MOO1).
When you terraform a planet, you drag it across the grid toward your preferred point. The planet will tend to resist this, which means that you'll have to pay (increasing) maintenance to keep it from reverting (the possibiliity of changes becoming permanent is under discussion as to whether and how). If someone else took over the planet and started to terraform it, they'd drag it in their preferred direction.
That's the very basic answer.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Bleyn
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by pchang
I disagree. Planets should revert to their normal mode. Besides, under the present system, the changes are permanent, as long as you pay the maintenence fees. |
I dunno. I think it sort of depends on what sort of changes you made.
For example, if we were to use a solar shade to fimbulwinter Venus, then ran the former atmosphere through some processing units to remove enough of the greenhouse gases, we could probably remove the solar shade with a pretty good chance of the planet not running into the out of control greenhouse effect system that it is now. Though I think the rotational period might give us a few fits in the process.
But hey, even if it didn't work out too well, just the thought of fimbulwintering Venus is sort of cool in its own right. I wonder if we could get NASA to pay for it?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
jdlessl
|
 |
Jacksonville, USA
Mar 2000
time: 00:15
|
|
I really don't like the not-permanent aspect of terraforming. The whole idea is that you take an essentially dead planet and give it the self-correcting, self-perpetuating ecology that, for various reasons, it was never able to develop on its own.
For a terrestrial analogy, go read Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel". The part about European colonization of Australia; due to a number of factors, civilization could not arise there, but it could be and indeed was transplanted.
Similarly, the biggest hurdle in terraforming is getting the project going. Take Mars for instance. It can't support Earth animals, it can't support Earth plants, it might just barely be able to support Earth micro-organisms. So the process of converting all that CO2 has to be done by us. But once we get the air pressure high enough and enough topsoil developed, then the transplanted organisms will be able to take over the job of converting the atmosphere. If all goes well, it's not something that needs to be maintained, with the possible exception of mirrors in orbit to add sunlight.
How about spotting the grid with planet classes. One would be a oxygen-nitrogen-carbon system, another using something like chlorine, an lifeless airless planet, a runaway greenhouse system like Venus, etc, etc (Planetology is a fairly unknown field, so they'll have to take some creative liscenses for this). Left to its own devices, a planet of a class gravitates towards a single point on the grid. But each has a sphere of influence so to speak on the grid and attempts to move it away take effort. But once you move it out of one sphere and into another, your job becomes easier because then it gravitates towards the new point. The terraforming takes over and heads towards its own balanced system.
Regarding gravity, it should be a factor in determining how expensive terraforming will be. Again, we don't know really well how gravity affects life-supporting atmospheres, but they could just say that anything in the 1/2 to 2G area is relatively easy but outside of that range it gets very expensive.
--
Jared Lessl
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:15.
Apolyton Time is 00:15. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
19-09-2001 15:33
. If you think it is unbalancing then just make it expensive, but please make it possible to make it permanent. 
|