Atmosphere types

[JurijD]

Do all atmospheres have an equal probability of existance on each of the planet types?

exmaple: in the long run... do we get the same number of Rock Oxygen as we get for exmple Ice Hydrogen planets? or any other combination.... (except Gas None;)

[Baron Munchausen]

Nope. Oxygen/rock is by far the most common type of planet in the default game. Carbon dioxide and methane seem to be next in frequency. Like so many other parts of the game you can get whatever distribution you want by modifying the right config files, hough.

[spoon]

Rock/None and Ice/None are the most common, because of all the moons. But if you don't count moons, then there are slightly more Rock/Methanes than anything else. This is due to what appears to be a typo (cut-n-paste error probably) in the config files whereby what should be a small Ice/Methane planet got marked as a small Rock/Methane planet instead. (meaning, of course, that there are less ice/methane planets...)

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Nope. Oxygen/rock is by far the most common type of planet in the default game. Carbon dioxide and methane seem to be next in frequency. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That just is not true. Other than None atmospheres, the planet types and atmospheres are fairly balanced, other than the Methane issue which Spoon has mentioned.

Fatigue is not a good thing... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[ April 19, 2004, 18:26: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[tesco samoa]

i always find that what ever i pick has the least amount... I call it the Tesco Start...

[Fyron]

Yeah, but that is just due to you being Tesco, not due to the data files. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif All the planets you would like are far away in other empires' territories.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
...other than the Methane issue which Phoenix-D has mentioned. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">PD posted in this thread? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

[Fyron]

Whoops! No, it was Spoon. I need more sleep...

[Arkcon]

Juri, this question come up often, you're asking which atmosphere comes up most. That's easy, just take ancient race, and count the planets screen.

A related question, what atmosphere type gives the most facilitys, depends not only on the distribution of atmospheres, but planet size and type as well. There's have a little (slightly screwy) description here {Wiki} (http://invirtuo.cc/phpwiki/index.php/planet) , which actually links back here to an old post by Andres Lescano http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Ragnarok-X]

are there actually ANY Gas Giants without atmosphere ?! If not, is there any reason to pick Gas Giant / None combination ?!

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Ragnarok-X:
are there actually ANY Gas Giants without atmosphere ?! If not, is there any reason to pick Gas Giant / None combination ?! <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nope, you will not find a Gas Giant with a atmosphere of none. Unless you mod it in, of course. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[spoon]

And even if you mod in Gas-None planets, the game will not let you select Gas-None as your race type.

[Fyron]

I am pretty sure that the game does not allow gas giant none combinations for planets at all.

[spoon]

No, you can have gas-none planets -- I have them in the Fantasy Empires mod, and they work fine.

[Roanon]

Seems you need *a lot* of fantasy to imagine gas planets without atmosphere http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif What else did you mod in - supply-using quantum reactors? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Phoenix-D]

Originally posted by spoon:
No, you can have gas-none planets -- I have them in the Fantasy Empires mod, and they work fine. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What happens with atmosphere converters?

[spoon]

Originally posted by Roanon:
Seems you need *a lot* of fantasy to imagine gas planets without atmosphere http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif What else did you mod in - supply-using quantum reactors? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, I changed the "planets" into Caverns, Forests, and Swamps and I changed the atmospheres to be various alignments. So a None-Gas planet translates into a Neutral Swamp...

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:

What happens with atmosphere converters?
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good question. I have no idea... what happens in the stock game when you try to convert a Gas planet to None atmosphere? Do you get a warning that it is impossible? Or does it not just work? I suspect it is hardcoded, but I'll test it out.

[Arkcon]

If you build an atmosphere converter on a gas giant to convert it to a none gas giant, nothing happens, no warning, just sits there the whole time. The standard game does include images for gas/none colonies, most people think they're pretty funny to look at.

[Kamog]

Which picture shows the gas/none colonies?

[tesco samoa]

why not gas and none

its not as if the game is based on reality....

would help with the balance http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[tesco samoa]

p.s. gas could be under the surface http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[spoon]

Originally posted by Kamog:
Which picture shows the gas/none colonies? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, there's this one:
Space Empires IV Gold\Pictures\Events\ColonyGasNone.bmp

Any others?

[Aiken]

Originally posted by tesco samoa:
p.s. gas could be under the surface http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That would't be a planet then, but huge balloon. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Loser]

Originally posted by spoon:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by Kamog:
Which picture shows the gas/none colonies? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, there's this one:
Space Empires IV Gold\Pictures\Events\ColonyGasNone.bmp

Any others? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmm... This should work for at least some of you.

C:\Program Files\Shrapnel Games\Malfador Machinations\Space Empires IV Gold\Pictures\Events\ColonyGasNone.bmp

well... then again, perhaps not.

C:\Program Files\Shrapnel Games\Malfador Machinations\Space Empires IV Gold\Pictures\Events\ColonyGasNone.bmp

Ah-ha! There we go.
(Your milage may vary.)

[ April 21, 2004, 02:58: Message edited by: Loser ]

[Kamog]

Thanks, I see the picture now. Yeah, it looks weird. Those gas colony pictures for the other atmosphere types, I have imagined that big station to be floating in the air. But the gas/none station is just suspended in vacuum! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Maerlyn]

what are this argon colony pictures for? I never seen argon ever mentioned in the game as a athmosphere type...

[spoon]

Originally posted by Maerlyn:
what are this argon colony pictures for? I never seen argon ever mentioned in the game as a athmosphere type... <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There were originally going to be six atmosphere types, but Argon got cut for whatever reason.

[Fyron]

Argon was in SE3. So was Chlorine... that would be a nasty atmosphere to evolve in... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[Kamog]

Yeah, I remember those green and purple colonies from SEIII. I seem to recall that the colony components came with built-in population and you didn't have to load people onto your colony ships. I haven't played SEIII since getting SEIV...

[Fyron]

Yep, and there was no "type", just atmosphere. Ah, the simple days of SE3... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[JurijD]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Argon was in SE3. So was Chlorine... that would be a nasty atmosphere to evolve in... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually looking at this from a biochemical perspective any atmospehere that includes a strong oxidizing agent is a good atmosphere.... why?

well because the point of an atmosphere is that is provides a place where living organisms can deposit the electrons they get from eating reduced compounds... and this flow of electrons from reduced foods to oxidizing atmospehre drives all living beings.

Therefore as we have an Oxygen atmosphere we're pretty well built as Oxygen is a very powerful oxidant (compared to Chlorine for example).

So of the Atmosphere types in SE IV these would be valid in reality:

Oxygen: YES, very good atmosphere, prolly the best one u can have as the energy per mass density in reactions with oxygen is the 2nd highest one. Only if an atmosphere had Fluorine one could have a higher energy/mass ratio in chemical reactions... But fluorine is not an option because although its thermodinamically favourable to oxygen, its kinetically so unstable that is would react with every other reducing componund on the planet and such an atmosphere would destroy itself in a few months probably.
None: ? maybe, but these beings wouldn't be very evolved because they would have to carry 2 types of food with them: an oxidant and a reducent... and that would icrease your weight/energy ratio by a factor of 2.
Methane: On this world beings would have to EAT an Oxidant if they wanted to breathe Methane, because Methane is a reducing agent. And since any good (easily available) oxidant is mostly in a gas form, these beings would also be very primitive because they wouln't be able to store their food source very good (u cannot build up a big supply of 2 gasses in your body, especially not 2 inert gases such as Methane and Oxygen)
Hydrogen Same as with methane, altough I cannot imagine a planet with a mixture of hydrogen and an oxydizing agent in it... for obvious reasons. The thing would again be very kinetically unstable;)
Carbon dioxide With this gas u cannot drive any meaningful chemical reactions that produce energy and therefore it would be totaly useless as a breathing gas. Beings here would be something similar as with None (in terms of energy production)

So Chlorine (as its also a good oxidant) wouln't be such a "nasty" atmosphere for beings to evolve in.

[Baron Munchausen]

More importantly, it provides one more option in the game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Chlorine is chemically active so you can imagine at least a plausible form of life that uses chlorine reactions. It would be nice to have chlorine planets again for SE5. In fact, I hope he makes it possible to define your own atmosphere types for SE5!


Hey, it's post #3333!

[Fyron]

Well, it is safe to assume that nearly any atmosphere has more than just a single gas in it. CO2 can very likely have enough free oxygen floating around to be used, for example.