Too many planets

[dmm]

I don't have a problem with allowing races to colonize all types -- gas, rock, and ice. The way I deal with believability is to assume that the game's definition of a "Gas" planet is not what one normally thinks of as a gas giant. And same for Ice planet. Instead, the planets shown are all reasonably Earth-like, but represent extremes that one could not colonize with standard technology. So a Gas planet might be like Venus -- very thick atmosphere. An Ice planet might be like Mars.

This mental adjustment brings its own problems. For instance, how can there possibly be so many Earth-like planets in one star system??

[Elwood Bluze]

I've made a simple mod to reduce planets per system to 4 or 5 for the standard solar systems, and 1 to 3 for binaries and trinaries. This has made each planet that much more valuable and the AI seems to come out more aggressively looking for real estate to conquer. I'll post it is there's interest.



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Elwood Bluze

[DirkHowitzer]

Dmm,
Think of this way...remember cloud city in Star Wars? You have to have some kind of device to negate effects of gravity in the colony but that should be easy enough to an advanced race...Easy way yo colonize gas planets...as for ice, well people live on the north and south poles right? Much of those are ice, in fact if I recall right the entire North Pole is ice...

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"He's dead, Jim."-- Lt. Commander Leonard "Bones" McCoy |Chief Medical Officer / USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

[This message has been edited by DirkHowitzer (edited 29 January 2001).]

[apache]

I really don't find it unrealistic that races can colonize any planet type if they research it. If you want to base it on something like a race is born on a solid, rock planet, they should easily be able to adapt to an ice environment, since it is essentially a different type of rock.
Gas colonization obviously brings up quarrels with gravity since gas giants are more massive, and hence have a much larger gravitational force. But then again, we have already abandoned mass effects with the propulsion systems, so why not allow a similar line of reasoning with gas giant colonies? My thoughts are that this type of problem is exactly what would be researched anyways.

[ColdSteel]

What everyone here seems to be forgetting is one of the classic sci fi themes. That is to say, wholesale genetic alteration to fit extreme planetary conditions. Waterworld? Gillmen. Heavy gravity? Squatty musclebound fireplugs that make Arnold look like a "girly man". It is not implausible at all to me that an ancient advanced race with complete control over their genetic code could not design bodies to live in the most extreme of conditions, even on gas giants. Why limit yourselve to the current primitive world view? The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine (hmmm, seems I've heard something like this before )

[Puke]

quote:

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Originally posted by ColdSteel:
What everyone here seems to be forgetting is one of the classic sci fi themes. That is to say, wholesale genetic alteration to fit extreme planetary conditions. Waterworld? Gillmen. Heavy gravity? Squatty musclebound fireplugs that make Arnold look like a "girly man". It is not implausible at all to me that an ancient advanced race with complete control over their genetic code could not design bodies to live in the most extreme of conditions, even on gas giants. Why limit yourselve to the current primitive world view? The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine (hmmm, seems I've heard something like this before )

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a long time ago, on a thread far far away, someone proposed a genetic modification center. it occurs to me that this would be possible within the game mechanics, but not within the current MODable text files. new empires can be created in-game that rebel from other races, and i believe that they contain a copy (not a pointer to, but a copy of) the parent race. therfore, a new race could be created with all the same properties but a different atmosphere type, and that race could replace the population on the planet with the facility on it (or convert by percentage over time) and stay as a member of the same empire. and for that matter, why not genetically breed better wariors and a specific scientist cast? oooh, the possibilities. but ANYWAY - if that feature could be implemented, it would be pretty sweet.

[God Emperor]

Elwood,
I been working on sparse systems myself and have played a few games in them (and believe that the AI works a bit better too) but would be interested to see what you have developed. Would you post it into the Mods Archive? Thanks....

I take the earlier point that we could consider Ice and Rock planets to be variations of the same thing and that the Tiny - Huge descriptions only represent increments around some ideal planet size. As for Gas Giants though, I think we have to assume that some form of gravity tech has been developed to allow them to be colonised.

For my sparse systems, I think I might reduce the costs of Ice and Rock colonisation techs a bit. Will mean that the AI Gas races will get a bonus but I am happy to concede that given the way the AIresearch.txt files are configured.