Aurora 4X Terraforming

[praguepride]

Oh please oh please oh please oh please.

One of the things I LOVE about Aurora 4X is the more complicated variables that go into "terraforming". In Aurora, each race has temperature ranges, gravity ranges, atmospheric pressure ranges, and a "breathable gas" range.

ON TOP OF the standard Ice/Water/Terrstrial/Gas planet types.

What I love about it is that it makes it feel so much more believable to see that instead of just "CAN NOT COLONIZE" to see WHY you can't colonize: Temperatures are too extreme, gravity is too low/high. Then that leads directly into technology to expand and eventually eliminate those restrictions.

My favorite is the gas process. You build terraforming stations that pump gas in or pump gas out. So you can use terraforming as siege weapons by slowly replacing the atmosphere with arsenic or what not to kill the population without damaging the infrastructure...

It also goes into why certain planets take so much longer to terraform because the atmopshere is so different. Take Venus vs. Mars. Venus has atmospheric pressure x100 times our planet so while the whole "acid rain and hell temperatures" are one thing, just knowing that it'll take centuries to lower the pressure makes it feel so much more scientific and immersive instead of just "CAN NOT COLONIZE"

 

[lwarmonger]

I personally would rather see very few terraforming options. Or at least extremely expensive ones. One thing I don't really like about a lot of Space 4X games is that terraforming type technologies let you open almost every world up to colonization in the end game.

I want terraforming to take a huge investment in time and resources... to be something that you do not enter into lightly, and certainly aren't able to do very often.

 

[Castinar]

That's what makes Aurora 4x's terraforming so interesting.... every planet has a colonization cost, from 0x to 8x to higher...and terraforming slowly decrements toe overall cost....but it takes years, or a ton of terraforming tech + terraformers (ground based or space based) to add/subtract enough gas to make it liveable w/o the domes one would normally need to survive in a hostile environment.

Breatheable gasses can be added, noxious gasses removed, atmospheric pressure increased/decreased by the same mechanic. Temperature raised by adding greenhouse gasses, lowered by adding antigreenhouse gasses. But it's all done incrementally, taking time and resources. Lots of fun, and very realistic!

 

[lwarmonger]

It would have to be really simplified... I don't think that a complex terraforming system should really be the focus of a game like this (which I kind of see like EU in space).

 

[Neoman]

Seeing this is a paradox game we're talking about, terraforming will probably depend on your techs and will be a "regional" decision like in the EU games where you spend a monthly fee and based on your tech, have a certain percentage of terraforming the planet each year. It can also fail with some bad event happening as a result, forcing you to start over.

Tl;dr I think it will be like the religious and cultural conversion regional decisions in EU3

 

[Daronaollard]

I recently started playing Aurora because of the announcement of this game. I really hope they go complex with some systems in the game. Maybe not as complex as Aurora but definitely would like to see some deep terraforming mechanics.

 

[gorillacakes]

Aurora does so many things right from terraforming to asymmetrical starts . The depth is so satisfying in many ways and although the windows might be intimidating I don't think it's too heavy. While Paradox want to make their own mark on the genre they could surely build upon it with a look at Aurora

 

[Alex_brunius]

Aurora does so many things right from terraforming to asymmetrical starts . The depth is so satisfying in many ways and although the windows might be intimidating I don't think it's too heavy. While Paradox want to make their own mark on the genre they could surely build upon it with a look at Aurora

The more they are inspired by aurora the better. I'm going to miss the ship customization and detailed combat simulation most personally I think.

Aurora 4x is an awesomly deep simulator with so many logical game mechanics, only thing missing is a good interface that Paradox is getting increasingly adept at providing!

 

[aruon]

personally, my take on terraforming is that is should be doable but very cost intensive and very dependant on the planet. it's one thing to set up an underground or biodomed mining colony on a planet so dull and lifeless that it might as well be a giant asteroid, but to try and make that entire planet (or even just part of it) more or less habitable, even if its technologically possible, would just be unfeasible due to costs.

 

[gorillacakes]

The more they are inspired by aurora the better. I'm going to miss the ship customization and detailed combat simulation most personally I think.

Aurora 4x is an awesomly deep simulator with so many logical game mechanics, only thing missing is a good interface that Paradox is getting increasingly adept at providing!

Couldn't agree more. Few 4x can gold a candle to it in terms of content.

While the interface needs doing up, my dream would be to overlay the with the graphical content of Space Engine.

 

[praguepride]

Why? I mean once we're dealing with technologies to go FTL why dig in the heels and say "we can do X impossible task but not Y".

I think that the end-game technologies should open up nearly every planet to at least some form of clonization and terraforming because by end game I would imagine we have the powers of gods (travel almost instantly across the galaxy, blow up planets and stars etc.).

The thing that I like about complicated terraforming is that it opens up a tech tree that allows you to customize your colonization based upon the galaxy generated. I hate games where it's just as simple as "Rock planet Colonization, Ice Planet Colonization" as that just seems like such a cop out.

Instead, I think that you should be able to drop a colony on almost any planet but they come with a rising upkeep cost to maintain the hab-domes and artificial gravity and temperature etc. The worse the planet, the higher the cost but again it's up to the player to make that risk/reward determination. Maybe a planet is crap quality but has vital resources or a very strategic position so you eat that cost for the greater good.

So on to the details:
Breathable Atmosphere This is a combination of having the right gases at the right concentrations. I think Aurora might be a little TOO in depth and instead I think that terraforming stations could just instead be set to "breathable atmosphere" or "non-breathable atmosphere". In the background it can keep track of specific gases and automatically make the adjustments. So terraforming a planet that was for Species X is different "cost" then Species Y. Non-breathable would pump something toxic to EVERYTHING into the atmosphere and as I mentioned before could be a way to kill off populations that you don't want around anymore without damaging infrastructure (or even technically declaring war...). If the population isn't blockaded then instead the enemy eats rising upkeep costs to keep the pop alive, or if they are not within a supply line the population starts to die off.

Gravity: While each species should have an ideal gravity range, I think there should be general bonuses and penalties associated to "low" and "high" gravity. I'm fine with gravity abstracted as just Low/Medium/High but again, more details are better as long as the player can easily assimilate them (i.e. low gravity threshold is Blue, medium is Green, high is Red depending on species). For being in your species low gravity it should provide bonuses to research and manufacturing but isn't great for populations and ground troops raised there are of lower quality. High gravity should be overall penalties but can be used to create superior ground troops due to the more extreme setting. They might take longer to make but again end up being higher quality so risk/reward.

Planetary Surface: I think that you should ALWAYS be able to colonize ANY planet, but there will be severe penalties for going outside of your terraforming parameters. So the 'classic' terraforming technologies like Ice Planet/Volcanic Planet/Gas Planet/Ocean Planet etc. would eliminate those huge penalties for a specific terrain type as it represents a catch-all group of technologies to make that type of terraforming more efficient.

Temperature: Temperature should provide a nice spectrum of penalties to being barely noticeable when very close to ideal temp range to extreme if thousands of C's above/below your species threshold.

Technology: As mentioned you should always be able to colonize any planet, just that the upkeep costs for a crap quality planet would make it very limiting in how many you could maintain before collapsing your empire (or that particular colony more likely). Instead technologies and research could be used to either focus on specific types of penalties: non-breathable gas, low gravity, high gravity, specific planetary surfaces, low temp, high temp etc.

So for example, a technology called Smart Filters might reduce the non-breathable atmosphere penalty by 25%. Throughout the tech tree is 3 of those so that by the end game, non breathable penalty is reduced by 75% or more making it pretty insignificant.

ANOTHER way to handle this is to actually specify your species detailed racial limits and have technologies increase those ranges. So instead of reducing the penalty for low temperatures by X%, instead your species threshold gets lowered so now that low temperature is closer to ideal and thus is lower.

I personally like the first one if "transhumanism" isn't going to be a big theme. If modifying your species via genetics and cybernetics is a thing then second option definitely has a place in the game.

 

[Kadanz]

personally, my take on terraforming is that is should be doable but very cost intensive and very dependant on the planet. it's one thing to set up an underground or biodomed mining colony on a planet so dull and lifeless that it might as well be a giant asteroid, but to try and make that entire planet (or even just part of it) more or less habitable, even if its technologically possible, would just be unfeasible due to costs.

I think that should depend on the race which you are playing. Money might only be a human concept. It's not unlikely there can be species who don't use any kind of currency.

 

[zlocish]

Now that's a good idea. Changing atmospere of a planet by terraforming its surface sounds awesome.

 

[Teonod]

The more they are inspired by aurora the better. I'm going to miss the ship customization and detailed combat simulation most personally I think.

Aurora 4x is an awesomly deep simulator with so many logical game mechanics, only thing missing is a good interface that Paradox is getting increasingly adept at providing!

So Dwarf Fortress IN SPACE?

 

[aruon]

I think that should depend on the race which you are playing. Money might only be a human concept. It's not unlikely there can be species who don't use any kind of currency.

true, though i doubt the moneyless part as this is a PDS game and there needs to be a universal base resource. though i guess if there are AI races technically there are ingame moneyless societies.

 

[TheDungen]

You may hate me for this but I found the terraforming part of spore quite enjoyable. It wasn't as complex as described here but it was certainly better than CiV Beyond earth (where the enviroment never changed), I think that's a abig part of a good terraforming engine, to actually see the world change bfore your eyes. See those molten rocks cool and turn into continent or see those icesheets melting and formign oceans and lakes. See plants slowly cover those surfaces.

 

[Gwyn ap Nud]

So Dwarf Fortress IN SPACE?

Yeah, only with arguably a worse interface. DF is, at the very least, elegant in it's ASCII++ simplicity. Aurora 4x is a spastic mix of complicated excel-like tables, charts, and rough dots and lines that represent the actual maps.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's an amazing game. Nothing is cooler than when your role-played campaign between the Americans and Soviets turns hot in the colonies, as the Soviets glass Mars and huge salvos of missiles fly through space. And designing the ships is so rewarding when you can finally get one right. But DAMN if it's not a hard game to learn!

Edit: I do wish he was still working on his Newtonian Aurora! I was so excited for it, but alas, Walmsey hasn't been able to even put out an Aurora I patch for over a year, so I think it's a little dead...

 

[Kadanz]

true, though i doubt the moneyless part as this is a PDS game and there needs to be a universal base resource. though i guess if there are AI races technically there are ingame moneyless societies.

It really is an interesting thing to think about though. How would such a race, without any currency, be able to maintain an economy or advance its technology?

 

[henzington]

Energy and time would still be a measure of value.

 

[Mder1]

I personally would rather see very few terraforming options. Or at least extremely expensive ones. One thing I don't really like about a lot of Space 4X games is that terraforming type technologies let you open almost every world up to colonization in the end game.

I want terraforming to take a huge investment in time and resources... to be something that you do not enter into lightly, and certainly aren't able to do very often.

If the lategame consists of catastrophies like a AI revolution and we even may be able to buld dyson spheres. Terraforming any planet is definetely not out of the question.

 

[C367]

Ok, my two cents: I think terraforming should be doable, but on a high-cost, high-risk, MAYBE high-reward mechanism. Not so easy as, say, late game MoO2 (where you could just terraform to Terran or Gaia any planet with a slightly decent production, no matter how bad it was to begin with, toxic, irradiated, barren, you name it, just a few turns and becomes a paradise world), not impossible or worthless, but a long term project with a serious impact, the thing you have to think long and hard about and decide if it's worth the cost. I'm thinking about Dune lore here. For example, Arrakis, desert planet, was once a fertile and lush world; someone saw potential for growing the spice melange in it, and introduced sand trouts, which absorbed the water, turned the lands into deserts, dried up lakes and oceans, turned into sandworms and began the spice cycle. Salusa Secundus, prison planet, is a Deathworld: an especially harsh planet with high mortality, but perfect for forging the toughest soldiers in the Empire. Later on, the new Emperor starts a terraforming project to make it more hospitable... and destroy the training grounds.
Other than dedicated facilities or actions however,it'd be nice to see the planet react to the situation. For example, a heavily industrialized and polluted planet gets greenhouse effect and slowly terraforms itself to warmer temperatures and toxic atmosphere; borehole mines yield a lot of minerals, but makes the planet unstable and slowly switching to a Volcanic type, and so on.