We should add an additional element to planet type, and by extension habitability: gravity

[Bezborg]

Tbh sci fi is perfectly fine with aliens species evolving on similar planets, Star Trek being foremost. It's fine, it's serviceable, it's established in sci fi tradition... it might as well be in a sci fi game too, why not. It's fine.


I just had a thought how to make planets and habitability a bit less rudimentary, and how to make colonization, habitation and terraforming a bit more dense and interesting, since it seems to me that the game would be made better for it.

I defaulted to gravity since planet size is a big thing in the game, so it kinda seemed like a good choice to increase that "density" of planetary mechanics, no pun intended. I guess the idea did not resonate, but maybe the concept of making the natural state of planets more complex did, in some other way.

I'm not a game designer, "big ideas" is the only thing I can offer so I try and incite discussion on how we can make the game better...but perhaps not always having the exact technical propositions how to make a big idea into a game mechanic. I think this is fine, as this is a discussion thread, ant the point of it is discussion.


I agree with a lot of people here that introducing atmosphere would be very complicated. Not serviceable for this game. Maybe a sequel focuses more on planets as the basic building block of our galactic empires, and not pops. I hope they will.


For this game, however... how many people can agree that the planets are too rudimentary and could use a little more complexity, and whose natural states should impact habitability more, and lead to some more interesting choices when deciding what to colonize and how to develop it?


One example, I found the planet size trade-off to be interesting. A huge planet will have space but overcoming its gravity would be an endeavor and a cost. So a trade-off exists there, which is interesting to me.

 

[Incompetent]

To me gravity as a game mechanic seems like a pretty boring concept at first glance.

What do you do with it, other than have it higher or lower for different planets / species just to introduce new variables into the mechanic? How does it lead to interesting storytelling? How does it create interesting gameplay, that could not be had with much more thematic alternatives?

The only way I can think of to make it interesting would be for it to be a habitability constraint that cannot be fixed with terraforming, as opposed to climate, which is terraformable.

 

[Bezborg]

The only way I can think of to make it interesting would be for it to be a habitability constraint that cannot be fixed with terraforming, as opposed to climate, which is terraformable.

Yeah precisely.... a thing to adapt to, not shrug off. A thing you need to work with, and it will affect your options and present you with choices.

I might be inadvertently asking for a major overhaul of the planet building system as well... so in that sense, this whole thing is a waste of time, as they won't overhaul anything. They're in the business of adding +/- modifiers for the past few years, not overhauling deep mechanics and the building blocks of the game.

 

[methegrate]

Hi all.

As the title says... we should include Gravity as a habitability consideration when discovering and colonizing worlds.

And I don't mean the current high and low gravity modifiers, which are rare. I think every planet should have this, and every species should have a range of tolerance.

With this, I think self-modifying should become more relevant - and common - as well, after some decades.

Low gravity might be nicer for void dwellers, as an example of how this system can be cross-integrated.

Just an idea, discussion welcome.

I'd start with making habitability more of an issue, personally. Right now you can pretty easily buy your way out of any habitability problems. I would argue that before we add complexity to this system we should add depth.

 

[Richard Dolder]

Yeah precisely.... a thing to adapt to, not shrug off. A thing you need to work with, and it will affect your options and present you with choices.

I might be inadvertently asking for a major overhaul of the planet building system as well... so in that sense, this whole thing is a waste of time, as they won't overhaul anything. They're in the business of adding +/- modifiers for the past few years, not overhauling deep mechanics and the building blocks of the game.

Considering terraforming is currently worthless.
And you can just build robots to ignore gravity.

Gravity doesn't substantially do anything of value.

I'd start with making habitability more of an issue, personally. Right now you can pretty easily buy your way out of any habitability problems. I would argue that before we add complexity to this system we should add depth.

There's like six ways around habitability and one right way, so yeah basically.

And for the people who go on about more interesting planets, planets are boring because any constraints you put on a planet are irrelevant if a planet has 2 max mineral districts, WHO CARES?!
But planets are also boring because the more you diversify planets based on things like environment and gravity, the less they can be meaningfully diverse based because a planet just becomes "A planet" the diversity being the binary question of "Is this planet worthwhile?"

 

[currylambchop]

For this game, however... how many people can agree that the planets are too rudimentary and could use a little more complexity, and whose natural states should impact habitability more, and lead to some more interesting choices when deciding what to colonize and how to develop it?

Honestly I think planets are fine. I wouldn’t want more fiddly stuff to manage on my planets.

 

[Bezborg]

Honestly I think planets are fine. I wouldn’t want more fiddly stuff to manage on my planets.

What do you like to manage in your sci fi galactic empire building management game?

 

[currylambchop]

What do you like to manage in your sci fi galactic empire building management game?

My empires internal policies, my technology and my unity. I would like there to be a government system and internal politics. Basically a country builder on the macro scale, not the small scale of planets or pops.

 

[Bezborg]

My empires internal policies, my technology and my unity. I would like there to be a government system and internal politics. Basically a country builder on the macro scale, not the small scale of planets or pops.

I agree, but I think a lot of what you like can be serviced by the planet as the basic atom of the game. Certainly not the individual pop, but we all know that.

I think planets as the individual political entity in your empire would produce a good focus on empire politics.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

I agree, but I think a lot of what you like can be serviced by the planet as the basic atom of the game. Certainly not the individual pop, but we all know that.

I think planets as the individual political entity in your empire would produce a good focus on empire politics.

which has nothing to do with gravity. i miss the olden days when a planet would revolt and you had to land troops on them. i'd expect the next (and probably final) big overhaul to be around internal politics.

so planets will probably get some more lerrv, but it needn't be about habitability. ethics might be better.

 

[currylambchop]

I agree, but I think a lot of what you like can be serviced by the planet as the basic atom of the game. Certainly not the individual pop, but we all know that.

I think planets as the individual political entity in your empire would produce a good focus on empire politics.

I do t see how adding gravity would help improve the empire management part of the game thoug. Honestly, I wish colonisation and the discovery phase could be automated so I wouldn’t have to bother with it and just focus on managing the governance of my empire.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

I do t see how adding gravity would help improve the empire management part of the game thoug. Honestly, I wish colonisation and the discovery phase could be automated so I wouldn’t have to bother with it and just focus on managing the governance of my empire.

nah, the early game has always been the best and strongest part of it. they need even more of that 'i don't know what's out there' vibe IMHO

 

[currylambchop]

nah, the early game has always been the best and strongest part of it. they need even more of that 'i don't know what's out there' vibe IMHO

I prefer the mid game when you have to build up your empire to challenge the galaxy. I do enjoy EU4 and not the colonisation part at that so that may be where I’m coming from/

 

[Richard Dolder]

nah, the early game has always been the best and strongest part of it. they need even more of that 'i don't know what's out there' vibe IMHO

the early game is the most fleshed out part, but it's completely anathema to the sold fantasy of both
-Making your own custom empire, things like being a migratory culture, being synths from game start, all of these go out the window because we start at the bottom of the tech tree from the word go.
-Being a grand strategy game IN SPACE, it's 20-30 years until I can start interacting with other empires so often.
Both of these demand a galaxy with SOME sense of history not a blank slate.

I agree, but I think a lot of what you like can be serviced by the planet as the basic atom of the game. Certainly not the individual pop, but we all know that.

I think planets as the individual political entity in your empire would produce a good focus on empire politics.

I'd say system, if there are six planets that between them have 18 "Planet Capacity" or whatever and mining stations, and blah blah blah.
There's one star on the map okay.
And systems without a political identity are bluntly filler space.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

sounds rather tedious to mind another habilitability modifier

i'd prefer having completely different living environments like electro-magnetic dust clouds (for electic species), stars (for fire based species and divine avatars), parallele universe enclaves, hyperlane dwellings (for very shy and isolationist empires) and so on

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Both of these demand a galaxy with SOME sense of history not a blank slate.

there is a history. there were a bunch of empires. then there were another bunch of empires who are now fallen. then are the new empires who all discovered the hyperlane network at the same time. that's ok. that's enough history for me.

 

[Richard Dolder]

there is a history. there were a bunch of empires. then there were another bunch of empires who are now fallen. then are the new empires who all discovered the hyperlane network at the same time. that's ok. that's enough history for me.

Political history, and a history among space for those empires. Not the remnants of apocolypse.
You can't live in giant space ships if your empire just entered space.

 

[Bezborg]

the early game is the most fleshed out part, but it's completely anathema to the sold fantasy of both
-Making your own custom empire, things like being a migratory culture, being synths from game start, all of these go out the window because we start at the bottom of the tech tree from the word go.
-Being a grand strategy game IN SPACE, it's 20-30 years until I can start interacting with other empires so often.
Both of these demand a galaxy with SOME sense of history not a blank slate.



I'd say system, if there are six planets that between them have 18 "Planet Capacity" or whatever and mining stations, and blah blah blah.
There's one star on the map okay.
And systems without a political identity are bluntly filler space.

With regards to this, I think movement through the galaxy is way too easy, fast and extremely boring. Linear and primitive. If they could go back to the drawing board in terms of trans-galactic movement, that would help the game more than reworking planets

 

[Slaughter]

Some thoughts to consider:

- Is "High Gravity Planet" even a thing? I don't mean things like Gas Giants, I mean solid planets. We consider Earth Gravity the Baseline, because we live here. But look at Super Earths. AFAIK the parameter for Super Earth is:

- 5-10 Earth masses
- A radius max of around 1.6 or so Earth radius.

(this is all from my mind, so feel free to correct me)

Super-Earths don't actually have much more gravity than Earth, because even if their mass is larger than ours, gravity does not increase linearly. This is the formula:

Mass divided by the radius squared. That is, SG=M/R^2. If you express mass and radius in Earth units, you get surface gravity as multiples of Earth's.

We assume that planets above that mass and range are Ice Giants, mini-Neptunes essentially. However, there have been a few planets found which defy that classification - Mega-Earths. These are planets beyond that mass and radius, with a density far larger than that of an ice or gas planet. The logical conclusion is that these planets are not made of gas. AFAIK all the know Mega-Earths are super-hot planets found too close to their stars, or remnants of stellar objects, planets like K2-38b.

Worth noting the Ice Line is a thing. Large, dense rocky planets only develop close to their stars, if they are on the wrong side of the Ice Line, they will accumulate more and more material until they become Ice or Gas Giants. So depending on the type of star, the Ice Line changes place. And the Habitable Zone changes as well. So to get a habitable "Mega-Earth", you need a planet that develops close enough to a star that is hot but not too hot, in a location where it can get enough material, but not too much material. Likely not in a star like the sun.

So I'm going to posit something: There's no such a thing as a "Heavy Worlder". If we're taking humans as the norm, we are the heavy worlders, or pretty close to it.

 

[Bezborg]

So I'm going to posit something: There's no such a thing as a "Heavy Worlder". If we're taking humans as the norm, we are the heavy worlders, or pretty close to it.

I mean sure, but why look at it from an exclusively human perspective?

If I was a Martian, wouldn't humans be heavy worlders?