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New Ideas for the terraformation aspect of my colony

7y
#1
High atmosphere effects on colony:

Bast has already developed penalties for high atmospheric levels but hasn’t turned them on yet. Hopefully my ideas are mendable with the penalty system that he has already put in place. Here are my ideas for high atmosphere penalties:

-Buildings damaged twice as fast once atmosphere is over 15 million. There is also the chance that once the structure is under 25% health, it has the chance to implode instantly for each 1% health lost after that point, regardless of whether the structure had remaining health. This is to simulate the fact that a structure under immense atmospheric pressure could just suddenly implode if part of it’s structure was weakened, even if that was the only part that was weakened.

-rovers have health and are damaged by the intense atmosphere and must be parked in shelter in order to be safe from the atmosphere and to repair damages. Rovers lose their health 5 times faster than structures. I would suggest that small, medium, and large rover/worker shelters be implemented for all races to replace the parking command on the rovers/workers. On other worlds, rovers/works could also have health that can be damaged, but only half as much as on a high atmosphere planet.

When a planet’s atmosphere is too high, a new resource, tallorium, will be the first step in massive atmosphere reduction. Tallorium is a (fictional) specific blend of superheated and super compressed metals that fuse over long periods of time and become stronger and harder than diamond. Tallorium will be naturally occurring on superheated, super atmosphere planets such as my planet idea below. In planets that don’t have naturally occurring Tallorium, the resource would appear as a higher tech resource that can be fabricated by blending other resources together, such as antanium and gold, or triantanium and uranium. Tallorium could also be used to make next gen buildings that are more advanced than alien buildings.

The second step would be to consume atmosphere to produce a new resource, Gas Canisters. One canister = 1 atmospheric unit. A high tech gas canister factory on a world where Tallorium needs to be fabricated would consume large amounts of atmosphere and small amounts of Tallorium to produce the canisters. These canisters could be used to produce h3 and water and can be used as a power source. These canisters could also be tradable and could be released in low atmosphere planets to raise the atmosphere at a fast rate. The canisters should be a very pricy product on GBT and should not be readily accessible to beginner colonies unless they are given gas canisters by their commonwealth. This aspect would allow those who have super advanced independent colonies to develop sub-colonies without the long hassle of terraforming each sub-colony. The gas canisters could also provide a way for a red planet colony to produce h3 without having to buy it. If you don’t like the idea of a red planet producing h3 on it’s own, or the idea of using gas canisters to raise a beginner planet’s atmo level rapidly, the Tallorium and gas canister system will still work without these two aspects.

- Since colonists could not survive walking around outside in a very high pressure atmosphere(since they would be crushed), even with their space suits on, I would create new avatars for them for going outside in a high pressure atmosphere. Perhaps they walk around in metal environmental suits and require a very small but constant supply of tallorium in addition to the water and food that they already require.

The Tallorium and gas canister system may be implementable before the penalties are turned on and before any high atmo planet types are created, and this would allow for players to get ready for the penalty activation since this system would lower atmosphere at a very high rate.

The heat terraforming aspect:

Adding a heat aspect to terraforming will make terraforming a more in-depth part of the game and the user will now have to handle controlling planetary heat as well as atmosphere. This will also open the door for new planet types and structures that take advantage of the planetary heat levels. However, it would prove to be a big change to the way each planet looks as it is terraformed, since now you would have to worry about what the soil looks like when heat is high and atmosphere is low, or vice versa. However, it would be well worth it in my opinion. Here are my ideas of the effects that high and low heat would have on a given colony.

-The optimal heat range would be between 5 mil and 15 mil, just like atmosphere. 0 heat means that the planet is at absolute zero, so I wouldn’t start any planets off at zero, maybe 500k or something.

-High heat would cause colonists to consume twice as much water. Any structures that require near-earth conditions will be destroyed and colonists will be less tolerant of long commute distances when the heat level is outside of the optimal heat range(too low or too high). Structures would also consume 1 water unit per 30 seconds in high heat. Structures and rovers/workers are damaged twice as fast and will need to be repaired more often.

-Low to earth-like heat is required for the growing of crystalline, while high to earth-like heat is required for the fabricating of Tallorium. So an earthlike planet could potentially produce crystalline and Tallorium simultaneously given the right resources.

-Low heat would cause colonists to consume twice as much food. Rover/worker and colonist speed is reduced by 1 and rover and structure build speed times are doubled. Resource production times could also be reduced by a reasonable amount.

A thermal energy plant could be used as a mid-level power supply and would consume a moderate amount of heat from the planet, whereas an absolute zero generator would absorb massive amounts of heat and power and would provide mid level research. A charcoal combuster would use charcoal to release heat into the atmosphere, while a nuclear agitation center would use the power of nuclear fission to produce massive amounts of heat.

The addition of the heat terraforming aspect is not required to implement the Tallorium and gas canister system.

Planet type suggestion: Hell
Atmosphere: 25 million
Temperature: 25 million
This planet will be for LIS and UE for now, but as bast adds races the planet might apply to them as well.
Difficulty: Medium for both human factions. Might be easier or harder for other factions to come.
-Structures and rovers/workers are damaged four times as fast as normal due to the stacked effects from high heat and high atmosphere.

-Instead of regolith, crystalline, or ore, Tallorium can be mined. Tallorium will be used to dig into the super compressed ground in search of ore, build basic structures at the start of the game, and is instrumental in gas canister production.

The player will need to use Tallorium to build a gas collector, which employs 1 person and produces gas canisters by sucking in atmosphere and consuming 1 tallorium for every canister made. The gas canisters can be turned into drinkable water via a structure called a water condensator. Then, a talloric greenhouse can be built with 150 Tallorium and an ore drill must be set up to mine ore through the thick and hard crust. The drill will cost 5,000 Tallorium and will indefinitely produce a small amount of ore at each interval, so many more drills will need to be built in order to jumpstart the colony. Once the planet’s atmosphere is reduced enough, ore fracking facilities can be built to supply a more efficient source of ore. Of course, in order to do all of that you need power, so a pressure turbine made with 500 tallorium would generate power, but would put air back into the atmosphere for each canister it opens.

After all of that is in place, the player can continue to follow the human path since they now have an ore supply as gold, aluminium, and uranium will still be present on the map.


So these are my ideas. Let me know if they are interesting are whether or not you want me to keep developing these ideas. I can't draw worth a crap but feel free to draw the structures, ground tiles, planet type symbols, and resource symbols that I mentioned on here if you think that at least some of these ideas should be added.


7y
#2
very detailed and interesting. It took me to read and reread and reread it again to absorb the suggestion.
7y
#3
thanks, I type way too much, but I want to get all of the details in. What do you think about it? Is there anything that you would change?
6y
#4
This comment is just to put this thread near the top of the list. I don't think that it was noticed by many people and I would definitely like so feedback on it, no matter if it's positive or negative feedback.
6y
#5
I like it. A lot of thought has gone into it well done.
6y
#6
Thanks. I wanted to make it fit with the game. I think that bast could add these elements without making many changes to the game, but I could be wrong. I try to make all of my ideas flexible so that in case one or two factors of my idea can't apply, the rest can still apply. The goal was to mainly stir up the imagination of the players and bast and offer new ideas that may not have been thought of before.
6y
#7
Amorphus said:thanks, I type way too much, but I want to get all of the details in. What do you think about it? Is there anything that you would change?


I think you are really brilliant in coming up with scenarios and possible solutions. Reminds me of my days when I was still writing me thesis on a topic that was not even known in my culture. Anyhow, I can't really say much at this point. I am the type that will always find work around with whatever is given to me. However, I would surely love to see how your suggestions will be given life in the game. That time, I would be able to give more suggestions and potential work around about it.

Challenge that I see though is with the developer. I have interviewed a lot of software developers both who does applications and who work on games. Common concern is that if you have too many resources to consider, you will have to draw up more scenarios on how to prevent the resource from going overboard as well as how it will interact with the current resources in the game. The developer will also have to figure out how to the research bit in the game. I am not a developer so I cannot really provide solutions :( I can just imagine Bast's face while scripting the code for this suggestion hahah
6y
#8
constanryuk said: I think you are really brilliant in coming up with scenarios and possible solutions. Reminds me of my days when I was still writing me thesis on a topic that was not even known in my culture. Anyhow, I can't really say much at this point. I am the type that will always find work around with whatever is given to me. However, I would surely love to see how your suggestions will be given life in the game. That time, I would be able to give more suggestions and potential work around about it.

Challenge that I see though is with the developer. I have interviewed a lot of software developers both who does applications and who work on games. Common concern is that if you have too many resources to consider, you will have to draw up more scenarios on how to prevent the resource from going overboard as well as how it will interact with the current resources in the game. The developer will also have to figure out how to the research bit in the game. I am not a developer so I cannot really provide solutions :( I can just imagine Bast's face while scripting the code for this suggestion hahah


You're right, and I've made multiple changes to my ideas to make them more adherent to the game and in how the resource system would work. I'm still trying to find ways to simplify my ideas. See my other thread on this idea at https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=4501. It has my current idea layout and also comes with several pictures that would help with the developing process. I have yet to crunch the cost and production/consumption numbers though.

Perhaps maybe only one new resource should be added to the game then, the tallorium. If i could come up with a strategy for LIS to get by with using tallorium, then the idea should work.

How about this:

Atmosphere converter: makes he3 from atmosphere
portable condenser: makes water from atmosphere
portable hydrolysis machine: consumes water to produce power. Makes atmosphere as a side effect.
Cloud vacuum: makes diamonds from sucking in tons of carbon in atmosphere. mid grade atmosphere reducer and requires a constant flow of diamonds and tallorium to keep the vacuum blades strong and eficient.
Gas Canister launcher: Consumes a large amount of diamonds, he3, tallorium, and atmosphere. Launches gigantic gas canisters into space using he3 rockets. Would be the most efficient atmosphere reducer.

The only new resource would be tallorium. So far that I've seen though, for almost every new planet that bast adds, he throws in a new resource to shake things up. This planet would be the negative-version of the ice world for UE basically, so it deserves a matching resource in my opinion.

Let me know what you think.
6y
#9
I like this suggestion! That would be a great way to add some more challenges to the game, and maybe there would be normal wind turbines for every map? Like a new research for advanced power production instead of advanced solar production.
6y
#10
advanced solar production are in the game with alien solar and yes it can add more challenges to the game because he is very easy,(add a difficulty for "disater")
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