Planet Orion

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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Geoff the Medio
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#16 Post by Geoff the Medio »

marhawkman wrote:I guess the point is that using real star names is okay, but researching them is probably a good idea. Betelgeuse is a red SuperGiant. When I say SUPER giant I mean it's so big it's radius is approximately equal to the radius of Jupiter's orbit. Antares is also a red Giant star.
I'd prefer to have stars be classified as Red Giant, Red Supergiant, Blue Giant, Red Dwarf, Brown Dwarf, White Dwarf, Yellow/White/Orange/Red Main Sequence, Neutron Stars, Black Holes, or planetary nebulae, rather than just by colour or Neutron/Black as now... and to have binary or trinary systems be possible, and for stars in-game to generally follow their real-galaxy counterparts in colour and size (even if not relative positioning)... And for there to be planetary rings and moons displayed prominently, and for there to be two size classes of gas giants (Jupiter/Saturn extra big ones, and Neptune/Uranus medium-big ones), and for there to be a planet environment to represent cold non-watery non-barren planets similar to Titan (Saturn's moon)... But this sort of thing doesn't generate much interest from most other people.

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#17 Post by marhawkman »

Hey Geoff I just thought of something neato!!!! I remember reading your explanation of how the map generator works. I just thought of something really cool. I thought of a way to do binaries. :) See one thing I know from reading up on astronomy is that There are two kinds of Binary systems that are likely to have planets, close and far.

Close can be simulated by having a picture of two stars instead of one in the system view, that's not new or hard though. Although I think it'd be a good idea to make it have a slightly higher change of having planets.

Far is a bit different. I'm thinking we make them seperate objects on the map. But as Geoff mentioned previously, generating two stars on the map then linking them up as a binary would be bizzarre and complicated to do. I have a different idea. Start by placing the stars as normal, then do the starlanes like normal. Afterwards you take the spot where you're gonna have the Binary and add one star connected by a very short starlane to the first. Maybe move on or more of the existing starlanes to the newly added star. Presto! you now have a binary.

Hehe. If you want I could send you a pic.
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Geoff the Medio
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#18 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I'd suspect a binary system would be less likely to have planets. If both stars formed together, then the gravity or solar wind one one would prevent a nice symmetrical planetary disk from coalescing into planets around the other. If one was captured by the other when it passed by, planets would have been flung out during the interaction before things stabilized. If one was a neutron star or black hole, the supernova would have blown away any planets.

Moving stars around on the map or connecting lanes to make binaries on the map at different locations isn't as easy as it might seem, and isn't the point anyway. There's no technical reason binaries can't exist. It's a matter of getting design approvla, doing it, and having the relevant art to make it worthwhile, which is unlikely to happen.

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#19 Post by marhawkman »

Geoff the Medio wrote:I'd suspect a binary system would be less likely to have planets. If both stars formed together, then the gravity or solar wind one one would prevent a nice symmetrical planetary disk from coalescing into planets around the other. If one was captured by the other when it passed by, planets would have been flung out during the interaction before things stabilized. If one was a neutron star or black hole, the supernova would have blown away any planets.
I gotta agree with the black hole bit. Hmmm the reason for me using "close" and "far" is that in close they're so close together they had a single planetary disc. In Far they formed with almost completely seperate discs, but the stars are still just close enough to be bound to each other with gravity. Anything in between is gonna fall in the example you provided.
Geoff the Medio wrote:Moving stars around on the map or connecting lanes to make binaries on the map at different locations isn't as easy as it might seem, and isn't the point anyway. There's no technical reason binaries can't exist. It's a matter of getting design approvla, doing it, and having the relevant art to make it worthwhile, which is unlikely to happen.
You'd already figured this out but you need Aquitane's "approvla"?(approval?) Image Hunh.... You think it might be easier to do it a different way?
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#20 Post by Dreamer »

That is not a solution. 2 stars however very near on the map. Will have separate names, a separate set of planets, separate stacks for ships in orbit, etc. To make a 2 star group work lika a single entity (a binary star) a huge fragment of the code needs to be rewritten. But more basically, what were the in-game benefits of binary stars again?

If you can't live without them just usa a pic for a "binary star" and a double icon just as you use a "yellow star" o "blue star".

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#21 Post by marhawkman »

Dreamer wrote:That is not a solution. 2 stars however very near on the map. Will have separate names, a separate set of planets, separate stacks for ships in orbit, etc.
That's what I think the binaries in the "Far" category would be like. The stars are far enough away from each other to have separate planetary disks. This would also make them far enough away for the ships to need to actually travel to the other part of the system.
Dreamer wrote: To make a 2 star group work lika a single entity (a binary star) a huge fragment of the code needs to be rewritten.
This is why I came up with the close/far idea. I seem to remember somebody speculating that those are the types of places where we'd be most likely to find planets. And this way you'd either have two stars that are seperate(systemwise) or a system with a picture that shows two stars instead of one. Neither one requires major changes to how ships/systems are handled.
Dreamer wrote:But more basically, what were the in-game benefits of binary stars again?
At present there wouldn't be any. Nobody really knows enough about planetary formation in Binary systems to be able to make an accurate guess. Wait... What am I talking about? We don't know enough about planetary formation to make accurate guesses about single star systems. The main reason for having them is that in reality single stars are relatively rare.
Dreamer wrote:If you can't live without them just usa a pic for a "binary star" and a double icon just as you use a "yellow star" or "blue star".
That would be "close". Two stars so near that their common center of gravity is the center of the planetary disk.

You could add a small routine in the code to name the binary systems something like Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri, or Cappella-A and Cappella-B. Since it's adding the second one after the name of the first is known that wouldn't be hard.
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#22 Post by pd »

Nobody really knows enough about planetary formation in Binary systems to be able to make an accurate guess. Wait... What am I talking about? We don't know enough about planetary formation to make accurate guesses about single star systems. The main reason for having them is that in reality single stars are relatively rare.
Realism is never a reason to do anything in freeOrion.

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#23 Post by Dreamer »

pd wrote:Realism is never a reason to do anything in freeOrion.
Sorry to disagree, but IMHO realism is important. Realism affect a lot the look and feel of the game. If not, why don't we build waky-orion instead?. I think the general rule of thumb say that realism is less important than other factors like, for example, gameplay but it's not "screw realism, if it's real we don't want it".

Sorry for being a little agressive, but I tired of seeing interesting opinions discarted or loose weight when somebody point the finger and says "that's a realism argument". Even more when there is no opossing reason. :wink:

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#24 Post by noelte »

Hey dreamer (nice nick :wink: ),

pd said, "realism is never a reason to do anything in freeOrion",
he didn't say "anything which is based on realism won't make it into freeOrion".

You note the difference?

Most veterans are tired to explain, that realism isn't a argument for anything here at all. Fun is! (Maybe the tradeoff between gain and work is too)

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#25 Post by Dreamer »

noelte wrote:Hey dreamer (nice nick :wink: ),
Hehehe. It kind of defines me, for good or bad. But it's basically the best "describe yourself in one word" that I could find.
noelte wrote:pd said, "realism is never a reason to do anything in freeOrion", he didn't say "anything which is based on realism won't make it into freeOrion".

You note the difference?
Yeah, I know. But as far as I noticed there is no fun-gameplay reasoning against the topic up there, nor any compromise necessary between those or other factors. The only reason to go against some extra code to make binary stars is just that, extra code, since gameplay is not affected in any way. And I did mention this factors a couple of posts above.

I do think that saing "realism is never a reason to do anything in freeOrion" is wrong. Realism should be a thing to strive for, even if it's of secondary priority (after fun, etc). So realism SHOULD be a reason to do stuff in FO, if it doesn't conflict with a higher ideal. They are, in fact, very different things.

I know it's just my point of view, but for example, I do like sci-fi tv series, but I hate those who think that (because they are in space and in the future) can bullshit me with any stupid theory or explanation they want. I don't look for full realism, but for a reasonable, credible point of view.

No offense to anyone I hope :-)

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#26 Post by marhawkman »

Actually I did think of another reason to add Binaries. It'd make FreeOrion unique. MoO has never had them, Space Empires, Stars!, I've never played a 4X game that did have them.

It'd add an interesting twist to the game that I haven't seen before.
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#27 Post by Kharagh »

If I remember correctly, Space Empires IV had binary Systems, but it is a good idea nontheless :-)

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#28 Post by marhawkman »

Kharagh wrote:If I remember correctly, Space Empires IV had binary Systems, but it is a good idea nontheless :-)
hmm... I'm gonna have to see if I can get a copy of that game.... What sort of changes did it make in the system?
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Realism

#29 Post by guiguibaah »

The argument about realism does not preclude it's use. The argument is that, if there is a choice between a realistic aspect and a gameplay aspect, the gameplay aspect will prevail. Otherwise, we wouldn't need a sound component since sound does not travel in space, space battles could take a ridiculous amount of time to resolve, and certain simple UI concepts that facilitate gameplay may be forsaken for more complicated, unintuitive realistic counterparts. In the end, it would be a boring game.


That being said, PD is slightly incorrect in saying "realism isn't a reason to do anything" as the game is built upon a small modicum of realistic compounds. As I see it, FreeOrion is portraying the image that it is a serious game. In other words, we won't have unrealistic happy suns who sing, or dancing plants ALA Super-Mario Brothers 3, or a giant frog that shoots missiles out of it's butt screaming "I AM JOSEPH STALIN" each time something explodes. Already, we have adopted the various sun classes, various planets and planetoids, technologies and ships that come from a realistic framework.

So in other words, yes, dump the realism argument if it will hinder gameplay, otherwise people will not play the game. Yet, if the two can go hand-in-hand without conflicting each other, it begs the question "why not?"


I'd say, if you could do it, add it to the program code and submit the proposal. I think it would look really nice to have Binary Stars - we know they exist, they are real, and it enhances gameplay as they can not only serve as extra terrain specials, they break up the monotony of a galaxy filled with yellow-star, red star, yellow star, blue star, etc...


For more reading about the Realism aspect, do a search for "Aquitaine, Realism". He summed it up quite nicely in a certain threat to which I am am too pressed to link as I need to return to work.
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#30 Post by marhawkman »

I think this is it: viewtopic.php?t=815&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

The thing is that too much "realism" makes it go from a strategy game to a galaxy sim.
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