Re: Expanding Atmosphere Types
 

Makes perfect sense to me. People regularly argue over Star Trek canon. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Expanding Atmosphere Types
 

Slightly off topic:
It seems to me that most solar systems should have LOTS of tiny no-atmosphere or thin-atmosphere planets, especially around the fringes. In other words, a Kuiper belt.

Also, if you're going to aim for realism, then planets must have temperature attributes. I would think that the extremes of temperature would be more important for colonization than atmosphere type. If a planet's climate at its equator is like Antarctica in winter, then you're not going to get undomed colonies of humans even if the atmosphere is nitrogen/oxygen. Conversely, if a planet is very Earth-like except that it has little atmospheric oxygen, then colonists just need to carry an O2 supply/generator when they go outside -- domes aren't really needed.

Re: Expanding Atmosphere Types
 

Planets have gravity, temperature and radiation values, but they don't have any actual effect.

Re: Expanding Atmosphere Types
 

I forgot some stuff:

Huge planets should always have several Tiny planets nearby. These would represent very large moons like Titan.

Making None atmospheres common (in order to be more realistic) would mean a big advantage for None "breathers." So to compensate you'd have to make sizeable None planets extremely rare, which is probably realistic anyway. (That would make None races very interesting to play. Lots of room for expansion in every system, but lots of planets to defend.)

If planets had temperatures, these would generally get more frigid the further away planets were from their star. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/Penguin.gif

And while I'm talking about realism: what's up with having two (or three!) main sequence stars close together, at the center of a star system, surrounded by planets? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: Expanding Atmosphere Types
 

How else would you do binary stars? There isn't a whole lot of room to place them far apart.

The planet temperatures do get colder as the planets get farther away from the star, based on type even (in FQM anyways). Its a nice geometric formula, with distance^2 instead of the silly distance used in stock:

Name := Formula Planet Terr Temperature
Formula := MAX(-240, 100 - ([%HexDistanceToCenter%] * [%HexDistanceToCenter%] * 3) + Random(-50, 25)) + (([%NumberOfStars%] - 1) * 50)

Name := Formula Planet Ven Temperature
Formula := MAX(-240, 360 - ([%HexDistanceToCenter%] * [%HexDistanceToCenter%] * 3) + Random(-50, 25)) + (([%NumberOfStars%] - 1) * 50)

Name := Formula Planet Moon Temperature
Formula := MAX(-240, 80 - ([%HexDistanceToCenter%] * [%HexDistanceToCenter%] * 3) + Random(-50, 25)) + (([%NumberOfStars%] - 1) * 50)

Name := Formula Planet Ice Temperature
Formula := MAX(-240, 20 - ([%HexDistanceToCenter%] * [%HexDistanceToCenter%] * 3) + Random(-50, 25)) + (([%NumberOfStars%] - 1) * 20)

Name := Formula Planet Gas Temperature
Formula := MAX(-240, 40 - ([%HexDistanceToCenter%] * [%HexDistanceToCenter%] * 3) + Random(-50, 25)) + (([%NumberOfStars%] - 1) * 25)


Compared to the lamo (excessive) stock formula:

Name := Formula Planet Temperature
Formula := IIF([%HexDistanceToCenter%] <= 3, 500 - ([%HexDistanceToCenter%] * 100) - Random(0, 100), IIF([%HexDistanceToCenter%] >= 7, 0 - ([%HexDistanceToCenter%] * 20) - Random(0, 50), Random(-50, 50))) + (([%NumberOfStars%] - 1) * 100)

Re: Expanding Atmosphere Types
 

Woohoo for the inverse square law of radiation. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Expanding Atmosphere Types
 

Wouldn't Gas Giants argueably never be 'un-domed' if one were aiming for that kind of realism?

Re: Expanding Atmosphere Types
 

Lots of space for floating cloud cities?

Re: Expanding Atmosphere Types
 

For binary systems, the game could allow travel from one sector to the other without warping. Of course, in that case, if one star went nova it would need to wipe out BOTH systems.

I didn't realize that the temperatures go down with distance as you say. But that doesn't affect gameplay in the slightest, right? Could one, in principle, set a formula for conditions so that planets with nice conditions would always be located within a "habitability zone"? Then conditions would automatically be bad for frozen or scorched planets.

Re: Expanding Atmosphere Types
 

Unfortunately, conditions are determined outside of the formula for temperature, gravity, and radiation.