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Design: Gravity

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 5:41 pm
by Nightfish
Another loose end from V0.2: Planetary Gravity. How do we deal with it? I propose something simple like MoO2 had here: Three possible levels: High, Average and Low for 50%, 0%, and 25% penalty to everything people can do respectively.

Let's here some other thoughts. But remember: KISS

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 5:48 pm
by Impaler
I agree it should be a qualitative system but here are the ones I would use

None - Asteroids
Feeble - Tiny planitoid
Weak - Moon
Modest - Mars
Strong - Earth
Powerfull
Crushing
Super

Each is about twice the gravity of the last, also the bonus are race specific, gravity thats very different from your own can make a planet uninhabitable.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 6:58 pm
by jbarcz1
I'd like Impaler's system better.
Penalties to be determined by how far you are from your preferred range, with lower being less of a penalty than higher.
Penalties apply to research, farming, mining, and industrial output, not to population growth.

JB

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 7:33 pm
by mr_ed
It's good, yes.

It doesn't really make sense having huge planets with low gravity, eh?

I was thinking "Well, maybe that's because they're spinning faster." That wouldn't have an effect though, either, would it?

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 7:38 pm
by Aquitaine
Do we need gravity at all?

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 8:08 pm
by drek
Aquitaine wrote:Do we need gravity at all?
no, i don't think we do.

If it is in, just something to think about: Industry should be easier on planets with less gravity, as it would take less mechanical enegry to lift stuff and overcome friction. (not to mention easier to export stuff off-world.)

EDIT: hrm, this might be a way of making small planets more valuable, as they would have less gravity. Instead of making gravity a seprate attribute, key it to planet size. The only effect is a bonus to industry on smaller worlds, a small penalty to industry on larger worlds.

Once race picks are in the game, could expand gravity's effects to include ground combat penalties/bonuses and growth factor scales.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 8:25 pm
by utilae
Gravity should affect ground combat more than anything, maybe affecting movement or the way weapons act.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 8:30 pm
by Nightfish
Re: Do we need gravity?

Well, about as much as we need EP I'd imagine. Gravity did a fine job of slowing down expansion and mass production in MoO2. I never saw an ultra rich planet larger than small withour heavy gravity. (Unless it was guarded by a space monster).

It's something else to add depth to our game and give our races more character. I'm not sure you can answer this with "do we need it?". Sure, the game can work without gravity, but I feel a simple system gains us more than it costs us.

As for assigning gravity to planets: How about this: Tiny and small planets can be low g or normal g, medium planets can have all 3 types, large and huge can be normal g or high g. Beyond that, I'd like to keep it random because I like a little randomness.

Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2003 1:52 am
by Tyreth
mr_ed wrote:It's good, yes.

It doesn't really make sense having huge planets with low gravity, eh?

I was thinking "Well, maybe that's because they're spinning faster." That wouldn't have an effect though, either, would it?
Isn't gravity related to density as far as we know? So you could have a huge planet made out of feathers, and the gravity would be negligible compared with one made out of solid rock.

As for needing gravity - if we do have it, lets make it the simplest system possible. Three types - normal, low and high. *Every* race prefers normal gravity (since we already differ races on planet type preference).

I think a simple modifier with the above conditions would add a little diversity to the game, but I'm not sure if it's needed with everything else. I think it can't hurt either way. On that toptic, I am a lover of three's - environment, mineral richness, gravity :D

Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2003 10:22 am
by krum
drek wrote:
Aquitaine wrote:Do we need gravity at all?
EDIT: hrm, this might be a way of making small planets more valuable, as they would have less gravity. Instead of making gravity a seprate attribute, key it to planet size. The only effect is a bonus to industry on smaller worlds, a small penalty to industry on larger worlds.

Once race picks are in the game, could expand gravity's effects to include ground combat penalties/bonuses and growth factor scales.
Heh, yeah, differnt cost for building space stuuf (low gravity=cheaper to get up), that's why asked about gravity in the first place. Nice for gicing importance to small planets and asteroid fields. We could have it size-related of course, I suppose untypical gravity could be a special. Like fast-spinning planet (weak at the equator of course, at the poles it would be normal).

Actually this is the case with our planet too, and it is exploited to a degree, they didn't choose Baikonur, Huston, that French colony in the pacific at random, they are built as close to the equator as possible.

Anyway, races with different typical gravities would add more variety in combat, I think. Hm, I actually go an idea about those... What about a multiple gravity degrees tolerant race pick, their homeworld being a fast-spinning one? :D

Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2003 2:00 pm
by mr_ed
tyreth wrote:Isn't gravity related to density as far as we know? So you could have a huge planet made out of feathers, and the gravity would be negligible compared with one made out of solid rock.
Most likely, although the probability of a feathery planet is a bit low. :)

I don't know if this is related, but if you drop a feather and a bowling ball on the moon, they both fall at the same rate. :)

I don't think it would be too hard to code the gravity in. I only question the balancing of it. It's just one extra variable to play with.

We could try coding it with the potential that each race can have a gravity preference, but set them all to normal. That way it's extendable.

Re: Drek's idea about the industry bonus/penalty for small/large worlds, I thought it was a great idea.

If we code it along the "potential" lines, would be give penalties for lower-gravity worlds for high-gravity-preferring species? I think not. If that were the case, I'd always take high gravity. We'd need to do it along the lines of MOO3, then.

In MOO2, I almost never took high-g, but I did take low-g a bunch of times. Maybe people would be more likely to take it if they knew that larger planets always had higher gravities?

The other reason that I took low-g was because I could just build gravity generators. Is it feasible to have them?

Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2003 2:21 pm
by Nightfish
Concerning gravity generators and low g in MoO2. Well, first of all our game won't necessarily behave like MoO2, but even in MoO2 it was pretty difficult to survive long enough to even get to the gravity generator. Also, you could never get rid of the penalty you got for your infantry if you picked low g. Made conquering enemy ships real hard. And made conquering yours a lot easier.

Concerning the bonus to industry for low g planets: I don't think it is a good idea, gamewise and logic wise. I'm thinking like this: Your people are adapted to "normal" gravity. In low g, they will have all sorts of difficulties, like atrophying muslces and stuff like that. The only thing the low g planet has going for him is the reduced energy you need to lift stuff. Does it make sense to turn that into a bonus when we can fly our spaceships around the galaxy without any sort of cost? It's like the million of credits that would cost are left out and the few bucks you can safe on the low g world are made important. Seems wrong to me.

Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2003 5:24 pm
by krum
Nightfish wrote: Concerning the bonus to industry for low g planets: I don't think it is a good idea, gamewise and logic wise. I'm thinking like this: Your people are adapted to "normal" gravity. In low g, they will have all sorts of difficulties, like atrophying muslces and stuff like that. The only thing the low g planet has going for him is the reduced energy you need to lift stuff. Does it make sense to turn that into a bonus when we can fly our spaceships around the galaxy without any sort of cost? It's like the million of credits that would cost are left out and the few bucks you can safe on the low g world are made important. Seems wrong to me.
Hm, you're right, the cost of lifting the resorces for a spacehip into space are probably comaprable to the cost of moving your ship in one or a few batles... Hadn't thought of that :) If we have fusion power both will probably be realtively unimportant issues.

Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2003 5:26 pm
by Nightfish
Thanks Han. I really need someone to agree with me every once in a while :D

Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2003 10:19 pm
by Impaler
I agree that industrial machinary is not going to be significantly effected by gravity and the only forseable area of savings that of geting materials from the surface to orbit is ignored anyways.

Effects on Biology would be considerable though, perhaps give each race a prefered gravity and for each level away from it they suffer some reduction in the Environmental Preferences values.

And yes Tyreth the planets Density will effect its gravity, a body composed of mostly ice would have a surface gravity considerably lower then a Rock/metal body of the same size.