FreeOrion

Planetary Ring





*by the way the planet texture is from the junkyard thread by pb

There are descriptions written for most building shown in-game when they are selected, which can also be viewed by looking at the stringtable file (eng_stringtable.txt) and searching for the name of the building. The following entry is the description. These aren't very useful for knowing what their exact in-game function is, though. For that, you'll probably need to look at the building defintions in buildings.txt and work out what the effectsgroups they have do. These can be confusing, but things like
shouldn't be too hard to figure out...

I think the ring could use a little more imagination: it's not just a plain ring, it is a connection between orbitals; so it should have some solar panels, living modules, power cores, etc... Also how about a more dynamic scene? Meaning, showing the planet not just from the side but from a half top-down view or something of the sort.

i could defiantly put some more work into the ring, however I'm not sure of the solar panels. Im just thinking a race advanced enough to build something like that would have a better power source like fusion.

basically all I've done so far is make a bump mapped tube and a sphere, but i was wondering is this an extension of or upgrade to the space elevator. I'm thinking if it is an upgrade to a space elevator, I've read some sci-fi where several space elevators were used to build a planetary ring so they would keep like 6-8 of those elevators around the planet, like spokes that connect it to the planet. then i could beef up those areas of the ring and add some verity to it. didn't one of the space odyssey books have one of these?

As far as a more dynamic shot i was thinking of that too and maybe i can get a good perspective shot with part of the ring up close ill have to play around with it some. It's kind of hard to get too much of an angle because once the ring drops below the bottom of the planet you loose the depth caused by the overlaps. But ill work on it when i get some time, an uncle of mine had a heart attack on Wednesday and that's tied me up some this week so i have some school stuff to deal with, but i should be able to get something done on it by Tuesday.

Did some searching in the forums last night but thanks for the links ill take a look when i get some time.

It might be better to not have the planet itself be visible in the icon for an orbital building, even if it's a ring that would be normally impossible to show without the planet being seen. There is already a planet being shown on the sidepanel, so it doesn't need to be shown again in the building icon. The planet environment type can also vary, and wouldn't match the icon in most cases. You could pehaps leave an empty space or outline where the planet would be in the icon, and make the ring itself thicker / more detailed in the icon?

not at all. fusion takes resources while solar energy comes absolutely free. acquiring energy of home star is exactly the next level of energy-mastering for any civilization after fusion. it's called "Dyson sphere". and planetary ring seems like first step to it. on the other hand any star itself originally IS a huge natural nuclear reactor, so in that case you're absolutely right (but solar panels must be on planetary ring in any case )

I personally like both of your icons, lets see what pd's feedback is. Keep submitting though, we love the new support!

here's something i was toying with not sure i like it tho

Scale it down and see how it looks! Up close it looks great...

I like it as well! Maybe a rougher grid would work better for the planet.

It's very nice, but due to the planet colour, it looks too much like Redcap's Black Hole Generator from a different angle, IMO. Could you find a colour other than dark purple that doesn't suggest one of the existing EPs? Or perhaps get rid of the planet itself and just leave the grid, perhaps increasing its thickness?

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

ok ill work on that ...

gnome bank

Genome Bank: My first impression was that it needed more red in the base. Then I noticed that you provided one with more red in the base and it looks awesome. Looks good in game.

Orbital Ring: Looks good at first, but at the size it appears in game in the system side-panel, it looks more like something orbiting a star. Maybe try a light green? Without any blue added in, it shouldn't look like any of the current EPs, and it should be more obvious that it's a planet.

Also, when making these icons, bear in mind that a lot of the current buildings may end up not being included in the game as more content is added/removed. Of course it's good practice and all, and it may be that in some cases only a small modification would be needed to make an icon represent a different building, but I thought I'd just point that out.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

lol, i thought the same on both accounts, as far as some may not be included, all i can say is oh well.