Planet "Depth" Discussion/Suggestions

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RCK
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Planet "Depth" Discussion/Suggestions

Post by RCK »

We've all been saying it for awhile, Planets need more depth.

I'm open to ANY and all suggestions.

Please no bashing of others suggestions, I will take 'corrective' action as needed.
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Re: Planet "Depth" Discussion/Suggestions

Post by Jester- »

Maybe make it so a planet can build a port (kind of like in ME). So planet galaxies have no ports, but planets can make their own economy and you can build on them based on what you want the port to buy and sell. Then based on the planet level you can level up the port goods etc? That way when a planet is busted if it loses say 5 or 10 levels the alliance busting the planet can then choose how to downgrade the port at the same time?
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jouldax
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Re: Planet "Depth" Discussion/Suggestions

Post by jouldax »

I'll throw some ideas around that I've had for a while regarding planets to make them more interesting. Some are simple, some are crazy, but it should at least get the conversation going.

1. Return to the old days where you could choose what kind of weapon you want to stock on the planet. Instead of buidling turrets, you build weapon bays. Since turrets fire 250/250, I believe, double the number of bays and cut the building time/price in half. Accuracy should be determined by base accuracy of the weapon and should increase similar to the way it does now when the planet gains levels. If you want, you can equate levels to the ship exp system, so you don't need to reinvent the wheel.

2. Let planets be able to move. How cool would that be? Give it like 0.5 tph with a max cap of 100. You can't leave the galaxy though (planet parked at skant fed? I don't think so :P). Once you give it turns, allow it to fire on intruders. There should be some sort of weapon cooldown, like 2 minutes before it can fire again, but it would be awesome to have the planet be able to counter-op an attack or a wayward straggler. The cooldown would be implemented if a fleet fires on the planet and it returns fire, thus eliminating the possibility of firing on the fleet right after it's already fired once. Also, it gives the attacking fleet incentive to hurry up and uno to possibly get a shot off before weapons recharge, which could lead to mistakes and more exciting, fast-paced combat.

3. I agree with jester that planets should have ports, and that the goods which can be bought and sold at those ports should be selectable by the planet owners.

4. Give planets a unique ability to create something, like a weapon or armor patch, which gets stronger the higher the level the planet is. For example, you could have the option to have your planet specialize in a skill, like weaponcrafting. Within that specialty, you would have to choose which type of weapon you'd like - armor, shield, or balanced. Let's say you pick armor. The initial weapon would be a level 3 weapon which is slightly better than the best neutral level 3 armor weapon. Call it a "Planetary Photon Torpedo" which would do 150 armor damage but have 45% accuracy. Once your planet hits level 40, it can make a level 4 weapon. Call it a "Planetary BMT" which would do 200 armor damage with 45% accuracy. You get the idea, which also works for shield weapons and balanced weapons. Other possible options include the ability to create armor or shield augments (adds bonus armor or shields to your ship) or even cargo hold enhancements.

5. Create an inter-planet warp system. Costs you 5 turns, like any warp, but you can jump to any other planet you own. This helps facilitate the building process and encourages players to take those small outlier planets that never get built up/serve any real purpose. In the case of a fleet attack, the inter-planet warp system would shut down following the first shot for a period of 30 minutes, setting a time limit if the attackers wish to try and pod any and all landers on the rock.

Those are my initial thoughts. I have others, but I think that's enough for now :).
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Re: Planet "Depth" Discussion/Suggestions

Post by JettJackson »

Jester- wrote:Maybe make it so a planet can build a port (kind of like in ME). So planet galaxies have no ports, but planets can make their own economy and you can build on them based on what you want the port to buy and sell. Then based on the planet level you can level up the port goods etc? That way when a planet is busted if it loses say 5 or 10 levels the alliance busting the planet can then choose how to downgrade the port at the same time?
I would be against this because there has to be inherit risk with trading and route making instead of a route being made with no risk and traded with no risk/limited risk. Also the downgrades should be random else once again it would be too easy to bust with little risk.
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Re: Planet "Depth" Discussion/Suggestions

Post by piratedan »

planets have economies and as such, when you control planets, you control their economies.

so I would propose that if you own rocks, you generate income from them, make it sliding scale to coordinate with size and number of rocks. All rocks should belong to NPC alliances at first, which means that they have to be busted by player alliances before they can be owned. In order to not get too crazy, make the limit be something like a million per day per planet. It would be like having another trader but would make owning the real estate more meaningful imho.

Post lvl 70

have additional manufacturing available to add to defenses, call it a machine shop if you want, have them take twice as long a turrets and thrice the resources; but they would allow you to add weapon damage equal to the lowest ship borne gun, and as you complete each set of shops, a new gun is added to the turrets. So you would start with a space shotgun and then work your way up to something like a nuke or ppl. say six levels of guns, so another 60 buildings. Makes planets harder to bust and building them more worthwhile.

also too...

If an alliance controls all the planets in a galaxy, the accuracy of the planets shots against attackers should also increase, call it like 2% for each planet controlled. Naturally that will decrease with the effective busting of a planet and should then increase the attacker's accuracy by that same 2% when attacking other rocks.
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Re: Planet "Depth" Discussion/Suggestions

Post by Azool »

One idea we had a while back was to add different types of planets:

Once the planet hits level 10 you have to select the type of planet you want it to be (Lander, Financial, Support, Defense, Production, etc). For NPC planets we could just randomly choose a type

Based on the type, you have a set of buildings you can produce (and an associated maximum number of that building). For example, Landers can produce 15 weapon slots, Financial planets can produce banks, support planets produce research (which boosts the shield power, accuracy, income, etc of all your other planets in that galaxy. If you lose the support planet, the other planets all lose the benefit), Defense planets can produce mines (or something similar that attack ships that enter the sector), Production planets produce goods that are required to build powerful buildings on other planets and to sustain some buildings (ie the most powerful turrets consume 1 special ore every hour that only production planets can create, and if the ore runs out, then your turret cannot fire).

This makes it so that alliances must build the variety of planet types in order to get the best lander and the safest place to park. Also an attacking alliance can incrementally take down support planets, defense planets, etc and make progress towards the enemy's lander, providing a nice long term fighting scenario
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Re: Planet "Depth" Discussion/Suggestions

Post by Jester- »

Azool wrote:One idea we had a while back was to add different types of planets:

Once the planet hits level 10 you have to select the type of planet you want it to be (Lander, Financial, Support, Defense, Production, etc). For NPC planets we could just randomly choose a type

Based on the type, you have a set of buildings you can produce (and an associated maximum number of that building). For example, Landers can produce 15 weapon slots, Financial planets can produce banks, support planets produce research (which boosts the shield power, accuracy, income, etc of all your other planets in that galaxy. If you lose the support planet, the other planets all lose the benefit), Defense planets can produce mines (or something similar that attack ships that enter the sector), Production planets produce goods that are required to build powerful buildings on other planets and to sustain some buildings (ie the most powerful turrets consume 1 special ore every hour that only production planets can create, and if the ore runs out, then your turret cannot fire).

This makes it so that alliances must build the variety of planet types in order to get the best lander and the safest place to park. Also an attacking alliance can incrementally take down support planets, defense planets, etc and make progress towards the enemy's lander, providing a nice long term fighting scenario
Make this happen.
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RCK
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Re: Planet "Depth" Discussion/Suggestions

Post by RCK »

Considered something similar in the past... though probably never documented it.
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Re: Planet "Depth" Discussion/Suggestions

Post by Azool »

RCK wrote:Considered something similar in the past... though probably never documented it.
It was the planet concept for 1.5 ;) Should be some threads about it lurking on that forum

Edit: Found one of them...I'm pretty sure there is a much more detailed one on there somewhere, but the high level overview is probably better...
http://smrcnn.smrealms.de/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=9067
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Re: Planet "Depth" Discussion/Suggestions

Post by Harry Krishna »

Along the lines of planets having economies...

Population
This is a value of how many people live on the planet at a given time. Small planets have low or no population. Population grows or shrinks in relation to infrastructure and morale.

Infrastructure
The number of support structures built on a planet. Factories, research labs, communication systems, transportation systems, housing, etc. along with the planetary defense structures (gens, hangars, turrets). The better the infrastructure, the more population a planet can support.

Planet population + Infrastructure = Production speed

Production speed
The speed at which buildings are completed or other tasks completed. Small planets are slow, but speed increases as infrastructure is built AND population grows (need both). Speed decreases as buildings are destroyed and/or population drops. Putting a bunch of slaves on a planet could temporarily boost the population.

Economy
A calculated value that relates to a planet's economic output (like GDP). It can be increased by straight cash infusions into the economy from outside (like alliance donations) but is more a factor of building infrastructure and population and morale.

Morale
A calculated value which is a measure of population confidence based on infrastructure development, economy, and planet defense. This can be increased by building infrastructure and defense, and decreased by attacks which destroy infrastructure. People don't feel safe, they leave, causing a drop in population.

Putting it all together....
Planet population + Infrastructure + Economy + Morale = Economic output

The economic output of developed planets could be money, goods, or other stuff for the owner of the planet.
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