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[cerapa]

Just a question, what's the actually ingame significance of the maps.

Everything. My intent is to make a 4x where colonization and space travel is extremely difficult, meaning that local conditions are extremely important. And if local conditions are good enough, then they might just decide to declare independance. Can't simulate the real problems of holding together an interstellar empire without having proper differences between planets.

As for particulars, humidity and plant amount will determine food production. Temperature will determine upkeep. Height differences will determine build costs(gotta pave that land). And that's all the current systems.

EDIT:

Spoiler: Plants (click to show/hide)

The odd lines on the coast are caused by the fact that I capped growth to the minimum of suitable temperature and humidity. And since higher places are colder and humidity still reaches them, then slightly away from the low coasts is actually the best place to grow. I think it would actually be quite okay if I make it more apparent that the equator is at the highest possible temperature and you should catch on fire if you go there.

EDIT2:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[GalenEvil]

That looks awesome ^_^

[RulerOfNothing]

Everything. My intent is to make a 4x where colonization and space travel is extremely difficult, meaning that local conditions are extremely important. And if local conditions are good enough, then they might just decide to declare independance. Can't simulate the real problems of holding together an interstellar empire without having proper differences between planets.

As for particulars, humidity and plant amount will determine food production. Temperature will determine upkeep. Height differences will determine build costs(gotta pave that land). And that's all the current systems.

Nice. I can't wait to see where you take this.

[Siquo]

Looks very nice, I'm interested to see where you'll take this...

[cerapa]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Everyone say "Hi!" to the resource map and to the non-conformist resourceID 20, who has decided that white is "not his style" despite it having been the colour of all resources for millions of years. On second thought, do not greet the rebel. If you give it attention, others will follow its lead.

Currently it just assigns an unique ID to every deposit, but I will change that behaviour. I think I will make the resources be determined at space level(like all the globals are) and then the resource map just says where they are.

So, yeah. Resources. The above map is a bit rich, but it should be okay, since most of them will be generics and only a few special ones will be randomly generated. A few meaning a maximum of 255 resources minus generics per planet and however many I can be bothered to accomodate across the galaxy. Obviously randomly generated resources could lead to super-powerful omniresources that control the fate of the galaxy...

but I think we all know that the spice must flow.

[Mephansteras]

Very nice looking. Would be handy from a player perspective to be able to view mineral deposits on an overlay of the landmass map as well.

[cerapa]

True. Will definately put that in.

[10ebbor10]

Just as a note, you could have procedural generators rather than random generators. Meaning that some traits can't be shared with others, or that each trait comes with it's own drawback. Or that there's some sort of point limit, or a relation between usefullness and availability.

Though really, I suppose that a very usefull resource would balance itself out. High usage => shortage => Crisis. Because people won't like the fact that you're limiting their acces to the supermedicine because it's so usefull for spaceship reactors.

((Also, hidden drawbacks))

[cerapa]

Seems I am at a bit of an impass. You see, I am at the state of planet generation, where I think I could start linking it up with new systems, like tiles and star systems. Right now the question is how I would go about creating those. Star systems are simple enough, simply a stack of stats, a list of pointers to planets, and their display. Tiles are a different matter entirely, as they have some very important components like buildings and population. I am torn between making them just a struct like the pixels are and having the planet class interact with them, or making a fully fledged class with its own functions. Not to mention that I dont even exactly know what I will need them to do yet.

Gonna have to write up some proper goals. Running in blind works decently for generating a planet, but doesn't work so well when doing other stuff. Not gonna see a lot of pretty pictures in the near future, since I will be coming up with actual systems(as opposed to the general outline in my head), and will be cleaning up the code a bit. I also really need to work on the interface a bit.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As you can see, I coded in windows and their handling before I started with planet generation*, you can drag em around and close em and everything. Its pretty easily extendable** and messing around with it shouldn't be much of a problem, but its still gonna be a bit of code, with all the buttons and stuff I'm gonna have to do. Currently all input is just this block of code***:

Code: [Select]

        case SDLK_1: Planeet->RenderMap(1, 1); break;
        case SDLK_2: Planeet->RenderMap(2, 1); break;
        case SDLK_3: Planeet->RenderMap(3, 1); break;
        case SDLK_4: Planeet->RenderMap(4, 1); break;
        case SDLK_5: Planeet->RenderMap(5, 1); break;
        case SDLK_6: Planeet->RenderMap(6, 1); break;
So yeah, current goals: Buttons, proper design, some under the hood stuff with windows and a name. I also need to get boost working for multithreading.


*I actually just slapped the planet on top of it. The windows were just a thing I did for fun. Didn't even have a particular thing in mind when I made it. But genericness is good for extendability I suppose.
**Speaking of extending, the window background gets cut off because I made the window bigger to accomodate the 800x400 map, but the background image itself is actually only 500x500. Couldn't be bothered to make a bigger one.
***Except the mouse, which is linked to the windows and is...a bit more complicated. Luckily I don't have to touch the thing, because it's nicely self-contained.

[Mephansteras]

I'd say make them classes. More powerful if you need them to do stuff, and can still be simple if that's all you ultimately need from them.

[lemmily]

but I think we all know that the spice must flow.

I enjoy this greatly.

Also - cool project!

[cerapa]

Wrote up all my thoughts on the different systems. Ambitious, but should be implementable.

Resources:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There are 255 resources in the universe. Some are preset: food and one resource for every possible use. And others are randomly generated. All resources have a set of traits. These traits have 4 components: Type, Efficiency, Refinement Requirement, and Tech Level.

An example of a trait would be: Fuel, 50%, 6, 9
-Fuel means that the resource can be used as fuel. (cryptic, isnt it?)
-50% means that it is 50% more effective, in the case of fuel meaning that you need less of it(1-(100/150)=33% less).
-6 means that it needs to be refined by a tech level 6 tile for this trait to actually be usable.
-9 means that it could power tech level 9 spaceship engines.

Lets say that this is used in a resource.

WHYDOESTHERNGHATEME (named by player)
-Medicine, 0%, 0, 1
-Fuel, 50%, 6, 9

This resource for example could be used as a particularly primitive sort of medicine(leeches anyone?) in the earlier turns, but would later turn into something that decides the winner of wars. A system would be put in place to hide the potential of resources, so noone starts hoarding superconductors as someone with the tech level of neanderthals.

Internally resources are indentified by their refinement level and resource ID. The list of resources is then consulted accordingly if more information is needed.

There are 2 special types of traits, food and general.
-Food always has a tech level and efficiency of 0, but the refinement requirement may vary. This means that all food is the same. And yes, this does mean that people might eat the same stuff that they make spaceship hulls with. Lets just say that they have really good teeth.
-General is used for tiles and their maintenance, and may therefore be considered the most important trait. Consult tiles for further information.

The preset resources have certain qualities:
-They are single purpose.
-They have no bonuses, and a trait for levels 1-5.
-They need to be refined to the previous level, to unlock the next. (eg, trait level 5 requires refinement 4)
This should ensure that an empire would always have at least a basic level of everything they need.

Factions:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A faction could be considered the equivalent of a side from other games. They take care of the territory they hold, improve their conditions and attempt to expand. What differs from other games is that factions have changing traits, are usually not independant, can be directly controlled and (relatively) freely created.

Factions can have any number of traits, but most of them also have penalties. A "Scholarly" faction would be able to keep tech levels even while living in a backwater planet, but would also have a higher upkeep on its tiles. Some penalties are purely diplomatic, such as a "Self-Sufficient" faction having lower upkeep, but not tolerating when you try to take resources from them. Factions change depending on their circumstances and events. A faction living on an ice planet would develop different traits from a faction living in a factory planet.

Factions spread and split on their own. The most likely causes of a split are tech-level differences and geographical isolation. This means that a high-tech area and a slum might split into differing factions and fight wars.

Factions control territory and have their own goals, but they are usually a part of a larger entity. A faction is limited to a single planet. Factions have their own resource stockpiles, territory and ships. When the larger entity wants any of that, or to order any actions, they have to ask, and the faction is capable of declining. Asking expends a limited resource, and most planets and factions of an empire will be acting by themselves, simply because the leadership cannot micromanage every action.

Factions can be created quite easily. On the construction of a colony ship, the traits of the colonists can be hand-picked. It is also possible to willingly split a faction. The new faction will start off with negative relations to the one it split off from, usually leading to war, and if the revolution fails, then you might just end up with a colony that hates your guts.

Tech:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Technology is not global, and most things have their own tech level. This includes tiles, people and resources. Tech relating to tiles and resources are in their own respective sections.

Tech level is a scale of 0 to ?, mainly capped by the available resources. 0 could be considered the level of the industrial revolution, as it was the advent of transport, communications technology, !!SCIENCE!! and mechanization. Earlier technology does not fit with the games systems.

Each faction has their own tech. There are 4 possibilities for every tech level.
-Unknown
-Known
-Practical
-Mastered

Unknown means that the faction is unaware of even the possibility of this tech level.
Known means that this tech can be actively researched, tiles with this tech level investigated and so on.
Practical means that the population is incapable of producing this level of tech, but can use and repair them.
And mastered means both usage and production capabilities.

Mastered and known cannot skip any steps, but practical can occur anywhere. Someone could be entirely incapable of understanding how a factory internally works, but could control one just fine. "Someone" in this case meaning a couple million people living in abandoned alien ruins.

Research is mostly naturally occurring. For example, every built spaceship would have a chance of revealing a new tech level(known), or advancing actual capabilities(mastered). Directed research mainly involves dumping a ton of resources into producing nothing until you get a breakthrough. Living on a higher tech level tile also increases research.

Research can only occur in tiles of an equal or higher tech level than the population. When there are no high-tech neighbours, and when most tiles are at least 2 tech levels lower, then the tech level of the faction will begin to regress. First to practical, and then to known. Rarely even to nothing. This means that isolated colonies will fall below the tech of the overall empire.

Tiles:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A tile is a 10x10 piece of land. Every tile has the following:
-Base production, determined by the terrain
-Population, which requires food and is capped by medicine and tech
-Controlling faction, which adds bonuses or negatives
-Used resource, which determines the tech level of the tile with the "general" trait, the tile needs this resource as upkeep
-Specialization, which is not necessary and has additional upkeep

The production of the tile is determined by the general formula of (base production*population(with diminishing returns)*tech level*faction bonuses/penalties)
Production in this case means food production, mining and refining. All are seperate and each tile can do everything. Each tile is considered to have their own factories, cities, power plants, etc. And if a tile mines its own used resource, it will refine it if it can and will use it for its own upkeep. Same for food.

Specializations do not have any negatives beyond their upkeep. Specializations need resources with traits specific to them and eat them as upkeep. Specializations range from additional mining and refineries to spaceship construction yards.

[10ebbor10]

Interesting. Would tiles have an effect on their surrounding tiles. Also, are you going to make maps of every object, or are you going to abstracts roids and moons (and gasgiants).

[cerapa]

Tiles do not effect surrounding tiles, but I might put in exceptions for certain specializations.

Asteroids and gas giants will be abstracted or wont exist at all. Moons I have to think about. Right now everything is hardcoded to a 800x400 planet, and moons would obviously be smaller than that. Not to mention smaller maps would require changing the UI, and lots of little stuff like that.

[cerapa]

Ah, the sweet sweet smell of progress(even if its not much).

As can be seen, this is a resource. I decided to scrap the whole bonus idea, because its redundant with tech levels.

This particular resource is good for general use at all stages. It doesnt need to be refined for tech level 3 use, and at refinement 5 can be used for tech level 7.
It acts a decent fertilizer for the construction of farms. It can also be used as crappy fuel, until tech level 11 is reached after which it can apparently be used to fold space-time like paper. It is also usable as medicine.

The week since my last post was used for

All in all, quite a fun, learned a lot. Gonna mess around a bit more with the traits, and then proceed to the tiles.