First off has anyone gotten this to work? (yes right now its just for windows, but let me know if anyone gets it working on anything else)
I'm trying to install it now but this is taking forever. It's still doing the .NET framework setup. I keep thinking it's frozen, but every time I hit the cancel button the progress bar jumps a few more spaces.
EDIT: Okay, it worked. Program runs just fine, no problems on my custom-built PC running XP.
I guess you didn't implement the camera movement limitations yet, since you can spin 360 around the island and look at it upside down. For the button-mash-z-level-misalignment, you could just disable z-level control while the island is moving. Also, why does the camera automatically zoom in as altitude goes down and vice versa?
While I'm waiting, here's a play balance framework idea.
You mentioned that heavier, i.e. higher-level islands would float lower, and lower-level islands would be protected by their altitude. Meanwhile, new land and resources could be acquired on the ground, I assume by wrenching new chunks of earth into the sky.
How about a reversal, giving low-level players more power. Like this-
-To get new tiles/resources from the ground, players have to send vessels of some sort down to bring it back up.
-The smaller the island is, the lower to the ground it is (justification being something like islands get their lifting power by repelling the ground, big islands being better at it). Also, when islands are damaged, if a chunk breaks off, it'll sink back down to where to where its new size would naturally put it. Obviously there'd be ways of changing altitude without changing size, but a given size island would have a natural repulsion that it tries to gravitate to.
-When forces are sent to attack other islands, if they're too badly damaged they'll try to fly home. But damaged units (vessels? creatures?) have a hard time regaining altitude. Forces sent upward have an easy time retreating, but forces sent downward that don't succeed will probably be lost completely.
-The result of these taken together give low-level players a lot of relative power. Smaller islands have better access to new resources from below and loot falling from above. Big islands have to send their resource ships through a gauntlet of piratical newbs. And if they try to attack newbs, they have to face a hard choice - send some of their forces that could be a complete waste if it doesn't succeed; or send a lot of their forces, and be left open to attack by other players.
-As an aside, the "bigger islands float higher" system would impose natural limitations on island size and resources. The higher into the air you go, you have to build new ways of supporting your population. And islands could only get so big before they risk shunting themselves right out of the atmosphere, and would have to jettison some lift.