Bye Bye starlane!?

from Sins Forums
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    I am a avid fan (but the game crahs all the time - NVIDIA - hopefully fixed soon). I remember MOO1 and the fact that there was no starlane but limited ship range.

    How would we replicate (if even possible) in this via MOD?

    - Change number of planet per star to something that might be real (0 to 15 planets)
    - Have 2 types of drive engines (in solar system i.e.: Trusters / cross solar system: warp drive)
    - Enlarge the gravity well so the solar system can only be access at the edge of the system, giving a chance for a fleet to defend a planet / star system
   

    Even a Space Empire IV / V model where there would be a single gravity well for the star and starlane at the edge of the star system would be great.

    I know it is a great game and pushed the genre, but i just can't get over the fact that there is 40 planet per stars and only a few stars, seems less epic. finally, the fact that anyone can jump into a gravitty well and basically level the planet with a small fleet of bombardment frigate no matter how much defense you build up OR fleet you have seems to make no sense to me. it become a simple planet annihalation hopping exercices.

    I have no modding skill but willing to learn but honestly, i bit a this.

    Great game still - can't wait to see the sequel.

    o well, back to playing Moo1 i guess
modding
6,596 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Our star system has pretty much over 40 planets i think. I am counting moons around saturn and jupiter, as some of them are size and mass of the earth or either pretty close.

I understand phaselane as reason for traveling long distances betwean planets and for strategy reasons of this game. But as you said it removes "epic" feeling in the game.
It would be cool for far more star systems, especially since there will be many mods coming out...cover large areas of the space.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I'm a Moo1 fan myself, and I think having range-limited play is a good idea, but I'm not optimistic the feature can be modded into SOASE.

I downloaded the mod tools and looked through the GameInfo/.Entity files but didn't see any attributes for ships that would lend themselves to a dynamic range. Phase lanes are probably entities of a map and the only way to travel a map without phase lanes is to use a Phase Stabilizer.

Without coding changes I don't see how a range-limit between planets would be possible.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I am counting moons around saturn and jupiter, as some of them are size and mass of the earth or either pretty close.
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No, not really. The largest moon in the solar system is Jupiter's Ganymede which is only about 1/40th as massive as the earth, or 1.4819 × 10^23 kg vs 5.9736 × 10^24.

However, your point is still valid. The OP suggests that stars could have numbers of planets which are more "real", but this game takes into account things which don't meet the technical definition of a "planet", Asteroids in particular. Our solar system probably has dozens, if not hundreds, of such objects.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
closest thing you can have to no phaselanes would be to set maximum amount of phaselanes, so that every object connects to every other object in the system. Then you can play with show phaselanes off. I doubt it would be enjoyable.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
- Enlarge the gravity well so the solar system can only be access at the edge of the system, giving a chance for a fleet to defend a planet / star system
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Actually, you can enlarge the movement radius of each celestial body (suns, planets etc). You can enlarge them to the extend that they overlap (so you can have all planets around a star within the star's movement plane), but the problem is that they still require the lanes to travel to each plane. If you could jump from any specific point of the movement plane to another movement plane this wouldn't be a problem, but currently the game requires us to use the edge of the hyper radius (where you jump).

The best solution in my opinion would be for the developers to include the option of removing the movement and hyper planes around planets and only include them for stars. This way you have free movement in a solar system, but system to system would still require jumping.



Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with Zaro, that would be awesome, and it would allow for more tactical use of ships.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
I am counting moons around saturn and jupiter, as some of them are size and mass of the earth or either pretty close.No, not really. The largest moon in the solar system is Jupiter's Ganymede which is only about 1/40th as massive as the earth, or 1.4819 × 10^23 kg vs 5.9736 × 10^24.However, your point is still valid. The OP suggests that stars could have numbers of planets which are more "real", but this game takes into account things which don't meet the technical definition of a "planet", Asteroids in particular. Our solar system probably has dozens, if not hundreds, of such objects.
End of quote


I stand corrected, but you got the picture.

I would like that instead of asteriods around some planets, we could acually include another planet(moon), that could be colonisible as well, or just me mining outpost.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
You could create a moon planet and place it very close to another planet on a custom map. Not quite the same but it's the current solution.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Could it be done this way?

1 - Enlarge the gravity well significantly for each current "planet"
2 - Create a type of asteriod (like the one in the grav well that can be colonised) and change there look so they look like planets, all individually colonizable spread them around a gaz giant that you make look like a star
3 - Spread these new mini star system enought that even a very large grav well will not overlap each other
4 - transform current stars into "wormholes" that would be used to move from one "galaxie" or star cluster to another

This would replicate the effect and starlane between star system would make more sense if they are at the edge of these super grav wells. They are starlane versus "planetwells"