SPACE EXPLOITATION ver 2.0 hosted by Smilo - Page 4

smilo · August 9, 1999, 19:55

Terraforming eh, hmmm this reminds me of a movie you all know : alien 2. Now how can we get the aliens in ?

August 9, 1999, 21:33

Well, I haven't read the Robinson books. But I did hear this from a little pipefitting job on which I worked as helper. Argon is used to fill the pipe and blanket the weld area to "flood out" all the oxygen when welding certain metals (titanium, in this case). The Argon is very dangerous because it can do the same thing in the lungs. It is much denser than air, and the lungs' pneumatic action is too weak to expel it once it gets in the alveoli. Inevitable suffocation is the result of a full breath of Argon.

I asked, since welding supplies include oxygen, if intubation and flooding the lungs with oxygen wouldn't work. The answer is it hasn't worked in field conditions.

Is this just an "old welder's tale," or is this correct?
[This message has been edited by don Don (edited August 09, 1999).]

Tornado7 · August 10, 1999, 00:37

*Bump*

Harel · August 10, 1999, 00:59

Yeah, I DO mean nytrogen, sorry.
However, I did mean what I said: they WOULD have to shuttle it from somewhere else.
On mars, there is more the enough co2 trapped in the rocks to create an atmopshere as thick as Earth: however, for temputre and toxic reasons, we can't create such a co2-rich atmosphere ( hell, it will eat down the buildings! ).
Ice, and limited amount trapped in the rocks can give a fair amount of oxygen in the air: not nearly enough, but with trees it would do.
The problem is non-reactive gases. There aren't any. Period.
Not Neon, nytrogen or Argon. Not even enough to fill 1% of a 1 atmosphere unit air ( according the most optemistics plans ).
Shreding and evaporting huge amount of deep-ground rocks could probaly get more noble gas into the air, but still not nearly enough. In every attempt to create a harmonical pseudo-earth atmosphere, you will reach the level that you simply don't have nay more on mars, everywhere, period.

So, you can't "just use what you have on the planet". In Kim stanely robinson triology, for example, a civil war broke down due to the way of terraforming mars: big coporations wants to just fill the air with co2 ( using massive lances which focused tight beams of light and evaported rock into gas ) and then slowly reduce the amount of co2. Advantge: immdiate atmosphere and heat. Dis-atvantge: probaly take hundreds, if not thousands, of years to lower the co2 levels ( the coporations, however, didn't want to admit that ). Other side wanted to build a fixed atmosphere in a single pass: they suggested creating a fleet of autmated ferries that will be propeled by a catapult drive ( Mars has a space elavator ), skid down Titan and Gyanmde atmosphere and bring back Argon. Costly, but less time-consuming in the long run.

Westergaard · August 10, 1999, 13:41

An idea
The way I see the future of space exploitation, we'll have huge manufacturing plants/cities orbitting Earth. The production of these spacestations will be kept supplied by mining activities on other worlds with a lower gravity. The reason why I think we'll move whole manufacturing plants to space is mainly because of the high cost of launches from the surface of Earth. This will be covered later in the post.

Why not on the surface? why in orbit?
I think this was mentioned earlier, but one of the nicest place to live, besides on Earth, is orbiting Earth. [*]You're protected from some radiation (by Earths magnetic field) [*]It's pretty easy to build huge structures in low-g enviroments [*]You've got free solar energy at all times (It's almost never night)[*]The abundant solar energy results in high crop outputs from your hydroponic farms. [*]And you're close to home.

But how will thoose cities get their ressources?
The one major drawback is, of course, that you haven't got any raw materials (obvious since space is empty) and it's more expensive to get materials from down on Earth, than from a mining station on an asteroid or the moon. It may sound stupid that it's more expensive to move materials the small distance from the surface of Earth to the orbit, than it is to move them all the way from the moon or some asteroid. But it's actually true. Because of Earths greater gravity you use huge amounts of fuel for the take-off. But when departing an asteroid you just have to spend a little fuel to get started, and then you can use the gravity of various planets to reach Earth. It's slower but it's cheaper.

So you'd naturally build off-world mines to mine for raw material. These raw materials would have to be shipped to Earth-orbit because that's where the energy to process the minerals is. And that's where the workforce would like to be too, because of just mentioned advantages.

How could Civilization III model this?
The way this could be done in Civ terms is to split the resources, the "shield", into minerals and labour. This idea has already been mentioned in other threads. But in space this would provide the further advantage of simulating orbital cities getting their minerals from off-world mines and then processing them into something useful with the labour which is present there. The production would most likely be further space improvements, such as other cities, ships, or mines. All of which is cheaper when build in orbit, than when launched from the surface of Earth.

You'd have to improve the area around space cities with hydroponic farms with a big output to support the citizens in the city. These could be ordinary TI's, just built in space. The off-world mines however would have a harder time getting food, because they're far away from the sun (on asteroids), or suffer from 14 day-nights (on the moon). Maybe only the base square produced food, so that a mine could never have more than one or two citizen. You would then have to supply the mines with robots to do the work for you.

The way I see it you build the robots, either on Earth or in your orbital cities, and then immedeatly when build, they're assigned to work in a mine, in which they appear instantly. The robots would act like one population point, working the lands for the available minerals. But instead of consuming two food units, they consumed, say ten labour "points" a turn. This is to simulate that they had to be controlled by the human population. More advanced robots would need less control.

But isn't that a lot of micromanagement?
The mineral production of a mine would then be assigned to an orbital city or a city on the surface of Earth. The transportation would be automatic, to reduce micromanagement. It would cost more to bring the minerals down to Earth, say one mineral for every two shipped. Similary you could choose to ship minerals from Earth to your space-cities, but at a cost (eg for every 8 minerals sent, only 1 arrive).

Further advances in off-world farming could allow for populations to expand, by allowing more food-production, maybe even in the far future resulting in thriving colonies on other planets.

Multiple maps or not?
I'm not sure if it should be handled with multiple maps, each showing various asteroids and planets. Another, simpler way is to scrap to maps, and only show the city from the city-window. You could select your mines from the "off-world mines menu" and then you'd see the well-known city-window, with terrain and population (of which some where robots), and everything. There just wheren't any map you could see the city from. I don't know, haven't figured this out yet. Please help.

I'd really like to get some feedback on this idea.

[This message has been edited by Westergaard (edited August 11, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by Westergaard (edited August 11, 1999).]

ember · August 10, 1999, 18:03

CO2 is used in the body as the regulatory feedback for respiration. Your body does not know how much oxygen is availble in your blood, but it does know how much CO2 there is. When CO2 levels go up, you breath faster.
In an experiment where the subject keeps breething the same air, but the CO2 is scrubbed, the subject keeps breething at the same rate, even as they are almost unconsious.
CO2 also forms a moderate strength acid with water.
The big problem is regulating respiration in a CO2 atmosphere.

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"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

Westergaard · August 11, 1999, 00:33

Harel
Well okay maybe you're right that the only way to get a healthy atmosphere is to get it from other planets and moons.

How toxic is CO2 anyway? Could you have genetically engineered plants tolerate high levels of CO2? Could one survive it by bringing his own oxygen supply along (SCUBA-gear)? Do you know how much a dense CO2 atmosphere would rise temperatures? maybe these problems could be solved in one way or another. Bringing your own oxygen supply, modify your plants, protecting your buildnings, and things like that.

Because if you wanted to move an atmosphere from Jupiter and moons, it would take such huge amounts of time and energy, that it would be like moving the pacific ocean with a small bucket. But maybe in the far future we will develop more advanced buckets? We could develop fleets of ferries that could take huge amounts of gas, or other advanced ways of transportation.

All these posts just shows how big a task it is to terraform Mars. You say it'll take at least 500 years and i agree, maybe even a 1000 years. The question then, is how far in the future does people want Civ III to go? Maybe this could be a new poll on the website? Personally I'd probably vote about 2500. (I have already suggested this kind of poll in the "ideas for new polls" thread).

One of the things I really thought SMAC needed is more explotation of space instead of the way too simple sattelite system. I have never played CTP and I'm considering buying it just to try the future part. Does anybody know if CTP's system is well done? Realistic? Worth buying?

Don Don
You're probably right, it sound logic, but suggestions about filling the atmosphere with Argon assumes that everybody has their own oxygen supplies (like divers). Then of course you'd better not breathe any air from outside.
[This message has been edited by Westergaard (edited August 11, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by Westergaard (edited August 11, 1999).]

Westergaard · August 11, 1999, 14:01

Ok so it's not a good idea to pump the atmosphere full of CO2 then.

But how do you terraform Mars then?

You have got to agree that it's a pretty large task to transport enough nitrogen or other gasses to Mars. It's pretty long distances and pretty much nitrogen we're talkting about.

Maniac · August 11, 1999, 14:21

Finally someone who agrees that an atmosphere full of CO2 is bad.

I was wondering why everyone was so eager to do that.

Maniac · August 11, 1999, 14:23

Did I really post the 100th reply ????? Wow.

Harel · August 12, 1999, 00:35

To westergaard: on Earth, only 0.07% of the atmosphere is CO2.
One of the first lessons in Botony is how plant prodcution ( CO2 + water + photon -> glocoze + oxygen ) is increased in a difernail curve when you increase water, light and co2. Difernail means it reachs a certain maxium that rising above won't increase the level ( or even reducing it ).
As you know, too much water are bad for the plant. And too much light is harmfull also: the plant shell dry or burn.
The optimum amount of CO2 for plants is 0.15%: till then they just increase production.
Thats why the jungle forset, left alone, should be able to reduce the level of co2 in the air cause by pollutive industry.

However, too much co2 is, ofcourse, harmfull. Too much of a required minerals cause the anyzimes to break-down: the body needs food, but can die of over-weight, intoxicted by water and get metal-poision from elements you need in small amounts: like zync and iron. ( Iron is a key element in the elctron-passage of a broken-down ATP which release energy ).

True, plants can be enhanced by genetic to have increase resistence and bettero ouput in a co2-rich atmosphere. But how high can we raise it? to 0.3%? 1%? A full mars atmpsphere will consist of an absloutly large portion of co2 in the air.

Not only that will kill the plants, but co2 can turn acid and even burn down the colonist buildings.

Westergaard · August 12, 1999, 10:16

Have you guys not got a single comment on my space exploitation system?

Is it because you don't want space explotation in the game anyway?

I'd really like some feedback, please.

EnochF · August 12, 1999, 17:51

Needlessly complicated. Simpler solution: Have hydroponics bay TI's produce more than one food. That was Call to Power's solution, anyway, and I've always thought that space cities were the one thing CtP did right. You'd figure that any food production facility built in space would be designed to produce more food than would be consumed by its own work force.

But I agree that space cities would be mainly production facilities supplied with raw materials from the Moon, the asteroids and a few stray comets. I'd even agree that space cities are a much more logical step toward Alpha Centauri than a Mars colony ever could be. Microgee construction facilities are the only way to make a really effective solar sail, for example, and you wouldn't have to worry about making your ship sturdy enough to survive a launch.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled bickering match.

Harel · August 12, 1999, 18:02

I pointed up several times that I would like to keep civ III a "one-map-game". No moon, no mars, no astroid map. No nothing.
The game that should have had moving space units, and space maps, and moons and the like was SMAC.
Not civ. In civ III i would like them to use the same system they wrongfully used in SMAC. Keep it earth-bound.
Hydrophonic pods? Space labs? Satellite? Buildings in the city. Plain and simple. Don't want to see them, not even with multiple layout that can show me what I have in space ( like CtP ). It will crowd the game and it's pointless.

Even colonozing mars and the moon should be done from the city by wonders. That wonder gives you extra minerals and a much bigger popultion maximum. It will also cost a hell fo a lot of maintain it. But still, keep it city based, pls.

Gordon the Whale · August 12, 1999, 18:22

Harel, the Earth is 149.6 million Km from the sun. Mars is 227.8. That is NOT three times, and in my opinion is pretty close. The energy density of the sun's rays at Mars is 43% the energy density at Earth. A difference, but in the grand scheme, not a big difference. Venus, at 108 million KM, gets 190% times the energy density of Earth. As we all know, it has its own problems, and Mars's seem easier to solve.

About Argon and it's dangers: Argon, like any gas other than oxygen, is not respirable. If you breathe pure Argon, you will die, because you are not getting enough oxygen. However, like all gasses, it mixes with the oxygen or whatever after a while, and it's safe. Argon is the 4th most abundant gas in the Earth's atmosphere, and it's also what's inside lightbulbs.

I was unaware that there's nowhere to get neutral gasses on Mars... All your references are from Science Fiction. Are you sure that they are considered fact by science? We'll know soon enough exactly what the surface of Mars is like, anyways. I'll believe you that there's nowhere to get Nitrogen, I can't really think of anywhere off-hand. The only way would be to, for the sake of the game, put nitrogen into the ice caps or something that's scientifically possible, just not the case in real life. Maybe not. That combined with the lack of a suitable magnetic field makes any sort of terraforming very difficult... I've learned something, anyways.

So, it looks like Westergaard's suggestions about robotic/enclosed mining colonies combined with orbital space stations is the only way to go short of colonizing other star systems. Here, I have to agree with Harel: Wrong game for it. Much as I've always wanted to be able to build civ cities on the moon, it's too much micromanagement hassle, unless it's done like in SMAC. And how realistic is SMAC? Hydroponics in space are great for feeding people in space, but the expense of shipping to and from Earth is too much for it to EVER be worthwhile... It would be cheaper to build giant hydroponics bays out in the desert, or floating in the ocean. Mining in space is also useful mostly for space... There, you're only dropping things TO Earth, so there's not so much trouble with energy, especially if you've got a space elevator. But still... Mine the Moon to make space stations and Moon bases and Starships, not for materials on Earth. The only space structures I see necessary, besides maybe some wonders to make people happy like a Zero-G hotel, would be part of a long chain leading to the AC ship. Build a space station for command, build mines on the moon or asteroids for raw materials, build a factory in space for production, and THEN you can build the spaceship.

Maybe comm and spy sattelites, too, but I'm not sure how much fun those would be in the game...

Maniac · August 12, 1999, 19:14

Yes, Gordon the Whale, that SF book was written with the most recent knowledge of Mars.

Tornado7 · August 14, 1999, 21:35

What, Kin Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy? That was actually more like science faction, especially the first book. Anyway, I think that they have to include at least 3 or 4 other maps, other wise it's a step down from tot. I'm asking for at least the moon, Mars, and mayybe the Galilean moons on a map like the orbital space map in the Lalande game.

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Truth is stranger than fiction, and people are weirder than both.

Westergaard · August 15, 1999, 05:48

EnochF
You totally misunderstood the food limitations. (did you even read the post?) Only off-world mines would have theese, not space cities. There's a lot of problems with farming possible mining sites. The moon for example has got a 14 day night, and asteroids are very far from the sun. Of course hydroponic farm in orbit shouldn't have any limitations.

Harel
I don't think it's pointless to have multiple layers on the map. It'll add another, IMHO fun, dimension to the game.

If the game had an orbital layer, like CtP's, that could be enough to show space travels and space cities. But if no one wanted multiple maps (other than the two layers), the mines didn't even have to excist on any moon-map. Just select a space-engineer and order him to "build mine", then select where you want the mine built (Moon, Mars, asteroid) Then he'd dissapear and a couple turns later you could select them from the "off-world mines menu", just like a normal city from the F1 city menu.. Read the multiple maps or not? chapter of my previous post.

Gordon
I think your "spacestations as a wonder" idea is way too simple. It's an okay idea, and it's a lot better than just building a huge spaceship right after the apollo-program. But it's just not the same when you can't attack the enemy's command center, when you can't shut his entire starship production down with a surgical strike, but instead can watch a small monument in one of your cities symbolizing the great space station wonder.

I think it would be sad if Firaxis just left the future out of the game altoghether. And you can't have future in the game if you haven't got space stations.

Tornado7
Doesn't seem like there's a lot of other people here that wants multiple maps

[This message has been edited by Westergaard (edited August 15, 1999).]

EnochF · August 16, 1999, 06:56

Oops, Westergaard. I guess I got confused when I read "Maybe only the base square produced food, so that a mine could never have more than one or two citizen."

But I still think dividing production into materials and labor is making things needlessly complicated. Perhaps space cities (or lunar colonies) could be limited to a certain population, say 4 or 5, until you build special habitation modules or lunar ice processors. Maybe space cities could be limited to a special list of city improvements, some of which are limited to offworld cities.

(Suggestion: From now on, let's try to confine our bickering to game effects. That's what I'm going to do from now on. Believe me, I learned the hard way. It's what Brian Reynolds wants us to do, anyway. If you disagree with someone's suggestion on purely scientific grounds, you should accompany your objection with an alternative game effect which better reflects the scientific principle involved. Otherwise, you'll all just end up in a heated and pointless argument with...)

Westergaard · August 16, 1999, 10:16

OK, that is another solution. Bit more simple, which is good, but makes it impossible to simulate that lunar cities at the the top of the "gravity well" with plenty of energy is a good place to produce space goods (ships, other colonies, etc.)

I don't remember where, but I saw the mentioned labour/minerals splitting discussed some while ago (the economics thread maybe?) and their model had some other, not space related, advantages. I don't remember them all tough.[*]More advanced units would need more labour, but not more minerals.[*]Heavy units like cannons and city improvements would need most minerals.[*]Industrialization and factories would give a large boom in available labour, but smaller bonuses in minerals.

I think it's a good idea to limit surface colony growth (I did that too). But why would you build surface colonies then, if they aren't going to supply the orbital colonies. You'll just end up with a bunch of handicapped colonies with no use.

The gameplay reason for limitations is that it reduces the focus on the off-world mines since you can never develop them to be real huge and important, only small suppliers. That limits the need for multiple maps too. And there isn't a lot of people who likes multiple maps (or so it seems to me).

I don't think orbitting spacestations should be growth limited, not very much anyway. You can make quite a lot of food with almost unlimited sun and controlled weather. At least after the development of "sky-hydroponics". And it's easy to construct very large structures in zero-G.

Oh by the way, how are the orbital spacestations/cities going to produce anything (make shields) under your model? Terrain improvements?

Tornado7 · August 17, 1999, 14:04

OK, I admit that I've been going a bit overboard, but look at it like this-there's no practical reason to go to Alpha Centauri when you have a couple dozen habitable bodies in your own solar system THAT AREN'T 4.4 LIGHT YEARS AWAY! This is a blaring goof-up in the original game. Granted, back when Civ 1 and 2 came out, systems couldn't handle multiple maps, but this is 1999 and there is no excuse! While I relieze that most people don't want to deal with an entire solar system, like I do, you have to have AT MINIMUM, the moon, Mars, and some sort of simplified interface for the asteroids and the Galilean moons. You can't dispute that people will colonize the moon and Mars WAY before they haul themselves all the way to Alpha Centauri!

Westergaard · August 17, 1999, 16:04

Preach it, Tornado! I totally agree!
We can't build the apollo program wonder one day, the next go to Alpha Centauri. We need something in between.

Btw, Tornado, look at my idea for space exploitation (10 august, page 2, all the way down)and tell me what you think. With only one map with an orbital layer, spaceflight could be simulated in a realistic way. And it seems like few people wants multiple maps (I can't see why tough).

EnochF · August 17, 1999, 22:56

Who's got ideas for the terrains of the various planets? I figure these should cover most of it:

Basin
Crater
Dunes
Ice
Mountain
Soil
Trench
Volcano

"Soil" would cover everything from plains to grassland. "Basin" is ocean-level ground. Craters, Trenches and Volcanos all exist on Earth, but not on an appreciable scale in terms of a Civ map, but in the solar system, there are occasionally volcanos, craters and trenches of significant size to appear. "Ice" would include not only water ice, but also frozen methane and other frozen gases.

Any other suggestions? Or suggestions for special tile improvements for other planets?

Tornado7 · August 17, 1999, 23:38

I was thinking that would really work, especially as a nice, simple way to shove asteroids into the game without giving the people who are allergic to REAL space exploitation a heart attack.
Now that I'm a little bit calmer *think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts*, I'll go a little deeper into my idea for solar system exploitation:
Use Westergaard's idea for asteriod mining; It seems like a good, solid way of doing it without much hassle.
Set up a solar system map-before anyone starts having kittens, let me explain: This map would be really simple, just a representing the various bodies in the solar system, and would be used as a way to represent units traveling between planets. The big terrestrial worlds (Mercury, Mars, etc.) Would have regular maps. But, the maps would be to scale with Earth-30-50% of the Earth size on a large map. The gas giant moons could be represented by a big version of the space station map in the Lalande game-Stick some impassable terrain in the shape of the gas giant, and float a bunch of moon shaped bodies around it. They would be just big enought to fit 5 or 6 decent cities, down to little asteriod moons that would fit one.
Terrain-Most of this stuff could be recycled from map to map-A crater is a crater, whether it's on the Moon, Mercury, or Ganymede. Basically, you could just throw the things together on different size maps and BAM, there you go. Just create special terrrain for Mars and maybe Venus.
Brain fart-More to come tommorrow

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Truth is stranger than fiction, and people are weirder than both.

Westergaard · August 18, 1999, 09:01

Tornado
I totally agree that we should definetly have space exploitation. But I don't agree 100% that we have to have multiple maps. It might upset too many, and it isn't really necessary

The pros and cons for the two systems, the way I see them.

The pros for multiple planet maps and a solar system map. Please tell me if you see surface colonies any different or if I misunderstood you:[*]You can see the actual planet which give a more "I am a colonizer" feel.[*]You can have wars between civs on the moon or mars or in the empty space if you want. But honestly I don't think we'll see interplanetary wars before the end of the third millenium.[*]It's a whole new world open for colonizing. But this is also one of my concerns. It's just another world. Nothing new. It's almost the same as starting a game on the Earth. More on this, in the cons for the other system.

The pros for two layer map and off-world mines not on any map.[*]Keeps the focus on Earth, which is a central part of the civ-series[*]Keeps the space allergics somewhat content.[*]As stated before I don't think that surface colonies will add that much but another world to colonize. Ask yourself what advantages surface colonies would give your civ, other than the most basic of trade and production. You could just as well build more Earth cities and they are easier to build. Of course you might say the same about orbital colonization, but keep in mind that it also opens other possibilities which are related to your Earth-surface cities. Orbital attacks, and SPS's (Solar power sattelites), low-g industries could result in new techs and weapon types. And most important: This is where a starship to AC would be built.[*]It's realistic*, read the note.[*]It'll reduce the micromanagment of moving units between planets. Under this system you just give a "build colony" order to a space-engineer, and a couple of years later a colony appear at a designated spot. I guess you can include a "defend colony" and "attack colony" for space-marines too, but it isn't necessary.[*]Surface colonization isn't neccesary for anything but extracting raw materials from a low "gravity well". So if it isn't neccesary why include it?

*the note
Have you ever read some of Gerard O'neill's books on space settlements? Well you should. He arguments why humans eventually will move off the surface of planet surfaces and into so called space habitats, Bernard Spheres and O'neill cylinders. I have already given some of those but here are some more.[*]No limits on expansion. The asteroid belt alone has enough material to build space habitats with a surface area equal to almost 300 times earths surface.[*]Unlimited energy. It's never night and the sun doesn't have to penetrate any atmosphere with clouds and haze.[*]Full control over weather. On Mars you have to deal with huge sandstorms and fast winds.[*]The ability to seperate polluting industries and farms, from residential areas.[*]It's close to the Earth thus making construction and personnel transport easier.

For further information on space settlements and their advantages, read this FAQ:
<a href=http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/9917/spacsetl.htm
>Space settlements FAQ</a>.

Please give me your opinion on the good things and the bad things about my model. I really don't see the need for multiple maps if nobody wants them and they aren't stricly neccesary.

EnochF
If this is too much bickering for you, I'm sorry but this is just my opinion.

[This message has been edited by Westergaard (edited August 20, 1999).]

Tornado7 · August 19, 1999, 10:58

Ok, while I admit the main reason I want some more maps to colonize, I need it! I usually play with expansionistic civs in the game(That's a word, right?), so by 2000, there ain't no land left that isn't garbage. So, I kinda want some more territory to expand on. But like I said, your idea really does work for the asteriods. I really like it, believe me. I just want some more room to spread out on. Besides, they did multiple maps in tot, so the should do it in civIII, otherwise it's a step backward.

Westergaard · August 19, 1999, 15:25

Well, maybe we keep both options then. If Firaxis has the ressources for a full scale colonization of space, then great.

But if they don't want to bother drawing terrain for planets, making new rules, making multiple map support, etc. then I think they should consider this compromise.

In other words. Let Firaxis decide. We don't even know if the game goes beyond present time at all.

EnochF · August 19, 1999, 16:53

For what it's worth, I'm growing to like both ideas. Both are a good step up from Civ II's sudden leap from the Moon to Alpha Centauri.

And if colonization of the solar system is limited to a couple of Wonders (say, a moon base and a Mars colony), that will still be better than eliminating space exploitation altogether.

I'd love to see multiple maps. But hypothetically, if Brian Reynolds stopped by this thread (yeah, right) and said, "Oh, by the way, the design team has talked it over, and we're definitely not going to implement multiple maps," then I'd instantly start lobbying for a system of orbital cities much like Westergaard's.

(Great points, West, and great link. I'll have to check out that O'Neill book, too...)

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"Harel didn't replay. He just stood there, with his friend, transfixed by the brown balls."

Harel · August 19, 1999, 17:01

Best thing about EnochF that he wakes up an hour late, but still try to claim first credit.
Gaard, I always said that several maps are very, very confusing.
Saying that they didn't use multiple maps because of the technology then is, well, wrong. May I remind you an old game by Microprose, "Master of Magic?" It had two plains: a "shiny" realm and a "dark" realm. And even then, many people complained it was too dis-orienting.
That was just two maps, that only difference between them is some tile sets.
Having several maps, etc. moon and mars will be, IMHO, terrible.
Civ III should be scientificaly and historly accurate, yes. But it should also be straight-forward and easy to control. While you and I may want and grow fond of many maps, I think that the majority of the public, those who buy it because it's Sid mayer, not because they played and liked civ I, will be very confused.

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EnochF. Nuff said.
[This message has been edited by Harel (edited August 19, 1999).]

Westergaard · August 20, 1999, 09:25

Ok, then let's keep all ideas and line them up as different options in the resume, so Sid can choose. Maybe we should come up with stronger reasons for multiple maps tough, to convince them. Any ideas on why we need multiple maps?

Harel
I never said anything about not using multiple maps because of technology.

And I didn't understand. Did you mean you didn't like several maps like in several planet maps, or did you mean a several layer map (surface and orbit layer). You might notice that we're actually discussing two approaches to space exploitation. One system with a single, two layer map, and one which goes all the way and includes maps of several moons and planets.

For the time I'm argumenting for a single multi-layer map, altough my opinion is that if they'll give us multiple maps, then we should take it. If not, we should go for a compromise (which IMHO is one multi-layer map and off-map asteroid mining).

If it was the former (several planet/moon maps) I get your point, but in defense of multiple maps I'll say that this could be made very different from Master of Magic. And yes I remember MoM and the use of planes. I used to cast a planar seal and conquer one world, then move on to the next...

Anyway, you're right that MoM could be a little confusing for newbie, but that is purely a design problem. I trust that Firaxis would be able to design a simple and intuitive map system which everybody understand.

If you was critisizing the second option (multi-layer map) please clarify what you don't like about that system. Would you accept this system as a compromise instead of multiple maps?