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Author Topic: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod  (Read 126200 times)

NephilimNexus

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #195 on: January 31, 2020, 04:33:38 AM »

Question: Domain Survey ships are 35% and Domain Motherships are 100%, but what about Remnant ships?  Any Eutek drops from big Remnant fleets or their stations?
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Serenitis

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #196 on: January 31, 2020, 06:27:03 AM »

Something I can look at is using different textures/graphics/etc randomly so that all planets have a slightly different appearance after terraforming. The problem is that I would have to steal the textures from other mods because I'm not much of an artist. I have no problem copying code from other mods, but stealing their artwork is probably not OK. Maybe I can find some way to autogenerate planet textures with something like DeepDream.
I've got a fair amount of textures I've collected over the years (some of which are already in Unknown Skies), if you have something specific in mind for what you want I might be able to provide.
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e

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #197 on: January 31, 2020, 10:37:29 AM »

Question: Domain Survey ships are 35% and Domain Motherships are 100%, but what about Remnant ships?  Any Eutek drops from big Remnant fleets or their stations?

No. The percentages mentioned are the only ones, the idea of the MUD is that its limited resource.
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boggled

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #198 on: January 31, 2020, 03:04:31 PM »

What type of textures are used for planets? If it is a standard texture wrapped around a sphere, then perhaps these might be of use (all some form of Creative Commons license):
https://opengameart.org/content/planets-terran
https://opengameart.org/content/terraformed-mars-map
https://opengameart.org/content/planetary-textures-2048x1024
https://opengameart.org/content/far-colony-epsilon-eridani-planets-4k-surface-maps-complete-and-fixed
https://opengameart.org/content/10-terrestrial-planet-wrapping-textures

Additionally, that uploader of that last one says that they made the textures using their free tool: http://www.texturesforplanets.com/

I tried out several of the terran textures you linked in-game and unfortunately the art style does not seem to mesh with existing starsector planet textures in my opinion. Maybe they can be photoshopped into something that resembles the vanilla art, but I don't have the skills to do that.

Something I can look at is using different textures/graphics/etc randomly so that all planets have a slightly different appearance after terraforming. The problem is that I would have to steal the textures from other mods because I'm not much of an artist. I have no problem copying code from other mods, but stealing their artwork is probably not OK. Maybe I can find some way to autogenerate planet textures with something like DeepDream.
I've got a fair amount of textures I've collected over the years (some of which are already in Unknown Skies), if you have something specific in mind for what you want I might be able to provide.

Most of the US planet textures are ideal in terms of art style and quality in my opinion. I'm looking for planet textures similar to the vanilla terran textures and US continental texture that I can randomly use for terraformed planets instead of the vanilla terran and terran-eccentric textures. The goal would be to add some variety and uniqueness to the appearance of terraformed planets in terms of the distribution/shape of the continents and climate regions (desert/forest/mountain/ice/urban etc.) on the planet. Right now all terraformed planets use the same texture, and that becomes obvious to the player if they have more than one terraformed planet.

If you have unused textures from developing US, I would be happy to take a look. What was the process of creating the textures? Ideally I could create some photoshop/GIMP batch job that could be applied to textures from the websites BringerOfBabies suggested to create a large number of unique terran textures without much work.
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NephilimNexus

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #199 on: February 01, 2020, 02:40:02 AM »

No. The percentages mentioned are the only ones, the idea of the MUD is that its limited resource.

 :'(
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Serenitis

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #200 on: February 01, 2020, 04:57:33 AM »

Sent a link to a useful resource.
I feel it's proper to mention that I'm not a developer of Unknown Skies. I'm merely a contributor.
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boggled

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #201 on: February 01, 2020, 05:35:10 PM »

Sent a link to a useful resource.
I feel it's proper to mention that I'm not a developer of Unknown Skies. I'm merely a contributor.

I took a look at the textures you PM'ed me and many of them are very good, but the terran ones seem to be of the same sort I looked at previously from links BringerOfBabies posted.

I tried some of the neural network artwork generators by taking the BringerOfBabies terran textures and "restyling" them using the terran.jpg from vanilla starsector. The output is very good, but there are lots of little artifacts in the generated images and the top and bottom of the image aren't warped correctly the way the vanilla textures are. Unfortunately it seems like I'm stuck with the two vanilla textures for now.
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BringerofBabies

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #202 on: February 02, 2020, 11:22:59 AM »

I think the biggest difference between the Starsector style and the examples I linked (including the tool generated ones) is that the Starsector terran planets have big, sharply detailed topographical style ridges/mountains. I think that style is probably not strictly accurate to what one would see from orbit, but more implying what a normal map would do without actually implementing normal maps. The generation tool allows for decal type things (craters/canyons, etc) but I don't think that it would handle the massive mountain ranges well. It probably would do fine for the non-habitable planets that we don't care about though.
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MacguffinLove

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #203 on: February 06, 2020, 04:34:16 AM »

The Ismara's Sling doesn't terraform worlds by itself! You need to build stellar reflectors around the world you want to terraform, then the sling will be able to send water to complete the terraforming process.
Is it possible to have the Sling grayed out (disabled) until the reflectors are built?

This seems like a great idea. I will implement this in the next patch!
[/quote]

An easier way to deal with this that would be less bug prone might be to edit the slings description to mention the requirements, currently the text for the sling is a bit too vague, i think it should mention the mirror/shades by name so people know for sure that they need to trigger the "terraforming" condition in order for the sling to take effect, currently it gives the impression that the sling is an alternative to other methods.

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NephilimNexus

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #204 on: February 06, 2020, 12:46:43 PM »

Speaking of the sling, maybe we could see a "water transport network" industry to haul excess of water off water planets and onto desert/arid planets to terraform both of them the same time?  Balance them out, in essence?
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boggled

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #205 on: February 06, 2020, 03:59:22 PM »

The Ismara's Sling doesn't terraform worlds by itself! You need to build stellar reflectors around the world you want to terraform, then the sling will be able to send water to complete the terraforming process.
Is it possible to have the Sling grayed out (disabled) until the reflectors are built?

This seems like a great idea. I will implement this in the next patch!

An easier way to deal with this that would be less bug prone might be to edit the slings description to mention the requirements, currently the text for the sling is a bit too vague, i think it should mention the mirror/shades by name so people know for sure that they need to trigger the "terraforming" condition in order for the sling to take effect, currently it gives the impression that the sling is an alternative to other methods.


[/quote]

I've made substantial updates to the Ismara's Sling and Drone Control Nexus tooltips but I haven't pushed the update yet because that and greying out the image are the only new features. I don't want to annoy people with minor updates like that.

Speaking of the sling, maybe we could see a "water transport network" industry to haul excess of water off water planets and onto desert/arid planets to terraform both of them the same time?  Balance them out, in essence?

If you do the math regarding the amount of water on various planet types, the numbers already don't work for Ismara's Sling. Water worlds can have 5-10% of their mass composed of water, and moving that much mass out of the gravity well to terraform the planet is just not feasible. The only lore-compatible solution I can think of would be to place giant gates on the ocean floor to warp the water elsewhere, but gate technology has been lost in the Sector.
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NephilimNexus

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #206 on: February 06, 2020, 04:49:01 PM »

Water worlds can have 5-10% of their mass composed of water, and moving that much mass out of the gravity well to terraform the planet is just not feasible.







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RoquetheRogue

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #207 on: February 10, 2020, 01:03:07 PM »

Hello boggled!

Can the military police also be used for Stability, security?

Been really wanting to try this mod with DIY planets, but they very obviously overlap, DIY has more depth, but your mod looks more finished and more visually pleasing with visual representations of the terraformers in game (Stellar Shades), without the need to go hunting for domain-era terraforming nano-forgers (this is cool but causes some bugs), better, and also does not flood the loot tables with new objects, they look cool, but you'll always end up with more than necessary, competition is good, but in this case I see both you and Kentington should definitely collab, I love the dynamic changes in DIY;
Terraforming can also gradually change a planet's class, with visual updates as appropriate. Once a planet progresses past "desert," it will generate farmland if none existed, and each step will improve that farmland.

And deeper functionalities, removing Military viruses, subjugation or integration corps for the decivilized planets that has good mechanics of increasing growth and the like, it would be great if terraformers could be converted into useful buildings once their projects are finished, instead of just being shut down.

Terraforming is extremely costly, and resource intensive, you'll need milions of creds, which obviously makes sense, however, it could have so much more, if you increased the chance of having farmlands, but every time the planet changes it's class, has a chance to roll for a special status, such as gaining the ability to produce unique commodity items, similar to volturn grabs, but different, like unique Liquids, oils, plastics, Gases, crystals, unknown elements, drugs like Azure Dust, Psy-Fungus, SPICE , Resources exclusive to that planet, chances to uncover secrets previously not found by surveys, having a rare chance to create "beautiful vistas status" that increases the overall beauty of that planet, increasing tourism and growth, gaining access to a unique Resort building that improves accessibility and adds a large income from tourism

Feature to encounter unique xenofauna, such as animals to be sold as pets or studied, or put in a Xenofauna Zoo for accessibility and stability, when you add that ability to seed planets with crabs and krills, also be able to seed it with unique xenos encountered by exploring

Thank you for your time and your hard work on this mod, it is one of the best around.
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boggled

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #208 on: February 10, 2020, 03:53:50 PM »

Can the military police also be used for Stability, security?

Space stations and military bases already provide stability to colonies. The military police are focused on the uncivilized frontiers rather than maintaining order in the built-up city centers.

Been really wanting to try this mod with DIY planets, but they very obviously overlap, DIY has more depth, but your mod looks more finished and more visually pleasing with visual representations of the terraformers in game (Stellar Shades), without the need to go hunting for domain-era terraforming nano-forgers (this is cool but causes some bugs), better, and also does not flood the loot tables with new objects, they look cool, but you'll always end up with more than necessary, competition is good, but in this case I see both you and Kentington should definitely collab, I love the dynamic changes in DIY;
Terraforming can also gradually change a planet's class, with visual updates as appropriate. Once a planet progresses past "desert," it will generate farmland if none existed, and each step will improve that farmland.

I suggested a collaboration with Kentington but he didn't seem interested. I see now that our mods don't compete against each other as much as I thought they would because we have very different visions and they appeal to different types of players.

And deeper functionalities, removing Military viruses, subjugation or integration corps for the decivilized planets that has good mechanics of increasing growth and the like, it would be great if terraformers could be converted into useful buildings once their projects are finished, instead of just being shut down.

Military viruses are from Unknown Skies I believe. There are probably very few people who will ever encounter a planet with a military virus that they want to terraform, so I would probably be better served working on other features that more people will use.

Terraforming is extremely costly, and resource intensive, you'll need milions of creds, which obviously makes sense, however, it could have so much more, if you increased the chance of having farmlands, but every time the planet changes it's class, has a chance to roll for a special status, such as gaining the ability to produce unique commodity items, similar to volturn grabs, but different, like unique Liquids, oils, plastics, Gases, crystals, unknown elements, drugs like Azure Dust, Psy-Fungus, SPICE , Resources exclusive to that planet, chances to uncover secrets previously not found by surveys, having a rare chance to create "beautiful vistas status" that increases the overall beauty of that planet, increasing tourism and growth, gaining access to a unique Resort building that improves accessibility and adds a large income from tourism

There are several existing mods which add conditions/features like that, and if I implement them too it will clash with those other mods (Unknown Skies being one of them).

Feature to encounter unique xenofauna, such as animals to be sold as pets or studied, or put in a Xenofauna Zoo for accessibility and stability, when you add that ability to seed planets with crabs and krills, also be able to seed it with unique xenos encountered by exploring

I'm working on this right now. Stay tuned...
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RoquetheRogue

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Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v3.0.4)
« Reply #209 on: February 10, 2020, 04:04:36 PM »


Terraforming is extremely costly, and resource intensive, you'll need milions of creds, which obviously makes sense, however, it could have so much more, if you increased the chance of having farmlands, but every time the planet changes it's class, has a chance to roll for a special status, such as gaining the ability to produce unique commodity items, similar to volturn grabs, but different, like unique Liquids, oils, plastics, Gases, crystals, unknown elements, drugs like Azure Dust, Psy-Fungus, SPICE , Resources exclusive to that planet, chances to uncover secrets previously not found by surveys, having a rare chance to create "beautiful vistas status" that increases the overall beauty of that planet, increasing tourism and growth, gaining access to a unique Resort building that improves accessibility and adds a large income from tourism
There are several existing mods which add conditions/features like that, and if I implement them too it will clash with those other mods (Unknown Skies being one of them).

Hmmm, what do you mean? when I terraform, say, Garnir, to a Water World or something, Unknown Skies will add a Water World Status to it?
the Vista Status could be something fully terraformed worlds could acquire after they fully terraform to a Terran, as a way to help recuperate some of the investments in the terraforming process the new Resort building chain could add a boost to income, growth and accessibility, and I have yet to see new resources types, such as new drugs and other commodities from that mod,  which other mods you are refering that change world generation? NEX? US?

Thanks again for your time boggled! I'll stay tuned to your mods, play test when needed!  ;)
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