Will mods be able to set markets as set? Same with systems planets etc.
Yeah, that's all subject to how a mod wants to code it.
Why should the survey be a one time thing? It's hardly how it work irl: the more time you spend surveying, the more stuff you are able to find. Why not have the outposts operate as a permanent survey mission?
Thought about this exact thing! This seems like too much of a bother for the player to deal with. Imagine having to establish 5+ outposts and then check in on them and cease operations some months later every time you go to survey a star system. Just the mechanics of doing that seem like they'd get repetitive. Plus it takes away the immediacy of something fun - sort of a slot-machine type gambling, finding out what the conditions are.
Instead, you're establishing an outpost to answer the question of whether this planet is one you want to establish an outpost on. This seems a bit circular and confusing, and the question is, what's the benefit?
Not that going to survey 5 planets in a system is something that won't get old, but it's still a lot more concise.
Side note: also thought about surveys taking campaign-time, with a progress bar and all that. Also seems a bit unnecessary.
I think maybe this depends on how many planets you want to ultimately survey. If the game was all about surveying a single star system, then establishing outposts everywhere and then checking on their progress and steering things along, fixing problems that come up, etc, sounds like it could be a lot of fun. But if the scale is bigger than that, then I don't think that would work.
Making some assumptions about precisely what you meant, though, so perhaps I'm off in that.
As they grow, they could be able to find things that the player missed, maybe even things that cannot be uncovered from space. Just to spice things up, imagine your secondary colony suddenly stumbling upon some major hidden treasure, then you have to defend that outpost with teeth and nails when before you could have let it fall into enemies hands without a second thought.
That, however, could totally be a thing, but perhaps handled through events instead. Effectively, generating new conditions rather than uncovering something predetermined.
And, I called dibbs on the Acheron system (and Tartarus too ><)
Ahh - sorry! Not much I can reasonably do about this; a lot of the names are common stuff from mythology, sci-fi staples, animal names, etc. Trying to avoid mod-names would be extremely limiting in terms of what the game *could* use, just not a road I want to go down.
However: there's an API method call you can make to report a system/planet name as being used. So, while "Acheron" will have a chance to show up in a normal game, you could make it so that it won't show up if your mod is enabled.
... actually, you know what - let me add that call to initStar()/addPlanet(), seems like something you'd always want to happen anyway.
Also, what is with you Alex and stealing famous mods' names?
Heck, I almost ended up with a ship named "Karkinos" by going "hmm, crab - ok, latin? "Cancer", nope. Greek? - Karkinos, that sounds ok... oh, wait, I think it's a BRDY ship. The "cool name" space, while pretty large, really isn't *that* large. So far, the use of names that are found in mods has been 100% unintentional, though, per the above, I wouldn't let that stop me if the name was a really good fit for something in vanilla.
That sounds like the best way to handle procedural generation. The foundations of the game need to be properly handcrafted to ensure that the game flows correctly, which having what is effectively the wilderness beyond be procedurally generated lets each playthrough stay fresh and exciting.
In general, I just really like the way you approach game design.
Thank you! Will do my best for the game to live up to expectations
