Whew! Lots of responses fast. So one thing that has changed since probably a number of you have read it is section 7.b.i, which starts out "Pass one of mapgen in AI War II is a lot like mapgen in AI War Classic, but it is connecting solar systems only at this point. No planets exist within them just yet."
It talks about a few things, which are here but poorly organized (easier to read on the document itself):
During this pass, we’ll use new map design patterns compared to AI War Classic, because the old styles of maps just don’t translate over well to solar systems.
For one thing, the new default number of solar systems will probably be 20 in order to not inflate game lengths too much, and that few solar systems would not work well with most of the older map types.
One big rule change is that connections can’t overlap other solar systems, unlike in AI War Classic. The maps in those cases were about impossible to understand visually anyway, and so we had a bunch of untangling logic that people could use that we don’t want to have to rely on here (what a crutch that was).
New map types that will be there for the overall galaxy arrangement:
Snake: A straight line of solar systems that each only connect to 1-2 others.
Simple: Each one connects to 1-3 adjacent solar systems.
Wide: each one connects to 2-5 adjacent solar systems.
Maze: each one starts out connecting to 4-5 adjacent solar systems (where possible), but then connections are removed as much as possible until there are 1-3 connections left on each, and the whole map is still traversable.
Overall notes: That’s four solid map types for the new setup, and then we have the 6 sub-types for solar systems themselves.
Given the increase in coolness of simply having solar systems at all, and the nature of these being so different visually, hopefully folks are understanding of us not having such a vast array of individual map styles as in AI War Classic.
These more limited numbers of map types combined with the sub-solar-map-styles should still produce more varied strategic terrain anyway.
The big point on that is that maps will be a lot smaller, aka not 600+ planets. Instead the default of 20 systems, with 3-12ish planets in each, so closer to 100-120 planets in all.
If you want to crank it up (or down) from that, you still could.
Also, the number and type of map types is dropping like a rock, yet the number of interesting outputs will actually be far higher than before. So it's kind of a mixed-message there, but basically it's frankly apples and oranges now.
However, if the "territory capture", on the main map, of system are meant to have the significance of system captures in AI war 1
That's a bit apples and oranges as well. Exact values will have to be determined during playtesting prior to early access, and probably will vary based on the galaxy scale. But in this new model, there isn't a 1:1 analogue to "capturing a planet" in AI War Classic. Capturing a planet here is substantially less of a big deal, but capturing a territory is substantially a bigger deal. So AIWC planet captures are kind of halfway between these two points.
1) "tilted 3d map"... sigh. I missed that in the first draft. Could we have a "flatten option" ? Pretty please ?
I mean, if you really need it, sure. But I don't think you'll actually object when you see this in practice. I'm talking about the slightest of tilts to the galaxy map itself, to make it look slightly better. Arguably all of AI War Classic shares that same tilt, just in the form of the unit graphics. Either way, it's not a big thing to let people tune it to taste. I wouldn't get too hung up on this, because the flexibility that we can put in is pretty high, and I think you're worrying we're going to do something more drastic than we are. Anyhow, point taken, though. :)
* You speak about AI stronghold at solar size (which sounds exciting). Will planetary mark will be the same for all the AI planets of a same system? I imagine a homeworld and its load of core worlds would be a MkIV system with one MkV planet with no extra-system-wormholes.
Probably not, but they will have some relation to one another. There's a number of upcoming things related to solar systems in general that kind of address that question.
* Also, there will be three different kinds of wormholes: between planets of a same system (let's call them intra-wormholes), between planets of different systems (let's call them extra-wormholes) and the two old exo-wormholes. Color code and UI will need to convey that.
Yep, this is true. My mind is really failing me, though: embarrassingly, I need you to remind me exactly what exo wormholes are. I seem to recall having those on the AI homeworlds, and I think I even added them on the player homeworlds at one point, but maybe that got taken out or was just a lobby option.
* Will supply work on suns? Will we be able to put turrets around them? Or would it be like a nuked planet (no knowledge, no energy, no metal and no supply)?
I'm not sure that there's any need for supply anymore, since power is now per-planet. To build something in enemy territory, you'd need to establish reactors first there and then build up some more stuff for your beachhead. That might best be a separate discussion, but I think that supply basically just got folded into power, which would be nice if so.
Anyhow, no you can't build anything that uses power on the sun areas. You can send mobile ships there, but that's it. :)
Okay. I didn't realized. Bear in mind that some people out there (*wink*) will want to mod the map styles, at some point. Eh, I would be okay with "just" the galactic level moddable (if feasible at all, of course).
Yep, I'm not sure that we can really make those moddable upfront, since those require a lot of knowledge of coding and things like pathfinding and algorithms and so on. But you will be able to design solar systems via xml.
OMG I already imagine the reworked Dyson Sphere! It is the sun and its mood depends on the balance in its system. *.*
And nebulae: sunless systems! Yay!
I really love the possibilities this offers, now that I really understand it.
I haven't even thought about the dyson sphere yet, but that would be an awesome way to handle it for sure! That would be an example of a minor faction controlling a solar system (permanently, in that case). A thread about that would be great.
For nebulae, I'm not sure that we'll do those in the base 1.0 version of the game. Those and champions are kind of ancillary to the main game, and while I'd like to do them I'd also like to make the main game richer before getting into variants too much, if that makes sense. Aka, I view those as kind of a lifts-right-out-minigame within the main game, rather than a part of the main game that you can turn on or off (unlike, say, the dyson sphere, which is very much part of the main game if it exists).
If each planet in a system is going to be its own individual 'system' akin to AI War 1 then things are going to get cluttered real fast.
BUT I think this needs to be examined in contrast to the changed zooming system, where instead of a individual system view you instead get something akin to Surpreme Commander or Distant Worlds.
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I think this system will be more clearer once we see a more visual representation. But for now I think the proposed Solar System redesign is going in a good direction.
Awesome. :) I have a design in my head for it, and I think you'll like it, but I won't be able to finish that until next week sometime I imagine.
The major speed limitation for redeployment in classic is having to move from wormhole to wormhole per planet, which is hidden in the galaxy map, so that counting hops weren't very reliable. In your new galaxy view, it might be compounded, I think?
Planet wells themselves will be smaller, which will help alleviate this. There was a lot of extra wasted space in the planets in AIW Classic that didn't really add anything except travel time, and to some extent warning time. But the planets themselves offer warning time now, so cutting down the sizes so that travel time is not irksome becomes the next goal.
It's something that can be customized in xml, so if you like the giant planets you can still do it. And obviously we'll listen to testing feedback on that. But in general I think that is an easily-solvable issue.
Is there any possibility of some Acutian-style moon softball?
Probably not in v1, but it's worth throwing in there as an idea. I like the idea of doing some new things that might be possible here at the expense of delaying some stuff that you already saw in AIW Classic. Aka, just because it was in AIW Classic doesn't mean it needs to be here immediately, and in some cases some other new feature like this might be both quicker for us to implement and more exciting.
I'm not sure precisely how this would work at the moment, though.
Speaking of which, how will the command ship system change? When playing large games in AI War classic, you run out of good command station caps, fast. Now that there are a lot more planets, and probably many different playstyles, will this cap system change somehow? It really sucks to own half the galaxy but get nothing out of it because you can only place mk1 economic command stations there.
I want to redo how command stations work in general, in terms of their upgrades. I don't like having caps. I do like having different categories of them, though. And I also like the ability to upgrade those categories. My preferred method would be to have three categories (as before), but no mark levels on them. And instead of giant mark level leaps, you have much smaller "candy-tech-style" incremental upgrades for them that apply to all stations of that type.
Swapping out command station types for upgraded versions always irked me, among other things.
This is going to make defense interesting, since if you push the AI out of a system, you will REALLY not want to let them back in. Alternately if you just need a toehold there for something, you try and hold one planet in the system.
It's okay if they come back in, but you just absolutely cannot let them take the whole thing back over (getting a majority of its planets and kicking you out), or else that's bad bad bad. But that's hard to have happen all in one quick swoop, so it's a good amount of safety there.
Personally, I'd probably use "travel lanes" between planets in a system instead of wormholes, because that largely provides the same thing (fly to the edge of the well and then you enter the travel lane to the other planet), but makes it really clear at a glance that wormholes to different systems are special and important.
Maybe! I understand what you mean, but I'm having trouble picturing how it would look in practice. I think that Sins did that, but it's been a long while since I played that. Any links to screenshots?
I like the new fuel system a lot better, and the changes to power generation have been a long time coming. This nicely nerfs the Zenith Power Generator as well.
Awesome! And yeah, that's probably a piece that either will be modified heavily, or not come over. It would probably be the Zenith Fuel Well instead, or something. ;)
<Graphics of gravity well and moving between planets in solar system>
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For reference, here are a couple of comparisons:
Stellaris - Clear arrows with dotted line boundaries.
(http://www.stellariswiki.com/images/c/c1/UI_view_system.png)
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Stardrive 2 - Orbits with no boundaries. Solid line jump.
(http://pixeljudge.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/galaxy2_SD2.jpg)
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Sins - Highlight area within grav well, solid line jump and circle
(http://draginol.stardock.net/images/SinsofaSolarEmpireWalkthru_EA76/image_11.png)
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Star Ruler 2 - toy model like, using trade-route like animation between system
(http://www.spacesector.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2-Empire.jpg)
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Would it be possible to create neutral (aka, uncontrollable) ring-shaped zones in the systems?
This would definitely be nice. If it's not in for v1.0, I'd vote for it in an expansion. Allows the possibility of both full asteroid fields, and ring worlds around the sun.