Wanted: new screenshots

[fluffyfreak]

On the subject of city generation, how about tweaking the terrain generation to respect cities? I'm thinking specifically of modifying the higher detail terrain meshes to be a lot less random simply because they've got a city sat atop them and thus you'd expect the development of the city to impart some change back downwards to smooth things out and create flatter areas more suited to development (of said city).That would solve two problems, firstly the intersection of buildings and terrain - where building is placed and the terrain changes height drastically beneath it; Secondly it will be easier to zone said city according to purposes like residential, commercial, industrial, spaceport, airport, seaport etc, perhaps even add in road/transport networks in the future.Andy

[robn]

Issue 7 is our best thinking on it so far. Basically feed the list of starports to the terrain engine and let it flatten out the terrain a bit based on distance. It will be more complicated than that, of course.

[fluffyfreak]

Hmm, perhaps the city can push it's centre point + desired height + radius to the terrain node that it's in and that could cascade down, so terrain patches within that radius just get the height value, ones on the intersection get blended and finally ones outside get fully unconstrained terrain generation.

[Brianetta]

This was taken just before the new stellar terrain, but is nonetheless awesome. You can see the Lynx on my scanner, and you can see how fast we're both going. We're in orbit around the sun!How did it wind up here? It was parked outside a space station, and I used the Lua console to tell it to do something else. The hard part was actually staying near it as it flew to this orbit.

[fluffyfreak]

AcesHigh wrote:
how about something like this?http://www.spacesimcentral.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1837&p=17327&hilit=cities#p17327
I quite like the idea, and the way you did a mock up of it! :DI guess it comes down to a matter of taste so... instead of saying "this is the way we should do cities" how about we have several ways?Perhaps pick them based on some parameters like the faction stuff that people have discussed in the past. This would probably tie in quite well with my much delayed Orbital code allowing us to have selections based on species+faction. Obviously this is upto each of us that is interested to do the implementation.Good link and mock-up work Aces

[fluffyfreak]

Actually there's loads of good stuff in that thread, may necro-thread it later instead of polluting this one with further off-topic stuff.

[ollobrain]

a powerful alternative would be to have cities spawn near space ports as far as economic develoopment goes they are like trade centers so associated infrusturcuture builds up around it. This could tie in with players helping to " develop" colonies or setting up their own mini empire in a remote area of space at some point and helping to build it up and so forth. Plunk down a space module and feed the colony or solar system materials and watch it slowly develop ( and degrade) based on other factors events trade piracy levels other missions and so forth. City generation is one thing that will tie into it

[Brianetta]

The effect that the player has on the universe in general should be practically undetectable. This was a massive failing of X; the universe was small, and after some hours of play the player was the most economically significant entity in it.I don't think there's any way that a realistic colony could be founded on the efforts of one solitary trader. The player could, possibly, join in a venture to colonise something, if invited, but that would be something to be coded as plot, in Lua.Anyway, I'm seeing a dearth of screenshots in this thread, which I shall perhaps remedy this evening.

[robn]

Brianetta wrote:
Anyway, I'm seeing a dearth of screenshots in this thread, which I shall perhaps remedy this evening.
And I really need to update the website.

[Ziusudra]

[hsimg][/hsimg]Needed some fuel and thought this was a nice view.

[robn]

I like that. We need to draw the rings in shadow rather than not at all

[Brianetta]

Let us re-live our Frontier days! Yes, I know you all did this.

[fluffyfreak]

Nice screenshots Brianetta :)I think we've all been there!

[Brianetta]

fluffyfreak wrote:
Nice screenshots Brianetta :)I think we've all been there!
But not here:

[Geraldine]

LRGs in Pioneer and by the looks of things, flyable too! But what about docking? Or are these actually flying space stations?

[Brianetta]

Geraldine wrote:
LRGs in Pioneer and by the looks of things, flyable too! But what about docking? Or are these actually flying space stations?
You can't fly them.

[robn]

And if you do manage to make them dock...

[fluffyfreak]

like a glove...

[fluffyfreak]

Brianetta wrote:


fluffyfreak wrote:
Nice screenshots Brianetta :)I think we've all been there!
But not here:[url][/url]
Oooh, actually making way! nice!

[Geraldine]

Yes, I can see what you mean robn, docking would be impractical for such a large ship such as the LRC. It would be nice though if they had a job to do in the game. I guess it would either need a special larger docking frame or use smaller ships within its own docking bays to transfer its payload. If they had their own docking bays, they could be used as a movable docking port or even the first stage of a colonization effort, expanding (slowly) ever outwards to populate the galaxy with colonies. Yes there is a lot of potential with these massive flying bricks. They could become an important part of the game instead of just sitting around. Also the Lynx Bulk Carriers could be used as tenders or support ships for the big LRC. Yep I hope someday these big ships have a real role in the game.