I think there should be more variety when it comes to planets and transforming them. I mean, yea you have limited control of what they look like (coloring, transforming tools) but they all end up being essentially the same. Like how could a planet really close to the sun have the same atmosphere and environment as a planet farther away from the sun, like Earth-distance? For that matter, how could a planet farther away from the sun have a similar atmosphere or environment as a planet closer to the sun? There should be factors that define and determine how a planet will look once terraformed, like its distance from the sun, if it has any satellites, or its tilt, or its size. For example, the Earth owes its stable seasons to its tilt. Earth's tilt is stable because of the moon and its size. if the moon was smaller the Earth's tilt would switch from 0 to 90 degrees constantly, making earth's climate chaotic.

So why not give the planets and their environments a little variety? give us some Hoth like planets, for example. Icy planets but still tolerable. And in order to terraform that planet you would need creatures and plants that can survive those conditions. This in turn would make creatures and plants different and more unique. And perhaps body parts that are useless or play no role in our creatures can be given roles in determining what type of environments our creatures can live in. Like a fatter creature could have more chances of surviving in a colder environment...or something?

Also, i think in reality you can't terraform all planets to a perfect T3 score. So perhaps we should limit how perfect you can make a planet based on its distance from the sun and its size or any other factor i mentioned above. For example, how could you possibly make a planet like Mercury a perfect one? A planet that hot couldnt possibly hold liquid water...

Anyway, i'm just throwing stuff out here. I didn't really think this through so a lot of my ideas are pretty random =P

If you'd need an astrophysics, astrobiology, and a handful of other scientific degrees just to make a planet work, that kind of takes the joy out of that part of the game for a large percent of the people. There's being realistic and then there's making it so that it makes sense enough for regular people.

sagittary wrote:If you'd need an astrophysics, astrobiology, and a handful of other scientific degrees just to make a planet work, that kind of takes the joy out of that part of the game for a large percent of the people. There's being realistic and then there's making it so that it makes sense enough for regular people.

I'm not suggesting that we base the game entirely on textbook material. I'm simply suggesting that we add a little bit of variety to the game. It's pretty sad that we're giving this vast galaxy to play in and all the planets are all pretty much the same. Kinda ruins the purpose of exploring. My suggestion gives a lot of variety to the planets, including creatures. It would give a lot more meaning to the color-orbit key (red, green, blue). Right now the purpose of those colors is to determine how "difficult" it is to terraform even though I hardly see the difference. I don't understand people like you that see any sort of complexity or variety is as a bad thing. How difficult can it be to understand "put this animal that can survive in cold weather in cold planet?" If regular people can't understand simple concepts then well...I don't know what to say!

so i guess everyone is happy with the ways things are then?

You as a space-faring race in the Space phase are extremely advanced. It totally possible to be able to make a planet however you want. Besides, if you want a hoth planet, just terraform a planet down to T0 and drop a colony on it. There you go. Its not like the rebel alliance was making or growing anything on hoth... It was a hiding place.

rannierobarsky wrote:You as a space-faring race in the Space phase are extremely advanced. It totally possible to be able to make a planet however you want. Besides, if you want a hoth planet, just terraform a planet down to T0 and drop a colony on it. There you go. Its not like the rebel alliance was making or growing anything on hoth... It was a hiding place.

lol you're right about Hoth XD.

I don't see anything wrong with complexity or variety. That wasn't my point. My point is, if it's terribly difficult to figure out -why- something is happening from what you did, you have no idea of what's going on. You don't feel like you have control nor do you know how to fix it. Complexity for complexity sake isn't good; complexity that adds, complexity that teaches, complexity that is -fun-, that's what's important.

Let's say we do have something like planetary tilt, orbital size, orbital distance, planetary spin, tidal forces, global weather conditions, and a requirement for specialized/adapted lifeforms.

You change any one of those parameters and the effects are going to be numerous. It's not because it's too difficult to understand but because there's a big difference between what people think will happen, what actually happens, and the added complexity of them having to deal with a spreadsheet of parameters when they just want to make Hoth. Not to mention that it then changes what animals are appropriate, possibly in minor ways that don't seem like they make sense to people (or that they just momentarily overlook).

More parameters is not bad. They just have to be the right ones and they have to be ones that will work for the game and for long term gameplay. More complexity is fun; it just has to be the right kind.