posted May 22, 1999 15:42                

Space flight, the toughest challenge for mankind, one of mans richest resources, the future cornerstone of mankinds future.

Yet poorly covered in CIVII.

In CIVII, you can achieve mankinds wildest dream, colonization of other worlds. But nevertheless it is the ultimate goal in a distant future, many more benefits come from space flight today.

Where CIVII jumps from the Apollo program straight to Colonisation, would it not be nice to be able to launch telecom sattelites to increase happyness. Or set-up a network of spy sattelites to increase your intelligence on competing civilisations.

This thread invites you to offer ideas on a more extended and expanded impact of space flight in civIII.

Please throw in any idea or comment you might have,
Smilo

posted May 22, 1999 15:48                

One critical issue concerning how much space stuff to be in Civ 3, is what time range the game should have. Please discuss it in my thread in the Civ 3-General forum.

posted May 22, 1999 17:08                

1. Researching the advance space flight will open options to research other, more specific space flight advances:
> COMSAT : a network of communication sattelites. each sattelite build will cover a specific area of the word map, increasing trade,science and happyness. The comsats can be placed anywhere on the map (above). The more comsats you build, the more area you cover.
> SPYSAT : identical game rules as COMSAT, but provides high intellignece on cities, units, other sattelites, etc (like the investigate city option for diplos and spies).
> LASERSAT : identical rules to above. can attack a unit, or other sat.
> TELEPORTSAT : teleporting units?
> ENERGYSAT : increases production, decreases pollution ?
2. Each time a specific space advance has been researched a civ can start building the specific sattelites.
3. Each sattelite network needs at least one dedicated control centre to be build in a city by choice. Multiple control centers can be build in different cities to provide back-up centers. If a control centre gets destroyed, the civ looses any benefits from the sattelites until a new control centre has been build.
If control centre has been captured two things can happen. A) The loosing civ has a backup control centre and takes control from there.B) The loosing civ has no backup centre and looses control of the sattelites to the capturing civ.

posted May 22, 1999 17:22                

I would keep colonization as the final goal of the game. You can plug our neighbouring planets and moons into the game by playing with the resource shotage effect on earth.
Assume that in the game the abundance of natural resources if made dependend on the production level through the years. Sooner or later the natural resources stock will dwindle and production will suffer. If a civ wants to keep its prod level running, it has to establish mines on the neighbouring planetes and moons. These mines are small cities where specific improvements have or can be build to allow the mining of specific resources. population would not be a major issue but resourses would.
It would require new maps, though to keep the process simple the game culd limit action on these new maps to putting down mines.

posted May 23, 1999 23:33                

As for the implementation, I've played some Call to Power in space, and I happen to like the basic system. Orbit = a separate map superimposed on the global map, in which there are no special resources and the tiles of which produce nothing without improvement. Certain units will have the ability to "launch" themselves into space, and others will require a "rail launcher" (I don't know whether that will stay... maybe call it a "mass driver" or a "laser propulsion station" or something) or a space elevator to get into orbit. At one point I was competing with a fellow spacefaring nation, and I really felt a sense of accomplishment as my fleets of space fighters massed around enemy space stations.

posted May 23, 1999 23:51                

To make orbiting close to real life, space should have two "levels". First the close orbit, where space shuttles, spy satellites and Mir hang around. Then we have the geostationary orbit, where communication (and future energy) satellites orbit to stay above the same spot over Earth.

So, Earth would have five "floors" - the sea floor, the surface, the low atmosphere, the close and the geostationary orbit levels.

posted May 24, 1999 07:11                

My idea is easy, have multiple planets. We reach Alpha Centauri at the end of Civ, so why don't we start to colonize the planet? We would find new materials, allowing new technologies, and after a time we would get to more advanced technologies, allowing more regular space travel. And then, we get to other planets, as do our oponents. Of course we need a kind of automisation for this. I'm think among the lines of planetary gouverners, that manage a planets microcosmos. Furthermore, there shouldn't be to many planets avaible, perhaps about 20, whith 4+ civs rushing for them would mean ~ 5 planets per civ. Apart from planets, that would be managed the same way as earth, you could have smaller planets around other suns, that are not capable of supporting life, but instead are just mines or something like this.
Along with several planets, I would love to have things like huge space stations in the space between the planets, and solar systems, acting as very small planets.
Perhaps, later on, even a Deathstar.
Then, after a while we find some strange ruins on some of the planets, and get alien technology, and finally, we are the first civ to travel to another dimension

posted May 25, 1999 08:49                

FIGHTERSAT: search and destroy enemy SAT's.

posted May 26, 1999 02:53                

And please let us not discuss a scientific means of teleportation, unless we allow magical threads in the game. The Star Trek's Concept of dematerialization and rematerialization invites many troublesome debate over the definition of self and death, and I hope to avoid this in this game. A way around it would be worm hole like interdimensional(hyperspace) travel, but if we can have personal dimensional-travel gate system, we should already have found a way around light-speed limit.

------------------
My wife likes Civillization

posted June 01, 1999 18:54                

I think Space and Under-sea are wonderful ideas that need to be incorporated into Civ3. SMAC's undersea is decent, as is CtPs, and the separate "layer" for space in CtP would be a welcome addition to Civ3.

posted June 01, 1999 20:37                

Corporations will not be exploring the solar system for interesting data, though. They'll be after the valuable minerals contained in the asteroids and on the Moon. (Asteroid Mining should also be a tech; Call to Power got that much right.)

However, the mere act of dragging minerals back down the gravity well is not entirely practical, so corporations will soon begin to research Orbital Construction (which should also be a tech, leading eventually to space cities) so that orbital factories could manufacture goods from the materials gathered by mining asteroids. One could speculate that certain materials could be more easily produced in a zero-gee environment. Perhaps certain pharmaceuticals or chemicals or electronic components could be manufactured in zero gee that would be literally impossible to synthesize in earthgrav.

These orbital factories could soon produce at such a rate that they could adequately supply Lunar Colonies (perhaps a tech unto itself), or at least give them the boost they need to become self-sufficient. Of course, who wants a self-sufficient Lunar Colony when they can make a hefty profit selling their zero-gee manufactured goods on the Moon?

And how do we get to Mars or the asteroids? There's going to be a lot of fuel involved, unless the corporations are very patient and are willing to accept fifty-year-long mining expeditions. Companies may institute Space Lanes (a possible tech) and then use them to establish semi-permanent Wakeways (another tech), lanes seeded with fuel. That way, spacecraft would no longer need to bring their fuel with them, decreasing their mass and production cost. "Seeder" craft, probably robotic, could maintain the Wakeways using material mined from comets or asteroids. Then mining or passenger craft could simply act as primitive ramjets, provided they never veer off the Wakeway itself. This isn't the Bussard ramjet working solely on interstellar hydrogen. This would be a cheaper ramjet which could only function along Wakeways.

Of course, medicine will end up playing a part in all this. One example might be the migration of the elderly into lowgrav environments like the Moon and Earth orbit, in order to prolong their lives; never intending to return to one gee, they need not worry too much about the deterioration of their bones. On the other hand, for those who would visit space with no intention of staying, doctors would need to discover new ways to prevent decay. Obviously, space cities could use the "bicycle wheel" strategy of 2001, the use of centrifugal force as a gravity substitute. But for interplanetary travel, this might not be entirely feasible. There may be new drugs or "supplements" which slow the deterioration of bone tissue and heart muscle.

And what about the first child to be born in zero gee, or the first child on the Moon? Will he or she survive? Why? Why not? How long? Is there any way we can modify the child's genes to ensure survival? Will such manipulation prevent the child from ever walking in one gee? For that matter, will the first child born in space be a matter of choice, or an official government experiment? Think about that one. Would the government permit parents to conceive and bear a child in space with no knowledge of what the risks would be?

I'll let others speculate about the military applications of space. No doubt there will eventually be "space fighters" and "space bombers" and perhaps even laser platforms or attack robots. Perhaps space suits will evolve into primitive battle suits along the lines of The Forever War or even Robotech. Or perhaps by the time space travel has entered into its own, technology will have evolved into superadvanced nanotech with self-repairing, strength-enhancing space suits. Who knows?

I tend to think space warfare is highly unlikely, though space vigilantism is a possibility, and thus space law enforcement a necessity. After all, who owns the Moon? Who will accept jurisdiction for crimes committed there?

It may well be that space travel will prove the catalyst for global unification of government. Honestly, I can't see such a thing happening anytime in the next century, but it's a concept I think Civ III will be hard pressed to ignore if it extends into the year 3000 or even 2500.

For that matter, by the year 3000, the term "human" might come to mean something entirely alien to our own experience. The progress of artificial intelligence, combined with new and complex modes of intelligence amplification, as well as new applications for nanotechnology in the fields of medicine (specifically genetic engineering and neurology), may move the human species in whatever evolutionary direction its individuals choose for themselves.

There. There's some issues to digest.

posted June 02, 1999 12:07                

What about the ability to randomly create a solar system, along with randomly-generated "world" maps? Maybe even customize a solar system. "Number of planets? 3-5, 6-10, 11-15." "Composition of planets? Mostly gaseous. Evenly distributed. Mostly terrestrial." You would begin to learn about the major planets in ancient times, when you discover astronomy. You might discover more planets upon discovery of, say, optics or lens crafting. Eventually you'd send out unmanned probes to gather data on the planets, as to whether they would eventually be "colonizable" or lend themselves to terraforming. Maybe you'll end up with a system of gas giants, or maybe you'll have a dozen moons and planets to colonize.

posted June 02, 1999 19:39                

#1-I'm sure most of you have found the end game to be pretty dull.Only one other civ is left and he's just understood philosophy. My idea is a race of aliens that start on the moon and,while having the same tech they get different units. Eventually they produce a fleet of world ships and decide to pay you a visit. These aliens would be extramly hostil,with little chance of them liking you. they could appear on any forign planet. They could also colonize a planet untill Its resourses run out.

#2-If a planets resourses become depleated
(so much food or production is taken from them)they become desolete wastlands.All lans becoms either hills or mountains and all citys shrink to size one. Only years of terriforming would make the city radius healthy enough for it to support life again.

#3-In these space citys should be the ability to whord terriform points or production.

------------------
"War does not determine who is right,It determines who is left."
-Crusher-

posted June 07, 1999 09:56                

I would also like some small addendums to the AC race.

For instance, in Civ 1/2 your spaceship crashes if your palace is lost. In Civ 3 the spaceship should instead be dependent of an Interstellar Communication Centre, which could be built anywhere, well hidden from the enemy. You should be able to build back-ups.

Also, the Spaceship part concept could be incorporated with building space stations. I mean - they are also made up by framework and habitation/support modules. Space stations would however have science/manufacturing components.

By the way, why have the spaceships got Solar Panels? They might be useful within the distance of Pluto, but later the Sun doesn't shine much more than any star. Nuclear reactors or fuel cells would make more sense - another solution is to research cryogenics and freeze the colonists so they don't need too much support.

posted June 07, 1999 11:28                

Civ3 should have more of a sliding scale. The farther into the future your tech goes, the faster you can build a ship, and the faster it will travel. You could build an expensive, slow, multi-generational ship with ~2025 tech, or a faster fusion ship that could be smaller in ~2100, or a stasis/cryo-freeze ship that needs less resources (and can go much faster) and has some silly future-named engine (hyper-ultra-deltecto drive?) in ~2200, and finally you could discover teleportation, build a big machine, and beam the colonists over in a single turn. You would have to make a choice based on how fast your science accumulates vs. how fast your production accumulates (faster sci = wait, faster prod = build it now), and then consider other players. More variables, more dynamic, more challenge.

posted June 07, 1999 12:03                

As to what that leaves SMAC, well, it gets the joy of colonizing an alien world. And, for all intents and purposes, most of the techs and gizmos in SAMC have incomprehensible names anyway. Who can tell if they are 60 years in the future or 600?

posted June 07, 1999 16:13                

Ok! first off, by fusion we mean the fusion of hydrogren. There are two forms: pure hydrogen ( which require a tempture of around 200 million c , of "heavy" hydrogren, a mixture of deutrium and tritium atoms. Those "only" require the tempture of 4-6 million C.
Now, those temptures are attainable. They are not created by LASER, btw but with the use of elctro-magnetic defelctors which create the force which is equal to almost 10,000 tons. This pressure creates the heat. The problem? the system is not effeicent enough. However, better fueling techniches are close at hand, and "heavy" fusion systems are very close indeed and would be reached in our life-time, probaly.

posted June 09, 1999 01:30                

Moving on. Fusion, of course, does not necessarily require intense heat. What it does require is enough motive force to overcome the repulsion of atomic nuclei (made up of protons and neutrons, or in the case of hydrogen, one proton). This may be overcome with some sort of mechanical device or "electromagnetic deflectors," I suppose (the deflectors would not "generate heat," per se, but merely accelerate atoms much like a cyclotron). But in order to fuse mass quantities of hydrogen into helium, the most efficient way of overcoming the threshold is to simply turn up the heat, which simultaneously speeds up large numbers of atoms and increases the probability that fusion will take place.

Laser induced fusion: By bombarding a localized group of hydrogen and helium atoms with high-intensity lasers, one could theoretically begin a contained fusion reaction. Much like your own idea, only substituting lasers for deflectors. Lasers would have the advantage of being able to effect more atoms per square meter.

posted June 10, 1999 11:44                

My meaning about space exploration

orbitals in civ3

The 3 layers

• ground and sea units
  
• air units
  
• orbitals
  

types of orbitals:

• Orbitals that can't be moved after launch(labs, solar enery powerstadions, ...).
  
• Orbitals that can be normal moved after launch and don't need to refuel
  (defens sats, laser sats,...)
  
• High altitude fighters: They must return to base to refuel.
  (To atack orbitals, To bomb ground units,...)
  

some ideas for new orbitals

• Pilange Orbital: Destroys every terain improvement in a distance of 1 when you press p.
  
• City Bomber Orbital: You can bomb the improvemens of an enemy city.
  
• Ground Bomber Orbital: Can bombs enemy units when he is above them.
  
• Solar energy plant: -1 maintaince for every building in the home city of this unit(because the enery is free).
  Every city can only have one Solor enery plant
  
• Paradrop orbital: can stock units and drop them.
  
• Hotel orbital: +3 credit for the home city. You can only build a limited number of Hotel orbitals in every city.
  
• Carier orbital: can stock space fighter units.
  

Space colonies in civ3:

Normal will a space colony only produce minerals(It needs food from earth cities).
But after the building of the teraform secret project can mars colonies produce some food.
And after the building of the resources market can you sell minerals for money.

The transport of units and setlers to a planet or moon

• Olie rocket: Very slow, can only carry one unit, can only goes to the moon.
  
• Nucliar fussion rocket: Faster can carry 4 units. Can goes to the whole solar system.
  
• Teleport ship: Can goes to every place in the solar system in 0 turns. Can carry 8 units.
  
• Interstellair teleport ship: Very costly. When you launch one to AC then the game ends
  

Excuse me for my bad English its my third language.
I see you at Orion (:

posted June 13, 1999 12:24                

So, if you start an SMAC game, there should be a possibility of
Going back from Alpha Centauri to Earth
and re-establishing mankind. A returning civ would have to terraform an intoxicated, radioactive planetary surface with an ecological system far from balance.

posted June 14, 1999 18:17                

I'd like to see as little of space as possible. Why? Civ is a historic game. SMAC is an SF game. I tihnk that a truly great game should be one or the other.. games that try to be both usually fail in both respects.

None the less, space is important.. I'd like to see the space race fleshed out a bit, with the First Satellite, First man in space, first moon landing, first non-terran probe, etc included. All are major monuments in history, would help out with sceince, and make the game exciting. Getting into colonising Mars is going too far, I think. Teleportation is a no-no.

Since the Unity (from SMAC) leaves in 2040 (I believe), nothing too advanced should be included. I wouldn't go any farther than a manned Mars landing, or a primitive Moon research base, at the most.

posted June 14, 1999 21:31                

------------------
"War does not determine who is right,It determines who is left."
-Crusher-