Enriching the galaxy

from GalCiv3 Forums

Since i first got into GC games somewhere around dreadlords, i always felt like the galaxy was kind of empty and boring.

I Found it weird that planets were either colonize-able or just empty boring useless dots on your screen that once discovered you could just forget you ever were there.

If you started in a corner with a few sectors behind you and you discovered there was nothing of interest there you would just keep pushing the line and most of the game would concentrate around the border.

I also thought that it was really fun to use your flagship to go where no Korath has gone before in the beginning of the game. But as your economy picked up and you got your mind to more pressing matters the sense of discovery and exploration just went away. And what could possibly be a great activity on the side faded with that.

There were always ideas floating around my head for gas giant planets and how it would be cool to build mining bases in their asteroid fields or in orbit to mine helium 3 or something of that sort. 

Proximity of asteroids plays a great deal into where i decide to plant my next forge world, and it would be cool if helium mining bases on gas giants provided scientific production points to the selected destination in the same way asteroid mining bases provide other production to planets. This would force more deliberation on a player to choose where to plant his Lab worlds, and could possibly lead to some extremely lucky moments when you find a purple star with one planet containing many tiles and rest are just gas giants.

Flagship could possibly be upgraded with survey probe bays. So instead of just setting your flagship on auto and forgetting about till the rest of the game you would send your surveyor to different uninhabited planets and drop probes that would scan the orbits/surface/soil for precursor space platforms/temples/tombs, pirate bases and stuff like that. Surveyor will be hailed by the probe at the end of its scanning cycle and you would have to go back to recover the data and see if it found anything. By creating some new exploratory events you could keep the events going even after all the planets have been settled.

Planets with moons attached could also have a few tiles on the moon for construction of repair bases, or some kind of super cannon that would aid your fleet in combat in the sector or during invasion or increase the planetary defense strength. I know it sounds allot like a star base  but it would be less tedious without the hassle of those constructors and could be handled by the planets social production instead.

 

Tell me what you think about this, and feel free to add something, this is pretty much a suggestion box/brainstorming session.

P.S. Yet again sorry for any grammar mistakes.

 

26,943 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


Planets with moons attached could also have a few tiles on the moon for construction of repair bases, or some kind of super cannon that would aid your fleet in combat in the sector or during invasion or increase the planetary defense strength. I know it sounds allot like a star base  but it would be less tedious without the hassle of those constructors and could be handled by the planets social production instead.

Planets w/ moons and rings already gave you a boost in Galciv2, don't remember exact numbers but it added something to your planet vs planets w/ no moon or ring.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Still i wouldn't mind a cannon on the moon lol

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I would really like for uninhabitable planets to not be useless as you said. Mining Helium-2 from gas giants also sounds like a prospect, provided it didn't introduce unneeded micro (like redirecting asteroid bases, ugh). I would also like for there to be potentially habitable moons, as well as multiple moons per planet. or around planets that also have rings.

 

I dunno', there's a lot of unknowns at the moment that could preclude any of this :c

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

A couple of things to make space "less empty"

 

Military outposts: a more limited version of a military base, usable on "class-0" planets. Grants sensors area, combat sensors (bonus defensive/offensive) over an area

research stations: grants a small amound of research, sensor area, usable on "class-0" planets

Mine field: left from earlier times, causes damage to passing ships. Invisible, discovered to the player if a ship triggers a mine. medium to large area. Revealing the field does not disable the field (reduces damage caused)

Mine field (owned): deployed by a player, causes damage to passign ships except for the player (and allies)

 

Space anomalies

Distortion fields: causes random effects (reduces or disables defenses, increases evasion, slows down). Invisible, limited area

Nebulas: causes random effects (reduces or disables defenses, increases evasion, slows down). Completely visible, large area

Gravitational Wells: Invisible, if hit, causes damage, speed increase if moving towards the well, speed decrease if moving away. limited range

 

Sensors:

Better sensors decrease effects or completely disable effects making the anomaly visible (to the player)

Only a few anomalies can be seen at the start of the game, better sensors make them visible

Mine fields can be detected with advanced sensors

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I pretty much like everything you said.

Some space "weather" like nebulae gas clouds and gravity wells could go a long way to improving not only variety but also deepening the strategical gameplay.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

This topic is worth reading, I assure you that other post are willing to solve this issue.

For the 4th time, I can fix this exact same problem on 4 other threads by one simple solution

 

Space nebula like you said is genius, maybe throw in animated plasma storms showing up on random hexes like space weather, some 1 tile moving animated meteors that always travel in a straight line

 

Perhaps space pollution as a secondary idea, like have some areas in space look cleaner then others maybe the best viable option if your looking for progression, but very few praise this idea and every few went against it. Anything to make things more lively and beautiful.

 

https://forums.galciv3.com/449787/page/1/