Feature Idea: Nebulae/Navigation Hazards

from GalCiv2 Forums
The biggest complaint I seem to hear about Gal Civ, is that space is pretty boring... this would add a little something to liven things up.

I was considering ways of adding in that terrain flavour, that so many people seem to miss from other 4x games such as the Civ series. I realised that it could be done relatively easy, in the form of gas nebulae and asteroid fields.
Nebluae would have effects such as reducing the sensor range of ships, or reducing/increasing the effect or a certain weapon of defense class while within its AoE. Asteroid fields would purely be navigation hazards of varying density that reduce the amount of moves a fleet travelling through them has.
The code to to this is already in place, we do have starbases after all.
The only big issue I can see would updating the pathing AI to avoid or take advantage of such locations.
ideas
4,977 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Asteroid fields are actually very thin, except in very young solar systems. Nebulae would be a better choise. They should be very large, at least as large as a star system. Some of the larger nebulae might have a star in it.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
They are enough to provide a significant navigational hazard (especially at the kind of velocities in GC2). A good example would be they Kuiper or Oort belts in our own solar system.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Or a hyperspace highway were you ships base spped is doubled!

Or an asteroid field were your ships base speed is halfed!
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
When travelling at a high fraction of c, pebbles are probably a bigger concern, both because there's more of them and because they're much harder to detect.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
When travelling at a high fraction of c, pebbles are probably a bigger concern, both because there's more of them and because they're much harder to detect.


also at the speed's suggested in the game the ship's would be teared apart if u need me to explain, say here and i'll explain
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
well, that's why there's stuff like the "Q field" that gets described in one of the hull tech descriptions...

most of the tech work of making larger hulls, according to the descriptions, isn't in how to build the hull, but in how to keep it from tearing apart while at speed.

also, i can easily imagine that the warp (or whatever) field around a hull would encourage small obstacles to part in front of, flow around, and then come back together again behind the ship. yeah?

in this case, it would be the more massive obstacles that would present the bigger danger.

although, i can imagine that a nebula might be a hassle too, if it reduced sensor range... that would require ships to slow down, like automobiles in a fog?

but in any case, as the original poster noted: the trouble isn't in implementing map terrain in an interesting way, but in making sure that the AI players can not only cope with the new feature, but also use it to their own advantage against the player!