some thoughts on planet variation

from Sins Forums

I was thinking of some more options to further differentiate planets from one another, bc on the long run it does seem to become repetitive to settle the 'almost' same planets over and over again.

 

* special resources as seen in rise of nations. as such, they are not used to buy anything per se, but give boni to various aspect, like extra income for some resources, increased research speed or build time and what not. nothing huge, but just a little bit.

 

* I'd like some change to the exploration system as it is now. the ideas, the features that can be researched are great, but I dont much like the 'chance' element. or rather, keep the 'chance' element if you want, but include something which is not random, whose effect you can judge, but what you need to invest in to profit from it.

 

* maybe there could be a second parameter to designate planets, like atmospheres, axial inclination, distance from sun or whatever. that way, planets could be "desert, oxygen atmposhere" "ice, hyrogen atmosphere". of course, one might argue that certain types of planet conditions produce certain atmospheres, but ... well, there is potential.

 

I'm aware of mods which give more planet types and like to play them once updated. but they still have effectively no variation within planet types. do they?

8,413 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

It's been ages, but, I think Uzii's mod (Sins Plus) does have variations between the same planet type.

In any case, everything you listed can be modded. Planet properties can be set to "always on" to eliminate randomness. The way they work is that each planet type is assigned properties it *can* have, and then a random one is picked. But the vanilla Sins already has some of what you want. Only desert planets can have spice trade, for example. There are properties that increase tax income, trade income, metal or crystal income, orbital construction rates, so on..

Most of this stuff is pretty easy to mod, too, if you want to give it a shot.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

what do you mean "always on"? well, it wasnt so much the randomness, as the fact that you didnt know what you would get via exploring. also, the resource thing meant to imply planetary bonuses that apply to the whole of your empire. at least for resources. sort of a weaker version of artifacts.

tbh I cannot quite nail down what I even want, but I feel something is missing or incomplete by having the basic planet scheme first and then via exporation find it to be somehow special.

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

By "always on" I mean you can see it without exploring :)

I don't think it's possible to do empire-wide bonuses, though.. the planet bonus modifiers don't mix with the research stuff. Only the research can be done empire-wide.

Try Sins Plus, though. I'm pretty sure it works with 1.05, should be in the WinCustomize database :)

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 3
By "always on" I mean you can see it without exploring

I don't think it's possible to do empire-wide bonuses, though.. the planet bonus modifiers don't mix with the research stuff. Only the research can be done empire-wide.

Try Sins Plus, though. I'm pretty sure it works with 1.05, should be in the WinCustomize database
End of Annatar11's quote

 

ah, but there are artifacts which are empire wide. theoretically, maybe its possible to reflag the others as aritacts and then give them a higher chance to appear. might be interesting to have those things as lvl 1 or 2 options to benefit from it vs just seeing it. still thinking around how it should work best.

 

as for the mod. I'm a beta guy who has no copy of the old 1.05 state.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah, but artifacts also have limited modifiers. IIRC, nobody actually added any new artifacts, and I'm not sure if you can.

As for the version, you can always uninstall and re-download 1.05 from Impulse ;)

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

but 1.10!!

anyways, in the order it lists them as fairly different things, artifacts are research objects and the others are planet boni, so you may be right that its not even doable.

kinda sad, since I always wanted a few more things that affect the empire as a whole apart from research and the diplomacy scaffold and that could have helped a bit.