Places of Residence and Colonization

[Highway of Life]

Places of Residence and Colonization

During the discussion of the game play mode, there was a question about how the players would reside in the galaxy, how they would colonize planets, and how many planets he could colonize. Many browser-based games allow you to colonize an entire planet and you are given a limited number of building 'fields' to work with.

If we allowed the players to colonize entire planets, we would have to generate many solar systems with identical resources and classes of planets to adequately handle the demand that a large number of players would put on the universe. For example, if a player is allowed to colonize 8 planets and you have 250,000 players in the game, you have to create nearly 250,000 identical systems with 9-15 planets per system, for a total of at least 2 million decent resource producing planets required to accommodate the resource needs of the players. This leaves us with less room for uniqueness on a universal scale. It also means that there would hardly be any truly 'empty' space to explore.

A bigger unexplored universe
What if we gave players a bigger universe - explored and unexplored - to live in, while making inhabited planets adequately 'crowded' as if you lived in the universe of Star Trek or Star Wars.
Players would reside or visit a number of inhabited installations in the game. The general idea is for a multitude of players to be able to coexist in a location such as a planet, orbital facility, base, outpost even exceptionally large ships at the same time. If say, 1,000 players could reside on a large planet, you could produce truly unique systems with planets that are not the same from system to system, and would allow players to travel more, and visit other places besides their own home planets.

Local Economies
With a planet that has a heavier population, it could provide a working infrastructure and economy, since not all players want to do all occupations. A planet would employ miners, merchants, shipyards, space ports, factories, research facilities, outfitting yards, bars, planetary defenses, and possibly a local government. This way everyone works together and the player can do what each enjoys the most.

Each player could be given a piece of land on the planet to build what he pleases. This land could be limited, but he might also be able to purchase multiple lots on the planet. The player would also have the ability to own lots on multiple planets or facilities.

Solar systems would be unique in nature, some solar systems may be nearly empty, with only a couple of orbiting planets, others might not have any habitable planets, and other solar systems may have a bountiful resource planet, or several M-class planets. The possibilities are endless.

Conquering Settlements
Bases and planets could be conquered by a warring alliance if all of the planets defenses are subdued, and the attacking force has the required manpower to effectively take over the base or planet. An attacking force may also lay siege to the base, intruding a whole new series of strategies.

Colonization
Colonization would require a group of individuals to collaborate on a colonization effort to make it successful. A planet could construct colonization ships that could be used in the effort to colonize new worlds. Which could then be built up.

Building Space Stations and Outposts
Building space stations would require a significant amount of resources from all of the players involved in the building project. Deep Space Outposts or listening posts could also be built, and would require mobile building platforms - and a significant amount of resources, depending on the size - to build the base. The bases would then be owned by the builders, and could space could be rented out or sold to other players.

[Kfarcyk Przemek]

If we allowed the players to colonize entire planets, we would have to generate many solar systems with identical resources and classes of planets to adequately handle the demand that a large number of players would put on the universe. For example, if a player is allowed to colonize 8 planets and you have 250,000 players in the game, you have to create nearly 250,000 identical systems with 9-15 planets per system, for a total of at least 2 million decent resource producing planets required to accommodate the resource needs of the players. This leaves us with less room for uniqueness on a universal scale. It also means that there would hardly be any truly 'empty' space to explore.

WRONG
You're missing the part when HOW and WHERE depends only on our own ideas and immagination. We can create a system that puts so many random elements, and so many different types of planets/asteroid belts/etc., that eaven with 250000 solar systems in the wole game we really CAN make every single one of those unique and still have a lot of empty space to explore. Let me give You an example of a possible solution to that issue:

We have a 2 dimentional universe map with stars appearing there just as "dots" or different sizes of "circles". Every solar system would be generated randomly when first visited and saved in the database (so our database grows bigger every time some system is explored for the first time). That doesnt sound really revolutionary, right? Now let's add some additional elements to that idea:

• Every solar system has 10 slots (or 15 or 8 or whatever we want it to be, that's not important at the moment)
  
• Every generating of a system is an algorythm with several steps:
  
  1. A random number from 1 to "max slots" ie generated. That is our number of objects on the system.
  2. A random position is selected for every generated object in between position 1 and "max slots". As an effect we get a solar system with unknown number of planets on unknown positions.
  3. For each object there is "class" selection, which is just a logical variable selected randomly (0 or 1), where 0 is an "uninhabitable object" and 1 is "inhabitable".
  4. FINAL PHASE: Every uninhabitable and inhabitable object is now selected randomly from the table containing exact objects of each type. In that table we have planets of various types, asteroid belt, giant planetoids and other special objects.
  5. Additional objects: this step is not necesairy, but i think it's a nice idea to. A random number is generated from 0 to 3, which indicates the number of "specials" in the system like comets, alien ship wrecks or gas clouds.

So tell me, does that sound interesting? Now let's estimate how many possible combinations there are (i will use 10 as a default number of slots, object types and so on, because it's easyer):
- We have 10 types of solar systems (with 1, 2, 3 ... 10 objects).
- There are 10 types of habitable and 10 of uninhabitable objects.
- Many objects can also have their own moons (the number depends on the object), but max could be liek 10 moons for a Brown Dwarf class superplanet
- Remember that all of them can be located on different positions in the same system type (5 planet systems can look in ~300 ways)

Simple multiplying 10*10*2(2 i think is the average number of moons including gas giants and superplanets)*500(possible layouts, propably there's more but i was to lazy to calculate that)*3^3(specials) ... 900 000 possible combinations. Of course many of them can look really similar, some may be generated exactly the same just because it;s random, but hey! ... we have a unique galaxy with high possibility to generate systems wit 0 inhabitable planets!

So now ... is it possible or not to kae every of those 250 000 (or more) solat systems unique ?

[Highway of Life]

Point taken, but randomness is not true uniqueness. If you still have to have ~8 habitable planets in a solar system, it doesn't matter where those planets are or what they look like, your universe cannot be that unique because you have to keep generating systems that have to contain at least a specified number of habitable planets.

If you have 250,000 players, and each player can colonize an entire world, you'll need 250,000 good star systems that support life. However, the main problem with a player colonizing an entire world is that the player is more than just an entity in the game, he is a civilization. Plus, you end up with a crowded universe rather than just crowded planets.

Poll added.

[spi21]

i know im fairly new around here but i have extensive programming knowledge outside php unfortunately and this is an extremely interesting subject for me. i have actually started one of these before as i played a couple online way too much and wanted more. i left the group who began it as time got away from me with school and work that innevitably led to it not passing initial development but it would be fun to see one starting from scratch again.

this topic is a similar discussion we had and one of the things we thought we could use to differientiate the game from others. it is all along similar ideas as you present here and the basic thoughts were as follows:, very simplistic in nature unlike the previous guy though so give me some slack

anyways, (lots of sharp edges but smoothing it out is the fun part) here is the rough idea you start with standard planetary systems with multiple planets to be colonized based on size but these planet sizes would result in multiple regions on the planet that could be colonized by multiple, different players

ie planet size 500 gives it 5 regions, 300 only 3...then each would have space to build totaling the size but a random size to each region. so region one might have 75, region two 150, etc...

then the planets could be colonized by more than one player as long as a) there are no planetary defenses or b) half of the planet is built on and make these feats that cant be done quickly. you could also invite allies to free regions or something.

this sort of layout could give the game another level of play too which would be land battles. everyone is used to going strait to spaceship fighting in the space game but what if you had to earn the ability to fly in space first? in the mean time you explore and colonize other land regions on your planet until you research/discover/build something to give you space flight tech.

your economy and career oritented design would simply take this idea one step further and while i understand your wanting to make it more than just a fighting game, this innevitably plays a role and would fit right in. lots of things to do on the planet besides fight would be a great addition.

with a format like this would force you to start people on the same planet to get early interaction but this could actually be beneficial as you can define a small system in the game and db until more people start playing and until they can actually explore space. i know you mentioned inhabiteted unexplored regions with what i would assume to be AI areas but starting galaxy 1-4 for example like others do could provide this type of set up and these unexplored galaxies could come into play late in game.

make sense? i dont know...just an idea we had and it seemed like this would fit in with what you were thinking here but if im way off base then...ok, just throwing it out there...good luck with this, i look forward to playing it!

[Kfarcyk Przemek]

Point taken, but randomness is not true uniqueness. If you still have to have ~8 habitable planets in a solar system, it doesn't matter where those planets are or what they look like, your universe cannot be that unique because you have to keep generating systems that have to contain at least a specified number of habitable planets.

... Plus, you end up with a crowded universe rather than just crowded planets.

Why ~8 inhabitable planets? There is no restriction how many of these have to be inhabitable, besides adding many inhabitable types of planets (like 3 types for each race) makes the chances eaven smaller that a specific solar system can be taken by any of the pleyers that are arround. In other words: there can be entore sectors with really low number of colonised planets, or no planets of inhabitable type at all. I think that random generation of systems adds something "natural" to the galaxy. Instead od making a handful of planets with many players You have numerous sectors where every single one has it's own specific structure, regions really crowded (why not? why exactly is that so bad?), but also sectors with A LOT of unknown space, no mans land and hiding places for pirate (corsair) players.

If you have 250,000 players, and each player can colonize an entire world, you'll need 250,000 good star systems that support life. However, the main problem with a player colonizing an entire world is that the player is more than just an entity in the game, he is a civilization.

250 000 players depending on the system we take can be located in 250 000 solar systems or in 150 000, or 80 000 ... why shouldn't we make it possible to place more than one player in a solar system? Of course that system would require additional algorythms that would keep the area not really that overcrowded. On the other hand if You want to put so many players on one planet, than we don't really need any spaceships we need takns! we need a lot of tanks and infantry !

My point is, that we seem to have different definition of something being "crowded" or not ... for me crowd means a LOT of players in only one spot/one planet. Making people scattered in the whole universe makes it really NOT crowded at all, and many solar systems coesn't limit expansion at all ... because one race colonised every single planet it could in a solar system that doesn't mean the system is already full ... it only means that other planets in that system couldnt be colonised by them, but still can be by others. Spi21s idea with 5 or 3 regions on one planet is pretty much closer to the idea of multiple players in one system, but on seperate planets, than to the idea where 100 or 50 players are stuck on only one planet like sardines in a can

As a player i would be really confused just by the numbers ... how is it supposed to be simple and easy to use? That would be much more harder than browsing galaxy in Ogame or SFC. You have some solar systems that are inhabited, in every system there are several planets, and on a planet there are several players ... isn't tha one of the things we want to avoid? A really copmplicated element?

[Highway of Life]

Why ~8 inhabitable planets? There is no restriction how many of these have to be inhabitable, besides adding many inhabitable types of planets (like 3 types for each race) makes the chances eaven smaller that a specific solar system can be taken by any of the pleyers that are arround. In other words: there can be entore sectors with really low number of colonised planets, or no planets of inhabitable type at all. I think that random generation of systems adds something "natural" to the galaxy. Instead od making a handful of planets with many players You have numerous sectors where every single one has it's own specific structure, regions really crowded (why not? why exactly is that so bad?), but also sectors with A LOT of unknown space, no mans land and hiding places for pirate (corsair) players.

I suspect you would need at least 8 inhabitable planets within each solar system. - If each player could colonize about 8 or 9 worlds (for example).

Random/Unique Solar Systems
First off, I want to clarify that I agree with you on creating truly random and unique solar systems. My argument is that if a single player could colonize entire worlds, your options for uniqueness could be somewhat limited -- even though the order and quantity in which celestial bodies would appear would differ from system to system. My idea for planetary occupation would not limit exploration or unknown space, although it very likely could increase the amount of unknown or unexplored space regardless of the number of players who play the game.

Feeling Crowded
In a game of outer space and exploration, it would feel too crowded because of some 300,000 solar systems being already occupied. If there were fewer solar systems already occupied, it leaves a lot more room for space exploration.

Yes, the planets themselves would feel crowded, but I think this is more realistic. Think of cities on Earth. If the population of New York City (8 million) was spread out over the United States (nearly 10 million kilometers), so that each person in New York City (metro area) were given 1 square kilometer (their own 'planet'), all the sudden, you have a pretty crowded United States. But each square kilometer is not crowded. It's lonely, it only has one person on it.
Cities are crowded. Planets are crowded. Outer space is not crowded. When you bring in a factor of realism, crowded planets are more realistic. Crowded galaxy is not.

50 players one one planet is a very VERY small planet, a very small city, and certainly a very small town. Although I'm not against doing a limited number of regions, 3, 5, 10... whatever. I think more players to a planet would still be more realistic.

Our Solar System
Lets use our solar system as a possible scenario. We have 8 planets, including 2 gas giants, two ice giants, and 2 inhabitable worlds: Earth and Mars (Venus’ ability to sustain life would be difficult unless you can live inside molten lava), 146 moons, and a large asteroid belt.

What this means is that our solar system would only provide 2 planets to sustain life. If a player could colonize 8 or 9 worlds, you’d need at least 4 solar systems like ours to colonize. If 250,000 players wanted to colonize 9 worlds each, and only 2 or 3 planets in a solar system are inhabitable (realistically), you’d need over 750,000 star systems to accommodate the players, 350,000 if you have ice or heat-based races and the solar systems included 4-6 inhabitable worlds. (8 is not realistic)

But lets look at it from another angle. If even 50 players could buy, colonize, or claim land on the few inhabitable planets in each solar system, now you have a lot more possibilities, and your solar system limitations would not be a problem. Our solar system could support at least 100 players, 200 if you had ice based life-forms. You could do as many as you wanted. Although maybe 50 players is a good limit on an earth-sized planet (maybe less, maybe more, it doesn’t matter at the moment).

You Control Your Land
If each player had the ability to colonize and occupy an entire world all by themselves, we would have to set a limit to the number of planets he could colonize. But if each player were given the ability to own a piece of land on a planet, that 'land' limit could be much higher, possibly only limited by funds and resources that the player could handle.

Your ability to control your own land, own multiple plots of land on multiple worlds, would not be hindered. You would still have control over what you build, but instead of the player being an entire civilization, you are instead a captain, a leader, an emperor, or whatever you want to be. And you don’t occupy entire planets all by yourself - although you could own them, usurp them, or rule them.

Confused by the Numbers
You, as a player, should not care about the numbers. Because in the game, it doesn’t matter to you. It only matters to the developers. People would likely choose a larger friendly crowd (a more populated planet of their own race and alliance) rather than a sparse hostile crowd. Having a higher player count on the planet could dramatically increase the player interactions in the game, which is one of our goals.
The game interface just has to be simple, the game learning curve for the player cannot be complicated. But the game itself for the developers, can be as complicated as it needs to be.

[Kfarcyk Przemek]

In a game of outer space and exploration, it would feel too crowded because of some 300,000 solar systems being already occupied. If there were fewer solar systems already occupied, it leaves a lot more room for space exploration.

Ok, but if there are 300 000 solar systems occupied what makes it impossible to create 1 000 000 more ? That would make it a reaaaally small galaxy. Our own Milky Way has 100 - 400 BILLION stars, so our game could have 5 000 000 and it would still be not realistic (why did i bring this up? because one player per planet is also so not realistic. ). Besides we can add different objects to the game, that would be interesting ... we could eaven add some clearly theoretical elements like stars orbiting black holes, or protoplanetary discs (that's not a theory ), we could also add randomly found planets without suns (there is a theory that "solar systems" are a lot more common than we think, but the central object never gets massive enough to start nuclear fusion of any elements and as an effect also to become a sun (or at least a brown dwarf), so it remains a dead and cold system of horribly cold planets orbiting a "back sun" that is sometimes only few times more massive than our Jupiter). I know that a bigger database would take longer to load etc., but since nobody is able to wiev more than a cuple of systems away (+allied line of sight) that shouldnt be a problem.

Anyway with 250 000 players it would leave a LOT of space to explore if only we would have made it a lot more systems ... actually if every solar system (or "something else") would be generated randomly and added to the database on the discovery, there could be from 100 000 or 10 000 000 ponts on the map depending only on the players activity and how stron would their explorers insting be , what makes it impossible to explore and explore and explore more? I'll tell You ... not the star count, because there can be NO limits at all, but a limited immagination. We would only have to figure out a good system to locate players in the galaxy in a way that would maximize the space able to be explored. That's all

Lets use our solar system as a possible scenario. We have 8 planets, including 2 gas giants, two ice giants, and 2 inhabitable worlds: Earth and Mars (Venus’ ability to sustain life would be difficult unless you can live inside molten lava), 146 moons, and a large asteroid belt.

What this means is that our solar system would only provide 2 planets to sustain life. If a player could colonize 8 or 9 worlds, you’d need at least 4 solar systems like ours to colonize. If 250,000 players wanted to colonize 9 worlds each, and only 2 or 3 planets in a solar system are inhabitable (realistically), you’d need over 750,000 star systems to accommodate the players, 350,000 if you have ice or heat-based races and the solar systems included 4-6 inhabitable worlds. (8 is not realistic)

Ok, but what if there are moons with atmosphere dense enough to breathe by some races? What if there is a race that needs no atmosphere? That's once again only a matter of our immagination, and using OUR sun as an example is pointless. Why? Becaause our sun is relatively one of the smaller suns in the galaxy. A lot of suns are much more massive, brighter and just bigger. In other words: there is a high possibility that more than 10 planets or maybe 15 is pretty common in the universe.

Now only using OUR solar system as an example there are 8 planets : 2 capable to be colonised by "human like race". 2 extremely hot to be colonised by an alien race that can adapt to the conditions. 2 ice planets to be used by another alien race, And let's say 6 to 8 moons that are big enough to be colonised by a robotic race that does not need any atmosphere or sunlight. That makes 12 to 14 spots where an alien race can start it's colonisation (human are aliens for all that they call aliens themselves, right ? ). That's not realistic? That's very realistic, and almost every scientist working on possible aliens and their typed will tell You: a chance that an alien race develops on a similar planet and evolwes into a race anyhow close to human race is EXTREMELY LOW.

But lets look at it from another angle. If even 50 players could buy, colonize, or claim land on the few inhabitable planets in each solar system, now you have a lot more possibilities, and your solar system limitations would not be a problem. Our solar system could support at least 100 players, 200 if you had ice based life-forms. You could do as many as you wanted. Although maybe 50 players is a good limit on an earth-sized planet (maybe less, maybe more, it doesn’t matter at the moment).

100 to 200 players ? I'm not sure if thats not to much anyway. It would be pretty much like starting multiple game servers for the same game, that takes place on a single planet. I fear that 90% of the games trade and social life would end up in only one planet, or max in one solar system. Other solar systems would NEVER really interact because there would be so many players in one, that multiple wars would take place ony in that single solar system keeping everyone busy. I fear that it would just kill the whole traveling aspect of the game, because nobody would really move ... what for? All his enemies and alies are on just 2 planets ... why a player like that would ever move? Yeah ... he would send a fleet or two to get more exp and find alien techs, but everything else would be on that single one planet.

If each player had the ability to colonize and occupy an entire world all by themselves, we would have to set a limit to the number of planets he could colonize. But if each player were given the ability to own a piece of land on a planet, that 'land' limit could be much higher, possibly only limited by funds and resources that the player could handle.

Really ? We don't need to set any upper limit to make players occupy nax 5 or 6 planets. This could be limited by slowly growing levels. First levels are obtained quickly, but after a while it gets harder and hader. It works like that: If a players main planet is lvl 1 it can't rule any colonies, if it has a lvl of 2 it can controll one colony, lvl of 4 is 2 colonies, lvl 8 for 3 colonies , lvl 16 for 4 colonies, lvl 32, lvl 64 ... in theory every player can get up to 100 or 1000 colonies, but how long would he jave to play? 20 years? 50 years?

David: i know thats a bit different form the fleet idea, but it's purpose is the same ... limiting without limits

[Hank the Cowdog]

In a game of outer space and exploration, it would feel too crowded because of some 300,000 solar systems being already occupied. If there were fewer solar systems already occupied, it leaves a lot more room for space exploration.

Ok, but if there are 300 000 solar systems occupied what makes it impossible to create 1 000 000 more ? That would make it a reaaaally small galaxy. Our own Milky Way has 100 - 400 BILLION stars, so our game could have 5 000 000 and it would still be not realistic

I agree with David in that, instead of having hundreds of thousands of populated star systems, the more we reduce that number the better. Then we can have a universe of endless size, but with only a handful of populated star systems, it will make the galaxy feel very unexplored.
Even if we have 10 million players, at 100 players per planet, that's 100,000 planets; and at 8 planets per star systems, that's 12,500 star systems as opposed to the 1,250,000 star systems we would require if each of the 10 million players owned an entire planet.

Another issue of 1 player per planet is that, once a lot of players are accumulated, everybody will become very scattered, which will be a severe disadvantage were we to include storylines. (That's a subject for a different discussion.)