Hi all, Here's a couple of ideas I have regarding the types of celestial objects that I would hope to find in a modern 4X space game. My aim with these ideas is to introduce as much realism as can be combined with playability. Of course, this is only a first input in which I open up the topic for discussion. So, let's start with STARS. Most of the stars (including the sun) are part of the "Main sequence" (or dwarfs, with a lower-case "d"), where they spend most of their lives. The main spectral classes are O, B, A, F, G, K, M, L, and T, but for practical reasons I would cut this to: blue (O & B), white (A), yellow (G), orange (K), and red stars (M), plus brown dwarfs (L, T). Point of interest, although we define them as such, yellow stars are not actually yellow to the human eye (read more about the true colors of stars here). Red stars should be dominant, at about 70% of all stars, orange about 15%, yellow about 10%, and the remainder being mostly white with the occasional blue or exotic (see below) star. There could also be a few non-"Main sequence" or "exotic" stars, i.e., Giants, like Red Giants, Orange Giants, and Yellow Giants, although these all should be quite rare, in the sense, "oh, cool, there's an Orange Giant on the galaxy map, I haven't seen one of those in a while...". The occasional stellar remnant would also be nice, most of them White Dwarfs (with a captial "D"), but also occasionally a neutron star or a black hole. I imagine there could be a science bonus (e.g., free research points) for exploring them, which the player would have to balance against local dangers. Brown dwarfs could both be solitary (between stars) or in systems (brown dwarfs could be Gas Giants which can support Earth-like environments on their inner-most Moons). This brings us right to the topic of multiple systems: about 50% of all stars in the universe are in a multiple system! And we know today that these systems are not less likely to have planets than single systems (one would still have to reflect that fact that these systems have extended zones of dynamical instability, e.g., such that certain orbits neighboring a star in a system would always remain empty). Multiplicity is less typical for red dwarfs compared to the luminous blue & white end of the spectrum. I.e., most blue stars are multiple, but only minority of red stars are. Why include such a zoo of types? Because each of these types has special properties which add diversity and depth to each game. For example, many red dwarfs are very active stars, which frequently exhibit powerful X-ray emissions (flares) - a feature which could make many of these systems uninhabitable until perhaps some planetary shielding is developed. Red dwarfs have very long life-times, so many of them are old (so perhaps they would have lost a few planets over time), and they rarely have Gas giants orbiting them. Which brings us to PLANETS. Thanks to the Kepler mission, we know now that there are three fundamental types of planets in the Universe: Gas giants (like Jupiter, sometimes called Jovians), Ice giants (like Neptune and Uranus, sometimes called Neptunians; Saturn is transitional between Jovians and Neptunians), and rocky planets (dominated by silicates and iron or other solid compounds; like the terrestrial planets of the solar system). So I would definetly hope to see Jovians and Neptunians, whereas the rocky planets should be subdivided into addtional classes. For the rocky planets, there are two basic variables which defined their surfaces: temperature and water content. If you imagine a three-by-three matrix of planet types, with one axis the water content (low / medium / high), and the other the temperature (low / medium / high), we would put Earth in the center (type "Terran"). A hotter Earth would perhaps only be habitable at the poles (type "Hot belt"). A cooler type would be similar to an ice age Earth (type "Arctic"). In the higher-water-content column, the medium-temperature world would be "Oceanic", whereas the low-temperature world would be "Rhadamantic" (or "Europan" if you prefer - a situation where a liquid water ocean is covered by a global ice sheet). The hot-temperature world would be a "Steam" world (or perhaps a "Runaway" world as this situation is not going to be very stable for long). In the low-water-content column, the medium-temperature world would be a "Land" planet, the cold world is "Arean" (Mars-like), the hot world is a "Desert" world (Venus is a desert world, then). There would be a few additional types, notable the type where the lack of atmosphere makes the above systems somewhat moot, as in the case of the Moon and Mercury, so this type could be "Hermean" or "Artemisian". An additional nice extra type to have would be "Lava", to cover worlds like Io (Moon of Jupiter) or the massive, close-in rocky planets many stars seem to have. And finally, for the worlds which are water-rich, very cold, but unlikely to have retained a liquid ocean, "Icy" or "Plutonian" could be the type. It would also make sense that only the planets in the three-by-three matrix above could initially be terraformed, while the others would need more sophisticated methods (like a "world-house-roof", a solid shell surrounding a small planet or moon to keep the atmosphere in). A cool extra type to have would be the "gas dwarf", a terrestrial world hidden beneath a massive hydrogen atmosphere, which an advanced civilization would have to remove first to start terraforming it. Of course, it would be very nice to have MOONS (bonus: an "asteroid belt" - which we definetly need anyway around stars - around a planet could be a "ring"!). Also, the presence of an atmosphere should make it easier to colonize a planet, so perhaps one could keep track of that too. Regarding sizes of Planets and Moons: I like the MoO2 system here: <5000 km = tiny, 5000-10000 km = small, 10000-15000 km = medium, 15000-20000 km = large, >20000 km = giant (should be very rare - rocky planets of that type are not very frequent). The solar system, in terms of star and planet types, would then look like this: - Sun - Yellow dwarf star, medium age - Mercury - Tiny Hermean - Venus - Medium Desert (+Atmosphere) - Earth - Medium Terran (+Atmosphere) -- Moon - Tiny Hermean - Mars - Small Arean (+Atmosphere) - Asteroid belt - Jupiter - Jovian Gas Giant -- Io - Tiny Lava -- Europa - Tiny Rhadamantian -- Ganymede - Small Rhadamantian -- Callisto - Tiny Rhadamantian - Saturn - Jovian Gas Giant -- Rings -- Rhea - Tiny Rhadamantian -- Titan - Small Rhadamantian (+Atmosphere) -- Iapetus - Tiny Icy - Uranus - Neptunian Gas Giant -- Titania - Tiny Icy -- Oberon - Tiny Icy - Neptune - Neptunian Gas Giant -- Triton - Tiny Rhadamantian - Kuiper belt (asteroid belt) - ? empty space ? - Planet Nine (?) - Neptunian Gas Giant So, that's it for now for my ideas. What are your thoughts - and own ideas on the matter?
I totally agree with you concerning the star classification and rarity, only issue would be how much processing power would be needed to simulate a proper galaxy with all the empires and races interacting. Obviously red dwarfs would not be ideal stars for us to live near but there is nothing stopping a lucky race from evolving around such a star and having 70% of the galaxy to play in. There would have to be a penalty though, perhaps preferring red dwarfs would be a very expensive pick in the race creation screen, or perhaps red dwarf stars are very mineral poor compared to hotter stars? I would like to see binary systems incorporated into the map, there are plenty of them out there.
Yes, I think it could be done very easily - just replace a planet in a system with a star. If there are Moons, these become the planets of that star. I can see red dwarf stars being in general metal-poor, that works well with reality. Also, tidal lock on their planets should be frequent, and they could have predominantly water-rich worlds (ocean planets) - and the gas dwarfs I suggested above...
Very detailed information and very accurate. (I might sub planet 9 with a brown dwarf, Nemesis, even though all the evidence points to a gas giant) All kidding aside, these categories and types should be slightly consolidated and they would fit nicely in the game. If the number of systems is high, a percentage of the systems could be left almost devoid of significant celestial bodies to ensure the processing demands are not prohibitive. The systems could still range from almost empty to double the size of Moo2 systems and the result would be satisfying, there would be plenty of variety available. If I remember, it went something like this... Oh Be A Fine Girl Kiss Me (how we remembered the main sequence stars back in the stone age)
While in the bronze age, we were told that it recently extended to: "Oh Be A Fine Girl Kiss My Lips Tenderly - Yay!" (reminds me: forgot the type Y brown dwarfs in my entry post above...)
I agree with this, I would like galaxies that are somewhat more realistic than these games typically have. I would also like a galaxy with about 1000 to 5000 stars, most of which are uninhabitable. Perhaps there would only be about 100 habitable planets/moons amongst those 5000 stars. When a galaxy in a game only has a hundred stars and they are evenly dispersed, it doesn't give the sense and scope of a real galaxy. Galaxies have hundreds of billions of stars and possibly trillions of planets. If the game had thousands of visit-able stars it would start to convey that true hugeness and endlessness that a galaxy would actually have. The stars could also be spaced more appropriately with higher density in the center and more spaced out on the fringes. With thousands of stars you wouldn't visit every star, just like a real space fairing nation wouldn't visit every star in the milky way. But you could pick stars that are uninhabitable and place secret space scanners on them to spy on your neighbors or secret research stations.
I agree with the idea that habtiable worlds should be rare, and there should be plenty of systems which do not offer much towards of the game-play except as a strategic back-drop (a bit like, say, the ocean tiles in a civilization game). However, in terms of realism, I think it's better if the map does not try to claim it represents the entire galaxy, but just one sector of a much bigger galaxy. A variant of this might be to have disconnected regions within a galaxy, each having a few 100 stars, which are linked by long-distance wormholes.
Here's another idea I just had. There has been, for quite some time, the idea that interstellar rocky "planets" (or planets on very far-flung orbits in the outskirts of planetary systems) having thick hydrogen envelopes (at least 200 bars of surface pressure) could provide a habitable surface environment in which even liquid water (but obviously, no free oxygen due to the hydrogen present) could exist. This is due to the insulating properties of molecular hydrogen, which would trap the geothermal heat, even if the object is floating in interstellar space. As you are thinking about having some "rogue" planets in between the stars, I guess these would mostly be gas giants, but a small subset of them could have these habitable surface environments. If I had to come up with a name for the planet type (which would only exist in interstellar space, and perhaps, very rarely, on the outermost orbit of a planetary system), I would call them "paraterran" planets. They could be places to build way-stations and secret bases and what not...
I like the idea of rogue planets, especially if there is a raison d'etre. For example, if a rogue planet simply takes the place of star system on the map there is little point in including it other than variety. If however, that rogue planet is hard to detect, located in a starless expanse or other "terrain" (dust cloud, nebula, etc) you would really add strategic value to it and present the game with another fresh idea that stays within the core game system. As an aside, I have always been fascinated by space and most of us here probably feel the same, I would welcome more of the same any time you have it, even if it posted for informative purposes only. (P.S. thanks for bringing up mothballing on the community feedback thread, good looking out)
I love playing in a galaxy with thousands of stars. The exploration part is very important but can become a tedious task if you keep exploring and find nothing. Realistic doesn't always lead to something better so things must be mixed a bit to get better results. For a galaxy I would love something like Star Ruler 2 where you can create multiple galaxies with different shapes and sizes. Or maybe you create a big universe with let's say 10 galaxies and you start in one. As you advance you maybe find another life form, that tells you about another galaxy far away, and bam, suddenly Replicators. Anyway, the idea is when designing an universe, an abundant amount of creativity is required.
Today, there was an interesting new paper on the arxiv site, where the authors took the Earth at constant CO2 and exposed it to the light of F, G, and K dwarf stars (only by model, of course ). They find that the ensuing climates fall into four distinct states with quick transitions between them: 1) Snowball (entire ocean frozen) 2) Waterbelt (extended polar caps, but a belt of liquid water around the equator - this corresponds roughly to Ice age Earth) 3) Temperate (present-day Earth) 4) Moist Greenhouse (water-saturated troposphere, no ice) I thought this might be of interest here because of course, these "distinct states" sound a lot like planet types/classes. Of course, now it would be interesting to extend the study to higher/lower CO2 and water levels. Link to the abstract: https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.03315
