As has been noted, the idea that in a hundred + years when intersellar travel is possible, can we not have an idea of planets BEFORE going there? I am not saying there can't be an easter egg, but the idea you have no idea of how many planets or even if they are gas giants is ridiculous. In the last 20, and especially less than 10 years, we are finding planets right and left! Put a limit on size vs range of tech to know, I am good with that. Hell, we will probably practically map Alpha Centauri before we ever start to get there. The came risks being outdated before it is released!
For a lastest reference
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wet-exoplanet-has-clear-skies/
G G G GAME, with a G.
Suggest making all planets within cultural influence discovered but still having units invisible to the player?
If you're as smart as I believe you are, then reason that this Game as a 4X cannot automatically show planets or exploitation would be undermined. Most that could be changed or modded would be the earlier suggestion I made for this.
DARCA.
Yes we can detect planets by their shadow across their sun/star but we have no way of knowing if their inhabital or not and current RL tech means even with unmanned craft it would take hundreds if not thousands of years for a probe to get there let alone its transmission time back to earth? That said this is a game and wheres the fun in knowing where everything is? (this is why I dont research stellar cartography unless I really,really need it)
First of all can you make the post a little clearer. Unless we get a better way of keeping track of automated ships especially colony ships I would rather not have stellar cartiography . Let me explain the planet finding working for you. To be a planet it has to revolve a planet three times. The disadvantage with this assuming a fifteen year mission we will never planets more than five years from the sun. I'm talking about orbits. Most of the planets will be close to be the stars. We are not close to finding most of the planets or knowing what the conditions are on them. We are closer than before.
You are quite right and any decision to have it otherwise is based on game play and not reality.
I believe I read, or heard on one of the Friday things that Brad wants to black out the stars as well. I know we can't see all the stars in the galaxy with our naked eye, but we have had telescopes capable of doing so for nearly a hundred years and we certainly wouldn't need to send out scout ships to map the stars in our own galaxy. I hope they leave it as is, see the stars but not the planets.
But, it's still a game and if they want it to play that way so be it. It won't spoil it. With all the lost ships in the game, and the option to have plentiful habitable planets, finding places to send colony ships is not an issue for me.
Of course we all know that whatever they decide, the AI will know where all the planets are and in spite of this they will not pass up a PQ 4 to colonize a PQ 20, 6-7 hexes further away.
Well now Admiral, we are talking about what we will know 4-5 hundred years in the future vs what we are capable of now. When we have warp drive, I am pretty sure we will have the galaxy charted out pretty well.
When we start sending out colony ships, I am fairly certain we will know exactly what they will find when they arrive. Nevertheless, this is a game, not reality.
Press the tide key "~" and type "fow" that removes the fog of war so you can see...everything.
DARCA
Which is there for debugging purposes and probably will vanish on release.
The last Stream, Paul said they are going to leave most of the Console unlocks available and open for single players, stating that if a player wants to cheat in his own single game that is fine.
Modify, if a player wants to modify their game
Also I really need to be able to make truly custom maps as I want to modify the position class and type of planet and star, although that sounds more like a in game map editor.
I don't want to "cheat", what I want is an idea of what is out there. I like playing maps with low habitable planets. It drives me crazy that a stars close to me have zero information until I fly to it. So really what I am suggesting is.
Based on sensors (or some other tech) stars in the FOG should have certain information
1) Star Type/Color
2) Based on range from my colonies at least, I should have an idea of planets that are greater than "X" size.
Why would I bother flying to a black hole early in the game?
Certain stars should yield certain numbers and types of planets. A red giant would probably have less planets because it already engulfed them, a white or brown dwarf would likely have no or a couple of poor planets, etc.
So while I wouldn't have perfect information, I could at least get an idea of what is over there before sending a spaceship. I really doubt any nation would send a very expensive ship to each and every star no matter what hoping for a good rng roll.
That said, this game isn't really science based as much as fantasy based, so I am probably over thinking it all.
Ya over thinking it, next you'll say MODDING is "cheating"!
Slash, I do know there was a lot of discussion on this. Brad wanted to have the entire map DARK with ZERO stars. I actually like this idea as it forces you to guess where to go.
We will get the galactic mapping tech and that will put your planets and stars on the mini. The game has to have a mechanic that forces you to explore. You want to see where to go first, others want blind exploration.
Lets have both! I think if we can ask for it the devs can put in the options a way to disable blind exploration. This kinda defeats the purpose of the first X in 4x games but hey, you play your way!
Actually, you are not up-to-date on your information. I work at a prominent ground-based telescope that has been involved in the actual "photographing" of exoplanets (I am prohibited from saying which one due to our "Internet Posting Policy"). We can also do spectroscopy on said planets to determine the presence of live potential elements such as water or methane. We have instruments in the works that will do much better than that, allowing us to see smaller and smaller planets.
All that being said, please don't remove an "x" from our 4x game. I can see an argument where we know where the stars are (like current), but a mouse over would show how many planets orbit said star. That would still keep some of the exploration mystery.
You've stated that we have the technology to "see" planets a great distance from us now in reality and should be able to "see" them in the game. Why don't you use the technology in the game to "see" what you want to? I use in game technology to find my neighbors before they find me, find the furthest planets from my home world so I can go out & colonize them to create a zoc that is too deep to penetrate and also watch their every ship movement. They can't go to the bathroom without me knowing it!
They can black out the stars from the maps if they wish. I will still be able to "see" the ones I need to without turning off the fow. Research the tech and handle it. By late game I can even see their neighbors on the other side of them. All of this using in "game" tech. In the word of the immortal Forest Gump - "That's all I got to say about thaat"
eXploitation has always been the weakest X.
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