Stellar Cartography

posted on November 26th, 2010, 7:52 pm

So I was thinking, what else can maps use more of than.... stellar cartography.

Simply put, in this thread lets discuss how to simulate stellar terrain with the goodies actualy inside of the editor, for the purpose of using in maps as larger terrain items.

To start it out: Comets.

Note: Pic from a non-fleetops mod, but same principal works in flops as in KA2.



The way I tend to do comets is simple. I place a planetoid or other large astronomy rock. I then surround it in some sort of dust cloud, and at a lessining thichness level, I place more dust clouds in an even trail behind it, with the train pointing (as with any commet) away from the nearest star, or in a continent direction if no star is present or nearby. In FlOps I use fluid nebulas along with small fields rocks (the kind you can travel thru) to make up the tail, but have the fluid nebula not continue that far past the head of the comet.




So what other tricks do y'all do when making maps, to have semi realistic terrain ?

posted on December 15th, 2010, 8:03 pm

I try to imagine how objects interact with nearby of objects. So for example, a planetoid may clear out an area within an asteroid field, due to it's gravitational superiority.

Wormholes in a near orbit around a star, look as if they are siphoning material off the star and dump said material at the wormholes end point.

comet tails generally point away from the star on the map, to seem as if the comet is burning up as it approaches the stars warm influence.



Check out my star system maps for different stuff I've done. I've also experimented with rock formations on Solar Storm, to make the stellarscape seem a bit more varied (though admittedly, I used more creative license than logic on that map )

posted on December 16th, 2010, 4:19 am

And thats why he makes the most beutiful maps (sorry boggz. yours are nice and balanced )

posted on December 27th, 2010, 2:05 pm

I try to imagine how objects interact with nearby of objects. So for example, a planetoid may clear out an area within an asteroid field, due to it's gravitational superiority.

Wormholes in a near orbit around a star, look as if they are siphoning material off the star and dump said material at the wormholes end point.

comet tails generally point away from the star on the map, to seem as if the comet is burning up as it approaches the stars warm influence.



Check out my star system maps for different stuff I've done. I've also experimented with rock formations on Solar Storm, to make the stellarscape seem a bit more varied (though admittedly, I used more creative license than logic on that map )

Yeah, your maps tend to be some of the best, I especially the asymmetric ones.

posted on December 27th, 2010, 5:43 pm

And thats why he makes the most beutiful maps (sorry boggz. yours are nice and balanced )

  No worries!  Phoenix is the man with the magic touch of sexy   !!

posted on January 1st, 2011, 10:26 pm

Phoenix is the man with the magic touch of sexy   !!

When it comes to map making, yes, he is.

posted on January 27th, 2011, 2:45 pm

Di you still have black hole gravity wells to use?

posted on January 28th, 2011, 7:10 am

No warp, so it wouldnt matter either way.


Besides gravity wells are kinda meant for star wars, not for trek in so far as disrupting FTL travel.

posted on January 28th, 2011, 3:24 pm

No warp, so it wouldnt matter either way.

disabling warp wasnt the only effect of gravity wells. black holes could pull in ships without engines. imagine using sovvie engine disabling special near a black hole or ranked kvorts/gens.

posted on January 28th, 2011, 3:57 pm

Pulsar (small, star with modulating glow-effects, a little, bright star) disabling sensors / reducing sensor range and make torpedo attacks more of a pain, because they will miss more often

Many small asteroids like a field of dust (we already have) - torps might explode within that field before hitting the target. Beam weapons may also be affected. Shields wont regenerate.

Waves of a neurton star: (white border crossing through the map) may disable engines, sensors and weapons for every wave for 4 - 6 seconds per wave. Wave will occur every 30 seconds or so.

Green planet (we have) - Injured crew members will be healed --> re-crewing of ships
Also the moral of the crew will increase --> better subsystem/hull repair rate

H2-gas-field (nake a neb and make it glow in light red) - collect it with your bussard collectors (let them glow up) to get an overall energy boost for your ship - will increase your weapon strength by 10% and you shield-regen rate by 20% while also having a HUGE increase of special energy regeneration (100%)

Self-replicating mine-field (should be easy to set it up) - explains itself

posted on January 28th, 2011, 4:17 pm

i like those ideas sheva

as long as the neutron waves only cross some of the map itll be cool.

posted on January 28th, 2011, 6:41 pm

Yes. Well, lets say, some environements support some races and some not. The neutron wave might be good for borg, because they may resist those negative effects INSIDE borg space, while others suffer those effects.

Special energy regen is good for rommies and borg and only a little for other races. The recrew-planet is good for every race but NOT borg, because they have no real advantage out of it (compared to others) Also... motivation is not valid for borg.

Better shield regen is also not valid for borg, but for other races. I think, we can make GREAT maps with the ability to implement those surroundings.

I STRONGLY want to have an ion-storm neb for klingons. So some ships (not only the experimental cruiser) may be immune to its negative effects, but every other race might not. So placing a remote turret into those ion-storm-neb can be a very effectiv defense placement, while obtaining superiority over a self-replicating mine-field could be cool for every race.

posted on January 29th, 2011, 1:25 am

disabling warp wasnt the only effect of gravity wells. black holes could pull in ships without engines. imagine using sovvie engine disabling special near a black hole or ranked kvorts/gens.

To be honest, I've always found effects like that to be silly. Especilly since the way the engine works, a damaged subsystem getting disabled usualy resutls in the system being treated as destroyed/offline until repaired fully.

Sheva, I like some of thsoe, especilly the Neutron Star

Past that, I think the Klingon Academy 2 mod had some pretty good terrain features (mostly took from the mods namesake)

Micrometerite field: lowers shields (tho having differnt density ones that do things such as just lower the regen rate would be neat too). They're good for placing in things like the rings of a planet and other places.
Dust Cloud: Basicly, they just disable cloaking. Once again, would be neat to have it to place in things from a planets rings, edges of a nebula, a comet, astroid field, etc etc

And if one were to further take the terrain from the original Klingon Academy game

Nebulas:
no sheilds. Sensor range varries. (possibly some were shields sometimes just have a massive regen penalty)
Past that, make minimal use of the current nebula types on maps attempting to appear realistic, and focus on differnt colored nebulas for the looks only.

Planetery rings:
No planets in flops, but it could be easily done to have an background object of a ringed planet, and have the foreground object be an edge of the ring. Ships cant see in/out. extreme edge of the ring takes out cloak due to dust, then closer to the ring shields go. Then the visibility barrier is hit. Inside, have a steady area of no-shield/cloak zone (no to minimal sensor hit once inside, other than seeing outside of it) with the occasional larger field of rocks that can do damage.

Astroid fields:
Basicly, same as a planetry ring, execpt no large sensor penalty. This would be less of an object and more of a set of tiles that can be placed. Set the blocking markers (preferbly in araes with larger rocks mostly) to mark areas that are 'too dangerous' to travel thru. Have random instinces of the no shield and/or no cloak dust fields. Prehaps some fielts that do low damge due to larger chunks.

Black Hole: Have the black hole randomly disable systems if you are too close in. The closer in you get, the more of a speed hit a ship gets (with a bit of varriance). If possible code it's gravity effect so any ship UNDER a certain speed (counting if it is being hit by the black hole speed modifier) are all sucked in (or have engines disabled). The pulsing speed modifer would also allow ships to get in 'close' to their point of no return, while at the same time having a chance to get out (usually).

Neutron stars could kinda work just like a black hole, execpt for a much lower gravity well and more random systems failures.

Comets could, and have been, be simulated by combining terrain, however an animated and moving comet would be ideal. However I've yet to hear of one that actually worked.

Past that, prehaps add some cognizable asteroids as well. They start out as dead rocks. But once you research the nessacary tech, you can upgrade a mining ship and set up an astroid base in one. The astroid base would basicly be no stronger than your un-upgraded starbase for your race, and only produce mining/construction ships, prehaps the 1-2 weakest combat ships for each race as well, and past that would (while colonized) add a trickle of all resources, as well as acting as a mining station.

posted on January 29th, 2011, 2:56 am

Their was a 3rd effect of the blackhole. Once ships reached the event horzion it was destroyed. Properly lyered this could be used to make planet sufaces and more realisic asteroids.

posted on January 29th, 2011, 9:40 pm

For planets, you'd need a haze effect for the atmosphere, add a very small auto damage effect, and then add an autokill effect on impact

You'd also need to add to the planet/atmosphere a VERY VERY heavy pathing penalty so the AI doesnt go kamakazie them all the time.

For the black hole you'd need to add that effect with even more wiggle room to reduce pathing issues.



Oh speaking if black holes, in the old Klingon Academy did anyone ever have fun going full impulse into the black hole and seeing how fast you could get ?