So, just jumping into this discussion really late with a somewhat unrelated topic - 

In one of the Kapaku quest chapters, the narrator mentions that the waters of their homeworld were some sort of greenish color, and that the shining blue waters of Auriga were reminiscent of the disastrous change wrought on their homeworld by the terraforming robots (the description felt very similar to the Riftborn narrator's description of the natural imagery of Vanguard in ES2).

Anyways, when I volcanoformed the coastal terrain of one of my regions I was excited to see that greenish color, but all I got was a darker blue, which was barely distinguishable from the normal color of the ocean. Would it be possible to change the colors of volcanoformed waters - rivers, lakes and oceans - into that greenish color, rather than the current dark blue? I understand that asking for a purely visual change is probably unrealistic, but it would both tie in nicely to the descriptions given by the Kapaku of what their world looks like, and also visually differentiate volcanoformed waters from standard Aurigan water.

Blandersnatching wrote:

So, just jumping into this discussion really late with a somewhat unrelated topic - 

In one of the Kapaku quest chapters, the narrator mentions that the waters of their homeworld were some sort of greenish color, and that the shining blue waters of Auriga were reminiscent of the disastrous change wrought on their homeworld by the terraforming robots (the description felt very similar to the Riftborn narrator's description of the natural imagery of Vanguard in ES2).

Anyways, when I volcanoformed the coastal terrain of one of my regions I was excited to see that greenish color, but all I got was a darker blue, which was barely distinguishable from the normal color of the ocean. Would it be possible to change the colors of volcanoformed waters - rivers, lakes and oceans - into that greenish color, rather than the current dark blue? I understand that asking for a purely visual change is probably unrealistic, but it would both tie in nicely to the descriptions given by the Kapaku of what their world looks like, and also visually differentiate volcanoformed waters from standard Aurigan water.

Would be a welcome change. Also, it is almost impossible for me to discern the difference between volcanic waters and standard waters in the winter and during dust eclipses, but I am not sure if my color-blindness is to blame or if it is just that much of a change from summer.

I know nothing, so I'm going to join :)

I haven't already played with Inferno, but after watching ~30 turns as Kapaku on YT and reading your discussion I came up with a bit different approach.

In lore, volcanoformers are the Endless' devices powered by strategic resources. They (resources) seem to work as fuel, so why not use them in that way?

In short:
- VF's are built in the cities with production and put down by armies
- After this, you can spend some strategics to turn on the machine (maybe via some special interface)
- VF slowly burns the resources you put into it, generating volcanoformation points (something like the Necrophages' recycling bar). When it's full, it creates volcanic terrain first on those 7 tiles, then on surroundings. Each level requires more VF points and each strategic resource can create only a certain amount of them per usage.
- VF is, of course, reusable. It sits in place, waiting for the fuel. It can be disassembled and it returns to your reserves.

Pros:
- removes the ,,fire and forget" effect
- makes them more powerful in long term while maintaining the ability of using them for quick expansion
- deals with the increased cost issue quite neatly (I think)

Cons:
- may be difficult to implement
- constant refueling of VF's may become a bit of a chore, I admit.

Throwing in my thoughts. Volcanoforming is boring.

• Volcanoforming doesn't create lava or flames of any kind, just plain grey land. No reds or oranges, just grey, 100% of the time. The process of volcanoforming does not actually form volcanoes! 
• Volcanoforming doesn't affect water at all. It might change the tint of it a little, but rivers keep flowing, lakes stay as they are, nothing really happens. You'd think lakes would drain and rivers would fill with lava or something, but no. I guess there was lots of crystal-clear water on the Konpaku homeworld. who knew?
• Volcanoforming doesn't effect anomalies at all, which invariably looks terrible. Life trees standing proud in lifeless wastelands, escaped specimens prancing around like this is still livable land, how the hell do volcanoformers scorch the land and not effect these things at all? Entire forests get burnt, but that one massive tree? No way, can't touch that.
• Volcanoforming doesn't spread across the land as depicted in the lore. Now yes, you could plant volcanoformers all over your territory, but you won't, that's way to costly and hardly benefits you at all. 9 times out of 10 the Konpaku will rule not a firey inferno, but a bunch of regular territory with some grey crap around their cities. It looks really, really bad and completely clashes with what the fluff says they're doing.
• Volcanoforming is a silly name.

I feel this sort of things needs to be addressed more than the mechanics of volcanoformers. Reworking them to something that gradiaully spreads the more fuel your throw into the fire is pointless if all it does is make everything grey. Less ash, more lava, give me my promissed Inferno!

kassapa wrote:

Hey guys, thanks for your feedback.

Quick question: What is it you'd like to change about the VFs? Do you feel they are too Micro-Intensive? Or is that the "feel" of the effect is not satisfying?

We can focus on how you'd change the effect later, but for now I'd like to know what you'd like to achieve with the change.

the problem with the volcanoformers is, that if you make them more dramatic and or threatning, your going to have to tone down the kapaku down some other way, they are incredibly strong and they have not been touched since release, unless I missed a patch.

Yes. A serious rebalance is needed.

I would prefer to have stronger volcanoformation effetes, and a more intense weakness of Kapaku outside volcanos land or in winter, than keeping the actual system.

I mean, the Kapaku are so overpowered than we simply BAN them in multiplayer. The fact that we banish our new faction is a serious situation !