Since we are on planetary systems:



Overall I think that there are too few/repetitive Wonders. I am not sure whether these are supposed to be suggested in a future document, so forgive me if i am advancing myself here; but I feel it is appropriate to have these here. I can repost afterwards if this is not the right time for these.





My assumptions are that the 2 games following Endless Space have made AS accumulate a wealth of knowledge about AI and game balance.



We already see that some concepts from EL are already feeding back into ES2, such as the change from FIDS to FIDSI.



I am assuming that there will be a change from a flat yes/no rare resources per turn to have an actuall accumulation/expenditure of these resources, which was an interesting mechanic in EL.



Here go some proposals for Natural & Endless Wonders which may give unique bonuses:





Endless



Solar Superhighways - a system of multiple massive space stations use mirrors to reflect and create a series of quasi-coherent light beams, which reflect concentrated light beams rotating clockwise and counterclockwise throughout the planetary system. Studying the patterns it became clear that this was a simple and elegant solution to harness the power of the star and make it abundantly available even in the farthest planets where the sun would gleam little more than any other star, and serve as an energy source for intra-system solar sail spaceships.

Retrofitting and reenabling this system allows 'domestic' (intra-system) travel almost for free.

+ per trade lane (because of solar sail luxury resort ships) per owned planet on constellation - bonus increases per owned system belonging to constellation

+ per trade lane on system.



Planetary Computer - A planet where almost the entirety of its surface was processed for the purpose of creating a massive supercomputer, power by the planet's core heat.

+ flat bonus (small)

+ % output on planet. (large)



Star Ray - Studies conclude that this is a variation of the Solar Superhighway technology for military purposes. The Solar beams are concentrated to an extent that they effectively fry ships in space, becoming very dangerous when focused.

+ flat bonus (small)

+ ower: on owned/allied ships on constellation (large) - half bonus on not-owned systems

- defense on enemy ships entering combat against owned/allied ships on constellation - half bonus on not-owned systems



Gravity Disruptors - these galactic tripwires detect and respond to warp drive resonance. Unless the ships are tuned to it, they suffer strong gravitational anomalies when warping, causing ship structural damage.

+ flat bonus (small)

+ damages all ships entering or leaving the system until restored

+ after restoration only owned/allied ships can travel undamaged.

+ after restoration ships can move again/get extra movement points in the same turn.



Endless Cornucopia - this vast superindustrial complex is almost completely autonomous. By feeding it with raw materials, it produces almost any exotic material.

+ flat bonus (large)

- :FIDS: per turn (small)

+ random strategic or luxury resource - changes every turn



Cosmic Eye - this endless construct is a star-sized space observatory which can monitor large distance with absolute precision.

+ on system

+ Can see all ship movement on constellation

+ Bonus influence area per owned system on constellation for all owned systems







Natural



Magnetic Nebula - The Nebula in the system interferes with ship navigation, which provides advantages and disadvantages.

+ % planetary defense

+ ship defense on defending fleet if owned system

- ship attack power for all ships (less accuracy)

- movement penalty if not owned



Fast Metabolytes - There's something about this planet's biome which makes all life grow faster and stronger.

planeraty bonuses:

+ % production

+ population grows faster

+ immune to Craver's depletion.



Excitocyn Atmosphere - "Excitocyn"is a word play with oxytocin created by an overenthusiastic scientist which identified that the reason this planet makes everyone happy is because there is an abundance of algae/bacteria which produce a very large amount of neurotransmitters and pheromones and disperse them in the atmosphere. This makes everyone happy and peaceful, and less prone to aggression. It is hypothesized that it is an advanced evolutionary defense trick. This planet eventually becomes a popular tourism attraction because of its "magical" atmosphere.

+ (large) - planet

+ (small) - system (because of tourism)

+ (system)

+ control ownership recovery

- enemy invasion power (large debuff)

Don't like these at all. The ones that affect ships and stuff feel like they're unbalanced and annoying, and almost all ones feel like their boni don't make sense, like why do quickly regrowing plants keep overexploitation from happening. Things like the Cornucopias effect don't have any use gameplay-wise. The solar superhighway boni don't make any sense, like seriously if you think about it that doesn't make any sense like why would you have to have giant space mirrors to use solar ships? First off that wouldn't make a difference if you had mirros in almost all situations the sun already goes everywhere and secondly energy requirement are way too high to use solar power in any significant way like you'd travel about as slowly as now FFS look at what the current sun based wonders do and the effects don't even fit with the wonder at all. Ohh and the Endless never had the capacity to build a NSA the size of a star, but if they had, it would probably be as OP as you propose it.

Overall, I have to say I'm really not a fan of all your wonder ideas.

Maybe not for you, but for me they do make sense.



At the end of the day, the descriptions are 'irrelevant'. What matters is to give the player a set of unique bonuses which have a chance of spawning in a planet/system/constellation.



Cornucopia may be strategically very interesting especially in the beginning of the game, since the player will start accumulating all resources, albeit at a slow pace. They are necessary to build certain items you know. In the previous game all that was needed was to have a constant supply of this or that resource. I am assuming that they will adopt the Endless Legends mechanic where it is actually a countable resource and will accumulate per turn.



Light emitted by a star is not coherent, and if it was all the same you would be able to use solar powered gadgets at night just as efficiently as you use during the day. making a coherent energy streak right at the source allows concentrated energy to travel with little to no dispersion by billions of kilometers. You need that to charge your iPhone on Pluto using a solar cell array. It just uses the energy as extra fuel for the ships.



The Death Ray is just like burning ants with a magnifying lens.



Besides, it's a game. The effects are supposed to be balanced to the levels of the previous wonders, providing variety and opportunities. That's why I didn't attempt to put in hard numbers.



Keep Cool and Hype Away.



If you feel like, provide better justifications for the effects, or devise new wonders!

Brazilian_Joe wrote:
Maybe not for you, but for me they do make sense.



At the end of the day, the descriptions are 'irrelevant'. What matters is to give the player a set of unique bonuses which have a chance of spawning in a planet/system/constellation.



Cornucopia may be strategically very interesting especially in the beginning of the game, since the player will start accumulating all resources, albeit at a slow pace. They are necessary to build certain items you know. In the previous game all that was needed was to have a constant supply of this or that resource. I am assuming that they will adopt the Endless Legends mechanic where it is actually a countable resource and will accumulate per turn.



Light emitted by a star is not coherent, and if it was all the same you would be able to use solar powered gadgets at night just as efficiently as you use during the day. making a coherent energy streak right at the source allows concentrated energy to travel with little to no dispersion by billions of kilometers. You need that to charge your iPhone on Pluto using a solar cell array. It just uses the energy as extra fuel for the ships.



The Death Ray is just like burning ants with a magnifying lens.



Besides, it's a game. The effects are supposed to be balanced to the levels of the previous wonders, providing variety and opportunities. That's why I didn't attempt to put in hard numbers.



Keep Cool and Hype Away.



If you feel like, provide better justifications for the effects, or devise new wonders!

The effects sound totally unbalanced though, even without hard numbers, which is why they're just as bad.



Especially for luxuries, the way it is right now(And hopefully will stay imo), having some of it 1 turn and something else is just totally useless.



Thats why I said almost all situations, because you're talking about space travel with that solar energy. Now obviously you could in theory mirror it to the dark sides of planets, but then again you could just use your heavy isotope refineries to be able to power your industry rather than just charge up your apple device on certain far-off dwarf planets.



Ants don't have energy shielding and armor and aren't supposed to operate in space though.

Sinnaj63 wrote:
Thats why I said almost all situations, because you're talking about space travel with that solar energy. Now obviously you could in theory mirror it to the dark sides of planets, but then again you could just use your heavy isotope refineries to be able to power your industry rather than just charge up your apple device on certain far-off dwarf planets.

I'm getting the impression your mixing up two concepts here. Yes, he mentioned solar power to supply planetary installations, but he specifically talked about Solar Sails when it came to space travel, which are a real experimental type of spacecraft propulsion.



Personally, I don't see anything glaringly wrong with any of his suggestions.

I think also that the Proposals are good, cause I imagine concentrated lightbeams with which you can vaporize materials to gas and shape it to a jet stream or the Radiationpressure by its own, additional to the normal inducement like walking on a escalator. and the normal space Momentum Conservation.

Planetary Computer sounds a little like Auriga but Space isn´t small.

Did you mean a Gravitational lens, with Cosmic Eye?

I think it´s Sensefull that you don´t make concrete Numbers for the bonuses cause its easier to integrate, when they can choose it by their own.

It's good that it's not only me who has a basic grasp of space flight concepts and understand what I am talking about in my suggestions.



I refrained from putting hard numbers because we still don't know too much about the current game mechanics, so my numbers could be completely off.



My assumptions are that the 2 games following Endless Space have made AS accumulate a wealth of knowledge about AI and game balance.



We already see that some concepts from EL are already feeding back into ES2, such as the change from FIDS to FIDSI.



I am assuming that there will be a change from a flat yes/no rare resources per turn to have an actuall accumulation/expenditure of these resources, which was an interesting mechanic in EL.



If that is not the case though, and the game followed the original ES design, my Cornucopia would indeed be useless, and would have to have a longer time until switching, such as 20-100 turns, or just have a different effect.

In some of the screenshots, like this one







we can see a resource counter similar to Endless Legend.

However, that is no guarantee the system works the same.