In some of the original design documents we had (if I recall correctly) the possiblity of 0 to 4 or 5 moons per planet. But this caused a few problems:

- Display / GUI clutter

- Lore (how many moons do you need to build one temple...?)

- Micromanagement of moon expeditions (Endless Space: Moon Grinding!)

- Gameplay balance for potential moon bonuses



So we ended up with an option that may be less astronomically accurate, but that we think makes the gameplay better. Hopefully in the game you guys will feel we made the right decision...

Nosferatiel wrote:
Just a little question for the details, regarding:







If I understand those anomalies correctly, bonuses could hugely affect early gameplay. If you could settle on a garden eden planet with your first colony ship, it might give you a serious headstart. Or your enemy.

Is the distribution of those very special and very rare bonuses handled completely randomly or are you planning to do it like:







, so you're going to pick a treshhold-value for a minimal distance to starting points, not present in starting constellations or anything like that to ensure balancing?

it is indeed a problem for some players, and we plan to give the player's control over the randomization of the universe ranging from full random to fully mirrored between players. Playing in single player I love the full randomness, but as for multiplayer I like to limit it a bit. we also have some control on starting location randomness, and some faction settings can allow you choose specific anomalies in your starting system.



this is not yet implemented, so please consider it still on our todo list.

SpaceTroll wrote:
it is indeed a problem for some players, and we plan to give the player's control over the randomization of the universe ranging from full random to fully mirrored between players. Playing in single player I love the full randomness, but as for multiplayer I like to limit it a bit. we also have some control on starting location randomness, and some faction settings can allow you choose specific anomalies in your starting system.



this is not yet implemented, so please consider it still on our todo list.

One word for this: A W E S O M E!!

You really show the true colors of MP-play. However ^^. How will turn-advantage be handled? Are there many major advantages of going first or last? In some games there are different ways to handle this and im interested in how its handled here.

SpaceTroll wrote:
it is indeed a problem for some players, and we plan to give the player's control over the randomization of the universe ranging from full random to fully mirrored between players. Playing in single player I love the full randomness, but as for multiplayer I like to limit it a bit. we also have some control on starting location randomness, and some faction settings can allow you choose specific anomalies in your starting system.



this is not yet implemented, so please consider it still on our todo list.

Very nice! My issues about random locations are at rest, then. If everyone is responsible for balancing, himself, by tuning the starting parameters, a few checkboxes for most common starting sets would be a nice addition.



The best about this system is, though, that there will surely be a vivid discussion about which starting parameters are best for starters or a serious challenge and this will surely increase replayability a lot.

The games looking well developed, but just one question, how many gigabytes will the game take up?

HALOFIRE9000 wrote:
The games looking well developed, but just one question, how many gigabytes will the game take up?

Odds are when pre-ordering is available all that information will be released since the pre-order comes with a beta pass. But for right now no information has been released about the specs of the game.

This game sounds like it will be absolutely amazing. The only thing I don't like about this section is the "up to 1 moon" per planet. I can understand why we wouldn't want to have to search 40 moons in a solar system but in real life planets have more moons. Rocky planets in closer orbits to the sun have less moons so one moon per planet would work there. The gas giants in our solar system all have a lot of moons. So maybe gas type planets could have the possibility of up to 3 moons to make it feel more real. Just my thoughts.

jjhappel wrote:
This game sounds like it will be absolutely amazing. The only thing I don't like about this section is the "up to 1 moon" per planet. I can understand why we wouldn't want to have to search 40 moons in a solar system but in real life planets have more moons. Rocky planets in closer orbits to the sun have less moons so one moon per planet would work there. The gas giants in our solar system all have a lot of moons. So maybe gas type planets could have the possibility of up to 3 moons to make it feel more real. Just my thoughts.

True, but wouldn't the Endless only build one arbiter station per planet, maximum? 40 moons doesn't mean 40 moon temples, I think.

Nosferatiel wrote:
True, but wouldn't the Endless only build one arbiter station per planet, maximum? 40 moons doesn't mean 40 moon temples, I think.

That is true but imo the planets should still have more then one search-able moon with only one of them having a Endless Temple or none at all on that planet. You would just have to search through them till you found the right one or found a bunch of empty moons. Just makes it more realistic to me since we would not know what moon out of many to search without searching.

jjhappel wrote:
That is true but imo the planets should still have more then one search-able moon with only one of them having a Endless Temple or none at all on that planet. You would just have to search through them till you found the right one or found a bunch of empty moons. Just makes it more realistic to me since we would not know what moon out of many to search without searching.

One of the reasons the devs made it "up to 1" could be cause if they put say up to 3-4 moons it's going to consume a lot of time searching moons, instead of focusing on your planets. I like it that way besides if you want to go realistic you should put a dozen moons to gas giants, imagine a dozen gas giants each with a dozen moons... man am I playing a 4x game or an archeology one

Raptor wrote:
One of the reasons the devs made it "up to 1" could be cause if they put say up to 3-4 moons it's going to consume a lot of time searching moons, instead of focusing on your planets. I like it that way besides if you want to go realistic you should put a dozen moons to gas giants, imagine a dozen gas giants each with a dozen moons... man am I playing a 4x game or an archeology one

That is true spending a lot of time searching moons would kinda suck but adding say 2-3 moons per planet and reducing the time it takes to build the search would keep the amount of turns searching down while still providing a more realistic notion then all planets either have 0 or 1 moon. another option would be to have a solar system limit of 6 (max now 1 moon each planet on a 6 planet solar sytem) but with the possibility of say 2 or even 3 of them being on one planet. I would not want true realism because that would be to many as i said in my first post. just some more variation that would allow for a planet showing multiple moons.

Since the moon system is an on/off thing (either there is a moon or no), I'd personally consider it like the planet merely has the property of having moons, if it's "on", i.e. either it has no moon, or it has an unspecified number of moons. Basically:



0 moons: This planet have no moons

1 "moon": This planet has moons (but of an unspecified amount)



Whether or not it'll actually be like that, I'll consider it like that when playing at least :P. Maybe they can add a flavor stating the number of the moons the planet has but they'd still be treated as a single property, meaning when you'd search for a temple, you'd search on all the moons. Eventually a system where the number of moons would affect the time/cost it would take searching them.



Oh, and, since it's theorized that some moons can hold life: Would it be plausible to add a chance that a gas giant can have a colonizeable satelite (which would technically only be an additional planet, but listed and considered a moon of said gas giants. It would, typically, be considered a small/dwarf-sized planets (a few rare moons might be Earth-sized, for comparison).



Will star types affect other things? Such as higher radiation from a more energy-rich star affecting shields/targeting/etc., especially if close to said star?



Have you considered adding Dyson Spheres as "star types"? They could be remnants of ancient civilizations, or buildable by yourself at the apex of of your technology. Basically counting as MASSIVE colonizable stars (if remnants of an ancient civilization, one would need relevant technology to access/colonize it, naturally). They would, of course, render every other planet in said system uncolonizable (due to lack of solar radiation). A Dyson Swarm or Dyson Ring could also be more plausible constructs, giving bonuses to the existing star type.

Raptor wrote:
One of the reasons the devs made it "up to 1" could be cause if they put say up to 3-4 moons it's going to consume a lot of time searching moons, instead of focusing on your planets. I like it that way besides if you want to go realistic you should put a dozen moons to gas giants, imagine a dozen gas giants each with a dozen moons... man am I playing a 4x game or an archeology one

I'm not too keen on the 'one moon' approach tbh although I wouldn't want to search through them all so perhaps having multi-moons could be cosmetic rather than impact on gameplay?

Boygor wrote:
I'm not too keen on the 'one moon' approach tbh. I wouldn't want to search through them all so having multi-moons could be cosmetic rather than impact on gameplay?

There's the Moon Survey Party planetary improvement that should make it easier to explore moons, I guess without requiring too much focus from the player.

Raptor wrote:
There's the Moon Survey Party planetary improvement that should make it easier to explore moons, I guess without requiring too much focus from the player.

It kinda reminds me of all that mundane planet scanning in Mass Effect 2 from the way this is being described. I do like the idea of sending out expeditions into uncharted space searching for artefacts though rather than confine things to moon surveys...

Slowhands wrote:
The Endless only built their temples and observation bases on moons because of two major environmental catastrophes in their history.



With their original homeworld, and again with an Eden-like planet called Kyros, the Endless's exploitation of the planet wiped out those worlds' ecosystems and rendered them uninhabitable. In reaction to that, they made it a civil and moral law to observe planets as non-invasively as possible, and only settle or colonize them after decades of analysis and sustainability testing. For that reason, observation stations and local outposts are almost entirely located on nearby moons. On the rare occasions where settlements were built, artifacts from the time of the Endless can sometimes be found. However, in keeping with their principles of sustainability, there is little hope of finding lost cities and large expanses of ruins; after a certain period of vacancy they would slowly disassemble.



As a result, in Endless Space most of the ruins and nascent civilizations that are discovered have nothing to do with the Endless, or they are accidental by-products of their passage and observation.

Moon temples because of the sustainability, it makes sense. Good idea. ;-)

Slowhands wrote:
Endless Space: Moon Grinding!

Hey that could be an excellent digging simulator! Imagine "NASA and ESA preparing astronauts for the Moon and Mars with Amplitude Studios' ES: Moon Grinding!"

Slowhands wrote:
So we ended up with an option that may be less astronomically accurate, but that we think makes the gameplay better. Hopefully in the game you guys will feel we made the right decision...

As much as I like the idea of keeping things "realistic" (Hey, wait a minute. Planets are not the same size as stars. What gives??), in the reality of gameplay it doesn't always work out well.



Making choices that make for a much better game rather than for a little more realistic is definitely a good call.

Thanks for taking time to reply to my thought. I will take your word for it that it was need for better game play. Since i have not played it yet. lol. Plus i wouldn't want a feature that is more realistic if it makes game play worse. Look forward to seeing how it all comes together. Thanks for developing a 4x space game for us.

Llama_Guy wrote:
Since the moon system is an on/off thing (either there is a moon or no), I'd personally consider it like the planet merely has the property of having moons, if it's "on", i.e. either it has no moon, or it has an unspecified number of moons. Basically:



0 moons: This planet have no moons

1 "moon": This planet has moons (but of an unspecified amount)



Whether or not it'll actually be like that, I'll consider it like that when playing at least :P. Maybe they can add a flavor stating the number of the moons the planet has but they'd still be treated as a single property, meaning when you'd search for a temple, you'd search on all the moons. Eventually a system where the number of moons would affect the time/cost it would take searching them.



Oh, and, since it's theorized that some moons can hold life: Would it be plausible to add a chance that a gas giant can have a colonizeable satelite (which would technically only be an additional planet, but listed and considered a moon of said gas giants. It would, typically, be considered a small/dwarf-sized planets (a few rare moons might be Earth-sized, for comparison).



Will star types affect other things? Such as higher radiation from a more energy-rich star affecting shields/targeting/etc., especially if close to said star?



Have you considered adding Dyson Spheres as "star types"? They could be remnants of ancient civilizations, or buildable by yourself at the apex of of your technology. Basically counting as MASSIVE colonizable stars (if remnants of an ancient civilization, one would need relevant technology to access/colonize it, naturally). They would, of course, render every other planet in said system uncolonizable (due to lack of solar radiation). A Dyson Swarm or Dyson Ring could also be more plausible constructs, giving bonuses to the existing star type.

This is how I see it too really. Either you have a moon or you dont.

And even if one has to invest X turns to explore the moon(s) then its most likely just as easy to send 5 crews of 5ppl aswell as 1 crew with 5 ppl

If you have populated a world with say a billion ppl then that shouldnt be much of a problem. And on a global scale thats not even much in terms of resources and money.

Id just say the moon(s) have been explored this and that and it has this and that effect or whatever you can do at or with the moon.



I like the Dyson idea too.