Here are a few small aesthetic suggestions for the planet surfaces of colonized planets. Since they are solely aesthetic in nature and not as devastating as having lasers in form of bolts these suggestions are likely not yet important and rather something for later but I still think I should adress them.



Lava (Arid): Having cities on lava planets is fine but I don't think the citizens are that content with building their metropolis right into a see of burning lava. I think this should be fixed similar to the way cities are handled in ocean/terran worlds, hence that the lights of the cities won't appear on lava spots. Or optionally assign certain regions on the lava texture where cities can appear just don't put them right into the magma. What I'm talking about exactly:



This is the example I'm talking about. I made a red border to show where exactly the city is and a white border to show where it likely should be.



Something similar counts for arid planets, where cities are occasionally to be found in the few spots of water you can find there.



Ocean: The density of cities should be raised on ocean planets due to the low amounts of land, because often even on big ocean planets with full population no cites are seen anywhere on the few spots of land. Also maybe include some bigger boats on ocean worlds to represent floating cities.



Gas: As far as I've seen there's nothing to be found on colonized gas planets, I think they should have at least a few small floating platforms, just like in the description picture.



Asteroids: Again nothing so far, just a few tiny specs of structure would do good to show the colonization.

I was thinking about countering arguments and blablabla... but I agree for everthing in fact

About the platforms around gas planets, they should be not so big as the planets are supposed to be large and huge.

Photon_Ventdesdunes wrote:
I was thinking about countering arguments and blablabla... but I agree for everthing in fact

About the platforms around gas planets, they should be not so big as the planets are supposed to be large and huge.

Right, edited the sentence a tiny bit to represent that.

I agree with all of this except for the gas giants bit. I'm fine with not being able to see signs of habitation on gas giants. They're big, they're harsh, they have thick vision-blocking atmospheres. Not being able to see the floating platforms from space seems normal to me.

I was thinking the platforms would be above the atmoshpere of the gas giant. I don't think people would like to live IN the fog all their lives.

I was thinking they're floating around the entry of the atmosphere, deep enough to make use of the atmosphere and probably to be seen from space but high enough not to be bothered by the atmosphere.

KNC wrote:
I was thinking they're floating around the entry of the atmosphere, deep enough to make use of the atmosphere and probably to be seen from space but high enough not to be bothered by the atmosphere.

They could be living on the "ground" although unlikely. Gas giants tend to have things like Ice 7 as their solid core; formed by super-high pressures.

Wait, there are cities visible on the planets??? Levels of detail I haven't noticed.

werewolf_nr wrote:
Wait, there are cities visible on the planets??? Levels of detail I haven't noticed.

Yes.

For the platform, they can be above the gas and but have a big part of their structure inside to collect for example. They could be like iceberg. 1/10th visible and the rest under.

I figure colonies for the gas giants would be more along the lines of O'neill colony cylinders or other massive space stations

Cloud city from Starwars? People live and work in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, automated gas collection going on below, mining operation and supporting foundations down on the solid core.

We can suggest any type of platform. The devs will have more choices for the final decisions