Ludeon Forums

Well after a 100 votes in the first module poll here are the top five winners, pick you favorite, you only get one vote so think about it real hard.

Remember this is an unofficial poll and will not have a direct effect, but Tynan is watching these and may take them into consideration.

The original module poll for reference: http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=209.0 (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=209.0)

biomes to create diversity.

And remember guys tynan will add whatever tynan wishes to add d-;
But secretly i hope he takes polls more serious than the avarage goverment

I dont think this poll really makes sense, Biomes? What about weather effecting tiles? I dont understand, wouldnt that be a better feature? The videos I have seen show that maps are randomly or procedurally generated to begin with. Biomes sound fun but id rather have weather changing my map in real time than just biomes. But this too would be a hardcoded feature request. This poll is too limited imo.

Quote from: Semmy on October 20, 2013, 05:55:02 AM
biomes to create diversity.

And remember guys tynan will add whatever tynan wishes to add d-;
But secretly i hope he takes polls more serious than the avarage goverment

The poll cant be taken too seriously, if it was he should link it as an update to his kickstarter page considering:

5,000 Backers
$144,702 pledged of $20,000 goal

its only fair to ask everyone. buuuut most people will want to know why one is being worked on before the other

Quote from: Noxmutagen on October 20, 2013, 09:05:28 AM
I dont think this poll really makes sense, Biomes? What about weather effecting tiles? I dont understand, wouldnt that be a better feature? The videos I have seen show that maps are randomly or procedurally generated to begin with. Biomes sound fun but id rather have weather changing my map in real time than just biomes. But this too would be a hardcoded feature request. This poll is too limited imo.

This poll is an extension of the first module poll, and mentioned in the lead post. If you didn't read the discussion there then of course this doesn't make sense to you. All the other modules have been voted on and these are the top five, this is an effort to see which is the most popular. Nothing more nothing less. As I said before this is an unofficial poll.

Quote from: Noxmutagen on October 20, 2013, 09:05:28 AM
What about weather effecting tiles? I dont understand, wouldnt that be a better feature? The videos I have seen show that maps are randomly or procedurally generated to begin with. Biomes sound fun but id rather have weather changing my map in real time than just biomes.

Honestly this guy has a VERY good point with biomes, if a world has static, unchanging biomes then biomes could actually be very annoying. However if weather could change a landscape over time, that would make biomes more important, since the map is limited currently.

Otherwise biomes would be "Oh, you have an X biome world and you are stuck with it for all of this run".

on topic though, unless biomes was implemented how it was suggested above, I would have to say modding. Modding is NEVER bad.

Seasons are possibly doable, but with the way Tynan is implementing his draw calls redrawing every tile each time it rains would bring the average computer to its knees.

But this isn't really the thread for this.

Quote from: miah999 on October 20, 2013, 09:40:50 AM
But this isn't really the thread for this.

I'm aware...I was just pointing out that biomes WITHOUT this effect would be a very limited edition, since map size is finite. Meaning your entire world would only be one or 2 biomes. I get the feeling people aren't really considering this when they think about it.

I believe that it will only be one biome per map. I personally don't see the problem. Each different planet type will have different challenges, adding to replay-ability.

biomes! :D

and as noxmutagen pointed out, congratulations on 5k backer! :)

I'm just a bit confused by the anti-biome arguments.  Not that they are against biomes but that they think people don't really understand what they're getting.  A new biome means varied plants/animals that react in different ways with the colonists.  It also means potential climatic effects like freezing/heat-stroke, etc.  Do you think this is not what I would be getting? 

Also, Tynan said in the kickstarter comments that he won't be doing the modules based on direct polling but will be watching comments/polls in the forums and using his best judgment.  So hes not going to add this poll to the kickstarter and with GOOD reason.  If you put a simple little poll at the fingertips of 5000 people who don't care enough to visit the forums, you're just getting spur-of-the-moment opinions that are not really thought through.  And you're also implicitly binding yourself to the results.  You're also designing by consensus which is probably the worst thing any developer could ever do. 

So, basically, this poll is as official as its going to get. 

I'm for biomes as well.  It could add all kinds of variety and challenges - think about it from the standpoint of how it would tie in with various research & building priorities.  These are just some quick ideas:

Arid (current) - if water is added, that's going to be a tough need to fulfill.  Might also limit your population size, making it harder.
Polar - Freezing weather, need for heat.
Low atmosphere - Air filtration & circulation.
Jungle - Plants everywhere, fast plant growth.  Limited line of sight, making firefights more of a challenge.  Or do you spend the resources to pave everything in your killing ground?

Quote from: Spike on October 20, 2013, 01:36:22 PM
I'm for biomes as well.  It could add all kinds of variety and challenges - think about it from the standpoint of how it would tie in with various research & building priorities.  These are just some quick ideas:

Arid (current) - if water is added, that's going to be a tough need to fulfill.  Might also limit your population size, making it harder.
Polar - Freezing weather, need for heat.
Low atmosphere - Air filtration & circulation.
Jungle - Plants everywhere, fast plant growth.  Limited line of sight, making firefights more of a challenge.  Or do you spend the resources to pave everything in your killing ground?

I admit that this example makes some more sense. I can see different creatures with these biomes as well, especially the Jungle (Hehehe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnfDXznMf0E )

still, dynamic changes to your environment are pretty much the same ideas. I dont think it'd bring peoples PCs to their knees like you said. from the video footage ive seen alot of the map can change dynamically anyway the crops grow over time some trees and plants phase out automatically. and then weather is already there.

Quote from: Noxmutagen on October 20, 2013, 03:39:05 PM
still, dynamic changes to your environment are pretty much the same ideas. I dont think it'd bring peoples PCs to their knees like you said. from the video footage ive seen alot of the map can change dynamically anyway the crops grow over time some trees and plants phase out automatically. and then weather is already there.

The speed hit comes from redrawing tiles, the growing plants are sprites, and are less resource heavy. That said, right now overly large selections resulting in a large number of selection boxes is enough to slow most computers down significantly. I've been running build 221 for a while now, and too many hydroponic units can slow the game, as well as large herds of muffalo.

While I'm sure Tynan will improve performance a lot in the future, I still can't see drawing large numbers of map tiles dynamically any time soon.

Performance wise... if Tyran broke up the map image into sections and only redrew the sections that change would help with performance.  The added bonus is that you could make the maps much larger because you can have it not try to render images that are out of view.

Tynan posted on kickstarter (in the comments section) that although biomes are the most popular module right now, he would not be adding them first.

QuoteCreator Tynan Sylvester about 4 hours ago
@Trock - So dynamic biome changes really are integral to the concept of biomes, I think. I suppose I could make a simpler biome system that locks the world to be arctic or desert or whatever, but that seems a terrible waste. Making it dynamic allows things like seasons (snowy winter, green summer), and disasters like you're talking about (global nuclear winter). So it turns out that biomes are actually a really, really complicated system. For that reason they won't be the first module I tackle, even though they're the most requested.

Quote from: Ford_Prefect on October 21, 2013, 02:58:44 PM
Performance wise... if Tyran broke up the map image into sections and only redrew the sections that change would help with performance.  The added bonus is that you could make the maps much larger because you can have it not try to render images that are out of view.

Yes, this is the best way of doing it. And it's pretty much tested.

I wonder how hard it would be for Tynan to implement such a system?

If you're referring to a system that divides the map up into smaller sections, he does that already. I think he said they are 17x17 blocks.  Maybe. 

Why did you put up a second round for the poll, now people who just found out about the game can't vote for their favourite mod if it's not in the top 5 of only 100 people while there are more than 6000 backers... I also don't see why you need a "final" if you just keep all the options you will also have a winner right??

I vote faction relations.. eventhough not in the poll...

This poll was at the request of those that voted in the first, it's just for curiosity, it has no bearing on what Tynan will do. He's already said Archaeology will be his first module.

Moddability is extremely important, even if it's not so important in the short-term. There are games made ten years ago or more that are still being added onto by the modding community.

But in the short-term, yeah, biomes are the most important right away IMO.

Quote from: nomadseifer on October 22, 2013, 11:01:46 AM
If you're referring to a system that divides the map up into smaller sections, he does that already. I think he said they are 17x17 blocks.  Maybe.

Yes, the map is divided up into 17x17 sections. To save draw calls, non-moving meshes with matching materials are combined when the section is rebuilt, which happens any time any of these meshes change. So, for example, those 50 splashes of blood there are probably just a handful of draw calls (one for each material used). In the future this will be made more efficient by actually combining textures onto a big sprite sheet so we can draw every building, dirt chunk, food bit, and blood spatter in that 17x17 section in a single draw call. But that's to be done.

And obviously sections outside your view area aren't drawn.

Biomes will come later not because I don't want to do it, but because doing it now would be out of order. It's really a lot of content and features put together, and I want to get those foundational systems working well before I try to start playing with them on a mass scale like this. It would be easy to make a map with a snowy-looking ground, but making it snow dynamically, meltable snow, snow that cools a room it is in, and so on, requires a ton of new stuff which doesn't exist. That's why biomes won't come very soon, even though everyone wants them (including me). The game has to be more mature first.

Oh, so temperature modeling is something you do think you want to add? Air conditioning may very well be in our future? :)

Maybe a "Tynan's To-Do List" thread would be handy once the game is in players' hands. You could use it to let us know what to expect in the next few updates, and maybe help garner a few applicable ideas to slide in that synergize well with them.

Voted biomes

I feel that different areas, and the potential for different wildlife, weather, factions, events, etc. that comes with each, will definitely add the most variety and depth to the game

I personally think adding modability at an early stage is better than trying to implement it later. If you add this at an early stage it's usually far less work and might also allow the ability to mod it at an advanced level later. Giving the community the possibility to create content at early stages could also allow for great ideas to be implemented into the game later on.
Of course, I understand that he would do this after the crucial parts of the game are already working (like the relationships between the colonists, midgame scenarios and so on) and should actually be ready before modability. But this game would greatly benefit from this and therefore not be forgotten.