The Module Poll, Part Two, The Top Five Face Off!

[miah999]

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

[Semmy]

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

[Noxmutagen]

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.

[Noxmutagen]

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

[miah999]

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.

[mumblemumble]

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.

[miah999]

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.

[mumblemumble]

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.

[miah999]

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.

[SteveAdamo]

biomes!

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

[nomadseifer]

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. 

[Spike]

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?

[Noxmutagen]

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.

[miah999]

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.

[Ford_Prefect]

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.