Space age: Space rework -> space is a surface

[Green Cat]

There are tons and tons of issues with what i am about to suggest. So i hope everyone understand that there is no need to point them out, after all, if someone actually implements this in the game, they will know the best what is actually possible and what not. I only want to share the ideea.

The ideea is about the space itself, no the space ships (or whatever they are called).

If you are in map editor, the space is a surface... a different surface for each space ship. And this is what I don't get. Why are we not having just 1 single surface but with all space ships?

Now, imagen you see a tank on the map, well, mutiple of them. They are there. They can be turned and moved. But if you open the tank, you have an inventory.

Well the ideea is this simple. The space ships are on the surface (that is all a 2d Space) like tanks. They can move everywhere since it's a surface. Going to plants is like giving them the comand to automatically go there. And when we open the tank, not only do we have an inventory, but also an equipment grind. And this is what got me the ideea. You open the space ship: you are seeing the space ship we have right now in game. Everything regarding fire power, speed, and similar, to work exactly how the grid works for tannks. And of course, fuel and such. IIRC there is a mod that allow you to create a factory insite a building. Well that's the ideea. Asteroids and such are moving freely in space just how the bitters are. Due to all space ships being on one surface, you can make exchanges stuff between (a new building will be needed for this. OR add trains. And just combine the trains. There is a mod to addd trains on space ship. It's amazing!).

Planets are essentially stations.

On the ideea that the asteroids are like enemies and the space ship is like a tank: you can control the space ship like you control a remote tank, and avoid the asteroids, meaning you might get to later planets if you are carfull and invest time to navigate, heck, even without any fire power if you are skilled enough.

For the space ships themself, it's a simple matter of adding a sqare for each. So if i create a vertical long space ship, on the map it will look like a long demolisher. Except, it won't be able to bend. And this also brings in the ideea that finally we can be more flexible and add thruser on the side, after all, you are turning (roatating) the space ship.

So yeah, once again, i know there are tons and tons of issues with this ideea. I just wanted to share the ideea because that would make the space feel more realistic (even if it's still just in 2D, i mean, did you never wonder what's under the space ship?)

And despite this being a surface with all the space ships on it, what exist in the game, aka a surface per ship, won't change, including when traveling, you need to destroy asteroids.

[eugenekay]

If you are in map editor, the space is a surface... a different surface for each space ship. And this is what I don't get. Why are we not having just 1 single surface but with all space ships?

The simple Technical Implementation reason is that each Platform Hub starts at position 0,0 (center of Map coordinates). Moving a given Platform between “space locations” or handling increased platform speed is implemented by changing the surface-wide Asteroid Spawn rate. Reducing the Platform bounding box in order to fit multiple platforms on the same Surface would break existing unreasonably-large ships, never mind the difficulty of trying to Migrate setups. Handling the de/spawning of Asteroids in the void spaces between ships would have performance implications. Having multiple ships on the same Surface would cause signal collision problems for Radars’ signal transmission feature. Production statistics would be merged for all Platforms… the list goes on.

If it helps with the immersion you could picture each Platform’s space surface as being above/below the other Platforms in a 3D layer-cake of different orbits.