Building Port Tranquility

psycoticvulcan

I've been working on my latest project, a kind of spiritual successor to Star Trek Enterprise that places the player in command of the NX-07 in the months leading up to the Earth/Romulan War. One mission I have in mind for the project involves a major battle over a Lunar city, Port Tranquility.

What I've done so far is basically spam the Vault model all over a custom space map, arranged as prettily as possible, so that it looks like a huge cluster of skyscrapers sticking out of the Lunar surface. I'm still working out the arrangement (would like to somehow fit in a Starfleet shipyard building Daedalus-class cruisers) but overall I'm happy with it. Here's a picture of what I have so far:



The problem I'm having is, what happens when the player inevitably flies past all the Vault "skyscrapers" and finds the empty space beyond? Invisible walls might keep them from flying into it, but I don't see what I can do to prevent them from seeing it and breaking the immersion.

Any advice would be appreciated.

duncanidaho11

Walls should work (and ceiling, space ships can fly over things ) but you may also want to find some way of filling all the little gaps between Vault bases (looking down and finding clear space is also going to be an immersion problem.)

Point: does this city necessarily need to be in the open? Couldn't this city of yours, say, be build down in a crater? Could try using large asteroids to build up a wall around the edge of the city area (maybe with regularly spaced Risa satellites to give a buttressing effect.)

tacofangs

Congrats! You just discovered why we don't let you use jetpacks everywhere!

markhawkman

Haha! So true. I am one of the people who figured out how to climb on the roofs in Hathon mere days after it went live.

I can barely imagine the horrors that would be unleashed if we used floaters...

psycoticvulcan

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

Walls should work (and ceiling, space ships can fly over things ) but you may also want to find some way of filling all the little gaps between Vault bases (looking down and finding clear space is also going to be an immersion problem.)

Point: does this city necessarily need to be in the open? Couldn't this city of yours, say, be build down in a crater? Could try using large asteroids to build up a wall around the edge of the city area (maybe with regularly spaced Risa satellites to give a buttressing effect.)

The trouble with asteroids is they're so tiny compared to the rest of the map. I'll probably still use them to plug those holes you mentioned, but I can't imagine having enough assets to create gigantic crater walls. Besides, building 3D structures in a 2D editor is hard enough as it is.

I will play around with those satellites, though. Thanks for the tip.

duncanidaho11

psycoticvulcan wrote: »

The trouble with asteroids is they're so tiny compared to the rest of the map. I'll probably still use them to plug those holes you mentioned, but I can't imagine having enough assets to create gigantic crater walls. Besides, building 3D structures in a 2D editor is hard enough as it is.

I will play around with those satellites, though. Thanks for the tip.

You may ultimately have to go to a writing solution. It's a neat build idea but I don't think there's going to be any easy way to pull it off with as little as we have to work with (for this task) in space. If the problems get to be too much, I might just look at using the Sol System for your space sections (making whatever plot changes are necessary) and work on using ground maps to sell the Luna setting (Photonomy went that route) which should be a lot easier (Custom FED interior with windows looking out at map with moon rocks on it).

markhawkman

it's too bad there's no asset for a giant space dome like the one on the piece of Remus.

trennan

For the looking down part. If that becomes a problem, use the terradomes. They're fairly large, so you can add them as "It started as a this and turned in to this."

On the back ground part you're worried about them seeing. The empty space. On this, grab a quick count of how many objects you've used. If you still have some left over. You can always add in planetoids, nebulas, asteroid fields and such. This way, even if you do go with the invisible walls and all. The space is still filled and they aren't looking at empty space.

The shipyard idea is good. You'll just have to use the platforms to build it. This is where you're stations come in. Perhaps a few habitation ones set up for the platforms to be connected to. If you're wanting to do it and keep the same dark color scheme, the weapons platforms would most likely be the best option. Though giving the overall look of it. Mining platforms could work as well.