Solar System ERROR FIX v1.0.2 (w/ PSD files) [Quenched]

[maxdetjens]

PSD Files:
http://www.mikeablexray.com/content/conquerclubmaps/solarwar/solar_system-large.psd

http://www.mikeablexray.com/content/conquerclubmaps/solarwar/solar_system-small.psd

EDIT: I figured some of y'all might like to see my PSD files. Enjoy!

CURRENT --------




MAP TEST




67 Territories, 7 regions, 5 sub-regions, Alternating Jump Gate Bonus, Jump Gates Start with 3 Neutral Armies.

TEXT LINKS
http://www.mikeablexray.com/content/conquerclubmaps/solarwar/solar_system_v0.11.6-large.jpg

http://www.mikeablexray.com/content/conquerclubmaps/solarwar/solar_system-small_v1.0.2.jpg

MAP TEST
http://www.mikeablexray.com/content/conquerclubmaps/solarwar/solar_system_v0.11.6-large-test.jpg

http://www.mikeablexray.com/content/conquerclubmaps/solarwar/solar_system_v0.11.6-small-test.jpg

XML
http://www.mikeablexray.com/content/conquerclubmaps/solarwar/solar_system_v0.11.6.xml

ORIGINAL POST --------

50 Countries

I noticed that there weren't many space maps so I thought I'd try my hand.

The map is of our solar system and all the objects depicted are real. Well, except for the jump gates.

Paths and Layout
Space is full of unhindered space so It makes sense to have just about everything reasonably nearby accessible to everything else. Since the obvious result would be that planetary regions would be both hard to defend and kinda boring. So I made it so that the equatorial regions of planets are suitable for entering or returning from space. NASA and other space agencies launch vessels as close to the equator as is practical for some orbital reasons that I don't totally understand; so it seams somewhat sensible. In any case the regions are somewhat “over connected” but the sub regions (planet surfaces) are fairly easy to conquer and defend. Once conquered a major region can typically be held by posting a large force at the jump gate (more on them), So I’ll add some XML to combat turtling.

Jump Gates
Jump Gates are the standard teleporting dohoocky you've seen in countless science fiction. They are depicted on the map with slight outer glow (matching the region they are in) and are labeled JG-<region_code>. The jump gates would all be connected.

In this science fiction jump gates are newish technology and aren’t reliable. Depending on how many gates you hold they will either eat armies or clone them. This means that holding a jump gate could be costly or beneficial. This further means that taking a jump gate might you weaker and your enemy stronger. This should be enough to prevent jumpgates from being overly important as choke points.

What’s Left
I have a mess of stuff left to do.
* All the moons and planetoids are the same, they need to made different.
* I don’t like the look of the asteroid belt. I’d like to shape it to look more elliptical
* I’d like to expand the asteroid belt to contain all major asteroid families (I think there are 6 or so)
* My region bonuses will need to be tweaked.
* There is a problem with the rings of my Saturn graphic.
* My planets are translucent, I should have faded them instead.
* The paths and circles should be the same consistent level of grey/white and need to cleanly attach to each other.
* The Trojan and Greek camps may not look enough like elements of the Jupiter Region (but then again maybe they shouldn’t be)
* I might want to move Jupiter Saturn and the outer giants so that they are more in order and provide a non-gate path; allowing non-gate travel from mercury all the way to 136372. Though the sciency way would be to connect the hubs of each region. Essentially making most of them undependable. Though an alternative would be to connect the moons of the regions under the assumption that refueling at a moon is necessary for such long distance travel.

Well, Let me know what y’all think.

- Max

[DiM]

map ideas subforum

[edbeard]

It's very good for a first start I have to say


The "surface" bonuses might be confusing. You might want to distinguish the "surfaces" of the planets in some way so that players have no excuse that they could not tell where the "surface" is exactly. I realize it should be easy to tell, but sometimes it's best to treat everyone like a five year old (no offense to the five year olds here) and spell it out exactly for them.

How to do this? Maybe make the army circles different colour? Maybe everyone else thinks it's totally clear what it means.


The even bonus as negative and odd bonus as positive for the jump gates is very interesting. I'd like to say more about it, but I'm not sure what I think of it.

That's all I have for now.

[Bad Speler]

well, i'll tell you you have good graphic abilities.

- Both the grey lines and white ones look off at saturn and jupiter. Im not sure, but i think it has something to do with 3d planets and 2d lines.
- Try to include Eris, a dwarf planet farther then Pluto (it's the only dwarf planet you didnt put in) Also, it has a moon, I think it's name was Dysomnia but cant remember for sure.
- Make the jump gates look more different then the army circles
- The Eunoma family label in the asteroid belt also has a jumpgate label above it
- The title looks very squished in

Overall, good first draft

[riggable]

the bonuses for the warp gates are way too high. 16 armies per turn with a 50 territory map is an overload in my opinion.

[andreweberman]

"great red spot" isn't it called the Eye of Jupiter . Its a giant hurricane if I am not mistake that has at least 300 years old

[Schumi]

"great red spot" isn't it called the Eye of Jupiter .

Not that I've ever heard.

[Pious]

I like the jump gates, but the +16 for having all jump gates seems too strong since they can all attack each other. If the game were freestyle, and if someone had a card set (especially escalating) and a region or two, they'd be able to take all the jump gates from one spot and if they moved fast to the next turn, they'd have +16 and almost win the game. Not too improbable.

Saturn's ring doesn't encircle it. You may want to fix that.

And you left out Eris, a dwarf planet. That's been said before but is a big omission for a Solar System map.

[gimil]

map ideas subforum

DiM...Shut up

just because the ideas forum bitched you lol

[Keredrex]

Looks great but the Jump Gate bonuses are a bit high.... Try this
1=-1, 2=1, 3=-2, 4=2, 5=-3, 6=3, 7=4

[JupitersKing]

I like this map at first glance. The first thing I notice however is that it is a bit 'busy.' By that I mean there is a lot of information on the screen and a lot of different areas. Try to make them a bit smaller so they'll stand out from each other a bit more.

EDIT:> By smaller I mostly mean Jupiter and Neptune/Uranus need to be smaller. Which means probably Saturn too, for proportion.

Also, in general I don't like the negative bonus idea and can't see why it would be applied here... To conquer map spaces and to be penalized for it somehow goes against the object of the game to me. It also seems to penalize a player that pushes out his border but doesn't yet have the strength to knock out an opponents stronghold. This player, already "weaker" than his opponent is further weakened by a bonus schedule that is working against him. I agree with the bonuses being too high also.

JK

PS: I think you are in serious copyright violation... the word "Jupiter" in any form, and it's likeness, are trademarks of 7th Cav Productions.

[JupitersKing]

Also Saturn is misspelled on the map itself but not the ledger.

I spotted that one... but please recheck your spellings on all the labels to make sure.

JK

[OnlyAmbrose]

Seems a little cramped to me, but I love the concept

[onbekende]

Love astronomy, will certainly look after this one

[The Random One]

I really like the idea, and your map looks good, but I don't like how the rocky planets (Earth, Mars etc.) are a single territory and the gas giants are each continents. I feel that in the future the rocky planets will have more variety in them than the gas giants, which will require completely different technology to build on. Then again, the map might get too crowded if every planet was a continent, so I'll respect your idea.

I don't like having jumpgates as the only connection between regions, even if it makes astrological sense - they're begging to become bottlenecks, and I hateses bottlenecks.

Still, good idea, I'd love to see it go through. Keep it up!

[Steel Panzer]

look good but it need a lot of work

[thegeneralpublic]

How does that one intersection in Jupiter work?

[maxdetjens]

Apologies, I didn't realize this original post got moved so I've been working on it and have overwritten the first prototype. Such a dweeb! In any case the picture you see is the "new" prototyupe. I haven't had a chance to look over the comments yet but rest assured I'll be considering all your input carefully. Thank you!

[Kaplowitz]

its so hard to see.....

[maxdetjens]

I’m tracking the following issues.

I like the idea of distinguishing the surface bonuses. Perhaps a thin line around the circle? Then I can make a legend key on the space I have on the sun.

I’ll defiantly add Eris. I’m not sure about adding its moon. I was tending to only add moons and other bodies larger than 150Km circumference. Though I have already made an exception for Ceres. The only other reason to leave the moon off is to keep the kuiper belt from getting too big. I’ll think on it and probably will acquiesce

In a previous version I had put a jump gate in the eunoma family of asteroids figuring that there should be room (though an unpredictable debris field is a dumb place to have a piece of fancy equipment) that has been resolved by making the jump gate the connector that makes the belt a circle.

The jump gates are now white (and not part of any region) hopefully this is enough to distinguish them. If not give me some suggestions on how to cool them up. Perhaps a floating space gate graphic of some kind? I don’t want to get too cluttered, but I certainly understand the concern.

The title is kinda lame the way it is. It will need some lovin.

I think the Great Red Spot is also called the Eye of Jupiter. Though the mechanics of its function are unlike a hurricane. It has been seen for at least 300 years but is likely far older. For a while it was three storms but now is one (I think). In any case is there a strong preference for one name or the other?

Saturn’s Rings is all screwed up

Saturn is misspelled in a few places.

The graphics are fuzzy

It needs a lot of clean up especially on the routes. The line drawing tool in Photoshop is primitive so I’ll probably toss out all the routes and redraw them in Illustrator. I like the look of the lines but they are a bit overwhelming so I will experiment with thinner and dotted lines.

The one way arrows from high to low orbit look ridiculous.

The moons need to me images that are at least the correct color.

The Kuiper Belt objects need to be more distinctive.

Saturn needs to be moved to the right a bit.

I need to check my spelling of Kuiper (and probably a few other things)

The colors are faded as an artifact from Photoshop

I have some dead space on the Sun which could be filled.

Some of the name labels need to be adjusted

There is a missing chunk from the rings of Saturn

General fit and finish

7th Cay Productions: Do what you feel is right to protect your “Jupiter”. I will fight you in court under the notion of prior art. :)

The map is busy. I might well need to lessen the size of the planets. But before I do that I want to try making the lines thinner.

I understand the desire to expand the area on the inner planets. But I’m running out of room. I know I could add hemispheres (or continents for earth) but It seems like it would be a jumbled mess. I think the best bet is to acknowledge the inherent coolness of planets like Mars and encourage the development of separate maps.

A prior version has some regions only connected with jump gates. That’s gone you can now travel without them and it still seems plausible (at least as plausible as jump gates).

A prior version didn’t have high and low orbits. So some of the intersections were open and universal. That has been changed.

The Bonuses for regions will need adjustment. I’m looking for suggestions. I was going to roughly look at how many choke points need to be held and base the number on that.

I’ll address Jump gates and the bonus structure in a separate post.

[maxdetjens]

From my notes:

Routes not borders – Most maps use borders to define movement possibly. I couldn’t show the solar system in scale and still make it playable or interesting. As such I decided to simply draw the acceptable routes. This allows the map to have an abnormally interconnected nature and freedom of movement (like actual space).

Plausible Fiction – The map layout and especially the routes are laid out in what I perceive to be a plausible reality within a few generations of technology. Examples: Only equatorial regions are suitable for accent and decent from orbit on a gas giant. High to low orbit moves are one way reflecting the need for a refueling on a moon after a launch from the ground. Travel from one moon to another necessitates travel through some orbit.

[Bigfalcon65]

retarted

[maxdetjens]

On Jump Gates: My original conception

Jump Gates – The notion of a jump gate isn’t new but the bonus structure is unique. In this fiction jump gates are a volatile technology that either consumes or clones armies. Loss or gain is determined by sympathetic harmonics; that is to say adding or subtracting one gate from your holdings alternates the polarity. The more you hold the more severe the effect. Strategically I think it will make for some wild swings towards the end game, much like escalating cards do but more based on skill.

I’m sure many are concerned about the size of the gate bonuses. That’s probably fair and I’ll probably go with the bonus structure recommended by Keredrex:
1=-1, 2=1, 3=-2, 4=2, 5=-3, 6=3, 7=4
Or something like
1=1 2=-2 3=3 4=-4 5=5 6=-6 7=7
But no bigger.
What I really want is a way to make the end game have that wide swing of escalating cards but more skill based (less about the luck of cashing in on a set of five and then getting the one card you need to make the next set of three) I figured the swapping bonuses would get me that.

A concern is that a player might just gun for the gates the whole time. I think it would probably be hard to hold all 7 of them with the few armies you might have at the outset. Further if in your quest for gates you get the wrong number it will be very hard for you the next turn. Also a lot of players will be contesting you for it (think south America and Oceana)

As far as mechanics go, does anyone know what happens if your normally entitled to say 3 armies but you have a -4? Is it zero? Or -1? And what would happen if you put a -1 on a territory that only had 1?

Some just don’t like negative bonuses. I think it adds something. It adds a whole new level of strategic concern. If your trying to beat someone and taking a gate will make you weaker an them stronger that’s a big concern. What if taking the gate makes you both weaker or both stronger? In multiplayer games it might be very smart to figure out how to share the gates. Who owns them might determine whether the whole team is weaker or stronger. I like it. I’d love to hear more of your thoughts.

[maxdetjens]

retarted

Can I get deeper input?

[Bigfalcon65]

just another plain space map to me usinag our solar system only, i wanna get some star trek battles goin on, inter galactic