Function Part Discussion

^Sounds good^

But makes me think, maybe just have a coded barrier that goes further out from the coastline as you upgrade your technology, then disappears when the barrier shrinks to a certain size?

For the first release indeed usefull to keep it simple.
But for the real part, it would more depend on the curvature of the planet and the horizon and how high the mountains are. Its not nessesary, to see what exactly there is, only where the land mass is so you can orientate yourself on it. But i have to agree with your suggestion to keep it more simple. Otherwise the development would take longer as our lifespans. :/

The height of the mountains doesn't affect how far out to sea your ships can go. I agree with Doctor, having a preset barrier of some certain depth, that would extend with technology and be traversible with the proper function parts.

Yeah thats more or less what I had in mind.

So I think the increments should be:

500m
1500m
3500m
5000m

Each one would be unlocked by a different tech. However, we need to scale these to the size of the planets in Thrive, so does someone know how large the average Thrive planet is compared to Earth? How many times smaller?

I just came back from a trip, so expect activity as usual from me starting from tomorrow.

Nick- So, 500m would be available as soon as you discover boating, 1500m would be seafaring, 3500m would be compass, and 5000m would be what?

Actually where you put compass is navigation, and the last one will have to be a modern tech that makes basically any ocean safe on a planet. Compass itself only affects LoS for naval units. However, we will have to scale these depths to the size of the planet.

I dont really know about that travel restriction idea. I think that storms, diseases, lack of morale and similiar would already stop player from sailing far away. It just looks unrealistic to have a invisible wall on sea, like sea monster in Spore. :| 

Storms aren't ever present, and those other factors won't affect ships (there won't be morale).

One of the reason i gave the idea with the visibility to the mainland. Possible, that something like this will be added later on. But for now its important to keep things simple to be able to create a first version of the game. After the game is released, i think it will gain knowledge and the modding community will add a lot, because of the open source model. But until then its a long way.

I agree with William, the sea in thrive shouldn't be there to taunt you. We should be able to swim out of sea, regardless of how long it would take.

Its not a question of length of time, its a question of being able to or not being able to go to certain types of seas. Deep ocean served as a natural barrier to ships for many centuries, and we are simulating that through the tech unlock system for different depth ranges, as we do not have a simulation of all the forces that would normally stop a ship from going to deep ocean (or destroy it in doing so). Its the same reason why we put predefined limits to the altitude a certain plane can fly at, because we do not have a real time full scale physics simulation in the game world.

NickTheNick wrote:

Its not a question of length of time, its a question of being able to or not being able to go to certain types of seas. Deep ocean served as a natural barrier to ships for many centuries, and we are simulating that through the tech unlock system for different depth ranges, as we do not have a simulation of all the forces that would normally stop a ship from going to deep ocean (or destroy it in doing so). Its the same reason why we put predefined limits to the altitude a certain plane can fly at, because we do not have a real time full scale physics simulation in the game world.

That makes sense.

How are we going to making scaling the depth relative? The only thing that I could think of is that we take the deepest point of the planets ocean, and make the first limit be 25% of the distance between the lowest point and the water level, the second 50%, the third 75% and the last make it possible to go to any depth.

Anyone got more ideas?

No, I said to scale those caps to the size of the average planet in Thrive, not to make them relative to the planet. We need to determine how many times smaller an average Thrive world is to Earth, and then mutliply that by each depth limit.

12.7 km's in diameter, at least that's what Seregon said. Since earth is approximately 12,700 km's, that means that we are on a scale of 1:1000. Of course, that would be an earth-sized planet in Thrive, you could still have larger or smaller ones too.

So, how would this formula go? Anyone have ideas?

That would mean 0.5 meters would be the first cap, which I think is ridiculous, so we will have to remodel the depth of oceans compared to the size of the planet. Let's just keep these caps the way they are now, and once we have a prototype out of an average Thrive planet, we can scale them accordingly.

That is exactly why I asked for more ideas. I tried to make my own formula, and I guess we both tried to do the same thing when making the formula and got a small number.

Also, yes, keep these standard caps until we get actual planet sizes.

Remember to update Housing on the OP.

EDIT: Also, how will we determine the max speed an "n" amount of oars would reach? It would have to factor in both the force exerted per oar, and the mass of the vehicle, and the liquid medium.

Oh yes, thanks for reminding me.

I just wanted to say, this thread may seem dead now, but once I get back, I plan to get back into posting here as much as I can. I have a lot of ideas for Function Parts.

To help speed up the discussion on this thread, here are some FP's I filled out concept for.

Crafting Space

Structure – Must have minimum dimensions of 3x4x2m. Every further 24m^3 of volume enables an additional process. Executes processes at half the normal time. Crafts any Tech Object not tagged as a “Structure”.

Sentry Post

Structure – Has triple the line of sight other structures have. Garrisons three units per every 3x3x2m rectangular prism that fits inside the shape it takes. Garrisoned units have only a 35% chance of being hit, with 65% of hits damaging the Sentry Post instead. Units garrisoned inside the Sentry Post can only make ranged attacks.

Statue

Structure – Gives +1 bonus to Culture* regardless of shape or material. Can be shaped or fashioned in any way.

Shrine

Structure – Gives a +4 bonus to Culture per every 8m^3 of volume. Minimum dimensions of 2x2x2m.

Sacrificial Altar

Structure – Gives a +2 bonus to Culture, a +5 bonus to Stability, a -1 penalty to Happiness, and a -0.05% penalty to Pop Growth per every 8m^3 of volume. Minimum dimensions of 2x2x2m.

*All bonuses apply to the specific SC it is located in unless otherwise stated.

Structures are the easiest one to do (I find), so I'm trying to get them all done first before moving on to the others.

Just one question, how would we calculate how long an FP takes to construct. My idea would be that every FP takes a certain time to make, and every time you add a new FP the time it takes to make the TO would be increased by that amount.

Updated the OP.

@Nick

These look great.

Tarpy wrote:

Just one question, how would we calculate how long an FP takes to construct. My idea would be that every FP takes a certain time to make, and every time you add a new FP the time it takes to make the TO would be increased by that amount.

That is something to discuss soon, but it will be mostly predefined (while at the same time factoring in the densities of the materials it was made from). Mass will be replacing Construction Cost, so heavier TO's will take more work to make.