Heliospear

You're absolutely right. Before 200 years or so it was a completely different world and society. I would love to see the world today being free from fossil fuels. But we can think of solar, water, wind, geothermal or even fusion energy in a game like this.

Hi NQ, I think your have a great game already. I enjoyed it and it gives lots of opportunities to create and build stuff. This part of the game is working very well. You miss player interaction? As long as ores are plenty, there is no need to interact, schematics or not. If there is a limit of resources, struggle and powerplay starts. Some more thoughts: if you want to commit yourself to a game like this and its mechanics, you want to have an idea what you can expect, because it can and should be a long lasting experience. When it comes to the "civilization" aspect, I'm wondering what you guys think a civilization actually is... just things? Buildings, Ships and industries? That's a very limited and sad vision. A civilization is its culture, what comes for it's environment, it's stories, it's inventors and it's visionaries. And it's not on a developer to decide what the peoples vision has to be. Deal with the fact that you gna have very different intentions and visions and that the players will strive and fight for them, if they can do it on a "fair" and leveled playing field. If you want to give the player the opportunity to build a new civilization, you have to decide what is a civilization made of? What technological level are you dealing with? If we are talking about a futuristic realm, at the very first you have to define the energy on which the whole thing is running on. Everything else has to be related, limited and defined by energy, its disitribution and allocation. This will bring a cost to every produced item, the more energy is needed the higher the cost will be, beyond the ores. People could make income by just producing energy, selling it to a nearby factory or city for example. Just by a certain limit of energy generation you give the people a reason to deal with each other. If the state of technology provides you with nanotech, every singe item shall be recycled to its basic elements and reconfigured. Does the nanosuit provides you with food and water? It could give the game a very immersive gameplay, if you have to deal with other basic needs that just having fuel or a new engine. You have vast but empty planets and their surfaces are just there to place static cores and move some dirt? How does there different environment effect your gameplay beyond gravity? Do I have to deal with temperature, pressure, radiation or meteroids? What a wasted gift. If just the plants have a reason to be there, it would be amazing. Not talking about computing wildlife. I don't have to hunt deer of breed sheep in a space game. But different Biomes could have a purpose, providing different kind or amount of resources and energy. Equitorial tiles could have strong solar and high biomass, arctic tiles provide freshwater or special ores. Lunar regolith could provide isotopes enriched by cosmic radiation. Different environments force you to distribute, trade and simply move stuff for a reason. Every place should have it's special purpose and reason to go there :) cheers and keep the good stuff coming :)