[BB4] Geoscape Suggestions

[Koriel]

Graphical Design:
First, I have to start by saying that when it comes to the geoscape, I much prefer the original design from the crowdfunding campaign. Even the concept from the 30th August 2017 blog post looks better. The current one is a little too dark and smudgy and the exploration site icons don’t blend nicely. Also the textures and icons either seem too low resolution or are stretched too much, as they look quite bad at default size and absolutely awful when zooming in. I’m playing with a 1440p resolution and graphics set to fantastic.

Exploration Sites & Havens:
When starting a new game, there seem to be too many sites available in the starting area (I assume this is for testing purposes). Even so, there’s too many randomly generated havens with no interaction or events attached to them and too few combat sites. Also, the currently implemented events feel dull, and the background images are so damn pale looking that it removes even the interest of reading whats below them.

In my opinion, havens should be very rare, so that you have an interest in trying to play nice with all those you find so you can get access to their resources. Exploration sites should try to provide interesting discoveries, meaningful choices, or point you towards other events and sites, each with their own little story, rather than a simple: here’s 20 materials/food and an extra soldier.

Fixed Cities and Landmarks:
Another issue I dislike in the current geoscape implementation is the complete randomness of the created sites. There’s no connection, apart from the continent layout, that we’re on Earth. We might as well be on some random planet in another dimension. I would really like to have (in addition to the random locations and havens) some fixed known landmarks, large cities and capitals in ruins like London, Paris, New York. Hell, you could even give access to a file that people can edit to add their own landmarks, with geographical coordinates, to the geoscape. I’m not asking for complete missions inside these locations, since I understand there’s no time and resources available to add extra tile sets, but at least attach them to the general events lists. It would be quite interesting to travel around the map and find your home town or some other area you know from real life and have the game generate some kind of haven, scavenge site, or other event. You can even consider that many havens can evolve on the outskirts of the current large cities (the first synedrion haven was near Athens in one of the stories, right?)

Filters:
Unless there is a point in returning to cleared mission sites, please remove them from the geoscape. Or add some filters: hide cleared sites, hide havens, bases, show only enemy sites etc.

[SpiteAndMalice]

@Koriel

I would really like to have (in addition to the random locations and havens) some fixed known landmarks, large cities and capitals in ruins like London, Paris, New York. Hell

+1 - Yeah I think that’d be pretty cool.

[Anjovi]

What comes to mind regarding havens and rarity is:

Have 1 off encounters that can facilitate that 1 off chance recruit, supply to trade with…Perhaps have events were you find small non-haven settlements or similar configurations that allow for limited time for interaction.

Say…You find some fringe survivor group settlement in the ruins of new york. You now know that they’re there, but you don’t know how long. You won’t always have this timer that says “3 days until this event is unavailable”, but you can have a mix of that and just RNG that’ll trigger it’s demise depending on the context of the settlement.

The encounter system could possibly be really dynamic in a way that allows the havens to facilitate more substantial things like:
-Havens could possibly be hubs for survivors to congregate to over the course of the game. Perhaps your influence on their power in the region can facilitate the accumulation of stuff that you could possibly take advantage of, if you happen to get on their good side.
-They can have mission opportunities to explore or intel on encounters like that hypothetical survivor settlement.
-Then fuel, supply chains and all that good stuff…

Very interested to see how encounters could tie into the happenings of the faction politics.

[Yokes]

@Koriel

In my opinion, havens should be very rare,

Why? Just from the point that there is nothing interesting happening? Well, people try to live there simple lives, there is no need for an event or alien attack. And people are different and have different believes, follow different leaders with different opinions and goals. They tend to organize themselves around such places where in the other places they would not like to be. And as many different havens there will be then different outcomes of conflict between fighting factions can be. And huge dispersion will grant survivability of specific faction even if half of their havens will fall to other factions or pandoravirus.

@Koriel

I would really like to have (in addition to the random locations and havens) some fixed known landmarks, large cities and capitals in ruins like London, Paris, New York.

That would be great but it would require additional development of specific models for such places. Or you just want fixed name of haven located in famous coordinates but it doesn’t have to look like that place in real life?

@Koriel

Filters:
Unless there is a point in returning to cleared mission sites, please remove them from the geoscape. Or add some filters: hide cleared sites, hide havens, bases, show only enemy sites etc.

This is what I support!

@Koriel

First, I have to start by saying that when it comes to the geoscape, I much prefer the original design from the crowdfunding campaign. Even the concept from the 30th August 2017 blog post looks better. The current one is a little too dark and smudgy and the exploration site icons don’t blend nicely.

I would just implement different layers. Like google maps. Map view (current dark contrasting), satelite view (with old country boundaries - just as a remnant of the past), and ranges view (showing all different colorful ranges depending on filters you have mentioned).

Btw does the simulation of day and night takes into account position of the Earth relative to the Sun? That day/night mark line in not exactly going from north to south.

[Koriel]

@Yokes

@Koriel

In my opinion, havens should be very rare,

Why? Just from the point that there is nothing interesting happening?

Kind of. I understand your point of view though. But right now, I’m getting a lot of havens that offer no meaningful interactions or events, and just clutter the screen. Which makes it painfully tedious to search for that one location that had an armadillo to pick up or that Heavy I didn’t want to recruit 20 sites ago. So, I’m not against having plenty of sites, but if they offer no gameplay function, I would at least like to hide them somehow. And when their status changes and they get some kind of interaction that is worth checking, they can be moved from the hidden filter back to the active display filter.

@Yokes

@Koriel

I would really like to have (in addition to the random locations and havens) some fixed known landmarks, large cities and capitals in ruins like London, Paris, New York.

That would be great but it would require additional development of specific models for such places. Or you just want fixed name of haven located in famous coordinates but it doesn’t have to look like that place in real life?

I don’t need specific models or icons. The current assets can be used. I would just like to have some connections or references to the real world. That’s why I suggested a file that can be edited to add names of locations and their GPS coordinates, then add those elements to the exploration sites generation algorithm. This list of names should be easy enough to parse and add to the current list of random site name generation. Also, later on (after release) it could be extended for moding, to add also custom assets or even complete tile sets for the random map generator.

@Yokes

I would just implement different layers. Like google maps. Map view (current dark contrasting), satelite view (with old country boundaries - just as a remnant of the past), and ranges view (showing all different colorful ranges depending on filters you have mentioned).

That would certainly be great.