Colonization Assets: Planets

Planets in EXODE are created procedurally according to the EXODE Planet Generation System, or PGS. The PGS validates a number of objectives which are extremely important to EXODE.

Planets follow a very rich design according to simple but ambitious core principles:

  1. Every Planet is Unique: The planet generation process is extremely detailed to ensure that every planet remains unique and valuable.
  2. Every Planet is Valuable: The game provides enough layers to organize supply and demand in many different ways ; so many ways that player economy could be varied just around its base concepts. The planet is there to interact with these layers, both in researching and designing, collecting and producing, while also having to avoid alien detection.
  3. Every Planet is Fun and Challenging: The planet is there to interact with all game layers and provide fun but also challenges to the player as he discovers his new world.
  4. Every Planet is Accessible in Content: While EXODE follows a detailed generation system for planets, players only have to manage “surface information”, such as getting food, exploring sectors, and surviving to the next day.

Elements of information from the PGS are revealed in a step-by-step process.

Planet Generation

WIP

Planet types

WIP

Planet characteristics

WIP

Creation points

A planet receives a pool of creation points, made of (Relevance * 5) + (Size * 5). A larger planet has then more creation points but relevant elements will also be spread in many more sectors.

Note: the first planet a player arrive on, after the Evacuation scene, always has (Relevance + Size) = 10. This means that starting points of a first planet is always of 200 points.

Bonus points

The planet receives also bonus points for temperature, comfort, light, and danger levels.

Temperature bonus points

A planet receives “temperature” bonus points if it has a temperature level further from the average of 5. We calculate a “temperature challenge”, or Tc, according to the absolute value of (5 - temperature level). The temperature level value spans from 0 to 10, giving a Tc spanning from 0 to 5.

The exact formula giving the number of bonus points is:

Bonus points = (Tc - 2) * 20

The number of bonus points is then spanning from -40 (for a temperature level of 5), to +60 (for a temperature level of 0 or 10).