I am working on an RTS, and I was wondering if you guys had any ideas on some landforms that would be interesting to see on a map of a world that doesn''t support life? (currenly the planet must be unsupportive of life due to the story line). Some things I have thought of: Canyon Mountain Hill Volcano Crater River of _______ Any others? I was hoping to have a very big map and would like to add variation to the map. In life supporting worlds, there are many variations available due to the variation of the life in the area, ie. types of trees, buches, grasses, animals, moss, ect. What some other ideas? I''d just like to introduce a more interesting world... Dwiel

For inspiration, try looking at our own solar system, in particular:

Io
Europa
Callisto
Ganymede
Titan
Miranda
Triton


[edited by - Sandman on March 26, 2003 5:59:37 AM]

Desert.
Oceans of Ice.
Human Colonial Facilities.

an electronic/technocratic wasteland doesn''t support life.
in my shoes nothing survives.
huge skeletons of ninjas or mammals.
dust storms (ash storms from morrowind are sweet)
pools of toxic chemicals or ectoplasm
timeloose rifts in spacetime (presented as distorted black holes/ instant death/release!!!)

cookie monsters corpse.

I guess I could put those kind of ''sci-fi'' themes such as toxin chemical pools, holes in space time... I think it could be VERY cool if I could get a sim of a volcano going... Actually now that I think of it, that could be really really cool looking.. not sure exactly how to implement it though...

I think to add spice to the maps since they are relatively boring is to make things like lava actually flow into new places and dry in others. In this way the map stays dynamic. Again, if I could get a volcano that looked real like when it is exploding, that would be great... not sure though....

I also like the dust/soot/sand storms. Possibly dynamic also such as covering and uncovering landforms that were previously hidden or exposed respectively.

I''m really liking the idea of dynamic maps...

Thanx for the ideas!

really got my brain going

Dwiel

Kuladus, that's redundant. Ninjas ARE mammals, they're just made distinct by their propensity for flipping out and being sweet.

Everything that makes topography has a cause. Imagine the causes, and you'll get some good ideas.

The moon has no atmosphere and no water, so all we see on its surface are the contours of its original construction and impact craters, along with the odd bootprint.

Plate Tectonics can yield fissures, mountains, volcanoes and cliffs. Maybe other features, I'm no geologists.

Liquid oceans result in coastlines and the naturally occuring erosion there, but they only move around if they're acted on by a force, like plate tectonics, gravity, or a thermally-induced system of vaporization and condensation.

That process yields weather patters and watersheds, which is a great source of canals, canyons, rivers, lakes, fjords, etc. And don't forget that all of these things can dry up and become terrestrial features.

Weather patterns also lead to precipitation, which can score snow-capped peaks or frozen poles.

Atmospheres can serve a similar role, with currents of wind shaping the ground into dunes or other configurations.

I think it's Europa that's affected by massive gravity from Jupiter, which sets its crust of ice to constant shifting and cracking, no doubt resulting in dynamic subterranean caverns.

That's all I can think of for now. Neat topic, this was fun to think about.

[edited by - Iron Chef Carnage on March 25, 2003 9:54:57 PM]