I realy dont like moons

Well, planets are in the gravity well of their sun... stars are in the gravity well of own galaxy... galaxy are bound by gravity in galactic cluster... these galactic cluster are in the grav well of the superclusters who can count 10k galaxy...

It is only a game... making it realistic will not be a easy task... or you use resource for astronomic calculation or for game calculation... maybe in 10 year, computer will have enough power for mix a game with something like universe sandbox...

Like "geborstene Planeten" does not invoke a raised eyebrow from German native speakers But would that not be what now is an astreoid field?

I also agree. Moons are not moons in beta1, therefore they suck at being moons and such. Maybe moons could stretch the gravity well and have extra/different upgrades like "choose between 3 extra pop, 4 civil oder tactical slots for the main planet".

There already is a thread about that floating around somewhere.

Yes, but the sun-planet distance/relation in sins is not COMPLETELEY stupid. The moon-planet releation is non-existant and totally strange. You could as well add jelly planets or make space ponies a seperate unique faction to increase the feel and atmosphere of the game. While you're at it, make the background of the galaxy a microsoft windows logo.  

(I am just being overly sarcastic, nothing personal or malicious intended )

Here is the old thread. (Cannot make it a link for some reason...)

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/419642

Well it seems one of the reasons for moons is that you are guaranteed to have one right next to your home world. In trinity one of the big issues with competitive games was that you can get a random map where not every player has an asteroids spawning right next to their home world. So I like to think of them as a moon of your homeworld, its just that it would be too complicated having to colonizeable objects in the same gravity well.

That said, there are at least three different mods that implement moons in three different ways so that they're in the same gravity well as there planets. In only one of these do they have an affect on gameplay though, and even in that one they are not colonizeable.

Some mods have these too.

yes, i just like to use th word here Its difficult to describe that. an  asteroidfield is a way to "geborstened"

i mean a strange looking planets half of his mass is scatterd in the gravitswell, but u clearly can see parts of the surface.

like: 

yeah something like this would be cool (the planet with 2 crossed rings)

ps and if they could add more cool sky boxes- like interactive ones like in eve- when you turn the camera one way you can see the nebula a little better so its like 3D 

It is interesting they only added moons. I mean if they can add moons, they probably have plans for other types of planets.

Well, it is not strange if you know the story... TEC generated plenty of nuclear waste during the ongoing war... from time to time, cargo ship was used for store the waste on various moon... well, in place of a long wall of text, look the video below who show why moon are not always in the gravity wells of a planet...

Well, i have make more crazy with one of my starbase model who include a mobile neutron star used as energy source... http://www.love-from-russia.be/g4_swarm-6.25_million_poly.avi ...

Maybe wait until Vasari are added to rebellion... one of the faction is able to strip planet from resource and transform it in a dead asteroid... maybe Stardock/Ironclad will make a special mesh who somehow look like your picture in place of the normal dead asteroid mesh...

Even when the lore can explain a plausible explanaition for rogue moons - that would still make them renamed astroids, and I don't really see what would distinguish them from astroids - a hunk of dark matter in space. Whether or not it orbited a planet in the past does not really matter, does it?

More important: There cannot possibly an event where ALL the moons of ALL planets have been moved, so NO planet has a moon and no moon hast a planet.

Moons in a existing gravity well would mean a challenge in balancing, but they still would add something really cool to the game. I favor the "SMALL bonus" solution.

This actually does bring up some interesting issues with the classification of objects in the solar system; issues that are still being worked out.

There are many dwarf planets that are rounded by their own gravity but are actually smaller than our moon like Pluto, Eris, and Ceres.

While there are differences between these bodies in terms of composition and location, the main difference between them in terms of classification is some orbit other bodies and some directly orbit the sun.  Most are trans-neptunian objects like Pluto but Ceres is in our asteroid belt.  There actually could be hundreds in the outer Kuiper Belt, scattered disk, and Oort Cloud.

So if you see a "moon" in Rebellion and it's not near another planet, it might just be a dwarf planet.

Mars actually has 2 misshapen"crappy moons" called Deimos and Phobos that are probably just captured asteroids that resemble the resource asteroids in Sins (not my observation, originally, someone else pointed this out).  Our moon, by contrast was likely formed out of the debris from a collision with a Mars-sized planet, which is way more bad-ass.

Factoid: Did you know it took the Apollo 11 crew 3 days to get to Earth's Moon?  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Speed_of_light_from_Earth_to_Moon.gif

Think of them as dwarf planets--it worked for Pluto.

I really like the idea of changing them to rouge, perhaps partially destroyed planets

I always thought of the asteroids as moons anyways! I think they should just put moons in orbit with the asteroids, but make them better. Maybe a better extractor, or you can build more then one extractor on it. Maybe buy a few limited upgrades for it like you would a planet as well...? Like make it a mini planet within the same gravity well. Well, maybe that's over the top, but I think that would be really cool. I'd get a mod that added that in a heartbeat. 

i still like the destroyed planets more, but as a fast fix i would accept dwarf planets

anyone who wants to post that in the bugtracker

Aye, I vote to drop "moons."  (name at least not the 'planet')

I like adding a new 'planet' but it being a "moon" is a stretch.  There is a reverse uncanny valley of sorts for SciFi.  We can accept the game board as a representation of a mystery solar system and ok there's some uncanny symmetry and hot planets, cold planets, normal, dry...works enough...but a "moon" in solar orbit...not quite.

The idea I like best though is:

Change how moons fit.  Make them 'bases' that are linked directly to their 'home' planet and only accessible that way.  Makes it like the planet has an additional resource.  Maybe set them 'above' or 'below' the game plane, although this might be more gimmicky and annoying than it's worth...so having them just branch might be preferred.

Heck could even add a bonus to the planet via research or some such for this link (MAAAAAYBE).

They at least need to be more interesting and either categorized or changed functionally.

I like the idea of having moons only accessible from their planet.

Also maybe give them a unique set of bonus's that whn explored  adds the bonus both to the moon AND the planet it's supposed to be a moon of? What if moons could function as an auxilery government for their planets? (The gravity influence of the nearby planet makes it impossible to aim superweapons at a moon?)

you could always use the galaxy forge to create maps with no moons

Now there is a good idea! Both of you are on the right track, I think. I was thinking that it would either be part of a larger then normal gravity well, or maybe make for an odd shaped gravity well, but I guess your way makes at least as much sense. 

I have no complaints putting them in the well either, I was just thinking from a technical standpoint if that is to difficult to accomplish that could basically function similarly.

The moons currently added should simply be renamed 'dwarf planets' because that is what they basically are, while these suggested changes should be added also.

I'd also like to see Gas Giants with multiple moons for added flavour, but I'm not sure how this would be implemented.

+1 for keeping moons in the game, but calling them something other than "moons" - unless they are going to be orbiting a planet. Now that would be cool.

I was trying to find a clip of the "moon and sunroof" scene from the movie Bachelor Party, but it's so old I guess no one put it up on YouTube.  Oh well.

"I'd also like to see Gas Giants with multiple moons for added flavour, but I'm not sure how this would be implemented."

I imagine something like an extractor, except with the properties of a colony pod or trade port would actually be really easy to do. Perhap with some research to upgrade the effect. If you could also make it give a small amount (2-6) of logistic or tactical spots in the gravity well, regardless of planet ownership, I'm not sure what more you could ask for. A precedent MIGHT even be found in the code with extractors of an asteroid belt.

While all this would be nice, but really you have to stop and ask "Why moons?" Is it to improve the planet quality/production, add visual diversity, or some potential tactics? A planet variant with moons, again extractor style, would solve the first and second. These could either be tied to the planet ownership, or more complicatedly be independent, but that strikes me as needlessly complicated without any real benefit. As for tactics, I can't think of many situations where you wouldn't be better off with a starbase and upgrading it accordingly.

Is there some other appeal to having moons I'm not seeing?

I'm surprised no one has realized that the solar representations are depicted "as shown", so to speak, from the reference frame of phase space.

You know, that FTL method which requires Phase Lanes and a Phase Drive? Yeah, that. I'd say that the maps are laid out the way they are because that's how it looks when viewed from the reference frame of Phase Space- which will be more important than a "normal" reference frame- at least as considered from the perspective of interstellar warfleet strategists and tacticians, as well as emperors and prime ministers.

Which would mean the reasons that moons aren't in gravity wells because they do not exist in them from the perspective of phase space. And thus it would be logical.

.............

What? You'll suspend disbelief for FTL, aliens, and psychic psychos, but not the idea that the maps are laid out like they are because that's what it looks like from phase space? Seriously? /<-for the unbeliever of THE MIGHT OF PHASE SPACE.

Busted planets would be a nice addition.

I like the idea of moons being accessible only from 1 planetary gravwell. It would be interesting to have Gas giants with the chance of having more moons/asteroids than ordinary planets.

A mechanism where colonizing 1 moon grants a small number of tactical/civlian resources on the planet would be interesting. Imagine a gas giant, not colonizable per se, but having 4 moons, each owned by a different player. All those players would be able to build a small number of tactical/civilian structures on Gas giants for great mayhem. Owning all moons would give a significant stronghold on a gas giant then, even though it's still not colonizable. Of course there would be achievements and stats for how many gas giants you have been able to fully control.

A nice twist on a different victory mode would be to build a TITAN GAS EXTRACTOR facility on a gas planet. You would have to conquer all moons on the gas giant to have enough slots for the facility. Then you would have to harvest XXX gas. This kind of map would have plenty of planets and few or 1 gas giant so that controlling the gas giant won't give an overwhelming dominance for the player.