Topic: Instead of the spaceship, how about this...?

[Raukodur]

i think that instead of the spaceship, it should have been a superevolved creature that develops which can fly through space (so can withstand the vacuum and freezing temperature and radiation) and is part cyborg, so can have both biological weaponry and mechanical weaponry as well as wings and boosters etc with ****e-lods of customizability and evolution, just as you have with your original critters.

The thing can feed on dark matter, or hydrogen from fuel or anything crazy like that, it might be something really hard to find so you have to search out planets for it etc.

And it doesnt need to be small, this can be some huge beast, and so it can have lots of bionic parts, so you can still have all the functions of the spaceship (e.g. beaming up animals and doing genetic experiments on them).

I would prefer this SO much more than just a spaceship. I think its such a shame that the part of this game i will probably enjoy the most is going to be the stages when you have a single creature and are carrying out evolution, its a shame you pretty much lose that once you get to the tribal stage. But if they bring it back in this way in the spaceship stage, i think it has great potential.

And, with all the crazy experiemnts you are carrying out, you could be continuously looking for ways to upgrade your half machine / half creature space flying thingy either mechanically or biologically.

Any thoughts?

[smjjames]

hmm, you're talking about an organically based ship, there are plenty of examples of biologically based ships in Science Fiction. Since you can design how your UFO looks, you can easily make it look organic.

[TotalSandwich]

Well, you could make a spaceship that looked just like your creature.  As for losing them beyond your tribal stage, you dont; The spaceship come with a genetic editor.

[MadGiraffe]

Jup, if you are good at it and have the time, you can even make it look like one of your creatures possibly, or some fat mutated version of it...with windows :p.

[Raukodur]

yes, but im not talking about it 'looking' organic, i am talking about it being organic.

that would open up a whole new level of customizability for the space vessel, it would need to feed, it would be so much more different from what other people created, and best of all, it would link right back to the critter you developed in the first place, since it would be some sort of superevolved form of that.

[smjjames]

it doesn't neccesarily need to have windows. the UFO in the demo was just a stereotype so that the concept could be easily delivered.

As for the genetic engineering thing, I think its one of those things you have to work for after or before you get the UFO.

as far as the ship bieng totally organic, we don't really know because we know nothing about the things that lead up to the UFO besides inter-system stuff like colonizing planets, terraforming em, etc.

[Raukodur]

i can understand the ship not being totally organic, because i dont think that would work.

After all, how can you explain 99% of the functions of the spaceship if the thing is organic? e.g. an abductor beam and experiments on animals etc etc.

There are something that could be easily explained by an organic thing such as movement through space, biological weaponry (can be as powerful as you like), but this is minor stuff compared to the range of activities you can carry out when you get to that stage.

Thats why i think it would make sense to have the half animal / half machine 'spaceship' which is directly connected to what you were doing in the early stages of the game with the development of your animal.

[smjjames]

Well, if you have seen the show Farscape on SciFi channel, the ship that the main characters are on, Moya, is kind of a mixture of technology and organic parts (although it tended to look more metallic than organic sometimes in the show). Something like that would be cool, a mixture of organic parts mixed in with technology to handle whatever the organic parts cant.

Having the capability to have your UFO mainly organic would be a really cool concept and it would be cool to see in the game. if its not in the initial release, hopefully its in an expansion.

[TotalSandwich]

I seripously doubt that it will be. Will is basing his galaxy on realistic astronomical phnomenon and concepts that have been observe or are used, and an orgainc spaceship is very, very, farfeched.

[smjjames]

it would still be fun to design your ship so it looked organic which I'm sure we can still do because the willosaur city (the first one) looked very organic.

speaking of organic looking, I just know someone will make the Gungan City Otoh Gunga in Star Wars: Phantom Menace which looked organic in design.

[TotalSandwich]

*shudder* as long as no gungan is jar jar binks-

[smjjames]

*shudder* as long as no gungan is jar jar binks-

LOLZ

in honor of the whole kill jar jar thing, if I ever see a gungan in Spore I'll eliminate them in UFO mode and prey on them in evolution mode

[Hydromancerx]

Like Moya from Farscape?

[Borogove]

yes, but im not talking about it 'looking' organic, i am talking about it being organic.

that would open up a whole new level of customizability for the space vessel, it would need to feed, it would be so much more different from what other people created, and best of all, it would link right back to the critter you developed in the first place, since it would be some sort of superevolved form of that.

Well, in a computer game, what is the difference between being an organic spaceship, and just looking like an organic spaceship?  Not trying to be a jerk, I really have no idea what the difference would be, besides the fact that you get it out of the spaceship screen.

I seripously doubt that it will be. Will is basing his galaxy on realistic astronomical phnomenon and concepts that have been observe or are used, and an orgainc spaceship is very, very, farfeched.

In the fun vs. realism issue...I think Spore is way over on the fun side, and would have to be if everything is made by players.  I mean, going from the GDC presentation, we are getting underwater civilizations, UFOs, abduction beams, super-deformed toy worlds, Care Bears and spider monsters, tribal tools and buildings magically droping from the sky, volcano makers and planet-destroying weapons... a 2001-esque Space Baby or Farscape-spaceship just doesn't seem much further from reality than the rest of it   

I think that the main reason for doing a spaceship over a super-evolved being is that, well, it is more in line with what science fiction leaves people expecting.  It is an interesting issue though, how areto handle the way that user's develop an attachment to their avatar only to advance and see it get him get lost as the scale grows.

[rodeo]

i probably wouldn't be into this idea at all. it sounds more like an anime thing or something. i'm more into the idea of achieving enough in my culture to where i have the technology to build a space ship. i'd rather not evolve into one.