Mod limits
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I believe it’s not so much a case of dimensions, rather a case of max polygons a model should have before it cripples the game.
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So a landscape across the bottom of a system will far exceed the max polygons? And the same would apply for a base that was extraordinarily large and detailed?
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Actually FL does not like many objects. So 10 Objects with 10000 polygons will reduce FPS more than one object with 100000 polygons.
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Well not really no. Just look at the dyson as an example.
If you just had a massive floor so to speak, like the dyson, then it’s really just a massive box stretched out. Can’t get a much simpler mesh than that can you. The detail is in the texture, not the mesh.
Same goes for a landscape, so long as the mesh is fairly basic (which it usually is) and the detail is in the texture then you’ll be fine. Think about games like IL2 as an example of this, only when you fly close to the ground does any detail start to get drawn, from high above you can’t see any tree models or whatever. Maybe you should take a look at the WTS mod, I’m sure they have something like that going on in some systems from the looks of the mod video.
If you wanted to have a really complex base then best approach is to break it down into several parts. That’s the idea behind the modular station.
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Here’s my idea, tell me how realistic it is:
I’m thinking about a total conversion that will use the FL engine. The concept will be underwater instead of space. The physics will be similar. There will be a seafloor with structures, canyons, etc. Submarines instead of ships.
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Aliens would be sea life. Serious. We make an NPC ship that looks like a whale/fish/whatever and make it neutral to all factions then set patrol routes around all bases and points of interest.
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Definitely a… different idea, but I can’t imagine it’d be too difficult to accomplish.
Set a nebula similar to underwater over the whole system and things should be fine.
Definitely looking forward to seeing where this goes, it’s so unique!
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Totally possible… you’ll need to do some heavy fx editing at the .ale level for engines (so it looks right) but the idea is entirely plausible.
Something like the Boron Homeworld in X2… sounds rather tasty
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I’ve had this story forming in my head the past few days…
The sleeper ship that was destroyed actually wasn’t. It was crippled to the point that it was uncontrollable and crashed landed on a water planet. It sank to the bottom. The food replicators and oxygen generators still worked but nothing else. After several generations, eventually the survivors left the ship and created colonies around it. As time went by more colonies and bases were formed around the planet. Eventually, as human civilizations tend to do, the colonies fragmented over political and ideological differences and different factions emerged, some not friendly to each other.
In the meantime, space flight technology was lost but the colonists developed advanced submarine technology. There were many types of subs from attack subs to transports. Bases developed specialty industries and trade proliferated. Along with trade came the usual problems; pirating, security needs, etc. Advanced weapons were developed, usually in the form of torpedoes big and small. Because of the nature of the deep sea, stealth became a central component of warfare. Subs were not detectable except by active means or if they became noisy through excessive speed or firing of weapons…
…bases shouldn’t be a problem but I’m not sure if a seafloor is possible to do in the detail that will be necessary. We’ll need cliffs, canyons, reefs, wrecks, kelp forests, and a lot more to make it realistic.
I dub thee “Freelancer: Underworld”.
edit
Thinking more about it, an interactive seafloor wouldn’t be absolutely necessary. We could merely say the water was so deep that the sleeper ship reached a point of neutral buoyancy and sank no further. The bottom was still hundreds of miles below. We could make the floor part of the background image.
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Argh’s Warriors of the Sky should be a good starting point.
How the aliens would look like? 
