env attributes

[Aeonic]

What are the different meanings for the env attributes: envAir, envWater, envEarth, envFire?

The source points out that envEarth means asteroid systems, but it doesn't explain what any of the others mean.

[george moromisato]

I use a particular technique to determine what stations should go in what systems. I'm not particularly proud of the technique, and I'm searching for better methods, but it works for now.

Basically, I assign an "environment type" to every kind of system. I limit the environment types to one of four, according to the original alchemical elements:

envAir
envEarth
envFire
envWater

So volcanic systems are consired envFire environments; nebula systems are envAir environments and so on.

Then, each station type chooses which environment it is generally found in: e.g., Ferians have an attribute of envEarth, which means that they prefer earth (rocks & mineral) environments.

Most stations also have an attribute that indicates which environments they avoid. Ferians have envAvoidsAir.

Then at system creation type, when choosing random stations for a system, we use the attributes to prefer a stations of the given environment type.

If you are creating a new station type, think about the kinds of environments that it should be found in and set the env* attributes appropriately.

[Atarlost]

So earth is asteroids, fire volcanic, and air is nebula.

What's envWater?

[george moromisato]

The "standard system" (yellow sun) is envWater

Asteroid system is envEarth

Desert system (blue sun) is envFire

Ice system (red dwarf) is envAir

Volcanic system is envFire

Nebula system is envAir

I'm planning on including two more system types but I probably won't get to it until post 1.0:

Primordial system (lots of water and organics): envWater

Iron system (metal rich asteroids): envEarth