Why I Think Phobos Tileset Should Go To Mars;

[Khunvyel]

I spare you the story how I got to this train of thought, that'll skip two paragraphs up front.

 

When I first hit Venus last year, I was thinking like "Wait... why is this all ice... Venus is a pretty hot planet." Promptly after I shrugged, because terraforming is a thing. In theory, we even have terraforming technology in the present time, we just don't have enough resources to put it out in the masses required to start changing something AND make changes happen in a reasonable amount of time.

Later as I discovered more and more of the sections of the starmap, I thought "oh well, perhaps they based it off the Corpus stronghold Pluto / Europa? Who knows." Anything is possible.

 

But back to Phobos. When I first got there, I immediately thought "Why not put this on Mars and make it Grineer territory by description and put Corpus on Phobos?" I disregarded the thought again because hey... art. But recently I came to learn why Phobos shouldn't be a thing;

Do you know how TINY Phobos is? There is no way in hell and back that you could fit enough surface area to run as many missions there, yet alone hold an outdoor atmosphere. The surface gravity of Phobos is so negligible, a jump of a Tenno flings you into space. By TINY I mean REALLY TINY. Phobos might be an asteroid colony, but that's about it.

 

An additional benefit to switch the Phobos Tileset with Mars would be, that players get to see something new sooner. We get to see Mercury, then Venus, then Earth. All three provide something different. Jupiter has a new tileset as well now. Mars and Saturn are known stuff, so by switching it, it would increase early player diversity.

 

Other than that, Eris is fine, Europa is fine, Sedna is fine, Ceres suffers from the same problem as Phobos - just tiny. So slapping a new shipyard tileset on Ceres, with weather and atmosphere and that much diversity is also quite strange to behold.

 

But the main thing is, again, would it be so bad to switch Phobos tileset with Mars?

[Cwierz]

But the main thing is, again, would it be so bad to switch Phobos tileset with Mars?

Because logic.

[unknow99]

TL;DR : Mars is red and desertic. Phobos tileset has "orange" sand and is desertic. You see where the problem is now?

[Rajko]

Totally reasonable.  Mars does fit that terrain better, but it doesn't bother me too much, either.

 

Still, if DE ever decided to clean up a bit, this would be a nice tweak.

[GStonez]

Totally reasonable.  Mars does fit that terrain better, but it doesn't bother me too much, either.

 

Still, if DE ever decided to clean up a bit, this would be a nice tweak.

notice the if people because DE got a bunch of other fixes they are currently doing at the time

[ValhaHazred]

TL;DR : Mars is red and desertic. Phobos tileset has "orange" sand and is desertic. You see where the problem is now?

 

Cough cough

 

The redness of Mars is a trick of atmosphere.

 

Phobos is a brownish grey

[Rajko]

TL;DR : Mars is red and desertic. Phobos tileset has "orange" sand and is desertic. You see where the problem is now?

Mars is more pink and orange and faded reddish tones, it's only 'red' because of the light we see in telescopes bounced towards earth, including atmospheric filtering.  Check it out:  http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/

 

There's waaaay too many to link here, but I don't think the phobos set is too different from actual mars, except that Warframe's phobos action would have to take place in the trenches.

 

It'd be pretty great if the Grineer built a massive base on Olympus Mons... (quest idea!)

 

 

Edit: tenno'd!

Edited July 17, 2014 by Rajko

[Alad_VI]

Yes - but no.

I like the idea, and I myself have wanted this for quite some time. But think about progression. EITHER:

Cap'n Vor and Lech Kril get a new arena which for devs is... Hehehe...

OR

We get newbies vs Vor and Kril.

[Gammaion]

Venus was not terraformed, the tileset is a placeholder. Remember Jupiter before it got the Gas City tileset? Yeah.

[Metalarcher]

Eh.  I don't see too much of a problem with Phobos, really.  On Grineer and Corpus ships floating through space, the gravity is the same as that on earth.  We can only assume that this means there are gravity generators on the ships.  If they can put gravity generators on ships, they can do it to anything, really.  Putting a gravity generator on Phobos to allow it to sustain an atmosphere doesn't seem too far-fetched.  As for the amount of space, it has about 1500km^2 surface area.  That seems like more than enough, if all of the area is being occupied by ruins.

 

Compared to stuff like the the vast inaccuracies of the star chart (bring it back to the topic, Phobos doesn't orbit mars on the star chart as it should) or the various "orbs" that we have, which aren't really anything in-game (energy and health orbs don't really seem like your standard energy cells or medical injections), onto different pickups, how Rhino's stomp is so powerful it distorts time (I know, I know, "The Orokin"), why are we always fighting CORPUS runners on infested GRINEER ships... I think Phobos having a gravity generator isn't that far-fetched.

[Rajko]

Point.  I assumed the orbits were placeholders until this new thing (today, squee!), so who knows, maybe the warframe world might get synced a little closer to Reality Prime.

[unknow99]

Cough cough

The redness of Mars is a trick of atmosphere.

 

Phobos is a brownish grey

 

Mars is more pink and orange and faded reddish tones, it's only 'red' because of the light we see in telescopes bounced towards earth, including atmospheric filtering.  Check it out:  http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/

 

There's waaaay too many to link here, but I don't think the phobos set is too different from actual mars, except that Warframe's phobos action would have to take place in the trenches.

 

It'd be pretty great if the Grineer built a massive base on Olympus Mons... (quest idea!)

 

 

Edit: tenno'd!

Ok ok, but you know what I mean : a deserted,sandy tileset with pink/orange tone (or whatever like a desert) fits to Mars.

 

Mars should share the same mood as Phobos,but slightly stay different.

 

 

Edit : Yeah I always thought : it would be great to have a Olympus Mons representation in one of Mars stage! Chop-chopping some Corpus in one of the biggest "mountain" of the solar system...That could bring nice landscapes!

Edited July 17, 2014 by unknow99

[Khunvyel]

The soon to be dated star chart was not based on accuracy, but based on accessibility. I don't have a problem with that at all since that is an interface. This is further reinforced with U14 as the starchart will be accessible via our own ship, so even more obvious interface.

If you check ingame and look how it rotates, all celestial bodies move in the exact same pattern, and they are distributed among three identically curved arms. At the end of each arm we have Dojo, Void and Derelict, respectively. With the exception of Phobos, which is placed between two arms.

 

>> On Grineer and Corpus ships floating through space, the gravity is the same as that on earth.

It is easier to use magnetized boots or rotary gravity on a ship than providing a full mass spectrum. But sure, soft sci-fi is soft sci-fi.

 

>> Putting a gravity generator on Phobos to allow it to sustain an atmosphere doesn't seem too far-fetched.

The biggest problem with colonization of moons is you have to be careful how much mass you add vs. the mass you take away from there without dislodging the gravitational balance between the satellite and it's associated planet. The smaller the object, the more any addition or subtraction of mass is going to cause an effect. So in this case, using magnetization would be a lot better on such small moons / asteroids. But we walk around freely on Phobos, and even have Desert Skates. Phobos cannot hold an atmosphere, even with generators. Mars could.

Another thing is total mass vs. mass density, but let me not get that much astray.

 

>> As for the amount of space, it has about 1500km^2 surface area.

Sure, and New York has about 1200km² surface area. The difference being one is flattened out on the globe, the other is a completely surrounding, and I if Phobos was as thickly colonized as the mission panoramas suggest, I think the moon couldn't sustain the extra mass.

 

>> *stuff about realism that always seems to crop up*

Look, it all depends on the setting. If the setting says, magic exists, then its that. Any sci-fi / fantasy world is based on the laws of nature we know. For every exception one should bring an explanation. Warframe lore says that Tenno have gone far and away through the Void and back and were forever changed during the process, likely still having a link to this "hellspace" which allows them to pull off their crazy stunts. That is established now. I can shoot lightning out my butt, thus I don't have a problem with it.

I do have a problem with that other stuff, when things are happening that still rely on the default parameter. But I also know that this is beta and not everything is as fleshed out as they wanted to. I'm absolutely dead certain that the survival mission parameters will be changed in the future based on where you are. Planetside survivals will likely have different "reasons" to use these pods, whereas grabbing oxygen cells in ships is perfectly fine.
 

 

Oh and, people, could you please not quote extremely large pictures? That just slows down everything and is annoying to scroll :/

[BloodRhythm]

A cool artistic depiction of the scale of Phobos.

A big rock to be sure but still quite small relatively. Grineer are pulling some serious space magic with gravity and atmosphere over there.

http://davinci-marsdesign.blogspot.fr/2012/05/scale-of-phobos.html

[CY13ERPUNK]

+1 OP

[Undead_Zeratul]

I was actually thinking about this very thing recently.  I agree; Mars should be the current Phobos tileset, and Phobos would be the current Mars, or something similar to what it is now, or something entirely new.

 

If the current progression stays (earth -> mars -> phobos) then comes the issue of the boss fight of Vor and Lech, which would probably move to Mars, or you could make a new boss fight in their place, and keep them at Phobos.

 

However, what could happen is swapping Phobos' location in the progression with Mars' (Earth -> Phobos -> Mars) so that the tilesets stay where they are, the location itself just switches.  Arid units and the boss fight now takes place on Mars (Phobos tileset), and the current Mars layout will become Phobos, which would make more sense as a fleet of ships flying over a tiny rock of a moon, that you'd more than likely reach before you hit Mars itself, so progression to that region first makes more sense as well.

 

Regardless, I agree that Mars should use the Phobos tileset, and Phobos should use something else/similar.

[unknow99]

The soon to be dated star chart was not based on accuracy, but based on accessibility. I don't have a problem with that at all since that is an interface. This is further reinforced with U14 as the starchart will be accessible via our own ship, so even more obvious interface.

If you check ingame and look how it rotates, all celestial bodies move in the exact same pattern, and they are distributed among three identically curved arms. At the end of each arm we have Dojo, Void and Derelict, respectively. With the exception of Phobos, which is placed between two arms.

 

>> On Grineer and Corpus ships floating through space, the gravity is the same as that on earth.

It is easier to use magnetized boots or rotary gravity on a ship than providing a full mass spectrum. But sure, soft sci-fi is soft sci-fi.

 

>> Putting a gravity generator on Phobos to allow it to sustain an atmosphere doesn't seem too far-fetched.

The biggest problem with colonization of moons is you have to be careful how much mass you add vs. the mass you take away from there without dislodging the gravitational balance between the satellite and it's associated planet. The smaller the object, the more any addition or subtraction of mass is going to cause an effect. So in this case, using magnetization would be a lot better on such small moons / asteroids. But we walk around freely on Phobos, and even have Desert Skates. Phobos cannot hold an atmosphere, even with generators. Mars could.

Another thing is total mass vs. mass density, but let me not get that much astray.

 

>> As for the amount of space, it has about 1500km^2 surface area.

Sure, and New York has about 1200km² surface area. The difference being one is flattened out on the globe, the other is a completely surrounding, and I if Phobos was as thickly colonized as the mission panoramas suggest, I think the moon couldn't sustain the extra mass.

 

>> *stuff about realism that always seems to crop up*

Look, it all depends on the setting. If the setting says, magic exists, then its that. Any sci-fi / fantasy world is based on the laws of nature we know. For every exception one should bring an explanation. Warframe lore says that Tenno have gone far and away through the Void and back and were forever changed during the process, likely still having a link to this "hellspace" which allows them to pull off their crazy stunts. That is established now. I can shoot lightning out my butt, thus I don't have a problem with it.

I do have a problem with that other stuff, when things are happening that still rely on the default parameter. But I also know that this is beta and not everything is as fleshed out as they wanted to. I'm absolutely dead certain that the survival mission parameters will be changed in the future based on where you are. Planetside survivals will likely have different "reasons" to use these pods, whereas grabbing oxygen cells in ships is perfectly fine.

 

 

Oh and, people, could you please not quote extremely large pictures? That just slows down everything and is annoying to scroll :/

Sorry...I'll put a spoiler tag...

Edited July 17, 2014 by unknow99

[Khunvyel]

I also need to ask what would be so bad to pull Kril and Vor one planet earlier? Before you jump me with "remember the noobs" then I put this disclaimer first;

If the forum had a signature option, even if it was very limited, I would have it be a single line: "I'm a mediocre equipped player of average skill and run mostly solo. If I can do it, you can too."

 

That being said, if you look at weapon crafting (not platinum purchases) then you need to hit any of the 4th tier planets ( Saturn / Jupiter / Mars ) to craft useful stuff because that is where the required Salvage components come in. So if you get past earth and in the middle of any 4th tier planet, you're not a beginner any more by any stretch of the imagination. Granted, we have a problem of the Earth boss node being empty (I addressed that here *click* ) and when I put the Kril+Vor fight on the same tier as Sargas Ruk or Alad V, then sure, Kril+Vor might be the toughest of the 3 bosses, but not that incredibly harder as people want to make believe. Compare that to the losers called bosses we face in later installations. That said, Nef Anyo is the next boss overhaul, and something tells me he'll be a tougher nut again.

 

However, I would absolutely sign what Undead_Zeratul said; Switching tileset AND position of Phobos and Mars. Going from Earth to Phobos with a regular Corpus tileset and beat the crap out of new Anyo and then go down to Mars, fighting Kril+Vor. I'm down with that. Kinda like the approach of; "clear space superiority before you can land on the planet."

 

 

Venus was not terraformed, the tileset is a placeholder. Remember Jupiter before it got the Gas City tileset? Yeah.

 

Later as I discovered more and more of the sections of the starmap, I thought "oh well, perhaps they based it off the Corpus stronghold Pluto / Europa? Who knows."

Edited July 17, 2014 by Khunvyel

[Rajko]

Snip

 

 

 

Makes sense.  

[taiiat]

it's hard to argue for or against anything like this when most of these celestial bodies don't hold breathable atmosphere anyways, and would need artificial means.

 

if you can terraform a planet without issue, you can also change the climate, whether deliberately or inadvertantly. 

 

so... any planet could theoretically look like anything. 

 

 

but neither Mars nor Phobos actually makes any sense, if we're assuming everything isn't terraformed the hell out of, the Phobos Tiles have running water, yet neither of these bodies do.

[Khunvyel]

There is a difference in holding a breathable atmosphere, or not holding any atmosphere at all. Without an atmosphere, and without the required celestial mass to hold it (lack of magnetosphere can be compensated with just a LOT of atmospheric generators), you can't quite do anything.

And there is water on Mars and it has an atmosphere. Not breathable in it's current form, but at least there is something to work with. Phobos has neither, and is so damn small that you probably could see the curvature of the moon with the naked eye, if it was more round. Another indicator for this more or less non-existing gravity is that it doesn't even have enough mass to smooth itself into a spheric object.

 

You can only terraform so much as there is matter to work with, and you can only bring so much matter a celestial body can safely hold.

 

But even if we all disregard this; switching tilesets would still feel more natural.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Khunvyel

[Zeromanicus]

The real issue is Phobos's tileset doesn't reflect the color and composition of Phobos and the size of it. The curvature as mentioned is so great, you'd be able to notice it in missions and in the skybox.

[Khunvyel]

So I made a test. I showed this screenshot to 9 people and said "We're in our very own Solar system here. Which celestial body is this?" (( I didn't say planet. I said celestial body. ))

 

 

Here are their answers:

 

7 said "Mars"

1 said "Well it looks like Mars, but the surface doesn't quite match the pictures I've seen."

1 said "That is Mars, and it's nice that they show both moons, but the designers probably didn't know that both moons don't form a sphere. Can't blame them, it was probably easier to texture a simple sphere than crafting a stone glob"

 

Now, should you people tell me that "of course it is Mars in the background, we fly to Phobos on the front." I have to say... check the fly-to cinematic of Phobos. You clearly steer towards the reddish body, not one of the others.

Edited August 4, 2014 by Khunvyel

[FlyDungas]

I say get rid of water on Venus first lol