Cities floating in the ocean

It would definitely be useful for planets with large amounts of water, as building space on land would be limited. Although I'm not sure how society centres can be constructed (I'm assuming by placing individual buildings instead of Spore's system). There was some discussion on floating cities (on both water and in the sky) here, but there was never really a proper conclusion.

For one thing I recall someone on the team supporting real world sky cities on Venus, but I don't know how that relates to the game.

Well, sky cities are generally just about impossible, but Venus is a special case. It's atmosphere is mostly CO2, which is double the density of N2/O2 (ie, earth's atmosphere). Essentially, a Venus cloud city would be a large airship (or multiple), but instead of using Helium or Hydrogen as on Earth, you can use breathable air as your lifting gas. So essentially, you have a huge balloon of Earth air that you build a city inside. At 50km above ground level, atmospheric temperature and pressure are the same as at Earth's surface, so your ship doesn't need pressure reinforcement or as much temperature control.

Anyway, I could go on but I want to get back on-topic:

An ocean-settling civilisation is very interesting, as it is intrinsically both nomadic and settled. Nomadic because you can't really ever stay in one place on the high seas (and neither would you want to -- when a single storm can down your entire city, you want to be able to escape them); and settled because having house-ships means you can have a lot more material culture than land nomads.

Structurally, it seems like there would be an upper limit to how big any floating ocean city could get. Everything in the city would have to be built on top of ocean-worthy ships capable of separating from each other at a moment's notice, to scatter when a storm hits, or to maneuver when approaching battle; so you can't have massive structures spanning multiple ships. I imagine you'd have ships connected by temporary gangplanks and rope bridges at most, since any bigger bridge wouldn't be removable without a lot of work (or just breaking the bridge).

What resources these floating cities would feed off of is probably most variable, since it depends on what course evolution took. Earth oceans probably don't have the resources to justify permanent ocean cities (as opposed to resource-extraction expeditions from shore), but there might be all sorts of good reasons on another planet -- maybe the planet has evolved something like an extreme sargasso sea, with huge amounts of floating plants, home to huge amounts of aquatic life, and farmers living in small houseboats tend to these floating clumps. Maybe the currents produce a huge upwelling of nutrients in the middle of an ocean, and the city is based primarily on fishing.

Thoughts?

Sure thing it would be hard to implement , but maybe modders will make this idea become something if the devs doesnt feel like doing so(i wont disagree if they dont implement it )

what about gravity and density of the planet? the "water" may not actually be the same material as water on earth. perhaps the oceans are of a thick, slow fluid like jello when it is liquid, and is not done solidifying in the refrigerator, or a syrup like liquid, or something less dense and lighter than water, such as a vegetable oil like substance? that would make it easier or harder to make floating cities, and how big is the planet? if it is about earths size, it would be similar to conditions here, and very different if the planet is Jupiter sized, where you would need strong, lightweight organisms to power through the oceans, or on a planet like the moon Europa, organisms would be lithe like a seal, and able to glide through the waters effortlessly. and last of all, temperature. even an all liquid world could have polar regions where the oceans are solidified. if the "ice" is thick enough, maybe organisms could settle there, in a city looking something like a research base in the arctic or antarctic, super - insulated and made to house a warm, humid environment (the poles are actually frozen deserts). or perhaps a huge bubble-like covering over a city that transforms the entire inside of the bubble into a habitable, pleasant area, where your organisms can live in comfort. what about the polar idea, instead of a floating city?

this all reminds me of a weird nineties movie called "water world". gthough it would be really cool to be like the "smokers", and be a pirate in a world like this.

I'd do it. Build 'towns' on ships, maybe have farmlands on deck? Oars and sails for early propulsion, steam/combustion/electrical for later eras... Then move to space, and be Quarians!