Re: Tales of Known Space
 

Hmm...ok, so let's see where we are....

Outsiders and Starseeds: not a clue....

Propulsion: various fusion drives, and some gravity polarizing drives (Kzin get them early). Kzin and maybe others get multiple propulsion types per hull. Unlucky in wars but incredible warriors.

Hulls(Ships): 4 GP hull standards, some experimental hulls and some unique hulls per species....And I guess you could have some interesting hull mods, ie opacity to certain frequency lasers or something http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Weapons: Com Lasers, fusion cannon based on drives. since com lasers also represent strategic advantages, maybe an attack bonus based on comlasers?

Fighters and drones: I don't think there is a carrier in this universe, but I can easily see them as planetary defense...well, maybe....

Interesting structures: A ringworld could be very difficult to make...but I'm willing to bet that the Massive Space Dock in the Ultimate Mod is a Builder/Pak artifact. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Puppeteers: we assume the puppeteers have left on the great migration away from the core explosion. The Puppeteers become an incredibly advanced, defensive neutral. Attack them and die by the numbers:

Humans: lucky (ala teela brown and the pop lottery), diplomatic (ala louis wu), cunning (ala beowulf shaeffer and gil the arm), any other thoughts?

Thrintun: very weak and technologically poor, but incredibly powerful intel attacks for tech theft and unit insurrection (might need a planet insurrection). Is it possible to have unit insurrections during combat? Non GP hulls.

Tnuctipun: very weak but technologically very advanced, only species that can develop helmet technology that creates humongous intel defense against Thrint. Non GP hulls.

Kdatlyno: neutral warrior empire, with special sonic capabilities technology tree. maybe they start off subjugated to the Kzin?

Pak: (heh) Incredible troops and combat advantages, high tech ability, no diplomacy at all, only expands after meeting another empire, very slow expansion. Does not use GP hulls, starts off with weaker fusion drives. prolly a unique technology tree with lots of gravity weapons. strong tendency to large fleets of smaller ships.

Bandersnatch: might be difficult.

Trinocs: All I remember is that they are incredibly xenophobic and racist.

anyway, these are just some thoughs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif (Laffing, I expect I have a lot of gray matter out there right now thinking about this one )

:Jon

Re: Tales of Known Space
 

I was just thinking the other day this would be cool. (mostly wondering how you'd mod an invulnerable Pupeteer hull http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

Re: Tales of Known Space
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Psychic? (Plateau eyes, Gil's "arm" & other agents' powers)

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Especially since they're not supposed to be a space-faring race. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Could make them a neutral, maybe.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And strong. There was a joke in one of the books:

Q: How many Trinocs does it take to paint a house?
A: Three. One to hold the paintbrush and two to shake the house up and down...

Re: Tales of Known Space
 

It is possible to make super-large antiship drone that can not be fit into any ship and can be stored on ringworld only. It will have insane damage resistance and mega-ton warhead. Any anymy ship foolish enough to enter the system with ring-world shall be destroyed.

Re: Tales of Known Space
 

If I recall right Niven penned an early draft for one episode for TNG on Star Trek and dropped his cat people in, after many revisision and such the episode had changed, but the race remained.

Re: Tales of Known Space
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, that would certainly be moddable.

Re: Tales of Known Space
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">One way you could make the Puppeteers uber powerful and still only be a neutral is to put them in a unconnected system as you said, but then make 2 or 3 of their planets Sphereworlds, or just one even. This would make them extreamly tough to beat once and if you get into their system.

Re: Tales of Known Space
 

Hmmm, this is getting interesting. I think I may have to learn how to do mods and actually try some of this out. Graphics stuff is totally out of my skill set, but I imagine I could program some race AI. Seems like the easist race to start with would be the Pak or the humans.

Ok, seriously. Anybody out there interested in this that has real modding skills?

Re: Tales of Known Space
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Just download the imagemod, and you can get a lot of fancy new images. You don't even have to package them with your mod, and can keep your download size small.

Re: Tales of Known Space
 

I've been wondering if it would be possible to mod the universe to bring in the concept of Pupeteer Hulls. (ie really tough but only made by one race and traded to the others) The invulnerability thing I get (although probably don't really want them totally invulnerable) but I'm wondering if it is poossible to have only one race be allowed to build them and then another could trade for them and upgrade it with components. I'm thinking this would be impossible since I think you would have to be able to build a hull before you can upgrade it.