Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

Hey,

I am curious as to how many people have....

a) acturally built either
b) did you do it out of curiosity or because of your playing strategy
c) have you built one in a multiplayer game.

I built my first one out of curiosity, but have been hooked on them ever since. Sometimes it is just a pride thing, sometimes it is just the shear resourses to build one that makes it more fun that beating up on the AI some more. But actually I find them very useful. They are are producive with enough facilities to equal 8 huge breathable oxygen worlds!!! Plus, with their cargo space they are virually invulnerable if you load them out with weapons platforms and fightes. Add a large amount of satelites and defense bases and there you go. I have never played a human though, but they would still be a tough nut to crack.

Question: Do planet destroying weapons work on these?

-Pat

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No. The ability value works off of position in the file PlanetSize.txt, and the RW and SW come after the Last planet entry that can be affected by a planet destroyer. You could mod it to be able to destroy them if you wanted to.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

I admit I never considered to build a Sphere World, and I am probably not going to even try. Unless I am trying to build the fabled Sphere World filled with Cultural Centers from Proportions that is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Joking aside, I believe they need far too much effort to actually be cost-effective. You will need Stellar Manipulation 8 for a Sphere World (5 for a Ring World), then 21 bases in orbit around a sun plus a few construction bases (11 for a Ring World) and then you will need quite a lot of turns as these 200 facilities are somewhat slow to build. Of course, such a world is *very* profitable once fully developed and protected, the problem being to reach this stage in a multiplayer game. And that is a big problem as few multiplayer games actually reach the 200 turns mark, let alone 300 turns when taking into account the time needed to "create" the Sphereworld.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

In 1 PBW game I hosted, we started the game with a Ringworld in the very centre system, that was owned by a High Bonus AI.
The Ringworld changed hands a number of times, but whoever owned it was constantly building units attempting to hold it and it never reached its full potential.

I've never considered one in a PBW game, just to expensive and long to build, let alone hit the point where it would have paid for itself and be making a profit.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

I built one in a PBW game. Hell, I built about 10 simultaniously. And I NEEDED to!

There were alot of small wars and political manuverings, but by the late stages of the game it came down to two large alliances, 4 players vs 2 players. The larger alliance controlled two thirds of the map, but had been worn down through other wars, where as the smaller alliance was pretty much fresh and was well built up. I was in on the larger alliance, but Dragonlord was handing us or collective asses.

Even with most of the map, we had built to a point where we were at our limits, and needed to expand our production capacity. ringworlds were the only way to do it, and so thats what we did. I named the first one Molly, because I had promissed a long, long, time ago on this forum that if I ever built a ringworld in a PBW game, I would name it that and post the picture. I also renamed the other planets in the system to be a filmography: Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candels, etc.

the deciding factor in the game was actually intelligence operations. counter intel is pretty effective and takes a truely long and concerted effort to wear down - but after I scrapped all my research centers and replaced them with intel facilities, it was just a matter of time.

While PPP can really screw someone up, it does not work very reliably. the most devastating thing I pulled, was targeted ship defections against the supply and repair ships in enemy fleets. If you target the supply ship, you force the enemy to build Quantum Reactors on every ship. if you target the repair ships, you make sure they cant fight more than one battle at a time. if you target the warp openers, well, then you have them bottled in and YOU get to choose when and where battles occur.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

I can top that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I had 36 Ringworlds in the "Return to (micromanagement http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) Hell" game, with another 10 or so on the way when the game became to big for PBW and crashed. Of course the resources they produced was very welcome to support my 1500+ Base SYs and 2500+ ships of the line.

Had the Quadruple Molly in one system and was just starting an attempt to build some in a 5 star system with random movement. Always been wondering what would have happened if I had managed to get one built there http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

technically possible. you will have to wait, on average, 169 turns for chance to drop you on the right sector after all your starbases are built. actually less, if you had multiple stars in there.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

Well, they will all move together... And the Stars are toward the center, which, in time, is around where your random-movement-clump will hang out.

I would wonder about the Order, though. Would the SM order go through before the clump moved? Could you make the SM order if the clump were not on a star?

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

While there are 169 potential places for the random movement to pull you towards, the ones near the center are MUCH more likely.

If you are not in the middle, then there is a greater chance to be pulled in the general direction of the center than away, since there are more squares on that side for the pull direction to choose from. (You are pulled towards a random square, not really random directions)
The pull square dosen't even have to be the center, since if you are 2 squares left of center (and up or down at most 2) and the pull (strength 2) is in any of the squares right of the center, you win also.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

oh yeah. with a strength 2, you will be near the center. i was thinking of something higher, like strength 12, which would just plop you in a different random square each turn. i was mainly thinking that way, because i have a pbw game set up that way...

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

Wouldn't that always stick you in an edge sector?

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

>a) acturally built either
i did build both.
in one game i had 7 all together.

>b) did you do it out of curiosity or because of >your playing strategy
Both.

>c) have you built one in a multiplayer game.
I don't play multiplayer games (yet)

[ December 18, 2003, 14:14: Message edited by: minipol ]

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

I've always thought it might be interesting to have a PBW game where the objective is to build a sphereworld from scratch and hold it for x number of years. Kind of like the "Wonders" victory condition in Age of Empires and games like that.

Geoschmo

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

In my first game playing SEIVG, I built both a sphere world and a ring world. It does take time, but if you're playing single player, then you have all the time in the world (assuming the AI isn't kicking your butt by the time you can actually build one). But since then, I haven't stuck to a single game long enough to get that far. There are so many mods to play, and I just don't have the time anymore to play them all.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

Why can't I upgrade my ringworld to a sphereworld!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

I actually began the proportions ringworld+cultural centre project in a single player game earlier in the year. The game crashes now when \i try to process the turn, but after dumping almost 2billion population on there I had the construction time down to 683 turns. Of course with more population (At least another 5 bllion available on my own homeworld and captured homeworlds) that figure would have dropped more rapidly as I hit the bonus thresholds.

I was transporting pop, by the way, with a fleet of starliner-sphereworlds, capable of shifting 20million ppl each.

But that game's broke. So I started a new one=-)

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

Hmm, I never even thought of transporting people to my sphere world when I built one. Just never thought of it. I think I sent a colony ship to claim it, but I don't ever remember sending more population to it. If I ever get to that point again, I'll have to remember that.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, because random movement is not directional. It works the same way a Black Hole does, but it picks a different attractive sector each turn. So you pop around the system every turn.

Check out Puke's Furball 5. Every turn, every non-planet object in the one-system map is moved to the same sector. It's like a roving destructive party. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">But if it moves you 12 sectors, it would always move you all the way across the system. I know how random movement works. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">no, it does not seem like you do. random movement selects a random square and moves you x sectors towards it. once you arive at the square, you stop moving. excess movement is discarded. and you do not pass through intermediary sectors either, you just teleport to your final location, just as in a blackhole system.

Regarding the fully loaded Porportions sphereworld, its simple enough to start the game with one. Its resource, research, and intel generation capabilities are all quite impressive - as are its planetary shield totals. It would take an impressive fleet to even get through its sheiding, much less start to damage weapons platforms and facilities.

Maybe that would make an interesting max-tech porportions game, one player controlls a sphereworld, and the others race to crack it.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, because random movement is not directional. It works the same way a Black Hole does, but it picks a different attractive sector each turn. So you pop around the system every turn.

Check out Puke's Furball 5. Every turn, every non-planet object in the one-system map is moved to the same sector. It's like a roving destructive party.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, I wish that were possible, too.

It's too bad that you have make a hard choice: build a ring world, OR wait until you research sphere worlds. If you decide to build the ring world, the star is permanently 'used up' and the possibility of constructing a sphere world there is lost forever. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Oh yeah, but it's much more fun to build one.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No choice at all, build a ringworld every time. They're far prettier.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

Speaking of ring worlds, for a while I did not understand why people kept referring to them as 'Mollys'.

I finally learned recently (by reading old threads) that there's an actress named Molly Ringwald. Never heard of her before.
So is there somebody named Spherewald? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, I wish that were possible, too.

It's too bad that you have make a hard choice: build a ring world, OR wait until you research sphere worlds. If you decide to build the ring world, the star is permanently 'used up' and the possibility of constructing a sphere world there is lost forever. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Here's the next best thing. As soon as you have ringworld tech, start building 10 plating bases and 10 cables bases and 1 ringworld base (longest to construct, so start first). In the time it takes to build the ringworld base, research the sphereworld component (3 more levels of SM) you can have significant progress on the ringworld base. You can then design a sphereworld base and upgrade your ringworld base after it's constructed to a sphereworld base BEFORE you create. Saves some construction time on your sphereworld.

Slick.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, Jack Spherewald. First Baseman for the 1958 New York Mets.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">My god, that makes me feel old. never heard of Molly Ringwald? Well, she hasn't made a movie in awhile. She was in the Last scene of Not Another Teen Movie. I don't think she was in a movie during the 90's. don't know why. I think she's pretty (I've always had a thing for redheads). Anybody know why she's quit acting, or is she one of those actors who gone over to stage acting?

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

Another thing I forget to do most of the time is make a colony ship with population and move it to the ring/sphereworld sector before construction is complete. Nothing like finally constructing your new ringworld and having to wait 2 more turns to construct your stinking colonizer and another turn to colonize the thing...

Slick.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good golly, Miss Molly. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

After the somewhat controversial (for it's time anyway) "For Keeps" in 1988, miss Molly got one more shot at a leading role. "Betsy's Wedding" hit the screen in 1990, and left it a few days later. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

She was actually in a bunch of movies in the 90's, but all supporting roles in most of them forgettable movies.

Interesting note, she was in in a short film in 1993 with Billy Bob Thornton called "Some call it a Sling Blade". Thorton reworked the story into the full length hit in 1996, but alas, sans Miss Molly.

She also had some TV work in the 90's. Stephen Kings, The Stand miniseries, which was the only thing I actually saw her in personally in the Last 15 years. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif And she had a role in a series called the Townies which came and went in 1996.

We can only hope for a "Pulp Fiction" like vehicle to come along and resurect her career like it did for Travolta. Otherwise she seems content with her supporting roles and raising a family.

Geoschmo

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well there's one thing worse - having someone colonize it for you, before you get your colonizer there... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

PvK

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well there's one thing worse - having someone colonize it for you, before you get your colonizer there... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

PvK </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not my ringworlds, mister. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif Even during construction, I probably guard them better than my homeworlds.

Slick.

Re: Ringworlds and Sphereworlds
 

Well, maybe a new ring world can be taken over by PPP? Or maybe not... I seem to vaguely remember reading something a long time ago that ring worlds and sphere worlds can't be PPPed, but I could be just imagining that, so I'm not sure. Couldn't find that in the FAQ.