Dying Stars
 

Hey all,

Is there any way to prevent a star from exploding? I have already had one do so in a system I controlled. I evacuated the single planet. Now, however, my home system, with three major worlds and a forth outpost, is also in danger. I have been desperatly researching Stellar Manipulation, and am at the point where I can destroy stars, but I have not yet seen a way to save them. Is it possible? ALso, is there any way to tell exactly when the threatened star will die?

With my backyard in such peril, I am having trouble prosecuting the war against my invading neighbors. If I were to lose this key system, I would probably be doomed. I have already evacuated several billion citizens to my outer colonies, but I fear the star will blow before I can save them all.

Any thoughts?

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--Armageddon
"Ernest Hemmingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I agree with the later."

Morgan Freeman
Seven

Re: Dying Stars
 

I'm afraid your home system is doomed.

When you start the game, it gives you some options which determine how often random events occur and their maximum severity. I think it defaults to a max severity of catastrophic.

There isn't any technology you can research which will save the star; nothing in the stellar manipulation technologies will work here. Other than the original message warning you that the star will explode in 'X' years, there isn't anything that tells you how much time you've got left.

To be safe, move all your ships out of the system as the star's explosion kills everything in it.

Very, very bad roll of the dice!

Re: Dying Stars
 

Supposedly, if you build a ringworld or sphereworld around a star, it won't be subject to an explosion event. Otherwise, I think setting event severity to anything but 'catastrophic' will keep that event from appearing.

I think. I seem to get the planet explodes event on high, but I don't know if it is a bug or if I forgot to set the event severity in the game to something besides catastrophic. Since it seems to happen around two hundred turns later.

Is there a way to view the settings you made on a particular game, and if not, could that be added in a later patch?


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--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: Dying Stars
 

Crap.

The annoying thing is that I didn't even get a message warning me about the star, like I did with the first one. I just happened to notice it had the warning event on it. Thus, I have no idea how much time I have left.

I guess I'll try to build a world around it, but thats going to be tough. I'm in the middle of a massive galaxy wide war right now, and have hit such high maintenance costs that I have begun losing ships. The only thing keeping my fleets in action are the constant trades I am doing with some of the other races, minerals for orgs and rads. I
ve already conquered one enemy and am close to getting a second, but my only ally had broken all treaties and the others won't ally with me even though they are brotherly.

I really hate the diplomacy in this game. Diplomacy is my FAVORITE part of these games, but not a single one has ever really gotten it right. Why the heck can't developers do some more work in this area? Its critical IMHO, but doesn't get much attention at all. I'd love to play a game JUST about diplomacy. Obviously this sort of problem is solved by having human players, but it shouldn't have to be the only way to have a good diplomatic game.

<Sigh> I'm off to evactute the remaming population of my home system. I'll try to build that ring world as a Last resort before I send the Last ships out. How tragic. ;(


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--Armageddon
"Ernest Hemmingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I agree with the later."

Morgan Freeman
Seven

Re: Dying Stars
 

Give it up. If you're already having maintanence problems (upkeep cost) wait till you try to built a sphereworld. those things are EXPENSIVE!!! You gotta have 10 Gravity Plating (50K each resource per unit), 10 Hyper-Dense Cables(50K each resource per unit) and 1 Sphere World Placement Generator (100K per resource)

About the only thing you can do is, at the Last possible moment (which is hard to compute w/o knowing the start date) evacuate the planets, scrap everything of value and trade all the planets to some unsuspecting empire and try to get some worthwhile worlds in exchange.

It sucks but thats life in the Universe. Been there and done that (and lost by the way)

good luck

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

[This message has been edited by WhiteHojo (edited 30 January 2001).]

Re: Dying Stars
 

It sounds like you need to mothball about a quarter of your fleet and use any spare resources to start cranking out mines. If you mine the two to four warp points leading into your system, then you can focus all your forces on just one front and still win the game.

Re: Dying Stars
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Armageddon:
Crap.

The annoying thing is that I didn't even get a message warning me about the star, like I did with the first one. I just happened to notice it had the warning event on it. Thus, I have no idea how much time I have left.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

if you did not get a message, and you just have the 'this star is unstable' description, it is not going to blow - yet. it mearly has a higher chance of getting the random event that will make it blow. also, you just need a ring world, not a whole sphere world.

Re: Dying Stars
 

I think you may actually be safe. When a star is created at the beginning it has the chance of having abilities. The abilities and chances a Normal star has is:
1/2 % chance of having 'Star is unstable and could collapse at any time.'
and 1/2% chance of having 'Star is prone to violent eruptions and has an unstable core.'

Both of these are the Star - Unstable ability which is a percent chance of the star exploding. However the normal star with either ability has the ability set to 0 percent.

So if you have not seen the message that the star is exploding you should be safe.

As to the constructed world protecting the star it does do that. A constructed world replaces the star and abilities requiring the star go ahead (cystal tech solar generators even inside the constructed world do not work anymore off that star)

Re: Dying Stars
 

That and unless you've got really good space yard ability it's going to take at least 45 turns to complete the generator. Which is probably why some of us wanted the ability to let space yards pool their resources together. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

IIRC, a ringworld/sphereworld already there will keep the star from exploding. But I'm not completely sure about that.

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--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: Dying Stars
 

"I think. "
Congratulations! (Heh, Sorry, I just saw that sentence, and I wondered what exactly you were trying to say)

Re: Dying Stars
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Instar:
"I think. "
Congratulations! (Heh, Sorry, I just saw that sentence, and I wondered what exactly you were trying to say)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, as I was saying earlier, I try to set the game to 'High' event severity. Looking through the datafiles, I found that the planet and star destroyed events are both catastrophic. Since I usually set events to 'high' I have to wonder if I either forgot to set the event severity correctly or if there is a bug in the game that makes planets explode despite what setting you used. So either it's a bug or I forgot what I added two hundred turns ago when I started the game.

Maybe it's old age or something... http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/shock.gif



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--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: Dying Stars
 

Thanks all,

Its been several years since I first noticed the unstable bit, so you must be right. Its a t risk, but not doomed. Once I finish off my current enemies I may start diverting some resources to a ringworld just to be safe.

I managed to get out of mineral debt and have pushed the Krill back to their home sector, and am massing for the kill. I even have enough of a surplus that I have been able to crank out a bunch of shiny, new missle cruisers and battleships. Ahhh...vengeance shall be mine! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif



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--Armageddon
"Ernest Hemmingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I agree with the later."

Morgan Freeman
Seven

Re: Dying Stars
 

bump

Re: Dying Stars
 

There is a planet destroyed event that sometimes occurs no matter what you have your setting on. It seems to be hardcoded as the message is different from the one in the random events file. I think it is linked to one of the research area's. As I have cleared the events.txt file completely out to test new events and still have seen this.

Re: Dying Stars
 

A half year old post. Funny

Re: Dying Stars
 

yes but the this post is in relation to the star destroy post, so it was bumped back up.

Re: Dying Stars
 

You could have just posted a link to this old thread , like I do for my Pirates & Nomads mod

Just type, with out the newlines:
[
url=
The URL of the page
]
your link text
[/url]

be sure not to put the url in quotes.

Re: Dying Stars
 

And if you don't want to bother typing the UBB codes, just cut & paste the URL itself. The board converts it to a link automatically.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft

[This message has been edited by capnq (edited 18 May 2001).]