Crazy Idea
 

I have been thinking about this for some time and I think it might be fun for any modder out there to attempt. The idea is that one race (via racial trait) has a pretty big advantage. This race is very powerful and has better technology, ships, etc... and it is very EVIL! All other empires, which use normal techs, must ally and band together to defeat the evil tyrant. The number of other empires must be controlled to be as balanced as possible. The other empires must use everything at their disposal to defeat the evil empire: mass mining of selected sectors, coordinated intel attacks, coordinated research and tech trading, fleet support, and anything else they can think of.

Victory is determined when the evil empire is destroyed or the other empires are destroyed.

This mod would work in single player using all AI allied against the player or in multiplayer in a 1 vs. all game.

What do you think?

Re: Crazy Idea
 

Sounds a lot like spacemonsters http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Crazy Idea
 

It's a cool sounding idea, but would be hard to pull off. Think about how hard it is just to come up with techs that are balanced for a straight up one on one fight. Now you are going to complicate that further by fine tuning it so 1 player can take on X number of players. Getting it so the Uber race isn't too strong or too weak is going to be a bear. And it seems to me your mod will require games to be played with a certain number of people. Ulness you had in mind that the AI would be able to competantly coperate with the other player controlled minor races agaisnt the Uber race. That's a whole nuther can of worms. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Crazy Idea
 

You could always give the AI the super-empire, or adjust the number of allied opponents based on the skill and tech of the super.

Something like a Pirate Coalition of humans against the Normal AIs in P&N, perhaps.

Re: Crazy Idea
 

Sounds like what I am doing with space monsters as a playable race in Invasion!

Re: Crazy Idea
 

Give the bad guy 5000 points, and all the others zero. And adjust from there...

EDIT: to clarify: I mean the points used to build the empire at the beginning of the game...

Re: Crazy Idea
 

This also sounds a little like The revenge of the Drow game I was in for a bit. We had to stop when the battles started bogging down the computer and errors in the run cropped up. (Possibly because the battles were too big, or the number of ships were too many)

Re: Crazy Idea
 

I had an idea for a mod and in it was a super race. An ancient race with abilities far beyond those that any other race has. Sorta like Space Monsters, sorta like the Rage, but with a innate level 4 cloak to their ships and planets, and not aggressive at all. They also needed a carefully tweaked AI file, so they wouldn't declare war under normal circumstances, even if they were discovered. 'Course, once you discovered them, and you went MegaEvil (TM), they'd turn on you just like everyone else. I figured their message in that case would be: "We've been watching you for some time now. We think you're ready to understand this now." Nice and creepy and cryptic.

At any rate, I was going to give them Battleship sized hulls, orgainic/crystaline armor, top level point defence, and an incinerator type beam weapon, all to start with. They wouldn't have to research anything. They'd colonize slowly, planets would just disappear when they built their cloaking facility. You'd be toast if you initiated combat with another opponent in a sector they we're hiding in. (Kinda like Babylon 5, when that Star Fury lost in hyperspace saw the first Shadow vessel, then we never saw another one untll two seasons later). Then, when you were almost technologically and economically advanced to handle them, they'd suddenly appear all over the place, angry at you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: Crazy Idea
 

I had a similar idea, but the opposite. A race that is strictly a pacifist in nature and their weapons, via racial trait, are all non-lethal. They target engines, weapons, shields, uses boarding to capture ships, and lands troops to capture planets.

I suggested this for a race trait in SEV and I think it’s going to be one. J (Fingers crossed.)

Image playing as a Pacifist race where your race is limited to non-lethal weapons. Of course they would have a huge boost in the diplomacy area, and have specialized Intel gather and Counter Intel abilities. Their ships would have better shielding and be faster over all with superior maneuverability.

Try playing a game where your best weapon takes out both the engines and weapons of your opponent’s ships. You board those ships and find that your racial trait won’t allow you to use their weapons. LOL. But you gain the ship and can re-arm it with non-lethal weapons. Cool.

Re: Crazy Idea
 

If your pacifist race went around frying the engines and weapons on everybody's ships, their enemies would get maintenanced to death.

Re: Crazy Idea
 

Unless their enemies put self destruct devices on all their ships and used them on crippled ships.

Re: Crazy Idea
 

but then the pacificts would have achieved the same as destroying the ship, hence they have still won.

Re: Crazy Idea
 

But lose a boarding ship.

Hmmm..... methinks Slick has been watching the old Star Wars trilogy at least three times in a row recently.

Re: Crazy Idea
 

You don't need a mod for this, just give the bad-guy an ringworld, and the rest only large planets. Also make sure that in the Bad-guys homesystem he can find an ruine with some 150 techs on it.

So there it is, evil-uber-race ready to destroy tiny-peaceloving-races.

Re: Crazy Idea
 

Make it like space monsters, where they have special technology.

Re: Crazy Idea
 

Create two or three traits that work like the Normal/Nomad/Pirate traits in P&N, so that Normal races are, well, Normal, Pacifists are, well, pacifist and uber-evil races are... well, do I need to clarify? And separate the tech trees - most stock techs (or mod techs if you're using an existing mod as starting point) can be filed under Normal requirement, you can add a Pacifist tech tree with large ships with things like inherent supply storage, long-range scanner, bonus movement, inherent cargo storage etc. and engines that store more supplies AND use less, and so on. Uber-evil races would have smaller hulls, with less/no bonus abilities, but they would have very strong weapons and many combat-bonus comps - think Booster Engines that provide combat bonus movement so Uber-Evil battlecruisers can run loops around Normal Deepscouts, or High-Focus PD Turrets, with good damage and +40 modifier, or shields that have a massive output and regeneration ability, or bridges that give bigger bonuses for offence/defence as they get better, and so on.

Am I ranting?

Re: Crazy Idea
 

Why not give the evil races powerful ships, but weak economies due to the oppression and corruption.

Re: Crazy Idea
 

i was working (secretly until now) on a similar mod, the idea was to some player control a race with very powerfull technologies, this player should not take an active role on the game. Something like the antarans who sent first small fleets and then strongers fleets to other races systems, ofcourse attacking this super powerfull race won't be easy, also i was thinking about adding some technologies on some distant planets (ruins) so the race that discovers this planets will get a powerfull tech to help defeat the evil race or maybe some other races (creating a little kaos heheh) that way the player maybe tempted to conquer other races insted of allying all the known races against the evil race, that why i think to call this mod Wonders.