More Realistic Ruins
 

It never really made sense to me that a starship passing by a system would detect ancient ruins on any planet that has them. Wouldn't it have to do special scans? Well, here's an idea in two parts - the first part can be implemented without the second.

1. Cloaked Ruins - Ruins now have a cloak level, like ships; they are not visible until either a ship with an appropriate scanner moves into the system, or the planet is colonized (and presumably surveyed).

2. Archaeology - Ruins are not immediately turned into tech when the planet is colonized. Instead, there is a chance each turn, modified by population (more pop is good, up to a point, then the ruins get paved over - much like resource extraction in newer Versions of P&N), that the ruins will be discovered. Of course, if the ruins have been detected with a scanner, then they are immediately turned into tech since the scientists know where they are.

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

That makes sense. The way it is now, at the start of the game, everybody can rush out to look for ruins and quickly colonize all the planets where ruins are detected. It would be better if it were harder to find them.

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

Yes this would be interesting to see implimented into the game. It componant could be like 150KT (big for the purpose of since it's a special device, it would be on a special hull) and it only goes on one sort of hull. A new hull is added, perhaps name it "exploritory" or something of the like. Better name could be thought up I'm sure. Then you have special ships that you use to explore systems. Adding yet another greatness to this already great game.

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

Yes, good ideas, and this has been suggested several times before.

What I did in my Proportions mod was to increase the number of ruins by several times, but then make most of them contain nothing useful. That way, you can see which ones MIGHT have tech artifacts, but there are a lot of them (also considering colonization is expensive in Proportions), and most of them don't give anything. Best I could come up with given what could be modded.

PvK

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Puke's Junkyard Mod {link} is like that.

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

I see the Ruins an unimportant serendipty "Fun" part pretty much like "Eye Candy". Yes I make for any planet with ruins as soon as possible in the early game so I don't research techs I might recive. By the time I have reached
Light Crusier, Propulsion 6, ECM III, etc.. I don't even look for them. I focus on colonizing the planets that will aid my expansion.
If you make them part of your strategy I suggest you take: Ancient Race and Rock Colinazsation to max it out.
As for realty? I look for play ballence and some consistancy but not realty.

That said, it might be fun to play a small map with 2 to 4 humans with lots of Ruins. Sorta a Treasure Hunt. What file and settings do I change?
Thanks

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, considering that the first ship who passes through the system takes a detailed tally of the mineral, organic, and rads value of each planet, and rates it on how nice it would be to life there... Its not too unreasonable that super-advanced technology still intact enough to be useful to the scientists could be seen from space.

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Good point http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

I think that the Ancient Ruins feature should be completely redone. Techs should be more exotic, more useful and less powerful than they are with a rare "conventional" tech.
How about this: break all ruin techs into level1, level2 and level3 to research which you'd have to research appropiate Archeology research project?
I think that multiple tech-field requiements do work in SEIV.

EDIT: edited to make more sense

[ November 23, 2002, 06:14: Message edited by: Taera ]

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">A very good idea, require that you have an Archeology Theoretical Reasearch before you got ruins tech is a good idea. The AI could be hard coded to only research that tech if it saw ruins it could reach quickly.

Under the heading of random ideas, how about getting ruins tech some way other than colonizing. Say if your ship had some sensors (perhaps researched under Applied Archeology I), and stayed in orbit and got the tech over a time period of 5 turns or so. The ruins would remain, and someone else could get them -- unless you colonized, then they'd still be lost.

Instead of rushing to and maybe fighting over ruins, we would always be fighting over ruins

[ November 23, 2002, 13:09: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

it would be interesting that whoever controls the ruins controls the tech. You lose the planet, you lose the tech. And they gain it.
Interesting.
In this case it should be unique tech only.

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

What about planet based "artifacts". You control the planet you have that ablity or special facility (ancient weapon, processing plant, gateway, research points bonus, etc.).

What about negative effects (find a reactor that makes the sun in the system goes supernova, a plague outbreak, turns the system into a nebula/storm etc.). You can stop most of these negative ruins by applying research to stop the bad effect.

Maybe when you find a ruins you find an ancient race that is upset that you woke them up or distrubed them. That race should be a Non-Player race that will attack anyone, but of course the race that finds it will probably be closest.

KirbyEF

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

i think you can simulate planet based artifacts in the map editor. just give the planet special abilities. that way nothing to learn or create and if you lose the planet you lose the benefits.

[ November 23, 2002, 19:23: Message edited by: desdinova ]

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

The way I see it... ruins should give you a 'stepping stone' tech which would then allow you to research some unique tech. Just because you found a Massive Shield Depleter in a ruin doesn't mean you can start manufacturing them right away. You should receive a 'massive depleter tech' which opens up component research techs which, if researched, allow you to use the unique tech.

Most 'empty' ruins should still give you some research points - you always learn something from them, although it may have no immediate practical use.

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

how about instead of the ruins giving you components or facilities have it give you access to new tech areas. the areas might gives just slightly better components and facilities than everyone else has or lead down the road to new techs no one else would have access to. you would still have to research everything to get the benefits.

edit: Erax beat me to this idea. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif hehehe

[ November 23, 2002, 19:31: Message edited by: desdinova ]

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

A lot of interesting ideas.
Mine is:
A tech "Reverse Engineering"
Once researched you could then build a specialized facilty to study Alien Tech.

Re: More Realistic Ruins
 

I really like the idea of having new ruins taht can simulate like an asteroid gun or an ancient race, also i like the idea of the archeology tech tree adn being able to share ruins until colonized. o and make colonization harder/more dangerous to discourage everyone colonizing and wasting the ability to "anylze"