Tales of Known Space

JonSh · #1 July 31st, 2002, 09:53 AM

Is anyone out there considering a "Tales of Known Space" (Larry Niven) mod? I've been waiting for Ultimate for Gold, and the STNG stuff, but it seems like the universe of Louis Wu and Beowulf Shaeffer might be perfect to play in. Just off the top of my head I can remember Humans, Kzinti, Trinocs, Slavers, Tnuctipun, Bandersnatchi, Pak, Kdatlyno, Pierson Puppeteers....and I know there were more.

I might like to work with a partner on this if anyone is interested, but it's not something I'd tackle alone

DavidG · #2 August 1st, 2002, 01:40 AM

I was just thinking the other day this would be cool. (mostly wondering how you'd mod an invulnerable Pupeteer hull

)

Suicide Junkie · #3 July 31st, 2002, 02:56 PM

You could add a one-per-ship component with 60,000 hitpoints...

Ed Kolis · #4 July 31st, 2002, 07:23 PM

Kzinti? Funny, I thought they were a little-known cat race from Star Trek...

DirectorTsaarx · #5 July 31st, 2002, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
Kzinti? Funny, I thought they were a little-known cat race from Star Trek...

Actually, Star Trek "stole" them from Niven (well, sort of; Niven adapted a couple of his stories for the animated series for Star Trek, so they had permission at one point; but SFB got in trouble for using the Kzinti & renamed them).

As for modding Known Space into SE4: I like the idea; the main stumbling point is that each race had very few different types of ships, and ISTR that most people just bought one of the 4 standard puppeteer (General Products) hulls. Of course, since I've never read the Man-Kzin War series, just the original Niven stuff, maybe I'm incorrect.

You could at least mod in the Slaver stasis boxes by renaming the ruins and/or altering the description of the ruins...

There were also "Outsiders", who traded with everybody, but couldn't stand gravity so they stayed on their ships in deep space. If only we could get an AI to play a nomad race effectively...

Would we have to give the "Lucky" trait to the humans to represent the Teela Brown factor?

Actually, you might end up with multiple "human" empires, just to represent the fact that evolution diverged somewhat on the outlying colonies...

Arkcon · #6 July 31st, 2002, 09:01 PM

I wish I knew how much damage the ringworld laser did. We could have a special weapon (and the mount and the platform as well) that would only fit on the ringworld. 'Course it would only be funny if you didn't know it was there.