It's ramblin' time again.

[Taqwus]

Beware the following crazed and perhaps impractical / impossible / unbalancing ideas.

* Strip-mining facilities.
Is it possible to assign negative climate/value modifiers to a facility? If so, perhaps there should be more brutal resource-gathering facilities that yield very impressive output (say, 900, 1100, 1300 base [!]), perhaps at low facility cost, but severely impact on both climate and value -- so you can extract those resources quickly, turn the planet into a uninhabitable, worthless wasteland, and move on just like any parasitic race worth its salt. Perfect for the rabidly uncaring orbital miner as well, especially if they ever add habitat ship components.

* You'd think most abandoned colonies, if fairly large, would rather riot than instantly vaporize itself without question. Or, join a nearby faction that might actually care about them, perhaps in exchange for tech...

* Hull variations -- perhaps designs that allow for more engines than usual, or provide greater efficiencies (e.g. a warship design that provides the space of a BB, but with the combat bonuses of a CA, and requiring a certain proportion be devoted to weapons; or advanced designs that have a lower maintenance cost due to modularity; or so forth).

* Really weird idea -- Tone down the Organic EAG by removing ability to hit fighters and sats (which is unique among the high-damage range-8 weapons), perhaps increase its reload time to 3, and add instead a biological component that a) functions as a Master Computer of sorts, but arguably should be vulnerable to psi (maybe a new ability, since it probably can't count as multiple life support etc), b) simulating the organic nature of the ship, acts as a weak repair bay, c) isn't all that expensive. For flavor, really.

* Emergency warp component... Destroyed on use, probably fairly big, allows the individual ship to warp away to a random nearby system, perhaps even during combat. Ship suffers significant amount of damage (perhaps apply a percentage chance to each component) due to stresses incurred during unprepared warp, and should suffer a MP penalty (perhaps all) for the next turn due to disorientation. For use in extreme situations, like you really, really don't want to lose an expensive stellar manipulation ship that's falling into a black hole 'cause some joker destroyed its engines via an intel op.

* Perhaps not that useful, except for certain odd scenarios -- an improved shipyard which lets ships be stored *in* the planet, i.e. in storage, where they'd be hidden from prying eyes outside of combat mode. Probably cost movement to enter or leave, and when stored should perhaps be fairly vulnerable. It'd also give a reason to build cargo storage facilities... Fits in well with a 'space pirate' motif. Or for those evil players who enjoy terrorizing others with the mere threat of a deadly armada hidden nearby.

* ...and with high-tech penetrating long-range scanner, which can see planetary cargo from a short distance away. ;-)

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction... <ducks>

* Perhaps there should be an ability, suitable for either hulls or components, that basically hides the design even when scanned in combat, except possibly for the weapons, shields and engines that the viewing race already completely understands; this would add value to the steal-ship-design op, and would spread fear and ignorance (as in "What the HECK was in that ship?!"... or probably s/CK/LL/ ). Would be helpful for scenario authors who intend to make their alien races suitably mysterious and terrifying...

* Racial tech facility, a must-have for Borg-like races: an Assimilator. With all the loathesome evil that implies.

* Perhaps a wide-area ECM jammer, which worsens *everybody's* to-hit chances. Suitable for non-combat ships, those containing religious talismans or have outrageous hit bonuses (e.g. Legendary (+50%)), and those that rely heavily on seekers. Likewise, an improved jammer that works versus seekers might be nice.

* Refitting should probably incur a slight experience penalty -- new stuff to be learned. So, actually, should damage to crew / life support / bridge / master computer, as the crew/computer parts die off.


That's enough for now; I'd better submit this post before Netscape consumes all memory and crashes...

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night