SJ,
Did you ever think of making real planetless nomads ? I was a little bit surprised to see that my Nomads still depended on their HW to have research going ....
I think that it may be possible to have real nomadic races, living in some "Arkship". My ideas for this are :
* An huge ArkShip size (10,000 Kt+) and huge ship components that will produce Min/org/Rad/Res/Intl - I don't know of this work but it looks possible ...
These will be accessible only with Nomad "tech" The ArkShip will have those huge comps, huge special engines, included SY and lots of cargo (to put 4B population !)
* Cost and maint of the ship must be such that the Nomad can build one and only one - I don't know how to do that...
* A special facility must allow them to build the ship in 1 turn - sort of super yard that will fill their HW (with "tags" in AI_facilities) but that will be so costly so as to be non-buildable.
* Nomads will lose ability to have Research facilities, so they will need to build the ship if they want any progress...
As I see it, on 1st turn the Nomad will build their Ark, then move it (slowly) across the Galaxy, it will act as resupply point for their ship too... It'll even be refittable !
As for combat it should be quite stiff to kill but killable, as an HW should be in fact !
Should be neat, isn't it ? Am I anywhere near a possible thing ?
[ May 27, 2002, 21:28: Message edited by: PDF ]