SEV- Suggestions on Ruins

[Atrocities]

Ruins could give other things other than technology. They could give a new happiness pill, a boast to production, a boast to intel, a boast to research points, etc.

[Fyron]

tmce said:
Um. Why? Sure it makes sense from a realistic point of view, but not from a fun point of view. The tag that tells you there are ruins on a planet is a little flag that says 'Hey! Colonize this planet and something cool will happen!'
Whenever you colonize a ruins planet, you should get something. Sometimes something good (unique techs, etc), sometimes something bad (Oh no! Wrathful ancient race!), sometimes something you might not really need (Goody. Meson BLaster IIs. Those will fit nicely with my APBXIIs...)

But I think not getting anything from a Ruins planet is kinda kicking the player in the teeth.

Because it makes it more fun to have the chance to discover technology that leads nowhere... It adds more random chance and variety to the game. Why would all ruins be something good left behind? Maybe the ruins are just some partial houses with no useful technology to be gleaned... I believe you are the first person I have ever encountered that was utterly against this idea. Should we also make it so that there are no systems that are empty? It is kinda kicking the player in the teeth when he explores a new system and finds absolutely nothing of value...

mottlee said: Be maybe cool to have some "Bad" tech that starts you someplace then goes nowhere!

I agree. You can see such things in Adamant Mod.

Gandalf Parker said: Actually if I were to think about it I can see it being clues to research (research points in specific areas) more than I can see finding tech that can instantly be modified and mass duplicated for use in my ships. So if I were making a wild-change suggestion it would to changing the whole ruins system to be either research points (general or a specific area boost), or a piece of technology which you can add to ONE ship and jury-rig it to be useable. That could be an interesting change for strategic play. I could find a level 5 missile, or a level 5 shield, but I only get to add it to one ship. I can find a planetary shield but can only install it on one planet. Maybe I could find an actual ship and use it, or a dreadnought hull but only a couple of engines and a shield are intact so I have to get it to a shipyard and analyze it.
Im not sure if that would be a GOOD change though

While this would make gameplay interesting, having only one copy of a device available would be rather useless once you get more than a few dozen planets and ships. The devices found would have to be truly spectacular if that were the case. Perhaps a mobile War Shrine component, that boosts the chance to hit for all of your ships in a system or in a sector, would be the type of thing that it would be worth finding as a single useable component. Being able to find fully functional ships could be interesting, but only in the delay it takes to get the technology. It might be better to just have ruins give you a theoretical technology, then you have to do research to develop the device. This also somewhat covers the research boost idea, at least for unique techs, and is doable in SE4 mods (such as Proportions and Adamant, which already do this).

[Aiken]

I like the idea of useless ruins. Now combine this with an alien artifact idea (physical devices that can't be reproduced) and give me possibility to arrange a museum of galactic curiosities. That'd be cool! And utterly useless, but still cool

And spoils of war show as a practical proof of my victories. Yeah.

[AgentZero]

Fyron said:
Because it makes it more fun to have the chance to discover technology that leads nowhere... It adds more random chance and variety to the game. Why would all ruins be something good left behind? Maybe the ruins are just some partial houses with no useful technology to be gleaned... I believe you are the first person I have ever encountered that was utterly against this idea. Should we also make it so that there are no systems that are empty? It is kinda kicking the player in the teeth when he explores a new system and finds absolutely nothing of value...

An empty star system isn't quite the same thing as getting nothing from ruins. One does not expect to find stars surrounded by colonizable planets on the other side of every WP, therefore finding nothing at all isn't really a kick in the teeth since at least now you KNOW there's nothing in that system.
But taking the time to build a colony ship, settle the planet, and if suggestions in this thread are implemented, spending a bunch of research points on absolutely nothing. Then what are you left with? I figure, if it's a bunch of delapidated old houses, it isn't really worth mentioning. Therefore the fact that your scouts flagged a planet as containing ancient ruins means there's something worthwhile there.

I could accept ruins tech that would be inferior even the lowest tech levels your empire could research, since you could always find a use for it, even if it's just trading it to another unsuspecting empire for something good. Or I could accept techs that fail to live up to their promise. ie: You find a ruin tech that you're told will allow you to develop a gun the size of a Meson BLaster but with enough power to destroy an entire world, but after you research it you just end up with something the size of an MB that does, say, 50% more damage. Not what you were promised, but still useful.
But to get NOTHING? I wouldn't consider that fun. I'd consider it frustrating and annoying.
For everyone who's played GalCiv, let me just ask, when you send your Survey Ship halfway across the galaxy to an anomaly that normally gives you that 25% tech boost, but instead you get nothing, do you say, 'Boy, that was fun!' or 'That was an annoying waste of time!' with a few explicitives thrown in for good measure?

[Suicide Junkie]

tmce said:An empty star system isn't quite the same thing as getting nothing from ruins. One does not expect to find stars surrounded by colonizable planets on the other side of every WP, therefore finding nothing at all isn't really a kick in the teeth since at least now you KNOW there's nothing in that system.

By the same reasoning, would it then be perfectly fine to have dud ruins if the stock game had duds and the manual mentioned that they would be there?

[brianeyci]

I think there should be "power ruins" in SE:V. There should be a strategic reason why you would want to occupy a ruin planet after it has been taken. Maybe 5% boost to total empire mineral production, or something like that. Or maybe special techs that get unusable once you no longer own the planet. And as well, certain ruins should "broadcast" their use to all other empires, because of the immense energy/whatever used. For example, if you use the 5% boost to mineral production every turn, all other empires get to see the planet and system and get a notice about its use.

That would make for some interesting fights over ancient ruins.

Brian

[Fyron]

tmce said:
But taking the time to build a colony ship, settle the planet, and if suggestions in this thread are implemented, spending a bunch of research points on absolutely nothing.

Who said anything about spending research on dud ruins??? They would lead nowhere, immediately. No new tech areas would be opened. You would waste absolutely nothing.

Then what are you left with? I figure, if it's a bunch of delapidated old houses, it isn't really worth mentioning. Therefore the fact that your scouts flagged a planet as containing ancient ruins means there's something worthwhile there.

I could accept ruins tech that would be inferior even the lowest tech levels your empire could research, since you could always find a use for it, even if it's just trading it to another unsuspecting empire for something good. Or I could accept techs that fail to live up to their promise. ie: You find a ruin tech that you're told will allow you to develop a gun the size of a Meson BLaster but with enough power to destroy an entire world, but after you research it you just end up with something the size of an MB that does, say, 50% more damage. Not what you were promised, but still useful.
But to get NOTHING? I wouldn't consider that fun. I'd consider it frustrating and annoying.
For everyone who's played GalCiv, let me just ask, when you send your Survey Ship halfway across the galaxy to an anomaly that normally gives you that 25% tech boost, but instead you get nothing, do you say, 'Boy, that was fun!' or 'That was an annoying waste of time!' with a few explicitives thrown in for good measure?

You get a colony as normal out of it... it is nothing like the absurdity of "anomalies" in GalCiv...

Even ruins that at first look promising could turn out to have nothing of use...

[brianeyci]

Oh, the "power ruins" would be nicely put into a Category called "persistent ruins".

For example, you would get a special weapon that could skip through armor and shields, but that weapon would only continue to work and you could only continue to build it if the ruin was under your control. And various other things I can think of that would create more strategic reasons to own a ruin planet. For the idea to work though, all other empires would have to be aware of the ruin planet every turn it was "used".

Brian

[Baron Grazic]

I like the idea of Persistant Runes. That would certainly allow more Roll Playing ideas for games.
Runes that always give tech doesn't sound realist. In the late game, if my Empire has researched everything except Torps, and I colonise a Ruin World, why should that world have Torps?

[Gandalf Parker]

mottlee said:Be maybe cool to have some "Bad" tech that starts you someplace then goes nowhere!

Hmmm that would be interesting but easily avoided later.
It did bring to mind that a (slim) chance might occur for misleading research. Send you off in a wrong direction. Something that sets you back on what you are researching.

Or maybe that would be better as a random event so that you can tie it in to the choice of having maximum events turned on. Might be a good idea to move the research boosts there also.