Technology Research Suggestions

[dogscoff]

Wolvrine: I just salvaged this from an arlir topic...

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Space is big,
Space is dark,
It's hard to find,
A place to park.

While the above statement is undeniably true,
The universe currently simulated by Space Empires is very small and crowded. Within a few dozen turns, most systems have been colonised and explored, and all the empires are sitting in each others' laps.

How about a mod which creates a more "empty" universe? A universe where meeting another empire does not mean you will be squabbling over one another's home systems within a year. I'm thinking more Alien than Star Wars, more Red Dwarf than Trek, more Dark Star than Bab5.

Here's an idea of how to go about it:

First, the map generator files would have to be modded to make colonisable planets/ systems rarer and farther apart. This would increase their value and force players to look beyond their home systems.
Huge maps with fewer empires would also help.

Now, make colony ships and components far bigger and more expensive. I'm thinking maybe 800-1000 kt, with a 700-900 kt colony component and harsh combat modifiers.

Cargo components for smaller ships should be of limited use, forcing players to use large ships for any serious cargo movment. Adjust supply usage/ storage so that long range travel is really expensive for large ships. Different engines for different ship sizes maybe.

Setting up a new colony would now be a *major* investment (and hence a *major* risk)- especially in another system.

New colonies would also be much more vulnerable. This is good, after all it's a long way home. Facilities should take longer to build, so that a new colony does not establish itself and become independent of external defence/ support too quickly.
Each player might only have a few dozen colonies throughout the entire game.

The supply restrictions on bigger ships and cargo restrictions on smaller ones would limit the expansion of infrastructure, so
military domination would then revolve around the strategic placement of fleets, mines, sats, space stations and colonies rather than simply racing to develop the bigger production base and throw ships at the enemy.

Fleets of small ships would be able to roam from system to system and rule over frontier space. However they would be more or less powerless against the defences of established systems. Attacking an enemy system would be an enormous projct.

Remote mining would play a greater role, as would moons, storms and nebulae. Physical warfare would become the Last resort when diplomacy and intel fail, although having good defences around your home systems would be more important than ever.

Some of S_J's mods (ie hardened bulkheads, cheap/ quality mounts) would make good additions since they make ships more individual. Phoenix-D's primitives (still in development, I believe) would also be good here, since their isolation would give them more bargaining power and more effective defences.

It would make for a much slower and more deliberate game, since ships and planets would no longer be "throwaway" items. Combat would be rarer but when it happened it would be truly epic, with loads of allied empires in gigantic battles.

I don't know how the AI would cope with all this but it would be cool for human players - a whole new game with a whole new feel.

Thoughts?
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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

[Wolverine]

That sounds excellent Dogscoff, but how big a project would it be to do all that? Would it require hard code changes or could it be done with the text files? I only bought the game a few months back so I'm still in playing mode. Looking forward to getting my hands dirty with some modding shortly.

I'm currently playing a Large Universe game with all Rock/Oxygen breathing races, restricting colonisation to Home Planet Type and Breathable Atmosphere. Plus I have removed Gas Giant and Ice Planet Colonisers from the Research Tree. With Finite Resources it makes an interesting game. Very few planets are available and each one is vitally important.

Unfortunately, the AI doesn't seem to be handling the restrictions too well Love to play a PBEM game like this though.

[dogscoff]

Should all be moddable. In fact th hardest part would be altring the galaxy creation, which would in fact be very similar to the current "ancient" setting.

I'v nvr playd finit resourcs but can imagine it being very stressful.

Something just occurred to me - if I conqur a planet with resource storage facilities, does my enemy lose resources? Do I gain them?

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

[Wolverine]

I remember seeing a mod which had different options for Galaxy creation, allowing fewer planets for each system. I think it's DevNullMod's mod.

[capnq]

quote:

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Something just occurred to me - if I conqur a planet with resource storage facilities, does my enemy lose resources? Do I gain them?

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I'm pretty sure that where resources are physically located isn't tracked. Taking a planet with storage facilities will only increase your capacity, not give you any "plunder". The previous owner of the planet will lose resources, though, but only if you've knocked his capacity below what he had in storage.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[dogscoff]

This would be a nice touch for MM to implement one day. It would make invasions that little bit more interesting/ important, especially in finite resource games.

The game wouldn't have to track the locations of resources, just assume that if the entire empire's stored resources are at (for example) 40% of maximum storage capacity, then each storage facility is 40% full.

I believe each empire has a certain default amount of storage capacity without any need for facilities. This could easily be factored into the equation.

Something like...

T=empire's total stored mineral resources
M=empire's maximum mineral storage capacity
f=mineral storage capacity of captured facility
d=Empire's "Non-facility" default mineral storage capacity.
X=amount to be transferred to conqueror per captured facility

X=f*((T-d)/(M-d))


...I think. Obviously substitute "minerals" with organics/rads as necessary.

(Dogscoff ducks under desk to await criticism of dodgy maths)

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

[Sinapus]

quote:

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Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
And I considered that extending the shield to cover phased weapons spreads it thinner, so the phased levels have only a minor improvement in strength over the previous, normal level. "Normal shield" improvements cause the big jumps in strength.[/b]

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Argh. Well, so much for toying with Massive Planetary Shield generators. The shield uses the ability Planet - Shield Generation and there is no Planet - Phased Shield Generation ability in abilities.txt. Foo.