An extremely silly question, buut...

[Batman]

Well, if we're talking about a minimum of coding changes to the program, then insert a flag, like

WAS_MOTHBALLED_AT_SPACE_YARD {1/0}

If this is set to 1, then the ship was 'mothballed'. If set to 0, it was 'abandoned' (but the status is the same otherwise). Then don't change the ship until someone comes along and tries to board it. When they do, pick a random number of components and damage them. This could represent the fact that sometimes ships could float for millenia in the cold, preserving vacuum of space, but other times a freak meteor shower etc could damage them severely.

The point is, you don't need to track this, but rather leave the ship intact until someone comes and actually looks inside; the Schroedinger's Ship paradox

Hey, I just had an idea for a modification to this. If the SDD is still functioning when the ship is boarded, it could detonate. This could represent the crew abandoning the ship, but leaving it 'booby-trapped'.

Hmm, but why would you abandon it if you had a functioning SDD? Isn't that how this thread started. Well, I'm confused

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Batman:
Then don't change the ship until someone comes along and tries to board it. When they do, pick a random number of components and damage them. This could represent the fact that sometimes ships could float for millenia in the cold, preserving vacuum of space, but other times a freak meteor shower etc could damage them severely.

The point is, you don't need to track this, but rather leave the ship intact until someone comes and actually looks inside; the Schroedinger's Ship paradox

I do like that, but the only thing is it doesn't allow for an abandoned ship to completely disintegrate over time, unless it disolves to dust when you try to board it. That would be frustrating. "I know there was a ship here somewhere..."

Hmm, but why would you abandon it if you had a functioning SDD? Isn't that how this thread started. Well, I'm confused

ROFL! Good point! I am an idiot for not thinking of that. I suppose the only reason would be that you want to take the chance on recovering it later at least partially intact. Or it could be just meanness. But a minfield would be more efficent.

[dmm]

And how about: Any ship that runs out of supplies AUTOMATICALLY becomes derelict, and runs a risk each turn of being salvaged by the Trade Federation! You'd have to have ships use a tiny bit of supplies each turn just sitting there in order to get maximum fun out of this rule, but the crippled survivors of big battles would also provide booty for the opportunistic TF scavengers. Engine killing weapons would be powerful once again. This would certainly make those Emergency Supply Pods and Solar Collectors more important! And would make it harder to sit on a warp point in the early game.

[dmm]

Originally posted by Batman:
The point is, you don't need to track this, but rather leave the ship intact until someone comes and actually looks inside; the Schroedinger's Ship paradox

Unless someone probed it with LongRangeSensors. At that point you'd have to run the damage subroutine and keep track of it.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by dmm:
Unless someone probed it with LongRangeSensors. At that point you'd have to run the damage subroutine and keep track of it.

Or you have a Trek-no-babble answer for that and say long range scanners detect what's inside a ship based off their energy emmisions, and a derelict hsip has no energy emmisions, so is immune to long range scanners.

[dmm]

I think that most of these Trade Federation ideas could be done in a no-AI game if it were set up correctly beforehand. One player plays the TF, whose role is to capture disabled ships, analyze their tech if valuable, buy tech, and sell ships and tech to anyone who can pay the price. TF ships and planets may not be attacked. (Exception: Intel can be used to recover your own ships.) TF never allies with anyone. TF cannot colonize or build any ships except boarding ships. TF starts with a tiny breathable planet in each system. TF starts with some advanced tech (e.g., LngRngSens, BrdngPrty, Rpr) but only sells tech that it has seized.

I don't know if TF should be allowed to use intel to get tech or ships. And I don't know what victory conditions TF could satisfy, if any. What do you all think?

[Lord Kodos]

the tf has to sel so much stuff that they buy out all the other empires kind of like the Corparations in the LotR mod(wow Legacy of the Ra'Shrakil and Lord of the Rings have same initials!)