Suggestion for an improved plague model.

[Baron Munchausen]

Contagion is certainly a good idea. It's rather odd that the presence of plague on a planet does affect morale (happiness) in the entire system but it doesn't have any real chance to spread to other planets.

The percentages thing is certainly better than the flat levels we currently have but there are some other features you have not considered. Different plagues would have different rates of infection, that is, different degrees of contagion. And, why does a plague have to kill everyone outright to be damaging? What about a plague that makes everyone very sick, killing some but weakening the rest of the population and reducing production? So, 'contagion' and 'virulence' could be two completely seperate factors on a given plague. Add these two very different factors to the much finer 'scale' of effect you have proposed and things get interesting.

But there is one more thing that no one ever seems to consider. Why is it that the SAME biological weapons (or 'natural' plagues) can affect all of these 'alien' races equally??? Lizards and humans and birds and crystals all affected by the same biological agent? Is this bizarre or what? It really should be necessary to research a bio-weapon specific to the race you want to use it against. The simplest way to do this would be to have a 'named' bio-weapon for each race. But that's not the best way to do it. The best way to do it is to build some sort of 'code' system into the AI that has identifiers for the biological characteristics of the races. You could then have various degrees of 'relationship' (as in 'genetic similarity') between some races and varying degrees of effectiveness according to the closeness of the match for the bio-weapon being used.

Now THIS would get interesting if plagues could be long-standing events that infect entire systems and hang around for a while. You might see a system swept clean of one race by a plague and another race move in. Does the other race want to reclaim the planets yet? What if the plague is still there? They may be killed by it even if they successfully retake the planets by military force.

[ August 29, 2002, 20:27: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[TerranC]

The idea that a simple sick bay would cure a plague that is ravaging an entire colony of at least 34 million is unlikely, IMHO.

What I think should happen is:

3 types of plagues depending on their method of infection

Spreads by air/food/water spreads the fastest
Spreads by Touch the next
STD (Maybe... I don't know.) the Last

Then there would be 3 types of cures BASED on the sick bay component:

Sick bay cures all 3 at basic level 1-10%
Antibiotics cures Air at 10-100% must have SB to work
Chemicals cure STD at 10-100% must have SB to work
Physiotherapy cure Touch 10-100% must have SB to work

and contagion should work if there are no military ships in the system, but the rate should be increased with any transport, yours or others.

If there are military ships in the system, they work to stop the disease by:

if garrisoned on a planet, blocks that planet and moon(S) ONLY

If garrisoned on the infected planet(S) they stop the contagion for the entire empire

Just my 2 cents

[dogscoff]

Of course, you're both right about the different types of illnesses and their effects on diferent species and stuff... but it would be a massive task to implement them. Hell, what I'm suggesting is a pretty massive task, so I guess I can't really complain

Anyway, I love the idea of "blockading" your own planets to prevent the spread, and of adding a flat increment to contagion rates according to the number of population transports.

As for production... Well hapiness would modify production, and be directly affected by plagues, but why not just go a step further and multiply production by health? 50% health * 1000 minerals would adequately represent all those workers unable to go to work...

I'm going to compile all the ideas from this thread, and then when the thread dies off I'll mail the whole bag to Malfador...

The idea that a simple sick bay would cure a plague that is ravaging an entire colony of at least 34 million is unlikely, IMHO.

Well... yes and no. Firstly I think the medical bay is supposed to be more than a simple sick bay. All ships would have a sick bay as part of the crew quarters, which would deal with the crew's health and nothing else. You could model this with a component with a med level of just one or two. It wouldn't cure much on it's own, but it might be able to help out in a large scale effort involving more specialised ships.

A medical bay, on the other hand, would be a large facility specifically designed for the kind of tasks we are talking about. Whether or not that single ship could cure an entire planet... I don't know. Star Trek certainly seems to think it's possible=-) If they had the very latest technology and the best staff (which is kind of implied by the research points you spend to get it), then they might be the first to come up with a solution which can then be administered by the local health authorities. It's hard to say. Th e thing to remember though, is that it's an abstraction. It's a way of representing the fact that you (as emporer) are diverting resources into helping the problem on planet X. You could argue all sorts of "invisible" support for that ship, just like the "invisible" transports which move your resources all over the place.

Anyway in light of all this, I think that med bays should be larger and/ or more expensive.

[ August 30, 2002, 09:46: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

[Wardad]

Maybe.....

Troops could have a medical componant....

[Krsqk]

In addition to the other ideas for risk and spread:

-Chance for spread to other (known) empires, increased by level of treaty and percentage of trade. Of course plagues can affect more than one species--look at Star Trek! Of course, then 95% of all alien species are misplaced humans, too.

-Increased risk of plague for building plague bombs (risk affects commissioning planet)

-Increased risk of plague for researching levels in Biology, Biological Weapons, or Medical Technology (risk per research facility, affecting those planets). Of course, this isn't likely to happen, because of the ability to mod these tech areas; but it would still be cool.

Slightly OT, but it would be cool to mod tech areas so there was a risk to researching them. It could function somewhat like the current events/intel model, including fields for risk percent, risk type, and effect amount. Why not go one step further and create a SideEffects.txt with component and facility family numbers, too, to assign risks to building those items. SEV, maybe.

[Zanthis]

Complexity is nice, but you really probably want a system that players can grok quickly and easily while still leaving many paths available. Not saying this system meets those requirements, but I think it does a fair job. Here we go...

Each planet has a plague level, ranging from zero to five, with zero being the same as no major plague. In addition, they also contain an infected percentage from 0 to 100%. The effects of a plague are as follows:

• 10% reduction of all production per plague level times the percent infected.
• 10% reduction of all construction rates per level times percent infected.
• 10% reduction of reproduction per level times the percent infected.
• Minus the plague level squared, times the percent infected from happiness (e.g., -25% * percent infected for level 5 plagues).
• Population times percent infected times 1% per plague level equals the maximum deaths per turn. Make one random "roll" of 0-max for each plague level. Take the highest roll.
• Each turn, increase the infected percentage by a random -5% up to the plague level times 5%. Multiply this value by the race's Tolerance attribute (positive Tolerance bonuses reducing positive growth and increasing negative growth, and vice versa).

Note that all these percent changes to things such as reproduction are multipliers to those values, not subtractions. So a level five plague cuts your production in half, it does not reduce your construction mutliplier by 50% like many other modifiers in the game. This is especially important to note on the change in infected percentage. So with a 50% infected percentage and +10% change, you get 55% not 60%.

Weapon platforms and troops on a plagued planet suffer penalties to both attack and defend equal to 5% per plague level times one-half the percent infected. Unlike above, these are straight subtractions, so -25% for a level five plague to a 40% to hit chance means it becomes 15%.

Like planets, ships can contain plagues too. They do not, however, have an infected percentage.

• Any ship with a medical bay is immune to all plagues of a level lower than the medical bay. (Assuming Full Coverage, see below)
• Plagues of a higher level have a 5% chance, minus one for each level the plague exceeds the medical bay's level, of having their level reduced by one each turn. Note that reducing a plague to a level below the medical bay instantly cures it. (Assuming Full Coverage, see below)
• Ships suffering from a plague suffer the same combat penalties as weapon platforms and troops on infected planets unless they use a master computer.
  

As a side note, troops cannot, by themselves, be infected. If the planet they are on is, they are. If the ship they are on is, they are. Otherwise, they are not. Note also that while ships with a master computer can be plagued even though they do not suffer combat penalties for being so.

Medical Bays cover a certain size in Kt. Value2 of the medical bay ability is used to indicate how much coverage they provide. A fully covered ship is one who has the sum of their medical bays equal to or greater than the ship's size. When different levels of medical bays are mixed, all bays below the strongest medical bay have their coverage values multipled by their own level and then divided by the level of the best bay. So a 200 Kt level 5 bay and a 200 Kt level 2 bay cover 280 Kt at level 5 (200 * 2 / 5 = 80, plus the 200 from the other bay).

If a ship has only partial coverage, they do not gain total immunity. Instead, the percentage of size actually covered is the percent chance per turn they medical bay is actually allowed to function. However, unlike with full coverage, plagues below the level of the medical bay are not removed if they bay works on a given turn. Instead, they have their level reduced by one automatically.

How do ships get infected you ask? Any of the following transmits a plague of an equal level as the source to the ship:

• They pick up or deliver any cargo to/from an infected planet. Releasing cargo into orbit, such as mines, does not count.
• If they successfully board, or are boarded by, a plagued ship they recieve the same plague level.
• They recieve supplies from a resupply depo on a plagued planet.
• They are fleeted with a plagued ship. (See below)
• They have components repaired by a plagued ship or planet.
• They are retrofitted by a plagued source.
• They are built by a plagued source.
• A mothballed ship is unmothballed by a plagued source. Mothballing a ship removes its plague.
• The ship receives experience via a training facility in a plagued location.
  

To prevent plagues from spreading insanely, I'd add the ability to Quarantine a planet, ship or fleet. If the quarantined object does not have the plague, they will not engage in any activity with a plagued source that will give them the plague. If the object is already plagued, it will not engage in any activity that will allow unplagued objects to contract the plague. And no, quarantining a plagued ship won't protect it from being boarded by an unplagued ship . Special exception for those who thought there was a hole.

In addition, a fleet is treated as if it is a single ship with a single plague. This means all medical bays within the fleet are combined to determine if they provide full coverage for the entire fleet. Removing the plague in the fleet works the same as if it were one gaint ship.

Next, how to cure planets. Make a medical bay component for weapon platforms that leaves no room for weapons. It works under exactly the same rules as medical bays for ships, except their value2 indicates population protected. So drop a bunch of "Emergency Hospitals" on a plagued planet and they can whip the plague eventually. It would also be possible to make a troop sized Version of the component.

Now how to deliver plagues to planets. First, a planet that conducts an activity with a plagued ship,which would plague a ship (such as resupplying a ship) recieves a plague of that level at an infected percentage of 1% or 1 divided by their population times 10%, whichever is greater (so on a planet with 5M pop, they'd get 1 / 5 * 10% = 2%). This is a once per turn event, no matter how many ships are involved, although the greatest plague wins, so you can't plague a planet with a level one, then quickly drop the cargo of the ship with the level five plague. As a special case, if the planet's infected percentage is already greater than the initial exposure percentage, then contact with a greater level plague increases the planet's plague level by one (and leaves the infected percentage alone). This can occur at most once per turn to a given planet.

Weapons use their damage rating to determine that number being divided by. At the end of combat, total up that number from all plague weapons (assume for the moment they were all the same level) and divide by the population and multiply by 10% to find the infected percentage of the planet after combat ends. If multiple plague level weapons are used, the greatest plague level wins. All lesser weapons contribute to the total modified by the weaker weapon's level divided by the greater weapon's level. So, if a plague level five weapon hits for 50, then a plague level three hits for 50, the total number so far becomes 80 (3 / 5 * 50 = 30, plus the 50 from the first weapon). On a planet with 2000M people, just those two hits would yield a level five plague with an infection percentage of 0.4% (80 / 2000 * 10%), which you could use a quick random roll to determine how to round: Using a "d10", on a 1-4 round up, on a 6-10 round down.

Make a few of those values moddable and make fighters carry the combat penalties of the plague from their launch source and I think that about covers it. You get medical ships with tons of medical bays to fleet with infected ships and/or accompany your regular fleets. You can load them up with cargo bays to carry portable hospitals for cleaning up your planets.

See, lots of possiblities and its all short and sweet . Oh, I dropped a section on spreading plagues between planets in the same system just via the invisible trade that occurs because it was getting kinda long, but it would just be an extension of the infected ships infecting a planet, just using an invisible plagued ship instead.

[TerranC]

Originally posted by Zanthis:
Ships suffering from a plague suffer the same combat penalties as weapon platforms and troops on infected planets unless they use a master computer.

Before I go to sleep...

Ships and Bases with master computers should, I think, do 1 of either 3 things.

1. Behave normally, but spread plagues to planets with space yards or stations with space yards/repair bays or ships with space yards/repair bays.

2. Have a combat penalty and a defensive penalty but effective as a ram device to ships and planets.

3. The MC is destroyed, and must be cleaned before salvaging. (Or number 1 happens)

for troops, If doable, include an option to KILL the population and DESTROY the colony. The massacering troops are also killed to stop the contagion. This would be a simple plan to destroy the colony, or a dire Last resort.

This would have a negative effect on the empire (Even if you are a dictator, Free speech is bound to apply somewhere) as people would revolt against a murdering ruler. Other empires, however would be more humble, and only stop trading with you.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.