Noobie Question(s)

[Alari]

Yeah, the only way I saw to do what I wanted was to assign the abilities to a facility and then somehow convincing the player to build it. Even then, I couldn't knock techs down at all, but I could probably blow up the planet real good.

What I originally had in mind was a series of techs that would unlock the next level up, but in being researched they would damage the society trying to harness the newfound power.. This isn't something I was thinking of springing on the unsuspecting, either, these would be late-game techs with definite warning signs that the player was dabbling into the realms of the Dangerous and Pointy. Or something.

Thanks for the advice, I'll have to play with things and see how it goes.. I've played enough stock games to understand the basics and dabbled with a few mods (luv the quadrant mod BTW ^.^) I know I want to make my own now, just gotta figure out how. =)

[dbt1949]

When you design your own race and you use something like 3000 racial points and then start a regular game,do the random AI's race add extra points over the normal 2000?

[Suicide Junkie]

Is there any way to script events?

Unfortunately, no, there is not.

You can "script" a single event, such as in one of my scenarios, where you command a "neutral" empire that is forced to flee its only system into the dangerous galaxy full of large AIs because your star is about to go nova.

What you would do is temporarily fiddle the events.txt so that the event you want, with an appropriate delay, is almost guaranteed to happen each turn.
Keep reloading the savegame and ending turn until it gets triggered on the appropriate object/system.

Alternatively, you could have an uber-tech race own a maintenance free, ubercloaked ship having 1MP, and give it orders to move and then do something. Blow up a star or planet, close a warppoint, open a warppoint, whatever.
Leave the uberrace with no planets or uncloaked ships, and none of the players will know they exist.
Set the Uberrace to use the "no-ai" ministers, so nothing happens to your scripted orders.

The only thing you need to worry about is mines, and sundestroyers, and possibly random events.
Give the uberships a massive sweeping capacity, and set the scenario in a time before sun destroyers are available.

When you design your own race and you use something like 3000 racial points and then start a regular game,do the random AI's race add extra points over the normal 2000?

All AIs have custom settings for each possible number of racial points.
Look in AI_General.txt to see the three sets of race setup choices.

[ February 03, 2003, 04:08: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Instar]

wow SJ that is one smart way to overcome scripting shortfalls... I doubt Id have thought that up