Silly idea...

[Taqwus]

Message beacons -- say, done as a component on a satellite. Ships approach, and it beams a message, be it perhaps useful warning ("Warning: Black Hole Ahead"), a territorial claim ("This system claimed by Century 2400 Real Estate. Trespassers will be annihilated."), silly ("For a good time, call 1-900000-5555-55555555"), or just plain obnoxious ("George Q. Bush III for Galactic Imperator: Barbara Bush was his GRAAAANDmammy.", "Vote Al Gore: So he's an android. But don't you want an immortal leader?").

Only useful in multi and for scenario authors, and would take special-case code I'd think (the only variable-length strings assignable on a per-ship basis are the ship names, IIRC, and I don't recall that space being very long), but it'd be amusing if ever done. And it'd facilitate things like leasing planets (For instance, it might be mutually advantageous for a production-heavy race to lease a research planet from a research-heavy race in exchange for resources) and other oddball commerce by allowing a "for lease" sign to be placed.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[greghacke]

Actually, I don't find it silly. It would help tremendously in a multiplayer game, or even against AI. Post them on the distant end of warp points to let people know they are about to enter your border and that you don't accept trespassers. Would also allow for static "transmitters" to establish lines of communication between empires without several ships wandering through my home system...

[Seawolf]

Um guys,

if you look under the empire button you can see that you can claim systems and see what other empires claim as their systems. While cute the amount of programing could be hellaoius.

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Seawolf on the prowl

[greghacke]

I agree with the monstrous amount of coding. But setting a claim on a system and notifying empires who enter would be EASY. I realize that in MP this could be abused (claiming every system,) you actually have to visit a system to claim it (if it's not coded, this is EASY...)

[rdouglass]

I know what SeaWolf is talking about, you can claim systems - you can even set the game to automatically claim systems when you colonize one. However, I believe a lot of the messaging discussion is already "kinda" taken care of. The AI players know what systems are claimed once they encounter another race. You can know too if you check the section where you can send Messages and you have visited the system.

However, that is not detailed enough for the puroses of this thread. That may be a good suggestion for MM. I too think the diplomacy levels are lacking. I have seen it posted on other threads about how once you get even a trade treaty, it pretty much gives the AI free run of your space. It was suggested before (not from me) that we should have sublevels (if you want to call them that). IOW, you should be able to tell an AI player "Yes, trade sounds good, but I don't want you to do any recon or colonizing in my claimed systems.

That, IMO, would be a big help with treaties.

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 15 November 2000).]