Exploding stars...

[tesco samoa]

everytime it has happened to me it is 30 turns

------------------
L? GdX $ Fr C++ SdT T+ Sf* Tcp+ A M++ MpTM ROTS Pw+ Fq+ Nd Rp++ G+

[capnq]

quote:

---

"Star is unstable and could collapse at any time"
"Star is prone to violent eruptions and has an unstable core"

Interesting. Would the former indicates that the star would blow within 3 years, while the
later means it will not happen within the next 3 years?

---

No, I think both of those descriptors mean the star is a candidate to blow at some undefined point. AFAIK, a star without one of those two warnings will never blow without some technological "help".

The Event Log entry warning that the star will blow is always three years beforehand. Single planets with core instabilities blow in one year, and the firestorm warning gives you three months to evacuate.

------------------
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"

[Phoenix-D]

capnq, both of those, in the abilities.txt file, have descriptions that say "value 1: chance the star will explode per year".

I don't think it's supposed to have anything to do with events, unless he changed it and forgot to change the abilities.txt file. In any case, by default all the values for these two abilities are set to *0*, and even if you crank it up nothing happens, so if the description is correct they don't do anything.

Phoenix-D

[DirectorTsaarx]

Phoenix, I assume you turned the value all the way up to 1000 (since the percentage stuff is sometimes measured in tenths), and let it run for a full year?

Of course, the feature could have been disabled in the hard code during beta testing, since it could cause serious trouble early in the game, and skill would have nothing to do with winning or losing at that point. If it had a setting where the game didn't check for star explosions until, say, turn 30, it might be OK. Even then sometimes it's tricky to abandon homeworld-sized planets and resettle the population somewhere else (especially if you can't FIND a comparable world...).

------------------
L++ GdY $ Fr>Fr++ C++ SdS T-- Sf Tcp? A%% M- Mp! RTH!P Pw Fq-->Fq+ Nd>Nd+++++ Rp++ G+

[This message has been edited by DirectorTsaarx (edited 05 September 2001).]

[Puke]

in 1.35 there were two abilities and one of them worked. you could set value 1 to 100 and there was a 100% chance that that star would start its 30 year countdown on the first turn of the game.

now, in 1.41, there is only one ability called "star unstable" or something. it does not work, set to 100, set to 1000, or set to anything else. it does not work on the first turn, nor 100 turns in on high/catastrophic events. it be broke.

a map saved from the 1.35 map editor with working exploding stars does not work on 1.41 of the game, either.


------------------
"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[DirectorTsaarx]

Ah. Another undocumented feature. Interesting...

Maybe someone should inform MM, with suggestions as to how we prefer it to work...

------------------
L++ GdY $ Fr>Fr++ C++ SdS T-- Sf Tcp? A%% M- Mp! RTH!P Pw Fq-->Fq+ Nd>Nd+++++ Rp++ G+

[Slaughtermeyer]

If a star is going to explode in 3 years, will you get a message every turn about the star exploding, or do you get only one message 3 years before the actual explosion? If you get only one message, people who take over races as replacement players can be in for some nasty surprises