How do you do that, Dragonlord? - Page 3

Phoenix-D · #21 August 18th, 2001, 07:23 PM

Not quite Beedee..in newbie 2, I went Co2, rock; I figured no one picked it. Aside from the AI races, that is, since 3 of em used it.

Anyway, it was a pain to find any Co2/Rock planets. Not very common at all. So choosing the type no one else uses can bite you in the butt, since if your type isn't common.. your expansion is quite limited.

Phoenix-D

dumbluck · #22 August 18th, 2001, 09:04 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Deathstalker:

And yes, sometimes having the atmosphere/planet type no-one has is THE edge in the game, like Pukes Junkyard game, I believe everyone mostly chose rock, a few chose Ice but I think only one chose gas. It is set on only colonize own planet/atmosphere, That 'gas guy' has a huge advantage, esp since EVERY planet has tech left behind to discover, and NO research is allowed.....but as usual, I digress....

Yea, you don't know _HOW_ many times I've kicked myself for not being gassy in that game; I normally roleplay that race as gassy anyway. (beings of pure energy evolving on a solid planet just didn't feel right to me...) But no, I had to be greedy and try for all those moons....

To quote a now famous phrase, "D'oh!"

[This message has been edited by dumbluck (edited 18 August 2001).]

Quikngruvn · #23 August 19th, 2001, 03:58 AM

Finally found the table Shoujo was talking about (I think).... Daynarr posted a spreadsheet here that lists the relative occurrence of each planet type.

If I'm interpreting it correctly, it means:

--you'll have more available planets being rock/any air (though rock/CH4 seems to have a slight advantage, for some reason). But, 75% will be medium or smaller.

--you'll have more large and huge planets being gas/any. But, you'll have half as many available planets as a rocky type.

--if you're ice/any air, you'll have just over half as many ice planets available as there are rocks, and a little more than half are small or tiny (oxygen has a slight advantage, methane a slight disadvantage).

--if you choose airless, you'll have a little more than half as many rock planets or about three-quarters as many ice planets to choose from than if you had picked an air to breathe. Presumably moons are not figured into these figures as they are not considered planets.

From my own limited PBW experience (eight human empires encountered), I've seen two ice and six rocks; and five O2, two none, and a single H2. The majority is rock/O2. This is why I never pick oxygen.

So why pick Ice? Simple: more than likely you will find someone willing to trade colonization tech. More than likely they'll be rock. More than likely you'll more than double your available planets.

So, let's get some more variety out there! (Speaking of which, how about some more atmospheres, like nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, chlorine, or radon?)

Quikngruvn

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Stay alert. Trust no one. Keep your laser handy.
--from the RPG Paranoia, now my PBW mantra

Shoujo · #24 August 19th, 2001, 07:30 AM

While that spreadsheet wasn't what I had in mind (though the stuff I read was probably based on that spreadsheet), it does give me the data I was looking for. Thank you Quikngruvn

I do wish the spreadsheet included moons though...

I think I'm going to try ice, but I'm going to have a really hard time thinking of a way to justify how my physically weak, soft-bodied insectoids can live on an ice planet with freezing temperatures... Insects and freezing weather just don't go together.

BeeDee10 · #25 August 19th, 2001, 10:32 AM

Easy; they just _look_ like insects. They're actually delicate, beautiful creatures with liquid ammonia blood and exoskeletons made of transparent crystalline water-ice that scintilates in their homeworld's dim white sunlight. They speak with chiming tones and make a sound like tinkling glass as they dance across the glacial plains and swooping arches of their cities.

And then give them a bloodthirsty, xenophobic culture dedicated to chaos and destruction. Make it your trademark to radiation-bomb enemy homeworlds, use plague weapons, the whole nine yards.

I love coming up with races.

capnq · #26 August 19th, 2001, 03:18 PM

quote:
So, let's get some more variety out there! (Speaking of which, how about some more atmospheres, like nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, chlorine, or radon?)

The atmosphere types are hardcoded, so you'll have to wait for a patch or SE V.

quote:
That part about trading colonization tech raises some questions: How do you get humans to trade that, as it immediately produces competition in colonizing the same planet types? I would think twice to trade this tech, unless the other player is at the other end of the galaxy.

"Sphere of influence" agreements help with that, if you can easily agree on where the border should be.

I tend to pick planet and atmosphere just to roleplay the race rather than for strategic advantage. My solo game Tiktsin are intelligent plants evolved from a lichen; they were Icy/CO2 long before I read that it was the least common combo in the game. My Rrurrr are Rock/Oxy because I originally created them to be the native race of a human-colonizable world in my theoretical GURPS Space tabletop RPG campaign. The Mi-Go are Icy/Methane because they're traditionally from Pluto in the Lovecraft Mythos.

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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"

Shoujo · #27 August 20th, 2001, 12:59 AM

Beautiful but deadly... I like that BeeDee. Unfortunately I'll let you take a shot at being bloodthirsty. In my very first PBW game I picked Berserkers (for the combat advantage till I learned it was bugged) and tried to RP, but that fell apart after the first few turns. I found myself actually liking my neighbors, so I couldn't declare war on them *sigh*

I got myself thinking, would it be possible for winged creatures to fly in a no-atmosphere planet...? I might have to revise that description...

BeeDee10 · #28 August 20th, 2001, 02:53 AM

Winged creatures, no. Wings need some sort of medium (gas or liquid) to push against. However, you could equip your species with biological "rockets" instead. For a RL example, look up Bombadier beetles; they use glands in their abdomen to produce two chemicals which, when mixed together, react violently and bLast a jet of boiling-hot acid and steam at whatever's annoying them. Your insectoids could use rocket assists for jumping and changing course in mid-leap, which is as close as you can get to "flying" in a vaccum.

Note that this kind of thing would be biologically "expensive," and so probably couldn't be done for long continuous stretches of time. They'd be rocket-powered grasshoppers rather than eagles.

Shoujo · #29 August 20th, 2001, 06:27 AM

Ugh... I think I'll make em live underground like ants rather than be grasshoppers with rockets...

capnq · #30 August 20th, 2001, 09:23 AM

quote:
would it be possible for winged creatures to fly in a no-atmosphere planet...?

H.P. Lovecraft's Mi-Go could fly better in interplanetary vacuum than in a thick atmosphere like Earth's. Maybe the wings are used as miniature solar sails? (Of course, conventional physics doesn't apply to Mi-Go anyway; they can't be photographed with normal film, for example.)

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