DERILICT SHIPS?

[PvK]

Well the component could be un-destroyed, but a useless (derelict) Version of a component from a tech level that allows a useful Version, or to research the useful Version. The problem is getting it in space. I guess you could create the "derelict-generating empire" ... though then it wouldn't be an event. ;-)

PvK

[HEMAN]

Thanks players for responses, VAL idea ,Be much neater if it could be like "ancient ruins" in space, or if an actually ship would appear in the sector that you have to repair and cart back to be analyzed. This is a great idea?.
My idea, a derlict from the future, come back to the past, has (unique hull size) (has unique componets)but has no engines or has no crew department. Perhaps a way two tow it?, or to build shipyard ship for engine repair,or crew repair?.

[Mark Walton]

Thinking out loud... would it be possible to create an AI (possibly neutral) race which has lots of tech at the start of the game, creates this one ship then wipes itself out? Players could then explore and find the vessel, take it home and analyze it. Or, maybe it isn't too badly damaged, and they can just occupy it and fly it around (like the Liberator in B7). Perhaps it is a derelict simpyl because it has run out of supply.

I might try this... I am planning to mod the tech areas files so that after game startup, all techs are researchable... but with extra-high costs for those race-only or ruins techs. Also put in the mod for choosing techs from racial points discussed on a previous thread. I would only leave un-researchable, those techs which I'm using the fudge the rules in some way. (Some race abilities will be called things like "NPC1 - do not choose")

So, the "derelict" race type has access to a special hull type, and some more advanced technologies similar to ruins techs, and a super-fast ship building facility. They develop this one ship and one tech, which "upgrades" their facilities to something which does bog all except help provide maintainance for this ship. (Reduced Maintenance Cost - System 100, perhaps. Of course care must be taken or players will have a free-maint system by capturing the world! so maybe not...). Oh and no resupply base. And, sometimes, engines which are also emergency move generators, so they end up destroyed and a bit more derelict (I am right in thinking the AI will actually use these? am I?)

Often the ship will have some cloaking device... probably just level 2-3. Just to make it slightly harder to find the ship.

If you find and capture their ship, will you run the risk of disassembling it in the hope you will learn something... or just use it's awesome power straight away?

[Baron Munchausen]

If you look, there IS a derelict ship image in the events directory. It was never used for some reason.

[Gryphin]

Mark, I'm not much of a modder but it might be possible to create a race that will trade the ship to you. Of course, it might trade it to another AI. That could be interesting.

[geoschmo]

Mark, you could do this as a scenario. THis is exactly what I did in my "Awakening" scenario.

It would not be possible to mod this in and have an ai do it randomly. They would build the ships allright, but there is no way to get an ai to destroy itself intentionally.

Plus, if you are going to use raical techs, you have to be careful. Anything that is racial tech the player cannot repair, and they cannot retrofit it without removing all the racial techs. If you use a non-standard hull they can't retrofit it at all. SO if you make racial tech engines that are destroyed on use and a racial tech hull, it will be useless. They could move a space yard ship to the same sector and scrap it for raw materials, but that's it. Well, they could anaylyze it instead, but any racial tech will not be analyzable.

Geoschmo

[dogscoff]

What a cool idea for a (multi-human) scenario. It would take a LOT of setting up though...

In a the aftermath of a terribly destructive war, the humbled survivors have been stripped of their former technologies, reduced to feuding, planet-bound medievel societies. After hundreds of years of civil war, each race re-unifies and regains space-flight technology by studying and salvaging relics of their former glories, left on their home planets by their ancestors. (Co-incidentally, they all do this at the same time=-) They set out into the universe in their ricketty craft to regain the glory that once was theirs and to settle some old scores...

The galaxy should show evidence of heavy stellar manip warfare. Each race starts out with knowledge of the galaxy's geography, one homeworld and a few small, scattered colonies. They have ship capture, repair I, a few other important techs, but NO research point generation. Crew insurrction would also have to be disabled.

Scattered around the galaxy are dozens (hundreds?) of crippled ships (belonging to AI races with no planets and AI files modded to do as little as possible). Each player has to race to acquire derelict ships and analyse the tech, in order to reach their old enemies on the far side of the galaxy and resume their old wars.

Of course, you can only repair tech you already have, and you can't build mobile shipyards at the beginning of the game (You might want to disable them altogether), so to start with you have to find ships with primitive engines that you *can* repair, just to get your derelicts to a shipyard. Setting this up would require some thought.

Each player would be spreading their resources thinly in order to acquire the maximum number of ships possible, so some great exchanges would probably take place, where a slow-moving derlict could change hands many times before finally being anlysed (or destroyed)

Some of the derelicts could also have SDDs and boarding defences in place, just to complicate matters further. You'd also get some ships with low-tech components but high- tech hulls, so that a capturing race could repair the ship into a powerful warship, and would have to decide whether it was more valuable as a weapon or a research tool.

Playing PBEM or TCP/IP you'd have to play strategic combat, so you wouldn't be able to look at a ship's components before deciding whether or not to take it. To counter that, the scenario maker could introduce certain clues / patterns to help the player guess what sort of tech might be on a derelict. Maybe ships belonging to a certain shipset tend to have high-tech engines, or ships in a certain part of the galaxy tend to have colonisation techs and deep-frozen population.
Some derelicts might be hidden in storms and nebulae, glittering prizes for the first to acquire and use stellar manip / sensor tech.

If you wanted, you could go the whole way and restrict resource extraction techs, so that scrapping derelict ships becomes an important part of the economy. Actually, this scenario might work well under P&N.