Modding Challenges

[Romulus68]

Blockades

The ability to park a warship at a warppoint and prevent the flow of resources between the two systems.

You could prevent Trade Treaty resources from getting from Player A to Player B.

You could prevent resources from getting to Planet A from the rest of te Empire.

Useful in a war situation or roleplaying pirates. It would need to be a total blockade or a reduction in resources as a function of the number of ships conducting the blockade.

You could make it a ship/fleet order that asks for the Empire you want to restrict in the Blockade order.

Oh! This leads me to a second order being piratical. You have a "Raid" order that will steal or damage resources between two empires.

Implementation:

1. Each system is assigned a Value based on the trade being transmitted through this system/warp point.
2. Friendly ships in the said system add a defense bonus to the convoy.
3. Friendly ships assigned convoy esort duties actively protect the trade routes.
4. Enemy ships assigned to raid or blockade fight the escort ships.
5. Winner determimes the spoils or what gets through unharmed. Thus, factored by the overall Defense bonus determined by point #2.

I was trying to think of a way to represent this in the game and short of having real transports moving the goods it was a tough call. I think the trade routes should be abstract in the since that they are not on the map, but calculated per system based on the path neeeded to get resources between trading partners. Same is said based on the resources coming out of planets to be shipped through out the Empire.

To attack a trade route:

1. You simply move a ship into the desired system and issue an "Attack, Raid, Disrupt" trade routes order. It doesn't matter where the ship is located in the system it will take part in the activities. It would be assumed that te trade convoys (infrastructure) is technically spread throughout the system. The ship is consider activily raiding the system.
2. Friendly ships in the system add to the convoy defenses reducing the amount of loss from raiding.
3. Friendly ships can be set to actively patrol the system with an order. This to can be issued from anywhere in the system. Any ships on patrol will engage any raiding ships and do battle. Even though they aren't in the same hex they are considered to be fighting one another and a combat is fought. Winner says it all.

A little more brainstorming and we have a Blockade, Pirate Raiding and Convoy system added to the game.

[Suicide Junkie]

Monsters:

- Special Experience type for monster hulls; -100XP per turn, but when XP > 0, they generate resources.
Killing/Eating enemy ships leads to digestion!

NEEDS: "Ship Experience Type" field in vehicle sizes.txt

- Growth & maturation; The components added to the design are considered its DNA...
Ships can only be built if the component level is within 1 of the current "age" tech level.
"Age" gets researched one level per turn. (Based on research costs vs research generation on the homeworld)
Component formulae depend intricately on the Current Tech Level minus Component Tech Level, which equals the age of the monster in turns; abilities grow and fade over time as the monster progresses from larvae to juvenile to adult.
EG: Larvae (0-15 turns old) have unbeatable cloak ability, but undeveloped weapons and abilities. Sensor abilities and movement speed grow over time. This time can be used to sneak into enemy systems and camp out in sensor disrupting storms for sneak attacks later
Juvenile (16-30 turns old) - Weapons grow in strength; first claws, then projectiles. Armor grows tougher. Cloaking ability fades out.
Adult (31-60 turns old) - Movement speed fades somewhat. Weapon damage decreases slightly, weapon range increases.
- "Male" hulls grow combat bonuses.
- "Female" hulls grow fighter bays and SY ability.
Ancient (61+ turns old) - Gradual fading of abilities.

NEEDS: Only requires recalculation of formulas when the game is loaded!