Dead areas | Asteroids (suggestion)

from Sins Forums
Ive thought about it a bit, and maybe dead asteroids should not be colonizable.

The reason I say this is the game is kind of lacking in dead areas, which i think is particularly harmful to concepts like piracy and raiding. Also, almost all battles seem to be sieges. Dead asteroids are already in the game and adhere to this idea... sort of. You can't put logistics structures there and they have no mines. But they are virtually always built up with heavy defenses... requiring a siege, and making raiding impractical, and making empires walls of steel with no vulnerable points.

Also, dead space would serve to make systems feel less crowded with things you gotta colonize.

Unfortunately I couldn't find anything that leaped at me and said "Mod Me!" for this so oh well.

The primary practical concern is that it might cause the AI to crap out... I doubt it wants to deal with dead areas.

In the meantime im going to try lowering their tactical points.



9,626 views 28 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Hi Deadly! Totally agree. We are currently evaluating possible features to add life to the universe in non-planetary nodes.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
OOo, nifty.
Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Hi Deadly! Totally agree. We are currently evaluating possible features to add life to the universe in non-planetary nodes.


what do you mean by "life" ?
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
he means too give it a use or reson too use it
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
You could use them as penal colonies!
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
or scrap yards for ship debris....
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
In Freelancer, a game I often mention because of its well done universe, the systems were filled up with nebulars, asteroid fields and uninhabitable planets. Those usually had some sort of structure around them that was built later, like ship-production facilities, mining stations, military structures to encounter pirates within nebulars or research facilities. That way not every thing in space was a coloninized planet.
So one important point would be that you should be able to construct things in open space without having to colonize something. A nebular can't be colonized, but still you'd like to take advantage of it. Or perhaps you'd just like to guard it from pirates.

... Just brainstorming.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I wish there was nebular areas in the game, instead of dead asteroids...
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
I get depressed everytime I find a dead asteroid system (because I love colonizing asteroid systems, but don't realize it's dead until I killed everything around it).

I always thought that dead asteroid systems held artifacts, which were the main reason I colonized them. Some planets have them as well... so now I just leave them empty. I might colonize them if I feel like it.

There certainly shouldn't be any pirates around them, that's for sure!

Having a nebula vein run through some systems as harvestable resources might be interesting? I don't think any tiny area could be nebular, as nebulas contain multiple solar systems, but a nebula vein might be interesting.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I for the most part leave them empty also, unless they are a jump hub with 5-6 directions they can go, then I make it a fortified location.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Gas Giants still going to be in the game?
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
Maybe.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
Here is an idea for having battles that aren't sieges: If two fleets meet each other while traveling along a jump path, they will drop out of jump and begin fighting in that empty space. If you see a fleet coming towards your planet, you can send your own fleet towards them and meet them in deep space instead of at your planet. There are some things to think about, like since there is no gravity well why can't the enemy just keep going to your now undefended planet. Maybe there should be ships that produce their own jump inhibitors.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Here is an idea for having battles that aren't sieges: If two fleets meet each other while traveling along a jump path, they will drop out of jump and begin fighting in that empty space

this idea dates back at least 2 1/2 years, back to the original, unnofficial forums.
its been denied the whole way along

and how exactly would it work? what about non-grouped phasejumpers?
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
How about possibly with those nebulars you could build a harvesting station inside of it that makes it so all ships either in system or within a certain range of the station get an increase in antimatter regen. You could say that the gas from the nebular was providing mass to turn into antimatter.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
but but but.... antimatter comes from the sun
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
antimatter is generated by the ships, so anything that helps their power needs will work... I guess you could have a nebular power station.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
Just a quick suggestion. Even though 'dead asteroids' are of no use to your civilian population it doesn't mean that they won't be used by military. Quite the contrary, I'd love to see the option to create 'special' bases in dead asteroid systems (on the asteriod itself) like for example:

1) Convert asteroid to military fortress. By that I mean totally different "colonisation" outcome with asteroid becoming a sort of gauss defence + fighter/bomber hangar + jump inhibitor. This way 'dead asteroids' would make perfect border system.

2) Build up intelligence base increasing radar range in this and nearby systems and maybe even allowing you to choose from list of covert ops to perform ranging from feeding wrong sensor data to enemies, getting a peek at enemy star system or even breaking pacts between two factions.

3) Build a hidden research centre needed for some of the most advanced military military projects. Or just make the asteroid research centre be worth 2 normal centres.

In all cases this would mean changing the asteroid into something useable instead of being dead point in space.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top

Just a quick suggestion. Even though 'dead asteroids' are of no use to your civilian population it doesn't mean that they won't be used by military. Quite the contrary, I'd love to see the option to create 'special' bases in dead asteroid systems (on the asteriod itself) like for example:

1) Convert asteroid to military fortress. By that I mean totally different "colonisation" outcome with asteroid becoming a sort of gauss defence + fighter/bomber hangar + jump inhibitor. This way 'dead asteroids' would make perfect border system.

2) Build up intelligence base increasing radar range in this and nearby systems and maybe even allowing you to choose from list of covert ops to perform ranging from feeding wrong sensor data to enemies, getting a peek at enemy star system or even breaking pacts between two factions.

3) Build a hidden research centre needed for some of the most advanced military military projects. Or just make the asteroid research centre be worth 2 normal centres.

In all cases this would mean changing the asteroid into something useable instead of being dead point in space.


I love the military fortres idea, it should be able to counter attack any bombarding ship or ships that attack it, maybe have its own fighter and bomber squadrons? and should have more health and armour then standard planets, thus making them more valued then planets themselves, as you could create choke points,
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
I personally like the idea of it as a neutral battle territory, although some other incentive to use it as such would have to be implemented (the AM idea fits best)
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
LRavenwing's idea of

Convert asteroid to military fortress. By that I mean totally different "colonisation" outcome with asteroid becoming a sort of gauss defence + fighter/bomber hangar + jump inhibitor. This way 'dead asteroids' would make perfect border system.

Sounds good to me.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
If there is a place designed for "neutral battle areas" there would be no value in going there/staying for the fight. Nearly same thing with the fortress idea. Sure if I get it first, I'll build a fortress to pound the AI. BUT, if the AI built it, I would just speed right through the system to hit the more valuable targets. Sure, I may lose a few ships, but that is how it is in any system jump through. This is what I do to them now and I don't see this changing it, unless we are talking some MASSIVE fortification.

That said, I don't have a better idea, as right now these dead asteroids aren't valuable.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
"neutral battle areas"



thats a bad idea!
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
For dead asteroids I had made a suggestion in a older post for a kind of massive space station that worked as a mini-planet, I think it was (simply put), a civilian station with a smaller then normal population and made 1/4th the normal trading ships, a military station that was 8 squadrons and 4 gauss guns, and a research station that served as 2 ordinary ones. Or something similar to that respect.