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Moons, radiations storms, asteroid belts and asteroid fortresses, etc.

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Moons, radiations storms, asteroid belts and asteroid fortresses, etc.

from Stardock Forums
I would like to start by telling the developers I really appreciate all the effort they’ve put into beta 2/ I’ve been having tremendous fun with Beta 2 so far (havn’t really had a lot of free time though) and the games seems to be progressing nicely.

One thing is still bugging me though.
Every map is basically exactly the same, you have exactly the same the gravity-well with a planet smack in the middle.
This makes the game fairly repetitive in the long run, as soon as you reach a certain level of superiority against a foe it’s just basically move in with the fleet, burn planet and rinse and repeat.

I would really like some random diversity in the tactical maps for example:
- Gravity wells in different sizes, in one system you might jump out right next to a planet in another you might be a couple of minutes away. Small gravity well systems might also be handy for fast fleet movements.
- moons, some planets might have moons (1 or more), these moons could be used to increase resources, add extra population, increase logistics or research in general make a system more desirable.
- asteroid belts, big circular things that could make travel in a system more hazardous, slower for certain ships but add extra resources.
- fluctuating gravitational fields, some ships might move fasters others would just slow down.
- Gaseous nebulae, things that block sensors and hide fleets. You might think the system is empty but there could be an entire armada waiting in that gas cloud.
- Radiation storms, smalls ships slowly receive damage in this system but large vessels can move through it without problems.
- asteroid fortresses, what if I don’t need extra metal resources but instead want to build a platform form my numerous fighter wings and death rays. Create the possibility to actually build fixed defenses capable of hurting a capital ship.
- mine fields, not in the traditional sense but think of large automated missiles that lock on to anything within a couple of million miles. Still impractical in space but any multi planet socity capable of making multi kilometer long space ships should be able to produce a factory ship capable of spewing out a few million missiles over fair percentage of a cubic light-year.


Basically anything that would differentiate the planets beyond the rock, ice, lave, earth system we have now.

Addendum
_ civilian space structures and space ships, I would like to see some more civilian space structures in the game, orbital factories, hotels, research stations, in the game. Not things that you have to build yourself but things that pop up around a sufficiently advanced planet. Maybe even have passenger liners move between systems. Not tons of them like the flying cars between planets but just a few. I would add a bit of life to an otherwise fairly sterile galaxy
21,290 views 35 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top
mjaby you could have random asteroids that you have to blow up b4 they hit your planet and kill loads of the population or maby a solar story which disables shields and stuf these could happen extremly rarely but it would be like real life in the sens of natural disasters
Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top
That's not a mooon.... that's a Space Station!!!

Hehehe... sorry.

Anyway, I do like a lot of the ideas put forward but I have to agree with Schematic's analysis on most of them.

Also, un-colonizable "gas giants" with large gravity wells might mix things up a big more. (And perhaps serve as handy pirate spawn points?)


I do like this idea though, making Gas Giants pirate spawn points. It makes sense: No priority for empires to quickly move in because you cannot colonize it beyond a simple space station in orbit. It has a big Grav Well to slow down traffic = yummy tummy for pirates. It's powerful enough to mask a small orbital base or some such.

It would work for pirates, but they would have to be semi-rare as not to disrupt too much fun with their slightly larger Grav Wells.

Apart from that I'd like to see moons as an additional population and logistics pump. As far as environmental hazards, as long as they aren't too plentiful and break your fleet if you aren't careful I'm all for it. *Thinks of ST:A, shudders*

Speaking on flashy additions and deathstar asteroids: Either make it available to us to add some primitive orbital/planetary defense guns through a planet development button or make us add a little extra firepower on Dead Rocks. It would make sense since there's no other value on it + it has no logistic points. So let us put a few extra guns on it. (Nothing huge or end-game) A couple missile launchers spread out on rocks, a quad gauss cannon (or somesuch) on the actual big center rock and perhaps a built in hangar.

Scale down tactical points to compensate if needed. Regardless, I think we should have some variation. It's nice to do something unique and since dead rocks have no value other than their position, it would be a nice move.

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Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top
I don't know if all the ideas here are possible, BUT

I think an Gas Giants that is un-colonizable but that has a MOON that IS would be a grand idea, the perfect system to house a Pirate Base for the player to battle....

Moons in general are a great idea. Nothing major, no real taxable population, but give the player a few slots to choose:
- do you arm the moon by filling it slots with tactical choices....or
- do you boost the system's logistical but putting a research station/resources extraction on it....say with 3-4 total slots, a mixture of both....would be a very interesting way to expand a players choices

Nebulae are a cool idea.

Radiation storms and variable gravity wells might be hard to work out. Different SIZE g-wells based on planet size/density, yes....

Are for more civil animations as a planet advances...
A LOT could be done in this area: such as TOURISM, as you build the Culture stats and create an inter-connected empire...seeing luxury liners cruising between systems would be cool, throw in some corsairs, tourism revenue and perhaps a positive effect on your empire's allegiance factor....plenty of potential fodder there....

Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top
yea i agree with the nebular idea cos at the mo all there seems to be is planet seiges and the gas giant moon having a pirate base on umm is a good idea 2 but have a limit of like 4 pirate bases per solar system thing and also u could have it that the gas giant moons are only inhabitable by pirates and no 1 els that way its another area for ships to fight but l=not be a bloody planet siege who agrees? i agree i would like to see more life in the galaxy like lttle civilian ships u cant attack but zoom arround maby between friendly planets and stations not a sworm of them just a few. You know what would be cool...... a moon mounted death ray blat!!!!!!!!!!!!!! zaaaaap!!!!!!! arggh!!!!!! silence............ creaking debris....... lol thats would be cool and it acctualy orbits the planet (go round) And only at certain stages of its orbit can it fire. But thats not going to be put in the game it would be to impossible to kill it would just blat all who come near.
Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top
Hmmm... By "Radiation Storm", are you talking about solar flares? If so, it could be that the sun is always emitting these flares, it is just that the flares do not always line up with a planet/asteroid system. When this occurs, massive sheets of radiation would wash through all systems in its path, damaging all lightly armored ships and platforms. Perhaps the radiation impact on ships would be greater when the ships are within the star's gravity well. This could make for some interesting battles, where the AI would automatically do its best to maneuver the fleets around the newly created solar flares.
Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top
maby but then a lucky noobi player may come with a badly made fleet and his fleet dosent get hit by the solar storm but the other fleet dose so he wipes umm out i hate the luck factor in games cos im soooooooo un lucky for god sake iv got 3 sisters and they are piss heads lol and i hit a golf ball and it hit the tree and hit me right in the eye how unlucky is that! I would like to see solar flairs disabling shilds not hurting hulls and id like 2 c solar flairs coming out of the sun and if u get hit by one like if u are 2 close to the sun it hurts the ship bad.


Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top
Depends on the planets magnetic field if things get hit as well as other factors like shields and stuf
Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top
I just suggested that because from a scientific point, a solar flare makes more sense than a radiation storm from outside the solar system. I just think that the likelihood of the solar system crossing the path of massive radiation storm is low.

When I said damage to ships I meant only light damage within the asteroid and planetary gravity wells. It would be more of a nuisance than anything, if it were not for the shields being brought down. However, if a ship is caught within a flare within a star's gravity well, then the damage would be significant, and might even destroy frigate-class vessels.
Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top
A solar flair is a radiation storm lol and it makes eletrical systems overload and the sun is most active every 11 years. this is called the Solar maxima is where there is the most suns spot and solar flair activity is. what it can do in real life is overwhelm the planets magnetic field and and make all the substations explode (overload) in the whole world a 3 big substations are built a year. So everyone is with out power for about 10 years maby more i watch this tv show about it i think it was called super solar storm. I'm kind of a science geek lol. Maby if a fight is going on arround a star and a solar flair gose of near the 2 fleets maby it will disable all thier sheilds and do moderat damage to the ship which would look cool but i bet ships where designed so if hit by alot of radiation the shields can black it and the hull can stop it but i dont know.
Reply #35 from Sins Forums Top
maby you can predict a soalr storm(flair) and dock all your fighters or maby u cant predict it and u see all thier hull lighting up and eletrical sparks going of and stuf as the metal hull reacts to the radiation then they start to explode which would be cool.