It does sound interesting. The key maybe in the targeting parameters. Not sure if you can individually target Cultural Centers maybe the biggest hang up.

Interesting idea..  I actually quite like it.

It's really not hard.  I've been thinking about this for a while now and by using a method like what the Rankulas uses for it's ultimate, doing this would be easy.

You see, you could add a passive to each object in the game in it's last slot and would be passive.  For the culture centers, it would just be AbilityIsCultureCenter which would apply BuffIsCultureCenter to itself.  Then, by using the new buff checking and a target filter for planet modules, you could apply it solely to culture centers.

Of course, it would still be nicer if we could do entity checking, but that's not happening any time soon, so this'll have to do.

Oh yeah.  Easily done to just culture centers.  I can go ahead and create it though.  It's really not too bad.

I've got an idea.

You know how capitol ships repel enemy culture?

What if the DE spawned ships in the gravwell fired at that repelled enemy culture?  Don't know if this is possible since I've never looked at the files governing culture repulsion and spawning ships, but it would be like a dark fleet that does no damage and repels enemy culture by quite a lot while it survives.  You could give the ships some sort of defense against enemy strikecraft and they could have disabled jump drives so they are limited to the target planet.  

It would only really be useful for planets at or near the border (since it can't create it's own culture) but isn't that the case at the moment anyway?

If you want to do that, you'll probably want to do this version instead:

http://www.mediafire.com/?w5fd8pox8nvajbe

This version contains the string as well, though I didn't bother to create the images to go along with it.

Thanks for the compliment though.    The buff chain basically works by causing the deliverance signal upon impact to apply buffs to all planet modules as would have been done before by ApplyBuffToTargetsAtOrbitBody.  Then, this buff conditionally applies a new buff to each of those modules.  The last buff effectively does the same thing as Domination and the condition under which it is applied is if it has the buff BuffIsCultureCenter which is applied by a passive ability that I stuck on all culture centers.

I ran it today and last night and it seems to work flawlessly so far. No bugs, hang ups or glitches.

It forces the AI to rebuild new centers in the well, send reinforcements to destroy them or build them at other worlds to counter them.

The deliverance boost even makes them more effective.  

Friendly or hostile planets can be targeted and it works if they are unoccupied on impact too.

The normal deliverance engine effects still apply.

I hit three AI worlds repeatedly so it built a huge cluster at a nearby desert world--7 culture centers--which I promptly popped too.

Greatjob sir.

YW--compliment well deserved.

In a larger, multi-star map, I had a scenario where an AI was turtled far away in it's comfort zone.  It had only built one or two culture centers.

By taking that planet with a DE hit, I forced the AI to deploy it's capital ship there to eliminate it, and then rebuild it.  It also ended up building an additional culture center nearby at a planet threatened by the sudden culture surge.

So I managed with one DE shot to:

• Force destruction of a planet module with no recovered income.
• Force re-construction of the module .
• Force construction of a new module taking up a logistics slot previously available at another world.
• Temporarily decrease a couple of planet's allegiance levels and income.

It's great because the AI is schooled in what a culture attack and immediately started responding with countermeasures.  I also noted that after I launched a DE or two, the AI responded by building the maximum allowed novaliths and firing back.

So this isn't a "stupid AI trick" that capitalizes on a change the game can't cope with.  Great ability.  I think it should be standard with the DE in-game as it certainly gives it a lot more value without supercharging it and making it absurd.

P.S. Thanks for the updated file too!

LOL--yes...I did notice the exploding things and looked in your files and and saw that.   Thanks for putting it back to where it should be (I just edited it out later).

On the first use I hit it with 4 DE's simultaneously and noticed the culture centers exploding.

I thought it was a good idea and your ability-buffs are perfect.  I PMed asking them to consider it in Rebellion as well.  

This is a pretty minor change compared to all the other things going on in Rebellion and is the first practical DE alternative that "fits" that I have ever seen.

It could be pretty upsetting being on the receiving end of this I bet.

The solution to negate the old DE was just put a culture center down--now that can actually be leveraged against you.

This sounds great, shame I don't have Rebellion in order to play around with it, because its something the DE has been needed for a long time.

That would be fine by me.  I'll see about updating it after bit.

I knew that's what it does.  I don't care either way, but since the thing was already using a periodic action, I decided to be lazy and copy it and just replace a couple values.