Lurking mode off...

GREAT job with the BOTE demo - congrats! Just wanted to offer some help. Alas, I'm totally inept in graphics, but here are some areas I'm strong in:

- Space science, AI, and simulations (it's my job, w/ NASA and SwRI)

- Software integration and coding in C & C++ (was my job for 15 yrs at Bell Labs)

- Writing (my hobby: http://www.ShadowsOfMedusa.com)

- Testing (my brother and a friend have BOTF'ed multiplayer for years, and I've played most other space strategy games too, seeing the good, the bad, and the very very ugly)

- Real space settlement research (http://www.4Frontiers.com)

Is anyone working on a user guide and/or strategy guide for BOTE? Perhaps that's an area I could help with, in what little free time I have (my biggest problem, since I'm already into so many other things). Or I could just be a resource if anyone wants to ask some quick space science questions...

NASA and BELL LAbs, now that is cool, nice to meet you.

Regards Wolfe

Hey there! Welcome to the site!

I hope you don't mind, but your link didn't work so I edited your post to make it work. The site thought the close-bracket was part of the url so I sorted that out for you. I'm one of the admin so don't worry, I'm allowed to do stuff like that. Random people can't edit your posts!

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So you work for NASA eh? Way cool. I *think* there are a few people on the site with connections of some kind to NASA/ESA. We're all trekkies here so methinks people will like talking about sciencey stuff. Me and ZDarby (Another forum member) certainly will!

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To my knowledge, there aren't any guides for BOTE yet - but there probably will be one day. That said, if you have trouble with a particular area of the game, this is definitely the place to ask for help!

The game may have a demo out, but it certainly isn't complete. Far from it. If there is *something* wrong with the game that makes it impossible to play (Such as the AI being invincible ) then that can and will be sorted out before the game is complete. BOTE is the closest to completion out of the four games that we have here though, (BOTE, Supremacy, Allegiance, and New Beginnings) so don't expect for there to be major changes to the programming.

This is also the main reason why there aren't any guides yet - things may change. There isn't any point in making a guide one things are going to change. We'll likely make one when the game is released though, so don't worry. We might all be amateurs here, but we're trying to make the game as professional as we can...and have a bit of fun while we're at it.

The main thing that we really need though is for play testers. The forums are growing in numbers by the day, but unfortunately 95% of the members are lurkers who have never posted. We need information on how the game is working. If there are problems with a particular area of the game or incompatibilities with particular computer setups, we want to know. If people are quiet regarding those problems they will never be fixed!

Play the game and tell us if you notice any glitches or bugs - and if you do, write down what happened and try to recreate them. If they recur, tell us what you did so that the programmer (SirPustekuchen in the case of BOTE) can check it out. That's something that everyone can do, regardless of their artistic, sound, programming, or whatever abilities. Everyone that wants to can offer their help with these games!

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In respects to your skills, you could offer quite a lot of help to the devs. Your AI and coding abilities would be especially useful. AI is something that will be playtested to death when we implement a proper tactical combat system, as the combat part of the game is obviously going to be the most played part of the game. We also want Empires that actually try to conquer the Galaxy!

Your AI programming skills would make that process much easier. I imagine all of the developers (SirPustekuchen, MStrobel, Nemitor_Atimen, and Jigalypuff) would be interested in those skills. You might want to send them a PM just to make sure they know you exit - and I mean that in a good way.

I *think* Nemitor is also programming Allegiance with C++, so he might be interested in your other skills too...

Welcome to the site.

MStrobel's Supremacy is being coded in C# and .Net but the similarities between that and C/C++ shouldn't make helping/modding to difficult.

What actually is the difference in the languages? They've both got C in them...

Wow, fast replies - you guys are working at lightspeed! (or warp speed?)

Thanks for the suggestions... I'll contact the developers and see if there's anything I can do to help with the AI or certainly with play-testing. From what I've seen so far, the coding in BOTE seems rock-solid! The demo is most impressive, and after a few hours of playing, I don't recall encountering anything worse than minor bugs. They've done an awesome job!

I do have a few suggestions that would make the game more playable, but most are probably features already on their wanna-do list. Plenty of time for fine tuning later. And I'll recruit some other play-testers... no problemo.

And thanks for editing the bracket in my post! If SoM sounds like a book that any of you would like to read, send me your snail-mail address (to shadowsofmedusa@gmail.com ) and I'll mail you a free copy. It's the least I can do to thank you guys for all your hard work!

I'll bet MoE is right - probably lots of NASA/ESA lurkers around. Trek has inspired a lot of people to go into science and engineering careers over the years. Hence the critical importance of what you're all doing here, btw... you're helping to inspire the next generations, the ones who will actually go out there and make it happen. Cool, huh?

About the user guides, you're right, it's definitely too soon for a "final version". However, one little trick I've picked up on past software projects is to write a draft user's guide early-on. It can always be updated later, it can help to get more people testing the demos, and it can also serve as a place-holder for all those nice little future wanna-do's.

On the other hand, I've seen that trick badly abused too. Outpost (lovingly called Outhouse by some gamers) is a good example. Great game with tons of potential, but they included some features in the final user's guide that never made it into the game! Bad, bad Outpost, bad. Anyone else recall the outcry in the gamer forums over that one?

Cheers,

Marvin (a.k.a. Brian)

BotE is doubtlessly much farther ahead in development than Supremacy, but I could certainly use some help in the AI department if you're interested. C# is easy enough to pick up if you have experience in C++.

Welcome to the group. We are always soooo glad to see fellow travelers. Jobs around here are assigned by picking out something that interests you and doing it. Just making a second post is an achievement. Sadly most people that offer to help never come back for a second look.

(I taught myself how to build models for the game so as to contribute to the project. I have been able to make models for the game, recruit other to make models, record voice actors for game mono-log and generally make an ass of myself just by hanging around. Most people will help you along as you learn and the flamers are few and generally to be ignored.)

Writing code sounds like it would be a big help!

Space science? So is the difference between Doppler Shift and Red shift that in the first case sound waves are compressed or expanded by relative motion and in the latter that space itself is growing larger while the light is traveling through it? - Or did I get that wrong? I guess this is more cosmology physics than it is rocket science.

So what will the next generation NASA maned space vehicles end up looking and working like?

Hi Kenneth_of_Borg!

I hope to be around for a while... you all seem like a very friendly crowd! And of course, once the Borg get their hands/servos/whatever-they-have on you, assimilation is not far behind. Just wish I had more time... but I'll help out where/when I can.

You got me with the doppler/red shift question - I would have thought they were the same thing (well, red or blue shift depending on relative motion away or toward). Hmmm, I'm just gonna have to ask my astronomer cronies on Tuesday!

I can however say pages about the next NASA manned space vehicles. It's going to be "back to the future" because they will resemble Apollo capsules in many ways. Those old Apollo guys got a lot of things right, at least for lunar exploration. With lighter materials and new-age computer guidance systems, the craft will be more capable and will carry at least 4 crew members... but beneath it all things will be more similar than different.

And the real excitement is in settlements, not sortees, IMHO... i.e. we need colony ships more than scouts.

Mars missions are actually my best area of expertise, and the hardware is much more interesting. Many flavors and options are possible, but doing it the NASA way would probably (30 years from now) involve some sort of service module coupled to the Apollo-like command module. That approach runs into some very tough issues, and I'm betting the first manned/womanned Mars missions will happen far sooner, cheaper, and smarter (perhaps by Russia or ESA or China or India or, most likely, by private industry). Lots of energy is building up, and Good Things are starting to happen. Zephram Cochran is alive and well.

And trekkies will be right in the middle of it all 'cause we know where it's all going! You'd be surprised at how many people out there just don't get it.

Sorry for drifting off topic...

Hehe I have the most experience in this sort of thing out of anyone on the forums! I don't know if you've noticed, but several of the bigger threads here in the jobs forum were written by me - and are being updated by me. Examples include the shiplist (Although admittedly I haven't updated that in four weeks and it's in need of an overhaul now) and the Minor race emblems. (Which are now complete) I am/have been updating these threads as updates become available. A considerable amount of work has gone into them on my part - far more than you can actually see as many of those updates have since been made obsolete - so yeah, maybe I could make a guide...but I've got a lot to do already.

The biggest project that I personally have been working on though is the random events for the game. This is also far from complete, but i'm chugging my way through it slowly. You can find the random events here:

Random Events List
Random Events Text

Before you say anything, I do NOT intend for all of the randoms to be used in any one game. I instead have thought of everything that *could* be used in a game and it will then be up to the devs to pick-and-choose for their own games. The text is what you will actually see when the event happens ingame - and each event is personalised to the five Empires for added effect.

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Don't worry about it. Jig is the off-topic Hitler around here, but I don't mind. We're all friendly here as you say - although we do think about noobs to the forums and offtopic can confuse the hell out of them!

I read somewhere that we actually already have the technology to Terraform Mars already - but the process would take thousands of years to complete, would be the most expensive project ever undertaken by mankind, and there are still ethical questions that are preventing it from happening.

If it were to take place though, who knows? WE could be the little green men in a few thousand years.

Hi mars_2!

about the doppler and red shift, well, it's the same thing and kenneth did get it right but didn't follow the thought to the end for the red shift is a special case of doppler shift caused by the expansion of the universe moving away from us thus getting the light (and sound waves btw but veryveryverynegligible) waves pushed more in the (infra-)red spectrum by decreasing their energy level.

anyway in order to really make the best use of your sure hard-earned skills here, one should take a moment and think about possible ways to go.

a thing sir pustekuchen is least reluctant for someone to take over is the target aiming code in the combat algorithm (see the bote combat simulator with repeat=zero flag for a graphical view of our current battle system, thread with download is in the bote subforums as announcement). Someone with good simulations, AI and C++ experience would be perfect for the job.

anyway for the AI too of course but there's a general problem on that. LEt me explain:

First off, the source code is currently owned by only two guys in the world and those two know each other very well.
It took about 3 and a half years to get where we are atm.
The AI is not coded separately but largely entangled in the code.
There is however a documentation written by sir p. about the AI code to quickly get into the methods used.
We even declined an offer from Joker (a well-known botf modder) to help coding the AI since he had no experience in OOP or C++. Well that is not the case with you according to your references but I don't know for sure if sir p. wants to give parts of his hard-worked source code away without let's say some testing on your knowledge before

I can only construe sir p.'s opinion on that based on Joker's approach back then in march this year so if he feels different now, I can't predict. He has the final word on that.

what I would propose (given you also won't probably have tons of extra-free-time in your life and there's no strict timeline on the final bote release so we can pretty much relax here and take one step at a time) is that you may want to start with enhancing the combat algorithm for let's say some months and then we'll see about the AI which btw. has got a nice update last month rendering it able now to invade and shift resources around (which makes it fully capable of winning a game and in most cases it'll just do so ). So the only but sure not easy and cheapest part now to do, is distinguishing the AI behaviour for the different races and sophisticate its behaviour in the diplomatic and intel field.
When the combat system allows more options such as retreat and hail and so on, then a good AI algorithm to decide what to do is also needed.

you see there's plenty to do and I'm sure designing bote is quite a lot of fun (and addictive btw. otherwise sir pustekuchen sure didn't have that quite of a long breath on it, so take care! ). It's all about learning to do stuff (more sophisticated) where the actual game itself comes second. So with your experiences in the field, you might even give sir p. one or two (hundred..) advises on how to code certain things better so chances are quite good he agrees.

We will get to Mars sooner with an international project - just like these games.

Off topic, out of curiosity:
What, in your opinion, is the best way to get to Mars?
What, iyo, will be the most likely way we *do* get to Mars?
What do you think of nuclear pulse rockets?
I would be very curious about your take on both treknology and current/future spaceflight, both fantastic, likely and prosaic.

The easiest way to think of red (or blue) shift in light is to think of it in terms of doppler effect. It's basically the same effect; which is to say the observers movement compared to the source increases or decreases the when of the troughs & crests arrival and how often. (Badly phrased sentence but I'm not changing it. So there!)

When it comes to the expansion of the universe, imagine that more space is created between two points and thus it *looks* like the two points are accelerating away from eachother. Relativity states that if it looks a certain way (with very a strict definition of the term 'looks') than it must be that way in all phenomena, from all viewpoints...

Another way to imagine a physical effect for how an expanding universe would create a redshift is to imagine that the ripples of light are on a medium that is being stretched out, thus its wavelength is getting 'bigger' -- going further towards the red.

Did any of that make sense?

The last example makes the most sense - in fact that's the way that i've always imagined it myself. Good god...something I thought of makes sense to someone else... 8O

Well... The limitation of the second analogy is that you have to wrap your mind around a four dimensional expansion, not just a three or two dimensional one. See, it's space-time that's being created, not just space. I still can't quite get it, but I'm closer than I was...

Don't worry moe: if you're one in a million, there's a thousand just like you in China. So, there's no way you're alone. :)

Hi everyone -

Fun thread... especially when we drift a bit. I'll be like Jigalypuff in that regard - drifting can be good.

First the business - as far as user guides someday, sounds like Matress has some good momentum going already. Maybe a guide will pop out of his evil box-springs soon, if it makes sense and fits with everything else going on. Cool. I'll look forward to checking out the random events info too! ... though I usually played BOTF with random events OFF. Darn Borg. (oops, sorry Kenneth, present company excepted)

Malvoisin - roger that, on the AI concerns. With the AI code entangled with the other game code, it makes perfect sense to give the main coders all the leeway they need to carry out their vision. When you get too many workers in the kitchen, nasty bugs creep into the meals (I know, terrible analogy). AI is especially prone to that - bugs can be fiendishly subtle. Starting cautiously within the combat system sounds good. I'm also talking to Mike off-line on some Supremacy needs. Actually, the more I think about the combat system, the more interesting it seems... a BOTF-like game could possibly benefit from a "clean" AI subset, and by "clean" I mean partitioned code that would make combat fun but wouldn't affect the rest of the game. Hmmmm..... yes, this *will* become addicting.

On to fun - one note on doppler shift - it can be darn useful for other measurements than galactic astronomy i.e. expanding universes. I just learned at a science conference last week that asteroid researchers are using doppler shift to study near-Earth binary asteroids (two asteroids orbiting each other). They see shifts in wavelength as the orbits happen, which allows them to measure orbital frequency, which helps get them other useful attributes like mass, density, and possible composition. All that from tiny wavelength shifts.

On to Mars - yes, international is good - and that's one reason I like private industry's chances of reaching Mars first. Business knows few borders now-adays, and some companies could mount a global effort far more effectively than any government. But we'll see how things unfold.

Terraforming Mars - yes it could be done (maybe), but yes it would be hugely expensive and not everyone would be happy about it. My thoughts there - let's get some cheap early settlements going, and then let the Martians figure out how they want to tweak their planet. By that time, the settlers will know far more about Mars and maybe the best terraforming options will be duh-obvious to them.

As for the best way to get to Mars & the most likely way - ouch, long answers would be needed there. I think I'll default to my novel, since that's the meat & potatoes of the 525 page saga and future sequel. I'll repeat my offer to mail a free copy to anyone working on the BOTF's who wants one... just send me a private message with your address or go to http://www.shadowsofmedusa.com

Nuclear rockets: very cool - and they will someday be very nice because of their larger payload potential. But not now. Oddly enough, if I had a nuclear rocket in my back yard today, I wouldn't send anything or anyone to Mars on it. It's hard to design the human factors in a nuclear-powered Mars mission. Your crew would be near zero-G for almost three months, which leads to some serious engineering and physiological concerns. Cargo, on the other hand, would make more sense - you could send lots of Stuff to Mars...... but you couldn't land it safely! Ouch again - new landing systems for heavy payloads are needed first. Details, details.

These are all issues that will someday be solved, when the motivation exists, i.e. people have settled Mars and need lots of Stuff. To get to Mars now, conventional rockets work just fine (though the landing system improvements are needed first), and a settlement could be started fairly cheaply if someone went about it the right way.

Oh - nuclear rockets might have a short lifetime too because they might be replaced right away with fusion rockets. Fusion gives you more, cleaner power, and there's ample fuel where you need it. Farther out, perhaps antimatter engines, which gets you into the Treknology that ZDarby asked about. The big problem there is with fuel again... how do you generate or store antimatter fuel? Someday, someone very smart might figure it out.


Cheers,

- Brian

PS: Sorry for such a loooong post!

Hi Matress -

About the random events list and text - most excellent!! If many of these end up in the games, you might just convince me to play with random events on. Despite the evil Borg.

A quick question - no Ferengi? Was this a design decision that has already been well-pondered??

When we do BOTF multiplayer, my brother is always the Ferengi... he loves their style and quirkiness. And as a Romulan (my fav), I love beating up on Ferengi - it's one of my prime joys in life.

Here are some random thoughts on a few of the random events closest to my planetary science researches. Use what you care to, and I'd be happy to elaborate on things that aren't clear.

On the "comet strike" and "asteroid impact" events, could these be events where the effects are temporary, perhaps for 10 or 100 game-years? In terms of probabilities, it's vastly (!!) more probable that a small comet/asteroid strike would wipe out all life on a planet (or a percentage of life, depending on how big a body hit) rather than a big one actually changing the type of planet (from M-class to Barren, for example). Besides the huge imbalance of small bodies over large ones, planet types tend to be determined by things like mass, abundance of chemical elements, and orbital distance... and none of these would be affected permanently by a comet or asteroid strike. Earth would still be Earth eventually - unless it was hit by a honking huge body that smacked the planet into a different orbit. And in that case, it would probably shatter both bodies into rubble (at work I do a lot of asteroid/comet impact simulations). This was a random event that BOTF got wrong... and hopefully we can fix it in your list!

Planet orbits: there ARE other cases where you could shift the orbit of a planet. Some of my colleagues at SwRI have done a lot of research in this area. Most of these theoretical (thankfully) events tend to happen over cosmic timescales, i.e. millions or billions of years, so they're irrelevant to gamers... but a chance encounter with a rogue planet ala Ceti Alpha or another star system or nebula (anything transient with a LOT of mass or gas drag) could do it. Or some future-tek (gravity research gone awry) perhaps, or Q certainly. I remember seeing Q in the list, but maybe gravity research or rogue planets are good random events if they aren't already in there.

Changing the abundance of chemical elements: well, that's similar to what happens during terraforming. So perhaps a random event where a planet's ecology reverts back and the planet needs to be re-terraformed? That could be nice - but not if you're living there.

Again, use what you think makes sense to use... and I'll keep poring through the list to see if any other thoughts jump out. You've done such a great job with the level of detail that it will take a while.

Cheers,

- Brian

PS: If there's already a "random events" thread, feel free to move this over to it...

BOTE will have the Ears just like in BOTF. Supremacy puts the Dominions in that slot. The Ears are still in Supremacy as a minor race. We can go on to mod as well. I would like to see the Killer Clowns as a major race.

It was my pleaser to record the rules of acquisition for the English version of BOTE

I would guess a show stopper like the Borg would only be showing up late in any game.

I recall one Voyager episode where the asteroids were "artificial" and weapons of conquest.

Hurray! - glad to hear the Ears will be in BotE! And if they're in Supremacy as a minor race, I can beat up on them more easily. (insert evil laugh here)

I'll second your vote for a killer clown mod too - that would sure spice things up.

I missed the last few seasons of Voyager and also DS9, unfortunately... and am trying to catch them as reruns. Don't think I've seen the artificial asteroid episode, but it sounds like a good one. Asteroids would make great weapons if one could fling them around... but they're definitely WMD's. The Feds would never touch them (but as a Romulan, I like, heh heh).

That would make for a interesting late game technical development. - Cosmic billiards or boweling for billions.

The Ferengi could be made into an empire easily enough in Supremacy. It's really a matter of changing the civ type from a minor to an empire in the editor. Of course, for them to be an effective empire, they'll need a bigger tech tree.

Anyway, I'll be damned if I'm going to develop an entire funky-colored UI theme just to have them in the game .

I actually liked the ear-clowns.
Don't worry Mars2, someone will make a BotFS mod for them, even if it has to be me.

The asteroid episode had some interesting notions in it. The plot was borrowed heavily from Flight of the Pheonix... No... Wait... It was different 1950s movie... But the same idea: model maker takes their knowledge into the real world. The asteroids were a secondary plot device, as was the space-elevator. I remember thinking they cheesed the ending: it wasn't enough that asteroids were falling and the space-elevator was malfunctioning, there had to be an enemy mole too.

I liked the borg, once I figured out how to quickly destroy them: lots of small ships and their firepower is so badly divided, only the small guys get dead.

Your observation about an asteroid hit is quite accurate... Naturally, as this is your current field of expertise! I second your opinions about how they should be modified... A rogue planet or, worse yet, star punching through a planetary system would be absolutely horrendous! It would change the orbits of all the planets in the system, creating a chaos whose full repercussions would take a long time to know. Even near-term effects would be unpredictable... Indeed, it seems to me this would be the biggest problem: unpredictability! I'm not sure how you'd implement this in a game.

The binary asteroid study you spoke of, was that the doppler shift of radar bounced off it or the shift of light from the sun bouncing off? If the latter, they must have an excellent spectra of that system... enough for chemical analysis, perhaps? Which system is it, so I can more easily google it?

From what I understand, its as much the impactlessness (not a word) of microgravity that poorly affects the body as it is the microgravity itself... Do you know if there have been any studies on the idea of using a pair of opposing trampolines for this job? I remember hearing something about it and then not hearing anymore. It struck me as silly at first and then I gave it more thought and it makes sense to me now... And it would be great fun too!!! Though I can just imagine the vibrations it would cause!!! Think of the solar panels of the ISS flapping like a wing-clipped chicken mid-fall down an outhouse!!! LOL!!!

Actually, I meant a nuclear *pulse* engine, like the Orion or Daedalus projects. High thrust, high isp.... Never to be used within Earth's magnetosphere... How about Zubrin's plutonium-salt rocket?

Your book is one of the first things I'm going to purchase when my replacement CC arrives. I don't want a free one simply because 1) I'm not deeply in the work of BotF2 to deserve it and 2) you, as an author of a 525 page book, deserve to get paid. I've tried to write more than one book and have, thus far, yet to finish one. It's *very* hard work.

I will also purchase a copy in respect for the hard work you have done.

Daystrom Institute
Episode: TNG 154 - Booby Trap

DAY-strum IN-stih-toot - noun. Major technological research center named for 23rd-century computer scientist Richard Daystrom. Leah Brahms, one of the designers of the Enterprise-D, was a graduate of the Daystrom Institute.

I wonder, given your skill level, if you should move into implementing these ideas.

Killer Clown Empire will have massive circus tent colony ships, dog and pony show raiders, balloon animal cruisers and cotton candy sticky beam weapons.

Hmm...definitely worth consideration...it'll *probably* be programmable, but again, it's entirely up to the devs to decide what they can/will/can't/won't do. Each turn in the game is meant to represent roughly a month. 100 turns = 8.3 years. Whilst I don't think this number is big enough, (250 turns?) I'll still add it in. I'll add some blurb to the messages saying "It'll take years to repair the damage blah blah blah"

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The Q random is probably the most changable - and infinite - of the randoms. Q could do ANYTHING. You could probably have a 100 Q events and each would be different. We've already had people asking if Q could turn a ship into a bowl of Petunias - Pan-Galactic Gargle-Blaster for anyone?

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I *think* there was a thread for the randoms - but that thread was killed along with a sizeable chunk of the original forums when Jig killed the old Game Development forum. It's a shame really coz there was some really good input in there, especially people like CVN-65. (Who I incidentally think had one of the best Trek-related names on the forums - anyone know why? )

...Unfortunately, CVN hasn't been online since Hurricane Katrina... 8O

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Thank you!

Check out the Klingon curses i've used as well - it's all actual Klingon. I've been studying basic Klingon curses to make the randoms as cool - and accurate - as possible. I tried adding in some Rihannai (Romulan language) but that didn't work quite so well so I scrapped it.

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DAY-strohm IN-sti-tewt - Matressean dialect.

I say potayto, you say potahto.

Oh, and Leah designed the Warp drive, not the big E herself. It's a shame they only brought Leah back the once. She was a good character.

a turn equals roughly a month only above tech level 7-9. Before it starts with 2 years a turn right at the beginning and slowly decreases to 2-4 weeks. You can see the effect when having an eye on our stardate display. A month would be too less anyway since kirk and picard era would be too close then ..

about the impact, we even decided to nearly scrap the event (only occur in uninhabited systems) later on since scanners should be able to detect any incoming and crossing asteroid of any size so even in uninhabited sectors with scouts in it, a comet will never get to hit a planet, simply never .

btw mars_2, impressive CV! with you in the team, the game will be twice as nice, I'm sure .

I was actually wondering about that, Mal. The month was an arbitrary amount of time that we agreed on without much discussion in the era of the old TWAAO thread (Things We All Agree On) from the old Game Development forum.

Meh, it's easier to just say a month though. People who keep up to date with the forums will know what I mean when I say that, even if noobs don't.

So Einstein was right. Time does slow the longer you play online.

actually what kinda "replaces" the asteroid impact event is a "climate control failure" at terraformed planets (mostly at low construction and energy tech at the beginning). that will certainly kill some if not all population.. mars_2 sure could give us a hint on how fast such an atmosphere killing/burning process most likely will take place and if ppl could be rescued in such an emergency case fast enough

You could make it like some of the MOO2 random events where you had several turns to correct or stop it, ie "We have detected and incoming asteroid headed towards planet X of System X. You have X amount of turns to sned a ship or build an orbital battery to protect the planet"

etc etc.

Regards Wolfe

Actually...



Hehe one step ahead of you there, Mal!

The difference between those two events is that the Climate Change event is a sudden, natural, unpredicted, extreme change that completely overwhelms your climate control systems. The weather system breakdown is one where the system either malfunctions (Mechanical failure or sabotage) or it is simply so outdated that it is unable to cope with the current demands of the population - which would make it perfect for making it a stoppable random.

This could be done by having some sort of "repair structure" option available - either by making structures damageable/repairable (Which would have some GREAT uses for other things, such as as planetary bombardment stats) or by creating a new construction order for construction ships. I personally prefer the first option of making structures damageable/repairable.

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One thing that we seem to be overlooking though is that we want for there to be much more interaction in the randoms - which would also mean more programming for the devs.

Mike has already said he would likely only have about 30 randoms in Supremacy - far less than what i've created - and if we expect him to add this extra code it will either mean fewer randoms overall, or a much longer programming time. Whilst i'd like more interaction, I don't want it at the risk of loosing other options and variability in the game.