I agree, research was very shallow, it will be interesting to see how much the science stations and ships doing research on the various anomilies around the galaxy actually helps you out in overall research.

Well I believe the concensus is that 'old style' research in labs will give you a slow and steady increase, a ship investigating something will give a massive boost, thus justifying the cost, materials and fuel needed to build and maintain research ships.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

Now, to change gears back to the theme of this thread, I think we could discuss your idea of the Dyson Shpere here, since it seems to be coming to the general consensus that if they are included in the game, you should not be able to colonize them, it would be just too giant of a bonus.

Perhaps they should be included as a random event that would, upon finding it, give you either a 20-30% science bonus for a few turns, or gave you one sizable increase of ___ science points.

I think to get anything out of it you should have to send a dedicated science ship to the sphere. Then order it to 'study', this will take 18 turns or whatever, then you get a massive science boost as the research has been carried out and analysed and you're reaping the benefits of the rewards.

Excellent idea, either a science ship, or you could perhaps put a science station there, espically if it would take a long time to analyze.

Only problem with that is that structures are going to have more realistic build times in this game, (15-20 turns for an outpost etc). So I guess the time might be limiting. Unless... It took longer to build a science station and obviously cost more, however you get the initial bonus AND xxx amount per turn for the next hundred turns or so.

Thats right, i forgot to take into account the longer build times some things are going to have.

But along the lines you were saying, you could either send a science ship there, and get whatever default bonus you would recieve for studing it (after the 10-20 turns it takes to do the research), or you could take the extra time to build a science station there. While it takes longer to build, you would get the default science bonus out of it, plus __ per turn extra, just for having the station there..
Im begining to like this Dyson Shpere idea

Yep, I think we've totally nailed the dyson sphere issue, unless anyone has anything to add.

i thought of a new random event idea, although i may have already been said. Either nanites or athat intelligent cloud entity from TNG takes over a random ship and it becomes kind of like a pirate, doing strikees against other vessels.

I like the idea, but I would want it to be pretty rare, maybe 3-4 clouds per game.

Expanding on that, there are other things that could take over a ship, like the parasites in the tng ep 'conspiracy'. Or maybe just a mutiny if morale is low.

The Nexus from Generations could make a good random. In the movie Kirk suggested photons as a way of disrupting the nexus' hold on the enterprise. Obviously they weren't getting any til tuesday, but the principle worked. The ribbon could destroy any ship over the course of a few turns, however x amount of photons (depending on tech level) could disrupt it enough to let you free.

I don't think that you should be able do to that to the Nexus, i think that it flies trough the galaxy in some sort of orbit. I think i will begin on making a list of random events with what it does to your ships and stuff. We can then talk about them and tweak or delete them.

Yes, one list of all agreed randoms, positive and negative would be nice. I'm not completely sure which are in, and which arent.

How are species 8472 and the spherbuilders going to be implemented?

Species 9472 didn't attack normal space before there was a rift between teir fluidic space and normal space. And what will they be doing? Just create a rift and then attack planets and ships at ronadom, or are they going to try to take over planets?
Perhaps it would be cool if at a certain time the borg and species 8472 where in the same game, that they would attack each other.

The spherbuilders could be implemented by giving them spheres (starbases) around systems and if they aren't stopped they will anhiliate the population on planets and create new spheres around adjacent systems.

One other question, do you thivk spherebuilders and species 8472 come from the same fluidic space????

i always thougth it would be cool to have them into the game, killing at will, just like the Borg (only they take systems) Perhaps we should have them just like the borg have different strengths of attacks. So these ships will not quickly build up there fleet as the borg would do. But i think that the longer these ships are in the galaxy, the more will come. People thougth that these ships were to strong and stuff, well the shields of voyager holded a few blasts, while cubes had a weakness against those weapons.

I would like to see both 8472 and borg, but it would be cool if there was an option to turn either of them off, without turning off all of the random events.

Or they could come in ever increaing waves. first one ship, then 2 ships, etc. To stop them you could let your ships or whatever spend some time in sealing the rift to fluidic space.
And Rigel why would you want to turn them off??? I agree that sometimes it's hard to deal with events as borg and stuff in the beginning, but can't it be made so that they will only occur after a certain number of turns?

Why would I want to turn them off? Well to play a game where I dont have to worry about them.

But seriously, why shouldnt there be an option for that? The borg does add another element to the game, but that doesnt mean I will always want them in.

I agree with being able to turn off any specific kind of event, even positive ones. Some people may want a game harder while others will want it easier. Turning off random events all together in effect stream lines the game. This could be in addition to difficulty selection.

Hades' post gave me an idea for a map. It would be a defend the castle type scenerio where you're the only civilization and your goal is to either servive for as much time as possible against the Borg. Borg aggression would be based on your tech level as they would be more interested in you as you gain more interesting tech.

That sounds like a good idea. If someone else with some technical skill likes it, maybe we'll see a mod for it once the game is finshed.

Hopefully that sort of customization will be put into a map editor, sort of like the editor for Star Craft.

In keeping with the actual shows, howabout random events that effect say a single ship/group, like "crisis averted..." with each ship in the group (or the command ship) getting an experience bonus, or similarly negative effects like a subpace filament."

Hello together this is my first post and allthough I tried to read most of the material I dont know if this has been broutht up.

I read throuth this thread and found that there are quite a few interesting randoms discussed. But then again I dont like the normal random events that occur in most games. Though the Borg invasion in Botf and the other space monsters (MOO terminology) gave it a chalenging touch.

Now to what I would like to see. I as a player would like to be able to choose which random events I'd like to see in a game and which I dont want.

Like

Borg check
Super Novas uncheck
Plague event uncheck
Diplomatic events check

etc.

Welcome to the forum, Zell!

At the moment you can do the Borg on and off and the random events on or off, i have seen the beta option screen, namely. Your idea is in some way good, but it will also be complicated. Not only for programming, which i have no idea for at the moment which needs reprogramming or editing. But there is also the problem that you have to do a entire list of options before you can play. This look to me a bit like OTIS, but let's see what others think about it.

If its incorporated the right way it wouldnt be too bothersome.
One possibility (I am no programmer but thats how MOO did it with the race pics, so I guess something like that could be done for random events too)
At the main game generation screen you choose to have randoms on or off (maybe also the borg) and then there is an advanced screen for the randoms where you can finetune if you like (but you dont have to).

Though I wouldnt give the option to turn specific events on and off (only for special events like the borg or other invasion like things)
For the normal events there should be categories which include both positive and negative events.
For example:
diplomacy events, nature events (catastrophes, new recources etc), unrest events, tech events

Welcome Zell, you make a good point.

Even if it does not get as many options as you mentioned, I would atleast like to see an on/off button for borg (which iwulff said is there ), an on/off button for species 8472, and just the regular random events on.off button. I dont think that would be askin too much.

I don't care that much. I would really like to see both the Borg and 8472 put into the game. But because we don't know yet how many random events there will be in the game and how game effecting they will be. Perhaps it will be better to make a choice between 3 options; full random events, only small random events (without the stronger ones like borg, 8472, etc) and no random events.
On the stronger ones what do you guys think of my ideas about 8472?

I agree,

Randoms ON OFF
Borg ON OFF
8472 ON OFF

Problem with powerful randoms is they remove competetive element some of the time. If you have 5 or so large empires of similar power the game can be tense, it can be kind of annoying if the borg arrive and assimilate all the other empires.

Either need the ability to turn them off or have the AI understand that sending 5 scouts won't be enough.

Borg invasion perameters should just have very strict laws because having them invade less advanced races with nothing to give them doesn't make sence. The only reason they became interested in the Federation was basicaly because of Q making the Enterprise-D move much faster than it should have. And the only reason they keep coming back is because of how humans, despite being weak, stupid, and technologicaly inadvanced, keep pulling life saving moves out of their asses. Well, the real reasons involve a temporal loop and goes deaper but it's not important to this.

If the Borg invade, they should only hit a few colonies then leave if they don't find anything interesting. If for some reason they get interested, they should attack your homeworld, then leave. Fighting them shouldn't be worth while to you.

If you some how get the continual interest of the Borg, Species 8472 should come in and start attacking Borg vessels. You should then get caught in the cross fire some how by losing planets all together, rather than just losing the population and buildings.

heh ya know i was gonna learn to mod certain things in the game, one of the things i wanted to learn was to change gumtuu into the "Red Dwarf" ship for a laugh... ok i got a couple ideas, i dont know if anybody mentioned them earlier because i didnt follow the thread, how about adding the briar patch? or something like "Due to a temperal anomaly a ship from your future has appeared and is now part of your fleet, unfortunately the jurney atomised the crew and wiped the data banks of information" ... or maybe suffer a caretaker incident, a random ship gets grabbed and dumped in a random part of the galaxy, would be fun if you was tech level 1 and was suddenly handed a galaxy class starship ... or a fleet of mirror universe ships appear who then commense to pirate and kick the crap out of anything in sight leaving you with all the comeback, >>comp klingon<< ""traveling across our space is a right given not taken! do it again and they will be destroyed!", >>you federation<< *been quietly training fleets the past 6 turns* "WTF!?", >>comp romulans<< "your captains have distressingly itchy trigger fingers! fire upon us again and there will be war!", it would be funny if you were playing a friend cooperating next thing he knows your apparently kicking ten colors out of his empire .... still ya gotta laugh