Losing your recently built Tactical Cruiser which is orbiting or en route to an attack as part of a fleet is not exactly fun...

Well I made a pic for them as a randem event.

It would need to be a rare event. The game would not be much fun if that happened every other turn.

Suggestions for Matress about the: Artificial Intelligence (The affected race loses control of a ship, it attacks nearby ships, stations, and worlds - irrelevant of who controls them - until you regain control of the ship or it is destroyed)

One of our vessels, the USS _____ has mysteriously gained an Artificial Intelligence. The Intelligence is in control of the vessel, and it has begun attacking several ships and stations in the area. It may take some time to regain control of the vessel, but we could gain much knowledge from the Intelligence if we could earn its trust.

Our Imperial Navy must hunt down one of its own ships! The IKV _____ has gained an Artificial Intelligence, and it has begun to attack our fleets and colonies. It is a Klingon ship at heart! In different circumstances, it would be a welcome addition to the fleet. However, we cannot take any chances; the ship must be destroyed! If any of the crew still lives, at least they will die in glorious battle!

The Tal'Shiar protects our interests, and the Imperial Navy protects our borders - but it is our Centurions who protect our ships. They have however, failed on board the RNS _____. The ship has somehow gained an Artificial Intelligence, and has begun attacking several colonies in the region. Our researchers would gain valuable data if they could capture the vessel, but we must also be prepared to destroy it. We cannot allow it to damage our colonies - or Romulus.

Our ship, the CDS _____ has gained an Artificial Intelligence. We do not know how this happened, but it is attacking ships and stations in the area. We must destroy it before it can harm Cardassia.

The Founders have blessed one of our ships with an Artificial Intelligence. The _____ is not submitting to their will however, and has begun attacking ships and stations in the area. The Founders are not pleased and have ordered its immediate destruction.

I don't think you understood. You just don't "lose" a ship like that.

Reminds me of that Voyager episode where the Federation almost lost the Prometheus class Star Ship. I think it was the Chines that took it.

"It is a Klingon ship at heart!"

I LOL'D

Regards Wolfe

No matter how advanced your ships are there's always going to be the possibility of losing it without trace. That's what Subspace does, you know.

I always thought it was the Japanese that took the Prometheus though. All that technology packed into one package? It would've been like a Christmas present to them.

Grumble moan whinge about the Suliban Cartel. You're pushing me into adding it with your images vjeko. Damn your bribery!

Encounter the Suliban Cabal
You gain some Biotech research points
One of our ships has encountered a small vessel, possibly an escape pod, drifting in space. The main computer banks of the vessel describe it as a "Cell Ship" and mentioned a previously unknown organization called "The Cabal". Unfortunately, the only passenger was found dead, so our doctor undertook an autopsy. The results of the autopsy are disturbing, as the species was identified as "originally" Suliban; sophisticated genetic engineering techniques were used to enhance his abilities. Whilst the enhancements will make a fascinating study subject, Federation law makes it clear that genetic engineering must never be used to enhance a sentient organism; even school children know of our past mistakes, and those events must never be repeated. Starfleet has been placed on alert with orders to minimize contact with this dangerous organization.
K
R
C
D

But it don't exist a random event for a minor race and you should also consider that Suliban which are member of an empire, cannot have of random event about them.

I posted above that they would be in Starfleet. Did you miss my post?

...

Currently the game only has one random event programmed in, and that's the Religious event one. This event has a 1% chance of happening on every turn.

Whilst I don't know precisely how Mike is going to create the system that will allow us to program in our random events, he did tell me a month or three ago that he was planning some major programming changes to implement the system. He said that we would be able to create our own effects and conditions, and it would be quite a powerful system. I therefore assume that we will also be able to set things like the liklihood of an event happening.

Obviously with our expanding list of events, and the large maps involved, the chances of an event happening each turn would be quite high. Getting it right will be a matter of game balance, but as long as we have the ability of setting the random events to very low chance ratings (Some of them need to be one-off events afterall, or we could end up with multiple Borg invasions and multiple Borg "empires" within the same game for instance) I don't think it's going to be a problem.

Sorry Matress. Grrrrrr bad view Starfleet!!!!

It worked, it worked!!!!!

I'm sorry to say this but the subspace bubble event has no sense
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Subspace_bubble
it could be replaced with "Ship dissapeared", I saw that you added it to the list and you could remove the bubble event.

I have a idea. Why not create a new event. This event would name: Plague Cured

Plague Cured

kind of text: The plague on [%PlanetName%] has been cured by the use of indigenous medicines made by our medical services (ships or medical structures).

The first picture is based on Space Empires 5

I would like to propose 1 random event based on the rebellion on board ships:

Insurrection Crew: when our empire sends a saboteur on an enemy ship.
Our valiant forces have persuaded the CDS Kraxon of the Cardassian Union to join us!

Mutiny: when the enemy sends a saboteur on a ship of our empire.
The crew of one of our ships, the USS Miranda, mutinied and joined the Cardassian Union

What about event descriptions for other races? For now there are only for the feds, is domeone working on that?
I would be willing to do it for Klingons, but my English not be very gud. :-)

This is my proposal for the Suliban Cabal event- Klingon style (I don't know if it's klingon enough)

K: One of our scout ships has encountered a small vessel, possibly a refuge pod, drifting in space. The main computer describe it as a "Cell Ship" and mentioned a previously unfamiliar organization called "The Cabal". The only passenger was killed by our warriors, so our surgeon undertook an autopsy. The results of the autopsy are bad, as the species was identified originally as the Suliban weaklings; but sophisticated genetic engineering techniques were used to enhance the petaQ's abilities. Whilst the enhancements will make an interesting study subject, Klingon honour makes it clear that genetic engineering must never be used to enhance warrior's abilities; even our youth knows of our past mistakes that made us look like Human to'ba, and those events must never be repeated. Imperial Fleet has been placed on alert with orders to engage any Cabal ships or stations and send them to Gre'thor!

If you check My Randoms, you'll see that I have been writing messages for the other Empires. But it's been a piecemeal approach. The simple fact of the matter is that writing descriptions is a time-consuming process, and we still don't know which ones will make it into the game and which ones will not. Writing descriptions for events that will never make it into the game is simply an exercise in wasting time, and I only originally created this list purely as an example of what the randoms *could* be. The current list has simply ballooned from that original example list. And in fact I don't even know if Mike actually is planning to add race-specific messages or not; if he isn't (Or simply can't find a way to program it) then the whole list would need to be scrapped and reworked.

For simplicity, where people have come up with randoms, i've concentrated on doing the Federation ones first since people expect those ones to be done first. They also serve as a useful base for writing the descriptions for the other empires as well then.

I do intend to write the descriptions for the other empires, they just aren't really a priority for me at the moment for the reasons I detailed above. Of course the job is open for anyone to fill in the gaps that i've left, but anyone that writes something may also find that their work is ultimately wasted for those same reasons. We're only going to know for sure what is possible once Mike releases the random events editor.

Has any thought been given to taking events in a slightly different i.e. Galactic Civilizations direction?

While random events where you just click the 'ok' button add some nice flavour they have, as I see it, some fundamental problems. First, if they are powerful then they can swing the game in an unfair way, in other words players can gain an advantage/disadvantage without exercising any skill or judgement. Secondly, if they are less powerful then in game-terms they become irrelevant and are nothing more than flavour.

Galactic Civilizations offered choices with its random events (typically a good/neutral/evil option) each giving different benefits or drawbacks. Something similar in Supremacy would firstly enhance the role-playing and immersive side of things - star trek has always been about making difficult ethical choices after all, and you could really get 'in character'. Secondly the player would have to weigh up pros and cons, making for interesting strategical decisions. Thirdly, if possible, it could tie into other empires relations with you - as in GalCiv good races will like you more if you make good choices and vice versa; this makes a lot of sense - it would be difficult to be friends with the Federation while commiting genocide for example!

E.g.

<Precondition for this event: Borg have been encountered>

'A lone Borg has been discovered, cut adrift from the collective. What will you do with him?

Encourage him to see himself as an individual, every lifeform has the right to self-determination < +relation with 'good' races>
Keep him for study, we could learn much about a powerful enemy <+biotech research bonus>
Program him with a destructive algorhythm and send him back to utterly destroy his people < Borg ships destroyed>

Ok this is unbalanced (although being 'good' shouldn't be too easy!) but you get the idea.

Actually, there is a sort-of spin-off from the random events that follows on in a similar direction to what you suggest, but we haven't announced the specifics of it yet. That's becoming a common theme with your ideas. Sorry about that.

Actually, this whole idea ties in with your previous heroes/captains idea in certain respects. Damn I hate not being able to explain what I mean. But all will be revealed in time, don't worry.

Mike loves the Galactic Civilizations games and has borrowed some ideas from them. He's also borrowed ideas from Civilization 4 and Sins of a Solar Empire, amongst others. Not to say that Supremacy is plagiarised or anything.

Ooooh... the galciv games and sins of a solar empire AND Civ 4.... yes I have experience with all of those games. And if Mike has borrowed ideas from all three, then Supremacy will probably kick at the convention. Not to mention wow the audience.... Oh how I wish I could be at the convention to see the looks on the faces of the people. Hey! I know! If there'll be media there, then I can probably watch some of the convention on the television. Maybe I'll catch Supremacy at the convention that way...... you see, for 1 failed plan, there is always at least 1 other succeeding plan.... muahahaha.... now I sound purely Romulan.... must be a side-effect from Q's cold......

EDIT: With all the chatter about Random Events, Matress, and you saying that there could be changes to how they go, will that affect how I write out the descriptions for Randoms? If so, then this is definitely something I need to know. Plus, is there a new list of Randoms to be had? Again, if so, I should probably get those......

Don't worry, last I heard of it, .Iceman was working on any alternative texts that we may need. I haven't really had any input into the alternate stuff. In fact, a lot of it is hidden even from me, which is partially the reason for all of the hush-hush.

Mike has said there is a ban on the use of <video> recording devices in the convention. He was going to check about microphones though, because he may be able to do a recording of his planned Supremacy talk at the convention. IF he's able to record it, we'll either release it for download on the site, or we'll send it to Zach at the Hailing Frequencies Podcast.

Hey, it's just great that two of the ideas I most wanted to see in Supremacy are also in the thoughts of the developers, and I'm looking forward to the grand unveiling later this year. I guess the reason this project piqued my interest is it seems to 'get' the spirit of star trek in a way trek games haven't since IMO A Final Unity and BOTF. So many blah blah shoot enemies in the face with a phaser rifle/ mass 1000 ships and blow up everything type rubbish that seems completely anti-trek.

I think the problem with modern games is that developers pick a genre and tack a theme onto it, instead of picking a theme and tacking a genre on. In fact, I wouldn't even bother focusing on a genre.

Take Sins of a Solar Empire. They had to create a whole new genre for it (RT4X, a blend of Real-Time strategy and the objectives of a 4X game - eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate if you didn't know) because nothing else was like it. And that's how games should be. Developers need to stop thinking about what they can do the same as other games, and start thinking about what they can do differently. There's so much fear that a game will flop, that they end up producing mediocre games that don't follow the theme as it should, making it even more mediocre and even more likely to flop.

Since the theme is what we care about most, we're developing this game direct from the ideas of a large, community that knows what we want, and we're not concerned with making money from the game, I think we're going to do a lot better in the long run than many of the commercial games out there. That might be good for us, but at the same time it's sad that we've had to resort to making our own game in the first place, and only illustrates my point.

Ermm, I'd have to disagree here. Games today are all about doing it differently. That's not always good. Games are usually mediocre because of the pressure to release them (from the publishers AND from the players). And because most players want mediocre games - because "good" games require thought and time, and those are commodities nowadays. It's all a matter of perspective, what's good and what's mediocre - one man's mediocre game is another man's good game. Games flop because they're poorly tested, poorly funded, poorly advertised - time and money are essential, and commercial games don't always have enough of either.
As for community driven games, how long has this game been under development? What's its status? You see, commercial games cannot operate under this mode, or they'd bankrupt the developer before beta Besides, the "community" is pretty much heterogeneous, and you'll be fooling yourself by thinking otherwise. Everyone wants something done differently. And then there's feature creep - I had mentioned this many many moons ago. Professional developers usually have this in mind - or are "reminded" by the publisher. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't do things differently if they had the resources - small developers at least are usually very dedicated to their games. Also to note is that not everything that sounds good actually works in a game. Usually it's not worth the coding time.
The downside to taking your time to building a game is that by the time the game is ready, there's something else similar already in the market, or the gfx are dated, or the interest in the game has faded. Also, these days the life span of most games is quite short. Taking a few years to build a game that most people will play for a month or two is not something you can do commercially.

In a nutshell, it's not as simple as you put it.

Interesting commentary. I have wondered why it is that BOTF 1 continues to keep my interest. This project attracts so many people who appear to feel the same way. I think we all used to play it, like it - and at the same time wish little things about it were better, simply because we liked it so much. I purchased other star trek related games where they put you in the captain's chair but as cool as they were they frustrated me because the scenarios ran out and then you were done. Then there were some with scenarios I could never get around and I finally gave up. To some degree I am afraid of this with STO although it may be that the developers will be VERY motivated to keep interesting content coming. I agree with Molari that Star Trek was never a shoot-em-up - BOTF got that right. It was about science, research, diplomacy, strategy, wisdom, and knowing your adversary.

I loved the Age of Empires series - the act of building an empire while racing the computer AI to achieve dominance. I guess that's why I continue to like BOTF. It's like a Star Trek Chess game in space. Captain Bashir

Is there "Encounter the Guardian of Forever" random event? If not I have an interesting idea about it that would correspond with our plans to expand the random events.

What would you like to do with the glowing donut of time?

I have already made a texture for it's planet, based upon the TOS Remastered episode "City on The Edge of Forever", galaxy generator could place it in a random star system. When you discover it, based upon your current tech levels PC would decide if your ship will even survive the Temporal ripples (TOS era would be minimum requirement). To activate it you would have to reach last tech level. When you do, a menu will open and first give you the list of races you have encountered. You select one race and gain a list of options to alter the history of the race :

(eg. "Speed up Progress"(race gains research points) or "Modify relations"(alter them to be more friendly with you, or less friendly) and the most important option "Erase the race"(their planets become uninhabited or inhabited by a random race, ships disappear......))
But every time you select one of the options there is 50% chance it will backfire on you, and you could lose a colony, or your homeworld, or be at war with that race. Also you could do this only once in the entire game.

This would be important part of the game, I was inspired by this part of Supremacy description in star-trek-games.com

"There will be many ways to win the game. Amongst others, you could conquer everything with your military might, sabotage your enemies into oblivion, research the secrets of the universe - then use them to destroy your ignorant enemies, or you could use diplomacy to bring peace to the galaxy - in your name, of course. "

Very interesting
I like the many ways to win. Players could end up fighting over it as they work to the last tech level. You might want to have it on a system mid way from three major races. I might say better than a 50 per cent it is good for you but with a lot of unintended consequences.