First of all, let me say excellent game, so far! Big thanks to all the developers. Great work with the graphics and the overall game concept – an excellent improvement over BOTF. However, there are few points in the game design with regard to space phenomena that are now known to be, (or at least likely to be) scientifically inaccurate, and I go over a few of them here:

Quasars:
A quasar is the nucleus of an “active” galaxy. A quasar exists when the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy is busy swallowing matter, causing it to glow very brightly as the material spirals in. A galaxy can only have one (at its center), and our galaxy doesn’t have one (our galaxy does have a smallish supermassive black hole at its center, but it's not at all that active).

Along these lines, assuring that galaxies are always generated with a denser central region and a large central black hole can be an idea.

Planetary astronomy:

One-climate worlds: In general, one-climate worlds, at least those with near Earth-like conditions, are unlikely. “Jungle” planets in particular are essentially impossible: in order to sustain lush vegetation on its surface, a planet would need to have large oceans (and, at that point, you technically have a “terran” planet). Even small oceans make for difficult planets, as these oceans (or large lakes, or whatever) would be highly briny (salt-forming elements, like sodium, potassium, and chlorine are fairly common in the galaxy), with land that is very dry and desert-like, especially far away from the coast.

Large “barren” (presumably, airless) planets are likely impossible as well. Any planet of Earth/Venus mass or greater would have enough gravity to hold on to a fairly substantial atmosphere (consisting of considerably amounts of nitrogen, among other things, indeed, this may even be too much of a good thing on very large terrestrial planets) – unless the planet was very close to its sun and too hot to hold on to its gases. Small "barren" planets are likely, or may even be the norm. Indeed, conversely, really small “terran” planets are likely impossible for the same reason (too small to hold on to an atmosphere, and without an atmosphere, any liquid on the surface would boil away – Mars exemplifies this).

Indeed, Star Trek canon aside, it’s probably unlikely that “humanoid” races, or most forms of complex life, would evolve on a planet that’s grossly different from Earth (that is, not a “terran” planet with oxygen and lots of water). No humanoid species could really be native to a “desert” or “volcanic” planet. As such, whenever possible, I would make the home worlds of most species terran planets.

There are other issues related to the planets’ orbits and rotation periods (such as tidal locking, etc…) that I will skip for now.

But, mentioning tidal locking, I’ve seen discussion of the planet Remus as portrayed in Star Trek: Nemesis. That’s actually not realistic. There is no way for a planet to become tidally locked if the planets interior to it have not (tidal forces are proportional to the inverse cube of the distance from the star). Indeed, the tidal locking radius is well inside the habitable zone of a G-type star, like the Sun.

I will add that the original BOTF featured random events that allowed for substantial shifts in planetary conditions. While this is not strictly impossible (they involve gravitational interactions among the planets), this is likely to be cataclysmic to the whole planetary system – to say the least. It’s probably best not to include such events.

Rouge planets are also likely to be very common. I’ve seen some attempt to incorporate these into the game. First and foremost, all such planets will be dark; they should be pictured being poorly lit/heavily shaded. They would likely be cold, and if they’re not, they can only be heated by internal heat.

They are likely to fall under a fairly narrow set of categories:

• Rouge gas giants: These should be like regular gas giants, only darker/colder (and same color as Neptune, since the appearance of gas giants depends mostly on the temperature of its outer atmosphere).
  
• Rouge “Arctic” terrestrials: Smaller tossed-out planets whose atmospheres “froze” out on their surfaces, leaving them airless and icy, much like the outer planet moons or the KBOs.
  
• Rouge “barren” terrestrials: Same as above, only less icy because they lacked atmospheres to begin with. These should be rarer and smaller.
  
• “Stevenson” rogue terrestrials: Larger terrestrial planets that still retain their nascent hydrogen atmosphere upon ejection from their birth systems may be able to keep themselves warm through atmospheric greenhouse trapping of volcanic heat. Such planets could have nearly room temperature surfaces with liquid water and life. However, complex life appears to be highly unlikely, since, aerobic respiration associated with photosynthesis (which is impossible on a dark planet) seems involved in the evolution of advanced lifeforms. Such planets certainly wouldn’t have forests on their surfaces as portrayed in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode (how dumb was that, really? )

Carbon planets: These are really are carbon systems, since the existence of carbon planets depends on the star system’s ratio of carbon to oxygen (which favors oxygen in our solar system); carbon systems have more carbon than oxygen. That would involve an entirely different set of planets entirely (as far as terrestrial planets go – gas giants would be roughly the same), which may be more trouble than it’s worth to implement.

But if you do decide to implement such planets, note that all the planets in the system would be carbon planets of one form or another. Designing these planets would involve a 3 × 3 matrix of size and temperature. The gases in the atmosphere would consist of carbon monoxide and various lighter hydrocarbons (“natural gas”, so to speak). The liquids would be heavier hydrocarbons (the lighter parts of petroleum), and the solids would consist of even heavier hydrocarbons (tar) and solid carbon (graphite, charcoal, and diamond). The more massive the planet, the thicker the atmosphere. The warmer the planet, the heavier compounds you get in the gas phase. (Even tiny carbon planets may be able to hold on to thin atmospheres of very heavy hydrocarbons, provided the planet is not too cold.) None of these would be particularly habitable to humans or human-like life, being at best, as “habitable” as Mars or Venus (even sealed domes would be under constant threat of poisonous carbon monoxide leaking in or oxygen combining with the hydrocarbons into a highly flammable mix).

Solar System:

I would swap the size of Mars and Venus. The ratio of masses of the inner planets is like this (Mercury: 0.06; Venus 0.82; Earth: 1; Mars: 0.11) and their radii like this: (Mercury: 0.38; Venus 0.95; Earth: 1; Mars: 0.53). Obviously, it is silly having Mars be a “large” planet while Venus is regarded as a “medium” planet with these considered.

I would suggest changing the graphics for Venus. While we’re all used to seeing the Magellan radar composite image of its surface, Venus in natural color actually looks like this. Its thick atmosphere obscures its surface, giving us this much more bland (but more beautiful, IMO) appearance.

Moons: While I like idea of including moons (which appear to currently be non-functional in-game), if we’re going to use them for the solar system, shall we get them right?
The gas giant planets have a huge number of small, irregular moons. I would understand and agree with ignoring these bodies. If we then restrict ourselves to the large, spherical moons, we get a moon count that goes something like this:

Mercury: 0
Venus: 0
Earth: 1
Mars: 0 (ignoring its 2 tiny moons)

Jupiter: 4
Io
Europa
Ganymede
Callisto

Saturn: 7
Mimas
Enceladus
Tethys
Dione
Rhea
Titan
Iapetus

Uranus: 5
Miranda
Ariel
Umbriel
Titania
Oberon

Neptune: 1
Triton

Is it possible to use actual images of these moons instead of the currently used images of Earth’s Moon? Having multiple moon images for other star systems (perhaps clones of these images) would be nice, if possible.

Pluto and KBOs: Pluto needs to go. It was demoted from planet status, as you know. If you are going to keep it, it would make sense to include the other large Kuiper Belt Objects and “dwarf planets”, like Eris, Makemake, Ceres, Sedna, etc…

Stellar populations:

These are the frequencies, masses, and temperatures of the various star types.

The bluer stars are comparatively quite rare. Red (M) dwarfs are so common that I’d understand if you’d like to undercount them for purposes of simplicity. Most of the stars featured should still then be in the F-K range, with the occasional A star here and there. O and B stars should be very rare and are typically found in clusters (since they live too short to drift very far from where they formed). These stars also would be unlikely to have planetary systems, since they live so briefly (typically only a few million years) that it is unlikely planets (particularly rocky planets) would have time to form. They may have gas giant planets (or even other stars) circling them, though.

However, the actual stellar colors are more like this. The Sun actually white, and the colors of the stars range to slightly more red to slightly more blue depending on temperature (the hotter, the bluer, and the cooler, the yellower/redder).

Giant stars are rare enough that they can be ignored altogether (indeed, it’s unlikely any giant star would have habitable planetary systems, since the giant phase is a very transient period of an advanced star’s life cycle).

White dwarfs are another fairly common stellar object. These may have planetery systems, perhaps consisting of gas giants or “burnt out” terrestrial planets (here is where you can have your large “barren” planets).

Of course, being true to reality would include multiple star systems (binaries, etc), since the majority of stars exist as binaries or higher multiples. But I understand that this may be too difficult to implement.

That’s all for now. Hopefully, development on this will continue, and hopefully we can see a newer release of this game soon!

Welcome JayManHBD and thanks for all the information. Give me some time to digest all this.

Again welcome, it sure is a pleasure to have you here JayMan. I would like to know more about your background. It sounds like you may have some professional connection to all this information. Thanks for the links to all the great images and info. I hope that most of your suggestions can be implemented.

Here are the few qualifiers I can offer:
I could not help but recall a compromise I had to make a while back. In working on ship movement for the 3D combat engine I had to give up physics for the conversions of current science fiction. Both Star Trek and Star Wars have space ships making banking turns as if they were aircraft. It is as wrong as you can get but it is a conversion I cannot ignore. In that regard I think we will have to accept the concept of Jungle planets and Desert Planets with humanoids on them.

The idea of rogue planets my help us get out of one game balancing issue. A problem was created then colonization of other than rogues was made the case for The Dominion. In a small game galaxy The Dominion often is completely without a place to use their colony ships.

I understand that it can be quite hot inside some of the nebula and that should be a way for some rogues to keep from death by ice. Our Dominion home world is in a nebula and they are not humanoid.

I thought the fix for the wrong sizes of Venus and Mars was implemented a few years back but I guess it slipped back in somehow.

Density with such nebulae is that low there won't be any mentionable heating effect on rogues.
Like JayManHBD said it would be the atmosphere of the planet plus the planet itself giving it heat.
Beside vulcanism also radiation could give heat. E.g. moons of gas giants also get heated by emitted radiation.

But in general, expect it icy and dark. The nebula wouldn't be seen either if not lightned by some star(s).

There's quite alot to astrophysically improve, I agree. And you gave some very good explanations JayManHBD.
Over time things might become a bit more astrophysically correct. But gameplay should keep the main focus I think. And cause this game is rather directed towards the totally physically incorrect star trek universe, don't expect too much physically correctness.

A planetary nebula, more correctly known as a stellar remnant nebula, is an emission nebula consisting of an expanding hot glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from the central star and then further heated by it's stellar remnant.

Radiation from the central star heats the gases to temperatures of about 10,000 K. The gas temperature in central regions is usually much higher than at the periphery reaching 16,000–25,000 K. The volume in the vicinity of the central star is often filled with a very hot (coronal) gas having the temperature of about 1,000,000 K. This gas originates from the surface of the central star in the form of the fast stellar wind.

Here is a question for JayMan: Could a rogue planet passing through an emission nebula be heated enough to be hospitable by radiation from the nebula while not being captured, remaining a rogue, to orbit by any remnant star?

Well, but then you make it a star system.
Star systems can have rogue planets getting close and drifting away in a parabolic way just like comets.
But heating would heavily depend on current star distance and I'd rather fear on radiation than on ice.

Edit: Well it's actually one of the astrophysically incorrectness problems to fix on one star system or anomaly per sector. Nebulae commonly would span over several sectors with several stars.

Thanks! Good to be here.

You can just call me JayMan. I signed up with JayManHBD because plain JayMan seems to have been taken.


I do have a background in this stuff.


Well, I’d imagine there’s no need for the Dominion species to be restricted to rogue planets. Presumably, since conditions on their homeworld are kinda Earth-like (comparable temperatures, water present), they could presumably inhabit planets similar to the ones that the other empires’ peoples inhabit.


I hear you. I’d get around this issue by scrapping Jungle planets altogether. They’re not really needed gameplay-wise, and that neatly solved the physics conundrum.


Well, for habitability, you need a planet with conditions that will be persistent over very long time scales, probably billions of years if you want multicellular life (multicellular life didn’t exist on Earth for the first 4 billion years of its existence, for example). This is the primary reason habitable planets are thought to exist mainly orbiting stars, stars in the neighborhood of the Sun’s mass. There, a planet can reside with stable conditions that persist for billions of years. Planets that are just passing through star systems or nebulae probably wouldn’t be there for very long (a few thousand years at most in the case of the former to a few million years at most in the case of the latter). And indeed, even in the rare occasions where a rogue planet passing close to another star, most of the time it will be very distant from the star and cold, perhaps only being close enough to be warm for literally just a few years. This is not likely to allow a planet to have consistent conditions for it to become habitable on its surface. It is highly unlikely that a rogue planet will be captured gravitationally by a star, unless the capture event took place early in the star’s life when it was still in its birth star cluster/nebula.

Also, space is very empty. Most objects in the galaxy, at least out this way where things aren’t all that dense, will go their entire existence without having a close encounter with another object. It’s unlikely stars will run into each other and very unlikely for rogue planets to ever pass into another star system.

The exception is within the birth cluster. Within dense clusters (and perhaps in the dense central parts of the galaxy) close encounters are probably more frequent. All this stops once the cluster disperses (which typically happens within a few hundred million years).

The inside of most nebulae aren’t very warm. As well, a nebula will always be dark unless there’s some star to light it.

Planetary nebulae, though quite warm from the intense radiation of the central white dwarf star, are fleeting objects. They last only a few tens of thousands of years before becoming bare white dwarfs.

Most of your emission nebulae that aren’t planetary nebulae will be gas clouds that go on to form stars (or dissipate once the move out of the galactic spiral arms). While these probably contain plenty of stars, planets, and likely many rogue planets, they will be very young, a few million years old at most – too young to have anything seriously developed within them (the Earth took on the order of 20 million years to form, for example, and likely much longer than that to have anything resembling oceans, around 100 million years).

Indeed, some nebulae are vast beasts, and can span several “sectors” of the map – depending on how big your sector is (see this giant molecular cloud that encompasses the entire constellation of Orion).

Actually, I'd suggest 86ing banking as well. It may be a sci-fi convention, but it is not a hard and fast one (indeed, BOTF didn't have banking). Unless players have been screaming for banking, I'd scrap it.

Hey we already get to get away with sound in space, isn't that enough?

First of all, a welcome to the forum from me as well

Sorry, but jungle planets are a staple of Star Trek. I can remember dozens of episodes where an away mission landed in jungle planet. Damn, Riker nearly died on one at the end of Season 2. Obviously, the game is not supposed to 100% physics accurate nor is Trek, as several things like warp drive and teleportation are either currently impossible, like the former, or don't work as in the series, like the latter (we can only "teleport" quantum states of atoms). But, and this is a big but, it is supposed to be as close to Trek as possible as Kenneth already mentioned.

Me too (Phd in theoretical physics/cosmology), so just out of curiosity what are you working on?

In any case, we appreciate the input, so keep it coming

Are there nebula that did not come from a star system? As long as there are nebula like that they can serve to expand a habitable zone for a rogue.



I am not looking for conditions where life can evolve. I am looking for a place the Dominion can colonize, consume and move on or adapt when the time comes.


Clearly changlings can live on M class planets, ships and stations but you best take care here. Iceman likes the idea of restricting Dominion colonization and you may not hear the end of that one. I am just looking for a way around the colonization issue that will make everyone happy.

Hi JayMan, welcome to the forums. Great post!
I had typed this huge reply to your post, but the forums screwed it up. And yes, I had copied the text before replying.
Anyway, most of the issues you describe are actually covered in the game; some might not be very perceptible, but they're there. I'll try to recreate the post (or a simplified verion of it) later on, when I get the time.
Thanks for the feedback!

Well, the concept of "problem" is relative. I don't see a problem yet. I think we've seen other example where there were "problems" that weren't after all, right?
How many colonies of Founders do you know of, in the shows? Both Links, right? Didn't the Dominion strive? They will too, in the game. You just haven't figured out how yet.



Yes, it was, and no, it didn't. JayMan, you're probably still using the May 09 release? Try this.
Mercury is Small, Venus is Large, Earth is Large and Mars is Medium, for quite some time.



How many changeling colonies do you know of in class M planets, Kenneth? Changelings can't stay eternally in humanoid form either, can they?
Also, you forgot to say that Mike (you know, the guy that is making the game) likes the idea too. And a number of people want different playstyles. Funny how once they get things, they change their minds.
Kenneth, don't stress with this thing. Don't make an issue out of it. Be patient. After all these years, you should have learned the concept of patience
Oh, and the game is still in alpha, we all know that, right?

So your suggestion would be to increase the size of maps to a gazillion x a gazillion, or have a gazillion stars per sector?
If we can model a galaxy exactly like in reality, the game will play much MUCH better I guess. And our nebulae will not be incorrect in size.

Let's see if I can duplicate the reply. Forgive me for being more telegraphic than what I was before, but I don't have much time now.



The spiral and elliptical are - not the BH though. As they should be. The rest, not really. The ring galaxy for example, shouldn't, and isn't.




The solution to this is actually to think of these planet types as all being class M, just with different positions in the habitable area - inner area, outer area.
I don't think of jungle planets as jungle only planets - though the texture leads to believe that. It's just an M class planet that is primarily composed of jungles; like Oceanic planets are largely composed of oceans, but not only. Arctics and Deserts are extreme class Ms.
Also notice that a jungle planet's base growth rate is not much lower than that of a terran planet's (4% vs 5%), so they're highly habitable too.




The game generates Barren planets primarily as Tiny and Small. Admitedly it could be more biased towards those sizes, but I'm not sure it's actually needed. Terran planets are primarily Medium in size, as are all the other class M planets. Volcanics are primarily Large and Huge IIRC.




There are currently no carbon-based species having Volcanic as preference; only silicon-based species. I've seen to that. As for Desert planets, one could think of Dune
Some species have had their homeworld get damaged by some event, and those have Terran as preference, but the homeworld set to Barren.
And we have the Breen and Andorians prefering Arctic planets; again, I see Arctics as class M planets in the outer section of the habitable zone, not Pluto-like planets.




Rogue planets have a yellowish texture, with a thin atmosphere. The pics we have for the Dominion structures have purplish/reddish backgrounds, precisely to try to simulate some of that and give them an alien flavor.




Like the Ba'ku homesystem? This one having the whole metaphasic radiation thingie.




See above.




They are functional in the game. They increase max pop in the system. They're buildable @ level 6 IIRC.
I never really liked the idea of Moons, as they increase the pop of already large systems, while not having much of an effect on smaller systems. Regardless, we can't set their number in the data files - and nor do I think we should. Basically, it would only be "relevant" for one system, Sol. Not really worth the trouble IMO.




I wanted to ditch it some time ago. But after reworking pop limits for planet types, Sol sits at a very nice 300 max pop right now, and I really don't want to change that. Gameplay is more important than anything else IMO. Plus, it allows the Charge Collectors to be built in the Sol system, which is nice.




Yes, having a starmap filled with just orange and red stars wouldn't be very fun; so they're more or less balanced in terms of rarity, with yellows being a bit more common. The star system generation tables aren't perfect, but they do try to recreate some of these conditions.




Most people think of the Sun as being yellow, so we're using the conventional colors for stars, not their true colors. Our white stars are really white, not yellowish-white.




We don't make distinctions between giants and dwarves. We're not building a galaxy simulator here, but a game. Though we try to stay as true to reality as possible. There are just some things that are not worth mimicking.




Thanks for the feedback, and the great post(s)!!

That we did not see Dominion colonies in the TV show is not the issue is it Iceman. That they could not stay in humanoid form eternally never stopped them from living in humanoid environments but that also is beside the point.
Not stressing just pointing out that in our current game universe there is an issue for the Dominion as a result of only being able to colonize rogue planets. In the game we played this last weekend with no minor races and no rogue planets on the map the Dominion player had no way to use colony ships and can only have additional systems once they are strong enough to invade someone else's colonies or home world. By that time the other players with additional systems they have colonized will be even stronger. This is an issue Mike will need to address.

In contrast to what you have assumed I find this restriction on the Dominion interesting and possible a good way to improve the game. We will need find a way, however, to restore balance in our game universe and that is what I am asking about how to achieve. We can assume that the Dominion home world, a rogue planet in the TV show, was hot enough from internal heat and or from a young planetary nebula. In the real universe there are many rogue planets but they are, for the most part, extremely cold and inhospitable for life. We could invent a lot of rogues planets hot enough that they could colonize in our game universe but until they are implemented the imbalance remains. In order to address the imbalance issue we first need to recognize it exists.

Above I am looking for ways to rationalize how these worlds could be colonized in our game should we add enough of them for the Dominion to use. What do you suggest we do to fix this problem?

It puzzles me how you can talk about imbalances when you guys were membering minors left and right, and using them to build ships like there's no tomorrow. I posted a few "rules" we could observe in order to get a sense of "balance"; did you use them? I guess not.
I also told you a couple of times how to play the Dominion in small maps with no minors - which let's face it, that's not how we're going to play the game, is it? Everyone wants minors, and you're playing without them? ...
Like I mentioned a few times already, minors will be hard to get. The Dominion will member them or conquer them. Just like they're supposed to. Build stations to increase your range.
Also notice that when we get the option to turn off the quadrants, the Dominion will not be isolated in the GQ. It'll be right in the middle of it.

Be patient, and please try to be more careful with how you put things. It doesn't help.

Relax, I am not attacking you or the idea of the Dominion having this restriction. I am looking for ways to improve the game rather than ways to play the current test build.

We could prevent this issue by not letting people chose a map without minors but I am thinking this is not really the solution you are suggesting.

What do you suggest JayMan?

We have prevented the Dominion from colonizing anywhere other than rogue planets. Should we increase the number of rogues to make this work? If we do could the Dominion invade systems they otherwise could not colonize? The same goes for other major races. Will they be able to invade a rogue planet but not colonize it?

I was thinking the Dominion could build land bases, like military/scientific outposts, trading bases, mining complexes, building bases or Jem'Hadar breeding grounds. We could limit the selection in each system by putting prerequisites for building a certain base (raw materials/dilithium for mines, crystalline or gas giants for science, terran/jungle for breeding or simple military and communications land outpost available in every system)

They would clam the system as Dominion space, AoI would depend on the type of base (military and trade -3; breeding, industrial -2; other -1) But there wouldn't be any population, just an icon marking what type of base was it, System assault would be based on it's HP, could be similar to normal assault. And they would have fix outputs in credits/dilithium/raw materials/research/... or would be able to build ships...etc

This would negate the Dominion's lack of research/mining/trade disadvantage from the lack of colonies, specially during the early phases of the game and it would uncripple the Dominion's expansion on non-minor games (even after AI is implemented) but would be different enough to be a fun race to play.

Interesting and constructive suggestion V. If I understand it correctly you would have an expansion of the difference already set out for races trying to grow on worlds of different environmental type. The races would see very different value in system of the same type but no more so than the Dominion. It would not necessarily be a complete inability to colonize but a very different result based on the type of world.

Well yeah...Dominion itself has no real colonists. The Jem'Hadar are bred as the warriors, Vorta are cloned to be officers/ambassadors and the Founders are leaders on the homeworld.

Only new systems the Dominion would control in a classic style would be new members or conquered races...colony expansion would be replaced with the land base type as described before...and all are happy

Thank you!


Was it a "jungle" planet, or was it a planet with jungles? Imagine an alien away team landing in the Amazon or the Congo on Earth...

In any case, the photo of the planet on Memory Alpha clearly shows that the planet has oceans.

I think my qualms with "jungle" planets is a bit misunderstood. I'm not saying that an Earth-like planet can't have a predominantly warm and humid, even very hot climate. Just that it cannot have forests (or probably advanced life) if it does not have oceans. Earth in the past was much more "tropical" all across the surface thanks to a much more carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere.


Oh I hear you, and agree, that obviously, there's no way a Trek game could be 100% true to real-world physics. But this is such a glaring error it's hard (for me) to ignore.

Kenneth, I *have* increased the number of nebulae - I cannot increase the number of Rogues in them a lot more, as some Barren planets are already starting to show up in nebulae. Can you please trust me? I'm not sleeping on the job, ok?

And the Dominion *can* invade other systems, don't know where you got the idea they can't... again, be patient, and try not to assume things that apparently you don't know about and haven't tried. You are generating "noise" that could easily be avoided.

Yeah, but Memory Alpha also says:
which means they used the same planet model again and again, so at least this part of the info is inconclusive

I know they can still invade. I just want to pointing out that it is ode that the
Dominion can invade and take over a system they could not have colonized. Asking questions like this is not being inpatient.
I am trying to have a conversation about what form the changes take.

Like in BotF, when you subjugate a system, you don't change the inhabiting race. So the Founders will not live in a subjugated system; also notice that it's the Jem'Hadar that do all the invading, not the Founders, and they don't have the Founders' restriction. The Founders basically don't live outside Rogue planets in the game.

As a side note, currently the native race of the Dominion is still set to be the Jem'Hadar, so when you colonize a new system, it'll be the Jem'Hadar populating it. Only The Great Link is actually inhabited by the Founders.

So, if I understand you correctly, in a future build it is planed that the founders will colonize on rogue planets only while the the Jem'Hadar can invade and conquer but have no technology to colonize a normal system? In a future build there will be additional rogue planets for the Dominion to use as colonize while other major races can invade and conquer rogue planets but have no technology to colonize them?

Thank you for discussing the issue.

Any thoughts on my solution for the Dominion? Or will it just be put aside?

We have discussed a few things about the Dominion in the private forum, in the thread entitled... Dominion You've participated in it too.
The plan at this point (and it can obviously be adapted or changed if deemed necessary) is to have the Dominion colonize only Rogue planets. Like already mentioned, they are supposed to expand by setting up trade with minors and having them join as members; they have the buildings for that. They can also subjugate and build stations like any other empire. They have bonuses to mining and shipbuilding, so that they can churn out ships fast, and good morale and credits production. Their attack ships are cheap, and they don't have dedicated strike cruisers, but have excelent ground combat capabilities. Since they're alone in the Gamma Q, hey won't be competing much for minors, and they can get research from anomalies if that's implemented. They'll be strong in espionage and sabotage, which is still being implemented. They might have their weapons bypass (partially or completely) shields, but that's not yet determined - obviously some balancing will have to be achieved.

Start a game at Supreme tech level and take a look at their stuff in the Encyclopedia. It should give you an idea of their playstyle. Notice that since the Native race is still the Jem'Hadar, there are structures you won't be able to build in The Great Link.

What about trade? You have greater trading potential with more systems...should we at least add trading bases capable of replacing colonies?