I'm guessing someone else has suggested these things, but if not here it goes. It would be nice to see weather, nebulas, black holes, super novas, solar flares, and radiation affects in space. There should be an option at the beginning of your game to add any of these different affects and then how often you would like to have them take place (rarely, uncommon, normal…etc). Some of the different weather types could be
- Blind your sensors to 1 sector (or something less then max range) while you are inside the storm.
- Sensors cannot penetrate the storm, so any ships hidden inside the storm are hidden.
- Storms that will damage/destroy your ships, damage/destroy building on your planet, damage/destroy your space stations.
- Storms that prevent or limit the effectiveness of a specific type of weapon(s) (laser/missiles/mass drivers), and/or the effectiveness of shields/chaff. Or the storm may only damage hull armor if you have unshielded ships…etc.
Nebulas, you can pretty much apply any of the suggestions mentioned above to a Nebula type.
Radiation could fall under the "storm" or "nebula" category, but I was actually thinking in terms of having radiation in some form that would kill colonist onboard the colony ship unless you had researched a tech shielding or genetic mutation to protect your people. It would be nice to be able to have different sections of the galaxy off limits for a long while until you advanced enough technology wise to be able to explore it safely. This would help create a second "land rush" further along in the game.
Solar flares would also be a nice touch for mini-events that can blind a fleet for several turns, or potentially damage/destroy one that is too close to a star, or stop/limit production/growth/research for a set amount of time.
Super Novas would be a random event (infrequent) that would mean the destruction of an entire solar system. All planets/ships/stations within X range would instantly be vaporized. All planets/ships/stations within Y range would take damage. The damage might include planets losing a 1-5 points (or more) of quality (Class 15 becomes a Class 10) instantly and 5 randomly selected building tiles (in my example) are destroyed (including the buildings on them) and the tiles are unusable from then on. Ships and stations would take hull damage or be destroyed. The solar system that was destroyed could become a radiation field or black hole with some very different but equally negative affects on ships passing within range or through that section of space. Ships would then have to avoid that area or risk taking damage/sensor issues/destruction.
These types of other events could add an additional layer of depth to the game. Storms/Radiation/Nebulas would force players/AI to mix up their tactics and ship design to take advantage or the situation. A player could attack a superior enemy during a storm that limits the effectiveness of beam weapons by 50%, if your enemy used beam weapons and you used another type. You might normally lose that battle, but due to the storm you have a chance to win a major victory. As the AI becomes smarter or multiplayer games are added, you would be able to hide the attack fleet and strike at your enemy before they even know you are coming.
The same could be said for nebulas. If a player based their weapons tech on missiles and then discover a huge nebula which causes missile to miss 20% of the time, they are going to be at a big disadvantage. Or maybe the nebula causes mass drivers to overload 5% of the time causing the ship to blow up. Planets in nebulas could also have growth/production/research bonuses or negatives. There are tons of different options.
Imagine having your major ship producing world destroyed by a super nova. The solar systems close by become lower class planets. You’ve lost a portion of your fleet. You now have to scramble to rebuild and reorganize. This could mean the end of a game for a player in weak position, but it could also mean a 2nd chance for all other players if the strongest empire was hit with this disaster. The AI would have to be smart enough to take advantage of these situations and be able to reorganize should something like this happen.
I fully admit having too many of these events could become annoying which is why it would be important to allow people to customize their gaming experience.
Comments?
Chubain
