FreeOrion

I'm assuming no.

There might be a trick to using starlanes beyond knowing where it is in physical space. Each might have a certain [insert bogus Sci-Fi thingy] that needs to be inputted into the [insert bogus Sci-Fi thingy]. Ditto wormholes.

If the player sees another empire's ships popping into his systems from an unknown direction, he'll know that he needs to explore that system to find a starlane/wormhole.

Based on the various suggestions in thread about slowing retreat, perhaps the starlane doesn't have a specific loacalized opening location in system. Instead, you have to charge your jump engines in just such a way to use a particular starlane. Though things like jump interdictors or planetary and solar and nebular gravity wells / fields would be able to stop jumping from certain locations, this wouldn't have anything to do with the particular starlane.

The particular way of charching is not detectable by other ships... or anything, really, other than a spy on an actual ship doing the charging, which is equivalent / part of stealing another empire's knowledge of a system / familiarity. (Even this still shouldn't be useful in a starlane requires a particular engine tech to use, or needs widening)

Other ships (in combat, or in the system, cloaked and spying not during combat) may or may not be able to tell you're charging up and going to jump before you do so, but once you do, they have no idea which jumplane you took, or whether it was one they already know about or not. (So thus they gain no obvious hints that there's a hidden one you're using in the system)

i like the idea that scouts need to stay in a system for a few turns to get detailed info about it. it requires the player to have a plan when exploring: do i spend scouting time on systems near my homeworld, will i use them to explore border-systems, or send them straight to an enemy empire to see what they are up to? starting with hidden starlanes is also something that would make exploration more fun.

however, i don´t like a number for discovery/familarity (throwing too many numbers into the game is something that should be avoided imo). instead, tech should unlock new ways of traveling: wormholes are useless until you reach a certain tech, then you will be able to use them as teleporters. building could allow players to add "custom" starlanes (or "upgrade" existing starlanes to high-speed starlanes) in order to create shortcuts, new trading routes etc, or block certain starlanes that would allow enemies to easily invade your empire. it would be more interesting to allow players to alter the universe on their own instead of having a pop-up that says "yay! you reached discovery lvl 50, now there is a new starlane at XY. click ok". not really that interactive

Based on the contents of the public review, all starlanes work at the same speed. This was apparently to ensure predictability... if starlanes change speed a bunch, and ship engines change speed, it's hard to tell how long a journey will take until you make it. Wormholes are, I believe, as separate class of travel, and can work faster, but within "starlanes" there's no variety in speed. Which is why I was keen on the idea to upgrade the size / capacity of the starlane opening... allowing the player to do some strategic upgrading, but not altering the speed of travel.

I'm not sure if making new starlanes was nixed or not, but the widening and discovering ideas basically achieve the same thing.


Thought: To have multiple levels of starlanes becoming visible over time, vishnou00's idea of multiple passes of triangulation might work. The first time, you use half the stars, and make a bunch of easy to see and use starlanes. The second pass, you use the other half, and make a bunch of hard to see starlanes... the "hidden" starlanes grid. Then you run a third third pass and add some interconnections between the two, at intermediate visibility... and also add a random bonus/penalty all over to give some variation. (Could also work with more iterations / less stars per iteration, and / or some overlap between subsets... key difference is that different iterations have different starlane visibility biases)

I do like the idea of having a few stars that cannot be reached immediately at early game - it gives some extra 'discovery' room late game when some techs or discovery points are unlocked.

Another idea for discovery (exploration.) You could have 'nodes' or 'zones' that don't have anything in them. For game purposes (or immersive reasons) it would be like having a star, but it is transparent (not there) and no planets are attached to it. So it's just a blank zone of space with lanes attached... but maybe there might be something to scout out there (like a warp or empire special or monster zone or whatever).

Maybe places like neutron stars, binary stars, quazars and black holes could have other interesting, hidden specials. Do you build scouts to scout out these zones, in hopes that you MIGHT discover somehting (maybe nothing is in the system at all) or do you concentrate on infrastructure and military?

Drek and Geoff have some really interesting ideas - I'd add my vote to it getting a design or review discussion.

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guiguibaah:

Previously in this thread, I'd mentioned that various planets or starbases in remote systems could be not self-sufficient, but would give the possibility of discovering a useful special that would make the cost of keeping the colony / starbase worth spending (say a resource that unlocks something). Many planets would exist that are non self-sufficient when colonized, or asteroid belts and gas giants would be around on which to put a starbase, that have nothing of value... but there would be other specials on habitable (or uninhabitable) planets that give "hints" as to the locatin of specials that would make an otherwise worthless (or resource-draining) world worth colonizing. Thus colonizing every barren world or asteroid belt isn't worth it, but a getting hints from other exploration (or some other mechanism like scouting) would make it apparent where you should colonize.

Maintaining the necessity and opportunity for exploration throughout the game is a great great idea. The best funnest part of civ3, imho, is right at the start when they whole world is uknown and you're forging out to explore. It becomes boring and routine as soon as you've walked as far as you can, until you get some ships, at which point it's slightly interesting again, until you contact everyone and get all the map info, after which, boring again. (compariatively) Delaying access to map trading in the expansions helped, but not as much as something like actually making more places to explore would... and this can be done many times during the game, so you almost never completey run out of new systems to travel to.

What's the difference between having a star with no planets, and one of your 'nodes' or 'zones' ?

I'd like to for there to be "unkown anomalies" on the map that aren't normal stars, blackholes or neutron stars, but are obviously important because a starlane is leading there. These could be dysonspheres, rogue planets, wormhole mouthes, ancient extinct (?) races' deep space starbases, tears in spacetime into a pocket dimention, whatever. Presumably you wouldn't be able to see these before you have a starlane going to them (as opposed to my lots of always visible, but inaccessible stars suggested above).

This vaguely reminds me of the probe thread from last year. I then sugested probes be used to explore a system in greater detail (sent by scout ships), in very early game, when sensor tech is very limited, and scouts are basically flying by visual only. But sensor tech would quickly evolve and make probes relatively obsolete by original use. However, with this continual discovery discussion probes could still be used.

Along the lines of this discussion , a scout could leave behind a probe after doing a basic system scan. The probe could be active and transmit live any discoveries (points accumulated) or be passive, and points accumulate upon retreival.

Also, scouts themselves, could be given scouting criteria. A scout could be assigned a designation to: Perform basic system search, Perform detailed system scan, or Perform long term, deep scans (for maximum point accumulation). This would give scouts some mid to late game use, and not become obsolete. The initial, early game scans are basic, then late game, scouts return to central empire systems to do deep scans. This could be automated of course.

if we use a counter system for combat, scouts will always be important, although their role will change over the course of the game: in the beginning they reveal the map & important systems, later they can be used scouting enemy fleet movement & gathering intelligence (cloaking device) or countering enemy scouts/spies (detection device). imo it would be nice if they could act as local spies as well (like smac), doing special operations.

well, back to topic: space monsters with different strenghs would be nice. strong ones will destroy any combat ships entering a system & block traveling beyond that point until later in the game. weak ones can be killed right in the beginning of the game, adding some early combat elements to exploration to make it more fun. experienced players will use early combat to make their fleet commanders earn some experience to gain an advantage over their enemies, newbies will learn how combat works killing weak enemies before they have to face another empire´s fleet.

edit:
just an idea: some space monsters could actively attack if you move within 1 starlane. you could use this to your advantage: lure a space away to get access to the system they were blocking, lure it to a strategic point to hold off an enemy trying to rush you for a while, or even to an enemy colony to make it attack it.

minor space monsters could be spawned from nests (like barbarians in civ3), those nests don´t show on the map unless detected.

Perhaps space mosters are very familiar with their home system, so know about all the hard-to see / use starlanes out of it. This means that they'll seem to pop up consistently, but inexplicably, in systems you can reach and settle, which are connected to their home system by a hard to see starlane. Later in the game, you'd develop tech and familiarity to see the starlanes, explore, find the nests, and deal with the infestation.

It might also be fun to have the monsters reproduce, perhaps on their own, or only if "awoken"... they'd create their own brand of colony pod, and use them to colonize uninhabited systems with asteroid belts or gas giants nearby. This would need to be a rather slow process, and very carefully balanced, so that they don't end up being just another enemy race, but something distinct... more like barbarians in civ1, which could capture cities and produce military units in them. (though monsters shouldn't need to capture an inhabited system... and should probably avoid inhabited systems when colonizing)

I'd also like a branch of the research tree to allow you to capture and control space monsters (perhaps requiring finding a nest), much like SMAC mind worms. Perhaps they'd make good spies, or flagless privateers... and perhaps they'd be able to travel into starlanes that your ships can't (until you upgrade their openings to admit larger vessels).

Geoff -> You are right in your conclusion that a "system" with no star (a black one) would be the same as a system with, say, a star with no planets. Gamewise you are right, there is no difference whatsoever, and it may even be easier to pick out these 'blank' systems on the starmap (since all stars show up.) It's not a pressing issue, and perhaps it could even be added as a mod later on just for immersive purposes.

But I fully agree with your idea that at the start of the game, you may find entire systems that appear worthless, and only after exploring in that system would you slowly discover something (even an unsustainable colony).

Could be insteresting if you have a not-so friendly alien who keeps attacking your scout ships trying to prevent you from 'finding' a secret they know about.

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I just read this thread. Awsome idea. I totally agree with Drek and Geoff. I would like to see this implemented.

You should also be able to build a building on your planets to give you more discovery or say you gain a DP bonus if your focus is research or there is a sector/empire capitol. Maybe you should also get more DP when your population reaches different levels, as more people are there to look around and occupy the planet's space.
Another idea is that you can only discover new starlanes with DP gained by survey ships, not colonies.

There should be oneway starlanes as well. For starlane ideas I would highly recommend reading a sci-fi series I mention in this thread:
http://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=525
The books detail the use of survey ships to discover new starlanes and illustrate how they can be used tactically.

Same here, Ragnar Lots of awesome ideas.

Few points. The more scouts/probes/scanner/etc., the better, although each additional one after a given amount should yeld smaller bonuses. Also, some things simply cannot be discovered without certain tech or component (i.e. wormholes would require a wormhole scanner, some planetary specials would require a scout away team or a colony, etc.).

Early scouts would simply look for colonisable planets and easy-to-see stuff. Later generations science ships would study those systems for various specials. This same mechanism (of added exploration points vs. difficult to see points, insert right names here) could be used for things like cloaked ships, mines, and stuff like that, thus giving us a way to kill 2+ birds with one game value

I'd definetly like to be able to send advanced science vessels to far away systems in hunt of new toys (think Star Trek explorations) and to be able to build various scanners (planet and space based) in my systems to prevent enemy cloaked ships from entering and give my fleets some defensive bonus.

I don't like the filler stars idea though. It would make the screan look less clear, and I'd be sure to turn on the filter option 'filer out useless junk stars' if it was included. On the other hand, if a star is not connected by starlane/wormhole/jumpoint/etc. thingy this doesn't have to mean that it is useless. For starters, I can imagine a tech that would let a player CREATE their own starlanes/thingies. Or a diffrent propulsion systems that would make certain planets more accessible to ships using given tech (I will write more about it later in a separate article).

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I believe player created starlanes were frowed upon... not sure why though.

Regarding "filler" stars, a later refinement of that idea was the initially invisible starlanes that you scan to find. Thus "filler" stars wouldn't really be filler... they'd be stars you can't yet see the starlanes to which they're connected. Later you'd find these, enabling access. (This also sorta makes player-created starlanes a bit redundant... rather than making them, you'd scan for them heavily in a particular system, increasing the chance you'd find them)

- that could lead to an interesting idea... Pehaps after spending 30 turns scouting out a system, you find a hidden starlane. This hidden starlane then takes you to a hidden area not revealed on the map. Could be a black hole, dark matter, or empty space with a derelict on it or a rogue planet....

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So we'd all have to leave scouts hanging around in every system forever, in the hope of discovering something? Doesnt sound much fun to me.

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