FreeOrion

Personally I'm interested in having an option (Possibly by clicking a "Details" button) to pick the monster types that will be spawned in the galaxy. For example choosing only one type of monster would be fun or selecting only your favourites. Of course special monsters like guardians would not be ommitable. Just like going for "rocket launcher arena" in Unreal Tournament if you get the picture

The reason we did it that way was to prevent monster nest specials occurring in games were monsters were set to "none."

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If you want that level of control, you can edit the text files that script the monsters; I doubt we'll add that sort of UI detail soon, if ever.

Ideally, players should be using scouts with detection equipment. I'm not sure what it's at now, but previously, Optical Scanner increased a ship's detection to 20 (so that a minimally stealthy ship would be visible anywhere on the tactical map). This also has the nice effect of allowing the player to see what's in a system usually at least one starlane jump away.

Simply for gameplay purposes, I would give most starting ships and monsters minimal stealth. Why they're easier to see than planets can be technobabbled away, or (ordinary) planets could be made minimally stealthy as well. Now that the player gets basic visibility of all planets in a system when he enters it, planets with specials that increase the stealth of the planet can cause situations in which the player can see a system and most of its contents at a distance, but still has motivation to actually go explore the system to find stealthier planets that might be there. This means there would be less reason to have planets be any stealthier than their stars.

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What's this "minimal" stealth you speak of? Zero?

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Usually 0.01.

0 is a special case; any object with 0 stealth can be seen by anyone, from anywhere in the galaxy, so a very-low-but-non-zero value is given to most objects without substantial stealth (stars, for example).

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EDIT: split from here
In my current game (or play test) I put an outpost on a Hydra Nest and after a few turns I got Hydra which were on my side, but which I couldn't control. I could rename their fleet and combine two hydra fleets into one. But, when I combined the hydra into one of my normal fleets I could control the combined fleet - it had the name of my normal fleet, but had a monster icon for the fleet. If they are uncontrolled they should not be combinable with a normal fleet. (Renaming should be allowed)

My point though, is that there should be a technology - called "Trained Mega-Fauna" - to give control of monster fleets.

Further technology could give bonuses to the monsters controlled by the Empire. The rate of spawning could also be increased.

edit:
I had another idea. A ship part could give the ability to combine monsters onto a fleet and give control of the monster. If the ship is destroyed the monsters become uncontrolled again, until another ship with the monster control part joins the fleet. The best thing about MoO2 was the odd things you could put into ships. The ship part could be a 'monster prod' - like an oversize cattle prod. A better one could be a 'whistle' or some kind of pheremone dispenser.

When Space Monsters spawn there should be sitrep message. Definately if the Space Monsters are yours, probably if they are enemies within detector range.
When a new kind of Space Monster is first seem a sitrep message could be good too. This would make them one of the things found during exploration, when a fleet arrives in a system a sitrep message is generated, which prompts the player to look at newly explored systems.

What version are you playing?

I believe I fixed the out of control monster thing quite a while ago.

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A sitrep message when grow a new tame monster is a good idea. I can do that.

I don't think it is currently possible to get a message when you first see a new type of monster.

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I think the problem was me! The monster fleets seem to move by themselves, but they also accept orders. Since they were moving by themselves I assumed that they wouldn't accept orders. The first thing I tried was renaming (after 10-20 turns of the fleet wandering randomly), then merging the fleet. I only tried to control it after I had already merged it with another fleet. The monster fleets seem to be fully controllable, but they get move orders at the beginning of most turns, I can cancel their orders so I don't think it is too good that they get random orders. It would be better if they sometimes got random orders after they could no longer be changed, otherwise it is just an annoyance where you go round changing all the monster fleet orders each turn. If they are a bit random and sometimes wander off as a game feature it should not be something that can be stopped by the players.

I'm playing v0.3.17 [SVN4282]

Tame monster controll is supposed to be just the same as regular ships. No initiative to wander by itself. It sounds like I missed something. Which monster was doing this? The script is supposed to be the same but I guess I've mostly tested the snowflake.

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Most monsters with movement effectsgroups will probably move their fleets, regardless of whether they are player-owned... For example, from SH_KRILL_1_BODYThere's nothing in there about only executing if not owned by a player.

Yeah, but there's no way for a player to get a krill- without changing some .txt files.
It the snowflake, kraken, and juggernaut that the player can get via control of nests, and thus those that have script to not act on their own when player controlled.

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I tried to add some space monsters to my starting fleets to aid testing, and got these errors. Uncomment the end of "starting_fleets" in r4413 to replicate, or see if you've fixed it.





revision 4414 ""added sitrep notification when new tame monsters are ready.""

revision 4415 fixed tame monsters wandering off on their own initiative, and restricted drone factories from empty systems."

Thanks for the report OllyG, it really wasn't working the way i thought it was. I guess i got sloppy and mixed up some versions.

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