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Ground Guardians for specials

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 1:55 pm
by Sloth
This is an idea i had a long time ago, but never really followed (maybe this has already been suggested before?):

Instead of creating a Sentry or Maintenance Ship in the system, specials could create ground guardians protecting the planet. This results in fewer roadblocks early in the game, while still letting the specials come at a "cost". They could also be used when monsters are set to "None".

I managed to script this with a native species called "Ancient Guardians" that generates lots of shields (500) and ground troops (10 per pop) and self-destructs once conquered. They do leave behind an Outpost of the empire that conquered them, which is quite convenient.

What do you think of the general idea and/or the suggested implementation?

Re: Ground Guardians for specials

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 3:07 pm
by dbenage-cx
Really like the general idea. Might be an issue with the AI seeing this as a higher value target (viewed as capturing a colony, instead of a costly outpost).

Re: Ground Guardians for specials

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 5:26 pm
by Sloth
dbenage-cx wrote:Really like the general idea. Might be an issue with the AI seeing this as a higher value target (viewed as capturing a colony, instead of a costly outpost).
They do get an outpost on a planet with a good special. That's better than conquering a Raagh planet.

Re: Ground Guardians for specials

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 5:46 pm
by Vezzra
Very good idea, I like it :D

Re: Ground Guardians for specials

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 6:19 pm
by Morlic
I like the idea but unless someone else is willing to do the AI work, I do not want to see it in the upcoming release yet.

Re: Ground Guardians for specials

Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 8:22 am
by Geoff the Medio
On can add ground troops to planets that don't have any population / species on them, so I wouldn't make it depend on population of the planet, but rather just be a large fixed increase to ground troops (+150 or so, depending on the value of what's being protected)

Re: Ground Guardians for specials

Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 8:28 am
by Vezzra
Geoff the Medio wrote:On can add ground troops to planets that don't have any population / species on them
Does the invasion mechanic implementation support invading empty (non-colony/outpost) planets? If yes, and I can drop troops onto such a planet, what will that planet turn into on successful invasion? An outpost? I wonder if that case is really taken into account in the backend code, so that might produce unpredictable results...

Re: Ground Guardians for specials

Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 9:05 am
by Sloth
Vezzra wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:On can add ground troops to planets that don't have any population / species on them
Does the invasion mechanic implementation support invading empty (non-colony/outpost) planets? If yes, and I can drop troops onto such a planet, what will that planet turn into on successful invasion? An outpost? I wonder if that case is really taken into account in the backend code, so that might produce unpredictable results...
Sounds interesting. I will tinker around with that.

EDIT: First problem has already emerged: Unowned planets without species aren't attacked by combat ships. So i can't reduce the shields. :(

Re: Ground Guardians for specials

Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 3:05 pm
by MatGB
Vezzra wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:On can add ground troops to planets that don't have any population / species on them
Does the invasion mechanic implementation support invading empty (non-colony/outpost) planets? If yes, and I can drop troops onto such a planet, what will that planet turn into on successful invasion? An outpost? I wonder if that case is really taken into account in the backend code, so that might produce unpredictable results...
It didn't when we were testing various ideas for the Fortress, AFAIK it hasn't changed since then.

Re: Ground Guardians for specials

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 9:23 am
by Sloth
MatGB wrote:It didn't when we were testing various ideas for the Fortress, AFAIK it hasn't changed since then.
I remember that.

I went ahead and created a PR with the species version, which worked fine: https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/pull/837

Now the chances are 42% Sentry, 28% Ground Guardians and 30% nothing.
Before it was 60% Sentry, 40% nothing.

Re: Ground Guardians for specials

Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 4:43 am
by dbenage-cx
Should these be excluded from affecting Xenophobic species?

Re: Ground Guardians for specials

Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 12:17 am
by MatGB
dbenage-cx wrote:Should these be excluded from affecting Xenophobic species?
Good question: to be honest, didn't even occur to me and it should have/

Eaxaw won't really be, their malus is entirely 'people in their empire', but there will be some weird display glitches on the conquest turn.

Trith, on the other hand, will get SO!MUCH!PAIN from all the guardian robots scuttling around near their homeworld. Given that self sustaining is quite a significant boost in the early game, so much so it makes them slightly unbalanced/powerful at the moment, I don't see it as a major problem, but it could be easily scripted the other way. Opinions?