6581 w/ Dec 27th content

[Dilvish]

Yeah, they have, the creat Dyson Forests, and those can be a real PITA. (undocumented, but it's in the code if you haven't noticed, I keep meaning to write a patch to en.txt for floaters and a few other things.

It's hinted at the the seed reference in the Dyson Tree description, but the scripting implementation seems to have deviated somewhat from the original plans -- the stringtable entry for SM_SEED should probably be folded into that for SM_FLOATER

[Hihoo]

Something must be wrong with your settings

don't think so. you are right about single monsters from a certain screen-magnification upwards,
but never for monster-fleet

create Dyson Forests, and those can be a real PITA.

didn't know that, thanks -always wondered where they appeared from. They're not much of a PITA to me however -
there is something called ADC you know- just add a plate or 2

[Dilvish]

don't think so. you are right about single monsters from a certain screen-magnification upwards,
but never for monster-fleet

Here's two different monster fleets -- the fleet with the Sentinel at Euterpe has one icon, and the fleet with the floater (unarmed) has a different, smaller, icon. That's at one of the 100uu scale zooms, so not very zoomed in; the zoom point at which fleet icons shift to all being the same tiny symbol regardless of armed status is the same for monsters as it is for empire ships. Those monster icon distinctions don't really jump out at you, though; at least, I need to really look to notice. It could be that the color of the small unarmed monsters could be changed -- the current use for white colored fleets seems a bit pointless to me & perhaps instead white could be used for unarmed monster fleets.

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[MatGB]

I have actually seen what Hihoo's talking about though—if two or more monsters (most noticeably Drones) are travelling at the same time along a starlane, they get a red coloured scout fleet icon, identical to multiple floaters together, etc.

I'd like to see more sizes-having a juggernaut infested area is annoying, having some of those small juggers turn into tier 2 or even 3 juggers while you've got the best fleets you can spare trying to stomp them down and thus losing fleets you can't afford to lose at that stage is a PITA, yes, you could click each moving jugger each turn (and I know they only upgrade at systems, but they can do so at systems where fleets are), but that's time consuming.

[Hihoo]

have actually seen what Hihoo's talking about

Unbenannt.JPG (74.45 KiB) Viewed 875 times

now everyone does. in the lower right you can see my capital blockaded by a black kraken.

if I go up with screen mag, single monsters will show a monster-icon, multiples will always show a standard-fleet icon regardless of monster strength.

especially with settings at monsters=high and larger universes, believe me, half of your screen will be filled with red, hardly discernible dots later in the game.

the beauty, and the challenge with this game is that different settings lead to different strategies - and to different issues.

[MatGB]

That's partially a preference thing, I never, ever, zoom out that far while playing, I want to be able to see system names and icons, I do change the default zoom/fleet icon setting in options though, Options\Galaxy Map\Fleet Icons and reduce the medium icon min zoom.

I don't, personally, think having everything just being a marker at that zoom is problematic, but pretty sure you can change things to have the full icons display if you normally play that zoomed out.

[shawndream]

Yeah, I saw small icons display at zoom etc. in the options.

My issue is that the moving red dots can get very visually distracting. Not sure if a dotted line would be better though.

[Hihoo]

My issue is that the moving red dots can get very visually distracting.

My point exactly. Lots of floaters boasting themselves of what?

[shawndream]

Add a tech or tech tree - Dyson Hedge Cultivation.

From that point on, Dyson trees no longer attack your colonies and floaters don't show up on your map.

Perhaps they are even beneficial (as more than a damage sponge for enemy ships without the tech, or enemies without basic shielding.)

Maybe more advanced techs for normal snowflakes and hydra too (and make sure the nastiest versions of those spawn seperately from the regular line, so you aren't missing any info).

This way the player has a choice, to have strong borders just for monsters, or to make peace with most of the most prolific ones and just focus on the oddballs and use those RP elsewhere.

Megafauna seem too cool to just be a single tech or two and some uncontrolled spawning.