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organic ships

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 8:19 am
by orionzzz
if you have protoplsmic or insectoid etc... kind of alien species, try this for ship construction...

instead of typical ship building screen, have a gene manipulation screen to breed the type of ships you want... e.g. u design and breed a new series of small flying globs that will have 2 armour piercing spore shooters and 1 acidic protoplasmic projector?

Re: organic ships

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:23 am
by marhawkman
orionzzz wrote:if you have protoplsmic or insectoid etc... kind of alien species, try this for ship construction...

instead of typical ship building screen, have a gene manipulation screen to breed the type of ships you want... e.g. u design and breed a new series of small flying globs that will have 2 armour piercing spore shooters and 1 acidic protoplasmic projector?
Aw.... I see you've been playing Starcraft much. Bio-ships are at least included in the planning phase. But I don't think we're going to just "grow" them. Wait... That could be a decent advantage to using Bio-tech ships. At least if done in a limited way.

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:32 pm
by Rapunzel
There would be no Refitting these ships of course. :wink:

Growing ships could take very long, but could be cheaper ...

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:13 pm
by Mayito777
In Star Trek, one of them, there were some organic ships, the idea of organic ships is a good one, and they could update themselves, sort of you research a new tech and you could upgrade the ship, of course growing process has to be slower than a normal refitting.

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:33 pm
by utilae
An organic ship would actually grow fast (like Xenomorpths in Alien movies). It's an advantage that the organic ship needs since it will be weaker than metal ships. Organic ships would also have regeneration and fast refit. They would mutate to add a new feature.

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:33 pm
by Zanzibar
The television series Lexx comes to mind...

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 3:50 am
by Krikkitone
The fact is there should be no real Difference betewwn an 'Organic ship' and another ship, with proper biotech each would be constructed by gathering materials and assembling them in some method, both could have parts swapped out with some cost, both could regenerate/repair.... etc.

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 7:51 am
by Rapunzel
In SpaceWard Ho Organic Ships ate away Population (like in Lexx). That would be kind of cruel (but a possible solution) Additionally I would suggest, that upkeepcost for Organic fleets should be payed partially in food. Lots of food.

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 10:20 am
by Pasi
I like the idea of organic ships, but for some reason I don't like the "grow a ship" idea...

maybe that could be made into a tamagotchi mod :lol:

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 10:55 am
by utilae
I think growing an organic ship is the best method of creating them.

Mixing and matching organic parts might be a bit too gory.

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 12:06 pm
by Rapunzel
utilae wrote:I think growing an organic ship is the best method of creating them.
I agree. This way ships still take time to grow, and eat food in the process.
utilae wrote: Mixing and matching organic parts might be a bit too gory.
Hmm may be, but "Star Trek" uses Organic Gel Packs in their circuits (as far a I remember). You could handle A Rocket a a individual Organic beeing, as well as the launcher, but I would say that this would become too complex, thus I would recomend a ship beeing either organic or not.

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 12:42 pm
by jmercer
Mixing them may not be too bad. What if you're a race that is almost all bio-tech and you steel the designs for the missile launcher from some other race. While installing this component into the bio-ship seems a bit hackish, why not create a towable missile pod. This would be like a field gun (cannon) being towed by a team of horses. You could also mix in other ways, have a living mothership and a bunch of metal fighters in the hangers.

You would have to balance the intelligence you breed into these critters too. There may be a fine line between a work horse and a slave race... a revolting slave race :D

Might be a cool scenario when the MKII Destroyer that you just decided to 'retire' decides it doesn't want to be retired. Perhaps there's a chance for this uprising to jump to the MKI Dreadnought which can make an informed guess about it's future. The news network can have clips about a "rogue fleet" which is either looking for easy colonies to eat or a kinder gentler master.

So, this means that if you have a bio-ship then you have to either keep it dumb (no bonuses in combat), treat it right (higher maintenance and food cost) or beat it into submission (and have the animal rights activists at your throat).

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 2:46 pm
by Mayito777
In the show farscape Moya the ship is a mix of ship and organic maybe that could be an idea.

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 7:28 pm
by marhawkman
utilae wrote:I think growing an organic ship is the best method of creating them.

Mixing and matching organic parts might be a bit too gory.
Just think of it as Cybernetic implants for a spaceship. :lol:

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 7:51 pm
by utilae
But there not cybernetic implants. There organic implants for an organic ship. I'm talking about organs, legs and arms here. It would be a bit yuk to have to mix and match parts like that. So growing parts seems cleaner some how.