Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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Would you like "Nova Bombs"?

Yes
21
58%
No
15
42%
 
Total votes: 36

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IConrad
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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#61 Post by IConrad »

If I'm going to have a suggestion in this -- I would say that it would be //okay// to create new starlanes. What would make this balanced would be the fact that you'd have to create a special class of ship which would have to traverse the non-starlane space and "build it" as it goes.

There's even real-world analogues of this: in one variation of the Alcubierre Drive, you have to have the spatial distortion "machines" lined up in advance, and only then could you pass through the space involved. So in our case, the spatial distortion is "seeded" in advance, by a slower-than-light vessel.

This would make starlane creation non-trivially difficult regardless of the stage of the game; and as it would be a late-game tech you'd probably never do much of it anyhow. It'd only be useful for restoring ties between different stars; or //perhaps// shortening a long-term route if a player has sufficient excess resources.

It also means that you could not use the technique to bypass an enemy's defenses in any viable manner, as they would have at minimum 10-20 turns' worth of advanced warning to beef up the "recipient star"'s defenses against your bypassing approach... or they could just destroy the special ship /before/ it manages to complete its starlane creation. Which would require the sneaky starlane creator to start all over again.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#62 Post by Geoff the Medio »

IConrad wrote:[...] a special class of ship which would have to traverse the non-starlane space and "build it" as it goes [but] could not use the technique to bypass an enemy's defenses in any viable manner, as they would have at minimum 10-20 turns' worth of advanced warning to beef up the "recipient star"'s defenses against your bypassing approach... or they could just destroy the special ship /before/ it manages to complete its starlane creation.
How would the enemy wanting to stop the new starlane from being created stop a starlane-creating ship moving off-starlane? The starlane-creator is not in a system (where battles occur) and not even on a starlane (where most ships travel, but don't fight).

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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#63 Post by marhawkman »

Maybe allow a starlane closer to collapse the incomplete starlane?(from either end)
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IConrad
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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#64 Post by IConrad »

I was thinking that either it could just fight a battle on the turn the ship got in-system (and it would take at least one turn for the "anchor" to be formed properly, during which this special ship has 0 defenses and cannot defend itself); or else the defending player could just build what amounts to a very large nuclear weapon. The "starlane builder" ship obviously could not alter its speed nor its trajectory, which basically makes it a "sitting duck" in terms of interstellar warfare. I'm also 'assuming' that the energies involved in the creation of a starlane would be easily detected by a space-faring race.

The idea is basically: It takes a /lot/ of tech and resources to create a new starlane, but a relatively small amount to shut it down. Kinda like how it requires Clean x10 conditions to power a fusion reactor, which means that any Tom, Dick, or Harry who sneaks a pebble inside the thing can shut it down for months at an end.

That's the /thought/, anyhow.

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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#65 Post by marhawkman »

ah, well that's a nicely simple solution. :)
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General_Zaber
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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#66 Post by General_Zaber »

Well at this rate, what with all the complications of Nova Bombs shutting down starlanes and the whole yin-yang balancing act that has to be done to counter this, I'd just suggest having the Nova Bomb simply destroy all the ships, infrastructure, etc... and just reset the system to what it was like at the start of the game (mind you without any natives or splinter colonies etc.)

Krikkitone already suggested this as one of his 'levels' of the Nova Bomb, and I think it would be KISS to simply implement just this one rather than going into the whole mess of cutting off systems and rebuilidng starlanes etc.

PS. Mind you, I still like the idea of the Hyperspace Flux and I think that could be induced locally using another superweapon. Perhaps a Starlane De-Stabilizer Bomb would function in combat a lot like the Nova Bomb, but you would have access to it earlier and it wouldn't do any direct damage, it would simply make all travel into or out of the system nearly/impossible until the effect wore off after ~20-50 turns or if a special building built on a connecting system (or in the affected system) would reverse the effect automatically.
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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#67 Post by Bigjoe5 »

I think someone mentioned somewhere that it might be nice to be able to have starlanes lead to places without stars. If that were the case, there would be no need to destroy the starlanes along with the system. Alternatively, as I said before, the star can just turn into a white dwarf, or whatever stars turn into when they go supernova. There's no need for to add the extreme complexity of starlane destruction and creation just so we can destroy star systems.
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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#68 Post by marhawkman »

that's true it's also something that some games do already. *points at Space Empires 5*

I still favor having starlane destruction as an option.
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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#69 Post by Bigjoe5 »

I just thought of something: Having a Black Hole go Supernova would be ridiculous. Maybe they can't and that's one strategic advantage to having Black Holes in your empire?
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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#70 Post by marhawkman »

Black can explode anyways. Just make it requie a different gizmo to make them explode.
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Krikkitone
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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#71 Post by Krikkitone »

marhawkman wrote:Black can explode anyways. Just make it requie a different gizmo to make them explode.
Or use the same device, just call it a "Massive instability Generator"... or Stellar Cataclysm Inducer

Black Holes Could undergo a Process whereby some massive amount of energy was released.

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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#72 Post by Bigjoe5 »

I just thought of something: Worrying about Black Holes going supernova when they can have habitable planets orbiting them is ridiculous. Forget I said anything.
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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#73 Post by marhawkman »

Well, it is theoretically possible for a Quantum singularity to explode. though the exact details haven't been worked out yet.
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IConrad
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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#74 Post by IConrad »

No. It's never lupus, and the singularity is //NOT// about to explode!

(SG-1 references ftw.)

That being said, if you could concentrate a sufficient amount of antigravity into a star, it would supernova. A similar effect would occur if you launched such a device at a massive singularity. So supernova'ing a black hole is just fine.

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Re: Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

#75 Post by marhawkman »

My point exactly.

Although it has been specuulated that Quantum Singularies can explode on their own.
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