Ruins & the Neutronium Synthesizer

[Dilvish]

Mat's recent changes to Neutronium entries reminded me of something-- the Neutronium Synthesizer is often a nearly useless find, because you can't actually do anything with it until your research Neutronium Extraction, and by then you've most often encountered a Neutron star and could build an Extractor anyway. So that makes the Synthesizer either rather boring, or frustrating. Actually granting the tech Neutronium Extraction along with the Synthesizer seems like it might be a bit much, since that tech is at the top of Production category (though as an aside, it really seems to me that Singularity Production should be).

So, my thought was how about another little specialized unreasearchable tech (like the Krill Spawner one), "Neutronium-working Secrets" or somesuch, that unlocks a weaker version of Neutronium armor for you, something like Neutronium Sheeting or somesuch, maybe strength 20 or 25, priced somewhere from that for Standard up to that for Rock.

[MatGB]

I was putting off moving it in the tech tree until after Release, as I've in mind a few other things as well (and going through the stringtable I remembered all those nifty Neutronium weapons that were planned as well).

I think Extraction should move to earlier, probably where Singularity Gen now is, but the armour should be a separate tech that completes at roughly the time you build the extractor in.

Maybe make the armour tech cheaper if you've got a synthesiser? (similar to the way Psionics is for telepaths)

Of course, my main reason for changing the stringtable was purely selfish, it's a good thing for new players but it also gives a quick link to the synthesiser Pedia page so I can remind myself if I've seen one/got one already.

The synthesizer is good though, a) and extractor takes ages to build and b) it does cost, whereas a Forge only requires 3 turns. I'm sort of tempted to make having a neutronium supply a requirement for the forge but reduce the extractor buildtime a bit. Oh, and Neutron Stars frequently have no planets at all (which is a something I've mentioned I dislike elsewhere).

I definitely want to do more with the Neutronium concept, a hull or two wouldn't be out of place, we could do with a few Battlecruiser sized hulls, etc.

[Sloth]

I think Extraction should move to earlier, probably where Singularity Gen now is, but the armour should be a separate tech that completes at roughly the time you build the extractor in.

I agree. It should be placed earlier in the tech tree with other neutronium goodies and the armor can be rearched later.

Maybe make the armour tech cheaper if you've got a synthesiser? (similar to the way Psionics is for telepaths)

Great idea! Make all Neutronium techs cheaper with the synthesiser (when there are more than one).

I definitely want to do more with the Neutronium concept, a hull or two wouldn't be out of place, we could do with a few Battlecruiser sized hulls, etc.

I would love to see more. Core slot Neutronium Cannon?

[Vezzra]

I definitely want to do more with the Neutronium concept, a hull or two wouldn't be out of place, we could do with a few Battlecruiser sized hulls, etc.

I would love to see more. Core slot Neutronium Cannon?

I want to point out that when I did the original big weapons/armor/shield revision after the shield mechanics had been changed, I already came up with neutronium weapons because I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to finally introduce some more neutronium parts (just having armor for something so fancy and late game felt a bit anticlimactic ). I also suggested to add even more, e.g. neutronium ship hulls etc.

That proposal had been rejected back then because people felt that if we add too much powerful neutronium parts, the strategic resource "neutronium" would get too powerful and imbalanced. And I've to admit, that objection isn't entirely unreasonable. While only having neutronium armor certainly isn't satisfactory, doing too much won't work also, so we need to limit what kind of things you can do with a certain kind of strategic resource like that.

In the case of neutronium, I'd like to think of this material as something extraordinary dense and sturdy. It's supposed to be the strongest, most durable material in the game, and the best you can have to make extremely strong armor and the most durable ship hulls. So I'd second the suggestions of maybe making several refinements to the neutronium armor, and introducing a new neutronium ship hull line (comparable to the energy hull line). The strong point of these hulls would be their extremely high structure, but assuming that neutronium is also an extremely heavy material (because it's super dense), these hulls are very slow (like the asteroid hulls). They should also be very expensive, but still give you the most structure/PP compared to all other hulls.

That should be sufficient goodies for the neutronium resource, and also provide a good lore/fluff explanation.

[MatGB]

Definitely works for me. I liked the idea of neutronium plated missiles in the stringtable (we do need to clean that thing up of the stuff we're not using and unlikely to bring back) but heavy/dense and tough makes some sense to me.

One of the lower priority balancing things I want to do at some point is armour, it's far too cheap currently and the better stuff could have drawbacks other than cost (speed reductions, for example).

I definitely want a Neutronium hull or two, frankly I'd quite like a Zentronium and Diamond hull ship or two that can be built in basic shipyards, but that's definitely a longer term idea. Do you still have any work you did on the hull line? (I think it must've been posted before I got involved, which was roughly at the point Geoff did the shields mechanic but I'm vague beyond that)

[Vezzra]

Do you still have any work you did on the hull line?

No, it was just an idea, but I'd like to see more than just two hulls, basically something comparable to the energy hull line (which, with the frigate you want to add, would be 5 hulls now?).

What I did once was my take on a neutronium hull graphic, when eleazar mentioned during the discussions back then, that abysmal programmer art is a good incentive for the graphics people to replace it with something better. So I thought, be careful what you wish for, and provided an example of my abysmal programmer art...

(you need to scroll down a bit)

[MatGB]

That's better than I could manage.

One thing I'm sort of looking to do is plug gaps in various lines and/or the overall schema. For example, the only hulls we really have that suit the 'Battlecruiser' fleet role are the top end Organics (Ravenous and Sentient) and the Quantum. We have several really big beasts, but there's a big gap between 5/6 slots and 12+ slots with virtually nothing in between. Energy in particular suffered as it couldn't do anything until minimum turn 100 (I think my best is launching a Quantum on turn 95 and that had Lasers), the Frigate plugs a gap in that line relatively well (although I need to tweak it a bit).

There's a part of me that says we've got too many hull types already, and another part that says MORE MORE MORE. But the Frigate was basically prompted by the gorgeous art fitting perfectly into an empty slot on the charts.

And part of me says just take existing Standard Hull art (which is actually quite nice) and change the colours...

[Vezzra]

And part of me says just take existing Standard Hull art (which is actually quite nice) and change the colours...

Or you can get Blender and begin to explore the pleasures of 3D modelling

[MatGB]

Nah, that's what Winter Leaf's for (seriously, I have almost zero visualisation ability or visual memory, I really suck at art as a result of that, I need to hear close relatives speak before I recognise them sometimes)

[AndrewW]

I would love to see more. Core slot Neutronium Cannon?

Railgun type?

[MatGB]

Ooooh, my brain just had an idea.

Neutronium Mass Driver. Same stats as the normal Mass Driver, but ignores all shields. So it wouldn't be too powerful, but would be cool.

They're too heavy/dense for shields to stop but also too heavy to be made actually powerful.

[Dilvish]

Neutronium Mass Driver. Same stats as the normal Mass Driver, but ignores all shields. So it wouldn't be too powerful, but would be cool.
They're too heavy/dense for shields to stop but also too heavy to be made actually powerful.

That does sound like a cool idea. We've talked about adding shield-penetrating weapons in the past, and I'm pretty sure it is part of the "plan", but it would require some more combat engine work and parser work and so is not yet simply a matter of scripting it up properly.