Meteor Showers

Neptune's Pride Feature Requests
1

Meteor Showers

At the beginning of each turn meteor showers hit random planets raising their Natural Resources. There could be two types of meteors. Small meteors that raise a planets Natural Resources up to, say, 10% and large meteors that could double a planets resources. A star hit by a large meteor could also take damage to it’s Economy. Meteors could be an option added to the Create Game Menu. The following is a very poor example but might better explain the idea.

Create Game Menu:
Meteors: Yes/No

Small Meteors: [0% to ??% - of total stars]

   Resource Multiplier: [2% - to ??% of stars Natural Resources]

Large Meteors: [0 to ?? - either a % of total stars or a hard number]

   Resource Multiplier: [10% - to ??% of stars Natural Resources]
   Economy Damage: [0% to ??% - of stars total Economy]

(in the above example the “??” needs to be figured by someone with more knowledge of the games inter workings)

Thoughts on this addition or ways to improve on the idea?

1 Like
2

I like this idea.

The large meteors could also damage the stars Industry & Science.
Could damage ships and carriers orbiting the star
and could destroy or damage warpgates

3

I’d love some sort of meteor shower or spatial anomaly that affects gameplay in a “natural” way.

4

Or maybe meteor showers as a positive effect (with little negative side effects) and solar flares for large negative impact

5

An interesting idea. I’m not sure which suggestion posted thus far I like best

6

Random chance of a star going nova once every 10 cycles, takes out a star, and then 1 cycle later it collapses to create a black hole with a 1/4 ly radius of space that must be routed around. Any stars within that 1/4 ly range slowly lose NR at a rate of -1/Tick until they hit Zero and disappear. They can produce during that time, but ships are unable to leave due to gravitational forces. Income and Science points would still apply.

7

I’ll have to throw in a dissenting voice here.

First, random events sounds fun until you’re the one that loses a close fought game because of one. Random events have to be so interesting or delightful that they outweigh the bitter disappointment of being defeated by the random chance even when you’ve outplayed your opponents. Of course, one can tune down the random events until they’re no longer capable of affecting the outcome of the game, but then what’s the point of having them in the first place?

Second, if we’re going to have random events, then they should be ones that affect game play by players. Meteors is an example of a random effect that won’t force a change of strategy, nor are you likely to modify your game play to take advantage or mitigate the event. It’s just a bonus or penalty to the bottom line that you accept and move along.

Random events that open up strategic possibilities (with suitable warning so that smart gameplay can take advantage of them) are better choices (in my oh so humble opinion) if you want to add a greater element of luck to the outcomes :-).

3 Likes
8

I’m with tlwest on this. It wouldn’t add much to the game play.

9

Yeah. Fun to think about. But you guys might be right. Won’t add much, only frustration

10

One counterpoint to my dismissal of random events - you can have random events that are positive, but aren’t all that meaningful in terms of long term outcomes, as long as they’re reasonably rare.

At its best, it becomes like winning a free coffee at the donut shop. Not earth shattering, but if you weren’t expecting it, it can make your day.

However, if I was going to do that, I’d try and implement as many different small little random events as I could, not document them, and try and have them show up roughly once a game per player. The “flavour text” would be more important than the actual in-game effect.

On net, I’d consider it more marketing than a matter of changing the game. The purpose of these events is to give people a nice fuzzy feeling about the game as well as perhaps build up a minor sense of excitement as to what the next event they might see would be.

2 Likes
11

What about if the meteor showers were not random.

What about if you could see the cloud of debris orbiting around the galaxy. Your carriers are fine when protected at a star, but all carriers that are traveling that get caught out in the storm suffer damage.

12

Right - I agree that’s how it should work. There should be some predictability that will influence strategy.

13

That would make the scale too impercise for meteor showers.

How about Gamma Bursts? If you exaggerate a system’s or a cluster of system’s gravitational effect, that could be enough technobabble for an improbably turning burst of death. You can have them be triggered by Black Holes too!

14

Hulk approves of Gamma Ray Bursts! :wink:

1 Like
15

One way to have “meteor showers” be to scale is to have rogue systems moving at high speeds. Sorta like interstellar comets launched by extreme gravitational processes.

Anyway, if you make lots of small positive random events, that’ll trigger the “Uncertain Reward” (from Extra Credits) which helps induce moar playing. Or even a desire to “Collect them all.”

However, Random Events WILL reduce the determinist nature of the base game. It might cause people to pray for an event instead of seeking allies. Consider the hatred of Random Events in competitive Civilization IV.

Big Positive Event Ideas

Massive Breakthrough-a multiplier on next Experimentation hit

Small Positive Event Ideas

New Resources/Elements-Increases Natural Resources with a direct Science, Ship, or Cash bonus upon discovery

Discover native technology-Free Experimentation hit

Neutral Event Ideas

Rogue System Debries-Somewhat Damaging, Grants more resources,

Natural disasters reveal more resources- Somewhat Damaging, grants more resources.

Small Negative Event Ideas

Gamma Bursts-Highly Damaging, May reveal more resources, may give free experimentation hit.

Solar Flare-No orders or production may be given for a period of time, both attacking and defending ships inactive.

Big Negative Event Ideas

Supernova-Star system begins to collapse, giving a short period for evacuation before exploding, may create a black hole

System Collapse - Gravitational shock causes planetary orbits to go haywire and plummet into the star or get ejected, leading to a steady loss of NR until it reaches (a random small number representing the Star’s NR.) May be caused by a Black Hole.

1 Like
16

Wow, the discussion here triggered one idea to make the game quite different.

Moving stars.

Each turn every (or only certain) stars move a small amount in a predetermined direction. Most move slowly (or not at all), some move more quickly.

Implementation depends on how much math one the implementer is willing to do. If stars all go in a straight line, eventually you hit the heat death of the universe as every star scatters apart. This means that either you put the universe in a container and have stars “bounce” when they hit the edge, or you give every star an “orbit” around a galactic centre (the orbits can be very eccentric).

Note, this is not random (outside of initial setup). But the map would transform over time as stars go into or out of range and your border stars wander into other people’s territory.

1 Like
17

Moving stars were discussed before. I still approve!

18

I like the idea of having ‘Random’ Events, such as the ideas of @lichuckles. Here are some of my own (if slightly similar).

Beneficial

Natural Satellite - Reveals more resources on local moons, x2 star Production for 1 Cycle.
Dig Site - Shifting of the lands uncovers a hidden treasure, one bonus boost (determined by same as experimentation research points) to a player selected Technology.
Surviviors - Carrier intercepts lone ship in space, increase __% of ships on random carrier.

Destructive

Meteor Strike* - Carriers are hit and destroyed, lose __% of ships on random carrier.
Atmosphere Change - The change of conditions cause disturbance across the planet, lose some E/I/S on a star

Others

Secret Spy - Unlock scanning of a random distant planet, shows a level 1 scanning range around a random star for 1 cycle.
Orbit - The natural motion of the universe cause a shift it stars, ALL stars move 1 light distances in any direction. All carrier causes are continued towards star originally aimed for, even if out of new scanning range

19

It would be cool if stars were randomly generated on the outside edges during the game. Every cycle a few stars are born on the outside edge. Also a few random stars at the center of the universe goes into the middle of the galaxy and die out. All of the stars will eventually move towards the center of the galaxy and get destroyed. All infrastructure and ships are lost on these stars. It would be like the star gets ate by a super-heated galaxy center. You will have a bunch of new stars forming on the edge. Because players will know that there is a chance the star will get destroyed near the center, it will force them to concentrate more on the edge of the galaxy. They would have to grab new stars while also losing their old stars to the center of the galaxy. The stars can slowly spiral around the galaxy until it gets to the middle then the star is destroyed and anything else on the star.

20

@jason3609 thats a cool idea. A black hole galaxy.

The only thing stopping me from implementing these right now is how tricky it would be to calculate the eta for fleets.

Anybody strong in math? I think it might be tricky to calculate the intersection of two moving objects.