Forums » Suggestions
natural disasters
what if there were meteor showers that destroy ships and capships and radiation that slowly kills you until you get to a station
TWO WORDS...
Black Hole.
supernova some sun in one of the gray sectors and incorporate a wicked Gravitational force in there.
Black Hole.
supernova some sun in one of the gray sectors and incorporate a wicked Gravitational force in there.
We have had natural disasters for the longest time, unless the Devs got rid of ion storms while I was gone...
~Stukov
~Stukov
Stukov;
I'm a newbie, but in my limited experience an ion storm is an inconvenience, not a disaster.
~D.
("Nigel the Indecently Dressed.")
I'm a newbie, but in my limited experience an ion storm is an inconvenience, not a disaster.
~D.
("Nigel the Indecently Dressed.")
what about the station fires you read about in the news from time to time?
> ... an ion storm is an inconvenience, not a disaster.
Unless you're on an escort mission. :D
(Ok, yes, I agree, it doesn't count as a natural disaster.)
Unless you're on an escort mission. :D
(Ok, yes, I agree, it doesn't count as a natural disaster.)
I agree. I would love to see more 'natural' phenomenon that affects gameplay. Ion storms can be upgraded and fiddled with, for sure.
• I was also thinking of dustclouds / nebulae, in which visibility and radar are limited and obscured... as well as having "dark" sectors with lots of asteroids that you have to maneuver extremely carefully through (maybe even having ship headlights?).
• Station failures - where stations go offline for some amount of time, rendering certain or all of their services un-useable.
• Jump mis-routes. Passing through certain unseen phenomenon would throw your jump off course, landing you in an off-angle sector.
• Moving asteroids!!!!!!!! Probably not possible with the current game engine... but man, could we use this.
• Solar eruptions: rendering entire sectors un-enterable... maybe even destroying ships that stay in that sector right before the eruption occurs (ship computer would warn of incoming danger).
• I was also thinking of dustclouds / nebulae, in which visibility and radar are limited and obscured... as well as having "dark" sectors with lots of asteroids that you have to maneuver extremely carefully through (maybe even having ship headlights?).
• Station failures - where stations go offline for some amount of time, rendering certain or all of their services un-useable.
• Jump mis-routes. Passing through certain unseen phenomenon would throw your jump off course, landing you in an off-angle sector.
• Moving asteroids!!!!!!!! Probably not possible with the current game engine... but man, could we use this.
• Solar eruptions: rendering entire sectors un-enterable... maybe even destroying ships that stay in that sector right before the eruption occurs (ship computer would warn of incoming danger).
Domo-Kun could rampage thru the sector!
Like this!
http://www.coalitionofitan.org/itan_images/old_full_activity_index.swf
(LOUD. Oh, Flash plugin required.)
P.S. I think Domo-Kun was the REAL reason that [IA] fell apart. He was just too damn fearsome.
Like this!
http://www.coalitionofitan.org/itan_images/old_full_activity_index.swf
(LOUD. Oh, Flash plugin required.)
P.S. I think Domo-Kun was the REAL reason that [IA] fell apart. He was just too damn fearsome.
Stay of the moving roids!
Its hard enouh to keep track of them when they are hanging there.
OR give players the ability to tag roids. Then you can let them move
Its hard enouh to keep track of them when they are hanging there.
OR give players the ability to tag roids. Then you can let them move
The thing that gets me with moving 'roids is... Where do they all move to?
Even a bunch of asteroids moving very slowly in different directions will eventually disperse, resulting in... No asteroid field. Do you propose they go around in circles, or something? :(
Even a bunch of asteroids moving very slowly in different directions will eventually disperse, resulting in... No asteroid field. Do you propose they go around in circles, or something? :(
Yeah... I've thought about the moving roid problem... Aaaaand I've never really come up with a flawless idea to get it to work. But I'm sure there's -some- effective way to get it in there.
Technically they ARE moving. ALL of them... in the same direction... What do you want, to be unable to pass 'roids going one way and to be able to speed through them going the other? Moving asteroids = stupid unless we remove top speed limitations (or perhaps only have a top top speed, no crusing top speed and cutting turbo does not auto-brake). Spinning is okay, just not moving.
Just have asteroids that move off the system bounds either "bounce" or flip to the other side of the bounding box and continue on.
Or - once they hit the bounding box they are gone, never to return, and the game generates another random asteroid to take its place? Size, shape, speed, mass (in cu), direction, tumble axis, tumbling speed, texture, mineral composition, hidden goodies, etc. could all be factors in asteroid generation.
This way, the asteroids could have limited amounts of good stuff inside them, which is way more realistic. Perhaps the more you mine them, the smaller they get, like a tootsie roll pop. They just scale down to nothing once your mining laser has atomized the entire thing.
Or if you shoot weapons at them, they lose chunks or something, but you don't get any minerals out of them. This way you COULD blow up asteroids. Which I think would be kinda cool.
I think that every so often there should be some other stuff in asteroids, like organic solvents in ice roids, perhaps old ship parts or other stuff.
(That would be a lotta asteroids, I know.) How much lag would 10,000 slow-moving and spinning asteroids in a sector produce?
In order to maintain a preset "string" of roids, you could weight the possible appearance points and vectors they take. For example, that any respawned asteroid has an 80% chance of spawning in a circle at the middle of the left "wall" of the sector bounding box, and moving towards the right "wall" of the sector bounding box at 5 m/s +/- 4 m/s.
Then you'd always have the odd "rogue" asteroid, which may come zooming in from the "top" wall of the bounding box at 350 m/s, bound for a collision with another asteroid! Oh noes! Armageddon! Deep Impact! Judgement Day! Wormwood!
It would be cool if the asteroids would break apart if impacted, as if they were taking "damage", but I think that might be too much to process.
And if we did THIS, then we could intruduce a 1% chance that the next object would be a comet and not a 'roid. It would be neat to see comets. Or perhaps we could make tiny black holes or other cosmic objects or whatnot also spawn randomly and proceed through the sector. THINK what you could mine from a mini black hole that was speeding through the sector! (Samoflange?)
And if we did THAT, we'd need a gravitational attraction physics model, where sometimes planets would capture the roids/comets/etc. Or larger asteroids would attract small ones, or the little black holes would capture some asteroids and they'd orbit crazily, which would be how you'd locate black holes, just look for the tightly orbiting asteroids.
And if you're gonna have planets be able to capture asteroids, then every so often you'll have to make one careen towards a populated planet, and it must be destroyed by weapons fire/mining beams.(A MISSION!) But then Planets would have to be real physical objects, and I hear that's too tough to do. But it would be neat to see Sol II take a copule comet hits.
And if the roids or comets hit the planet, trade is disrupted and the "working" real economy will suffer for that area, while calls go out for medical stuff and rebuilding materials.
Those are pretty good natural disasters.
Or - once they hit the bounding box they are gone, never to return, and the game generates another random asteroid to take its place? Size, shape, speed, mass (in cu), direction, tumble axis, tumbling speed, texture, mineral composition, hidden goodies, etc. could all be factors in asteroid generation.
This way, the asteroids could have limited amounts of good stuff inside them, which is way more realistic. Perhaps the more you mine them, the smaller they get, like a tootsie roll pop. They just scale down to nothing once your mining laser has atomized the entire thing.
Or if you shoot weapons at them, they lose chunks or something, but you don't get any minerals out of them. This way you COULD blow up asteroids. Which I think would be kinda cool.
I think that every so often there should be some other stuff in asteroids, like organic solvents in ice roids, perhaps old ship parts or other stuff.
(That would be a lotta asteroids, I know.) How much lag would 10,000 slow-moving and spinning asteroids in a sector produce?
In order to maintain a preset "string" of roids, you could weight the possible appearance points and vectors they take. For example, that any respawned asteroid has an 80% chance of spawning in a circle at the middle of the left "wall" of the sector bounding box, and moving towards the right "wall" of the sector bounding box at 5 m/s +/- 4 m/s.
Then you'd always have the odd "rogue" asteroid, which may come zooming in from the "top" wall of the bounding box at 350 m/s, bound for a collision with another asteroid! Oh noes! Armageddon! Deep Impact! Judgement Day! Wormwood!
It would be cool if the asteroids would break apart if impacted, as if they were taking "damage", but I think that might be too much to process.
And if we did THIS, then we could intruduce a 1% chance that the next object would be a comet and not a 'roid. It would be neat to see comets. Or perhaps we could make tiny black holes or other cosmic objects or whatnot also spawn randomly and proceed through the sector. THINK what you could mine from a mini black hole that was speeding through the sector! (Samoflange?)
And if we did THAT, we'd need a gravitational attraction physics model, where sometimes planets would capture the roids/comets/etc. Or larger asteroids would attract small ones, or the little black holes would capture some asteroids and they'd orbit crazily, which would be how you'd locate black holes, just look for the tightly orbiting asteroids.
And if you're gonna have planets be able to capture asteroids, then every so often you'll have to make one careen towards a populated planet, and it must be destroyed by weapons fire/mining beams.(A MISSION!) But then Planets would have to be real physical objects, and I hear that's too tough to do. But it would be neat to see Sol II take a copule comet hits.
And if the roids or comets hit the planet, trade is disrupted and the "working" real economy will suffer for that area, while calls go out for medical stuff and rebuilding materials.
Those are pretty good natural disasters.
Umm... "Bounding box"? I don't think sectors have them at the moment; I can't wait to turbo out past the arbitrarily-defined bounding box and see the 'roids appear out of nowhere. :S
Not to be argumentative, but to reply to LostCommander: -Technically- they -aren't- all moving in the same direction. Role-playing-ly, if you imagine really really hard, then yes, they are.