At game setup, add a new menu with "special options", each with overrides that change galaxy creation to force a different style of game play.
Such as,

:Stella Rasa:
"The stars are empty. The Hyperspace Collapse may have been something far more than understood."
At galaxy generation, the Stella Rasa bit skips generation of minor races, refugees, pirates, and marauders. The stars are silent and empty of all life except the Star Harpies and the starting empires.
(This would allow for a simple and direct style of game play.)

:The Birds of Carrion:
"The stars are thick with those that feed on the war dead."
At galaxy generation, the frequency of Star Harpies is doubled, making expansion a constant fight against them. Conversely, the wreckage located / orbital debris specials occur twice as often as well.
(Combat becomes important early, else the player must find paths between infested systems.)

:Titan Steps:
"When all the worlds are massive, every gain or loss is amplified.'
At galaxy generation, this overrides planet size. The distribution for all worlds is 20% Huge, 50% Large, and 30% Medium. Small and Tiny worlds are not generated.
(Because every planet can be an individual powerhouse, every gain or loss in expansion or war becomes significant. It may be easiest to have this ignore what is generated by forced_planets_fun and epic_systems, allowing them to make exceptions.)

:A Journey's Thousand Steps:
"When all worlds are small, management becomes critical."
At galaxy generation, this overrides planet size. The distribution for all worlds is 30% Medium, 50% Small, and 20% Tiny. Large terrestrial worlds are not generated. The exceptions are gas giants, planets generated in forced_planets and epic_systems, and also all empire home worlds have their size set to Huge. Planetary Construction is not affected.
(Expansion becomes very slow and deliberate, while the home world is forced to become the major powerhouse of the empire. The player is forced to optimize many small worlds for growth. Enemy home worlds become major targets, as do worlds like Gaia and Waterless. Planetary Construction becomes a critical late game tech, as it can create large worlds. Marauder worlds would be set to medium, making them valuable targets.)

I'm sure other options could be created.

Some would have to be mutually exclusive, like Titan Steps and Thousand Steps above. Some would mix well. Stella Rasa and Birds of Carrion together would be a very bleak, empty graveyard of a galaxy.

Display increase in ammunition and armor in the beginning of the turn similarly when ship is taking damage just with a + sign before it
Displaying increase in fighters and bombers (for Tinkers) is more difficult and might not be possible at all but is secondary

This is something I was thinking of when playing Tinkers

If the same would be useful for shield regeneration is doubtful but could also be considered

akkamaddi wrote:
:A Journey's Thousand Steps:
"When all worlds are small, management becomes critical."
At galaxy generation, this overrides planet size. The distribution for all worlds is 30% Medium, 50% Small, and 20% Tiny. Large terrestrial worlds are not generated. The exceptions are gas giants, planets generated in forced_planets and epic_systems, and also all empire home worlds have their size set to Huge. Planetary Construction is not affected.

Seems to me this would really mess up the Human start... :/

Suggest a different skybox for Subspace anomalies which emits the feeling of being in an artificial bubble of subspace

Edit: Looking good has an ominous feel to it

This is actually a throwback to Minecraft modding, and making things as customizable as possible.

For the minor races, put a .txt or .lua file in the game's root with a list of Boolean strings:

LummoxExist = true --set to true or false only
AlgorianExist = true --set to true or false only
ScavengerExist = true --set to true or false only
...etc. down the list.

Then, in forced_planet and epic_systems, add a small logic catch:

{ if LummoxExist = false {return}
else
{Name = Dirt,
.....etc.}
}

I'm sure I'm mangling the syntax, but it's simple enough to follow.

That way, if there is a minor race the player doesn't like, it only takes a bit of use of a text editor for the player to eliminate them from the game. A player who doesn't like the minor race thing could completely remove them, or remove only the sessile/mobile ones.

Default everything to True, and a player would have to make the effort to change things. Also, if the game can read .txt files (I don't know how lax or restrictive it is on what it reads), that would eliminate the issue with Window's appending .txt in Notepad and then hiding the extension. (You won't have to worry about constant questions of "WhatRacesExist.lua.txt" issues.)

Lastly, it would be a big boon for modding, as a player could say, "Well, this is cool, but that's a stupid idea, and they're bundled together..." and it just wouldn't be an issue. With Boolean triggers someone could just post one mod that is a collection, and a player who just wants one part could easily excise the rest.

Based on (very limited) Java, it seems like this would be easy to implement. The main issue in Java was making sure the location of the text file was correct, and the rest was pretty formulaic. The only programming issue I could see off hand (again, some ignorance on my part) would be making sure the text file is read early enough it could influence the other files.

I hope I explained that well. Thank you for your time. I'm enjoying Legacies.

Some ideas for resolving exploits:

1. Forcing Peace on AI: Drastically increase cost of peace treaty, display how the cost is calculated in the negation menu and allow AI to use this treaty against the player. Due to the high cost neither the AI nor the player could utilize this option often and would not feel too unfair for the player when used by the AI

2. Drawing in fighters and bombers into PD fire with the targeted ship/use swarms of bombers against enemy: Reduce the number of squadrons that can be launched per turn to one. Thus a fleet carrier would launch the third squadron in the third turn, right when the first one is returning - thus none of the squadron slots are wasted, and a carrier cannot be eliminated from the battle in the first two turns. PD guns could still concentrate on the bombers, but they need to survive longer against Cruisers and capital ships to do this= incentive for players to send escorts with carriers as they cannot wipe the enemy fleet with a single bomber run

3. Bombing planets clear of life and settling the planet later: introduce a new building: "Devastated district" The more bombing occurs, the higher the probably for these districts to pop up. Once they do, they cannot be removed until high-tier tech is researched and some cool art can be done for ti as well

4. Besieging planets with heavy weapons from a distance where planetary defense cannot fire back: Limit the slots of PD to missiles, small craft, and maybe heavy weapons. Siege weapons also make sense as defense but they feel a bit odd to be utilized on PD (also their name contradicts the purpose). this would force the AI to only utilize such weapons for the improvement and make them more competent defenders

Change undo from on/off to on/off/limited -- I'm not sure what the limit should be - maybe have an option for 10 or 100 moves or whatever, but the point is that with "undo on" the save games merely grow without limit, and my game frequently crashes if I get enough years into the game, but I don't want to turn undo off entirely, because I don't

zolobolo wrote: 3. Bombing planets clear of life and settling the planet later: introduce a new building: "Devastated district" The more bombing occurs, the higher the probably for these districts to pop up. Once they do, they cannot be removed until high-tier tech is researched and some cool art can be done for ti as well

So, the improvements (mine, farm, factory) would have a chance of becoming a Devastated District "structure" after bombardment, rather than simply disappearing?

I like that idea. I would suggest making it 50-75% chance of converting rather than disappearing, but yes. I don't think a high tier tech would really be needed. If I understand, the normal "Scrap" option would be replaced with "Safe Demolition", which would cost coin/hammer/metal rather than get a return. A higher level tech "Advanced Demolitions" may eliminate the cost and even get a small return, as you would be recovering / recycling / selling off some of the salvage. I don't think the normal Safe Demolition should be overly expensive.

Essentially, if you invade or colonize a planet that has been bombarded, you will have some cleanup before the planet is fully usable.

I think it would be doable, logical, and internally consistent with the game.

I also think the Devastated Districts should have a small chance of occurring in the derelict colony special, and would also suggest a new special "War Runis" which is Devastated Districts with a small chance of useful structures.

I think this would fit in well.

akkamaddi wrote:So, the improvements (mine, farm, factory) would have a chance of becoming a Devastated District "structure" after bombardment, rather than simply disappearing?

Exactly. The probability should be low enough so that this does not occur too often, but if the player drops 50 or so bombs on a planet (not done by AI), then it should generate a lot of these statistically to the point of making potentially planets almost useless without the late-game-tech

This will deter anyone from using this method of resettling + provide some nice visual and gameplay difficulty during normal invasions (as such districts would still pop up occasionally

akkamaddi wrote:I like that idea. I would suggest making it 50-75% chance of converting rather than disappearing, but yes. I don't think a high tier tech would really be needed. If I understand, the normal "Scrap" option would be replaced with "Safe Demolition", which would cost coin/hammer/metal rather than get a return. A higher level tech "Advanced Demolitions" may eliminate the cost and even get a small return, as you would be recovering / recycling / selling off some of the salvage. I don't think the normal Safe Demolition should be overly expensive.

I haven't thought on the cots of removing such a district, but makes sense. There should be a cost involved, but I would not enable this as a build command. Best would be to use the Scrap command also for this just with additional cost involved n the scrap action instead of getting a return of resources. Otherwise the demolition would need to be queued in which is a micro-heavy activity and auto-build would also need to be updated to use this

The command "Scrap" could also be renamed to cover this type of action: "Clear district" so that it fits both actions

The idea to have these Devastated Districts in abandoned colonies is great. Having them on refugee settled colonies would add a lot:
1. Atmosphere
2. Makes sense Lore wise as these planets have been settled before but devastated by the Great War
3. Would help balance out the effect of abandoned colony and refugee planets. That empire acquiring them gets a mayor bonus to pop currently thanks to the luck of having such a planet nearby, but by reserving some slots with these districts, the planet itself is less useful in the beginning

zolobolo wrote:I haven't thought on the cots of removing such a district, but makes sense. There should be a cost involved, but I would not enable this as a build command. Best would be to use the Scrap command also for this just with additional cost involved n the scrap action instead of getting a return of resources. Otherwise the demolition would need to be queued in which is a micro-heavy activity and auto-build would also need to be updated to use this

The command "Scrap" could also be renamed to cover this type of action: "Clear district" so that it fits both actions

I think we were talking about the same thing, but I was a bit unclear.

It looks like my "Safe Demolition" and your "Clear District" are the same thing. I was also talking about replacing the "Scrap" button in the improvements description.

I'm not as quick as you to say it shouldn't be an action in the build queue, but I'm a bit neutral on that. My idea is that it would be queued, but the cost (at least in hammers) would not be particularly high, so a single population unit without any improvements would be able to do it in just a few turns. One or two population units with a working factory would probably do two a turn.

It sounds like you would have it as an instant effect, as long as you have the coins (possibly metal) to afford it. (This is how scrapping an improvement works.)

A third option is that you hit the cleanup button, and it takes a flat one cycle (plus cost), so the area is clear next turn.

I'm a bit neutral on this, but I think not having it be instant would be better. When you scrap a factory, you are clearing a working, safe structure. (Personally, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for the Scrap action to take one turn, rather than *poof!* the factory is gone.) I originally used the term "Safe Demolition" because you are talking about clearing a city-sized structure where buildings, power, and fuel have been subject to explosions and fire. The term "Safe Demolition" would be really appropriate.

How often the Devastated District appears (my personal thought is 50/50) and how quickly they can be cleared would have a significant (but realistic) effect on invasions. It think it would need some planning to implement so it doesn't upend combat in a way other players don't like, but I personally think this would be a perfect addition to the game.

(This is a quick tangent: In my recent post "Think of the Environment!" [http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=603], I mentioned the planetary type "War Ravaged Planet". This is something I added in my MoO3 game that was going to be added to the never-happened Strawberry mega-mod update. A cheap way to do War Ravaged Planet would be to have a barren or inferno world where most or all of the improvement slots are filled with Devastated Structures on colonization. Everything would have to be cleared before any land could be used.]

akkamaddi wrote:

zolobolo wrote:I haven't thought on the cots of removing such a district, but makes sense. There should be a cost involved, but I would not enable this as a build command. Best would be to use the Scrap command also for this just with additional cost involved n the scrap action instead of getting a return of resources. Otherwise the demolition would need to be queued in which is a micro-heavy activity and auto-build would also need to be updated to use this

The command "Scrap" could also be renamed to cover this type of action: "Clear district" so that it fits both actions

I think we were talking about the same thing, but I was a bit unclear.

We are talking about the same and I agree

Generally I think there does not need to be a time delay for clearing them hence the above solution as the point is to make planets wort less when unhinged bombing is applied. When we get to the end-game tech this is not that relevant anymore as planets can be wiped pout anyhow.

If the clearing tech would be introduced in mid-game, it would make sense to consider clearing time for it as it would then flow into the planet MGMT mini-game and in a lot of cases would not be reduced to 1 Turn automatically. This is a viable option and would give another twist to planet MGMT, but needs to be considered extra balance-wise (like what does this mean for Orthin who could get the tech much earlier then the others)

akkamaddi wrote: How often the Devastated District appears (my personal thought is 50/50) and how quickly they can be cleared would have a significant (but realistic) effect on invasions. It think it would need some planning to implement so it doesn't upend combat in a way other players don't like, but I personally think this would be a perfect addition to the game.

I think it should be 20% max. The reason being: "slight bombing should have a minimal probability to create such structures so that the action is not punished too severely to hurt the mechanic. I think only excessive bombing should be punished e.g: 10% probability would mean that on average: 10 bombs would create 1 such district. Thus making two bombing runs with 5 bombs each has relatively low risk, but releasing 60 bombs will probably render an average planet useless (since every citizen has been bombed into glass form and thus also the structures they have been hiding in)

akkamaddi wrote: (This is a quick tangent: In my recent post "Think of the Environment!" [http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=603], I mentioned the planetary type "War Ravaged Planet". This is something I added in my MoO3 game that was going to be added to the never-happened Strawberry mega-mod update. A cheap way to do War Ravaged Planet would be to have a barren or inferno world where most or all of the improvement slots are filled with Devastated Structures on colonization. Everything would have to be cleared before any land could be used.]

Sound good

My idea was that heavy bombardment would introduce "fallout" (visible as dark clouds on the planet), which would reduce the habitability on the planet until it is cleaned up by an "environmental cleanup" production activity.

Arioch wrote:My idea was that heavy bombardment would introduce "fallout" (visible as dark clouds on the planet), which would reduce the habitability on the planet until it is cleaned up by an "environmental cleanup" production activity.

Sounds neat, but how do you scale that?

I mean: there needs to be some sort of scaling for the negate effect right? In case of fallout, it can be displayed on the rotating planet model which would be nice for the khm.. atmosphere , but how do you tell the player how strong the effect is, or the effect itself for that matter. Maybe via tooltip when hovering over habitability?

The mechanic sort of reminds to the latest MoO installment but it was mostly just annoying there. The devastated improvement concept can be seen in Stellaris and though it was only a placeholder there, it would make real sense here: easy to implement, clear effect display right after bombardment and always clearly visible effect when looking at the planetary improvements status

You have a value for how much fallout there is; more fallout reduces the habitability by more. The removal activity removes X fallout per Y turns. Obviously, this value would need to be displayed somewhere.

This could also be used for a pollution mechanic, but I'm hesitant about that for the same reason you mention: I found it to be an annoyance in MOO:CTS. The way MOO1 handled pollution (as an inefficiency that was factored into the sliders) was better, but that's better suited to a slider system. Perhaps it could be used for special cases, such as an industrial accident or the result of industrial sabotage.

Arioch, fallout is good. From my point of view, the Devastated Region would be something that could be added to existing mechanics relatively easily.

If a pollution mechanic is added, then fallout would just be that with the scale cranked waaay up, and it would fit really well.

I also don't see why you can't do both. There is no logically consistent reason you would not have ash/fallout clouds and dangerously unstable husks of factories.

A question that does need to be addressed is the desired tone of the game, and if the mechanic fits with the tone. As I've said elsewhere, I think SiS has a post-collapse / re-ascendant feel, so having the devastation of war be a visible but non-overbearing game mechanic is a good fit. For a game like Ascendency (I miss Logic Factory...), where the star cluster is young and new races are reaching out for the first time, then no, a post-war mechanic doesn't quite fit. For something like SiS or MoO3 (I never played the new one), where the races were ground down to an industrial or pre-industrial level, and "rising from the ruins" is a theme, having actual ruins reinforces the motif.