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Though there is nothing wrong as is
Here are just a bunch of ideas I had last night that would make the EV games better (even though there is nothing wrong with them as they are now).
Most of the ideas couldn't be implemented via a TC plug, so they would be perfect for EV4 (even though it has been stated there never will be an EV4).
Planetary Domination
1. Ground Defenses that require being disabled (can only be done with disabling weaponry) or destroyed before being able to dominate a planet.
2. Most weaponry able to affect both ships and planetary Ground Defenses (certain weapons wouldn't last long enough through the atmosphere).
3. Drop Ships designed to drop ground troops on a planet to aid in destroying / disabling Ground Defenses (wether a defense is destroyed or disabled is random).
4. Ammo based Ground Defenses capable of running out, although Ground Defenses like Laser Batteries and Ion Cannons would be unlimited ammo.
5. Planet gains point defense systems to ward off Missile Based Planet Killing Weapons, Bombers, Drop Ships and regular missiles / torpedoes.
6. Once a planet has been captured you'll need to buy new Ground Defenses of those you destroyed. Those defenses you disabled become yours.
7. If the system has a nearby neighbor of the same Government, then they will send ships and troops to recapture your dominated planet after a few months. The more / better defenses you build, the longer it'll take the enemy capture fleet to recapture the planet once they arrive. You can also come back and destroy the enemy fleet resetting the recapture system (meaning they'll come back after the same amount of months as before). If there are no neighbors of the same Government as the system your dominated planet/s is in, then no-one will come to reclaim it (unless the storyline you are playing causes them to take over a neighboring system).
8. If the planet has an orbiting space station/s, it / they will need to be captured / destroyed before you can deploy ground troops and capture the planet below.
9. Planetary upgrade centre becomes availible on captured planet / space station after you have captured it. In there you can purchase things like point defense systems, planetary ground defenses and general upgrades (like planetary docking rings for planets or general size upgrade for space stations, making it's graphic bigger and also allowing you to buy more weapon systems for it).
Planet Killing
1. Bio-weapons - The most expensive type of planet killing weapon, when used they kill everything on the world, after a number of days the effect wears off and you can re-colonize the planet using Colony Ships.
2. Nuclear Missiles - The planet becomes completely unlivable and the effects take years to wear off.
3. Tectonic Warheads - The planet gets annihilated to the point that it becomes a airless rock, only the size of a small moon.
4. Planet Killer Beam Weaponry - The planet gets annihilated, leaving only asteroids in it's wake (system gains an asteroids).
Landing and Docking
1. Large ships would not be able to land on a planet (they also can't be built on them, so they won't be in the ship yards or gain upgrades from them). Instead large ships would only be available from and upgradable from space docks or planetary docking rings like the Kane Band.
2. Shuttle Bays can be purchased for large ships in order to allow you to land on a planet, or you can use a fighter / bomber / teleporter system. In the case of Shuttles, Bombers and Fighters your main ship launches the ship and joins your escort fleet, you then can land on the planet. Afterwards you can re-enter your ship or one of your escorts by selecting them in the targeting computer and boarding them.
3. Certain large ships like Destroyers and Leviathans can get an upgrade that allows them to land on planets (ie the dropship upgrade), it also allows you and your escorts (with this upgrade) to carry and deploy ground troops to dominate planets.
4. Once you've dominated a planet you can spend allot of money build a planetary docking ring which allows your large ships without the dropship upgrade to dock with the planet. Planetary Docking rings also make it easier for both you and recapture fleets to deploy ground troops.
5. Teleporter systems allow you to deploy ground troops and land on planets without the need for Shuttles or the dropship upgrade.
Boarding
1. You can change your ship simply by targeting one of your captured escorts, moving close and inline with them and pressing the B key, this also allows you custom upgrade each escort. Any changes you make will be saved even if you change ship. You cannot swap onto a hired ship, they require upgrading the normal way (ie like Nova handles Escort upgrading atm).
2. Boarding Torpedoes and assault shuttles make it allot easier to capture enemy ships through docking. You send your assault shuttles using the boarding action key whilst an enemies shields are down and is targeted from afar (you need to have an assault shuttle bay first). Or you can use Boarding torpedoes which will only fire if the enemy ship's shields are down. Either way boarding torpedoes and Assault shuttles decrease the enemies crew count increases your capture chance when you board them in the regular way. Both types of boarding increasers also cause damage to the ship (while the troops are onboard the enemy ship, they'll attempt to disable it whilst they kill the enemy crew, this also slows the enemy reload time and the turning of the enemy ship). Boarding Torpedoes and Assault Shuttles also require that you have purchased Boarding Troops to send over on them.
Personnel
1. Recruitment centre added to planets and space stations, that allows you to purchase crew, veteran officers, boarding troops, ground troops, colonizers and terra-former experts.
2. When you purchase a ship in the ship yards, you only get a skeleton crew (the bare minimum people needed to get the ship running) so your ship is very slow and weapons reload slowly. If you purchase crew from the Recruitment centre your ship moves more up to the max effectiveness, all ships have their own crew limits (and so max normal reload and turning speeds, only upgrades can increase those speeds afterwards).
3. Veteran Officers have different types for different purposes like in Arpia, mostly the increase the effectiveness of things like your sensors, jammers etc.
4. Colonizers are used to populate habitable planets / space stations which are abandoned (wether through bio-weapons or otherwise).
5. Ground troops are used to disable / destroy planetary ground defenses, normally you'll lose a great many when invading a planet or station with a higher military rating than your troops (you lose less per difference). If you successfully dominate a planet, you lose all your ground troops (they stay on the planet to man the defenses and impose your rule).
6. Terra-former experts can be deployed on an inhabitable planet, to terra-form it (they speed up the recovery process when used on planets affected by bio-weapons and nuclear missiles, and make it possible for all but the most inhospitable planets to be colonized (only planets you can't land on can't be terra-formed).
Systems
1. All solar systems gain a star / super nova / pulsar / black hole in it's centre.
2. All systems get made a ton bigger.
3. All systems get all their planets (ie the Sol system gets all ten planets and all it's moons, all in correct placement in reference to the Sun) - Note the Tenth planet is the recently discovered planet Xenia located earlier this year (2005).
4. Gravity is made more intelligent, meaning black holes will suck you in, and planets will gently pull you towards them. The bigger the mass the more pull it has, and the more powerful engines you need. Inertia-less ships are unaffected. Certain planets like Jupiter will kill you if you are pulled into them. Stars / pulsars / super novas / black holes will also kill you.
Ship classifications
1. Bombers (best suited to attack medium - large ships), large warships (ie like Carriers, or Ravens) , dropships and assault shuttles added to the escort types.
2. Ships able to be order to only attack certain types (ie fighters can be ordered to attack bombers only, or other fighters). Ie the same as listed escorts. Except an extra option is added for fighters to attack missiles, boarding torpedoes etc.
...that's an awful lot of time you just wasted...
EV isn't becoming MoO any time soon.
Why is any of this a waste of time? I've been doing some of this stuff in kfl for a while.
I sure as hell didn't read all of that stuff you wrote, but let me tell you a couple of things: Deadly stellars and spöbs with gravity are already implemented in the engine. Most everything in your Systems category is possible and have been done before, and I'm pretty sure that in most of the stuff you mentioned, it's a matter of plug-in development and some clever hacks, albeit some need an engine makeover. Most of these could be implemented in a plug-in, and it doesn't necessarily need to be a TC.
Try doing some more research before you go into your thinking station. Check the Cool Nova Hacks topic and search prominent developers' past posts for previously discovered techniques.
This post has been edited by domu : 22 November 2005 - 04:31 PM
This probably would have been better on the Nova board.
rmx256, on Nov 22 2005, 08:23 PM, said:
Why is any of this a waste of time? I've been doing some of this stuff in kfl for a while. View Post
Because in the context of the Nova engine, outlining new engine features isn't exactly productive.
I'm mostly reffering to the spobs and the whole capital-ships-don't-land-on-planets idea.
I like this kind of thinking -- going for what you want rather than what you think is achievable right now. These are my thoughts:
- this should be achievable via a mission thread.
- maybe achievable, but what would it add?
- Actually, you could just create a weapon that seemed like it was doing this. When it hit, you would have a sound which began with some radio crackle like 'Down safe... we're going in...' and finished with 'Mission accomplished'.
- Or you could just have the planet launch a certain number of ships which look like missiles, close to contact distance and then explode.
- Planet can launch ships that don't move at all which then launch counter measures.
- achievable by swapping the planet based on an ncb. However, how would you ever know? Non-player ships don't attack planets.
- achievable via ncbs
- this seems unrealistic, but you could simulate this effect with a combination of the ideas above.
-- easy to achieve, since dominating a planet sets an ncb
-- do it with swapping planets and a cron. As it wouldn't affect space ships, you wouldn't have to work very hard to integrate this with the existing means of dominating by wiping out ships.
-- by swapping planet, I mean you get teleported to a different planet which visbits on to be in the same galactic place
-- same thing, different cron.
-- swap the planet on dominate
4. Planet Killer Beam Weaponry - The planet gets annihilated, leaving only asteroids in it's wake (system gains an asteroids). Landing and Docking
swap the planet
All these depend on making sure that you can only own one planet-killer at a time
- do it with txts. It would mean swapping visbits based on acquiring such a ship. You would have one complete set of systems which talk about you landing, and another complete set which talk about you shuttling down.
-- difficult to implement as given, but the effect could be achieved. Is it worth it?
Do it with txt
This is an interesting idea. Essentially you are buying an outfit which triggers an ncb that swaps you to the new planet with all the correct visbits etc. The effect would seem exactly like your purchase of an outfit changed the planet.
I like it.
Easiest thing in the world. You fire the weapon. No visible weapon appears, you hear voices "teleporting now", then a Blake's 7 or Star Trek style 'zing', then 'down and safe', and after that there's a flash of detonation.
Cool effect.
Hasn't this been done before?
Erm, is this one really worth the effort?
Buy them as an outfit, or do as a mission that gives you an outfit and takes cash off you.
Already done it. Try the 'Gunner' in Frozen Heart. (That was a long time ago).
Same trick.
Do it with ncbs based on your outfit purchase.
In fact, this would be the exact effect of doing what I put above.
6. Terra-former experts can be deployed on an inhabitable planet, to terra-form it (they speed up the recovery process when used on planets affected by bio-weapons and nuclear missiles, and make it possible for all but the most inhospitable planets to be colonized (only planets you can't land on can't be terra-formed). Systems
An outfit and regenerate planet.
Done it. Frozen Heart 2.
Why?
Done it. Original Frozen Heart.
4. Gravity is made more intelligent, meaning black holes will suck you in, and planets will gently pull you towards them. The bigger the mass the more pull it has, and the more powerful engines you need. Inertia-less ships are unaffected. Certain planets like Jupiter will kill you if you are pulled into them. Stars / pulsars / super novas / black holes will also kill you. Ship classifications
Well, ok. This is in the game engine.
Can't see an obvious way to do this -- but it would be fairly easy to simulate.
Anyway, enjoyed your ideas. Keep it up. No game engine modifications necessary.
I'd like to see missiles have some inertia.
Most of these are geared towards planetary domination, which isn't really the focus of the game.
What I would like is for the game to know/care about what is going on in other systems. This is hard with days working as they do (but I have that sort of fix for it). Things like telling your escorts to go dominate a system while you are somewhere else... or something.
Anyway, a lot of these are accievable in some form or another as Mr. Turner has so clearly addressed. A lot of it is just doable through mission texts and stuff.
I would have to say, though, that duplicating the entire universe on the basis of ship size is silly.
Just have the onBuys set a bit that changes the text in any of the planets that care. You can also use govt contribute/require to make it impossible for large ships to land on planets that dont have those superatmospheric elevator thingies, or something of the sort.
** I like this kind of thinking -- going for what you want rather than what you think is achievable right now. These are my thoughts:
- this should be achievable via a mission thread.**
Actually thinking over what you wrote here, it would seem to me that the best option as you have noted would be to create pixel sized immovable ships that appear as certain kinds of Ground Defenses (such as laser batteries), giving the option to pick and choose which weapons to be fired upon. Having them released as the defense fleet would insure that they look as if they are firing from the planet and also make the planet giving up look all the more real.
**2. Most weaponry able to affect both ships and planetary Ground Defenses (certain weapons wouldn't last long enough through the atmosphere).
- maybe achievable, but what would it add?**
Nothing really, on afterthought it would be quite picky and pointless.
**3. Drop Ships designed to drop ground troops on a planet to aid in destroying / disabling Ground Defenses (wether a defense is destroyed or disabled is random).
- Actually, you could just create a weapon that seemed like it was doing this. When it hit, you would have a sound which began with some radio crackle like 'Down safe... we're going in...' and finished with 'Mission accomplished'.**
I was thinking more along the lines of escort ships, to make it work properly I guess having ships with a type of weapon with a really small range would suffice (to make them look like their landing to deliver their payload). Though the question is how would I make it so that they can only target Ground Defenses with this "Landing Attack", and use other weapons on other ships /or failing that, how would I make it so that they could only attack Ground Defenses period?
**4. Ammo based Ground Defenses capable of running out, although Ground Defenses like Laser Batteries and Ion Cannons would be unlimited ammo.
- Or you could just have the planet launch a certain number of ships which look like missiles, close to contact distance and then explode.**
Partly used this idea here to come up with pixel sized Ground Defense ships (except they aren't the missles themselves).
**5. Planet gains point defense systems to ward off Missile Based Planet Killing Weapons, Bombers, Drop Ships and regular missiles / torpedoes.
- Planet can launch ships that don't move at all which then launch counter measures. **
Yeah this is the other bit that led to pixel sized ships.
**6. Once a planet has been captured you'll need to buy new Ground Defenses of those you destroyed. Those defenses you disabled become yours.
- achievable by swapping the planet based on an ncb. However, how would you ever know? Non-player ships don't attack planets.**
Hmm at least the Ground Defenses could support you against enemy ships in your own systems.
**7. If the system has a nearby neighbor of the same Government, then they will send ships and troops to recapture your dominated planet after a few months. The more / better defenses you build, the longer it'll take the enemy capture fleet to recapture the planet once they arrive. You can also come back and destroy the enemy fleet resetting the recapture system (meaning they'll come back after the same amount of months as before). If there are no neighbors of the same Government as the system your dominated planet/s is in, then no-one will come to reclaim it (unless the storyline you are playing causes them to take over a neighboring system).
- achievable via ncbs**
How would I get the amount of "purchased" Ground Defenses to affect the recapture time?
**8. If the planet has an orbiting space station/s, it / they will need to be captured / destroyed before you can deploy ground troops and capture the planet below.
- this seems unrealistic, but you could simulate this effect with a combination of the ideas above.**
It's based upon the weapon platform thought, ie most stations are built in defense (especially ones like those of the Aurorans), generally you have to take out the major threat before you can conquer a planet (lest the station start bombarding your newly captured installations on planet).
**9. Planetary upgrade centre becomes availible on captured planet / space station after you have captured it. In there you can purchase things like point defense systems, planetary ground defenses and general upgrades (like planetary docking rings for planets or general size upgrade for space stations, making it's graphic bigger and also allowing you to buy more weapon systems for it).
-- easy to achieve, since dominating a planet sets an ncb**
And handle it by the mission computer? (ie the purchasing).
**Planet Killing
All these depend on making sure that you can only own one planet-killer at a time**
Ah yes I see, but how would I manage to swap the planet without actually landing on it?
**1. Large ships would not be able to land on a planet (they also can't be built on them, so they won't be in the ship yards or gain upgrades from them). Instead large ships would only be available from and upgradable from space docks or planetary docking rings like the Kane Band.
- do it with txts. It would mean swapping visbits based on acquiring such a ship. You would have one complete set of systems which talk about you landing, and another complete set which talk about you shuttling down.**
That would work.
**2. Shuttle Bays can be purchased for large ships in order to allow you to land on a planet, or you can use a fighter / bomber / teleporter system. In the case of Shuttles, Bombers and Fighters your main ship launches the ship and joins your escort fleet, you then can land on the planet. Afterwards you can re-enter your ship or one of your escorts by selecting them in the targeting computer and boarding them.
-- difficult to implement as given, but the effect could be achieved. Is it worth it?**
The swapping escort bit would be fun, but then I guess it would be really difficult to work. Especially since Escorts don't save upgrades (when you switch with a newly captured ship, your suped up Thunderforge becomes and normal Thunderforge again etc).
**3. Certain large ships like Destroyers and Leviathans can get an upgrade that allows them to land on planets (ie the dropship upgrade), it also allows you and your escorts (with this upgrade) to carry and deploy ground troops to dominate planets.
Do it with txt**
I guess you'd have to actually hire or capture an escort with the Drop Ship upgrade but then that leads back to the problem of the ship using the wrong attack on ships etc (ie dropship attack on other ships...). I guess it would be better as a player only upgrade with specialist ships that only have the dropship attack for escorts.
**4. Once you've dominated a planet you can spend allot of money build a planetary docking ring which allows your large ships without the dropship upgrade to dock with the planet. Planetary Docking rings also make it easier for both you and recapture fleets to deploy ground troops.
I like it.**
Didn't think of that...
**5. Teleporter systems allow you to deploy ground troops and land on planets without the need for Shuttles or the dropship upgrade.
Cool effect.**
Yeah, I guess it would only be good for the player ship and specialist escort dropships (normal escort dropships having to use the get close and "land" attack.
**Boarding
Hasn't this been done before?**
I'm pretty sure it hasn't, since escorts lose any outfits on becoming escorts.
**2. Boarding Torpedoes and assault shuttles make it allot easier to capture enemy ships through docking. You send your assault shuttles using the boarding action key whilst an enemies shields are down and is targeted from afar (you need to have an assault shuttle bay first). Or you can use Boarding torpedoes which will only fire if the enemy ship's shields are down. Either way boarding torpedoes and Assault shuttles decrease the enemies crew count increases your capture chance when you board them in the regular way. Both types of boarding increasers also cause damage to the ship (while the troops are onboard the enemy ship, they'll attempt to disable it whilst they kill the enemy crew, this also slows the enemy reload time and the turning of the enemy ship). Boarding Torpedoes and Assault Shuttles also require that you have purchased Boarding Troops to send over on them.
Erm, is this one really worth the effort?**
Probably not.
**Personnel
Buy them as an outfit, or do as a mission that gives you an outfit and takes cash off you.**
That would have to do I guess.
**2. When you purchase a ship in the ship yards, you only get a skeleton crew (the bare minimum people needed to get the ship running) so your ship is very slow and weapons reload slowly. If you purchase crew from the Recruitment centre your ship moves more up to the max effectiveness, all ships have their own crew limits (and so max normal reload and turning speeds, only upgrades can increase those speeds afterwards).
Already done it. Try the 'Gunner' in Frozen Heart. (That was a long time ago).**
Man I hate having to run classic on macs... (Override joke)
Actually does that plug still work when converted to Nova via some application that does that job (which I forget the name of)?
**4. Colonizers are used to populate habitable planets / space stations which are abandoned (wether through bio-weapons or otherwise).
Do it with ncbs based on your outfit purchase.**
Good point, that would be easier and just as effective.
**5. Ground troops are used to disable / destroy planetary ground defenses, normally you'll lose a great many when invading a planet or station with a higher military rating than your troops (you lose less per difference). If you successfully dominate a planet, you lose all your ground troops (they stay on the planet to man the defenses and impose your rule).
In fact, this would be the exact effect of doing what I put above.**
Ended up as the dropship with land attack idea, still has that pesky problem of using that attack on other ships.
**6. Terra-former experts can be deployed on an inhabitable planet, to terra-form it (they speed up the recovery process when used on planets affected by bio-weapons and nuclear missiles, and make it possible for all but the most inhospitable planets to be colonized (only planets you can't land on can't be terra-formed). Systems
An outfit and regenerate planet.**
Wouldn't that not work when using the swap planet system. Making another swap planet effect more effective than regenerate?
**1. All solar systems gain a star / super nova / pulsar / black hole in it's centre.
Done it. Frozen Heart 2.(/quote)
That an unreleased/upcoming project (since I can only find Frozen Heart 1 for Override)?
**2. All systems get made a ton bigger.
Why?**
Was so that I could fit all ten planets in the Sol system with enough space between them (Nova doesn't give allot of room).
**3. All systems get all their planets (ie the Sol system gets all ten planets and all it's moons, all in correct placement in reference to the Sun) - Note the Tenth planet is the recently discovered planet Xenia located earlier this year (2005).
Done it. Original Frozen Heart.**
I try that plug in awhile, only downloaded it last night and was too lazy to load classic to play it then
**4. Gravity is made more intelligent, meaning black holes will suck you in, and planets will gently pull you towards them. The bigger the mass the more pull it has, and the more powerful engines you need. Inertia-less ships are unaffected. Certain planets like Jupiter will kill you if you are pulled into them. Stars / pulsars / super novas / black holes will also kill you. Ship classifications
Does EVO handle it more effeciently then? (Nova seemed not to destroy my ship after dragging it into the "deadly planet"/star even though it was set to do that).
**1. Bombers (best suited to attack medium - large ships), large warships (ie like Carriers, or Ravens) , dropships and assault shuttles added to the escort types.
Well, ok. This is in the game engine.**
Darn, now I'm going continue to have dumb fighters attack capital ships and do zip to their shields, while my so called "bombers" take on fighters and get out maneuvered.
(b)2. Ships able to be order to only attack certain types (ie fighters can be ordered to attack bombers only, or other fighters). Ie the same as listed escorts. Except an extra option is added for fighters to attack missiles, boarding torpedoes etc.
Can't see an obvious way to do this -- but it would be fairly easy to simulate.**
Can't see how it could be simulated without extra options and the previous idea also viable...
(b)Anyway, enjoyed your ideas. Keep it up. No game engine modifications necessary.**
Enjoyed getting proper feedback, not the "omgs man you suck because you post ideas that will never get done."
It's good to see that most of those are viable, perhaps I'll dabble in making a plug that enables those sort of things for regular Nova (if I can find the time...).
Edit: On the whole Dropships attacking proper ships too thing, I could just have them also count as Assault Boats that can drop their Ground Troops in enemy ships as if they were boarding parties (and so doing damage), it would be nice if there was a way to decrease another ship's crew count but I guess there isn't (will just have to stick with Troops that increase "your" crew size upon boarding).
(b)NebuchadnezzaR wrote Most of these are geared towards planetary domination, which isn't really the focus of the game. **
Ah but then it is the purpose of plugins (to add or to change the game in new and unexpected ways). These ideas really expand on the Dominate Stellar mission opition that you can use.
This post has been edited by Edward Isaac Ghost : 25 November 2005 - 06:05 PM
There's a limit to the amount of quotes per post.
Edward Isaac Ghost, on Nov 23 2005, 11:30 PM, said:
Edit: Damned Quote system on these boards is messed up!! View Post
Use Bold instead. (b ) text (/b ) without the spaces. You probably knew that already though.
This post has been edited by modesty_blaise_us : 23 November 2005 - 08:24 PM
Edward Isaac Ghost, on Nov 23 2005, 06:30 PM, said:
That an unreleased project (since I can only find Frozen Heart 1 for Nova).
I think he knows if his project was released.
Some of these seem interesting, but I don't have the patience, attention span, or time necessary to read through them all.
This post has been edited by orcaloverbri9 : 24 November 2005 - 12:25 AM
I still maintain that we should just decompile Nova and add this stuff...