Disease and Domination

[Xynt]

Note: These will be updated and improved later, as my browser hates me. These ideas are designed for after the npc update, so please consider that before replying.

The Infection
A curse from a tainted dimension, it is probably the rarest thing in the universe, initially. It starts off as a single plant on a random planet in the spawn Galaxy, with a very rare chance of appearing on another planet. The plant is noticeably different from the planet, as it is pure black and shrouded in a dark fog. It then proceeds to slowly infect ad absorb certain characteristics of the adjacent blocks at a very slow rate, getting faster as more infected blocks are on the structure/planet. Once a large-at least half-portion of the planet/structure is consumed, spore towers will begin to form. These shoot spores at passing ships, but have bad accuracy. If the entire planet/structure is absorbed, then a local multi-block structure/entity called the hive-mind will begin to be built, unless there is already one nearby. The "Herbatiou Corpus", or the Plant/Living Flesh, as this type of Hivemind is officially called, controls all of the infection within a sector-range of 5 in each direction. It then, if formed on a ship, tries to form a fleet before setting off in search of a new structure to infect, retreating when the target structure is infected/destroyed to regenerate and heal. If
immobile, it will send any controlled ships in a random direction to look for structures to infect.

Thanks for reading, feel free to add or suggest anything. Next update/edit will be on Wednesday.

 

[Captain Benn]

The First half sounds like an interesting sight to see, how does one defend themselves against them?
How does this organism propel itself through space?

 

[Xynt]

As for defense, other than ship combat, one would have to destroy the blocks themselves (They won't be protected by shields until they absorb a module or two), or they could have other ships attack them, as well as repairing in a safe shipyard. As for spread, other than spores, I haven't fleshed out any other ways to travel to other structures. Maybe, if unable to infect a new structure after X amount of time, they attempt to build a rift in space and send infected beings to the closest uninfected structures. Not sure.

 

[nightrune]

I'm not completely sold on this being in vanilla Starmade, but it does sound like fun. This sounds like a great mod where the frontier is being over run.

If you happen to be a developer/modder then I would start asking for specific features of a mod api.

 

[QuantumAnomaly]

Sounds kinda like the corruption from terraria, which was a fun addition.

The only problem I forsee is that the universe in starmade is BIG....REALLY BIG. Issue one is that systems arent really stored in memory until they are first loaded by a player exploring them. If you had to store the virus in memory it might cause issues once it takes over half the universe that no one has yet explored, but some fancy math might be able to handle that without much issue.

The other problem I forsee is that (depending on how fast it spreads) it could be MONTHS or longer before anyone sees the first sign of it in the spawn galaxy, or even the galaxies that are all 1 away from spawn. Since I've not seen anyone travel more than one galaxy from spawn, by the time it gets there it very well may have taken over the rest of the universe.

HOWEVER, that's not to say I dont like the idea. I've always been a fan of the "grand threat" in games. It just has to be done well to prevent it from being completely game-breaking.

There are a lot of ways that it can be fought tho. Once discovered, a new weapon effect computer can be made like an "antivirus module" that does extra damage to anything with the virus, without dealing block damage. That way you can "cleanse" the virus from planets, asteroids, and ships without destroying them. Cleaning it off of a derelict ship could net you the whole ship, intact (minus the crew), and help aid you in your progress.

 

[BDLS]

LIVE FOR THE SWARM

sounds an awful lot like starcraft's zerg

 

[jayman38]

This sounds like a great idea for a plant-based NPC, and even a whole faction of plant NPCs.

One of my all-time favorite mods for Quake 2 was "Bang!".
http://old.r1ch.net/q2/bang/

Why? My favorite grenade in the mod is the Infest grenade. Throw one of these puppies at a boss and come back 10 minutes later to... a mess.

Infestations could be relatively common to be fun.

"Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

 

[Xynt]

Sounds kinda like the corruption from terraria, which was a fun addition.

The only problem I forsee is that the universe in starmade is BIG....REALLY BIG. Issue one is that systems arent really stored in memory until they are first loaded by a player exploring them. If you had to store the virus in memory it might cause issues once it takes over half the universe that no one has yet explored, but some fancy math might be able to handle that without much issue.

The other problem I forsee is that (depending on how fast it spreads) it could be MONTHS or longer before anyone sees the first sign of it in the spawn galaxy, or even the galaxies that are all 1 away from spawn. Since I've not seen anyone travel more than one galaxy from spawn, by the time it gets there it very well may have taken over the rest of the universe.

HOWEVER, that's not to say I dont like the idea. I've always been a fan of the "grand threat" in games. It just has to be done well to prevent it from being completely game-breaking.

There are a lot of ways that it can be fought tho. Once discovered, a new weapon effect computer can be made like an "antivirus module" that does extra damage to anything with the virus, without dealing block damage. That way you can "cleanse" the virus from planets, asteroids, and ships without destroying them. Cleaning it off of a derelict ship could net you the whole ship, intact (minus the crew), and help aid you in your progress.

I had overlooked some of this. Maybe there could be a static location, such as the tutorial station or the personal space that it initially comes from, with a small chance that a warp gate will connect to one there? As for the spread, maybe have a different npc faction would start to spawn once it gets bad and tries to eliminate the Infection? Also, the antivirus module seems like a good idea, maybe make it take a while and take out 90% of the infection aboard, and have a station version to make a safe way for regular ships to go if the structure was made of uninfectable blocks?

 

[jorn818]

Cool idea! any nearby trader or pirate ships would get infected aswell, the blocks of the ship would get black fog or something like that, anyone on board of the ship becomes infected aswell (except players, but npcs will get infected) Crews will become hostile while infected, trader ships might even infect other planets or shops, and pirates might infect their pirate bases, small ''space mosquitos'' black fly/jumping mosquites the size of a block can spawn on infected blocks, which makes infected planets dangerous but infected ships aswell, big ships might get completely filled with these things, the players ship can also get infected if too close to a planet or a shop with the infection although it would take a long time for this to happen,


Bonus: maybe have huge abonden ships spawn sometimes completely infected with allot of space mosquitos onbaord

ofcourse we need special blocks, that can stop infection from spreading i na zone, so you can build a base on an infected planet or protect your ship from infection

 

[jayman38]

...
Bonus: maybe have huge abonden ships spawn sometimes completely infected with allot of space mosquitos onbaord

ofcourse we need special blocks, that can stop infection from spreading i na zone, so you can build a base on an infected planet or protect your ship from infection

Mechasquitos?

Or biological giant mosquitos?

I think a mix of both would be fun. As for inhibiting the infection? Weapons, big heavy weapons. (Finally, a use for detonators! Talk about bug-bombs!) but then again, some sort of inhibitor would be good for farming the beasties.

 

[Andem]

It also sounds like the borg in star trek to me (sci fi loves it's infections).

If the player has a shipyard set up, and the hive takes it over, it could produce ships like the ones it has infected, mass producing them.

if one latched onto a shop, the NPC might become "infected", showing off physical abnormalities like with the flood.

 

[PizzaPress]

Maybe make it able to replicate anything it's infected?


(X parasites from Metroid Fusion, Zerg from Starcraft)
Perhaps infecting ships will allow it to replicate that ship design and have different effects on its simulated spread, e.g. it spreads faster and produces more if it gets a hold of a fast-jumpdrive cargo-ship like the Trading Guild's, can zerg rush if it copies cheap pirate ships, can field heavy military ships if it copies them, thus overturning more entrenched positions and being more dangerous to players...