More Space Objects

[reddragonfall]

Their are many diffrent things that could be added to starmade to fill up the empty sectors or make it so space stations are not the only thing that you you run into exploring the stars. On this forum post anything you think would be a good idea to add floating through the cosmos. I will check this forum as often (work/school permiting) as I can to post ideas and see what great ideas the community can come up with. Good luck to everyone and think of EVERYTHING you can.



Idea #1 Asteroid Fields

This already is somewhat implimented with asteroids grouped around the edges of a sector but what I was thinking was an entire sector filled with closely packed asteroids. The asteroids would be close enough to each other so a cruser or battleship would have to go around or blast it's way through, while a fighter could fly through them and use them to lose other ships in or even use to block a missile barrage as it fights from inside. This also allows players to create huge asteroid bases that can range from a small mining rig, to a huge city with tubes connecting asteroid to asteroid. Think of the possibilities from a huge area for resource gathering to an area great for base building.



Idea #2 Comets

Imagine having a giant space rock diving at the spawn shop and everyone has to come together and build a giant cannon to try to shoot down a comet going faster than the max speed limit on the server so you can't chase it and just mine it unless you manage to land on it somehow. Comets could also prove a threat to large ships because they move faster than a ship can and depending on whether schema changes the ramming mechanic so it could cause damage, or right now it could send your ship spiraling out of control twards a planet or if they do make it so it does damage so it could tear a huge hole through your ship.



Idea #3 Blackholes/Wormholes

What about an object that could suck the player in and slowly chrush the life out of, or a method of fast travel, or a quick escape. Black holes and worm holes would eather look diffrent from each other, or just be combined into one object. If they were diffrent then wormholes would transport the player and his/her ship to another wormhole in a faraway sector, and wormhole would always be linked to the same wormhole you came from. Wormholes would also suck the player into it so only an extremly fast intercepter, or a blockade runner would be able to escape the sector. Blackholes would draw ships and players into the center, like wormholes, but instead of transporting them across the map, a blackhole woud slowly crush the ship, dealing damage like how damage is delt when you fly into the sun, but from every direction, instead of just from the direction you flew into it. Don't worry, you won't stumble upon a blackhole randomly while taking your titan out for a test run. If you enter a sector next to a black hole you will receve a message that says "WARNING BLACKHOLE DETECTED AT x,x,x" and the same if you approach a wormhole but replacing blackhole with wormhole in the message. However, if you are a good pilot, you can slingshot your ship out of the sector, temporaraly giving you a massave speed boost that would degrade as you travel.

 

[Krazykat]

derelict ships, alternate looking shops, comets, different looking stations, black holes, neutron stars, quazars, planet rings, actual asteroid belts covering many sectors, etc.



there are so many real life space objects that would add a huge variety to the space, it is just having all of them could actually overcrowd the universe.

 

[reddragonfall]

That is a great idea. The trick is, as you said, balancing them all. Would the derelict ships be as common as stations? Or more rare than pirate bases? It is a giant balancing act.

 

[MrFURB]

Good thread! Keep up the suggestions!

Comets, like asteroids with higher quantities of rare minerals, but behave like ships. They slowly move through space. This would provide an unreliable but still present source of renewable resources, as right now one you clear out an area you have to move your base of mining operations, and that happens far too often.

 

[Nicolas225]

It would be cool to occasionally see pirate Sattelites that would sense player ships and spawn pirates as if they were alerted.

 

[reddragonfall]

@MrFURB

Just added comets so look at that.

@Nicolas225

Having a base that spawns drones would be cool. It would also be great if YOU could buy a spawner block, then build a drone it could spawn if non-faction members approched.

 

[Krazykat]

while we are at it add an \"Mysterious\" alien fleet whose ships are hidden from the catalog and contain extremely rare materials that can only be complexely manufactored that create a large profit, however these fleets are extremely rare (rarer than a shiny in Pokemon), come in huge numbers (upwards of 20 ships per fleet) and are much more powerful, with better ai, that will eliminate any single player trying to fight them. Make them have an intented target which they will eventually destroy This will create the need for teamwork and could be possibly a Faction goal, to kill the elites headed towards their base and get rare resources for their factories to use. Maybe certain top tier factories require these materials? I don\'t know just something that came to me after playing some SotS

 

[Krazykat]

just, something better than the pirates =(

 

[reddragonfall]

Again with the great suggestion but one question, what would happen when they appear on a singleplayer world? Would you have to just zerg them or would they be nerfed on singleplayer?

 

[Swamps]

probably nerfed at first but if it was just default i would imagine they would become little pests like a fly after awhile... I love this thread by the way.

many types of space objects could be added and plaent sizes could vary. different lifeforms according to planet size and type, make the planets \"planets\" rather then disks \"pain sure but would be cool\"

 

[reddragonfall]

This is why I made this thread, everyone has great ideas, but most of us don\'t go and start that conversation. If people started their own threads, 1 Their would be tons of great ideas floating around out in the forums, 2 their would be hundreds of pages

 

[Krazykat]

ah, how about they only can appear if there is a faction with over a certain amount of players in it (configurable by server). Everything else about them is protected within the host files and cannot be accessed or changed, so that they cannot be exploited and are a true challenge, maybe a server wide threat if they decide to go after the big faction

 

[reddragonfall]

The people limit is a great idea but Swamps got me thinking, has anyone played WoW or D&D? In those games in events and dungions the enimies level with you. What if this hostile fleet gained strength when your ships got to a certian size? Or taking it one step further they can gain strength with each person that joins the server. This \"leveling\" would be so, as Swamps said, this \"boss fleet\" would never become like most pirate ships become after you have outstriped them in eather firepower or shields.

Another idea is that the fleet could target single players or small factions first and then use the remaining parts and any that were in a chest to eather improve the default ships, or make an entirely new ship. This kind of \"adaptive AI\" would be a great addition to Starmade.

I know this forum is for space objects but any great idea is welcome here. And if it\'s not great then we can bounce it off each other and help improve it.

 

[Sir_William_V]

I agree that there needs to be star variety (pulsars/etc). This inludes state as well as color, maybe even binary star systems (where the sector in the middle would have one star and another star be in an adjacent sector, or maybe elsewhere).

Also (sort of off-topic), it\'s a shame that planets can\'t be named if they are claimed by a faction.

 

[CorneliousCrowe]

I have a few ideas for space objects:

1: Gas Clouds: These would have similar effects to how it looks inside a star, with the strange warpy plasma stuff. They would decrease visibility, scramble sensors, (AIs would not be able to see you as well) and explode when antimatter canons are used. Players could use these to thier advantage in a fight if they are limping allong, because beams shot from outside the cloud would detonate outside of it, and anything shot inside would damage the ship firing. Variable sizes would be cool, and if they spawned in a modular fashion, with each chunk behaving as its own entity within the sector, they could become dangerous traps used to lure in enemies. Another idea is to make these Gas Giants instead, where there would be few to no blocks inside a planets atmosphere, and the effects from above would occur inside its field of gravity.

2: Moons: Right now planets are pretty small but schema says he wants to make some that are bigger. Its likely that they would have collected one or more smaller celestial objects over time, so for larger planets there should be moons. I think it would be cool if they had the same building plane as eachother so that star-elevators could be built. Also, dynamic gravity would be cool too, where the larger the planet, the less high the player could jump and vice versa.

3: Derlict Ships: I know it was mentioned before, but i figured I would show my support These could be made dangerous by making them relay points for pirates, but harvesting their materials and gathering thier loot would make it worth the chalenge.

4: Black Holes/Worm Holes: These could be done two ways; by making them gravity points that have massive, high powered gravity fields, or making them like worm holes that transport the player to another sector. If the first idea is used, the gravity needs to either kill the player so they arent trapped forever, or there may be blocks at the center that could be destroyed to free the player from the gravity field. Only ships with high thrust would be able to navigate a black hole sector. I see no reason why black holes and worm holes couldn\'t both be implemented

5: I would also like to show my support for asteroid fields and the satalites idea. Not sure how well comets would work based on the programming issues, but of course I would love to see them.

In response to Krazykats idea of fleets:

I didn\'t like this idea at first but the more I thought about it, the more fun i thought it might be. One of the best ways to balence this so that the aliens are not crazy overpowered right away was mentioned with the player number determining fleet size. This doesn\'t work in single player though, which is predominantly how I play. The main problems I see are these:

1: players log on and off constantly, and rarely if ever build together for the betterment of eachother. So lets say the fleet spawns in a sector with a couple players in it, but most others are spread out throughout the server. The Alien fleet shows up and wipes out the two players in no time, because thier numbers were determined by player number. Then they procede to each individual base or ship and destroy the players there. So unless the server admin can configure the time and size of the event, this would make the game unfun quickly.

2: They may become nothing more than pests if the fleet does spawn in a single player game and the player is already sufficiently advanced.

I came up with this solution: They do not start as fleets. and instead of simply making it aliens and such, make it all \"inteligent\" mobs. Mobs would spawn randomly on a planets surface, and depending on the planet become different races, soe pirates, some aliens. So thier core goal would be the same as the player: to gather resources. This could be accomplished in a similar manner that the Millinare Mod for Minecraft does it, where the race has the ability to \"spawn\" its own resources via certain buildings it has, like a mine for metal and stone, and a farm for food.

The race would spawn with a so called \"town hall\" building, and its basic resource gathering buildings. From there it would attempt to build up forces and create starships, and eventually take over another planet. Once claimed, that planet would be given the starting level buildings and would build up from there. This would all happen very slowly, but would continue as long as the game is running no matter where the player is (maybe put a limit on it, like only the spawns within the same sector are active, to keep the drain minimal. By default perhaps all these races regaurd the player as a neutral, however they will attack a planet the player posesses unless the player has raised thier status with them.

Why this is a great solution for the player: It allows for a dynamic universe where aliens constantly vie for control of limited resources. I think this works better than the fleet idea as a defualt mechanic. The aliens would build \"fleets\" consisting of smaller ships, and eventually have the ability to construct larger ships.

 

[reddragonfall]

That is a great idea! This idea brings the game Sins of a Solar Empire to mind. It would bring a sence of a growing threat that the player could eather eliminate and strip the planets for resources using the buildings, or befriend and gain new places to buy and sell materials. Like a pirate base that becomes like a shop after you befriend them. Also if the player ran into trouble, he could run back to the allied base and turrets would shoot the raiders down, or the player could lead an invasion fleet twards his enimies, or his allies. This would also make it so a player don\'t have to recruit shifty players to have a fleet or build one giant warship to seige a rivals base.

 

[Krazykat]

OH dear goodness yes, a true enemy for a server. At first they don\'t cause many problems, killing one player here, a factory there. Eventually, however, they start going after the big guys, a carrier goes missing. Eventually the threat is known, and factions prepare themselves for the oncoming battle. scouts register a HUGE fleet moving into alliance space. The alien fleet Balancing itself so that if even the biggest faction made the biggest, baddest ships with the most people... that faction could still be taken down.



Also to reduce aggravation they only attack when a large percentage of the faction is online at once, so that there is a huge epic battle to desperately protect the resources. A faction would threw EVERYTHING at the aliens. While they destroy precious capital ships and carriers run out of fighters. Planets are burning and hyperdrives fail, there is nothing left but few hulls overheating in the light of a nearby star, the aliens retreat back into unknown space and the faction has to rebuild from the ground up again



And one last thing. Make the ai able to use missiles, so that they could bombard faction bases and deal with small fighters better. Also would allow missile turrets on capital ships the auto-lock and fire on pesky fighters

 

[Krazykat]

If you look above, another person also put out how the AI can grow and balance itself with other facitons.



I absolutely love the idea of races starting on planets and trying to compete with players, make it so pirates actually BUILD their space stations and also expand on ship designs adding more weapons and such. Aliens can maybe change planet material into hulls so they can build a bit faster because of their huge fleets



Back to alien fleet:

I don\'t mean make it impossible for a faction to defend itself, it should be a well known event that is going on, a server broadcast \"WARNING, UNKNOWN FLEET BEARING TOWARDS X,X,X; FACTION HOME OF (FACTION)\". make it so players can recieve an email when this happens, and the aliens should be slow enough and give enough time for the base to prepare and build up defenses. These events also should happen only when a large # of the players are online, so that they won\'t be ganked.maybe make the aliens wait for players to condense within like 5 or more sectors of their base before attacking, and the fleet should only attack with a equal mass to the ships found on or near the base, so that it can be very fair balanced fight.



These events are also like, once in every couple weeks, a special formula created that calculates a factions ability to fight by many factors. And the aliens build ships according to their data, here is an example:

faction: Cats

the Cats faction has created an enormous complex for their home, contains hundreds of small flak turrets that can fill the sky with bolts but each is not incredibly powerful. The alien fleet responds by making their ships have more shields to withstand the flak, and instead of cannons use dumb missiles to take out multiple turrets at a time and cause severe damage to the base. Those would be the frigates sent to take on the base itself

Aliens also read a specific type of fighter popping up multiple times in that factions home, aliens could calculate what firepower is needed in their fighters and bombers to take those down, and create a carrier that houses enough of these ships to counter the fighters

Then the aliens look into a factions larger ships, namely the largest; possibly the flagship. Calculating the shields, weapons, and mass the aliens create a mothership of their own, specifically designed to fight and disable the prized ship of the Cat fleet.



After they design all these ships, they give the faction some more time to build up a bit better before the final showdown. Once the aliens deem the faction ready for battle, it begins.

Of course because the humans were given additional time, they hopefully continued expanding and fortifying their base so that they have a chance to stop the looming unknown.

From there the battle rages, almost all members are in; and even their rivals, Dog Faction, join and help because they know they would be next. The aliens respond to the new ships by quickly scrambling for reinforcments which take time to arrive. The battle continues to rage however the combined forces are able to fight off the aliens

Just a scenario explaining, the aliens are responsive to the humans and create ships to counter theirs. of course a proper fleet should have a large variety of ships so the aliens also go by mass of total fleet and weapon systems

 

[EarlofBronze]

the alien fleet a good idea but why stop at that why not make AI factions like the human ones, or at least two with one being better

 

[zaicidaniel]

the idea of having evryone starting on planets and evolving reminds me of spore....it does add more interst in the game,could it be posssible to be an ally of those races and maybe make the races once in space and have bases whit fleets and turrets around them???