Space Fairing Creatures ( if i wrote it right )

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    Dear gods, the whale cavalry has arrived!

    Shouldn\'t their heads have some armor though?
     
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    • Legacy Citizen 2
    • Legacy Citizen
    Of course they would, this guys could be a race floating around in space in pods like they normally would and they are neutral until you attack them.
     
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    • Legacy Citizen 2
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    If we have space whales then i want space bees! imagine hives floating though space making \"space honey\"

    And \"Royal Jelly\" it would be a scavengers dream!
     
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    • Legacy Citizen 2
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    So I play a modded version of mincraft with the Millinaire mod. For anyone familiar to this mod, you should think this idea wholy copied from it. But its a very good and creative system and I would love to see it translate to starmade. I also am utilising many of the ideas already discussed in this thread. Also a warning... HUGE IDEA DUMP!

    Planetary Cultures

    The concept is for planets to spawn creatures that behave as thier own culture. They would spawn with a few begining structures, things that are essential to any sentient creature who is about to make their first voyage off into space. The spawned creatures gather resources, build ships, and go about the daily lives of space colony. The creatures will also build additional buildings at this first \"tier\" that will aid them in thier quest through the stars.

    Eventually, the culture will advance sufficiently enough to higher and higher tiers. Each one getting more advanced things, like planetary shields, defense cannons, a starship factory, etc. At a certain point, that culture would create a colony ship, which would fly to the nearest compatible (same type as homeworld) planet, and start the process over again. The second planet would be a trading partner of the first, and various trades would alter thier standing with one another. This could lead to a planetary civil war, or an instance where the player may need to step in and diplomatically solve a problem. (Jedi anyone?)



    What this looks like for the player:

    The player will see this:



    Colonies have different tiers, like the three shown above, each one more advanced then the last.

    (sorry for the crappy quality but I was just trying to get the idea out)

    The player sees a small starting colony that has generated randomly on a planets surface. These would be rare by default, but could be configured to spawn more or less frequently, and further or closer to eachother. The culture, once spawned would then begin harvesting resources from certain structures such as a mine or scrapyard, and they would build harvesting ships to gather resources from nearby asteroids (within 3 sectors) The resources gathered would simply be spawned infinitely, so as not to have the planets/asteroids eventually turn into a hunk of nothing.

    Upgrades:

    Once the colony aquires enough resources to upgrade or build the next building, the resources are removed and the structure is \"built\" by a colonist, who moves around the construction site placing the blocks. Colonists would have occupations, and in order for each building to function, a colonist needs to be \"assigned\" to it. Which means that before the building will function, a new colonist must be born, and grow up. To increase the number of colonists they will build housing, called Arcologies (its a cool architechtural name describing self-sufficient living space for people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology) and \"procreate\", generating children colonists. This system might be a little bit different depending on the culture, but I will come back to this point later.

    Colonization:

    Eventually the culture will build a colony ship and load a few (probably like 5, which happens to be the same number that could initially spawn in a colony) and fly off to a new world. Perhaps they could attempt to colonize on a hazardus planet, but the roads would become tunnel-connectors... But likely they would choose a planet already teraformed to thier specific needs. Once they arrive at the designated planet, the necisarry buildings would spawn in and the colonists would begin a new life there, going through all the same steps as the initial colony.

    Types of Colonies:

    When a colony spawns, it would be designated a type, and a different central structure will spawn. The central structure will make it obvious to the player what the type of colony is, for instance:

    A starting structure with an attached storage silo might be a \"farming\" community (if schema introduces a hunger mechanic) or a structure with a turret might be a military colony. Each type will advance differently, and may or may not be able to gather the resources it needs to advance sufficiently. The player must step in and trade with them, or a nearby colony of a different type must be created to trade the resources between them. Another option is that the colony might be able to trade with the shops as well, provided they are close enough to one (5 sectors?)

    The Oldest Profession In the Galaxy:

    No, its not prostitution. Its WAR. Colonists would build defensive structures to help them defend against pirates initially. However, when a culture becomes sufficiently advanced, they will begin creating an army. To keep overhead low, the armies in the game will not usually be more than 5 colonists, and maybe 3 or 4 ships of verying sizes, but perhaps this can be different for different cultures, or different types of colonies.

    When a culture initially encounters another culture\'s planet, a new connection is made and their relationship status goes to neutral. If one of the colonies is at a point of conquest, they may attempt to raid that planet in order to colonize thier thier own culture there. Planets will be given a score, based on current advancement, type of colony, and number of colonists able to fight. whenever a conflict occurs when the player is not in the same sector as it, the outcome is determined through a mathmatical algorythm using the attack and defense scores of both colonies. there would have to be a \"critical hit\" type situation, where even an underpowered attacker could reduce the number of defensive points a defender has, and more damage means actual damage to buildings, such as a defensive cannon being removed, or a building being razed. All of this would need to be done through lite-programing (math), where the heavy stuff would be when a player is actaully in the same sector as a colony in conflct.

    Once a colony is successfully destroyed, it will be permanantly deleated along with all structures and such. The new colony would wait to spawn until a colony ship arrived. The military vessels would move back to the home-world and wait until the next algorythm-generated attack.

    Here is one of the most important parts of this system: Hiring. Once a player has reached a sufficiently high enough score with a culture (more on that next) they can hire military, colonists (to colonize other worlds, not controlled by player) harvesters to automate production, etc. Once hired, these would be with the player PERMANENTLY. This is not a pay monthly fee thing. Units can be hired up to a limit, changable by config, but perhaps 10 by default, and perform tasks assigned by the player. If the player gets sick of them following them around, they can set them to wait. (fun to maroon crews on desert planets?)

    Trade:

    This is probably the most obvious interaction, and the one the player will use the most. The player can gather resources at a MUCH faster rate than the Colonists. To make the culture advance faster, the player can violate the Prime Directive and give resources to the colonists and help them along thier way to ultimate galactic dominace. Certain items may not be available to the player through crafting or shopping, and they could be bought from colony artesians only, increasing the need to advance colonies. The player also recieves a score from a colony, between -10 and 10 depending on the relationship with the colony. Points are awarded or taken away based on how the player chooses to conduct themselves with the colony. The better the relationship, the better prices will be there, and the more influence a player can have on the colony.

    Eventually, the player will be given the right to start his/her own colonies. This can be done through a spawn block that can be bought by only the highest ranked player for an expensive price. Colonies should be established near each other, because this will increase trade and keep more colonies \"active\" The player run colonies would make the player control what buildings are built next, which blueprints to use, etc.

    Blueprints:

    The colony buildings would be constructed from a blueprint system. This makes the colonies very modular and changable, and if a player chooses they can create blueprints completely in-game and allow colonies to use them for constructions. They would need to be designated for certain uses, and would need to follow some of the constraints colonies have such as space use. All structures could be configured in a config file to determine how common they are to be built, what culture would use them, and if its an Arcology, how many colonists it could house, things like that. The whole idea of star-made is to keep the player in control of as much as possible, making the game a space sandbox/building sim.

    Cultures:

    Don\'t hate me, but how cool would it be to play as a Zerg-like thing? Or maybe the Borg? More on that in another post, mayhaps...

    When I say cultures above, what I really mean is races. different types of planets would spawn a different race on their surface, and the races would use pre-made skins and skeletons, differentiating them from others. The only one I would really REALLY push for is a Zerg-like race where they use organic elements to create ships and buildings. Thier breeding system would also be slightly different, where their young would \"spawn\" in structures called breeding pools, and come out as larvae. A colony leader would instead be a \"queen\" and would be the only one who could spawn more colonists.

    Through a similar system as the Millinare Mod, players could create thier own cultures with customized actions and such. This makes the core game moddable by someone who is more advanced, but still really fun for players who don\'t know scripting.

    Additional Ideas:

    1:Colonists could be given weapon blueprints, (assuming one of my other many ideas gets implamented) and when one becomes a military unit they would use one of the weapons. The defaults could not be removed, but player weapons would be used somewhat more often. depending on the quality of the weapon, the aggressive or defensive score of the colony would go up, and they would increase the \"critical hit\" randomized score. This means that colonies that have a player heavily involved will almost always win in a fight. Ship blueprints could also be used, but as always, the materials would have to be either generated by the colony, or traded to them by the player.

    2: hired units could wait a specified amount of time, then if they haven\'t gotten input from the player they will just warp back to thier home world. They still might be hired by the player, but this is so if the player forgets them somewhere and looses them, they can be found later at their home world.

    3: A good limit on the distance colonies can interact with each other might be 5 sectors, but if schema can do it, I would like to see all sectors in a star-system be able to trade, battle and such in real time. Obviously one the 5 sectors immdiately surrounding a player stay active \"visually\", but the game is already fairly optimized and I hope schema can do this.

    4: It might be fun to have an \"asteroid culture\" which would be like the pirates. These would spawn in the not-yet-implemented asteroid fields, and have tubes connecting various modules. Advancement would bring them closer to what a pirate base looks like now for the colony center. This could also be used for a \"borg\" culture :)

    5: If this is not implemented into the core game, there will be a mod of it! I think I communicated well enough to get someone interested in the idea. I want to see these things eventually no matter what, and I think others do too. It will take a seriously good modder to make it, which is why I want to see it put in the core game. I also understand that Schema is one person, and this idea is HUGE. It might take him a couple YEARS to implement even half of what I just suggested. But even half would be fun :)