Derelict Ships? |
Has anyone tried to script derelict ships? On that order, has anyone tried to change the player owner value to zero to see if the ship goes derelict? Curious to see, I'll be trying this soon, just wanted to see if someone else has...
Didn't see any other posts either...
Re: Derelict Ships?
Maybe a player owner of zero makes the game crash though - or maybe it makes the ship go rogue, belonging to its very own empire... hehe... I wonder... 
Might be useful for a "Guardian of Orion" type thing... not that you couldn't have an "Orion Empire" akin to the "space monster empires" from the SE4 Devnull Mod... speaking of which, why are there no monsters in SE5 Devnull Mod? 
edit: ooh, here's something REALLY cool... anyone ever played Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space? Well, there's this one GINORMOUS lobster-shaped derelict ship you can find (yeah, OK, so it's probably like another ripoff of the Orion Guardian ) - only once you approach it close enough to try to board it, sometimes it "wakes up" and starts firing all sorts of deadly weapons at you! Maybe there would be a way to script derelicts (assuming they're even possible) to sometimes NOT be derelicts... maybe every time anyone comes within a few sectors of a derelict marked with some "ancient race" flag, a script activates which has a random chance of triggering the ship to "wake up" and engage the intruder!
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The power of the ancients is now yours to command. You are truly the Master... of the obvious
Re: Derelict Ships?
That's a good way to do monsters: Create a monster "player". I always liked the Guardian of Orion. I'll have to give that all a shot when I get more time. 
Re: Derelict Ships?
Has there been any mod for SEV using a monster race?
Re: Derelict Ships?
No mod to date that uses an empire to simulate monsters. Although I have thought about just that the biggest problem would is the monster empire would end up looking much like another empire. SEV needs some form of spawning scripts for generic ship types (monsters) so you don't need an empire and its infrastructure to support it.
Re: Derelict Ships?
Is there any way to cloak planets? I think that was how the monster planet was maintained and how spawning was solved in SEIV in some mods. If there were some monster equivalent for the normal buildings then there could be bonuses to production etc. And maybe the monster trait could be unique and not selectable by any player? I know nothing about the game limitations but that's how I would think it could be made possible. You'd still need for the planetary economy to be able to grow, so that new and more powerful monsters (ships) could be spawned. They'd probably also need all kinds of custom components to enable roaming around the galaxy without the need for resupply stations.
While I'm dreaming out loud: I'd eliminate the colony ship type from the monster fleet but I'd try to create some ground invasion option for monster troops
Re: Derelict Ships?
I like the troop/monster invasion idea...I may have to look into this a little deeper.
I did start building a monster and pirate empire that would be unique. I solved several options with 'hiding the planet', by making a planet type that looked like a storm and only colonizable by either monster/pirate so one could have a start location.
I did figure out the script required to 'boost' production and tech and restricting tech to certain empires without it being selectable by another empire.
It will be a major undertaking, maybe at a break in school...
Re: Derelict Ships?
A troop/monster race would be cool. Something like an ancient race that returns to occupy its former territory. It sounds more like a scenario device though.
Re: Derelict Ships?
would be nice for halo "innies"
Re: Derelict Ships?
Well, I've done my testing for derelict ships using a zero for the owner parameter and all it does is randomly selects an empire for it to take control.
Also tried forcing ownership to an empire player number outside the player list and all it does is cycle through the existing players.
Found an interesting 'problem' when I tested: I used a script to change ownership of the ship, then killed off the crew hoping that would render the ship motionless. The ship attacked anyway, without the crew and any type of master computer on board!!
Anyway, derelict ships would have to be done using a place holder empire without any ship orders (or clearing ship orders using scripts).
Was hoping for better results, but maybe I'll do the place holder empire so I can do pirates and monsters.
Re: Derelict Ships?
You've mentioned using a storm effect type planet before. Why not use a ruins type planet for the derelicts? Maybe some script could let you harvest the tech and then turn the planet into asteroids? That could pass for debris from the salvage operation and at the same time prevent colonizing, because that would be weird
Of course, it would be much more fun to get a ship that's actually repairable and containing some unique techs.
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See my PBW game stories on http://users.pandora.be/banzaiboy/sevpbw/.
Re: Derelict Ships?
That's an interesting idea. Instead of finding ruins on a planet you find instead a derelict ship.
Re: Derelict Ships?
Of course, it would be much more fun to get a ship that's actually repairable and containing some unique techs.
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See my PBW game stories on http://users.pandora.be/banzaiboy/sevpbw/.
That could be done, would be interesting to try it out.
My idea with the place holder empire would allow for really strange tech and abundance of it related to actual components and such. I could also do up a special shipset used by them so you could also use the ships with the tech
Either way is a lengthy process in scripting and/or model making...
Re: Derelict Ships?
No, but that's a great idea. It would be similar to finding an ancient tech cache on a planet.