Coming Soon, Mobile Mod!

It's possible to make population growth in ship/base?

Unless things have changed lately, ship based research doesn't entirely work. It'll generate points but those points get added to a planet in the same sector as the ship rather then added directly to the research total.

Would definately make raids more effective since much of the planetary industry would be in orbit..

Will resources be stored _on_ shops, or by ships? If the former, I'm curious as to how you plan to execute that.

Other than that, this sounds pretty interesting.

Instead of making stars explode more often (or too often) why not make planets explode more often. That way, you wouldn't loose an entire system at once.

Or better yet, have an event that when triggered, causes each planet in a system to detonate one by one. Give the player some warning so that when the time comes, they know it's time to leave. Start packing. That'd give a really neat nomad culture-style of game play.

Throw that into a Limited Resource game and players would be encouraged to find a new system, strip it bare and flee before the planets begin exploding.

I can see massive resource stocking ships moving into a system, to load up as much as possible with a flotilla of smaller warships and colonist ships tagging along.

]Nick (bearclaw)

"You don't know the Power of the Dark Side. I must obey my Master"

That really funny coming from someone with a Vader avatar. I can just picture the Death Star.

Nick (bearclaw)

"You don't know the Power of the Dark Side. I must obey my Master"

Hmm...

This sort of reminds me of the game called "Stars!".
One of the 'races' (called, of all things "Alternate Reality" iirc) couldn't colonize planets at all, they instead had their population in a space station orbiting the planet (although the planet's stats still effected them), and instead of building mines and factories, they had a base amount of production and mining based (and even scanning range) based on the population size, and also by levels of assorted techs.

As for the whole exploding planet thing...

Another thing that comes to mind, "War Planets" (well, called that in the US, I think the original name was "Shadow Raiders" or something like that), involving this huge "Beast Planet" that would show up and... well... after unleashing hordes of stuff to wipe out most resistance, it would then... well, imagine a gas giant sized "Pac Man"...
It used stars for FTL travel apparently (using the gravity wells I guess). It would simply fly out of a sun and cause major havoc and general chaos to ensue...

Something like the Beast Planet, or the Death Star, pops up and starts flying around popping planets (and be able to be engaged in battle, but have insane firepower, armor and shields...) until late game when tech unlocks something that can be used to fight back (some sort of weapon to strike some 'core' section that is scripted to do insane damage to the gant 8-ball of doom, thereby destroying it or at least taking out lots of stuff and making it much easier to take out)

*gets lynch mobed by Muses*

Here's an interesting idea...
A "Remants of an Ancient War" type angle.
(time to make this post grow to Godzilla sizes...)

In some ancient war, to sides basiclly trying to kill each other.
Loosing side sets out to release their 'weapons of last resort', a bunch of automated 'planet killer' ships.
As these 'planet killers' reach the edge of the star system and prepare to engage their FTL drives, a suicide ship from the second race delivers a star killer device into the sun. The planet killers are to far away and to heavily armored/shielded to be taken out, but most have their FTL drives are shorted out, and each suffers minor engine damage. They were programmed to engage an FTL jump and then go into a dormant state until they reached their target destination.
With FTL drives out, most of them simply cruised ahead at FTL speeds.

The few working planet killers reach their targets, and through the enemy off balance. Things escalate, both races wipe themselves out, leaving only scattered ruins to tell of their now ended existance.

A long, long, very long time later, the dormant planet killers, one by one, near their target systems.
The enemy is long since dead, and new races have grown, evolved and developed on worlds inhabited long ago by ancient races, but the planet killers only have their mission, "Locate X Star System, power up, Go to X star system, Locate Y planet, Deploy Strategic Assault Drones, Proceed to Y planet, Destroy Y planet. Alternate Program, If it looks like a planet, us shaped like a planet, is as big as a planet, holds population as a planet, but moves like a ship, ignore it."

Event series.
(I know little of scripting, so I will simply toss in things like (planet name) instead of whatever script function is used to list the name of whatever the event happened to.)

#: basic description/effect.
Three types of messages that could be given.
#A: Event Message the player recieves if it effects an uninhabited planet in a system you have a presence in (be it a colony, ship, base, unit, whatever).
#B: Even message the player recieves if it affects the colony of another race in a system you have presence in.
#C: Event message the player recieves if it affects one of their colonies.

1:
Event triggers, basic effect, causes a lot of damage to a planet, damaging facilities, cargo and population. (Possibly nough to wipe out a fully populated Tiny planet?

2:
Several more occurecnes, that happen one at a time over a period of time (ever 10-20 turns?) perhaps number of occurances that happens to a planet is equal to Planet Size.
Basicaly same as 1, something smacks into the planet, except messages are more along the lines of 'not again...'.

3:
Event triggers, basic effect, like 1 or 2, but on a bigger scale, a massive load of damage is done. Maybe enough to wipe out everything on a Medium size planet?)
Message indicates multiple things struck the planet.

4:
The big bad thing shows up, maybe less than 10 turns after 3.
Messages indicate some sort of 'gravitational disturbance' that cannot be pinpointed, but that it appears to be 'approaching' the planet, with an estimate of how many months until it could be 'dangerously close'. About 3-7 turns/months perhaps?

5:
Big bad thing hits
Message relating to the gravitational disturnamce fluxiating and dissipating as 'something really big' impacts the planet shortly afterwards. For other planets, the gravitational disturnance dissapears and something apparently impaces the planet, destroyig it.
For other races it is seen happening to, message could include mention of increased comm. traffic and lots of distress calls.

Countermeasures.
Certain high level tech (or maybe also stuff from ruins) allows for construction of countermeasures.

For dealing with the 'smaller' events.
Aegis Network
"Designed using old artifacts found by accident, this collection of structures uses gravitational sensors to track, lock onto and engage targets that might otherwise slip by our normal defense systems"
A 'very large' weapon platform, it is 1,000kt and has a required component that is 200kt.
(or an alternitive, make it a Base or Ship of some sort)
If a Weapon Platform, Limit 1 per planet.
Requirements. Must have the core component, must have 20 "Point Defense" weapons (any type), or perhaps a few special, rather large, very powerful, very fast firing, PD type weapons, that will rip apart fighters and drones with ease.
The core component has a very high scan level, with a range of 5, it also gives an extra strike bonus (+50%?).
It prevents the first type of event from happening.

The first kind of event gets stopped, message indicates the Aegis Network apparently activated by itself, opened fire, and blew up some sort of object just as an anomoly was detected near the planet.
Perhaps similar message if it happens on the planet of another race.

Second kind of event gets stopped, message is similar, except that it fired multiple barrages, destroying several unknown objects as unknown anomolies were detected near the planet.

Also, tweak the one plantary shield tech gotten from ruins.
Cause it to have an event where it basically gives a message that an anomoly was detected, but that it basically impacted the shield and exploded, minimizing damage. Have secondary damage from the event that only targets the planetary shields, damaging it. The 'bigger' event that does major damage to planetary shields, possibly damaging or destroying several of them, and one planetary shield might not be enough to stop the damage.

For dealing with the 'planet killer' event.

Star Hammer (working name)
"Using an odd artifact stumbled upon in a museum, scientists designed this very large focused energy beam system that is tied into special gravittional sensors. It is slow to fire and slow to track targets, but speculation says it could even shatter a small planet."
A 'very large' weapon platform, 1,000kt, has a required component that is 200kt, and a required weapon that is basically a 450kt weapon that is equal in power to a set of 4 massive mount wave motion guns.
It is -40% to offense (can't aim very fast)
If it is to be a ship or base, up the size of the 'big gun' to 900kt (no planetary power grid to support it, etc).

Basically prevents the planet killer event.
It causes secondary events instead.
First, it causes some damage to the planet (falling debris).
Second, 'salvaged debris' has an effect similar to ruins (either bonus research points or unlocking a ruins type tech).
Third, the gun 'blows up'... and so needs to be repaired.
Message would say something along the lines of the weapon powering up on its own and firing as the gravitational disturbance fluxuated, and that it hit and 'shattered' a planetroid sized object that was apparently 'decloaking' dangerously close to the planet, and that falling debris damaged the planet, but also contained a few intact items of interest.