OllyG wrote:Or maybe one of the most common types could be ommited from each game.
There's no guarantee that all monster types will present in a game, and once more types are added, the chances of a different mix increase.
Personally I'm interested in having an option (Possibly by clicking a "Details" button) to pick the monster types that will be spawned in the galaxy. For example choosing only one type of monster would be fun or selecting only your favourites. Of course special monsters like guardians would not be ommitable. Just like going for "rocket launcher arena" in Unreal Tournament if you get the picture
-Fixed quirk of kraken body hull that was placing specials on non-planet objects. This should probably be removed entirely since special spawning can now be controlled with conditions.
The reason we did it that way was to prevent monster nest specials occurring in games were monsters were set to "none."
Uziush Vielky wrote:Personally I'm interested in having an option (Possibly by clicking a "Details" button) to pick the monster types that will be spawned in the galaxy.
If you want that level of control, you can edit the text files that script the monsters; I doubt we'll add that sort of UI detail soon, if ever.
eleazar wrote:Planets currently have a stealth of 5, and i thought, "hey, it's weird if planets are more stealthy than ships and space monsters", so to be conservative i gave a bunch of them a stealth of 5. Previously i had given all the ship hulls a base detection of 5 so any ship could find a planet.
I hadn't considered that this would mean you couldn't detect the stealth5 ships/monsters until they were in the same system as you with normal ships.
Ideally planets would be much more easily detectable than any but the most ginormous ships and monsters, but it doesn't seem easy to do that with the current system without making the minimum detection range very large, or leaving a lot of things invisible to many detectors.
Ideally, players should be using scouts with detection equipment. I'm not sure what it's at now, but previously, Optical Scanner increased a ship's detection to 20 (so that a minimally stealthy ship would be visible anywhere on the tactical map). This also has the nice effect of allowing the player to see what's in a system usually at least one starlane jump away.
Simply for gameplay purposes, I would give most starting ships and monsters minimal stealth. Why they're easier to see than planets can be technobabbled away, or (ordinary) planets could be made minimally stealthy as well. Now that the player gets basic visibility of all planets in a system when he enters it, planets with specials that increase the stealth of the planet can cause situations in which the player can see a system and most of its contents at a distance, but still has motivation to actually go explore the system to find stealthier planets that might be there. This means there would be less reason to have planets be any stealthier than their stars.
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.
eleazar wrote:What's this "minimal" stealth you speak of? Zero?
Usually 0.01.
0 is a special case; any object with 0 stealth can be seen by anyone, from anywhere in the galaxy, so a very-low-but-non-zero value is given to most objects without substantial stealth (stars, for example).
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.
eleazar wrote:I added a ground level tech "Domesticated Mega-Fauna" that's now required to raise monsters from the monster nests.
If you don't have the tech, but colonize a nest, it will be safe, but produce no monsters until you get the tech.
In my current game (or play test) I put an outpost on a Hydra Nest and after a few turns I got Hydra which were on my side, but which I couldn't control. I could rename their fleet and combine two hydra fleets into one. But, when I combined the hydra into one of my normal fleets I could control the combined fleet - it had the name of my normal fleet, but had a monster icon for the fleet. If they are uncontrolled they should not be combinable with a normal fleet. (Renaming should be allowed)
My point though, is that there should be a technology - called "Trained Mega-Fauna" - to give control of monster fleets.
Further technology could give bonuses to the monsters controlled by the Empire. The rate of spawning could also be increased.
edit:
I had another idea. A ship part could give the ability to combine monsters onto a fleet and give control of the monster. If the ship is destroyed the monsters become uncontrolled again, until another ship with the monster control part joins the fleet. The best thing about MoO2 was the odd things you could put into ships. The ship part could be a 'monster prod' - like an oversize cattle prod. A better one could be a 'whistle' or some kind of pheremone dispenser.
When Space Monsters spawn there should be sitrep message. Definately if the Space Monsters are yours, probably if they are enemies within detector range.
When a new kind of Space Monster is first seem a sitrep message could be good too. This would make them one of the things found during exploration, when a fleet arrives in a system a sitrep message is generated, which prompts the player to look at newly explored systems.
I believe I fixed the out of control monster thing quite a while ago.
I think the problem was me! The monster fleets seem to move by themselves, but they also accept orders. Since they were moving by themselves I assumed that they wouldn't accept orders. The first thing I tried was renaming (after 10-20 turns of the fleet wandering randomly), then merging the fleet. I only tried to control it after I had already merged it with another fleet. The monster fleets seem to be fully controllable, but they get move orders at the beginning of most turns, I can cancel their orders so I don't think it is too good that they get random orders. It would be better if they sometimes got random orders after they could no longer be changed, otherwise it is just an annoyance where you go round changing all the monster fleet orders each turn. If they are a bit random and sometimes wander off as a game feature it should not be something that can be stopped by the players.
Tame monster controll is supposed to be just the same as regular ships. No initiative to wander by itself. It sounds like I missed something. Which monster was doing this? The script is supposed to be the same but I guess I've mostly tested the snowflake.
eleazar wrote:Tame monster controll is supposed to be just the same as regular ships. No initiative to wander by itself. It sounds like I missed something. Which monster was doing this?
Most monsters with movement effectsgroups will probably move their fleets, regardless of whether they are player-owned... For example, from SH_KRILL_1_BODY
eleazar wrote:Tame monster controll is supposed to be just the same as regular ships. No initiative to wander by itself. It sounds like I missed something. Which monster was doing this?
Most monsters with movement effectsgroups will probably move their fleets, regardless of whether they are player-owned... For example, from SH_KRILL_1_BODY
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There's nothing in there about only executing if not owned by a player.
Yeah, but there's no way for a player to get a krill- without changing some .txt files.
It the snowflake, kraken, and juggernaut that the player can get via control of nests, and thus those that have script to not act on their own when player controlled.
I tried to add some space monsters to my starting fleets to aid testing, and got these errors. Uncomment the end of "starting_fleets" in r4413 to replicate, or see if you've fixed it.
2011-10-18 13:05:25,928 ERROR Server : couldn't find design name SM_JUGGERNAUT_1 in map from design names to ids of designs added to empire
2011-10-18 13:05:25,928 ERROR Server : couldn't find design name SM_SNOWFLAKE_1 in map from design names to ids of designs added to empire
2011-10-18 13:05:25,928 ERROR Server : couldn't find design name SM_KRAKEN_1 in map from design names to ids of designs added to empire
revision 4414 ""added sitrep notification when new tame monsters are ready.""
revision 4415 fixed tame monsters wandering off on their own initiative, and restricted drone factories from empty systems."
Thanks for the report OllyG, it really wasn't working the way i thought it was. I guess i got sloppy and mixed up some versions.
if you get the picture 
