Space Monsters!!!

[Growltigga]

right on Mac, the question will be as Geo says whether is it possible to modd these traits into the game, or alternatively, and an idea I really like only if from a role playing angle, would be for a human to run the beasts, imagine, each swarm type could differ depending on who ran it -we would all have our own styles etc

just some ideas GT

[Suicide Junkie]

I wonder if it would be worthwhile to consider a multi-level game:
- at one level, we have the standard player races doing their thing.
- in the background, unseen by most players until the advent of advanced sensors, two or three non-expanding monster races battle it out.
- and at the bottom, we have a universe-eater with SM technology.

The universe-eater should probably eat all the systems at the edge of the map, then work slowly inwards, cloaking all planets, asteroid belts and stars with colonies and cloaking bases.

The winner of the game would be the player(s) who control the Last starsystem in the core of the galaxy.
The middle-monster races would attack this core system as their primary goal, preventing any one player from fortifying it until the Last part of the game - after the universe-eaters have swept past the monster-homeworlds.

[geoschmo]

I like the idea of the "universe eaters" going about their buisness completely unaware of the other races, and undetectable by them. That would be easy enough with a high level cloak. Is there a way through a mod to make a ship that can pass through a standard minefield without either detonating it or sweeping it? If not I guess it would just have to go ahead and sweep them.

This could be combined with the WP monsters before. It would be a controllable "event" generator in effect.

Geoschmo

[dogscoff]

Rollo - I might have a dragon pic for you, if I can just find it. I drew a cool lizard years ago and it's now stashed away on my Amiga (which is currently mothballed), but maybe some of my friends would have a copy of it somewhere. I'll mail them and find out.

I have an idea for a cool space monster pic as well. I just hope it looks as good on screen as it does in my head. I'll try to pixel it this week, at least in outline.

Also, I'm not up to date with this thread, so this might have been suggested already, but how's this for a space monster idea:

A warp point monster - you give it warp open / close abilities and let it roam around the galaxy. It wouldn't even have to be aggressive, it could just wander about altering the map at random, making the game a little more interesting for human players.

Or, you could make it invisible (impenetrable cloak) and pretend the warp points opening all over the place are random events=-)

Of course you'd have to be careful the wp tech didn't fall into human hands but I have a feeling you've already discussed that kind of thing on this thread.

Not sure how you'd persuade the monster to actually use the wp components, but imagine how cool it would be if you could get it working...

[Andr�s]

http://se4kdy.cyberwars.com/temp/possiblemonsters.zip
Just downloaded and rendered a lot of animals and other pics from 3dcafe. Some of them could make good mosters.
Also included a few pics I made from scratch.
Pick any you like and make suggestions.

[Rollo]

Wow, thanks a lot Andres .

Lots of good new ideas here. I tested the WP monster(s) Last night. Didn't do a whole lot, but at least one WP was opened by it. Most of the time the WP-ships hang around the home planet though. Since it doesn't cost the monsters any money, might as well leave that in. Humans can use that to create confusion around the quadrant.

Also checked if the cloaked planet is revealed if planet names are turned on. As suspected it is, so there is a planet name floating in seemingly empty space . I put a ship in orbit of the cloaked planet to see whether that would count as a blockade. It doesn't , meaning that you cannot blockade what you don't see. Tonight I will check, if I can blow up what I cannot see. I have a destroy-planet-ship in the queue and see what happens when try to use that above the cloaked planet.

Rollo

[ 29 January 2002: Message edited by: Rollo ]

[dogscoff]

Andres - I liked the manta and spinal pics for space monsters. The pt.bmp made me think of Rodan (which sounded like it had jet engines) from the old 1950s Manga rubber Godzilla movies.

<nostalgia>
Man I loved those films...
</nostalgia>

Anyway... Rollo & Geo - Tell us more about your "vision" of the space monsters. Are they rare but hugely powerful or common as muck and comparable on strength to an empire ship?

Do they stay the same strength throughout the game or does their tech "evolve" as the game progresses?

Presumably you'll have a whole bunch of monster pics in a shipset (ie Escort = gas cloud, frigate= space spider, destroyer= Disembodied Head of Zsa Zsa Gabor etc) and then the monster AI will just build and release them. I suppose you'd have to enforce variety (ie prevent the AI from only using the largest hull available) by having monster type 1 as a "pop transport", type 2 an "attack ship" and then set the AI files to build them in equal quantities.

This reminds me of a cool idea I had Last night actually: To make the monsters more "organic" and less like ships, have a whole stack of custom hulls for them, with irregular sizes - so rather than each monster being exactly 500kt or exactly 350kt, give the hulls values like 534kt, 908 kt, 177kt. Make dozens of them, but distribute the images randomly throughout, so that the AI doesn't go through "phases" of producing only energy clouds, and then only crystalline entities as it advances through the tech. (Assuming it does advance through the tech. You may have used a "static" tech tree, which might work a lot better)

Something else that occurred to me: isn't there something hard coded into the game that even if it has the tech, the AI will only build ships up to light cruiser size for the first 40 turns, or something like that. I think there imight be 2 or 3 "thresholds". This could be useful to you, to ensure variety in hull sizes.

What about names? You can't have "giant carnivorous blimp" if the AI assigns that name to a space-wasp. You'd have to use either meaningless names, or give the monsters individual names like "Melcchor the Devourer" and "Spogroth the Wanderer".

Finally (for now anyway) will you be including a whole load of squidgy, crunchy, what-does-a-4-kilometre-long-slug-eating-a-spaceship-sound-like-anyway sound effects for the monster weapons? I hope so=-) The line-in on my Soundcard is fried, otherwise I'd offer to sample some sounds from "Destroy all Monsters" or "The Terror of MechaGodzilla" (which I happen to have on tape).

[dogscoff]

or even Godzilla wavs

[Rollo]

Thanks, guys .
Will check that out,when I get home.

[Rollo]

Okay, I checked if a planet destroyer would be able to destroy a cloaked planet (was kind of worried about that), but that doesn't work . So truly the only means (that I can think of right now) to kill the monsters is to destroy the whole system.

Rollo