+1 for optional and I agree that a slider would be awesome!

Well, I'm in favor of random events in general. They add spice to the game. But only if, as others said before, random is not too random.

That just means the distribution of events, ranging from say -100 for catastrophic events to +100 for heavenly ones has to be e.g. sth. like a gaussian and basically the severity of randomness would be selected at the beginning of the game by cutting off the edges of the distribution from both sides. There would hardly be less random events but they would have less impact, this way.



The other thing I'd like would be another layer of complexity added to the random events.

On the one hand I'd like to be able to prepare for randomness, on the other hand I'd like to be able to react to them in different ways.

For example: I might have to deal with an unstoppable meteor crashing on my planet.



Beforehand the level of my space surveillance would then dictate my reaction time to the event, which will inevitably damage my colony severely. If I don't build any surveillance whatsoever, I'd be crushed, but that would be okay. It would have been my fault.

After I get the message, that said meteor is going to crash my colony, I might get the options, depending on the time left, until the crash:

a) Do nothing. (Maybe you cannot do anything...)

b) Move your fleet in the orbit out of harms way. (If any is present.)

c) Evacuate as many colonists as possible.

d) Evacuate as many colonists as possible and scavenge resources from the planet, even razing buildings.

e) Sell the planet to an unsuspecting friendly race for a horrendous price.



You could imagine similar multi-option responses to other events.

Five may actually be a bit too much, but you get the general idea. XD

New races would be going a little far. That would require making a dedicated race with its own ships, animations, tech trees, heroes, dialogue. And after all that, they wouldn't even be playable and only accessible through a random event.

Oh yeah I want that for sure. Maybe some kind of Quazar or Black Hole things. Maybe Space Pirates as well? New races encounters?

Ya. something along that line. But not stupid.

I like the option for random event. From pirate attacks, to super novas

Ya. No random species that come from another galaxy that just end up not making sense and being a major pane in the arse. (I.E. Yuzan Vong) Something that would be good would be a pirate attack or a meteor storm or a debuff.

Sharidann wrote:
Frankly, depends.

Some events in MOO 2 were quite nice and made sense.... but a system protected by a giant space ameboa bleh....

What would be nice would be - and it can be integrated in the storyline I think - pirate nests in independant systems... if you ignore them for too long, perhaps they spawn another player in your game....

Well space events would be nice but has to actually MAKE SENSE (unlike in zombies inc.) like wat Sharidann said.

Depends on how random, "random," really is.



If the events make sense, both in the context of how the universe is acting and how my civilization progresses, then I love a good random event. It helps to spice things up, and makes sure I'm not just playing by rote.



I don't want things like, my dynasty of warrior women to magically have a king because of a revolution that I had no means to prevent or something silly like that. But a solar flare, a gravitational eddy, a gas giant going baby star, civil unrest due to increased xeno-relations, or conversely increased restrictions preventing xeno-relations, degrading orbit of a planet or it's satellite - those are acceptable.

mandbaudio wrote:
+1 for optional and I agree that a slider would be awesome!

Agreed. A optional slider would be great. I love random events (remember the events from Hearts of Iron). It's a welcome way for me to get a game more dynamic.

It would depend on what kind of events, i personally turn off the events in sword of the stars because i hate losing a planet just because some asteroid decided it was a good idea to pick my planet as a landing spot.



Combat events are something i dislike unless you get a fair warning before hand. Things like finding artifacts while exploring planets or possibly a primitive race which you could uplift or destroy for bonusses and negatives. Anything that isn't straight out in your face like losing a planet/system but does require you think through what to do would be fine with me.

Random events are great, it force You to adopt to situation.

It must be a good thing...but it depends on what. ^^

Random events really add to the feeling of a living world, and having random disasters, monsters, or enemy forces show up can really give a player a feeling that even if they are winning the universe is still out to get them. I think that a wide variety of events can be really useful for building atmosphere in a game like this. MOO2 is an excellent example of events done right.

Kinda defeats the purpose of random events if you can just opt out. If you can just opt out, it means you could just opt out of everything and it's like there aren't random events. The point of random events are for them to be unexpected, and being able to opt out ruins the immersion and depth. Also, this is a strategy game, not guild wars.

kinda gonna steal an idea here but isn't guild wars 2 gonna be introducing random events? so that when it is triggered everyone in a certain area would receive some kind of quest or speak to an npc and be able to opt in or out of that random event. so kinda killing two birds with one stone by having random events but having a sort of turn on/off button. better still of you were to leave the event it could grow into a larger event like from a group of small ships to a battalion of cruiser? just a though.....

I think random events are good simply because they add in another element that adds to replayability, especially if they are well done, you might even get variance within your random events.

tkozlow wrote:


1.) Galaxy Wide Events ( events affecting everyone in the game at the same time) This type of events would be less affecting the balance of the game but also less fun , making it more suitable for multi player games.

a)minor (sub space ripple , preventing any communication between players or slowing down speed of ships)

b)major (preventing the interstellar journey, collapsing of the 8th dimension - creating a change in physic laws - let say lessening gravity strength, in MOO2 it would for example change the High Gravity to Normal and so on)



2.) Local Events (events affecting planet/system or group of systems)

a)minor (finding a hidden cache of Dust, giving a one time bonus or small increase) (an increase in solar activity boost vegetation on all planets in the system giving a small bonus to food production in the system - might be time limited)

b)major (meteor crashes on the planet causing huge damage, space crystal attacks, an alien artifact is found giving access to new technologies, star beginning to collapse, planet core instability.) things that would have major positive or negative bonus to one player.

This is the random event system that a modern space 4x game should have actually.



MOO2 had informative random event system with penalties/bonuses applied without players intervention. Only few events such as pirates, plague, supernova allowed a player to take some actions to prevent the loss of population/colonies (putting more ships in pirate-raided system, increasing research). Events were local (breakthrough/loss of RP, new techs, money/thievery, diplomatic hits/increases, ship explosions, leaders, population boom/quakes/plague/time anomalies)., and global (monsters, antarans, warp anomalies etc.). Events could be turned off during the game setup.



Space Empires had mainly a set of bad events ranging from planet conditions getting worse to systems being obliterated. Player could adjust the impact of those events and their frequency.



SOTS events are based on a frequency of player`s combats. You had you last combat 10 turns ago? Get ready for asteroids and raiders to hit your colonies. Its had a global menace event in the way of an uber ship plunging through the map leaving a way of destruction after it. Events were adjustable.



The most interesting random event system IMHO was in Civ4 with its choice options (ignore this event, or risk some citizens to gain few extra healthy points or risk a significant number of people to gain large bonus to health).



I do remeber GavCiv having options for encounters (what you found through exploration), but i can`t recall if it had events. Didn`t played it long enough due to the lack of a normal combat.



Distant Worlds have the most interesting and diverse encounter system ranging from simple ruins with colony bonuses to spaceship graveyards, salvage-able fleets hidden in deep space and unfinished word destroyers. Those don`t have option choices though. It also has a limited random events most of which are history-related (your races learns that they once opposed the great menace and gets a small bonus to moral. Or learns that they once helped that menace and gets a penalty to moral). DW allowed a player to set-up how many encounters he wants to get in game, how numerous pirate and monster population will be and how hostile your neighbours will be.



The Endless have plenty of examples to choose from. All the listed games provided an option to turn the events off, SE allowed to adjust the impact and frequency of these (default was set to one level less from catastrophic such as death of a star, core instability).

I like random events generally, though it may be an idea to be able to turn them off pre-game.

maceman wrote:
Well Black Holes are 'discovered' and stars do collapse creating new ones which would potentially block some travel strings?



no need for truth to get in the way of a good story or anything.

This would have to be a good story for your post to mean anything. Unfortunately "LOL BLACK HOLE" isn't anything but aggravating and not a story at all. Discovering a black hole doesn't change the fact that it exists and did exist before you found it, and stars collapse over the course of millions of years, not a couple dinky turns of whatever time length the devs decide on.