I've seen something similar in other games, it's always a nice touch to reward the adventurer over the guy that sits in one place and builds up. But the fact that this isn't just "You found something, have stuff!" and that you actually have to do something beyond finding it to get whatever bonus it has sets it apart.



It might even be a possibility that they can be kept in an area as a mini "planet" in the system with various bonuses depending on the story (a Virtual Endless ship would give more science points, a Concrete Endless ship would give more Dust production, ships with cloning technology would give happiness bonuses to boost pop growth, etc). They could balance it by making everything about it set in stone, that is to say system bonuses don't affect it. The system bonuses only apply to "planets", so they wouldn't affect the ship. Sure, the bonuses would be high per person, but you can't get that many people on it.



And about the events becoming repetitive, remember there's a lot of people getting involved with suggestions. I'm sure they'd be able to add new derelict ship encounters that players have written every now and then. Look at how popular the hero design threads are.

Thanks for the support, everyone! Glad to see I'm not the only one who wants to see this happen.



I've been thinking about this:

TwistedNinja wrote:
It might even be a possibility that they can be kept in an area as a mini "planet" in the system with various bonuses depending on the story (a Virtual Endless ship would give more science points, a Concrete Endless ship would give more Dust production, ships with cloning technology would give happiness bonuses to boost pop growth, etc). They could balance it by making everything about it set in stone, that is to say system bonuses don't affect it. The system bonuses only apply to "planets", so they wouldn't affect the ship. Sure, the bonuses would be high per person, but you can't get that many people on it.

Oliolli wrote:
Unless it's some sort of riduculously over-massive space station (Think several times the size of the Death Star) I don't think it should be able to house more than 1 pop. But yeah, good idea!

And come to the conclusion that I definitely agree, anything more than 1 population would feel like too much. Guess I could kind of see it like a "mini portable gas giant"; a +10 bonus to a specific FIDS.

I'm in. Actually i'm in for anything and everything that makes the ES universe a more lively place.... this is pretty much a new spin on the many random events/special planets threads we had, hopefully the Devs make some of the suggested ideas real.

I absolutely LOVE this idea and hope it gets implemented at some point!

Excellent idea!

Sorry. Must. Have. Cheesecake.

Yes this sounds like a lot of fun.



I love exploring things !!!

Good point there...



Still... maybe 2 at a stretch. It could be said that it's not necessarily the actual amount of population, but say an "amplification" feature of the ship. But yeah... details.

Unless it's some sort of riduculously over-massive space station (Think several times the size of the Death Star) I don't think it should be able to house more than 1 pop. But yeah, good idea!

TwistedNinja wrote:
It might even be a possibility that they can be kept in an area as a mini "planet" in the system with various bonuses depending on the story (a Virtual Endless ship would give more science points, a Concrete Endless ship would give more Dust production, ships with cloning technology would give happiness bonuses to boost pop growth, etc). They could balance it by making everything about it set in stone, that is to say system bonuses don't affect it. The system bonuses only apply to "planets", so they wouldn't affect the ship. Sure, the bonuses would be high per person, but you can't get that many people on it.

Oh wow, I really really like this idea!! Or have low bonuses, but make them affected by system bonuses. Either way, I think the idea of a mini (1-3 pop) "portable planet" to be awesome. And it fits really well with what started this whole idea for me: the thought of finding this huge, ancient derelict, just floating there...

TwistedNinja wrote:
And about the events becoming repetitive, remember there's a lot of people getting involved with suggestions. I'm sure they'd be able to add new derelict ship encounters that players have written every now and then. Look at how popular the hero design threads are.

Excellent point!



Man... now I'm getting all excited about this...



And this is your first post?! You're my new favorite person!

For some reason, I've always had a thing for derelict spaceships, whether it be in games, movies or books. I guess it's the mystery that appeals to me: How did they get where they are? What happened to them? Things like that. I'm generally not at all a fan of horror movies, but I loved Event Horizon, in good part because I was so captivated with the setting.



During manual combat, I noticed we can see ancient, decaying husks of ships, and that got me to thinking: what if there were some derelict spaceships in Endless Space for us to explore?



I admit, this idea started with me thinking to myself "I want creepy & mysterious derelict space hulks!!". But my next thought was "How would that work...?".



Then it hit me: data pods from SMAC, barbarian villages from Civ, you know what I'm talking about. That's right. Creepy, mysterious, floating (potentially trapped) treasure boxes!



On the most basic level, it would be exactly like those. Simple, but relatively boring. Nothing that really stands out.



Still... could be fun:



Derelict ships would have a certain (small) % chance to spawn around un-colonized systems at the start of the game. Pirates would ignore them. Between the player and the AI(s), it would be first-come, first-served.



Though they wouldn't move or attack, they'd still be "there", so they'd block colony ships from landing until they were "taken care of", maybe.



You could just shoot them down... or you could board them.



Their weapon systems would be inoperational, but they'd have a fair bit of HP (1k? 2k?), and maybe a bit of armor, so they couldn't just be shot down in one turn by a measly scout.



If you decide to board them instead of taking them down, there would be a random event (like the globals, but it would only affect you). Good stuff, bad stuff, whatever. Maybe some dust, maybe a tech, maybe some data about the surrounding systems (it could mark nearby systems as "explored" if they haven't yet been), it could blow up (damaging or even destroying whatever ship you got there in), infect you with an alien parasite (no idea what that would do... but wouldn't that be cool?). You get the idea.



"Boarding" wouldn't necessarily require a new special action, it might be as simple as "invading" a system on which a derelict is present.



Now... as I said... that's the simple (and boring) way to do it. Yes... I do have more ideas.



What if you take that basic approach but flesh it out a bit more? When you board the ship, you basically start a mini-game. A "choose your own adventure" type of thing, where you have choices to make. It doesn't have to be long or complicated, maybe just two levels of choices or so.



This could add randomness and excitement, though, and give a new outlet for game lore. You could have some cool little story, maybe even a small image (or better yet, images) to go with it.



The main problem I see with this approach is the incredible amount of work it would require; you can't just have half a dozen "adventures", as once you've been through them once or twice, the whole process would become tedious and boring. So you'd need quite a few, and a certain amount of randomness would be needed. If a degree of modularity for the adventure "sections" could be managed, that would help a fair bit.



One other way of dealing with this issue is by making "adventure time" an extremely rare event (you could go through a game in a Huge galaxy and never encounter one), at which point it would be more of a pseudo-easter-egg than anything else (you couldn't just say "Well, it's so rare, so make the potential payout super good!", because that might break the game).



You could also mix and match the two types. Say derelicts are quite rare in general, but not insanely so: you're assured a certain number of them per map (within a certain range based on galaxy size, difficulty, etc.), but most of them are just the "simple & boring" type. Once in a rare while, you'll pop one open and... adventure!!



Thoughts?

I meant to vote cheesecake too, actually...



So we can count two honorary votes for cheesecake.



(yeah, I made the poll, and I still voted wrong... I think I need sleep)

Damn it! I meant to vote "cheesecake." I want cheesecake.

I agree, it would be nice if derelict ships had a little more to them other than a brief alert message saying "something's been found by someone and the result is this". It would be nice if there was a small picture depicting how the ship is found and then, like you said ElegantCaveman, one could select whether one just wishes to destroy the ship in order to clear a planet's orbit or shipping lane or whether one is brave enough to board and explore the ship, either finding some new exotic piece to the big puzzle (historical stuff about the endless, some tech etc) or perhaps an ancient disease or a boobytrap which destroys the derelict ship together with one's own ship since the two had to dock in order for the derelict ship to be boarded/explored.... would be a fairly exciting moment I dare say! So good idea!

hell yeah!

Definitely. I find that a good use of lore in such games really adds a lot to it. A perfect example (imho) is how Alpha Centauri did it, with the quotes that went with the techs you researched and the cutscenes from the special projects. It really brought the world to life.



I'd love to see the Endless Space world come to life in its own way, instead of all that background story & info being relegated to nothing more than a bit of flavor text at race selection and miscellaneous tidbits here and there.

in most 4X games, any game you play is essentualy the story of the game in YOUR WAY.



So a little more lore and such would totaly fit right in!

I wouldn't have dared to suggest something like that, but I completely agree with you. That would be awesome!



This game has such interesting lore (even from what little I've seen up to now), it would really be nice to have more of that be part of the "everyday experience".

I fthey could be linked it with some sort of mini-story line that ties in with your game set up (Via some smart writing skills) this could really bring out the story and history of the game in a bold and enchanting way that would leave people wanting to know more and from difrrent perspectives.



I approve!