craigleton wrote:
I think different events should have different solutions. Research a tech, build an improvement, pay with dust, obtain resources, etc. If it's always research, that caters to races and strategies that focus on more research. Also, they would just become something to add to the research queue and that's boring.

That's a very good point. If events can only be solved in one way, then races proficient in that way would have another advantage. I originally thought research could solve events. But in 4X games I play, the research-heavy race always seems to dominate; they don't need another advantage! So you could have some that require researching solutions, other constructing solutions, and yet others paying for solutions. I like it.



To add a bit more flavor to it, what if the solution has no defined "turns to complete"? The player will only be shown the infinity symbol. Each turn the solution is being done, there is a random chance to trigger a "solution event." This special event will remove the solution being produced/researched/paid/etc and enact a bonus that counteracts the negative. If the event cut sensors by 50%, the solution event would increase sensors by 50%, thus balancing it out.



If you wanted to delve into it more, you could create solution events that only partially fix the problem. Maybe in the end your scientists could only regain 25 of the 50% sensor loss. Or, maybe we come out better than originally.



I think such a mechanism would make events much more exciting. It would give the players a chance to interact with them, albeit on a basic level. Besides, events smack you without warning. Why should the solution?

For the most part I find myself ignoring the random events, both good and bad. While some are definitely awful, I just deal with it and carry on. I'm definitely on board with making them a little more interactive with the player. The events should be either a localized effect for colonies or an empire wide effect for ships. Additionally, the event should have a rectifiable impact that the player has a choice to rectify or not.



Example: -50% speed on all ships should be fixable by applying a "retrofit" to all your ships. The -50% stays until the ship is brought in to a space dock and the offending engine is removed and replaced with an adequate one.



In the case of colony specific events, the negative effect is applied -and- a colony upgrade corresponding to that upgrade is removed.



Example: -Food production -and- if an agriculture upgrade is built it is removed. The -food effect is applied until a specific agriculture building is built. In the case of an existing agriculture upgrade being destroyed, rebuilding that upgrade removes this effect.

I am, in general, against random events in games (I always played Alpha Centauri with Bell Curve enabled). If you're going to have random events then make them small, positive, and program the random number generator to make sure it's allocating events evenly. Permanent bad effects from random events? I recoil in horror.

GC13 wrote:
I am, in general, against random events in games (I always played Alpha Centauri with Bell Curve enabled). If you're going to have random events then make them small, positive, and program the random number generator to make sure it's allocating events evenly. Permanent bad effects from random events? I recoil in horror.

Even so where's the challenge in always playing the same exact thing over and over? I like random events but I think there needs to be an optional remedy for some and actually make it a feature, not just a pop up annoyance.