Creature Contest: "The space Aliens"

[YourConscience]

Here is my idea for a really dangerous space creature according to the contest - the aliens (as in the movie "Aliens"). They hide in derelict ships. You only notice it by closely visually examining the ships for signs of slightly greenish coloring here or there. Once one of your ships passes very close to an infected derelict ship, your ship gets infected too. If this one now passes any other of your ships, these get infected too. The only sign of infection is a little something falling out of your ship from time to time and hitpoints going down. After a random amount of time the ship will suddenly selfdestruct.

The really dangerous part is that they can infect planets too with the exception that planets won't selfdestruct. Instead you will either have to nuke them from orbit, or assign a truly gigantic amount of ground forces to remove the infection. If you don't take care of such a planet, from time to time it will spawn an infected ship (of survivors trying to escape the hell) that will try to reach another planet (and infect that one too). Having troops on your planets will be an additionally good idea!

The AI would be set to handle the infection by immediately destroying discovered infected ships - but the discovery will occur randomly - so it might miss an infection for a long time.

Ideally it should be possible to research and install internal security components on your ships that have a chance of removing infection from your ships or, in later stages of research even form other ships. Troops on a ship should provide the same effect. Hence, moving a troopship full of troops over an infected ship should have a healing effect, at the cost of loosing a few units of these troops.

[tjhkkr]

That is a cool idea too... I REALLY, REALLY like the uniqueness of this approach... [8D]

If this is implemented, I would like to see that you could trade time for "a better scan" of the ship... and the down side would be that the longer scan would give more pirates in the area a chance to ambush you (when you run into a pirate ambush).
This idea is pretty cool and I like the unique approach to the threat! This threat would make me willing to turn on monsters...

Nice piece of work!

[tedesco]

I liked the idea too. Nuking from orbit to clear a planet from aliens is awesome. Maybe it can decrease the planet quality level.

If they add this to the game, I'll need to mod a Predator civ to play as well. :p

BTW... GET TO THE CHOPPA!

[YourConscience]

Thanks! Also, perhaps it'd have to be called zombies instead of aliens to not make any copyright infringements or something. But the idea stays the same. I especially like the fact that if some AI fucks it up and gets overrun by the infection entirely, the rest of the galaxy might have to cease their petty wars and fully concentrate on wiping out this infection.

[J HG T]

Well, there's actually game about zombies and pirates in space, but I'm willing to bet that it's not a problem.
This would indeed be interesting if the aliens/zombies can spread freely and create truly dangerous situations, forcing all races to join forces against them.

[YourConscience]

True. But here the "zombies" don't behave like another civilization. They don't behave at all, in fact. They only infect. Also, I think the really insideous part here is that there won't be any picture of them, so the imagination of the player can depict them any way he likes to imagine something like this. So perhaps it would be best to neither say aliens nor zombies to that, but just some mysterious "infection".

[flap]

I like the idea.

[dazoline II]

Sounds a bit like Reavers from the Serinity move, although better behaved. [8D]
Nice.

[Igard]

I really like this idea. Could be modded to become The Borg from Star Trek? I wonder...

[tjhkkr]

This is really a neat idea, and one that can have all sorts of ramifications to the game...

Now, I hope they will set it up in a way that you have to agree to investigation the ship before it happens... but it is still an awesome idea.

[YourConscience]

Well, essentially it costs you, the player, a bit time and attention before ordering a ship to go to that scrapyard.

I also think it's important the player doesn't immediately notice the infection (otherwise it would be too simple to get rid of it). Perhaps it would even be possible to set the entire military into a heightened alarm state which would trigger notifications about infections much earlier - instantly on military ships and almost instantly on civilian ships. BUT it costs twice the maintenance, so you really want to use that only when you suspect an infection spreading. Also setting this heightenes alarm needs time to start working, so you cannot just switch it on briefly to look whether there's some problem brewing.

Just think how careful you will be with your primary fleet and which tragedy happens when your best admiral is killed by the infection!

Also, picking up the infection on purpose and trying to infect the enemy could be a viable tactic. Something the Weyland corporation was constantly trying to achieve in all the Alien movies.

[tjhkkr]

Well, essentially it costs you, the player, a bit time and attention before ordering a ship to go to that scrapyard.

Exactly, and that is how I get most of my technology gains... that is how slow my research is... so this really adds DEPTH to the whole thing... [8D][8D][8D]

[Kayoz]

Sounds like a recipe for "micromanagement hell". Only visual cues to the infection? You do realize that on a large galaxy, this would be a complete game-killer? No bloody way I'm going to visually check EVERY DAMNED SHIP.

Two thumbs down.

[tjhkkr]

Well, I like it...
If you have a slow moving technology situation, I am absolutely dependent on these derelicts for improved technology... it will make me think twice...

[YourConscience]

@Kayoz: I think you misunderstood. Currently, pilfering scrapyards is large something you have to issue orders to do so manually. So you do usually actually briefly glance over the scrapyard. Except with this you better do better than briefly.

Also, as I explained later, when you have an infection going on, you may choose to double troop upkeep to gain almost instant reveals in the entire empire. The rest should happen automatically - ships either self-destruct or move to some troops-loaded ship. The interesting choice here is that perhaps you wait until a part of your fleet has been wiped by the infection because you wouldn't be able to pay the doubled upkeep otherwise? Also, curing the infection, even if everything runs automatic takes some time - not all ships detect it immediately, the higher maintenance takes effect only after a while, and just to be sure you'll want to keep it running a little longer. Also, since in some cases you might not even know where the infection came from, you might want to keep it on to see where ships happen to infect themselves in the first place so that you know where the problem comes from.

Perhaps even a special infection overlay might be good to have - of confirmed or known infected worlds.

[Kayoz]

@YourConscience-
So let me get this straight - I find an infected derelict, and the construction ship gets infected - then I immediately send it to refuel at my least-liked neighbour's homeworld. His homeworld gets infected and he either loses it - or suffers catastrophic damage from wiping out the aliens. Rinse and repeat for ALL neighbours - no sense in letting them get big and mean, eh?

Sounds severely overpowered - it would make it FAR too easy to cripple the AI, especially in start-with-one-planet games, where you're going to be dependent on your homeworld's income for a LONG time.

[YourConscience]

@Kayoz:

Well, for one, the ship would have to survive getting there in the first place. As I wrote, under normal circumstances ships do detect it at some point (which should be pretty short - like on average the time it takes to travel half the distance between two close stars, but slightly randomly) and then they should perhaps get a small chance to get rid of it, or they self-destruct (like in the Alien Movie). Also, as I wrote, planets protected by troops are as good as immune, they might lose perhaps a troop or two, but that's it. And the homeworlds of the AI usually have tons of troops, so no way this is overpowered. The real danger comes from meeting other ships before detection. Doing this repeatedly could carry the infection on until a planet without troops. This is where it gets dangerous. But usually it's just a ship lost mysteriously while pilfering scrapyards, and perhaps a passing-by freighter or two.

[Kayoz]

like on average the time it takes to travel half the distance between two close stars, but slightly randomly

That would potentially make it more or less harmless at the beginning of the game - but once you have dumped some research into drives - a particularly nasty way to eliminate annoying star ports and def bases.

Note "potentially" - as "average time" has a completely different interpretation on a spiral, ring and clusters map. To say nothing of "average" - is that between ANY star - in which case on a spiral map, it's something like 1/3 (Or whatever - I'm no statistician) of the map.

So once you've identified the source - send a bunch of ships to points along a line to disliked neighbour's homeworld - then piggy-back the infection through the pre-arranged ships to homeworld's star-port. Infect star-port (and accompanying def bases), which infects every civvie ship and military ship that visits the port.

Still seems pretty easy to exploit,

It's an interesting idea, but you have to ask yourself more questions - particularly the ones along the lines of "how would a rule rapist abuse the hell out of it?".

And if you're going to stick true to the Alien theme, you should remember that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation was after the alien for it's potential for their military contracts. The player should be faced with a similar scenario - sacrifice some ships for a (potentially unique) tech advantage, or kill it and play it safe?

[YourConscience]

You are right, some precautions would have to be taken to make it less exploitable. But nevertheless, as I also wrote, with time you should also be able to research some techs that make you (and the AI) more immune against it (like internal security stations as a ship component). Since the AI can simply be set to include them by standard once researched, absusing the infection should not be so easy. But I also think it should definitely still be possible. Especially as a desperate tactic. For example assume you are being overrun by some enemy - it means there are several colonies that have recently been taken. It means the enemy lost some troops while doing that and it might open some "hole" or perhaps his main attacking fleet, which so terribly overpowers yours, is out of troops entirely. Trying to organize a bunch of infected freighters right into the middle of that fleet could wreak havoc and salvage an otherwise unsalvageable situation. Of course you could end up facing a much bigger threat in the end, when those new colonies convert to become infection catapults, as I also wrote...

[Kayoz]

Trying to organize a bunch of infected freighters right into the middle of that fleet

Impossible. Freighters are civilian ships.