0009431: [minor faction] Warpspace creatures

ID	Project	Category		Date Submitted	Last Update

0009431	AI War 1 / Classic	Suggestion - Game Mechanics		Sep 1, 2012 9:43 am	Sep 1, 2012 9:43 am

Reporter	KDR_11k	Assigned To
Status	new	Resolution	open

Summary	0009431: [minor faction] Warpspace creatures
Description	Warpspace creatures are an option to add a bit of random FUN to a game. They can hurt both the AI and the humans and may open a few new tactical options. These creatures dwell in between wormholes, passing through the galaxy almost undetected. Until one day they pop out of a wormhole. The supply links between command stations scare them away to some degree so they are much less likely to appear in the middle of someone's territory (mostly at the territory borders) and they are usually stirred up by fleet movements going through those territory borders. Their numbers are handled as some abstract, growing count that acts as a resource for spawning the various monstrosities, their rate of appearance should overall be fairly low (like maybe once per hour or less) but of course minor factions are scalable. The creatures are: Warplings: "Small" creatures that appear in the hundreds out of a wormhole to feed on fleetships. Each warpling can swallow one ship and will then run for the nearest wormhole, if no valid targets are around the hungry warplings will also retreat. They disappear along with their "cargo" when passing through any wormhole and get added back to the warpspace strength (hungry warplings return more strength than fed ones as they want to go on another raid sooner). Warpling raids appear as short-delay waves and can appear on any planet with valid edibles (though maybe they should go a bit easy on the AI there since it has so much more territory). Warp cuckoo: This bastard is attracted by large ship movements through wormholes, it may sometimes replace a random instakillable ship of a fleet as it passes through a wormhole. The cuckoo is like a miniature botnet golem, zombifying nearby ships until it is brought down or runs out of targets (in which case it will retreat into warpspace through a wormhole and get added back to the warpspace strength). It really loves waves so the player may both benefit from a lot of AI ships infighting as well as suffer from the cuckoo if it manages to survive the initial wave fight. Like the warplings the cuckoo cannot travel to another planet, if it tries that it gets returned to the warpspace pool. Gray goo: Illegal dumping of nanites in wormholes has created this particular nastiness. The gray goo may randomly infect an instakillable ship traveling through a wormhole, that ship is then tagged permanently with the goo. The ship's health will slowly degrade and it can no longer be repaired. On death the ship releases nanite spores, kamikaze units that spread the gray goo infection to other ships. The more of the ship's health was eaten by the goo (as opposed to e.g. enemy fire or scrapping) the more spores are released, a ship that lost 100% of its health to the goo will release even more spores (or turn into some kind of monster?) than one that lost any health to another damage source. While moving ships away and scrapping them so you can shoot the nanites down as they seek a new target is the quickest way to stop the infection it can also be used creatively to hurt the AI. Making a ship take 100% goo damage and having it die on AI terrain is tough but would wreak havoc upon the AI ships on the planet. As the above ships the nanites cannot travel to other planets and are returned to the warpspace pool when going through a wormhole. The AI may return the favor though. Worm: There's a reason they call 'em wormholes: After a large force has passed through a wormhole a worm may appear with some delay. The worm prevents any units from going through the wormhole it is occupying (simply by blocking it with its body) and deals serious damage to anyone getting close. The worm appears out of both sides of the wormhole and if either end of it is killed both ends die. The worm is completely immobile. The return-to-warpspace thing should make evading a warpspace creature invasion feasible but make the next attack come much quicker so there's incentive to deal with the creatures. Mentioning instakillable ships above is just a way of saying these things should never happen to anything particularly valuable. It could as well use a different immunity to exclude valuables but introducing a new one adds the risk of accidentally not tagging something as immune and having the creatures result in the death of a golem or something equally important.
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