Solution to 'Incicent Trolling' and making every world unique.

[Mathenaut]

I don't think that eclipses and solar flares need to be removed. I think that they need to be interval, and I think the intervals should be randomly generated with each world.

I also think they need to be predictable, with a measure of effort.

Proposal for Eclipses:
Every generated world should have a generated number of 'moons'. Each of these moons should have independent 'partial' (1/2 light) and 'full' (total darkness) eclipses.

This means that every world will have a unique pattern of eclipses, along with some fluff regarding the kind of planet you're on.

Proposal for Solar Flares and Battery Blowouts:
Combine these events. Instead of just randomly knocking out everything for a day, a Solar Flare event should sweep through and cause the battery dumping/fire event (which I think better represents what a powerful flare would really do). Flares remain hazardous with not-always-predictable results, and the drama is preserved without the arbitrary catastrophic hydroponic losses (assuming you get your energy grid fixed in time). If you want, you can also disable the 'jump to location' for events happening during the flare.

Proposal for Astronomy:
I would like to introduce the concept of an 'observatory' station (called whatever is appropriate, it's essentially a telescope and a bunch of charts/math). It doesn't require special research (because this shit was known in medieval times), it just requires a bit of metal, some space, and time.

All it involves is someone sitting at the instrument for some duration (based on research skill), and when completed it will give predictions for when the flares and eclipses are expected to occur.
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Having these events following a script does more than just add flavor for making every planet unique. They can also serve as 'oh shit' timers for events that may/may not happen during them. Pirates/Mechanoids know when flares and eclipses are happening, too. Animal behaviors can change, and in general the flare/eclipse periods can serve as a platform for a sub-series of events that can happen during them.

This also turns these events from 'incident trolling' to impactful events that are weighted by player agency instead of RNG, without removing the RNG/chaos from it all.

Thoughts?

[cultist]

I like the idea of research having a secondary function, but I don't think solar flares need to go. That would basically make a properly managed powergrid untouchable.

[Mathenaut]

I like the idea of research having a secondary function, but I don't think solar flares need to go. That would basically make a properly managed powergrid untouchable.

Shy of one specific event that cannot be addressed or mitigated in any way shape or form, they pretty much are.

[WarlordToby]

I am having trouble, how do i harvest space and time again? Lol

[RemingtonRyder]

You need a properly-attuned wimey pickaxe.

[Mathenaut]

Does that mean 'time' will be added to the stuff system?

[SpaceDorf]

Back to topic.

+3 to Eclipses, Solar Flares and  Astronomy those suggestions are awesome.

But I would like to add a view features to the solar flares.
They should stay lot more unpredictable and someone has to watch
periodically with a astronomer-bill not unlike diseases. ( Can watch for effect once or twice a day )
And solar flares should not only "attack" batterys but all other electronic devices.
from one or multiple points of impact in the power grid. These points of impact would describe the intensity of the solar
flare.

You can counter the effect by installing switches, which will act as breakers/fuses to secure the powergrid
and research into hardening the wires and devices.

So you can, with a lot of time and resources insulate and secure your power grid agains solar flares and prevent
failure spread, but never negate the effect completely. 

[b0rsuk]

Speaking of making Research more interesting and usable in late game, I have this idea where you occasionally find alien artifacts. They would work like the power-ups from Dungeon Keeper. Single use. You would need to research them before use to find out what they do. They could include:
- weather control (summons a rainstorm)
- nanobots (rapidly completes all current constructions, possibly includes short-ranged transport of resources)
- fertilizer (makes soil in a small area more fertile)
- orbital strike (artillery station on a moon wakes up and bombards the target area. Much more accurate than mortars in alpha9)
- seed pod (covers a big area with vegetation)
- the Ark (releases a big number of animals)
etc.

You could also research cryptosleep caskets to gain insight into their contents. First you would copy inscriptions on it, then take it to a research table.

[Kagemusha12]

OPs ideas sound great.

With regards to battery blowouts:
Maybe there should also be a research topic which add especially hardened batteries and powerlines (that, of course, also are more expensive to build) which greatly reduce the chance for a battery blowout

[Argon]

Another change to battery blowouts:
The chance would be extremely low if all conduits are fully repaired, as conduits become damaged the chance of a blowout increases exponentially.

-Argon

[Mathenaut]

A few notes/thoughts.

1.) I'm glad to be getting some real feedback/discussion on this.

2.) One thing you'll notice about the entire OP suggestion is that it explicitly doesn't involve stacking more research. Research is functionally a time sink and the Astronomy process in itself is already a timesink. Think of it as a repeatable research bill, perhaps.

3.) The problems behind the solar flare and battery events is that they are conspicuously random, have no measures to prepare against, and have catastropic results. It's functionally the game just dropping the hammer on you at random, with nothing to be said or done about it.  That isn't really challenging, dramatic, or just very interesting in my opinion.. it's mostly just cheap and losses due to those events don't feel legitimate. It feels like being cheated.

The idea of merging was to remove of those elements. In what I've attempted to design, the event is semi-random (you'll know it's coming, but not quite exactly), you can prepare for it through innovative design of your power grid, and the scale of the damage is almost wholly in the hands of the player. The threat is still present, but player agency hasn't been removed.

I should stress that my solutions aren't the only solutions to resolving such an issue. The idea behind my proposal was to expand upon the research skill, add a bit of depth/uniqueness to each world, and resolve the flare/battery issue in a way that doesn't involve substantial changes in coding or assets. Ideally, this would be easy to implement for someone way better than I am at coding.

[BetaSpectre]

I like the idea of research having a secondary function, but I don't think solar flares need to go. That would basically make a properly managed powergrid untouchable.

Why should skill be useless?

[SSS]

I think this is a great idea. That it gives research a long-term function is just icing on the cake.

+1

[Mathenaut]

Why should skill be useless?

Exactly!

Having a well designed grid doesn't make you invincible, but it does reward you with an easier time dealing with the event. Just like a well-designed defense doesn't make you immune to raids, it just rewards you with an easier time dealing with them.

I think that's something that alot of suggestions made are missing. Not just arbitrarily punishing players, but rewarding players for being better at, or innovative with things that they are already doing. That is what's rewarding, I think.