Another vote for nebulae

Throwing my hat in the ring... Stardock has introduced tons of great additions for Dark Avatar (without upping the price? Are they MAD?), and lots of people have suggested what they'd like to see. I gotta say, I like the idea for nebulae that someone had. Space terrain that would lower sensor range (hidden ships!) and possibly speed as well. The asteroids will be an interesting barrier on the map, but I think pretty blue or pink clouds of dust that could hide an invasion fleet would be super fun!

Indeed, more variaty, and certainly some barriers (maybe some that are constructed ) would be fun. Not a real high priority for me, though.

Indeed, more variaty, and certainly some barriers (maybe some that are constructed ) would be fun. Not a real high priority for me, though.

how can you construct a barrier in space!?!?!?! sorry, that just doesnt make much sense to me as space is masive... and if you built a fence, wouldnt it just make more sense for the invaiders to just go over and under it... although the game isnt, space is 3d.

Fate,

I could see a scientifically created nebulae or something, with sufficiently advanced science, being a player-made obstacle. It wouldn't really be a fence per se, but just a region that is blocked off... of course this would have to be cost-prohibitive to avoid being cheese, but at the same time one can't really imagine it being useful as such... so perhaps it can randomly happen like, for instance, a constructor has a 0.001% chance to have some sort of accident that causes a nebulae or something?

Granted not a perfect idea, and a bit of a ramble as my mind thought things through, but bottom line is I like the idea and I think it has a lot of possibilities.

The barrier couldn't in real life terms be a physical object, it would proabably have to be a field of some sort or a bending of space in some way to make it impassable. It would be along the same lines as the starbases lowing enemy speed, except stopping it. Of course there would have to be some way around it, possibily attacking it or 'terraforming' it.

I think I know what you mean by nebulae, basically some big cosmic cloud that hides ships, and possibly can be recreated on a smaller scale through research, and planets can have one that hides them from other nations, basically the planet would be invisible, except to those who know were it is. something like that. sounds cool. and the nebulae can have pros and cons. such as it hides your ships, but lowers their attack (there could be an explanation for this such as ships cant see/ sense properly and miss alot.) and as another different idea, i think it would be cool to have a tractor beam of some kind for starbases, where a ship that passes by that starbase gets sucked toward it. but only if you are at war with that nation or something.

Sounds Like the nebulae from Star Trek Armada are kinda what your shooting for. They disable sensors and keep you hidden from enemy sensor range. I just don't see it as something the AI could use with any effectiveness, as the human players would be launching sneak attacks, the AI has just with the last couple of updates, starting preparing for war properly.

I think the best way to add nebulas would be just to slow down ships when traveling through them. I don't think any other way of adding them would work right with the AI.

black holes they slow ships down out to oh say a full parsect the closer you get the slower you go may have planets in orbit around them you know at event horizone

I think this is a great idea. I remember playing Star Trek Armada I and II with all the differenet types of nebulaes in each having its different effect which helped or burdened you. If they have Nebulaes have different types. Also have some that you can harvest for resources ie Homeworld. So you can build a station to collect a profit of them. Also I know your adding asteroids but if you add nebulaes too you can add a new tech tree/ a few tech researchs to improving space mining or just add it to the starbase tech we already got.

I have been wishing for all this too. It would be great to have nebula that block sensors so you cannot see what is on the other side (like hills) or that slow travel (like hills) or decrease specific weapons (beams useless in electric storms, or missiles becoming too slow to be useful in gravitational fields)

Just read up on some popular 'this-is-how-the-universe-works' publications to get some inspiration (like Stephen Hawkins' books).

Terrain like this would be great. But more difficult for the AI to deal with, that's for sure.

Yeah, I guess it would be unfair to the AI, or it would be difficult to make them use properly, but perhaps you can have them for harder levels, or for multi-player if thats ever added. or they could be optional. I got another idea where everyones home system is inside a seperate nebulae, and you cant know where someones home system is without looking all over the map, it would be some kind of scenario, but would be pointless on a smaller map, also a nebulae could be a ring around your homeworld instead, so the enemy can launch attacks, and you can launch attacks by surprise. I dunno...

The problem with Nebulae, IMO, as has been said before, is that such things are unfair to the AI. Programming the AI is difficult enough as it is (and Stardock gets a thumbs up for doing it so well) but getting it to react and intelligently use nebulae sounds like a monumental challenge to me.

Although, we'll have to see with Dark Avatar just how asteroid fields work.