I came up with a new idea for an add-on and I was wondering if anyone thought it is a good idea.
The add-on starts right after ISS is finished, and you help colonize Mars, then test a Hyper Drive. After you colonize a few more worlds you meet the aliens and all hell breaks loose. The aliens attack without warning and only the strongest worlds hold it off until you help test a prototype frigate and then the Terran Federation turns into the Terran Galactic Federation.

Features:
New Galaxy
New Ships
New Explosions
New Planets
New Stations
and of course
New Missions

Don't look at this post, look at last post by me.

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/evweb/")EVWeb(/url)|(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/")EVula.org(/url)

(This message has been edited by EVWeb (edited 04-04-2003).)

Don't worry, I'll finish Lethe/Cydonian Wars first, plus I have to wait for Bryce 5 to come in anyway.

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/evweb/")EVWeb(/url)|(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/")EVula.org(/url)

You could have just edited your original post rather than posting again.

Anyway, your idea sounds interesting if not a little overwhelming. The problem I see is that the time scale that would be required to realistically play this sort of senario would take ages. Otherwise it would just seem weird to go from one colonized planet to the next without oodles of time passing. Might get a little exhausting. I think focusing on a specific area would be much more feasable. In EVN your help terraform Nirvana but that's one planet and it takes a significant amount of time.

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I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.
(url="http://"http://www.0three0.net/evn/RONIN.sit")RONIN(/url) - A new breed of Bounty Hunter

There are ways to make it look like it took place over a long timeline, for example in a mission say that you are the original players son/grandson, whatever and named for him/her. You've inherited his fortune and want to continue your ancestors work, etc. You could add another 20-50 years through time delays, and it might work out all right...maybe. That's kind of a sketch of an idea, maybe someone else will use it, who knows

MickyBIs

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Who is John Galt?
"I've never heard maniacal laughter from a robot before. It's good to have brought something new and wonderful into the world"-(url="http://"http://freefall.purrsia.com/")Freefall(/url)

Damn you EVWeb.

I am currently working on a colonization era plug, but had not wanted to announce it yet except to those who I was recruiting for graphics etc. I will not name my graphics guy, or release any details about the story, except that I dealt with the time scale issue in a few ways:

1. Muliple chars that each play roles with colonizing different worlds. In each one, crons/bits make the worlds that you would be actively colonizing get colonized at the appropriate time. This makes it look like the other chars are in the game, if you play through with each one. I thought it was cool.

2. "The Great Expansion" idea. Basically the world is an over-populated hellhole, so everyone wants off. This means lots of cheap labor for colony set up.

3. Something I won't reveal.

4. And finally, I took a cue from mcb and went with the "It's just a game" philosophy. It doesn't have to make perfect sense, so shut up and play.

I am very busy right now, and getting busier, so work is progressing slowly. It is progressing though. Unfortunately, around mid-May I am leaving for a few months of world travel, and work will halt until August. So just relax. It will get released, but holding your breath would not be healthy.

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"Damn, everybody wants something up their ass today! Yeah, I'm cool like that." - forge

Question: Is there some basic assumtion of a single galactic govenment or something? That is what is sounds like.

Except perhap every world is its own "City State" Sort of like Larry Niven's Universe where with worlds like We Made It and Home.

Nova and Polycon are based on an idea of 3 or 4 major governments. If you make one large goverenment with each planet being its own "State", I think you will run into a lot of problems.

Also, if you have a "great expansion" type of game, you will be limiting people to a small variety of ships that they can get ahold of.

Having 3 or 4 goverenments with their own technologies makes things interesting and a single ship could be outfitted many more ways than a ship that has access to only certain "universal" technologies that the current goverenment has to offer.

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Ivanova: "I can only conclude that I am paying off karma at a vastly accelerated rate."

Quote

Originally posted by Vast Deathmaster:
**Question: Is there some basic assumtion of a single galactic govenment or something? That is what is sounds like.

Except perhap every world is its own "City State" Sort of like Larry Niven's Universe where with worlds like We Made It and Home.

Nova and Polycon are based on an idea of 3 or 4 major governments. If you make one large goverenment with each planet being its own "State", I think you will run into a lot of problems.

Also, if you have a "great expansion" type of game, you will be limiting people to a small variety of ships that they can get ahold of.

Having 3 or 4 goverenments with their own technologies makes things interesting and a single ship could be outfitted many more ways than a ship that has access to only certain "universal" technologies that the current goverenment has to offer.

**

Meh, I have always been horrible at keeping my own secrets, yet great at keeping other people's.

Governments. Sort of like how the Auroran Empire controls a few systems, but most are controlled by the seperate houses. A few of the richer Earth governments can afford to colonize worlds alone, and some of the others band together to get in on the action. The over-all government is like the UN, and about as effective.

There will be a decent amount of ship variety (still working this out) based on the fact that many places in Sol are colonized pre-hyperdrive, and the hyperdrive device is modular, allowing it to be fitted to all of the old models. On top of that, same technology does not mean identical craft, look at American vs Russian military for instance. Toss on the fact that Europe makes some of its own military craft nowadats, and Israel uses US fighters but makes their own tanks...You can get some good variety.

Outfits are closer to universal, but there should be a good variety, and some things will only appear at certain times, etc...don't worry about it

Feel free to ask questions as it may help me find issues that have not occured to me before.

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"Damn, everybody wants something up their ass today! Yeah, I'm cool like that." - forge

A few answers to some people's questions:
It will be NASA funding most of this with some help from other nations.
After a mission I send you foreward in time.
The first set of Aliens you can't join, but others you can, to help destroy the Terrans.
Oh, and I forgot the Title: Terran Crisis

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/evweb/")EVWeb(/url)|(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/")EVula.org(/url)

I like it except for one thing, the 'aliens attacking without warning' idea is overused. Now, I realize that just about every idea in SciFi is overused, but just try and give it some unique twist. Make the aliens more than just attacking savages. Give them a history, a society, a reason for attacking. Now, you don't actually have to explain all that stuff about them in the plug, but just by knowing it yourself while making it, the plug will come out looking and feeling more professional and thought out.

--Ernimtir

He he, just realized I subconsciously stole pretty much that whole post from Bomb's plugin guide.

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I like long walks, especially those taken by people who annoy me.

yeah, as long as we're all disclosing our secrets, when i was going to make a plug like this i had the aliens be a society that arose from an alliance between a group of human pirates and the survivors of the kl'naar (some aliens who are invaded and chased out of known space by the dominant human factions). basically, humans wanted to colonize their space, so a war broke out. much later (a few plugs down the road), the new hybrid alien society comes back to take back their old territory, and to exterminate the humans b/c the humans would probably invade again if they didn't. by the same token, humans attacked w/o any good reason in the first plug (just more territory), so it's not that unfathomable that some alien species could do the same thing.
alternatively, it's always entertaining if the huge war results from a misunderstanding. there was an episode of the outer limits in which aliens came to offer an alliance, but their communication lasers were powerful enough that they destroyed several satellites before they were able to step it down far enough that their communication got through. by the time their message of friendship was discovered and decoded, though, the president of the us ordered the launch of several nukes at the orbiting ships, which triggered them to destroy the earth

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you want to know if i'm moral enough to join the army, burn women, kids, houses, and villages, after being a litterbug?

Quote

Originally posted by Russell Quintero:
**(snip)
There will be a decent amount of ship variety (still working this out) based on the fact that many places in Sol are colonized pre-hyperdrive, and the hyperdrive device is modular, allowing it to be fitted to all of the old models. On top of that, same technology does not mean identical craft, look at American vs Russian military for instance. Toss on the fact that Europe makes some of its own military craft nowadats, and Israel uses US fighters but makes their own tanks...You can get some good variety.

**

Hotrods, you can build hotrods!

Now, if I can add flames or neon lights underneath, I'll be set.

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Ivanova: "I can only conclude that I am paying off karma at a vastly accelerated rate."

Quote

Originally posted by Vast Deathmaster:
**Hotrods, you can build hotrods!

Now, if I can add flames or neon lights underneath, I'll be set.
**

That's not entirely impossible... You could use the bits in nova to make it so your ship has entirely new looks... Like with the valkyrie upgrades...

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I am ME hear me roar!
Meeoowwwww

Quote

Originally posted by Meaker VI:
**That's not entirely impossible... You could use the bits in nova to make it so your ship has entirely new looks... Like with the valkyrie upgrades...

**

Jeez, you took all the fun out of it. But most ships aren't big enough to actually show the flames or the neeon lights.

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Ivanova: "I can only conclude that I am paying off karma at a vastly accelerated rate."

The Aliens have been bullied by the Alien Dominion which is currently at war with the Galactic Rebellion, and so they wish to bully some weak race, namely the Terrans. The Alien Dominion was started by a race of Peaceful Aliens, but it grew corrupt through other races, and it became an Empire. It started to enslave all races. The Galactic Rebellion is a band of races that are fighting the Empire for their freedom. They make up of whats left of the old Alien Dominion. Aliens were an enslaved race but the Dominion let them loose enorder to let them bully other races so the Alien Dominion would look good.

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/evweb/")EVWeb(/url)|(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/")EVula.org(/url)

Well, I am thankful that my plug and EVWeb's have NOTHING in common.

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"Damn, everybody wants something up their ass today! Yeah, I'm cool like that." - forge

Quote

Originally posted by Russell Quintero:
**Well, I am thankful that my plug and EVWeb's have NOTHING in common.:)

**

Why? Im confused.

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I am eager to try to ansver mission questions

Quote

Originally posted by General Cade Smart:
**Why? Im confused.

**

A couple of reasons:

1. I would hate to put so much work into a TC and then have someone else release the same idea right before me.

2. This ties in to 1), I don't have a lot of time between all of my other obligations, and therefore mine will likely come out second. This is part of why I didn't want to announce it.

3. And mine has fresher ideas that haven't been done nine million times, and therefore will look better in comparison.

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"Damn, everybody wants something up their ass today! Yeah, I'm cool like that." - forge

I never said I would make this, I might make one that goes over the Colonial Councel. I just wanted to know what people thought.

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/evweb/")EVWeb(/url)|(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/")EVula.org(/url)

I got a better idea! In this new one, the Terrans had been a galactic power for a while, but somehow have been forgotten, and they've turned into Pirates, but soon that will all change.

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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/evweb/")EVWeb(/url)|(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/")EVula.org(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Vast Deathmaster:
**Jeez, you took all the fun out of it. But most ships aren't big enough to actually show the flames or the neeon lights.

**

Wanna bet? Find somebody who's decent with graphics, and you can do just about anything.

This is similar to the way The Ages Trilogy was going. The thing was so stinkin' big that we had to split it up into three seperate plugs. The first deals with roughly the same time period y'all are talking about here, but just a little bit later. We played around with the idea of the player starting out at the invention of the hyperdrive, but that didn't work too well -- not enough stuff to do. And Russel's right: each individual nationstate would have its own variations. Like a Rebel Viper, which is different from a Pirate Viper, which is different from a Fed Viper, which is different from a Civvie Viper, which is different from a Firebird, which is different from a Manta, which is different from a Dart. You get the idea. So a Terrapin from We Made It is not the same a Terrapin from Home, and neither of those is the same as a Terrapin from Earth. But if either of you want some input from QT or myself, just let us know, and we'll be glad to help you out. And let me tell you, between us, we came up with some particularly cool stuff for that plug... Black holes... Training missions... Ender's Battleroom (that's right, we figured out how to do that -- I tested out the idea myself, and it was awesome)... Flareriders from HGTTG (we figured out how to make solar flares, and how to make the ships react correctly to them)... Ships that acted more realistically than ever before, with independently firing turrets (Point-Defense, baby)... And enough missions (with plenty of split-offs, of course) and governments to keep the most diligent geek playing for quite a while.

Ah, yes. That was going to be a great plugin. But if anybody wants to take it over...

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Suddenly, the little scoutship disappeared and then reappeared right behind the alien warfleet. The gravitic ship's captain hailed the armada. "You are going to be destroyed, but I will give you a choice as to how you want to spend eternity: big pieces, little pieces, or quarks?"
Dead silence.
"Quarks it is, then."