spikerocks101
Trains: I would think the fastest way to travel in more permanent collonies would be by track over bumby road. What you have is a rail way going form your colonie to other colonies for fast resourse, troop or even population transfer. This allows for more spread empires to still be able to help each other in times of need. You can also use the train to get resourses from your mines to you smelters, and able to have mines far away, with out the need of hundreds and thousands of Cargo Trucks, but just 1 long train that can carry 10,000 resourses a run. You can customize the cars, from resourse (carries 1000 per run), to passanger (carries 500 resourses and 50 people), vechile (can carry 2 light or 1 heavy vehicle) and military (has a turret and can carry 1 light vechile, if lynx, adds second turret). The track would have to have a slow bend rate (like the one in sim city) and a terminal on each end (or a mine terminal). this wouldnt get rid of cargo trucks, since it would be fast in short distances to use them (like power housing a mine with 3 smelters).
I like the idea of trains; however I think some of the aspects of your idea seem horribly overpowered. But it’s a wonderful idea. I like the idea of having stations, and having to build tracks. For example, having a mine all set up that is running cargo trucks, then using some sort of upgrade (Be it a feature of the mine that you use a button to add, or a expansion kit like I posted in my first post) that allows for a loading station. And then you build a station a similar way to your smelter. As for the tracks, simply use your earthworker to lay out the track, or perhaps it has a special bot that is one time use and lays out the tracks between point A and B. Also, creating junctions and secondary stations to hall around other supplies would be neat. This idea reminds me a lot of the truck system from OP1.
As for the modular train, I’m not sure how well that would work. I like the idea, but I don’t see much practicality on it since vehicles travel at a decent enough speed, and maps usually aren’t big enough to need a high speed transport. But as for ore, I do think this is a good upgrade to cargo trucks.
Buildings I think would prosper from having train depots: Mines, Smelters, Storage Facilities, and Gorfs. Also, the addition of Train Depots.
Embassy: This is one of 3 buildings required for complete trade. What it does is opens talk between other colonies, most used for talks between Eden and Plymouth. It allows you to set moods with other countries, like Trade, Peace, Blockade, and War, and gives diferent options for each choise, like with Trade, allow free trade, request trade, or shared resourses, and War, force allies into war, cease fire, no bombs (raise morale) and so on. This is not required to trade with a person, but helps manage how the trade is done.
This would add a lot of dynamics to the game that don’t exist. The ability to establish a diplomatic relation with the other colony would be quite nice. Either declare war, or order a cease fire, or ask for supplies even giving gifts. It would be a lot nicer than waiting for the next attack as you gather up your limited resources and try to play a trapeze artist to keep your colony afloat on harder mission. However, I think this would be a completely useless feature in multi-player, for the most part. Unless you can think of some way to make it worth the time.
Court: Well, it allows different options for things. Mostly, it sets how much food each person gets, the min~max amount of people per home. The current leader and more. With out one, you would have to do stupuid things like disable you nurcary and stuff.
I don’t think court is the word you were looking for, perhaps Colony Center, or a Commerce Office. Since you don’t really have much control over the lives of your colonists, nor do they really appear in gameplay as more than a resource, I’m not sure how much this would affect gameplay. Perhaps it can be an early building to help manage food and moral a bit more efficiently, and work like a robot command center in a way for your colonists.
Communications Office: This has more to do with the AI (if OP2 had one) then anything else. Mainly, it allows you to have sub colonies of your to be controled by the computer (like a residentail colony far away, that supplies you with working class people). It can make it so each colony has its own stats, but is not required (if you do not make colonies, or want to multi manage, ect.).
I like the idea of having your more remote locations have limited AI features. For example, you need some ore so you throw a repair vehicle, some cargo trucks, Mine, CC, and a Smelter into the open and set up a Com. Office, which would cost a pretty penny, possibly being run by a Savant. It could do very minimal functions like: Repair damaged structures and vehicles, replace vehicles, etc…
So yeah, these are my ideas.
And good ones at that, there is definitely a lot of stuff coming up that is really getting my gears turning.
Hidiot:
New Terra obviously has gravity, though I don't know just how strong the gravitational pull is, not having a radius and a mass of the planet for a very rough estimate and a thin atmosphere. Now, this combination is hardly ideal for flying, since most (if not all) propulsion systems capable of overcoming the gravitational pull of planets similar to Earth in gravitational acceleration make use of air, or lots of energy being used up (resulting in large amounts of fuel used).
Judging from the image on the opening screen, and using rough guesses based on hardly anything solid, I’d have to say that New Terra isn’t necessarily a large planet, but it’s large enough to have fairly normal gravity. However, if to reference the novella, they talk about the scout bouncing around across the surface of the planet, which may just be talking about it’s suspensions being quite springy, or the fact that there is slightly less gravity than earth. However on that same note, most colonists (With exception from Elders) wouldn’t have anything else to compare it too.
And since they manage to get quite a fair bit of Sci-Fi technology, why not anti-gravity units? I know this is a sort of far fetched thing, but then again, so are a lot of the weapons. (Granted we do have the technology to make most of these weapons.) Perhaps the scientist isolate a strange phenomena on the planet that is a result of the blight ridden land that creates a geo-magnetic force causing rocks to levitate, and on several dangerous expeditions into blight infested territory they get enough data to create a Geo-Magnetic anti-Gravitational engine?
I would like some way to get around terrain obstacles, probably by blowing a hole in cliff walls. This would open up new bottleneck-breaking strategies and allow players to reach new locations on the map. Of course, you should also be able to fill in these holes. Imagine: somebody's army is moving through a recently cleared area, and you sneak in during the middle of the night to reseal the entrances!
I can just see the new disaster: Avalanche and Rockslide, make the safe haven of cliffs and mountains a bit more dangerous. I can see an extension to the Robo-Dozer that allows you to build ramps, or push debris over the side of cliffs. I know there have been countless times that I’ve wish I could build my colony up onto some rocky edges but couldn’t because there was no entrance or it was at a poor location.
I don't like the idea of a mine that releases an EMP shockwave since Plymouth already has missiles to do that, but what about a burst of Stickyfoam? Also, would you need Scouts to discover these mines, or would they always be visible? Would Eden have its own way to deploy minefields, or would they have some other kind of weapon instead?
I thought about that, it is a bit repetitive to have two EMP, well in that case Three EMP weapons for Plymouth, I was thinking mostly with use of the spiders. However, the stickyfaom burst is a really cool idea, something like a flytrap that gets units all bound up.
As for the scout vs mine topic, I think for the tick Idea, since they burrow completely underground would need a scout. But for the Centipede and so forth, they would have a section that sits above the ground.
Again, we have a case of Plymouth having three… so Plymouth having all of these mines undoubtedly creates a flux in balance, especially since they still have the ESG, which really makes a couple of my ideas kind of useless. Eden does need something similar, what about weapon that launches small nodes in it’s first attack, then fires a laser/some sort of energy weapon that connects through these nodes to create a network area attack?
Not sure if that really spelled out well, so here is a more thought out answer:
Jack Turret (Name based off the old game Jacks)
The Jack has two shots, the first releases Transfer Nodes (TNs) that scatter around a group of enemies, then the turret fires a second shot of a accelerated particle plasma (APP) that connects to one node, and scatters throughout the nodes nearby to create a web of attack that can hit any unit caught in the cross links between nodes.
*Damage-dealing missiles aren't a good idea, but an EMP Missile clone would just be lame. So what could we give Eden? Maybe something that jams incoming commands temporarily (computer virus?), causing vehicles to behave erratically...
I agree on the EMP missile clone being useless, and the obvious problem with damage dealing missiles is going to be their misuse. However, the Computer virus idea is really intriguing, and as far as I’m concerned screams Eden. Using wireless technology (Which they obviously have since Axen frequently contacts his Savant from remote corners) they can launch a Digital attack that, as you said, causes vehicles to behave erratically. Like, attack each other?
Again, later thoughts on details about this idea:
Eden Frenzy Missile
Launches a static burst that temporarily disables the boptronic components of vehicles, much like the blight permanently does. It causes vehicles to divert from their program tasks and loose control.
Effetcs: Non-Combat Vehicals:
Convecs, Cargotrucks, Earthworkers – Begin to move around erratically.
( I can see this being quite hilarious, watching as your opponents cargo trucks begin to drive off away from their colonies until the effect wares off)
Dozers – Begin to doze random tiles
Combat Units – Begin to attack other units in range, friendly or foe.
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Another idea, since Eden doesn’t have a mine of it’s own, would be a mine missile. That drops something similar to the ESG and scatters a large minefield. Probably temporary mines as well.
warwalker:
Well, Plymouth does have quite an arsenal of weapons so to me, its quite fair even though Thor's Hammers are really powerful in large numbers.
But what can beat lightning. Seriously. Unless, you had a large lightning rod to counter with, your screwed.
Yeah, this is a challenge, and naturally I think I tend to lean towards another disaster, but it would be hard to create something that starts a vortex, or something similar. What about a magma gun or Napalm?
I can just picture it launching foam or gel onto the enemy that ignites and causes steady damage until the gel/foam is burnt up. I don’t think there would be a flame because of the limited atmosphere, so it would have to be a substance that grows heated by a chemical reaction.
What about a 3-round burst weapon? Like it would shoot 2 rail shots and then an explosive shot.
Kinda like a tick tick boom sort of thing. make it deal the same damage as the Thor's Hammer maybe or slightly more
So, like an upgraded tiger turret?
That also gives me the idea of an explosive arrowhead or dart. An armor piercing round that penetrates the hull of the enemy enough to stay lodged, and then explodes. It could fire in a spread shot to hit multiple targets.
Hooman:
I imagine flying, or hovercrafts, could be a bit awkward in a thin atmosphere. Wings probably wouldn't be as effective, and rockets are somewhat expensive to operate. You need rockets for things like getting into orbit (SULV, RLV, etc.), but I doubt it'd be economical for getting around across the planet, where there are other cheaper alternatives. (In terms of manpower and resources needed to build and continually operate these things).
Yeah, all definite downsides, the only answer against most of these problems would be some sort of new technology like anti-gravity or some sort of magnetic propulsion system.
As for the convecs carrying extra kits, I had considered the kits are perhaps a bit big. But then, that already seems to be an issue with the size of the convec in relation to the buildings. Another alternative could be perhaps a big kit cargo carrier that can't build or deploy the kits, but would allow a convec to dock with it to transfer kits. Of course, what would you do with such a vehicle after it's empty? It seems a bit silly to keep a big vehicle around in case you want to build expansions. Perhaps puts some kits in cargo trucks instead of convecs.
The large cargo-carrier does seem a bit useless, but perhaps a rather expensive unit that has a limited factory capability? Like a juggernaught vehicle that has to be built with a structure kit and can make and store up to three structure kits within it, but at a reduced speed to a factory?
What might be interesting is communication towers that would reduce the need for long distance tubing. Mount a radar dish on a GP base, and aim it at another one. It'd be much cheaper than buildings tubes the whole way, but it might also have some downsides. Perhaps reliability could be a small issue, or the other colony could build jammers. It could also be an interesting way of maintaining two remote colonies, where you only have the resources to run one at a time. Have the radar dish at the main colony rotate towards the one it needs to control, disabling the other link in the process (or require a second dish in the main colony). It might also have some power or structure control limit. Transfering workers is an obvious practical problem, but not something currently modelled in Outpost 2 right now anyways.
Colonist have their ways of getting around it seems, in the novella they can drive the vehicles and ride scooters outside, so perhaps that is what they do? (That is, if you really are a stickler for the nitty-gritty details, which in a way I sort of am)
As for the communication towers, I can see this being quite handy. Perhaps an upgraded CC that is capable of connecting to this wireless transmitter. You could create nodes that create a sort of wireless rout to connect the different colonies. This would also make organizing your colony a bit more fun, and probably look neat. As for the jammers, you could just break one of the links along the chain that would destroy it, and then they would have to rebuild the link.
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As for some more ideas here are some other things I thought of:
Flair Turret: Launches a flair countermeasure to draw the attention of attacking units to the flair, giving you a small opening to retreat or gain an upper hand in a battle.
Smoke Clouds: Release a thick cloud of smoke over enemy units to make your opponent temporarily blinded.
Armadillo: A roller unit, or single wheel weapon that can travel at high speeds to launch quick strike assaults.
As for another disaster, since the blight accelerated an atmosphere enough on New Terra to create cloud formations, then there must be some developing wind therefore dust storms which merely impair your vision for a short time.
And lastly, what about units that can fuse? Connect to make a new unit or be dependent on each other for some sort of attack?
Edit: Apparently my quote function reached it's quota. 
Edit: I’ve gone through the whole thing, thanks Spikerocks for pointing out I had some typos in my code.
Edit Again: I think I finally got it working
