Cloaked Wormholes?

[Deathstalker]

Don't remember if this has ever been asked (probably, just another sign of impending old age I guess. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif ).

But seriously, can you add the cloaking ability to wormholes? That way you could have parts of the Galaxy that is unexplorable till late in the game when the right tech is discovered. And if you can't then is it possible to replace certain pictures (or add) of wormholes and add different pictures (say storms with misleading text phrases like damage effects) that are really wormholes? (ie, disguised portals?).

Or am I (again) just babbling? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[tesco samoa]

NO go on the cloaked wormholes... And it has been asked

[Suicide Junkie]

Some other things you could try are:
1) Sector damage ability. Not only discourages exploration, but will require players to research hullsizes and/or armor before they can explore very far.
2) Make many Warppoint lookalikes.
Changing the image of the wormhole to make it look like a storm could work until the player tries to warp through http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
3) Dummy warppoints If there are 25 storms in a system, and only 3 of them are actually warppoints, it will take players longer to figure out which is which.

[Phoenix-D]

"3) Dummy warppoints If there are 25 storms in a system, and only 3 of them are actually warppoints, it will take players longer to figure out which is which."

Quick solution: "Explore" button. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Phoenix-D

[capnq]

Another way to find them would be the two Empire Options that display the warp lines and the names of the systems the warp points lead to.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by capnq:
Another way to find them would be the two Empire Options that display the warp lines and the names of the systems the warp points lead to.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That works after you have already gone through the WP. It doesn't work before you have gone through a WP, cause it doesn't display the name of the target system. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Andrés]

But you can see the beggiing of the warp line before exploring.

[Taz-in-Space]

SJ, How do you change the IMAGE of the Warp Points? When I create a map via the mapmaker I only get to choose between the different Warp Point Images.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Andr&eacutes Lescano:
But you can see the beggiing of the warp line before exploring.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But, you cannot see where the WP is in the system. That was my point. You know that there is a WP, but you don't know what sector it is in.

[Taera]

taz: you need to create a new WP in the data files and then insert it at the map editor.

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, my definition of "making it look like something else" would include making the descriptions identical.
In order to be a decoy, there should be no way for the player to determine whether the WP is real or not without sending a ship into the sector...

[ November 18, 2002, 16:10: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Gryphin]

Ooops,
Should have posted that more as a question, then again, you would not have posted it if it could not be done.

Hmm, Images to use for warp points:
Planets
Astoroids
Normal Looking Sectors

It would make finding them a little harder if "Warp Points any where in system was turned on"

Now I understand what Phoinex ment: To find a hidden warp point give a ship in that system the Explore order. Drats, that makes it too easy.
I guess one would have to deliberatly "tie their hands behind their back" to play in such a galaxy.

[Suicide Junkie]

Another option would be to use the map editor.
Then you can add 4 times more warppoints to each system, and have the new ones all dump ships (one way) into black hole systems.

It really would be a warppoint, so ships would try to explore it.

The problem with that is once one ship has been lost to the hole, you will know where all the other doom WPs go...
Perhaps make a whole bunch of doom systems for your fake warppoints to go to.

[Gryphin]

Boy I wish the Map Editor was Drag and Drop / Copy and Paste. Think how easy it would be to create maps only a masochist would play.

[capnq]

You can "drag" objects in the Map Editor by editing their coordinates; this works both for objects on the System Map and systems on the Galaxy Map.

[Gryphin]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Some other things you could try are:
1) Sector damage ability. Not only discourages exploration, but will require players to research hullsizes and/or armor before they can explore very far.
2) Make many Warppoint lookalikes.
Changing the image of the wormhole to make it look like a storm could work until the player tries to warp through http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
3) Dummy warppoints If there are 25 storms in a system, and only 3 of them are actually warppoints, it will take players longer to figure out which is which.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">#1 That works and combine it with lots of Hostle Systems that move and crunch ships it would take a well armored ship with full tank of gas and high speed to make it through. Mabye a early push toward stellar manip but that would be a serious gamble.

#'s 2 and 3, If you created Look a likes you would have to change the decription or they would be discoverd by clicking on each sector.
Dummys would be discovered the same way.
(or am I missing someting)

[henk brouwer]

You could have the same effect by having not all the warppoints connect, it should make parts of the galaxy unreachable for early colonisation/exploration.

Is it possible to add the system anti stellar manipulation ability (that's not the correct name) to a planet or star? That way you could set restrictions on which stars should be reachable by opening warppoints to prevent destruction of the map and total chaos. (happened to me in several games against devnullmod spacemonsters)

[Desdinova]

I noticed under events that one of them is Warp Point Closed. is there any way to add this ability to warp points so they only stay open temporarily. even to the ones created by the Gravitational Quantum Resonator.

[jimbob]

Oh! I wish!

[Kamog]

That's one of the things on the wish list of things that we want in the next patch...

[Desdinova]

is there a way to setup the events so that they happen every turn and that wormhole-closed is the most likely one to happen. like making it a low severity item and raising the severity of all others one notch. that way a random wormhole will be closed each turn or so.

[Fyron]

Add a lot of duplicate wormhole closing entries too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Desdinova]

do any of the races make good use of the Gravitational Quantum Resonator? reason for this is if the wormholes start closing will any of the races open new ones? if i add the ability to create wormholes to the drives will it be used?