Ancient Ruins

[Sabre21]

Does anyone know if there is a cap to the number of ancient ruins you may get technology from? I am not sure how many I found in my latest game, but i have reached a point where I no longer receive any technology benefits although I can still discover the ruins...at least I can prevent anyone else from getting anything Oh and before you ask...no I haven't even come close to discovering all the technologies yet.

If there is a limit, does anyone know if there is a way to edit the cap. I have looked through the folders and can't seem to find anything.

[James Sterrett]

This is mostly a guess:

There are 4 technologies you can gain only from ancient ruins:

Neural Computer Interface: Neural Combat Net

Massive Planetary Shielding: Massive Planetary Shield Generator

Massive Shield Depleting Weapons: Massive Shield Depleter

Massive Engine Destroying Weapons: Massive Ionic Disperser


I'd guess that if you have all 4 of these, then more ruins do nothing for you. A further guess is that your chance of getting a given ancient tech is based on the number of ruin techs you already have, perhaps expressed as:

1/[(number of ruin techs)+1]

Thus the first ruin always gives a tech, the second has a 50% chance. When you have 3 techs, you have a 20% chance per ruin of getting the fourth. *IF* the guess on how it might work is correct.

If you've gotten Neural Network, I'd love to know how it works & what it does. 8)



[This message has been edited by James Sterrett (edited 20 November 2000).]

[rdouglass]

I've gotten ruins later in the game and they've advanced one or more of the research projects I'm currently working on. Early on though, I get the techs previously mentioned. I don't know how that plays into your formula. I do know that I don't get advances (in tech) every time, however I haven't kept track of the ratios.

As a side note: I believe that ruins are the only way to get the techs listed previously in this thread - I don't think they are researchable. Someone correct me please if I'm wrong...

[SirDarwin]

You can also get normal technology from ruins, but that seems to happen a lot less often (I got the tech for Battle Stations on my second turn once

As for Neural Combat Net, if you put it on a ship, when that ship goes into combat, it'll have the same expierince level as the ship with the highest exp. (I don't know if the ship with the highest tech needs it as well...)

[LintMan]

I looked around in the planet settings files a while back, and it seems like there are several types of planet ruins. You can differentiate them a bit by looking at the little description of the ruins

As I remember it, some ruins are more likely to (or always?) give the ancient techs (ie: massive planet shields), while other ruins (only?) give normal techs.

In my current game, I've found all four ancient techs, and some ruins I colonize now don't give me anything. Some other ruins do give me normal tech, and it's always just 1 step up from what I had before in that Category (ie: no jumps ahead)

[General Hawkwing]

LintMan hits it pretty much square on the mark. I would like to note that it is possible to gain more than one "normal" tech level from a ruin.
Once gained Rec 2, AP beam 2 and Orgainc Ext 2 from one planetary ruin.

[Arralen]

There are some "ruins" that say "sensors indicate that advanced technolog is present" or something like that .. that are those you'll get the "massive tech" from .. the "long since forgotten" once give "only" normal tech advances .. 1 or more levels in 1 or more fields.

At least that's what I've found out in the demo - playing and browsing through the datafiles

Arralen

[Lupusman]

You know you can go into the StellarAbilityType.txt file and change the percentages to get ruins more often. Boost them up to 100% so that every planet has one, then you can see exactly what gives what.