Pre-warp Techs

[dogscoff]

Try this:

Take normal engines away from pre-warp races. Limit them to a modified emergency movement component. Call it a "system drive" or something. Make it 50kt and very expensive with (for example) movement 4.

Now use the map editor to make sure that all the planets in the start system are more than 4 squares away from the warp points. (In fact this is also possible without the map editor)

Finally make sure that the pre-warp races can't build spaceyard / repair components on ships until they develop warp technology.

The emergency movement component is limited to one per ship and is destroyed after use. This means pre-warp races will be unable to build a ship with a range of more than 4 squares. It will make travelling through their own system rather difficult, but a human player would manage by colonising a nearby planet, building a spaceyard on it and using that to "resupply" (ie repair) their system drives. However, because they can't build mobile spaceyards and all planets are 4 squares or more from the warp points, the player will be unable to leave their own system until they develop warp tech.

The only drawback is that once they have warp tech, your race will have premature access to a 4 movemnt point emergency movement component. The large size and high cost should make it less unbalancing though.

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?"

[capnq]

You can make warp points nearly invisible by using the smallest of the green warp point images. I've had games where I wouldn't have noticed a warp point was there if it hadn't had an outgoing line on the quadrant map.

A fair fraction of the asteroid images are nearly invisible, too, as well as a couple of the shipsets.

I forget what the Show Warp Lines toggle does in Empire Options; that may help, too.
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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[This message has been edited by capnq (edited 15 August 2001).]

[out_law]

Here an idea, why not start a game with no warp at all, so idealy every one is non-warp races, later as you get more tech way not add ship which has the abilty to make warp points, I'm talking about in adding a new abilty to vehicles in vehicles.txt file i.e. :
Number of Abilities := 2
Ability 1 Type := Combat To Hit Defense Minus
Ability 1 Descr := Large size makes base 40% easier to hit in combat.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 40
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Ability 2 Type := Open Warp Point Distance
Ability 2 Descr := Opens a wrap to a anthor systemt.
Ability 2 Val 1 := 10
Ability 2 Val 2 := 0

The only problem is the ship can carry on making warp it not like a warp opener comp. It's a shame that warp will always be open and will not close on it's own, any way just an idea.

[klausD]

Another method would be to set escort ship developement to construction lvl 2 (leaving level one empty) and let your prewarp empires develope construction level one in an very late stage of the game.

Klaus D

[dmm]

Hey, here's an idea:

Make the first few engine techs big Versions of the standard starting engine techs. For example, level 1 would be 6x as big as regular engines, so that only one will fit on an escort. Then level 2 would be 3x, and level 3 would be 2x. (You could also proportionately increase the supplies used.)

At the same time, make the warp points "only at the edges" of systems.

The net effect is that warp points are accessible, but really hard to make use of, until some engine research has been done. Neutrals could then be set up to delay this engine research, or never do it at all.

BTW, I noticed a comment that pre-warps and/or neutrals wouldn't have mines/sats/bases at warp points. Well, not necessarily. They might know that other races are out there, and they might be able to detect warp points (just not willing or able to exploit them). A xenophobic race might very well put mines and sats in every sector of its system! (And in a battle, they might go after minesweepers and PD ships preferentially.)