Player imposed restrictions (challenges)

[martinuzz (OP)]

Starting this thread to collect challenges.
I'll kick off with two challenges:


"No terraforming"
As the title says, no terraforming allowed. You will have to make do with whatever planets and moons you find, the way they are.


"Space Force One"
At any time, you will be required to have a ship composed of:
- 1 luxury passenger transport module, loaded with passengers
- a flag bridge, with task force officers present on it
- a small troop transport module, housing a company of marines
- a size 5 thermal sensor, of the best tech available
- a size 5 EM sensor, of the best tech available
- a size 5 active navigation sensor, resolution 100, of the best tech available
- at least 5 layers of armor
- the highest ECM available

additional requirements:
- the ship must be at least as fast as your fastest warship > 2500 tons
- the ship must have an Annual Failure Rate of 50% or lower

In practice, this means that every time you research better sensors/ECM, you will need to design and research new systems for your Space Force One, before anything else.
If you plan on upgrading your fleet's engines with new tech, you will have to make sure that either none of them (above 2500 tons) outpace Space Force One, or upgrade it first.
Also, it's requirement to have a task force staff aboard, means that you will either have to send it to accompany troops into other systems, in combat situations, or create more taskforces, if you want the taskforce bonus

[Aldaris]

Jump carriers:
Only ships capable of docking inside a jumpship are allowed to jump along with it. This would lead to flagships being far clearer targets and more important in combat.

[UnLimiTeD]

Realistic Oxygen distribution:
Whenever you find a planet with a remotely breathable atmosphere, roll 1d2, if it's 1, change it up to contain random toxic gases or no oxygen, if it's two, always station a company for every 100k colonists on the planet to protect them from hostile wildlife until you reach 10 millions.

Proper economy:
if the unemployment rises above 5%, simulate unrest.

[Vanigo]

if it's two, always station a company for every 100k colonists on the planet to protect them from hostile wildlife until you reach 10 millions.

That's some ridiculously hostile wildlife, if it seriously takes over four full divisions to subdue.

[Aldaris]

You have to take into account planets are enormous, and a hundred thousand people are a lot. They'll likely be spread out over a large amount of small colonies, each of which would have only the a small part of a company.

On the subject of economy, you might want to take into account the civvies employ people too. You might actually want to simulate unrest if the too many people are being employed, leaving too few to handle civillian production.

[Vanigo]

You have to take into account planets are enormous, and a hundred thousand people are a lot. They'll likely be spread out over a large amount of small colonies, each of which would have only the a small part of a company.

You have to take into account that apex predators are fairly scarce. It's ecologically inevitable. And you have to consider that your civilians are likely to be armed on a new colony world, even if there are no formal military units. And you have to consider that four divisions is more than enough to subdue an entire planet full of intelligent, organized, tool-using sophonts. How the heck are a bunch of animals supposed to be harder than that?

[UnLimiTeD]

Four Divisions is 64 Companies.
Consider than colonists will not walk around in Powered Armor, even the alien representation of a weasel, with a highly toxic bite, will be a danger to the entire populace if present in sufficient amounts.
The most numerous predators on our current planet are insects, not counting bacteria that the average ABC suit could protect from.
And if your that unable to imagine possible alien wildlife, just think of the alien films, with a half dozen unwatched parasites being quite able to spread and multiply to the millions if they find good targets, like a sudden stream of colonists.

Theoretically, the Planet could also have a permanent night side, which would result in extremely hostile weather, and the implications that has, or creatures that are virtually indistinguishable from the ground.

That kind of stuff should also create unrest you have to simulate if your about a challenge, in my recent game I had a robot battalion emerge and kill off 75000 colonists of 4 Million against 4 Engineer Brigades and two Heavy assault Battalions, and there was no unrest. I was kinda disappointed and used SM functions for that.

And the point about sentient opponents is that
A) They will eventually give up
B) They can't breed quickly, as intelligence requires a longer period of growth and learning.

So, for example, what if the Planet you want to colonize has a night side, is constantly dark and cloudy, with low amounts of toxic gases and thick fog in the lower atmosphere, and happens to be inhabited by molesized wasps that explode into acidic goo when killed and happen to be highly transparent in the given light conditions so you can only effectively see them at melee range.
They are not overly intelligent, they are no threat to armored soldiers, and they only attack weak points of no more than a few people.
They are able to penetrate metal by sacrificing themselves to corrode the surface, and the are millions, reproducing at a rate of roughly 2-5% per day.
You'd need to have 2-3 soldiers stationed every 100 Meters on inhabited ground, constantly, and slowly purge the ground, the easiest way to do so would be bioweapons.

Now before anyone thinks this is unrealistic: No it isn't, it's no less realistic than any other combination of possible traits, it could quite be possible to encounter intelligent fog of millions of small linked capsules, that is impervious to conventional weaponry because you really can't hit it, or the Fungus of Alpha Centauri (The Firaxis Game), and stone-like creatures that will just emerge from the ground etc.

Sure, the chance that they are actually hostile is not too high, but it is a possibility.
Roll a lot of dice.

[Hawkeye]

Four Divisions is 64 Companies.
Consider than colonists will not walk around in Powered Armor, even the alien representation of a weasel, with a highly toxic bite, will be a danger to the entire populace if present in sufficient amounts.
The most numerous predators on our current planet are insects, not counting bacteria that the average ABC suit could protect from.
And if your that unable to imagine possible alien wildlife, just think of the alien films, with a half dozen unwatched parasites being quite able to spread and multiply to the millions if they find good targets, like a sudden stream of colonists.

Theoretically, the Planet could also have a permanent night side, which would result in extremely hostile weather, and the implications that has, or creatures that are virtually indistinguishable from the ground.

That kind of stuff should also create unrest you have to simulate if your about a challenge, in my recent game I had a robot battalion emerge and kill off 75000 colonists of 4 Million against 4 Engineer Brigades and two Heavy assault Battalions, and there was no unrest. I was kinda disappointed and used SM functions for that.

And the point about sentient opponents is that
A) They will eventually give up
B) They can't breed quickly, as intelligence requires a longer period of growth and learning.

So, for example, what if the Planet you want to colonize has a night side, is constantly dark and cloudy, with low amounts of toxic gases and thick fog in the lower atmosphere, and happens to be inhabited by molesized wasps that explode into acidic goo when killed and happen to be highly transparent in the given light conditions so you can only effectively see them at melee range.
They are not overly intelligent, they are no threat to armored soldiers, and they only attack weak points of no more than a few people.
They are able to penetrate metal by sacrificing themselves to corrode the surface, and the are millions, reproducing at a rate of roughly 2-5% per day.
You'd need to have 2-3 soldiers stationed every 100 Meters on inhabited ground, constantly, and slowly purge the ground, the easiest way to do so would be bioweapons.

Now before anyone thinks this is unrealistic: No it isn't, it's no less realistic than any other combination of possible traits, it could quite be possible to encounter intelligent fog of millions of small linked capsules, that is impervious to conventional weaponry because you really can't hit it, or the Fungus of Alpha Centauri (The Firaxis Game), and stone-like creatures that will just emerge from the ground etc.

Sure, the chance that they are actually hostile is not too high, but it is a possibility.
Roll a lot of dice.

While I agree that you´d need a whole lot of troops to keep the colonists safe on such a planet I do have to question the wisdom of colonizing the planet in the first place.
Hm, perhaps after developing a insecticide against those wasps and generously using it on the planet, preferably from orbit

And another thing. Looking at the numbers, a single Heavy Assault Battalion is the equal to 4 full armored divisions of today. Same goes for Mobile Infantry vs. todays infantry divisions. If you need more than the equivalent of 8 Infantry Divisions of today to keep a population of one million save, you realy, REALY should look for a different planet to settle!

Oh, and in Aurora (at least as I understand it) a battalion is 4 companies (+ abstracted HQ), a brigade is 4 battalions (+ HQ) and a division is 4 brigades (+ HQ) for a total of 64 companies, so you´d need only 1 and a half divisions per fully colonized planet.

[Vanigo]

Four Divisions is 64 Companies.

Oh, companies. Still.

Consider than colonists will not walk around in Powered Armor, even the alien representation of a weasel, with a highly toxic bite, will be a danger to the entire populace if present in sufficient amounts.

Consider that venomous creatures don't bite unless hungry or threatened. Venom is metabolically expensive to produce; animals don't waste poison bites on sheer orneriness. As for 'hungry', critters the size of weasels don't prey on anything the size of a human unless they're pack predators, and pack predators are a lot easier to find and kill, what with the whole sticking together thing. Dangerous, yes, but manageable. And really, poisoned meat would be a better solution than guys with power armor and big guns.

The most numerous predators on our current planet are insects, not counting bacteria that the average ABC suit could protect from.
And if your that unable to imagine possible alien wildlife, just think of the alien films, with a half dozen unwatched parasites being quite able to spread and multiply to the millions if they find good targets, like a sudden stream of colonists.

Military units aren't going to be doing anything about insects. And if you're saying the insects would spread a parasite that grows into a dangerous monster inside the human body (then breaks out and the military has to kill it), why exactly wouldn't the local hospitals be able to kill the developing parasite quickly?

Theoretically, the Planet could also have a permanent night side, which would result in extremely hostile weather, and the implications that has, or creatures that are virtually indistinguishable from the ground.

What exactly does extremely hostile weather imply? To me, it implies "no large animals", and you certainly can't shoot a thunderstorm.
Creatures that are virtually indistinguishable from the ground? Like, some sort of living pit trap? Sounds awfully immobile; you don't need power armor or big guns to kill something like that; once you've found it, it's dead meat.

That kind of stuff should also create unrest you have to simulate if your about a challenge, in my recent game I had a robot battalion emerge and kill off 75000 colonists of 4 Million against 4 Engineer Brigades and two Heavy assault Battalions, and there was no unrest. I was kinda disappointed and used SM functions for that.

It's a thought, but is that really the kind of thing that causes unrest, or is it the kind of thing that makes people pull together to deal with a crisis? I could see it going either way.

And the point about sentient opponents is that
A) They will eventually give up
B) They can't breed quickly, as intelligence requires a longer period of growth and learning.

C) They can use weapons, tactics, and strategy, making them thousands of times more dangerous, and they can change strategies once your soldiers find ways to counter what they're doing. Animals are predictable. This makes them easy to kill. And political realities generally keep you from adopting a 'kill them all' approach with sentients.

So, for example, what if the Planet you want to colonize has a night side, is constantly dark and cloudy, with low amounts of toxic gases and thick fog in the lower atmosphere, and happens to be inhabited by molesized wasps that explode into acidic goo when killed and happen to be highly transparent in the given light conditions so you can only effectively see them at melee range.
They are not overly intelligent, they are no threat to armored soldiers, and they only attack weak points of no more than a few people.
They are able to penetrate metal by sacrificing themselves to corrode the surface, and the are millions, reproducing at a rate of roughly 2-5% per day.
You'd need to have 2-3 soldiers stationed every 100 Meters on inhabited ground, constantly, and slowly purge the ground, the easiest way to do so would be bioweapons.

Actually, the soldiers wouldn't be particularly helpful; the wasps could easily fly over them. Pesticides are definitely the way to go, but I don't see where you need soldiers for that.

Now before anyone thinks this is unrealistic: No it isn't, it's no less realistic than any other combination of possible traits, it could quite be possible to encounter intelligent fog of millions of small linked capsules, that is impervious to conventional weaponry because you really can't hit it, or the Fungus of Alpha Centauri (The Firaxis Game), and stone-like creatures that will just emerge from the ground etc.

No, it's enormously unrealistic. Evolution doesn't work that way. Most egregiously, blowing themselves up to eat through metal? Why would they have developed this behavior with no intelligent life around to make metal? What ecological niche would something like this fill? "Mindlessly aggressive monstrosities that kill colonists" is not an ecological niche. "Hive-based predator" is the only thing that makes any sense, and the one thing all predators have in common is a much lower population than whatever they eat. And hives make great points to attack - a couple battalions would be good for this, but you wouldn't need much more than that. Four guys with power armor and incendiary bombs could do the job, and you wouldn't find more than two or three hives within fifty square miles.
Also, nothing that large can possibly breed that fast. Ecosystems are generally pretty stable; unless something strange is going on, creatures are always breeding at about the same speed they're dying at, and creatures don't waste the resources to grow that big if the expected lifespan is that short. I suppose they might start a hive, grow explosively for a few weeks, ravage a couple dozen square miles, and then spawn off some small colonies as the main hive starves to death, but that would mean that hives are few and far between, and you could just get all the livestock under cover, hunker down for a while, and wait it out.

I suppose "unbelievably hostile wildlife" does make for a challenge, which is after all the point of a challenge game. But don't call it a realistic one.

[UnLimiTeD]

Depends on the view.
See, encountering a sentient race roughly on the same tech level as we are, that happens to be not too alien to communicate, and can survive in a highly aggressive and rare gas like gaseous O² is a chance going strongly against 0.
Yet you find them in the hundreds in aurora, and they also mostly breath and walk on legs.

First off, you are generally right.
Still, not to prove you wrong, but as to show you that all of it has the same likeliness as anything else, I'll answer your answers:

Code: [Select]

1) Size: Thats not necessarily true.
 Poisoning a bigger creature, then running away and coming back later for the meal is a quite valid strategy. Sure it wouldn't work, but it's not intelligent. Also, what is poisonous to us might be readily available and not even meant to be a poison on that world.
A Human could probably spell disaster on another planet by exhaling.

2)As for parasites; Yes, thats only an example. What did they live from in the first place, until the Genetics on the planet support extremely volatile mutations. I agree it is unlikely, but if a parasite (which is the unlikely part) would ever be able to use a human body, for example, it would be impossible to diagnose it until it actually developed a few times and was studied.
Theres still parasites from tropical regions today that no real cure exists for, but they luckily happen to be rare, and often not kill.

3) AS for the weather, the conditions on a planet can quite render weapons ineffective, like, making long range communications and guidance impossible, or wrecking electronics. So you'd have to pack the spears again.

4)Unrest is of course variable. but if you have a small digsite, with heavy military presence, and a single group of security robots emerges and wrecks the half economy I could see people demanding a stop to the digging. Wildlife allows for more variable reactions.

5)"Political Realities" are not applicable to other races. It is likely, if we ever find other sentient beings, we will have as much mercy for them as the the ants that constantly walk over the terrace; They don't have the same genetics, hell, they'll have less resemblance to what we would call a "living being" than lichen or microbacteria. The first of which btw are a synergy lifeforms, which is an interesting question if your hunting for Hives, which might be mobile. And probably look like the other 5000 trees around.

Which leads to another challenge: [b]Ethics:[/b] Different races will have fundamentally different views.
Just imagine an energy based race whose physical appearance is a mere shadow of themselves, consisting of Ionized gas.
They might consider Gaseous weapons like Flamethrowers, Bioweapons etc. as quite normal, but feel strongly against using projectile weapons whose metal projectiles would probably suck off the electrical current like an acid cloud would dissolve us, only penetrating and faster.

6) You'll probably only need them first to overwatch the installation. Sadly Aurora doesn't support that kind of stuff.^^

Last but not least:
As said, it is just as likely as any other combination. [b]Roll a lot of dice.[/b]

Insects and bacteria have those kind of behavior already, btw, Insects will die to defend their populace, as they themselves will not breed, a few select do that. A bee won't survive aggressive contact with a human, but it doesn't care for it's life if it's for the greater good.
Seeing how it will be completely impossible to kill all potentially hostile insects on this planet, short of a very sophisticated Bioweapon (theres a fungus that is slowly killing of all amphibia on earth atm, with some back luck were rid of them in 50 years), those can prove to be a threat.
Military is used as a way to simulate the engagement, it would probably be engineer brigades for any non-direct combat. Like, deploying Bioweapons, you will want to have that under military control.

For the growth: Some Bamboo can grow up to a meter per hour given enough nutritious ground, so growth of not too intelligent creatures could easily be that fast if they are successful enough to justify it. Which colonists could be, maybe the resources on the planet are relatively scarce, and colonists add a never expected addition that allows half the wildlife, including plant spores, to feed on them and grow way faster.
In which case one could actually kill the wildlife by dropping a few hundred criminals, waiting a month for everything to massively grow, use up all natural resources and die, and then drop in again to get rid of the rest.
But why am I writing this, I agree with you that it would be quite unlikely.

You can now again answer to my answers, and so on, we wouldn't get ahead.
There was a thread, maybe in chat or somewhere, about the likeliness of breathing, and it kinda didn't end well.

[Vanigo]

1) Size: Thats not necessarily true.
 Poisoning a bigger creature, then running away and coming back later for the meal is a quite valid strategy. Sure it wouldn't work, but it's not intelligent. Also, what is poisonous to us might be readily available and not even meant to be a poison on that world.
A Human could probably spell disaster on another planet by exhaling.

It's entirely possible that alien biochemistry would be horribly toxic to us, but in that case the reverse would probably also be true, and the weasels wouldn't even consider biting us - we smell like death!

2)As for parasites; Yes, thats only an example. What did they live from in the first place, until the Genetics on the planet support extremely volatile mutations. I agree it is unlikely, but if a parasite (which is the unlikely part) would ever be able to use a human body, for example, it would be impossible to diagnose it until it actually developed a few times and was studied.
Theres still parasites from tropical regions today that no real cure exists for, but they luckily happen to be rare, and often not kill.

Uh, my point here is that parasites, even leaving aside the unlikeliness that they would be able to live in human bodies, are not something military forces can do squat about.

3) AS for the weather, the conditions on a planet can quite render weapons ineffective, like, making long range communications and guidance impossible, or wrecking electronics. So you'd have to pack the spears again.

Uh, how is this relevant to using military forces to protect against wildlife?

5)"Political Realities" are not applicable to other races. It is likely, if we ever find other sentient beings, we will have as much mercy for them as the the ants that constantly walk over the terrace; They don't have the same genetics, hell, they'll have less resemblance to what we would call a "living being" than lichen or microbacteria. The first of which btw are a synergy lifeforms, which is an interesting question if your hunting for Hives, which might be mobile. And probably look like the other 5000 trees around.

Wow, cynical much? I happen to have somewhat more faith in humanity than that, although I suppose we won't know until we actually encounter alien life (assuming we ever do).

6) You'll probably only need them first to overwatch the installation. Sadly Aurora doesn't support that kind of stuff.^^

I have no idea what this is in response to.

Last but not least:
As said, it is just as likely as any other combination. Roll a lot of dice.

No, it's not. Evolution is not just rolling a lot of dice. Evolution is not random chance. Some combinations of traits are far more likely than others. Many are completely impossible. No matter how many life-bearing worlds you find, you'll never find a photosynthetic cave fish. (Unless the planet has radioactive caves with glowing walls, I guess, but those fish wouldn't bear much resemblance to Terran cave fish, anyway.) Evolution does not overengineer animals like that. It stops at "good enough". Which causes us some grief, by the way - some diseases exist because some biological system is only usually good enough, and occasionally breaks down.

Insects and bacteria have those kind of behavior already, btw, Insects will die to defend their populace, as they themselves will not breed, a few select do that. A bee won't survive aggressive contact with a human, but it doesn't care for it's life if it's for the greater good.

That's not the point. Kamikaze attacks are perfectly plausible. The problem is, metal has never existed in their environment before. Even if their acidic goop (probably developed to discourage predators) is corrosive enough to eat through metal, they don't know this. They've never had a chance to develop "Metal? I will blow up on it!" as an instinctive response.

Seeing how it will be completely impossible to kill all potentially hostile insects on this planet, short of a very sophisticated Bioweapon (theres a fungus that is slowly killing of all amphibia on earth atm, with some back luck were rid of them in 50 years), those can prove to be a threat.
Military is used as a way to simulate the engagement, it would probably be engineer brigades for any non-direct combat. Like, deploying Bioweapons, you will want to have that under military control.

You could say this, I suppose. Certainly, engineer brigades make more sense in a wildlife-control context than other military units. But why, then, would you bring other military units into the picture at all?

For the growth: Some Bamboo can grow up to a meter per hour given enough nutritious ground, so growth of not too intelligent creatures could easily be that fast if they are successful enough to justify it. Which colonists could be, maybe the resources on the planet are relatively scarce, and colonists add a never expected addition that allows half the wildlife, including plant spores, to feed on them and grow way faster.
In which case one could actually kill the wildlife by dropping a few hundred criminals, waiting a month for everything to massively grow, use up all natural resources and die, and then drop in again to get rid of the rest.

Well, then, they'll only be breeding at that rate if they're successfully killing and eating colonists en masse. Makes controlling them much easier if their breeding rate is at a reasonable rate as long as you're keeping the people safe.

There was a thread, maybe in chat or somewhere, about the likeliness of breathing, and it kinda didn't end well.

Well, we really don't know enough about the beginnings of life on Earth to make good estimates of how similar extraterrestrial life is likely to be. How wide a range of viable biochemical systems are there? We don't know. The lower the number is, the more likely we are to find compatible life on other planets.