I have thought a lot about the invader implementation. I like the rifts and the nature of the invaders as a extragalactic force.
I like, that as the rift grows, the invaders become stronger and stronger, making the fight against them harder, as time progresses.
I feel like there should be some way of fighting the invaders without conquering a all the required ancient constructs and waiting for the rift to close. At that point the fight against the invaders is won anyway.
In unlucky circumstances, I might not be finding ancient constructs and there might be rifts blocking my way to further exploration. There should be a way to close a rift locally, even if it is very expensive and dangerous, or requires the entire military of a mid tier empire. Just the possibility is important so I have something to work towards, if I'm in one of the above situations.
For example, rifts could have a stationary stabilisation platform with a large escort located in the middle of the rift. Without the platform, the rift would close slowly. The invaders could get combat bonuses when fighting inside the rift, so that it won't be easy to take down.
I'm reluctant to suggest ideas given that we haven't played with the new rift mechanic yet, but here goes.
I would say that ruins auto-suppressing rifts might make the player feel a bit uninvolved. So here are some things / ideas to consider.
Make rifts spawn and growth be more severe in unoccupied space.- System with active ruins: Rift grows at normal speed. Ruin global suppression can reverse rift growth. Full bonus of local ruins are applied on top of global suppression as bonus.
- System with 5B+ population, and no ruins: Rift grows at normal speed. Ruin global suppression can at most slow growth by 90%. New rifts cannot spawn in system if global suppression is above 100%.
- System with no (or little) population, and no ruins: Rifts grow twice as fast, and ruin global suppression can at most slow growth by 50% (down to normal growth speed). Global suppression only count for 20% of what it actually is. New rifts cannot spawn in system if global suppression is above 500% (100% at the 20% rate).
The idea here is that systems with ruins are somewhat like 'bastions'. Populated systems are at risk, but decently okay to defend. Empty systems are eldritch beachheads that will devolve into system-wide hell-scapes in short order.
Allow player to fight rifts in an active manner:The main means of closing rifts (and only means for systems with no ruins), is by gravitation surveying of new survey locations spawned by rift.
There are always at least 1 of these rift gravitational survey locations per rift. As soon as one is surveyed, another spawns (unless the rift is closed entirely.) Larger rifts have more simultaneous survey locations.
These rift survey locations require a large amount of survey points to survey.
Surveying one of these survey locations reduces the size of the rift in a linear fashion (Not a percentage. So less effective per survey location for larger rifts.)
Surveying one of these survey locations has a small chance to spawn an attack from the rift. Chance goes up if rift is larger.
If a rift is closed via gravitational surveying / manipulation, a new rift will not spawn in that system for a year and a day. (Or whatever timespan makes sense.)
The idea:
- Build on existing game mechanics. (New table of foreign key links between rifts and gravitational survey locations can hopefully keep this relatively cleanly split from existing DB structure and code.)
- Encourage new ship designs for this situation.
- Closing a rift is possible, but dangerous, and can to some degree be brute forced.
- If you let a rift grow, you will suffer for it.
- You get some breathing room if you pull it off.
Involve ground combat in fighting rifts:If a rift completely overwhelms (no population left) a large enough system body (at least 0.1G?) a ground force from the rift is spawned on the system body, along with a rift anomaly.
A rift anomaly slightly speeds up the growth rate of the rift it is connected to.
Once such a rift anomaly is spawned on a system body, it remains even if the system body leaves the rift. (Orbits and whatnot.)
Surveying a rift anomaly via Xenoarchaeology shrinks the rift in the same manner as a gravitational survey would.
These count as rift survey locations, so new orbital gravitation rift survey locations will not spawn if enough planet-side rift anomalies exist in system.
These anomalies do not grant any other benefits. They are not ruins or research bonuses. (If we want to reward players, I'd rather spawn a beneficial anomaly on a system body if a rift is closed entirely.)
The idea:
- Build on existing game mechanics. (New table of foreign key links between rifts and gravitational survey locations can hopefully keep this relatively cleanly split from existing DB structure and code.)
- Encourage early response to new rifts. If you let them dig in...
- Same general mechanics as void-side gravitational surveying to close the rift.
Pity us greenhorns:Make strength of rift invaders configurable in game menu / options.
