Ringworld

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Has anyone ever considered making a mod that uses the Ringworld Mythos of Larry Niven as it's basis.

Realistically the SMAC set up is already a ring not a sphere as travel is allowed to wrap in a east to west direction but not a North South. This is altogether a common gripe that the CIV type games never addressed the poles.

By the by the Ringworld series is great SCIFI reading and along with Mote in God's Eye series are some of the best SCIFI ever written next to the Asimov Robots and Foundation serie(s).

Check them out. Ringworld is a natch for adaptation to SMAC.

[SMACking]

You know what? Since you're the one who thought of it, why don't you do it?

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To infinity, and beyond!

[Grigger]

I've tried to do a mod based on a book series before, namely the Wheel of Time, and I must say it's a lot of work. I hit an impasse when it came to making base pictures, probably just going to paste in some default bases. It really is a big undertaking, but if you stick with it, it can be finished. It's too bad I'm lazy.

[Googlie]

There are a lot of Ringworld fnas who would love a scenario, I'll bet, me included

(probably some fans, too)




[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited February 26, 2000).]

[Travathian]

Damn Ogie, I'm almost tempted to do this. I have all three books, and absolutely love most of his books.

Hmmm, but who would be the factions?

Humans, kzin, Nessus (cant remember race name), maybe the Pak, nightcrawlers (the ghouls), not sure who else.

Maybe I'll have to read thru the books and take notes! Making the factions shouldn't be too hard, its the graphics and sounds that might be a problem.

[Qilue]

Playing a 2048x64 map could be interesting.

[Enigma]

I love the ringworld series. If you read deeper into the series (The Ringworld Engineers and the Ringworld Throne) there are a LOT of seperate human species, many different specialized humans. The earth humans, the scavenger humans, the ringworld builders, the herbivorous humans, the vampires, and a few others that I don't remember. Plus each species can have a protector created, when a human eats that tree of life crap they become a protector which essentially is a very smart very strong version of the species it came from.

All the humans are descended from the pak, a species from a gazillion years ago. The pak had 3 different "genders"- protector which was asexual and basically protected the species, the egg pak, and I think there were some kind of male pak too. I can't really remember the names.

The puppeteers and kzin weren't native to ringworld but they could be included as species..

I think it would be cool if there were magtubes at the edges of the ring- to cover the huge distances and add a good sense of edge.

As far as the scenario editor is concerned I know nothing, but it would be difficult to create a truly different scenario.. but...

it would be easy to create abilities for each of the species/races.

Earth Humans-
-2 growth (ill adapted to Ringworld conditions)
+2 research (A race at the edge of greatness)
perhaps give them bonuses to reflect the "luck" of humans like Teela Brown

Puppeteers-
starts with a LOT of tech (advanced civ)
-3 research (stagnating culture)
70% hurry costs (expert at manufacturing)
free recycling tanks
terraform bonus (experienced in terraforming planets)
+1 industry

Vampires-
+2 morale (mindless)
+25%attack bonus
-2 econ (mindless
+1 growth (breed quickly)

Herbivores-
+2 fungus food, +1 fungus mineral/energy (They eat it!)
free clean reactors (units can live off land)
hab+2 (like communal existence)
-2 probe (?)

Ringworld engineers could be another one.

anyway this is off the top of my head, I didn't consider balance. But this mod has a lot of potential, and *ahem* it isn't stale like Star Wars.

I can't remember but I think there was a merchant species and a scavenger species.

The protectors could be units you get in colony pods akin to battle ogres but able to repair albeit slowly.

The pak could land on Planet late just like the aliens. I mean LATE. Perhaps 50 years, make them very tough though. Has nothing to do with book but sounds fun.

I really don't have the knowledge or the will to create this mod myself, but good luck to those who will!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Damn, there actually was some interest in this idea after all. (Teaches me not to check the threads in awhile.) Would that I knew the least about programming.

Anyway a couple of ideas here.

Kzin definitely a must have as a faction. the Kzin were present on ring world in Ringworld Engineers (I beleive?). They were the ones in the huge ocean that actually ended up attacking the native ring world humans.

Anyway Kzin factional bonus's

+25% combat (at least)
+1 morale
-2 growth (tests of manhood cause only the dominant males to survive & constant tribal warfare)
-1 research
-1 econ (or maybe -2 efficiency instead)

Aversions :Can not use Free market

Agenda: Power


Modified terrain feature/units:

Sunflowers: equal to Demon Boil fungal towers Anyway to be able to make these things attack rather than simply defend?)

Landmarks: Eye Storm (units automatically destroyed as they are sucked out into space)

3000 Mile high mountain (How would one simulate this????)

Floating City (With 2 artifacts and enables world map)

Minerals are scarce on ring world but I think the world size should take into account costs of tech and the like.

[Googlie]

^

[Googlie]

^^

[Darsnan]

Hmmm - nice of you to bump this Googlie - gives me something to do while I'm waiting for my home computer!

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe

Floating City (With 2 artifacts and enables world map)

Minerals are scarce on ring world but I think the world size should take into account costs of tech and the like.

Well, we can build floating cities into the #UNITS Section of the alphax.txt file, however the AI has no clue how to use these units. And the amount of available minerals can be controlled to a certain extent via how the world is built (add extra mineral bonuses in the "Spill Mountains"?

The scrith I would have no idea what to do with, as basically its an inert metal, IIRC, which would give nothing to anyone.
As far as the available species to populate the Ringworld with, why this should almost be infinate, as the humanoid population has had many millenia to evolve and fill every ecological niche available on the Ringworld. The three books involving Ringworld only explored a small fraction of the whole structure, so there must be many more species available to flesh out a Faction set for the mod (I'm surprised no one mentioned the aquatic people Louis Wu almost boiled when he was killing the giant sunflower patch - would make a great Pirates clone for a Ringworld mod, IMO!)

There are also the two huge oceans that have the maps of worlds known to the Pak, which could produce some unique species (Factions) as well. If you ever played the computer game version of the return to Ringworld (circa '92) then you got to see how the humans on the Map of Earth had been "domesticated" by the "Map of Kzin Kzinti". It would also be interesting if there were some viable Thrint (Slavers) or tnuctipun thrown into the mix as well (could replace the Caretakers and Usurpers).
Then of course there is the Map of Mars - guess you would have to elevate it and make it very dry, as was done on the Ringworld itself.

Solar flares would of course become the system defense laser firing, but what to do about the Prometheus virus outbreaks, as all detrimental bugs had been scrubbed out of anything that was allowed onto the Ringworld? Maybe induced/seeded by Puppeteer probes, just like the microbe that literally caused the "Fall of the Cities" (i.e. the Puppeteers are still trying to destabilize the Ringworld?)?

Finally (for right now) how would you explain ending up on Ringworld in the first place? Shot down by the system defense laser, just as Lieing Baastad was?

I'll add more as I think of them (it takes time for me to access those parts of my brain - been a long time since I played Known Space Trivia!). Regardless, nice nostalgic trip back into hisory, Googlie!


D

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Darsnan
It would also be interesting if there were some viable Thrint (Slavers) or tnuctipun thrown into the mix as well (could replace the Caretakers and Usurpers).

Actually a better replacement for the Progenitors would be the Pak Protectors versus the Earth - human equivalent of the Protector. We already know that they are fighting tooth (bill?) and nail somewhere in towards the galactic core. Maybe an offshoot of this war ends up somehow on the Ringworld? Give them some neat starting "toys" and let them go to town on each other!
Also, some (or all) of the events that are triggered by pods could be caused by Factions opening tnuctipun or Slaver stasis boxes (such as the "smart" weapon encountered in the Neutron Star short story "Soft Weapon"?). The tnuctipun would have seeded very deadly devices that only another tnuctipun would have known how to deal with correctly, hence explaining bad pod pops. The Slavers would more likely have "carelessly" left valuable artifacts in stasis boxes, hence explaining good pod pops.


D

[GeoModder]

Problem is the max. length of the map. AFAIK this is 256 tiles, thus the width would be less then 48 to keep it in perspection, unless a scenario only unfolds on a given 'section' of ringworld.

[Enigma_Nova]

Edit the #WORLDSIZE section of your alphax.txt
You can make a big ass map that way.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
Edit the #WORLDSIZE section of your alphax.txt
You can make a big ass map that way.

Exactly! gwillybj made a jumbo map of this nature that he posted somewhere here on 'poly. I played on it a couple of times using my "Beta Lyrae" alphax.txt file and it was a very "different" experience. A map of the Ringworld could be built the same way, then mated to a modified alphax.txt built upon our collective knowledge of the Ringworld, add a modified script.txt, a modified helpx.txt, and a modified interludex (and that may be the real challenge doctoring the interludes!) and all that would be needed would be the graphics to go with the mod!


D

[MatthewH86]

would this mod be for SMAC or SMAX?

if it's for the former, I'd be happy to help; if for the latter, no can do

[GeoModder]

You're talking about a lot of work here, Darsnan. Changing graphics, interludes, script... I'm doing this myself ATM for another project.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by GeoModder
You're talking about a lot of work here, Darsnan. Changing graphics, interludes, script... I'm doing this myself ATM for another project.

I've done this before as well (except the graphics) when I was working on my Beta Lyrae mod. A lot of work? Yeah, it is, but it'd be a labour of love for those that really want to do this. I personally don't plan on driving a project of this nature, but I am very knowledgeable about Niven's Known Space series (it is my favourite series of books), and can contribute ideas as well as help with the interlude(x).txt, script(x).txt files, and the alpha(x).txt files.



Three other things I've thought of would be to change the Unity Wreckage graphic to something comparable to the Fallen City, or possibly some other structure that would be indigenous to Ringworld - maybe one of Prill's people's cities still slightly working. The monoliths could also become Protector Upgrade stations.

Concerning satelites: since there are no asteroids in the Ringworld solar system, what would the Nessus Mining Stations become? There are Energy collectors on the shadow squares, IIRC, but the Mineral and Nutrient satelites would be tougher to explain. Also, satelite technology would have to come much later, as the the energy to reach an "orbit" is much more significant than on a natural planet.


D

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by Darsnan
Three other things I've thought of would be to change the Unity Wreckage graphic to something comparable to the Fallen City, or possibly some other structure that would be indigenous to Ringworld - maybe one of Prill's people's cities still slightly working. The monoliths could also become Protector Upgrade stations.

The Lying Bastard 'landing track' perhaps for the Unity Wreckage.

The Monoliths could perhaps be changed (graphically) into a floating city. Nutrients for the 'shadow farm' underneath, energy for the trade with it's inhabitants, only the minerals are a bit hard to explain. Trading of goods instead of ideas perhaps.

Originally posted by Darsnan
Concerning satelites: since there are no asteroids in the Ringworld solar system, what would the Nessus Mining Stations become? There are Energy collectors on the shadow squares, IIRC, but the Mineral and Nutrient satelites would be tougher to explain. Also, satelite technology would have to come much later, as the the energy to reach an "orbit" is much more significant than on a natural planet.

Actually, satellites could simply be launched by flunging them off the rimwall, so only access to a rim spaceport is necessary to 'launch' those... But perhaps those satellites could harvest material from the cometary belt (the systems Oort cloud). It's hardly likely that the Ringworld Engineers would be able to take those billions upon billions comets out as well. It comes down to that space technology will rely instead of orbital flight to some sort of 'vacuum technology'.

Manifold Nexus would be good for a 'Repair Base' with it's inherent ability to care for the land (hence a protector's descendants).

[Enigma_Nova]

How does one edit the graphical images in Alpha Centauri?
I've been meaning to make some changes for a while...

[GeoModder]

ter1.pcx, terrain.pcx and units.pcx have the ingame graphics.

When I work on those, I simply adapt them in Paint to my liking and save as .bmp, open the adapted file in Microsoft Editor again and save it as a .pcx file. Done deal.