> Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 09:28:14 +1000
i have to say i was thinking along the same lines besides the mating frenzy
stuff. besides, how can i argue with a marine biologist?;)
beth, any thoughts about how long a ship takes to bud off and mature? wouldn't
it be cool for a "bud" (or "buddette" -- had to be fair!) to gain
ability as it matured? it kinda rewards ships for surviving (read: watch the
players be more cautious). thoughts?
dave
G'day Dave,
> besides, how can i argue with a marine biologist? ;)
The same way you argue with everyone else...;P
> any thoughts about how long a ship takes to bud off and mature?
wouldn't
> it be cool for a "bud" (or "buddette" -- had to be fair!) to gain
Well you obviously wouldn't want it to take too long or the
ship/creature
is going to be too vulnerable. Personally I think it would take much longer
than the span of time represented by a game to bud off a small ship, though
releasing it from the brood chamber could be done quickly and would be the
same as any other nation launching a vessel. And before you all go and hit me
over the head with the fighters I still see them as body parts not budded
vessels so they wouldn't take long to release though regrowing them would have
to happen post battle etc. I'd say that given their general flexibility they'd
be able to bud off single smaller ships (say less than fifth they're own size)
in a few days if unstressed. Another option would be strobilation, where a
ship would split in a transverse sense multiple
times (looks like a stack of pancakes) in this way a ship could split itself
into 3 or 4 ships or it could create a whole pile of smaller ships all at once
(say up to 75% of its body mass, though it would need a fair
while to replenish that mass to do it again), however this would obviously
take a bit longer than budding off a single ship - be an interesting
scenario to catch an SDN or something approaching the end of strobilation
protected by a few cruiser sized ones... start off with SDN that can only
use half its powerpoints each turn + some cruisers and then on turn x
(decided by dice roll before the game begins or something) you're facing a
BC + destroyers + cruisers or something like that.
As for how fast they grow... well I think that they could grow very quickly
under the right conditions (say a hull box every day, or few days, of new
growth or 5-10 hull boxes of repair if in the perfect conditions and
unmolested), however most of the time I can't see them as being in perfect
conditions so growth would be MUCH slower (more like a hull box of new growth
a month for the small ships and slower still for the really big ships who will
be concentrating more on reinforcing what they've got and
budding off smaller ships).
Anyways that's just a few thoughts off the top of my head and could do with
refinement most likely.
Cheers
Beth