Feature Request: Random events

Hi guys.
A buddy of mine just mentioned having Volcanic eruptions on a lava planet.

I think this game would be great with a set of (optional) random events for different planet types. Although with the ideas thrown out a lot of these would not be entirely random.

As its been pointed out these should be optional, and some would clearly not be appropriate for competitive play. I think many have the potential to change the play style and how you strategise rather than simply giving an advantage or disadvantage.

It has also been suggested that many of these could be switched to cosmetic only for competitive play still making the planets feel more alive but not affecting gameplay eg blizzards

It has also been noted that its likely to late to implement this but I think its still good to discuss it. The game is likely to evolve over time.

Keep checking back here, I'm updating the first post with a summary of ideas thrown out in the discussion.

here are some examples.
Laval planet- Volcanic eruption, large damage to all units in close proximity to volcano.
Ice planet. - ice storm, Minor damage to everything planet wide. Intensity and duration is determined by planet size
Tropical Planet - Tropical storms, may make rivers/oceans rise damaging/destroying units on the coast and in low lying areas. Intensity and duration increase with planet size
Moon- Micro meteor collision. Meteors form outside the system can impact a moon. This would be more common than the other events but less devastating. Larger moons would be more likely to pull in larger rocks. The smallest would just do minor damage to one unit or small groups. Largest ones would be able to 1 hit weak buildings.
Metal- Magnetic storm, all units on the planet have their movement speed slowed for the duration of the storm and weapons have a chance to misfire. Duration and intensity scale up with the planet size.
Desert. Sandstorm- Units over land have vision reduced dramatically and take minor damage, although they cannot be seen in the storm either. Radar range is also reduced a little.
Earth- All of the above can happen but less dramatic.
System wide- Meteor shower - A meteor shower passes through the system doing damage to everything in its path. Planets with a larger atmosphere (larger mass) will burn up some of the meteors mass and reduce the damage taken but everyone gets hit in some way.
Any planet- Earthquake - Could open/ close cracks creating different routes around terrain.

Any other ideas guys feel free to add them

Lava planet- Lava tides, lava tides can rise and fall engulfing low lying land with a chance to remove or add metal deposits. Lava tide does damage over time to buildings, possibly destroying them. - Emraldis
Metal Planets - Ancient defense system. Could when activated either attack the player or defend the player. - Emraldis
Metal Planets - Bridges that open and close randomly - Emraldis
Metal Planets - Coolant floods in the trenches -Emraldis
Any planet rain would be appropriate. - Heavy storms. Would ground planes or possibly knock them out of the sky if they fly into a storm that is extreme. Storms should build slowly so they dont randomly knock your entire air force out of the sky. -gerii
Desert Planet, maybe tropical too.- Flash floods, Possibility to temporarily increase the water level of an area by a small amount which could lead to joining bodies of water, or destroying/damaging land units. May block land passages with water. - gab99
Any - Winds/gales. Storms could build to high winds effecting wind energy production. On Ice planets this could turn into a blizzard causing reduced visibility. - arachnis
System wide- Sun eruption- Could be purely cosmetic or the radiation could temporarily disable units near the sun not in the safety of an atmosphere. - FXelix
Day/night cycles - All planets, maybe affecting sight range or things like that - stormingkiwi
any with ocean - Tsunami - Light damage to buildings and units, possibly moving small units around. A chance for the land to remain flooded for a short while changing the terriain. - arthursalim
System wide - Solar Flare - EMP from the flare temporarily shuts down all units facing the sun for a short time - emraldis
Norther lights on any planet. Cosmetic only - gab99

It has been suggested that the events be made eye candy only. This would be a much better idea than turning them off for competative games as it would still add some eye candy. -abubaba

No. Randomness of that kind has no place in a competitive game.
It would be extremely frustrating to lose because of this nonsense and it would not be satisfying to win that way.

Its interesting, I would like it I think. Some beautiful events like a sun eruption, but no game changer-events like a Vulcan who destroy your units...

I always thought it might be interesting for lava planets to have "tides" where the lava can rise a whole lot above its normal levels, it would deal pretty heavy damage over time, and destroy metal spots. However when the lava subsides new metal spots would have been generated for those destroyed, and perhaps the terrain changes a little. This would be something that would not happen often at all. Maybe once every 30 mins or more, and you'd get a warning.

Also, I think that if these are implemented, their cooldowns, durations, and areas of effect, should be adjustable in the system editor when editing that planet. Set the duration to 0 and it would never happen, for those that don't like random events. Perhaps the slider could be set at 0 to begin with, and if you wanted random events you can then adjust them as you will.

I never said competitive game. If you want serious go play a game that does not involve throwing moons at people

Thats the idea, no game changers. For example the volcano would do massive damage but only near the foot of the volcano. An ice storm would do small damage over time but over the entire planet.

Well, that is part of the strategy of this game, preventing people from doing that, while doing it yourself. Just because the game involves planet smashing, does not mean it is less serious...

Random events should be in the game, but you should be able to turn them off, because they could definitely imbalance a game towards one player.

Exactly. I would imagine there could be a lot of configuration but I imagine the most important option to be "Include random events in this game"

I don't think they would necasserily unbalance the game, but I see where your going with that. I would usually deactivate such things in competative play . I think they could make it more fun though.

They would also add some additional strategic elements to the game. eg, an ice storm is currently damaging my opponent. Maybe now would be a good time to hit them.

Random events should never do enough damage, to change a game on their own. They should do either high damage in a small area or small damage in a large area. They don't have to benefit a player either they could be things that benefit oboth players or that just change things. I like emraldis' idea for one that could make lava tides wipe out and remake metal spots

I agree that they probably wouldn't completely unbalance the game, but if your opponent gets really unlucky that ONE time, and you win, that's not much fun in competitive play. So it should definitely be deactivateable. Other than that, I would love to see things like this in the game. I don't think it should be one type of event per planet either. I can see metal planets having magnetic storms, ancient defense systems, bridges that open and close, coolant floods in the trenches, etc.

I'm going to start adding these to the list (with credit)

aw, shucks! I'll post any other ideas as I think of them, if you want.

I do agree that if I was playing a competitive game that was close and a random event swung it I'd be a little annoyed. It should be possible to turn off but still would be awesome. Maybe we could come up with some randoms that would not swing it but would still add depth to gameplay.

These events would be nice, even if they are only visual elements with no effect on gameplay. They would add to the overall atmosphere, make the planets seem more alive. Especially during actual gameplay when for the most part you are zoomed out and looking at strategic icons, it might be nice to have some eye candy on that level too. Volcanos erupting and sand storms would look cool even from a zoomed out view. As long as it is not too distracting.

Having the option to include them but as eye candy only would be a great idea. Part of the idea was to make it come alive more

Heavy storms could also stop planes from flying so that players also focus more on other types of units. Of course large storms shouldn't just come out of the blue, so that you can fly back to your base to protect your aircraft.
However there are things that are currently more important to get into the game imo.

Thats a fair point. There are many more important things to go in but I don't see a reason we can't add to the list of good ideas. Maybe this could be added in 1.1 once 1.0 is finally released and working.

For desert planets perhaps a flash flood could occur depending on the water level of the planet, allowing passages to get blocked and allow more use of excess naval units in a lake to become useful by being able to temporarily move to another body of water, or having theit move range increased briefly.
Maybe it can just increase the planet water level by 10 for say... One rotation, then it reverts to normal

I like it. But I'd only include predictable events (so that you can adjust your gameplan to them).
I thought of something similar as the storm event for ice planets. Because we'll probably get multiple sources of energy, like wind energy. And then it would make sense to have the wind changing it's strenght and sometimes even forming into a blizzard or something.

But it shouldn't be too drastic. I mean, it shouldn't affect your gameplay too much, only in a minor way. Because as stated above, this is still a competitive RTS, where randomness should be avoided as much as possible.

But predictable events wouldn't be randomness. Weather is something that has been talked about a lot by the community, but we didn't hear a word on that from the devs (as far as I know).

I just like the idea of adjusting my gameplan dependant on what type of planet I'm on. Makes the game more interesting overall, imo.

Those aren't really random. Players can see those before they happen, and can plan accordingly. Events that can't be predicted are what needs to be avoided entirely.