I have yet to see them in this game.

How would the Asteroid Belt and Comet dynamics be?

How would they help the players?

How would they hurt the players?

They're a fixture of space in real life, so wouldn't they be nice to have here?

Anyone, would there be a challenge to adding their dynamics? How hard would it be to code? What do the devs have to say about the feature?

well what would they be? a resource to mine, a random event against your ship? enemies? a planet effect? etc etc. flesh out your idea a little.

+1 to the idea.



I would imagine a planet event, or an NPC, or possibly both.

Planet event would be for example, the planet being hit by an asteroid, destroying some or all of its structures and taking out a significant portion of the pop, amount of destruction would depend on the size of it. (Obviously)
Then, i guess mining would go up on the planet temporarily, 'cause you would get to mine the minerals of the asteroid. (which would be depleted eventually)
The amount it would go up by, would also depend on the asteroids size and composition.

NPC asteroid...
Hows this?:

Pure Kurenite Asteroid.

3000 "hull" (If you can call it that)

Enemy Type Standard
Abilities None
Attack 0 (Being an asteroid, i didnt think it should be able to attack you.)
Defense 4000
Cloak 0
Reward: Some amount of Kurenite.

There would be other types of asteroids of course, Pawlacite, Dieterion, etc. even Aidonium ones.

Or Introducing a new type of research: harvesters?
You research and install harvesters for your ship (as you would any module) that harvest resources from asteroids.
Maybe even get a whole new tab for Asteroids alone?
Details need work admittedly, but i think its worth looking into.

Plus one all the way to your expanded idea set.

I would love to harvest asteroids too. (Given that April Fools gave us fake asteroid holo-overlays over our ships, when we find asteroids to mine, there can be an off-chance of it being a holo-disguised NPC enemy, or even a player enemy!)

To reply to the red-highlighted section: However, when asteroids are on a collision course toward our planets, shields mitigate them, so do the planet-installed attack structures. Therefore, the damages/casualties of an asteroid strike must be congruent to the level of shielding and weaponry on the planet. (The bigger the asteroid, the more sophisticated the planet's defense & countering measure need to be, however.) It would also help to guard the planet so you can fight against an incoming asteroid.

Every population structure from Hyperspheres and up could also be a mitigating factor in population loss. They have a vast underground area, so evacuating everyone down there in time for an asteroid strike shouldn't be a problem.

Moreover, if asteroids are to hit a gas giant, there may not need to be any casualties at all; every structure built "on" the gas giant floats in the sky like Bespin's Cloud Cities. The structures would just be maneuvered out of the general vicinity of the asteroids' paths.

been suggested a couple of times before, here's the first instance i found:

http://galaxylegion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16471&p=147398&hilit=base+cloaking#p147398

sets it up as being able to put scan and cloak mods on bases, scan to find things like asteroids / whatnot, cloak to defend against random NPC base attacks. after all we can find the crimson blades bases, why cant they, or another NPC faction find ours?? planet blockades are more or less a step in this dierction already.

Here's my 2 cents on this.
An extension on the planet upgrade missions that gives you a total of 5 planet smashers.

Planet Smasher
Use: 50 Energy
Instantly destroys a planet. Removing artifact resources and randomly spreading them across mining and research.

Productivity of the asteroid belt would depend on the size of the planet. The asteroid belt would be invincible (since it would be damn near impossible to conquer the entire thing) and cloaking would be at 10000 (since it's easy to hide in an asteroid belt). All structures would be destroyed (including artifact, GP or mission ones). For variety, the look of the asteroid belt would depend on the planet.
For example, a volcanic or demon world would have asteroids that still have intact lava inside so they would have a redish glow to them. A toxic or irradiated would have mall toxic clouds following the asteroids. Barrens would be plain. Oceanics and icys would have frozen water or comets among the asteroids. You get the idea.
In the case of a gas or plasma world, they would be turned into nebulas (again, affected by size). Plasma nebulas would have a more intense coloring to them.
Artifact production can be put onto asteroid belts but not nebulae, because the structures need a solid ground for them to work.

A lot of good suggestions here, would be really interesting to see this stuff put into the game.