Hello friends. I would like to tell you where to find me. Near berlin to the east. You will find me.

I would like to suggest adding harvestable resources to black holes and neutron stars. These resources could require some sort of specialized harvesting equipment, to differentiate them from the nearly universal process: build city, build mine, get resource. Maybe they could require a station to be towed into orbit over them, or require ships to be manually piloted, swooping down into the "Atmosphere" (the purple pulsating swirls for neutron stars and the blue shell for black holes) to be harvested. These could be called neutronium and hawking particles. Adding in some diversity of harvesting that requires player interaction could be interesting if it was used in small quantities for rare and powerful items. These could act as a placeholder for future uses (similar to viathol, flomentum, and plutonium), and act as limited/valuable resources in much shorter supply than others due to requiring manual piloting.

Signal Detection
The emission of power consumed in solar systems is too revealing, especially for new players. As soon as they start generating power, they can be detected and stomped.

Instead of emitting total power consumed, solar systems now emit a warp signature. The warp signature is a measure of the accumulated warp factors engaged in the system.

Warp signature signals are emitted hourly by solar systems. This is a bit more responsive than the previous energy emissions, which were emitted every six hours. 

Airport terminals and base air terminals account for one warp drive engage per hour, at the maximum warp factor available to the empire. Warp technology of an empire is based on the highest patent they know for making a warp drive.

For example, if a ship engages warp at factor 4 and another ship engages warp at factor 2, and the system contains two cities with spaceports owned by empires with warp 2 technology, the solar system will emit an accumulated warp signature of 10.

Warp signatures reach about one sector per accumulated warp factor. The example signal would reach about 10 sectors. Beyond that it is too weak to be detectable.

The signal can be detected by radar of an empire with warp technology and spacecraft with sensors and warp drives. Their warp signature detection range is reported on their analysis report, replacing deep space detection range.

Actual maximum detection range is the lesser of the two values: the range the signal can reach and the detection range of the radar or sensors.

Wording on the star map was updated in appropriate places.

Color and marking of detected systems was changed.

Star map filter settings now includes a check box to turn on/off the warp signature markers on unexplored systems. Previously, the yellow detected markers could not be turned off.

New Avatar Respawn Bug
Created a new avatar. Buit a quarry; it became my home. Hand crafted a flag, which made me create/join an empire. Got killed and BAM! I'm in limbo.

Fixed an unfortunate bug that prohibited a person from respawning on their starting world when any building existed that belonged to a different empire. Fixed another bug that prevented a person from respawning at an enemy building. Buildings that belong to empire 0 are now considered when making those checks.

Star Map Friends
The poll posted in the previous thread revealed that friends shouldn't provide position information to anyone at all.

The presence of friend empires no longer helps you receive information about cities and spacecraft in solar systems they know about. To receive city information in solar systems explored by your empire, one of the following must be true.

• Empire city or base is in the system.
  
• Empire spacecraft is in the system, not in deep space.
  
• Empire airport terminal or base air terminal is within 17.32pc of the system.
  
• Avatar is in the system when the star map request is made.
  

Star Map Cities
After a solar system is explored by an empire, the star map supplies information about the cities there forever. This enables the empire to remotely monitor every system they have ever explored.

When star map information is sent to a client, information about cities is only sent if the following conditions are true.

• The city's solar system must be explored by the client's empire.
  
• One of the following must be true.
  • Empire or friendly city or base is in the system.
    
  • Empire or friendly spacecraft is in the system, not in deep space.
    
  • Empire or friendly airport terminal or base air terminal is within 17.32pc of the system.
    
  • Avatar is in the system when the star map request is made.
    

A lot of players don't like the idea of being wiped out in a couple of hours with no warning what so ever. Most call it "newbie-stomping" or "noobstomping".

The general idea of a "formal war declaration" mechanic could be implemented to delay and inform players of what is going on.
For example disallow empires from damaging military bases and buildings on claimed worlds without first declaring a formal war.

The war declaration would have to be sent to the empire and wait about 24 (or more) hours before it goes into effect. The time before the war declaration becomes active could scale the size between the empires. If a large empire declare war on a tiny empire, the activation could take longer.

Once the war declaration is active the empires can attack and destroy buildings on claimed worlds.

This would prevent empires from wiping each other out before at least one diplomatic action with obvious intent. As the delay would mean that the defender has time to prepare to either flee or fight back, maybe even call on allies.

XML Star Map Nerf
A primary design goal of SoH was to present a game space so vast that it could not be dominated by one single player or faction. The XML output of the star map breaks that design goal. One single player, using a network of listening posts, is able to monitor the entire universe for slight changes in the XML output that reveal the presence of new players.

XML export function removed from star map.

Transporter Crash
An attempt to transport to a fence caused a server to crash.

Fixed crash when a fence, using a built-in fence style, is a transporter target.

Removed fences from the list of buildings presented as transporter targets.

I was reading through some succession games on the Dwarf Fortress boards. They can be really fun. I wonder if we could do some similar things to promote co-operative play - all our skills need honing, anyway, before the Steam griefers arrive.

Does anyone have any good ideas? Now we have so many avatar slots there's really no reason not to have some throwaway fun. I thought perhaps:
 
-Ringworld deathmatch. Two teams start building cities on neighbouring ringworld segments, separated by the small unbuildable area. It's a fight to the death, but no leaving the system so spacecraft can't be that advanced. Grace period. Teams should be online at the same agreed time(s). Each team limited to a certain number of man-hours per day not counting designer time. All building and spacecraft designs must be original. No outside help.

-Pain train. An ancient colony ship is being towed from the edge of a star system, very slowly, into the sun by a tugboat with a tractor beam. Shields system is damaged to 0%. The colonists awake from stasis: they have weapons, food, vehicles and small craft on the ship. If they can gather enough resources to repair systems and raise the shields, the tractor lock will break. Problem is, automated scrapper drones occupy all the critical systems and command areas of their ship, including the shield room, have small craft of their own and will hinder them as they try to visit planets. Probably a one-session game with a few hours on the clock. When the ship hits the sun, it's game over. Limited respawns per team.


- A game set up in a system with only one non-hostile world. That world has a massive enemy fortress. The team will start on an icy moon, in a finished biodome with a crate of food. They'll have a shield and some physical barriers for protection - anything inside the barrier is safe, but they'll have to pull down the barrier to start expanding beyond the dome limits. The dome is positioned not to contain all needed resources, so enemy raids can destroy vulnerable outposts. Ultimate goal is to take down the fortress. After a grace period, the enemy team can start to make moves against them. Same restrictions: each team limited to a certain number of man-hours per day, not counting designer time. No leaving the system. All designs original. No outside help. Battles by appointment.
 
-Sublight adventure. Like the old Journey to the Centre of the Galaxy. We build a fancy co-op spacecraft with a big player crew, take shifts to pilot it. We have a defined mission and route, such as fill the brig with creatures with extraordinarily high attributes, or cross the entire galaxy without FTL. During away team missions or battles as many people come online as possible. An opposing team with numerous, less powerful ships harries the team, forcing them to stop and build facilities for repair etc. Supplementary objectives could be added along the way for an episode-of-the-week feel.

More ideas? Sign-ups?  :)

Ordered my transporter operator to beam me down to some fence.

Why can't we process wood and/or lumber into coal? That's how charcoal is made, or what it's made from anyways.