Custom systems

[Spiffor]

New system done :)

As usual, any comments are welcome! The system has been fully tested and should work without problems by downloading the spiffor_systems.zip modfile to your \pioneer\mods folder.

More info and screenshots in the wiki

Tau Ceti

Faction: CIW
Short Description: Historic system with interplanetary rivalry

Bodies' names are inspired either by Italian-themed theatre and opera, either by Indonesian folklore
Starports are named after actual villages or cities in Italy or on the island of Java.

Long description:
One of the "old systems" founded before hyperspace travel, Tau Ceti is the stage of a centuries old rivalry between the heirs of the two original colony ships.
As the "Inamorata" first reached the system in 2331 -despite being launched later- its colonists claimed lush planet Terranova for themselves. When the "Harapan" arrived 5 years later, its passengers unawara they would encounter fellow humans, it had no choice but to land on Planet Pontianak where the colonists would live a harsh life.
Revenge should have no bounds. For four centuries, both factions waged a bloody interplanetary vendetta. While diplomats avoided an all-out war, both governments unofficially maintained strong fleets of privateers, which wrought pillage and destruction on their enemy, further fueling calls for revenge.
During the 27th century, when hyperspace travel connected Tau Ceti to its neighbours, foreigners avoided this dangerous system. The Federation did establish embassies, but took lightly to enforce order in these warlike parts. Pontianak took advantage of this situation, with its agile ships and cunning businessmen making profit from interstellar trade, while their privateers barred Terranova from doing the same.
During the War of Hope (2723-2725), Pontianak sided with the Solar Federation to defend its trade interests and Terranova sided with the Commonwealth, becoming one of its founding members. As both factions neutralized each other, Tau Ceti did not contribute significantly to the outcome of the war at large.
Ever since the end of the war, Tau Ceti has been a member of the CIW, which made efforts to pacify the system by disarming the privateers and treating both planets equally: the system is now safe and prosperous.
As to the calls for blood, they have been replaced by bad taste jokes and faint racism. Citizens of Tau Ceti commonly explain to foreigners: "Our two planets are now in eternal friendship: us and them are worst friends forever".

[impaktor]

Historic system with historic rivals

This sounds like half a sentence to me? "Historic system with historic interplanetary rivals"? or "interplanetary rivalry" even?

It would add to the complexity of the conflict if the colony ship that arrived first was a newer faster ship that launched after the one that arrived second. If you like that, and can express it concisely.

For about four centuries, both factions waged a bloody vendetta.

I'd say remove the "about" from that sentence as it's implicit in the coarse grained measure of "centuries" (rather than e.g. "392 years").

Also, "factions waged a bloody vendetta" -> "factions waged a bloody interplanetary vendetta"

When hyperspace reached Tau Ceti during the 27th century

"During the 27th century, when hyperspace travel connected Tau Ceti to its neighbours" (or maybe "local region/cluster"?), also here assuming UK-spelling.

"enfore" -> "enforce"

(perhaps): "but had other priorities than to" -> "but took lightly to"

"took advantage on this" -> "took advantage of this"

As both factions neutralized each other, Tau Ceti didn't contribute significantly to the outcome of the war.

"didn't" > "did not" (makes text more "formal" / "history text book"-like by avoiding contractions).

One could cease the opportunity to get philosophical here, and phrase the above quoted-sentence to somehow capture how the system was a symbolical focal point of the conflict (think: West/East Berlin 1945-1989, that also never saw any "action", but was a symbolic focal point of the cold war, with its "iron curtain").

An initial suggestion you can "riff upon" (also, I haven't checked if this is in line with our official lore), to replace the quoted-sentence above:

Although the divided loyalties within the system made Tau Ceti a symbolic focal point of the larger interstellar conflict, however, with each planet being equal in strength, neither side contributed in any decisive way to the outcome of the war at large.

Ever since, Tau Ceti has been a member of the CIW, which made efforts to pacify the system by disarming the privateers and treating both planets equally. And it worked: the system is now safe and prosperous.

The last sentence feels a bit clumsy, inspiring me to poke about in it some:

Ever since the end of the war, Tau Ceti has been a member of the CIW, which made efforts to pacify the system by disarming the privateers and treating both planets equally: the system is now safe and prosperous.

"Our two planets are now in eternal friendship: us and them are worst friends forever."

Ha! I like that!

Remember to update your PR, "git add" the file after you've saved it, and do an "amend" to re-write your last commit:

Code: Select all

git add <file>
git commit --amend

and since the hash of the last commit has been changed, force push to your github branch/PR:

Code: Select all

git push --force

Very nice work!

[Spiffor]

Thank you very much! :)

I've added your suggestions to the system's description, and updated the PR and the wiki.

Only one thing I didn't add was this:

Although the divided loyalties within the system made Tau Ceti a symbolic focal point of the larger interstellar conflict, however, with each planet being equal in strength, neither side contributed in any decisive way to the outcome of the war at large.

Indeed, taccording to the Timeline, the main focus was really the war between Sol and Epsilon Eridani, as the remaining independent worlds sided with EE to thwart Sol's imperialism. The way I see it is that the new world order was decided in EE, and everybody knew it.

Tau Ceti was not a symbol in the war:
- Sol and EE merely saw the Tau Ceti armed ships as a resource, which they eventually failed to get on their side (as Terranova and Pontianak fought each other locally)
- and other world saw Tau Ceti as a semi barbaric system waging its own very old vendetta -under new banners- with no interest in the future of the galaxy.

[impaktor]

Nice.

As far as I can tell, you are the first to actually make use of the Pioneer time line / lore, so you can probably modify it if you want. As long as there are no invasions of flying saucers or squid monsters. I think nozmajner is the main author of the lore.

[bszlrd]

I'm not. I just condensed down that huge lore page on the wiki, but didn't got far in fleshing it out, not to mention any changes.

My main line of thinking in general is that the Pioneer universe is in a long stagnating phase. Both scientific advancement and Moore's law slowed down to a crawl. All low hanging fruits are picked, and the higher ups are tiny and take lots of meticulous work to reach, and wont introduce significant breaktroughs. So technological advancement is mostly polish work and optimization, maybe rethinking.

The answer to the Fermi paradox is that we are alone in the galaxy (possibly even the universe, but no real means to tell). No alive alien species. Which is a quite gloomy thing, but still an interesting aspect to explore in my opinion. Maybe archeological evidences of past civilizations that didn't pass the great filter (which is the norm, and we are the outliers in this case).

Nothing of this is "official" of course, let's say it's my head canon I still didn't got around properly writing down.

[impaktor]

Regarding development of lore/time line, I think it's better to let the development of the game steer it, and then document it on the wiki, than the other way around. Meaning: if it feels fitting to have a certain system with a certain story, then go with that and update the changes to the wiki.

I think having the lore on the wiki should be just so we're consistent with what happens when, but the player will mostly experience the lore when reading system descriptions, and maybe in the future throught special quests and missions.

[FluffyFreak]

I wish to encourage all of this, merged your latest custom system changes Spiffor!

[impaktor]

Well, this is fitting:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/18/0 ... -star-trek

Would be nice to have in-game. Note: I don't think "Vulcan" can be trade marked / copyrighted, as it was actually taken from astronomy, for the hypothetical planet between Mercury and Sol (and is of course the god of fire in Roman mythology); so it should be safe to use.

I'm not sure what the "story" should be for such a system? "the high gravity has made the inhabitants strong, yet they've adopted the most peaceful of life philosophies, by distancing themselves from negative emotions, people come here to strengthen both body and soul"?

...or 8 times the mass of earth makes it not suitable for human life.

[Spiffor]

I wish to encourage all of this, merged your latest custom system changes Spiffor!

Thanks very much!

It really encourages me to continue, I feel my contribution really adds to the game we're making :)

[Spiffor]

Well, this is fitting:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/18/0 ... -star-trek

Would be nice to have in-game. Note: I don't think "Vulcan" can be trade marked / copyrighted, as it was actually taken from astronomy, for the hypothetical planet between Mercury and Sol (and is of course the god of fire in Roman mythology); so it should be safe to use.

I'm not sure what the "story" should be for such a system? "the high gravity has made the inhabitants strong, yet they've adopted the most peaceful of life philosophies, by distancing themselves from negative emotions, people come here to strengthen both body and soul"?

...or 8 times the mass of earth makes it not suitable for human life.

That's mighty cool

I like your story :) I would have to tweak a little with the lua file to have a significantly stronger gravity than Earth's: my massive terrestrial planets are usually proportionally larger than Earth, and I end up with a gravity of 1G