Unique systems

[Mermel]

Just a little random thing I came across in my last game.

After about 10 hours of play my threat busted the 9K mark without me seeing any large enemy force close to my systems. I noticed a set of AI planets being on alarm deep in AI territory though. After clearing a passage there and sending in some scouts, what I had feared actually came true.
It was a planet with a dark spire spawner and a black hole generator.
It turned out, that about 6000 dark spire craft had amassed there, unable to leave the planet and constantly feeding on anything that came through that place (Which happened to be a bottleneck on a cluster map up on top).
After thinking about it for a while, I decided to pop the black hole generator and just see what happens, as this planet was so far from mine.

I'm not sure of the horrors that I unleashed, the terror I brought over that part of the galaxy, but the galactic population dropped from 36K to 22K in the next half hour and wiped out everything in a large radius around the original hive planet.

It was a most interesting spectacle, even though I was not able to watch it myself.

Id like to see more of those things. The Dyson sphere is another example of a unique system and also very enjoyable.

What other ideas for those things are out there? Anything which could be implemented without too much effort
(I'm thinking about things like the super sized guardians I read about in another thread)

[TechSY730]

Something similar to this has been proposed:
1797: New Planet Types - Examples (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1797)

[Kraiz]

I had some similar ideas a while back.  A planet, once captured, is just a planet.  It has it's position, making it somewhat strategically important, or resource-rich, or perhaps the location of a fabricator or other immobile valuable, but aside from that, it's just a stage for the game to take place.  Without a setting, the stage really is kinda' boring.  I thought of a few things, both structure-wise for the AI and environmental for planets in general.  I won't go into too much detail, but a few examples....

Different AI Command stations with different planet-wide effects.
 - Staging Facility - 150% Wave strength on waves sent from this planet or surrounding planets
 - Minor Shipyard - Produces threat ships at a fixed m/c build rate.
 - Major Shipyard - Produces threat starships at a fixed m/c build rate.
 - Defense Outpost - Places turrets on the planet and adjacent planets
 - Perimeter Station - Can "lock" a single wormhole in the system, preventing the player from entering or exiting that wormhole, forcing him/her to find an alternate route to the planet.  (Perhaps Spire Jumpships can have immunity to this for dead-end systems)

Environmental Anomalies / Effects / Entities:
 - Monolith - a massive rock in the solar system that is not passable by ships.  Must go around the object to navigate to the other side, giving physical terrain to some systems.
 - Unstable Wormholes:  Causes slight damage to ships entering and exiting through the wormholes linking this planet to another.
 - Ice Field - Sensors of ships bounce off of the ice chunks in the system, also decreasing visibility.  Ships are only visible at close range.
 - EM Radiation - Ships take damage proportional to their energy cost.
 - Methane Clouds - Pockets of floating methane that explode on contact with a ship's engine flare.  Not advisable to traverse with large fleets.

Those are just a few of the ideas I had.  The pointis to give anothe rdimension to considering what systems are valuable and which aren't.  Some that are hazardous can be used to your advantage if you use their position right (IE: Methane Clouds at a chokepoint, forcing the AI to traverse it before getting to your systems)  Perhaps a density setting to determind how "common" the environmental anomalies and effects are, as some may find them very attractive and fun, while others may get irritated when they find their home system is an Ice field.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Hmm...

Black Hole Golem: This results in a 'black hole machine' effect so long as more than one player's ships are in the system. If two players are in the system, one needs to scrap their ships. If player's fighting the AI, neither can leave until one falls. The golem really just wants to see a good fight. The planet can be captured, and functions as a more or less free black hole machine... for better or for worse.

Electromagnetic disturbance: This results in various walls placed to create choke points throughout the system. Ships of the team who does not own the system cannot pass through the walls, but can go around.

Corrupt Wormholes: This results in various wormholes being added to the system. These wormholes are the result of a subspace anomaly, and if you enter a 'wrong' wormhole, it will teleport each ship that enters to a random planet within 3 hops of the entered planet. These planets will appear to have more wormholes than normal, and any false connections will trigger the random teleport. When discovered, false wormholes are marked with a red "FALSE".

Stronghold: This planet is a critical AI stronghold, and as such, has extreme measures going into defending it. Strongholds are always within one hop of a core world, and always have multiple guard posts that project invulnerability to the home command (as well as its own command station), as well as at least one free brutal pick and a mark III or super fortress. Stronghold planets also get far more reinforcements. Stronghold ships will leap to the defense of core or homeworlds within 3 hops at a moment's notice.

Dark Spire Home: The Dark Spire make a home here, secretly. The Dark Spire lay dormant, unless actively attacked and put on alert. If alerted, all Dark Spire ships go on alert, and will immediately and brutally assault any and every planet they can possibly reach until exterminated from the planet entirely. However, these planets have unique construction facilities and extra resources ripe for the taking.