First impressions of Nomads

[Vacuity]

These are *very* cool!

They're also quite disruptive of chokepoint strategies.  Is this a good thing?  Maybe!  It also means that some things may be slightly easier to achieve.  I had a spire archive spawn on one in the game I just started, and rapidly found said spire archive heading into my sphere of influence.  Easy knowledge?  I'd say so!

Can AI homeworlds spawn on them?  That could be unpleasant, combined with a raid engine pick it'd be atrociously horrible.

[Draco18s]

Pretty sure nomads are excluded from Homeworldness.

I had a spire archive and an ARS spawn on one of the nomads in my game.

[Toranth]

Pretty sure nomads are excluded from Homeworldness.

I had a spire archive and an ARS spawn on one of the nomads in my game.

It looks like:
Nomads can have anything that can spawn on a normal world spawn on them (I've seen a normal Raid Engine on one).
Currently, they can be Core Worlds, although Keith said he might change that.
They can have Subcommanders.
They cannot have Nebula links.
They cannot get Brutal Guardpost picks.
And it seems they cannot be AI or Human Homeworlds.

[Mad Rubicant]

Pretty sure nomads are excluded from Homeworldness.

I had a spire archive and an ARS spawn on one of the nomads in my game.

It looks like:
Nomads can have anything that can spawn on a normal world spawn on them (I've seen a normal Raid Engine on one).
[...]
And it seems they cannot be AI or Human Homeworlds.

I've seen a Raid Engine too. I really want to try putting my homeworld on a Nomad, except that would be hilarious when it inevitably meanders over to the AI Homewold with a CRE.

An idea I've had with Nomads, though: Conquer one, stick a warp jammer on it, put some defenses, and build intra-galactic warp gates. You now have a roving advance world; you can even bypass a Core World and go straight to a Homeworld. Not to mention it makes Dock-cannons really easy.

[keith.lamothe]

Either AI or human homeworlds being nomads, good grief, that would be a game-changer all right   Especially a human-homeworld nomad, sounds like a wild ride indeed.  Not currently possible, but I'll think about it.  It would have to be one of those "are you sure you want to get on the train to paintown?" confirms in the lobby.

[Toranth]

It looks like:
Nomads can have anything that can spawn on a normal world spawn on them (I've seen a normal Raid Engine on one).
[...]
And it seems they cannot be AI or Human Homeworlds.

I've seen a Raid Engine too. I really want to try putting my homeworld on a Nomad, except that would be hilarious when it inevitably meanders over to the AI Homewold with a CRE.

An idea I've had with Nomads, though: Conquer one, stick a warp jammer on it, put some defenses, and build intra-galactic warp gates. You now have a roving advance world; you can even bypass a Core World and go straight to a Homeworld. Not to mention it makes Dock-cannons really easy.

For up to 20 minutes at a time, at least    Then you get to wait a few hours until it gets back to your target again.

Of course, it was hilarious when the Threatfleet decided to target my Nomad - Every time the wormholes re-linked, the Threatfleet would start to scurry across the galaxy to the new connections.  Sometimes they wouldn't even make it in time before the next relinking, and they'd start all over again.

Either AI or human homeworlds being nomads, good grief, that would be a game-changer all right   Especially a human-homeworld nomad, sounds like a wild ride indeed.  Not currently possible, but I'll think about it.  It would have to be one of those "are you sure you want to get on the train to paintown?" confirms in the lobby.

This would be AWESOME!  Potentially broken... but oh-so-AWESOME.

[Mad Rubicant]

Either AI or human homeworlds being nomads, good grief, that would be a game-changer all right   Especially a human-homeworld nomad, sounds like a wild ride indeed.  Not currently possible, but I'll think about it.  It would have to be one of those "are you sure you want to get on the train to paintown?" confirms in the lobby.

If you do allow it, maybe only seed AI Homeworlds on Nomads if the Human Homeworld is on a nomad? That way you're guaranteed to never have a Homeworld-Homeworld wormhole.

[Vacuity]

I rather like the idea of a conditional every-homeworld-is-a-Nomad option.  Multi-homeworld starts wouldn't work properly with that, however without some changes.  Mind you, imagine trying to defend sixteen Nomad homeworlds from exos.  It probably wouldn't be even vaguely feasible with current energy costs.

Edit: For the record, I just lost my game.  !FUN!

[Aklyon]

Either AI or human homeworlds being nomads, good grief, that would be a game-changer all right   Especially a human-homeworld nomad, sounds like a wild ride indeed.  Not currently possible, but I'll think about it.  It would have to be one of those "are you sure you want to get on the train to paintown?" confirms in the lobby.

10 Nomad HW start would be absurd for certain as far as actually defending them all goes.

[Toranth]

Either AI or human homeworlds being nomads, good grief, that would be a game-changer all right   Especially a human-homeworld nomad, sounds like a wild ride indeed.  Not currently possible, but I'll think about it.  It would have to be one of those "are you sure you want to get on the train to paintown?" confirms in the lobby.

10 Nomad HW start would be absurd for certain as far as actually defending them all goes.

In addition to the defense issues, there might be, ah, "issues" with the Beacon...

[Vacuity]

No, no, you could just have an *extra* ten nomads in addition to the homeworlds.  Let's see, 2 AI homeworlds, 16 player homeworlds and 10 extra nomads, for a total 28 nomads!  At that point, a ten planet map would be a nearly-reasonable size galaxy, just absurdly ridiculous to play in.

[Aklyon]

No, no, you could just have an *extra* ten nomads in addition to the homeworlds.  Let's see, 2 AI homeworlds, 16 player homeworlds and 10 extra nomads, for a total 28 nomads!  At that point, a ten planet map would be a nearly-reasonable size galaxy, just absurdly ridiculous to play in.

It would be Nomad Galaxy.

[orzelek]

Idea of single HW on nomad sounds fun.. in at least few was(that includes Fun).
I'm still not sure if I'd like to try nomads with any significant exo source.

I did plan tho how I could attack HW using nomad and it seems doable - might require a lot of luck and warp jammer command station.

Actually I noticed only now that they lost metal deposits.. thats a real shame. Makes them less viable for colonization.

OT question - does your HW get a jammer foldout when you research it?

[Shrugging Khan]

I'm having a lot of fun parking cloaked transports full of scouts and other units on nomads, letting them roam for an hour, and then unpacking that transport. Also just slinging scouts out whenever the nomad links up with unexplored planets.

Works really well with my 0-AIP-over-time way of playing

[MaxAstro]

Yeah, Nomads are an amazingly fun new feature.  They also work well with the new encapsulated map, creating interesting defensive features.  I imagine Nomads + Snake would be fun, too.

Also: In my current game, my friends and I captured Nomad One and set up a Nanoswarm/Autobomb cannon there.  The first time one of us said "it'll be in firing range of the ARS planet in about five minutes", we instantly went into the map and renamed it the Death Star.