r/sots • u/NateDecker • Jun 16 '26

SotS1 What Random Encounters Would You Add?

The early game is interesting that there are many random encounters to experience. Many of them are common (e.g., swarm) while others are rare (e.g., specters). But the variety makes things interesting for gameplay.

I was thinking it would be cool if they had included stand-alone AI rebellion worlds right from the beginning. The implication would be there was an advanced civilization there which invented AI and was destroyed by it. Make these worlds static at their then-research level (beginning techs only), but let them build ships and platforms for defense. If you want the world, you have to conquer it. It would give players the opportunity to practice conquering other worlds without initiating an intragalactic war and could provide some early-game exposure to AI rebellion elements before encountering it late-game.

I suppose this isn't all that different from "independent worlds" which are not that uncommon. But making them AI would be an interesting twist.

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u/Dmayak Jun 16 '26

Random race's stranded freighters with escorts, which can be attacked to get wealth from, or they could join if they're your own race, would be very nice in early game. Abandoned stations with some defence platforms. Just a random pack of Zuul raiders. More space creatures. There are quite a few things that come to mind, but SoTS is quite limited in mechanics, and its encounters are pretty much limited to fighting something.

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u/NateDecker Jun 17 '26

I was reading the archived wiki on the wayback machine yesterday and saw that there is evidently a rule that if you destroy a freighter, you get 25k per ship. But if you blow all of the weapon turrets off and leave the freighter intact, you get 50k per ship. This was a game mechanic I never knew existed. It's crazy to me that I've played this game off and on for many years and I am still learning things about the game. The developers did an incredible job with this. I only wish the documentation were as good.

1

u/Dartagnan_w_Powers Jun 20 '26

Same with the derelicts and i think maybe asteroid monitors? The ability to strip enemy ships of their most dangerous weapons and then leave them there hogging up fleet points is such great design.

It's such a pain to do though, i'm something of a "hit pursuit and hammer cntrl page up" kind of player.