What happens to the starships after planetfall?

[Eastern Heretic]

A discussion in another thread got me thinking, what happens to your seeding ship after it unloads the colony pod with your actual colonists, and with the ships of other factions for that matter, assuming the colony pod is not everything what's left of it by the time it reached the Planet's orbit.
For example if we consider the discussion about whether the lifeform-sensor keeps updating the player about the new alien nests, for that to be possible we must assume that the original ship itself is still in orbit in operational condition and keeps feeding us new information. I would say, no spacecraft is that robust (the in-game satellites themselves seem to have a lifetime of 60 turns-years or so), but then again it has already been traveling for 400 hundred years, so why not a couple hundred more? It happened with Mir station, when it's lifetime was extended to twice of what was planned because it's resource allowed for it, and we know everything space-related is built with thrice the necessary robustness. Unless you consider you have to manage the orbital decay somehow and I'm pretty sure all the fuel would be exhausted during the journey.
In any case, I imagine that whatever was left in orbit after planetfall is big enough to cause a catastrophe of at least local proportions if it's left to just fall onto the surface as it pleases, and there's an entire 8 of them. So this poses the problem that it should be disposed of somehow.
While I might be overthinking this in terms of realism (have no idea if anything I wrote above is actually valid), but wouldn't it be cool for this to play out gameplay-wise? For example use the quest mechanic for something like a global quest to stop the remains of the 8 seeding ships from falling onto the planet, kinda like the global fair, global games and ISS from BNW but more engaging than just "invest X amount of production" although that works too I guess. Making all the players suddenly invest their production into something else while they're busy pumping out units to exterminate each other would already be a nice twist. Or maybe even a colony(ship)-drop as the top spy mission for supremacy? (I know they already have something bland sounding already for that role)
Alpha Centauri had some council options related to the starship they arrived on after all, why can't BE have something similar?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The entire ship lands/crashes With the Colony pod and is salvaged for parts/material to build the settlement.

Basically there is nothing but the Colony pod (maybe some fuel tanks dumped off partway that never come near the planet)

 

[DarkestOnion]

I think it would be interesting if some part of the Ship stayed in Orbit and you could interact with it again somehow when you reestablish a Space Program in the Mid Game to Late Game.

 

[Verenti]

They gain intelligence and demand that you WorShip them.

 

[Mustakrakish]

I just don't like how the landing looks. One circular ship nicely lands in there and city pops up in its place. I would prefer many different little ships and pods landing on that tile and then the city would form. You know like that one giant ship that was used to travel interstellar then would brake apart into many pods etc. in orbit and then they'd land. IMO it would make more sense than one giant ship able to land safely. I know it's just visuals, but still would be a hell of nice detail.

 

[iRule]

I thought the starship took off after planet fall. It always seemed weird to me in those videos.

 

[Cyon]

They did in the earlier builds, but in the latest it lands and disappears.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

They fall into the Plot Hole.

 

[vahouth]

I'd like to see a huge crater with the remains of the spaceship, as a SMAC easter egg.

 

[shaglio]

This:

 

[Dargoth]

This:

Isnt that the old 80s Transformer cartoon?

 

[shaglio]

Isnt that the old 80s Transformer cartoon?

Bingo. I guess it only works with Supremacy, though, because of the robots and all.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Bingo. I guess it only works with Supremacy, though, because of the robots and all.

Thinking of that... did anyone think the "Prime" for high level supremacy units should be at the End of their name?

 

[AriochIV]

In a realistic setting, a starship (at this tech level) would not have the capability to land on a planet, and so would still be in orbit.

This is, of course, not a realistic setting in that sense. This is a setting in which geosynchronous satellites decay and fall within a matter of years, and a starship orbiting a planet needs some kind of special sensor just to map where the continents are.

 

[GeoModder]

What is depicted at the start of the UI is a lander with basic materials and a first group of colonists.
Logic dictates that following that there's more unloading of supplies, materials, and colonists to the surface until the starship is empty. I guess after that reclaimable parts of the starship can be shuttled down to the surface for use in the colony.

 

[AriochIV]

It would have been cool if the starship had started the game as some kind of free early Orbital Unit, that provided a small bonus for a certain number of turns and then crashed like a normal satellite.

 

[Lord Shadow]

It would have been cool if the starship had started the game as some kind of free early Orbital Unit, that provided a small bonus for a certain number of turns and then crashed like a normal satellite.

Indeed. Or it could be part of an early-mid game quest in which, say, you invest production and energy to reclaim its structure from orbit. But given the way you make use of the spacecraft's cargo and special equipment from turn 1, I'd assume everything that can be reclaimed is shipped to the planet's surface at the beginning, and then the ship's allowed to deorbit.

 

[mabalogna]

I think the ship is to heavy to safely reenter the atmosphere and not crash into the ground.

In order for the seeding ship to enter safely and keep the weight down, the ship jettisons several components not necessary immediately for colonization - extra fusions reactors, and satellites etc. are scattered in the atmosphere and meant to land near the crash site (some straying farther and farther away). Upon entry to the planet an expedition team is sent out for scout the terrain and try and find some of the cargo that was jettisoned.

 

[3of5]

edit: my original post was wrong (the "prime" seems to be part of the name of the units, he just named the faction "L1NE" which sounds similar, so i got confused)

remains to say, i'd too like some role for the ship in orbit after planetfall, maybe speeding up the building of the first colony, by providing its ship bonus for a time (fusion reactor: +5 energy/turn, lifeform scanner detecting native units too in real time...) but at the same time blocking the orbital space tile above the colony (or rather above the center of the landing area) for 60 turns. This will not happen, since they'd have to rebalance the boni, but it would be a nice touch. I don't take offense to the time limit for orbital units: we did not have any satellite up for more than 30 years today (because maintance is difficult), and they get deorbited (or moved to a graveyard orbit) after decommission, to prevent Kessler syndrome. So a 60 turns timer is actually not that bad. Given that a game would take 200-300 turns, you wouldn't be too bogged down by having to replace them periodically.

 

[NukeAJS]

Maybe the starship is only used to escape Earth's gravity well. After that, the "colony pod" or whatever got a new type of propulsion system at the space station?