New Flagship Discovery Chain

[CaptainX3]

The big feature of Season 2 is a new discovery chain for the Flagship.

This can involve a series of dig sites leading to the discovery of the Flagship "blueprints", or may involve the new Capture mechanics where the player must fight an ancient fleet and take over the Flagship, or a combination of both. We should go with whichever method is easier to implement and code and less likely to cause future problems.

This is the original contest entry for this feature:

For a flagship feature of the mod (pun intended), the flagship lacks flavor and a a long term buildup that gives players something to look forward to, hance my proposal on having the flagship tech unlocked by an event/archelogy site. The event/site should spawn around the midgame/endgame (tied into mod menu?) and can appear for multiple empires at the same time (including ai). From there, it is a race to complete the event chain/site which provides lots of flavor and ends with unlocking the flagship tech. The first empire to complete the chain/site gets a period of exclusivity, getting to build the mega shipyard and flagship first, while the other empires can also get the tech through an event ~10 years later (same as the current other powers are building their own flagships).

Some thematic ideas about a possible event/digsite:

• Discover an ancient signal leading to a massive fallen empire fleet/ancient warship/shipyard/data cache? (kind of like the battlefields of the great crusade chain)
• Find a database of a long destroyed race containing plans for a potential warship that could have saved their race? (could tie into crisis lore?)
• Alternate dimension portal stranding a flagship long ago?