Nebulas

Overview

Nebulas are interstellar collections of ionized gas covering vast areas with a fog which is difficult to penetrate with conventional sensors. They impose a wide variety of effects on the empires.

Visibility

Nebulas will hide planets, and even hostile ships, from conventional scanning by their thick density. The density is used to determine the range of ships that may scan each individual point of the nebulae. Two ships, the Swift Heart Scout and B41 Explorer are equipped with a specialized scanner that allows these ships to detect planets and ships within 100 light years (ly) regardless of density.

Additionally, sensor sweeps missions (including bioscans), do not work on planets covered by a nebula. Only the Pawn Baseship may continue to use its bioscanner on such planets. Nebulae do not effect the Dark Sense mission, so owned planets (except Rebel) planets will still be picked up by those psychic scanners

Cloaking

Most ships that end or start their turn inside a nebulae will not be able to cloak due to the interfering gases. Ships that possess an advanced cloaking device will still be able to cloak inside a nebula.

Planets

In addition to being stealthed, planets are 10 times more likely to experience meteor showers than other planets. Additionally, any natives on planets whose visibility is at most 50 ly will go into a religious fervor, resulting in a +5 to the change in happiness per turn.

Misc

• Minefields that interact with nebulas decay three times as fast
• The Cobol Research Cruiser's Ram scoop does not work if it ends its turn inside a nebula
• Ion storms that interact with nebulas will lose voltage