I'm still working on my science fiction story, "Pathfinder", about a ring building ship facing morale and aging issues.

Yesterday I started on the last bit before releasing version 0.4. I just did asteroids and dust clouds, but I realized I wanted to add solar flares. As I did the intro for this, I wondered what you could possibly do in a space ship if a solar flare erupted nearby. Take your dose and live (in a limited fashion) with it?

Went to bed and woke up the next morning and there were all sorts of options.

First, range. The further out you are, the less damage you will take.

And then alien shields. If you've managed to (in future) find alien tech, maybe you can have their shields, and I figure if anyone can ward off radiation, it's gotta be high-tech, long-deal aliens.

And your own ship armor. It's not in the game yet but I've put in the coding segments for adding armor to your ship. That would block some of the damage.

And then there is if you are currently passing a planet or gas giant. If you want to spend a fuel point, you can move your ship into the shadow of the planet.

And finally, you can pump up to five units of water/oxygen to the flare-ward tanks and shield your crew. Of course, it will have to be dumped after you contaminate it.

Or you just take your rads like a good little spaceman.

But it's amazing what your mind does while you sleep...

If ever I am stuck, I will just take a break for at least an hour or so, sometimes a day, and think about something else.

By the way, another alternative is to have a section of your space section especially shielded and move everyone there. Or set up a giant magnetic field to deflect it, possibly with a large energy drain.

The other way to get ideas is o post something like this and people GIVE you ideas for FREE! Thanks, Pix. I like the magnetic shielding idea and might add it eventually (gotta get a tech research thing going, but playtesting revealed another "impossible" bug I need to root out today...) :(