specific questions

[Frederick_d_Ohlmann]

I don't found response to those by seeking on the forum :
1 - If I mod all stellar manipulation component to get "destroy planet" and the value 0 (they can't destroy anything - except planet destroyer of course) how will the AI react ? I fear it mess the AI (the idea is to get anti-stellar manipulation mines)
2 - I have a ship with an unique 150kt armor. Can 50 dmg mines stack to destroy the armor ?
3 - Is there any tips to make diseappear old ship size ?
4 - Does fleet experience applie to fighter ? And if a carrier is fleeted, will the fighter that he launch in battle get the bonuse ? And troop ?
5 - And does the "max expérience in battle) work on unit ? (fighter/sat/troop)
6 - I understand nothing to stack bonuses of component. I believe that only bonus with different second argument stack, but I see component with the same second argument that were stacking. So ?? (I have read the Fyron modding guide)

[Alneyan]

1) Uh? A Planet Destroyer with a 0 value would be unable to do anything at all, and would not result in an anti-stellar manipulation mine. The AI would likely build them if you script it to do so, and may or may not try to actually destroy enemy planets.

Oh, would you want to make Stellar Manipulation impossible over a planet in conjunction with the anti-Planet Destroyer facility? If so, this facility can only stop Planet Destroying (not relevant in your case), and not all the other Stellar Manipulations, and especially not Stellar Manipulation happening elsewhere in the system. System Gravitational Shielding abilities are the only ones preventing Stellar Manipulation in a system.

2) Yes (storms will do the same by the way).

3) To the best of my knowledge, no.

4) Fleet experience is supposed to work for fighters, but I haven't checked it. Good question about units being launched in battle: I have a hunch they wouldn't get any bonus, but that's just a hunch.

5) Units do not have ship experience, so it will not work.

6) Some abilities stack, others do not. More specifically, ECM/CS abilities stack so long as they are on different family components; I believe this is more of an exception than anything else, however. Others, like planetary/system production increase only take the highest value (or emissive armour for an example of a component ability). Different abilities always stack, even if they give a similar bonus (planetary/system production increase stack with each other).

[Suicide Junkie]

1) You will need to make sure that the real destroy-planet components are available first, or at the same time. Otherwise the AI would see the destroy planet ability and try to use it on its ships. It will use the highest ability amount when it has the choice though.
The mines will probably blow these up just fine though.

2) Yes. Mine damage stacks just like regular weapons in combat. Weapons that do not stack include the "only X" damage types. Normal and X-skipping damage will stack.

3) Set the ship design obsolete. Click the "hide obsolete" button in the design screen.
Each year (10 turns) the game will check to see if there are any ships of obsolete design still in the game. They could be yours, or in enemy hands. If there are zero examples of that design left in the game and the design is marked obsolete, it will be deleted permanently.

4) Yes, for fighters explicitly added to a fleet. Launched units will not gain a bonus from their mothership as far as I know.

5) Possibly. You would have to mod in a tiny max-exp component and try it in the game.

6) It depends on what the ability type is. For those that use the second argument for stacking restrictions, like bonus movement, the second arg is what matters.
For others, like ECM and combat sensors, it is the family number that determines if it will stack or not.
Some, like shields always stack.
And some, such as emissive armor, never stack.

[Alneyan]

Oh, a clarification: I thought question 3 was about making the size of vessels disappear, not designs. If you meant designs, SJ is perfectly right.

[Frederick_d_Ohlmann]

For the first : to be clear I want to do warhead "planet destroyer only" and all stellar with this ability.

And for the 3 it was *not* design. I have a mod with 48 size of ship and it's a pain to find the good one.

Anyway, thank for the quick replies.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

If you mean how to find them in the VehicleSize file, just usse the Search command - usually Ctrl+F. But I don;t think you're an idiot so I don't think you meant that. If you meant ingame, well, just click the scrollbar next to the designs to the approximate location of the ship. Then, simply scroll up/down a little until you find it. There is no Search command in the Designs window.

[Suicide Junkie]

Frederick_d_Ohlmann said:
And for the 3 it was *not* design. I have a mod with 48 size of ship and it's a pain to find the good one.

Hull sizes do not get obsoleted.
You need to simplify your set of hulls, or perhaps have a clear ranking of them such that the best ones are at the top or bottom of the list, or are otherwise easy to find.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Drag the ones you use most closer to the top in VehicleSize. You will get "separated types" where low-tech freighters are positioned between Frigates and Destroyers whereas the biggest freighters are positioned between the Assault Super-Dreadnought and the Light Battleship, but it would work.

Also, you could try sorting the ship sizes according to size. That would mean that more advanced ships would be at the top of the list - assuming more advanced means bigger, it doesn't have to be, since Lvl 3 Frigate Construction could give you 500kT Heavy Assault Frigates and 250kT Hunter Frigates, but the Hunter has built-in ECM/CS.

[Atrocities]

This is an interesting modding discussion, do any of you mind if I later on copy and paste your responses to the Mod Works over on SE.net?

[Slick]

Unfortunately, you can't add a new damage type such as "only planet destroyers". You are stuck with the ones in the game.

[Zereth]

However, couldn't you get rid of some lesser-used item which has an "Only X" damage type for it, and add that as a dummy ability to start destorying components, then change the description on the Only X weapon you've jsut co-opted to say it targets star destroyers?

[douglas]

Slick said:
Unfortunately, you can't add a new damage type such as "only planet destroyers". You are stuck with the ones in the game.


And it just so happens that "Only Planet Destroyers" is in the list of valid damage types at the top of components.txt.

[Slick]

douglas said:

Slick said:
Unfortunately, you can't add a new damage type such as "only planet destroyers". You are stuck with the ones in the game.


And it just so happens that "Only Planet Destroyers" is in the list of valid damage types at the top of components.txt.




http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif I stand sorta corrected. I sure didn't know that was there. I know you can't add new damage types, but you are absolutely right that "only planet destroyers" is certainly there as a valid damage type. I wonder why the stock game uses all the other damage types except that one. Strange.

edit: wrong again, the double, half, and quarter damage to shields also isn't used in the stock game either.

[douglas]

There are a few others not used in stock. Only Boarding Parties, Only Security Stations, Skips All Shields, Double Damage To Shields, Half Damage To Shields, and Quarter Damage To Shields are all unused in stock, IIRC.

edit: you missed a few in your edit

[Slick]

Ha, I caught it first!
edit: (except I didn't list all of them)


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[douglas]

I'm pretty sure your edit wasn't there right when I first viewed my post.

[Slick]

It probably wasn't. I think the last set of damage types (the ones affecting shield damage) were added in one of the latter patches.

[Frederick_d_Ohlmann]

Atrocities said:
This is an interesting modding discussion, do any of you mind if I later on copy and paste your responses to the Mod Works over on SE.net?



No problem.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Why not?

And I figure if "Only planet destroyers" is a damage type, you could try using, say, "only warp point openers" as a damage type. There are multiple examples of situations in the data files where something isn't listed but still works; in CompEnhancement (mounts) you can add "Tech Area Req #" and "Tech Level Req #" to the records. Unfortunately, there are also occurences in which something is listed but not used - for example, the "Monster Troops" mentioned in VehicleSize.