Massive Mod under construction

[wake_of_angels]

Hi all!
I am building a HUGE Mod using ideas from some other ones, such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Proportions, Pirates-Nomads, and more. (Thanks to their creators, I hope they will allow me to do this http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif)
Now, the mod counts hundreds of hull sizes of any class, more than 20 000 Comps and around 50 mounts, in addition to the 200 buildings available. Other thing, I have actually 32 aliens sciences from ruins. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif
Most of hulls use a generic picture that prevent of similarity in all ship classes.
Are you interessed to get it?
(I have not allready finished it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif, so I don't attach it.)

[Renegade 13]

Holy ****!! That's huge! I might be interested.

[Ragnarok-X]

No offense, but thats hardly believeable at all. Not unless you have a second nick named Fyron or Atrocities http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Looking forward to hear from it.

[Fyron]

Interesting. How are you planning to combine these mods? They have very different play styles. How are Nomads going to coeexist with Proportions-style homeworlds? In Proportions, it takes quite some time to make colonies be productive, so the lack of colonies for Nomads wouldn't seem to be much of a penatly for them.

[spoon]

He said he was combining elements of the mods, not just pasting them together. Who knows what this frankenmod might turn out looking like? Could be cool, could be crazy, could be a mess... but if he wants to give it a go, more power to him.

That said, I hope Wake has lots of spare time, this sounds like a very time consuming endeavor...

[Urendi Maleldil]

That's a lot of work, but it is possible to combine the mods. You just have to edit and make compromises.

Or you could just copy and paste the entire data files together and assign racial traits to each mod. That way anyone who wants to play a particular style can just choose those traits, but it would make the data files huge.

[Fyron]

Post deleted by Imperator Fyron

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Well, I imagine he'll start at the beginning and go on to the end. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Good luck, hope you don't get burnt out on something so massive. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Are you using a data generator?

[Gandalf Parker]

I still think we should sell a CD with a FrankenMod crammed with as much map, planets, tech, races as possible for SEIV Gold.

What is the biggest list of work-together mods possible?

Mines called XperiMental and has 5 I think though I forget what I put in it

[mac5732]

the mods are all good and I would be interested in this one, howeveer, I would like to see an AI that defends wormholes with bases, mines, sats and ships,

[Ragnarok-X]

Impossible...

[Slick]

Impossible in SEIV, unfortunately due to hard coding. I shudder to think what a TDM race with high difficulty and bonus would do to me. But SEIII had it and we are told that SEV AI will also protect warp points. I can't wait to get killed by the SEV AI.

[Suicide Junkie]

The hardest part of a megamod will be finding balance.
Good luck, and be sure to not fall into the trap of "oooh shiney ubertech!"

[NullAshton]

Ubertech is fun if balanced correctly...

[Atrocities]

If you want to spend the time on it, I say go for it and good luck. Feel free to use what you need from the STM so long as you include credit where credit is do. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Renegade 13]

NullAshton said:
Ubertech is fun if balanced correctly...


...but if it's balanced correctly, it isn't ubertech...

[Ron_Lugge]

sounds interesting...

[El_Phil]

Yes shiny weapons are a problem. I spent ages trying to balance mounted railguns in a mod. On the one hand they were clearly far too powerful at the high end, on the other hand I wanted them to uber and shiny just because it sounded cool.

A dreadnought mounting 16" railguns blasting huge ship killer rails! BLAM!!

[Urendi Maleldil]

mac5732 said:
the mods are all good and I would be interested in this one, howeveer, I would like to see an AI that defends wormholes with bases, mines, sats and ships,



Actually it is possible if you mod in a few satellites that are the size of space stations, and give the AI sat layer components big enough to hold them.

That's what I was trying to do with the Defense Platforms in the Pointer Mod, but I just haven't written the AI for it, and there are still some conflicts with the standard Satellites.

[Suicide Junkie]

Regarding mounts:

- Do Not try to use a stock-like mount system. You'll get uber-ed into the ground. IMO stock is a bit more fun if you simply delete the mounts.
- Have some tradeoffs. Give the bigger guns a bit more damage/kt, but decrease their accuracy and increase the price/kt. Increase range, at the cost of damage. Decrease damage for a significant price drop.
- Don't forget missiles. Although you can't change the actual missile's stats or range, you can make the launcher pre-fire missiles by extending its range, or hold-fire by decreasing range so the enemy can't run away after the missile is launched.
- Mounts are not just for weapons anymore! Component quality mounts can give you some variety in your internals hitpoints/cost/size. Supply use can be adjusted on your engines and cloaking devices. Use mounts to make fighter bays cheaper on carrier hulls. Make cargo components smaller/cheaper on transport hulls. Make colony modules smaller/cheaper on colony ships.

[Hunpecked]

TDM AIs put mines or sats on their warp points; I don't recall seeing both on one point, though. Sometimes they'll re-mine a warp point after I've broken through it; I've swept some warp points two and three times.

[Emperor's Child]

Suicide Junkie said:
The hardest part of a megamod will be finding balance.
Good luck, and be sure to not fall into the trap of "oooh shiney ubertech!"



Exactly my thoughts. Also, it is very likely the AI's won't work without Major editing.

[Emperor's Child]

And another thought: Why make a major SEIV mod when SEV is just around the corner? You will get this thing all tweaked out and working just right about the time is is unexecutable when the new game rolls out.

[Fyron]

It should be a fairly simple process to upgrade a mod from SE4 to SE5. Getting the foundation for a mod worked out now can be good, as all you need to do for SE5 is convert it to the new formats. Make sure to save all of the formulas you use for calculating values for levels of components, since MM said in the chats that there would be formulas in the data files in SE5.

[Ron_Lugge]

Cross-compatable mods? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

[wake_of_angels]

hi everyone!
thank you foryour answers, and sorry for being waited.
I have already a prewiev version that I'll soon post here.

I simulated the different ways to get science results with similar comps series, such as three scales of emissive armors. Now it is possible to loose is orientation to items, as in reality.
I also tried to create "lateral effects" which are prototypes, working like ruins items but with a lower efficience. As an exemple, a "X Boarder" giving 1 point of boarding offense for 25kT and 500 of each resources.

I changed the stellar construction system, making more classes of comps required, and thoose are only bringable 1kT by 1, on sats (and on mines maybe).

I don't know what tool to use to mod quickly the AI research files.

[Suicide Junkie]

Interesting idea with the constructed world plating/cables placable on satellites.
You will probably need to double or triple the requirements in order to compensate for the fact that will be much easier to deploy.

[wake_of_angels]

In fact, I added water generator and ground viabilisation systems, computering devices, and such other things to the different worlds.
These can be three sizes of ringworlds, three of sphereworlds and a UAW (stands for universal atmosphere world) which has the same capacity when domed or not!

[Ron_Lugge]

UAW doesn't sound very workable...

But who cares, sounds fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nodachi]

The UAW would be easy to mod and sounds like something to add to a "newbie mod." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Ron_Lugge]

Workable as in balance, not doablility.

[wake_of_angels]

The UAW has many comps requierment that make fun to build.

[wake_of_angels]

I have a big problem with the comps families, which I must fully remake to get results!

[tesco samoa]

hey you can put in the canon canon to take on the non star trek races http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Or the ever instant classic !

Thanks Puke

Name := Sci-Fi Canon
Description := Uses accepted principals of science fiction to systematicly dismantle non-canon elements of SEIV and eleminate them from the game.
Pic Num := 220
Tonnage Space Taken := 300
Tonnage Structure := 3000
Cost Minerals := 5000
Cost Organics := 5000
Cost Radioactives := 5000
Vehicle Type := Ship\Base
Supply Amount Used := 5
Restrictions := None
General Group := Weapons
Family := 6666
Roman Numeral := 1
Custom Group := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Applied Science Fiction Lore
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 0
Weapon Type := Direct Fire
Weapon Target := Ships\Planets\Ftr\Sat
Weapon Damage At Rng := 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000
Weapon Damage Type := Skips Shields And Armor
Weapon Reload Rate := 1
Weapon Display Type := Beam
Weapon Display := 14
Weapon Modifier := 200
Weapon Sound := tractor.wav
Weapon Family := 666

[wake_of_angels]

I agree with you, but what is the requirement for Applied Science Fiction Lore.
However, I think it is a good idea!

[Suicide Junkie]

You need to know the principles of sci-fi, and what is canon before you can design a weapon to destroy everything that dosent fit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[wake_of_angels]

It's done!
Here is in attachement the data package.
No AI included!

[wake_of_angels]

here are the facility

[wake_of_angels]

now the plantes.

[wake_of_angels]

Yet the generic race, which allows all races to have the benefits of the numerous ship sizes.

[wake_of_angels]

Sorry, just an error.

[wake_of_angels]

Finally, the comps .bmp
I made an error three post sooner: it's not "plantes", but, "planets"!

[Fyron]

Any particular reason why you did not place everything in a single archive file?

[wake_of_angels]

First, because the single file is 68 mbytes and the site allow only 30.
Secondly, I can't find a best archive format.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Every computer (with WinXP at least) can compress to .zip format, and if you make a quick visit to rarlab.com you can download WinRAR and compress into much more efficient .rar format. Almost everybody on this forum has a RAR extractor, so you needn't worry there.

[Fyron]

You do not need to reupload the image mod files. Just point people to:
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/MM/SE4/imagemod/
or here while imagemodserver is offline:
http://imagemod.spaceempires.net/

If you have a handful of extra images, you can just submit them to the image mod and save people from downloading everything twice.

This will cut a lot of download size out of the mod...

[PTF]

The best compression rate might be achieved by 7-zip:
http://www.7-zip.org

At least this is what I have seen for Morrowind mods. A former 140 MBytes zipped mod has been reduced to about 70-80 MBytes by 7-zip.
The best decompression tool that I could think of is, for all formats:
http://www.zipgenius.it/

[Fyron]

Even if you want to stick with ZIP files, you definitely want to get a professional archiving program (7-zip, Izarc, WinRAR, etc.). Pretty much everything makes far smaller ZIP archives than the XP utility and WinZip. Those are great examples of really poor software.

[wake_of_angels]

Thank you for your advices, I will try now to make one archive file.

[Atrocities]

WinRAR has my vote hands down. Great program.

[wake_of_angels]

I can't post the second version of file because of a big problem

[wake_of_angels]

I have found a way to make more planet sizes:
I have now moons, extra huge planets, viabilizable asteroids, and such other stellar bodies.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Compression problem, file problem, computer problem or internet problem?

[wake_of_angels]

This might be a file problem, in way of solving.
It is explained in the post Big Problem

[gosho mladenoff]

Have you loooked at the grau mod in PBW. It's a cool mod taking the best of proportions, mod mount, highliner mod, and a few others. Some problems with it though. the AI is weak, sometimes choosing anti PD fighters or anti PD missiles but not both. Also some computers give maintenance with ships greater than 100%, thus resulting in ships which produce resources.
Its a bit dated as it doesn't have elite technology or barrage minefields of the new proportions. but massively cool non the less.
It is somewhat more realistic than proportions for cultural centers. In proportions the resource multiplyer is in the cultural center. In grau the multiplyer is much more population based. Where billion pop planets get a *7 multiplyer rather than a x2.

Has lots of high, tech like micro nizer cargo holds, cheap components, military engines,gatling PD, and hyper-drives (emergency propulsion x100).

Also has PD seekers which I understand has been fixed in the last patch

ggm