A first!!!

[bearclaw]

I can't belive it! This has to be the first time since I registered on Shrapnel in 2002 that I logged into the SEIV forum and there were NO new posts! In 24 hours, not a single new post.

I guess it was bound to happen eventually... I just wish I could buy a CD copy of SEV here... Getting tired of the demo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Atrocities]

Yup, the game has official died now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Arralen]

.. what is a shame, because SE5 isn't really viable outside the incubator http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Fyron]

Well, to be fair, a lot of the new posts in recent months have been OT, and that has all stayed in the "main" forum. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

If you want to see more discussions about SEIV, why not create some? I keep seeing people complaining about it dying, but they do little to stimulate discussion to help keep that from happening...

[Atrocities]

Does any one still play SE IV?

[Artaud]

Atrocities said:
Does any one still play SE IV?



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

I have several games going: ST Mod, Dark Nova and Devnull.

[Atrocities]

I still play it almost daily. In fact I was playing it just now as I worked on the AST 2.0 mod. At least we are still playing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Arralen]

Actually, I would play SE4 much more if there was a mod that suits my tastes completly:

- Newtonian Movement, but not move-2 crawling for 150 turns.
- Leaky armor/shields, but not useless ones (standard-sized component, but not hit first; chance for hit on armor ~10%)
- small hulls more usuable
- harder to colonize 'alien' environments/planet types
- lesser pop growth
- etc.
- AI capable of 'understanding' the changes

Sadly, the mods get only some things 'right', but inevitably introduce some other ideas which spoil the whole fun for me.

And I don't have the time to do a complete mod myself. Therefore, I play a little bit with standard or modded game, until frustration strikes again for some reason.

Thinking 'bout it, this is true for all my gaming: so many promising games, but there's always something that spoils the fun in the end ...

[Fyron]

Adamant Mod (http://adamant.spaceempires.net/) seems to fulfill all of those roles. You could make it introduce far fewer other concepts by deleting the races using non-physical paradigm, and only taking it for yourself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Btw, you can easily decrease pop growth in any mod by going into Settings.txt and increasing this:

Reproduction Check Frequency := 2

Reproduction occurs every X turns, based on that setting. Stock uses 1, Adamant uses 2, Proportions uses 10 (for some examples).

Doing so might create MP savegame incompatibilities, but that's not a concern if you are just interested in single player.

[Captain Kwok]

Sadly, the mods get only some things 'right', but inevitably introduce some other ideas which spoil the whole fun for me.

I wonder if this was in reference to magic? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Arralen]

Captain Kwok said:
I wonder if this was in reference to magic? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



More generally : there's something in every mod that I really dislike. In one, its magic. In another one, its the rediculous slow movement of ships during the first 5 tech levels (main tech!, therefore 150 turns or something), in the third, I'm pretty sure the AI cannot cope with the intricate colony development at all.

Btw., Adamant Mod is focused on MP gaming and its AI roughly en par with the basic games, isn't it?

If there was a mod with a TDM-like AI ... and no, I'm not looking for MP gaming. I'm looking for a nice casual space game I could do now and then when I have the time and the mood ...

[Fyron]

AFAIK, Adamant is quite playable in SP. Parts of the AI are loosely based on the Aquilaiean AI from TDM, which happened to be the first (non-stock, highly optimized) one in the list. And as I said, you can ditch the magic elements of the mod in just a few short minutes. It includes a list of races by paradigm in the adamant\pictures\races folder. All the neutrals are physical (or monsters), so no concern about them.

Note that early game engines were increased in speed in 0.16. Additionally, you can try a med tech start for more of a boost; it starts at the ion engine. Propulsion Experts trait is also quite handy.

[capnq]

Atrocities said: Does any one still play SE IV?

PBW is still getting over 300 members visiting per week, and they certainly aren't hanging around for the scintillating conversations on the PBW forums.

I've got one PBW and two active solo games going, plus a bunch of unfinished solo games that I don't feel like counting.

[dogscoff]

I assume you dislike Proportions because the AI isn't too wonderful in the latest version.

Try playing one of the 2.X versions, the AI there is pretty good.

I'm seriously tempted to start tinkering with the Proportion 3.05 AI to see if I can get better performance out of it.

[Arralen]

Imperator Fyron said:
AFAIK, Adamant is quite playable in SP.



"Unable to load:
se4\pictures\facilities\facil_638.bmp"

... when building Research Center I
It does show up on the facility screen (Facil_638.bmp), does generate research and intel points, but right-click results in:

"stream read error"


Btw., why all those multiple-ability facilites (again). Don't tell me the AI can cope with a homeworld that starts with 12 "Metropolis I" which give +2% anger and -3% environment each turn? (And I wondered why my pop got angry within the very first 5 turns ...). Or did you teach the AI how to raize buildings to build others .. because the homeworlds are packed with 15/15 facilities, so one can't build some amusement parks. Btw., those should be "included" with a Metropolis, which should be happiness-neutral or even positive for most races.

Such things simply do not make sense to me .. therefore for me, the mod sucks.

[Fyron]

The stream read error is an issue with the image mod. You can solve it by opening the file in a non-Paint image app, and resave it as BMP. If you use Photoshop, make sure to select the "OS/2" option for formatting, not "Windows." A more general solution is to run a batch conversion, with an app like Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.com).

The idea was that huge cities clustering tons of people into small spaces tend to raise general levels of discontent. If that is the only thing you dislike about the mod, you can perhaps try the attached file, in which I set the unhappiness to 0 for metroplises.

Note that homeworlds can not riot; they stop at the Angry level.

The AI never bothers with conditions improvement plants, so the pollution does not matter (it only makes improving conditions harder, doesn't ever lower them).

The AI is configured to build as many happiness facilities as it needs (actually 1 extra) for all colony types, so the worker unhappiness scheme generally will not hurt them.

[Artaud]

Imperator Fyron said:
And as I said, you can ditch the magic elements of the mod in just a few short minutes.



I'll have to play around with doing this over the weekend. The mod looks interesting, but magic is not my cup of tea.

[Sivran]

Play Carrier Battles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[bearclaw]

Arralen:
I'm not sure but I think Dark Nova 4 might satisfy most of your concerns. PBW has the most recent version (v4.24).
- viable small ships in late game
- Adapded TDM AI's
- increased importance of organics and rads
- harder to colonize non-native planets
- variant of quasi-newtonian propulsion

About the only thing it's missing from what you request is reduced population growth rates. The only flaw with the AI is that they don't do Intel very well. And, unfortunatly, I don't know about modding AI files enough to figure out how to correct it.

As for SEIV, I'm still in 4 PBW games. 2 of which have just started since SEV came out.

[Fyron]

What about leaky armor/shields?

[Arralen]

Imperator Fyron said:
The idea was that huge cities clustering tons of people into small spaces tend to raise general levels of discontent. If that is the only thing you dislike about the mod, you can perhaps try the attached file, in which I set the unhappiness to 0 for metroplises.


Thanks, will try that out. And have a look at the file, to see how it is done.

You know, its not that I don't like the idea in general - while I have some doubt if that penalty makes sense - if I can build an entertainment falicity seperatly, why not postulate its already incorporated into the Mega-Polis thing? At least, mines, farms, extraction and research centers seem to be ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif
What I don't like is that it feels not entirely thought-through .. the AI can't cope with it, I think, and even the human player has little options to cure the unhappiness, at least at that level ...



Note that homeworlds can not riot; they stop at the Angry level.


Means -20% production from angriness nevertheless.



The AI is configured to build as many happiness facilities as it needs (actually 1 extra) for all colony types, so the worker unhappiness scheme generally will not hurt them.


But the homeworlds are generally full, so unless the AI can tear done facilities now, it will end up with maximum angry homeworlds and the according production penalties. AFAIK, it can't raze facilities?!

Btw, it looks to me like those morale penalties from the mega-cities are cumulative .. at least the +4 entertainment thingie didn't help me at all ?!



Speaking of un-happiness:
Is there something upside-down with the happiness in between-nation relations? If I stumble over an AI in the next system which is agressive and whatnot, it knocks on my door asking for a trade agreement some turns later .. despite having all our system disputed by each other and all.
Then, I meet another AI out there 5 systems away. Despite being neutral and having not one disputed system, and none of mine ships in their systems etc., they go "murderous" and declare within 5 turns. Sometimes their mood gets up to normal levels again, but they'll stay at war forever.
Have started 5 games (with different mods), and it happened not only once, but in at least 3 of those 5 ?!?!?




What about leaky armor/shields?


I'm not sure if I like them (any more) - looks to me they don't really work out, at least in the versions I have seen up to now:
Armors:
Some mods even mix leaky and 'normal' armor, what doesn't make sense at all? I mean - leaky armor is just a functionless compoment, that can take more damage than 'real' components. But this is more 'armored structure' than outlying armor which shields the ship .. unless 30% of the components or more are armor components - otherwise hits on the armor are just too unlikely. Sadly, those armor pieces still have standard size, therefore if I fill a ship with 30% armor tiles, it wouldn't be able to do anything as there wouldn't be sufficient space to place everything else. If those armor tiles are smaller than normal components (some mod does that), they work better, obviously, but take forever to repair ...
This gets rediculous if some armor types stay 'hit first' .. 1 piece providing 100% protection ..
Shields:
Shield regenerating ability was way too low to make any difference, at least at the tech level I got to try out: Again the shield should be reloaded to at least 30% between single hits, otherwise its not leaky, it turns into duct tape after the first go-through ...

[Fyron]

If I could control the homeworld facilities directly (*cough* SE5 *cough*), HWs would start with several entertainment networks. But alas...

Arralen said:
But the homeworlds are generally full, so unless the AI can tear done facilities now to replace them with more needed/fitting ones, it will end up with maximum angry homeworlds and the according production penalties.

With even a low bonus, they get a 100% bonus to production; up to 400% bonus with high. And it only applies to the HW. The angry penalty is not that significant for them, in my opinion.

Also, there are the effects of ships:

Our Ship in Sector := -10
Our Ship in System := -3

1 ship in the same sector as the planet offsets a 1% facility penalty. I suspect it might take a while before they get enough ships roaming about to have an overall mitigating effect, but it could happen. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Btw, it looks to me like those morale penalties from the facilties are cumulative .. at least the +4 entertainment thingie didn't help me at all ?!

Yes, planetary happiness abilities stack.

Is there something upside-down with the happiness in between-nation relations?

The AI is insane.

[Arralen]

.. sorry, had some edits to make to my above post ..

[Fyron]

Arralen said:
I'm not sure if I like them (any more) - looks to me they don't really work out...

It seems to work as intended in the mods I've tried with leaky armor. The whole point is to let some damage get through, but still have the armor components take a good share of damage. Generally, leaky armor components have a lot more hp/kt than normal components (usually at least an order of magnitude). The component selection function is further biased towards hitting high hp components, disproportionate to the component's percent of total hp.

The size of leaky armor isn't so important; larger pieces actually generally work better due to having more hp/component. For example, in leaky armor setups like B5 Mod and Adamant, ships with heavy armor tend to defeat ships with (the same total tonnage of) light armor, despite the light armored ship having a ton more total hp. The lower hp/kt heavy armors tend to take more hits from the "internals" than the higher hp/kt light armors.

This gets rediculous if some armor types stay 'hit first' .. 1 piece providing 100% protection ..

If you are refering to Adamant, the "dense armor" components come at the end of the tech tree, after all leaky armors. They are not really comparable to them, and by that point leaky shields + dense armor are generally the way to go, rather than using much leaky armor. Though, note that there are armor-skipping weapons available to all races (graviton hellbore and graviton missiles for physical paradigm), so you can really pull off some surprise punches against those dense-armored ships.

Note that armor-skipping weapons (shard cannons, graviton hellbore in Adamant) have some interesting effects against leaky-shielded targets. The Skips Armor damage type does not trigger the SGFD (or Emissive) ability, so "skips armor" actually works well against both leaky shields and dense-armored targets. No shield points are generated as a result of an armor-skipping shot, and the damage bypasses the dense armor. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Shield regenerating ability was way too low to make any difference, at least at the tech level I got to try out: Again the shield should be reloaded to at least 30% between single hits, otherwise its not leaky, it turns into duct tape after the first go-through ...

First, not that regeneration abilities are not part of the leakiness; leakiness comes from the shield generation from damage (SGFD) ability.

But it is leaky; it doesn't block a percentage of each hit, so much as replenish the shields after each hit (to a point). Statistically, this has the effect of regenerating damage by a certain percent. If you have more total SGFD than what weapons do per hit, you essentially get the overall damage reduced by half. The percentage of reduction varies by damage type; for example, 1/2x to shields means that overall damage is reduced by 66% (it takes 2 shots to deplete the shield points generated from 1 hit that entirely damages internals). Naturally, the water becomes murky when different types of weapons are mixed together, but you still get some general overall reduction in damage.

At least in Adamant, low tech shields are not very powerful. At low tech levels, it is better to rely more on armor. As tech progresses, the shields start to come into their own. I did make them 20 kT to speed up the point when they start becoming useful, though.

When you get tech to efficiently mount both leaky shields and leaky armor, the damage from each shot is statistically reduced on two levels before reaching internals to do real damage to the ship. There is always the possibility of being unlucky and receiving several hits that do not hit leaky armors, thus incapacitating the ship more quickly than normal. There is also the possibility of getting lucky and having most/all hits go into the armor, thus making the ship remain operational far longer than normal. But overall, it tends to balance out. This is the beauty of leakiness. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Arralen]

Let's take this discussion to the Adamant Mod Thread (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=466439&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1) ... . http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

An in-depth discussion of Leaky Defenses can be found in the Carrier Battles mod tutorial pages:
DEF 200 : Damage Theory (http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/MM/SE4/Mods/CarrierBattles/CBmodTutorial/DEF200.html) and
DEF 340 : Armor Mechanics (http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/MM/SE4/Mods/CarrierBattles/CBmodTutorial/DEF340.html)

DEF 340 goes into detail of the tradeoffs between thick (large, low hp/kt) and thin (small, high hp/kt) leaky armors, plus the effects of tech level on damage absorption rates.

Shield regeneration has nothing to do with leaky shields. As stated before, it is all about the shield generation from damage ability, which charges the shields between each hit.

An additional bonus is if you have strong leaky shields plus thick armor; If the leaky shield points are greater than the weapon damage, and each armor component has more hitpoints than the weapon damage, you can actually suffer no damage from a hit.

This was a deciding factor in the first PBW game; I warped through with a carrier into a fleet of Combat Wombat's destroyers. They were all armed with small 40mm lasers, and my carrier had thick armor and shields...
The destroyers quickly vaporized my armored warship, but they were unable to do any damage to the carrier, despite scoring about a hundred hits. (~10 ships, firing every other turn, for 30-40 turns with good accuracy)

60 leaky shield points, armor with 60+ hp/kt, and the lasers dealing only 45-ish damage. Eventually my anti-missile interceptors nibbled his unshielded ships to death 4 points of damage at a time, and my Carrier lost only a single crew quarters due to an unlucky armor leak.

(This fun story is a good example of why larger mounts are useful in CBmod even though they reduce accuracy. Small guns for small targets, big guns for big targets)

[Gandalf Parker]

I still play SEIV daily. I have SEV but just dont seem to enjoy it. Maybe when some of the mods I like get converted to SEV.

At the moment, the mod I play is called XperiMental.
Its mine. I wont release it because I didnt write any of it. Its half a dozen other mods pasted into one.

Gandalf Parker

[StarShadow]

I still play Se4 exclusively, with my own modifications added in.

[Possum]

Yeah, SE4 all the way here. I had a very active fun PBW game going, until capnq's computer committed seppuku.

[Makinus]

SEV - Was planning to buy it at the earliest opportunity (even asked some forum members to buy it for me and send by mail to Brazil), but after battling with the demos and losing to the UI and the long turn processing times, decided to stick with SEIV for the time being...

In my opinion, in the current form, SEIV is better than SEV, but that can change as more SEV patches are released, and when i get more powerfull computers...

I´m actually playing 3 single player games of SEIV, with different modifications in each, all based in Devnull Mod 1.8 with personal modifications, i normally remove warp manipulating components, decrease reproduction and research rates (by a factor of 10) and add some roleplaying components.

So, for the time being, i have no plans to buy SEV, and will stick with SEIV for a while longer... it gives a more rewarding experience...

[Black_Knyght]

SEIV is all I'll play.

I really love the game, and the various Mods. SEV just went the wrong direction for my interest to go with it.

[Atrocities]

This is the first time in six years that I have gone a week without playing at least one turn of SE IV. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif (Not counting times in the hospitol or on holiday.)

I am so burned out on both SE IV and V at the moment that I can barely bring myself to even work on finishing up my SE IV mods.

I want to finish up these last mods more for just saying I did them than for any other reason. Besides what I learn here will only help me when I do decide to dive into SE V modding. By making the mods for SE IV, I will have a working model for concept work with SE V.

The only thing I hate about SE V is that I can no longer make my own ship sets thus I must rely upon the skill of others for that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Makinus]

Atrocities said:
The only thing I hate about SE V is that I can no longer make my own ship sets thus I must rely upon the skill of others for that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif



Another reason for me not to buy SEV yet... BTW: the shipset that i use most often in SEIV is your Gamilon shipset, you mean that you don´t have the models (or whatever, i don´t understand graphic modeling) to convert them to 3D?

[Fyron]

Atrocities will adapt to real time 3d modeling, don't worry. He just likes being melodramatic.

[Atrocities]

I don't know if I will or not Fyron. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I would like to but I really just don't know if I will or not.

I have heard that there are a few people trying to convert ST and SW models from exsisting games for use with SE V. I hope they can do it.

[Fyron]

Oh you will. You've put enough time and effort into Doga modeling to prove it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[gregebowman]

AT, I'd love to say I've been burned out, but for the past year, I haven't been able to play SEIVG or any other game. About the only electronic game I've been able to play is either my cellphone games or one of my small library of PS2 games. I can't wait to get back to playing. Hopefully this week.

[Kana]

Atrocities said:
The only thing I hate about SE V is that I can no longer make my own ship sets thus I must rely upon the skill of others for that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif



If you can learn to use Doga, you can probably learn to use some other 3d modeling program...

[Atrocities]

Doga was easy, lego 3d. The other programs are not any where as intuative or user friendly as DOGA. These big *** company's that make these really expsensive 3d programs just might take a look at what DOGA has done, and improve upon it.

But no, they want to keep their magic as complicated as humanly possible so they can rake in the cash through teaching people how to use their over complicated, head beating against desk, rocket scientist level, most unintuative 3d graphics program.

[Black_Knyght]

Here again I agree with <font color="red">AT</font>.

DOGA is easy to use and fairly intuitive. Nearly every other 3D program is overly complicated or unable to duplicate features that are readily accessable in DOGA. They are designed towards high-end, professional users only, with no real thought or development put towards novice or beginner usage.

[Possum]

Atro is right on the money.

These programs are deliberately made counter-intuitive, specifically so that it will be all-but-impossible to learn them on your own. Yes, precisely to create a secondary market in instruction.

[Fyron]

Maybe some are, but not every modeling app is specifically designed to be obtuse... What about the freeware ones that are not made to make any money?

[Atrocities]

Most are very good programs but are still rather complex to learn. However they are learnable if any one wants to invest the time. The important thing to remember is that before you begin to learn the program make damn sure that it will meet your needs and can do the things you need it to do such as export to a working X format that SE V can read, and texturing tools that work. Otherwise you'll just end up spinning your wheels. (Like I have done.)

[Ed Kolis]

If you're looking for a combination of intuitiveness and power, I'd recommend Art of Illusion - save for the fact that the UV texturing support in that app is just horrible (you have to manually drag the vertices around and half the time you can't even get them to appear on the uvmap http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif)! Fortunately someone by the name of Francois is working on a mesh-auto-unwrapper plugin-gizmo-thingy for AoI, and in the meantime Wings 3D, while it has a bit of a learning curve (you have to do everything via right-click menus ala SE3 - no click and drag) can be used to create a nifty looking model in no time flat. (Just watch out for intersecting or nonplanar faces - those things are a PAIN!)