Babylon 5 Mod

[pathfinder]

Ragnarok-X said:
Oh, while im at it. I came up with a few new things, racial based facilites. I can just post them here, maybe someone is interested and offers his/her opinion. Unfortunally i dont know a lot about the Narn, except they are prasing ONE god, G`Quan, while the Centauri offer more gods, like the old romans, they have gods for each sin and stuff.



Racial-specific Facilites


Earth Alliance Psy-Chor Outpost
Replaces standart intelligence centers and offers ~ 10% more intel output. In addition has a research outpot of 10% the value of intel generation

Earth Alliance Psy-Chor Center
Replaces the planet-intel-output facility and offers 10% more intel output. Increases planet-wide intel production by 20% more than standart planet-intel facility.

Earth Alliance Psy-Chor Systen Headquarters
Replaces the system-intel-output facility and offers 10% more intel output. Increases system-wide intel production by 20% more than standart system-intel facility.

Earth Alliance crew academie
Replaces standart ship and fleet training facility. Trains with the same rate but has a slightly higher cap. Does ship and fleet traning all in one.

Minbari Worker Caste Emmigration
Facility which is available from the start and increases mineral, organic, radioactive output by 6% +3%. Is made obsolete later on.

Minbari Warrior Caste Emmigration
Facility which is available early on. Increases spacecombat system-wide by 4/7/10%.

Minbari Religous Caste Emmigration
Facility which is available early on. Increases population happiness planetwide (not possible -> systemwide) by 5/8/11%.

Minbari Grey Council
One on each homeworld. Generates alot of research and intel, and has several abilites to make intel and events appear less often in those homesystems. Not rebuildable at all.

Minbari An‘la-Shoc Training Grounds
Replaces standart ship and fleet training facilites. Has the same rate per turn but has higher cap. Does ship and fleet training all in one

Centauri Imperial PaLast
One on each homeworld. Generates alot of research and especially intel. It greatly increases the populations happiness. Needs to incorporate the resupply depot or space port ability in order to work ?!

Centauri Imperial Shipyard
Replaces standart construction yard. Highly efficient shipyard, work supported by slaves or war refugees, something like that. Construction output 15/25/30% higher.

Centauri Intelligence Complex
Centauri are sneaky and treacherous. They are superior at backstabbing with a bomb or a dagger. Centauri Intelligence Complexes replaces standart intel centers and generate more intel. That, or they cost less. Whatever.




Interesting! Don't know how they would pan out but worth atry.

[Fyron]

Ragnarok-X said:
Interesting. i really didnt knew that. So i suppose it wasnt shown in the series, since i own all 5 seasons. Where did you got that information from ?! Tim, can you confirm this, maybe some bit is written in the AoG`s ?!

I am not sure why you would need confirmation... I feel mildly insulted by that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

It was mentioned in the series in several different episodes during the Shadow war. I forget which season exactly... There was an episode where G'Kar bought some experimental drugs designed to enhance telepathic abilities and a few later on where G'Kar explained it to some people, probably Sheridan.

[Timstone]

No comment... hehe... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Ragnarok-X]

Imperator Fyron said:
I am not sure why you would need confirmation... I feel mildly insulted by that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif




I didnt meant to insult you in anyway. I was just confused because i actually thought i know a lot about the B5 Universe. Sorry.

[grumbler]

Imperator Fyron said:
I am not sure why you would need confirmation... I feel mildly insulted by that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

It was mentioned in the series in several different episodes during the Shadow war. I forget which season exactly... There was an episode where G'Kar bought some experimental drugs designed to enhance telepathic abilities and a few later on where G'Kar explained it to some people, probably Sheridan.

The ep you are looking for (the one in which Garibaldi, ironically, is the one who explains what happened to G'Qon and "the mindwalkers") is Ship of Tears.

[grumbler]

One of the things to keep in mind as you design facilities is that you need the AI to use them sensibly. Creating a large production facility, for example, does not work if the AI ends up spending a huge percentage of resources and time building it on planets where it will not do any real good.

The AI cannot tell what size planet (and therefor how many facilities and how much total pop is possible) it is building on. Therefor, the key is creating a build queue that makes sense.

My solution was to create a "spoke and hub" plan for colonies. Every colony would build, as the first thing, a "colony hub" that had a spaceport, resupply center, shipyard, and some storage. No specialization here, and the shipyard in fact had the same build rate as the colony without one (just the ability to build ships and bases).

After building the colony hub, the colony specializes in mining, research, etc. Only on the larger planets does it bother with medical centers, training facilities, depots, and the like. When well-designed, the facilities system results in AI colonies that are as efficient (or very nearly) as human-made colonies.

The key to successful facility design, then, is to always keep in mind how you want the AI to "blindly" use them. Know the AI_C_F well,and know what effect any change in facilities has on it.

[Fyron]

You can also just use AI tags to control which facilities the AI builds exactly.

[Timstone]

Good to hear you again Grumbler.
It's really cool to read all the Messages from the veterans and sense they are all eager to play this mod again. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon14.gifhttp://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon14.gif

[Ragnarok-X]

The facilites already work. I setup a basic Narn AI, and yes, i did it like Fyron suggested, with the help of various AI tags. I hope the 20 of them will be enough if more stuff comes up http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Ragnarok-X]

Just to let everyone know, work is progressing nicely. Fighters and Bombers have been incorporated into the mod and they actually have a use, with bombers being able to hit big ships with damage-increasing mounts and fighters being able to easily hit and destroy bombers and seekers, while far less effective against capships. If anyone wants to participate as a betatester, let me know. AI has been set up, so betatesting is actually possible.

[ironman]

I'll give it a try

[Timstone]

Work on the weapons is progressing nicely too. I've processed half the general weapons and the Narns are next in line. I've already chosen weapons for the Abbai and the Minbari. They are next in oline after the Narn.

BTW, what is the plural of Narn; Narn or Narns?
And what about Minbari and Abbai?
Just a random thought...

[Ragnarok-X]

Hm they i think Minbari resemblers both the singular and plural. Not sure about Abbai though, but i think it goes the same way. Same with Narn i think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Timstone]

RagsX:
I received your e-mail, but due to familystuff I haven't send you an answer yet. I will do that when time p[ermits me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Ragnarok-X]

No big deal. Hopefully you will be able to answer me this weekend, though early next week is okay as well. Im looking forward to it.

[grumbler]

Imperator Fyron said:
You can also just use AI tags to control which facilities the AI builds exactly.

Yes, of course (especially in this mod) but you need to set up the facilities and planetary build queues to make sense. Remember that the AI does not know how large the planet is before it starts to build, so the precise order of construction is very important so that you have the right total facilities for each planet when it runs out of "slots."

[grumbler]

Fighters and bombers? Where in the B5 universe did this distinction arise?

[Ragnarok-X]

It just makes sense. Starfuries arent meant to bombard capitalships, thats work for the Thunderbolts. The Minbari have different classes of fighters as well, with the Nial being the superior fighter. There is the Tishat as well, which is some kind of precessor of the Nial. They have some kind of bomber as well, i just dont remember its name. I think the narn have the Frazi and something which is called Gorith or something.
In addition, its not necesarry to go canon all the way. Lastly, there is one major B5 mod, for a game called Armada 2. The mod took several years to complete, and they have included different "kinds" of fighters as well. I dont see a reason why our mod should include that feature as well. Look at modern fighters, we have specialized fighters and bombers as well.

[Nomor]

BTW, what is the plural of Narn; Narn or Narns?
Think Fish and Sheep..

My, that's a lovely looking sheep you have under your arm. (Singular)
My that's a lovely looking Narn; Minbari; Abbai .. blah ..blah

Hey, look at them fish shagging in that tank. (Plural)
Hey look at them Abbai, Minabari, Narns or Narn ..blah.. blah,

Although Abbaians might work it does not stop you using Abbai http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[grumbler]

Ragnarok-X said:
It just makes sense. Starfuries arent meant to bombard capitalships, thats work for the Thunderbolts.

Ah, but Ivanova didn't know that when she attacked the capital ships in Severed Dreams in a Starfury. Thunderbolts were replacements for Starfuries, they were not a different type of fighter. If you look at the Mod as is, you will see that it has different types of fighter hulls, and players can put weapons in each that are optimized against ships, generalized, or optimized against planets. Thunderbolts would be larger versions of Starfuries, not a different breed of animal.


The Minbari have different classes of fighters as well, with the Nial being the superior fighter. There is the Tishat as well, which is some kind of precessor of the Nial. They have some kind of bomber as well, i just dont remember its name.

Again, you have a source for this? I have been looking through all of JMS's posts for "Tishat" and come up blank. And no mention of "Minbari bombers" either.


In addition, its not necesarry to go canon all the way. Lastly, there is one major B5 mod, for a game called Armada 2. The mod took several years to complete, and they have included different "kinds" of fighters as well. I dont see a reason why our mod should include that feature as well. Look at modern fighters, we have specialized fighters and bombers as well.

I begin to see. This isn't a mod about adapting Space Empires IV to the Babylon 5 universe, it is about adapting the game to what you think the B5 universe should have been, had JMS had a clue.

Homie don't play that game. Be seeing you.

[Timstone]

Nomor:
Hahaha... LOL!!! That's very funny. I like your answer.

Grumbler:
Come on Grumbler, don't say that. The Mod can work out just fine. Look at it this way:
Starfuries can be given a different loadout, missiles to hunt fighters and bombers or heavy missiles and bombs to attack capital ships.
Please stick with us and try the finished mod aty least one time. You know your opinion has always been respected, don't quit on us now.

RagsX:
Last night I send you an e-mail about the fighter issue. I misread about the Frazi fighter, I mistook it for the Drazi race. The name you gave (Golgath or something), you acctually meant the Gorith. That's correct, the Narn used them as a bomber sort of fighter. Ah well, my e-mail is understandable nonthe less.

[Ragnarok-X]

Yes indeed i got your email and understood it. I didnt noticed grumblers latest post, thats the reason i didnt started arguing yet.
At any rate, i dont feel like argueing right now.

Simply said, i expect the "new" mod to reach more players than the old revision, i for one dont really care about grumbler that much, since he already told me on several occasions that *his* b5 mod is the right one and the one *i* work on is literally crap. Simply as it is, i dont care. May sounds insulting, but i guess its okay to say that.

Just on a random note, grumbler, if you the time and will, check the AoG miniatures, check b5tech.coms links libary and you will be sure stumble across the Tishat minbary bomber. Maybe it was even called Tishiat or something, but im pretty sure i read about a bomber sometime ago somewhere. Lastly, check the armada 2 babylon 5 mod i mentioned. Up to now, it is the most complete and best babylon 5 mod/game reference you will find anywhere. It IS okay to include things not definitly mentioned by *JMS*.

[Onyx]

Ragnarok-X said:
It just makes sense. Starfuries arent meant to bombard capitalships, thats work for the Thunderbolts. The Minbari have different classes of fighters as well, with the Nial being the superior fighter. There is the Tishat as well, which is some kind of precessor of the Nial. They have some kind of bomber as well, i just dont remember its name. I think the narn have the Frazi and something which is called Gorith or something.
In addition, its not necesarry to go canon all the way. Lastly, there is one major B5 mod, for a game called Armada 2. The mod took several years to complete, and they have included different "kinds" of fighters as well. I dont see a reason why our mod should include that feature as well. Look at modern fighters, we have specialized fighters and bombers as well.



In the B5 Fleet Action Supplement,My Enemy... My Ally, the TISHAT MEDIUM FIGHTER came into service in 2050. It has Interceptor level 1, which makes it a Dogfighter, not a ship killer (bomber).
It is a 200+ year old design as of 'present day' B5 (2260ish).
Starfuries are actually multi-role fighters. Fighter and ship killers equally. Thunderbolts are also multi-role but slightly better at dogfighting than Starfuries. These statements are based on the stats in the above mentioned supplement. I guess the upshot is that these fighters show a development line. Once a new design comes out, it totally replaces the previous design. They are not meant to complement each other but to replace the previous shotcomings.
It would be better to stay as close to canon as possible.
I am in favour of streamlining the original mod but not at the expence of losing the character of B5 as we have seen it on our TV's. We want to fight wars in that universe.
I would think finding a simple answer for problems would make for a more rewarding game.
I dont mean to compare but I have to say that Atrocities Star Trek mod is simple, elegant and accurate enough to make you feel like you are playing a Star Trek game. Not so complicated that you have to guess what type of armour is best for my battleship! The KISS theory has always been the best IMHO. (Keep It Simple Silly)

[Nomor]

Exactly

[grumbler]

If anyone needs more race images, there is a nice website http://www.hot.ee/b5races/B5races.htm that I just ran across that has a great number of them, many unnamed (at least in the episode).

[Captain Kwok]

In times like this, it's always a good idea to use the canon cannon.

[grumbler]

All I care about at this point is to see a components mod with decent specialized weapons for each race and some racialized facilities. Other than that, I play right now with a very workable mod, in which i have to work to be a top 5 (points-wise) race by turn 200. Worst case for me is the time it takes to recreate existing weapons in a systematic fashion. And right now, in my version of the mod, everyone but the EA is actually quite competitive until turn 200 or so.

There are some AI-research issues with what I have posted so far, but as they cannot be found except by playing a variable-human game to turn 200 or so, I will wait until I have something comprehensive (or Se-V comes out, whichever happens first).

Nothing I come up with will apply to the Ragnarok-X mod, of course. His mod will have to use his AI. But maybe I can update the version that precedes his. Time will tell.

[grumbler]

Oh, and Pathfinder, if you still follow this thread: the more I muck about in your AI mods to the files, the more impressed I am with your work. How did you find the patience?

[Timstone]

Pfhew, a little break during this period of hell.

Thanks everybody for the feedback. It's always a good thing to hear other opinions. I don't know how far they will be implemented, if at all, but it's good nontheless to hear everybody's voice.

Grumbler:
Thanks for sticking around anyway, I appreciate it. Thumbs up!

[Ragnarok-X]

Nice, opinions at last !

[Nomor]

Just incase I missed something...

Has anyone heard from Val?

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

[pathfinder]

Nomor said:
Just incase I missed something...

Has anyone heard from Val?

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



Nope, not in like well over a year. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Timstone]

Okay, this might come as shock to the people who haven't been here that often.
The general consensus is that Val dissapeared permanently from our midst and maybe be even dead.
I have his adres (I think I got it from Nomor) and I wanted to send a letter his way, but because of my eternal lazyness and now my graduation, I haven got around to it.
I'm also afraid that, might Val be dead, his wife moved and can't be traced again. Also the reminder to someone lost could be... less pleasant.

[Atrocities]

I did not know that Richard Biggs died last year. That is so sad that he did, and that I did not know about it until today. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Man what a blow. Thats like really really sad. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Atrocities]

Shadow Concept Ships

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/332712-shad0.PNGhttp://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/332713-shad1.PNGhttp://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/332714-shad2.PNG

[Atrocities]

ship2

[Atrocities]

ship3

[Atrocities]

Atrocities said:
Shadow Concept Ships

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/332712-shad0.PNGhttp://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/332713-shad1.PNGhttp://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/332714-shad2.PNG



There really is not much you can do with the textures of Shadow ships. I had a *****'in texture but it made the ships so dark you could not see them. This alternative color makes the ships visiable. Sorry guys, but it is a nessassary evil, no pun intended.

[Ragnarok-X]

I like them a lot. Indeed you are right, without very good texturing skills is pretty difficult to make the crabs even "darker" since they wont be noticed due to the space background http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Maybe make the extremities to the back right and left more longer http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Atrocities]

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/332966-test.PNGhttp://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/332967-testm.PNG

Changed the texture a bit. This darker look is great, but in game at 36x36 you cannot see it. The mini images will have to be lightened a bit in order to be seen. Copy the image and add it to a black back ground to see what I mean.

[Atrocities]

test2

[Atrocities]

I guess the question is do you want me to continue working on the set?

I cannot make the apendages in the rear any longer, it will make the ship smaller. (Sizing is an issue the longer they are)

[Ragnarok-X]

Im fine with it. If you like to continue/end the shipset, do it, it would be appreciated http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif More important is you enjoying what you do http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I would like to hear which texture other people more like, the upper or lower one ?!

[EaX]

Yes continue atrocities!!!!!!!!!!!, i would love that ship set being finished, i can't wait!!!!

[Captain Kwok]

I thought the first texture was nicer...

[EaX]

me too i like the first texture (sorry i forgot to mention it on my last post)

[Timstone]

AT:
That's just great! Awesome! Bis, bis!!
I really like the second texture. I have a texture included in 3ds max (called organic) which duplicates the almost exact texture used for the original Lightwave models of the show. Absolutely gorgeous! Please continue.

RagsX:
Sorry for this long break in my work, I very very busy with some experiments. I'm nearing the end of my graduation period, so pretty soon I have to hand in my concept and soon after that my final report. After that It's a cakewalk and I can devote more time to our mod. I do hope you can continue ith things. If not, please mail me and I'll try and do some work. Don't be shy to say I must work a bit faster. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Atrocities]

I would hate to have to render the set twice, so please pick a texture guys.

[Onyx]

I like the second set best.

[Atrocities]

Shadow Concept set (http://www.astmod.com/nasy/nasy/shadow/Shadow.htm) A work in Progress.

Comments:

[Ragnarok-X]

Tim, no problem. Im busy these times as well. Spending a lot of time on reading and pickings stocks, of course selling them, too. Nothing is on hold though.

[Timstone]

RagsX:
Okay, that's good to hear. Thanks!

AT:
Maybe you could make the glowing thingy purple instead of yellow/orange? All the molecular slicers have a purple colour in the serie.
And I really vote for the second texture because in the serie the texture of the Shadow vessels have a network of reflective "strings" seperating the non-reflective "cells". This is best done with the second texture. Go for the second. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Nice.

[Goatfoam]

Just to give you guys a heads-up about my own Babylon 5 mod that's still in development, hopefully it will be different enough from this one to make it still worth playing.

Primarily, it's supposed to be a Roleplay mod, with a heavy emphasis on race distinction. Hopefully, each race is going to be very different to play, with unique tech overload and different starting positions on the more "standard" technology trees. Colonisation is still a fairly slow process (so far I have it zeroed in at around 6-10 turns to build the ship, and 3-4 turns to build an income-generating facility).

Having said that, the game isn't really about colonisation, either, good planets will be scarce, with moons playing a major role. Bases will be equally as important as colonies, generating their own revenues. Balance will no doubt be an issue that might push some players away (after all, who wants to be the Drazi when you can be the Minbari and have all the awesome perks of being the oldest of the younger races?) but the whole point of the mod is roleplay, which hopefully appeals to at least some of you guys.

Each race is going to be added as it's completed. Right now, we're beta-testing the Earth Alliance, and are close to making sure that every EA weapon has an advantage that makes it worth taking (which was a major issue with me in the original mod), as well as fine-tuning game mechanics and flow. We're keeping it as canon as possible, while trying to keep the game fun.

The only worry I have is, aside from the credits file, do I need anything else from the art contributors for the mod, or is it all pretty much classed as being there for the taking?

[Suicide Junkie]

Goatfoam said:
The only worry I have is, aside from the credits file, do I need anything else from the art contributors for the mod, or is it all pretty much classed as being there for the taking?

Do NOT include the imagemod as part of your download; simply state that your mod requires version X of Pack Y.
The credits are included with the imagemod downloads.

Unless of course, you mean title screens and/or interface images.

[Goatfoam]

Well, it was primarily the shipsets, since the AI files are going to be very specific.

Although, what I was planning on doing was cutting out all the pictures (for components and planets, mostly) that aren't being used, while keeping others, to save on space. Does the stuff in imagemod need to be kept together, or can elements of it be taken, so long as credit is given?

[grumbler]

Goatfoam said: Does the stuff in imagemod need to be kept together, or can elements of it be taken, so long as credit is given?

Most people play multiple mods, so you want to keep everything together and just let people download the image mods in toto. This makes updating easier, too, since you can get your new images included in an imagemod update for the asking, and everyone can concentrate on just keeping their imagemods up to date rather than each individual game mod.

[Suicide Junkie]

Goatfoam said:
Although, what I was planning on doing was cutting out all the pictures (for components and planets, mostly) that aren't being used, while keeping others, to save on space.

That would actually cost more space.
The way it works is that people install just one single copy of the imagemod. It is completely backwards compatible, so they can overwrite the stock files without any probelms.

Then you as a modder don't include any graphics files with your download.
Just include a note that they require image pack X.

Most people will already have it, and those that do not can download it from the many imagemod mirrors. Once downloaded and installed, it is available to EVERY mod with just one copy on the harddrive.

[Fyron]

Goatfoam said:
Well, it was primarily the shipsets, since the AI files are going to be very specific.

Although, what I was planning on doing was cutting out all the pictures (for components and planets, mostly) that aren't being used, while keeping others, to save on space. Does the stuff in imagemod need to be kept together, or can elements of it be taken, so long as credit is given?

The stuff in the Image Mod should be left in the Image Mod, not cut apart...

[Atrocities]

Atrocities said:
Shadow Concept set (http://www.astmod.com/nasy/nasy/shadow/Shadow.htm) A work in Progress.

Comments:



Could someone post a shadow ship so we can see the texture on it? Thanks.

[Zaamon]

I hope this site have some info about races. At least their ships.
http://www.b5tech.com

http://www.b5tech.com/shadows/shadowships/shadowships.html

[Suicide Junkie]

Atrocities said:
Could someone post a shadow ship so we can see the texture on it? Thanks.


What you had there is probably close, but the texture needs to be scaled up.

You know the wavy light patterns you see at the bottom of a pool? Just like that, except black, and large enough to see from the camera's POV.

[Ragnarok-X]

http://www.b5tech.com/shadows/shadowships/batlcrab.jpg

http://www.b5tech.com/shadows/shadowships/batlcrab.jpg (http://www.tolitz.com/images/ots/shadow-battlecrab.jpg)



I wasnt able to find shots with a more "close-up" view, sorry.

[Ragnarok-X]

But as SJ mentioned, the texture is good, just make it more "dense".

[Atrocities]

Dense is a problem. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif The denser I make it, the darker it becomes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Dark looking ships are some of the hardest to make look good.

[Atrocities]

Try these on for size and let me know which one you like best.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/335136-test1.PNGhttp://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/335137-test2.PNGhttp://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/335138-Test3.PNG
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/335140-Test4.PNGhttp://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/335141-Test5.PNGhttp://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/335142-Test6.PNG

1 2 3
4 5 6

[Suicide Junkie]

The pattern is too regular on most of those.

patterns the size of #4 look good, but they need to be randomized as in #1, rather than arranged in rows like animal scales.

[Captain Kwok]

6 and 1 are the best in my opinion in that order.

[Ragnarok-X]

I like 1 and 3 (top left, top right)

[Captain Kwok]

Although a mid-level grey, the texture on 6 is closest to the actual shadow ship texture and would benefit in-game visibility. 1 is good, but may be too dark.

[Onyx]

I like 1.

[grumbler]

#4 has the best color combination, but as SJ pointed out, needs to look maore "random" (given that the patterns moved across the surface of the craft in a random-appearing pattern).

[Atrocities]

If any one can provide a cool looking texture I would be happy to use it and post the results. I have the set nearly done, its the texture that I am worried about. I want the set to look good and be accepted well by all. So getting the texture down is very important.

[Suicide Junkie]

Try rendering what you used on ship #1, but scale the texture up by 5x or 10x...
#1's texture looks like it might be right, but the scale is so small that it looks mostly like static.

[grumbler]

I have started to play the mod again, and as a result have been playing with the weapons components again. After struggling to make them coherent, a though struck me: what the mod would look like if I just abandoned the whole concept of following the B5wars books and followed the TV series when it comes to weapons. I think, if I want to ever have a playable mod of the game, this is the approach I need to take.

What I wanted to do was simplify the decision-making for the players and AI, while enhancing the flavor of the game by making races more specialized. This means re-writing all the weapons based on a complete conceptual framework, and making each race's weapons choices unique.

The first thing I did was conclude that the Shadows and Vorlons are as advanced at the start as they will ever get. That makes their components very simple, as there only needs to be a single one of each type, and their design files are also easy, as they build only one ship design of each type. To add some flavor, I created some Shadow and Vorlon neutral races, so they there will be some kickass neutral races in a few systems, but all they will do is keep the Younger races out of those "outpost" systems until the Younger races muster sufficient numbers or technology to take them out.

I decided to give each race a weapons technology in which it was highly adept, another in which it was adept, a third in which it was capable, and four of which it was concious.

Races have advanced, improved, and standard research lines in weapons technologies for which they are highly adept.

Races have improved and standard research lines in weapons technologies for which they are adept.

Races have a complete standard research lines in weapons technologies for which they are capable, and a truncated one (max tech level = 7) for those of which it is concious. Races are unable to research anything in techs of which they are not concious.

For example, the Minbari are highly adept at Molecular Weapons. They have Minbari Molecular Weapons, Minbari Improved Molecular weapons, and Minbari Advanced Molecular weapons, giving them weapons like the Fusion Cannon, Improved Fusion Cannon, and Advanced Fusion Cannon, plus PD versions of all three. They are adept in Lasers, so have the Neutron Laser and Improved Neutron Laser, but no Advanced Neutron Laser. They are capable in Gravimetric Weapons but have no Advanced or Improved Gravimetric Weapons. They are concious of Antimatter Weapons, Electromagnetic Weapons, Particle Weapons, and Matter Weapons, and can build up to tech level 7 in those. They are not concious of Ballistic, Ionic, or Plasma weapons and can build none of them.

Races get damage bonuses for weapons in which they are highly adept, adept, or capable (better bonuses for being more adept).

This gets rid completely of the "General" weapons category. While some races will in effect have the same weapons (for instance, the Yolu are also highly adept at Molecular Weapons and have the exact same weapons and values for them as the Minbari) I have tried to make this as rare as possible, and the Yolu do not share the Minbari laser weapons.

It also gets rid of the "Earth Alliance is the master of all weapons technologies" syndrome. The Ea will be just another race, with three types of weapons it cannot build, and another four it cannot build very well.

The idea is that the Advanced Weapons of each race will be First-Ones-like, but will take a long time to research. In the meantime, races can get quickly to some decent matter weapons (everybody but the Shadows and Vorlons can build matter weapons, but only the Hurr can build highly advanced ones), and more slowly to decent weapons in which they are adept to some degree, but no one can build everything. Players will not even see technologies that don't yield them anything.

Another advantage of this system is that the AI_research files are pretty easy to create if there is a systematic research path to follow. I only have to create a master with "[Highly adept technology] Level 1" "[Capable technology] Level 1" and so forth, and then do a global replace for each race using the appropriate racial tech. There will be a few outliers like the Minbari scanner/jammer that will have to be manually placed, but this is much less onerous than trying to track each weapons tech for each race.

Any thoughts on this? Anyone want to grind through the process needed to punch out an entire race's worth of weapons? I have finished the Minbari as a test case, and am taking it for a spin right now. However, it takes time to generate the weapons and if people are interested in seeing a playable mod before summer, they might want to chip in.

[Fyron]

If the weapons are going to essentially be the same for each race (Hurr and Minbari Molecular Weapons are identical), all you need to do is create one set of weapons and copy/paste them for each race. Create the basic, improved and advanced weapons of all 7 types, then splice them together as appropriate for each race. Simple find/replace of the tech area names will get the tech reqs set in a hearbeat. I think this would be the easiest, and therefore best, solution. You could even use SJ's tech gridder program (on http://imagemodserver.mine.nu under tools somewhere) to make all of the weapons from 21 base templates (basic, improved and advanced of each category). It can make single area component lines quite well.

I'll post a little tutorial on the tech gridder for you if you want it.

[Onyx]

Outstanding concept Grumbler. The KISS theory is usually the best.
This design system will greatly increase the canon feel of the mod.
You should be supported and encouraged with the plans you have so far. I hope you consider implementing these ideas with other unnecessarily complicated techs to further increase the canon feel of the game.
Great idea.

[Fyron]

What else is unnecessarily complicated? The armor system is just right. The facilities are not too complex, just way too expensive to build...

[Onyx]

If nothing else was unnecessarily complicated no-one would have felt the need to redo it. The armour system is unnecessarily complicated and that has already been covered in previous posts here.
A simple but elegant, race based system would make it easier for the AI to build something accurate and effective. It would also help those who just want to play an accurate B5 representation without having to guess how much of what armour/structure etc to put on their battleship.
I agree with Grumbler that a little more watching B5 and using that as a source of inspiration and a little less rule-book reading will give us something more playable and fun.
I'm not trying to upset anyone, just telling it how I see it.

[Suicide Junkie]

Onyx said:
If nothing else was unnecessarily complicated no-one would have felt the need to redo it. The armour system is unnecessarily complicated and that has already been covered in previous posts here.
It would also help those who just want to play an accurate B5 representation without having to guess how much of what armour/structure etc to put on their battleship.

The same way you have to "guess" how many shields to put on your ships in stock? The same way you have to "guess" which mix of short-range, long-range and special damage type weapons to use? Oy.

Don't treat the armor like stock. A couple components thrown in to fill space at the end of your design will be useless.
Try out ships with 10%, 20%, 30% armor and see which wins. NOT just 2 or 3 armor components.
You'll quickly get an idea of what works if you just use the simulator. That's what it is there for!

---

I'll see about making you a super-simplified version sometime this week.

Some questions:
1) Tech grid (Y/N)?
Allows customized research into lowering costs vs increasing hitpoints, etc. Upgrade decisions remain trivial (push the upgrade button and you're done).
2) Multiple thickness (Y/N)?
Allows tradeoffs between sheer hitpoints and absorption %
Gives you some actual choices rather than just "how much".
3) Allow mounts to simplify component set (Y/N)?
A couple mounts makes for fewer component families.
4) Superstrong ancient techs (Y/N)?
Semi-balanced against economic & misc. disadvantages, or will roleplaying / AI control be used to hold them back?
5) Insert suggestion here: _______

[Atrocities]

I am all for keeping things simple and easy. Balance is an issue so just make one set of weapons then rename them for each race, adjusting some of the finer aspects of them for each, then your off to a good start.

[Fyron]

Onyx said:
If nothing else was unnecessarily complicated no-one would have felt the need to redo it. The armour system is unnecessarily complicated and that has already been covered in previous posts here.

And those posters were misinformed. Other than possibly the tech gridded nature, it is not unnecessarily complicated at all. As SJ said, it just requires a different way of looking at it. This is a mod, not the stock game, so players _should_ be expecting it to be different...


A simple but elegant, race based system would make it easier for the AI to build something accurate and effective.

The AI can build just as accurate and effective designs as a human player can through the use of AI tags. Simplifying the system by removing many types of armor would not benefit the AI any.

SJ:
Don't make it too simplified... There at least needs to be light and heavy armor, otherwise the game becomes very boring. Structural supports and medium armor can probably go. Medium armor is emulatable by just mixing light and heavy armor. Structural supports are either fairly useless or really gamey if someone wants to add 10000 of them to a ship. Not the most effective use of their time, but still unnecessary...

However, the advanced crystalline/emissive armors need to remain in some form, as they are very integral to the Babylon 5 universe. I personally don't see much wrong with the current system, other than possibly the tech grid. Nothing else in the mod is gridded, so having just the armor gridded seems out of place.

[Onyx]

Could someone please post the address for the latest version available then because what I have got is nowhere near able to do what youre claiming here.
Fyron. You say,

What else is unnecessarily complicated? The armor system is just right.


And then a little later you say,

Structural supports and medium armor can probably go. Medium armor is emulatable by just mixing light and heavy armor. Structural supports are either fairly useless or really gamey if someone wants to add 10000 of them to a ship. Not the most effective use of their time, but still unnecessary...



I have just played a 260 round game aginst 5 AI's with all research done, on hard. The AI has absolutly no idea how to build a competetive design. It built nothing over 300kt, almost always had an illegal number of primary armour components, had no 'stock' armour at all and there wasnt a structural support to be seen anywhere.

The AI can build just as accurate and effective designs as a human player can through the use of AI tags. Simplifying the system by removing many types of armor would not benefit the AI any.



The AI isnt using the armour you have now anyway. Simplify it and make it race based and the AI will be more competetive and interesting. I'm not totally sure on this but arent there a limited number of AI tags. Gonna use them up pretty quick this way when they could be saved for other things.

And those posters were misinformed. Other than possibly the tech gridded nature, it is not unnecessarily complicated at all. As SJ said, it just requires a different way of looking at it. This is a mod, not the stock game, so players _should_ be expecting it to be different...



Were they misinformed or did they have a different opinion...
Never really played the stock game so I dont know how that works. I bought SEIV to play the B5 and Star Trek mods. The Star Trek mod by Atrocities (and others) is outstanding. The races are distinct enough to make the game interesting and the tech tree is not over engineered. The Federation cant use Borg armour and the Cardassian's cant use Klingon cloaking devices etc. Simple and playable enough to make you want to keep going.
The B5 mod I have is unplayable. If there is a newer or better version available already then I will play it and maybe some of my points have already been taken care of.
To those who are undertaking to make the mod better, I applaude you and eagerly await your work.

I have read my 'ranting' here and I wish to add something.
I'm not trying to be overly critical of peoples work. I accept that alot of hard work has gone into this and appologise if I have offended anyone. I just think its a shame that so much effort has gone into this and it still doesnt work as well as I'm sure everyone would like.
Thanks for yor time. Steve (Onyx).

[grumbler]

In the version I am playing right now the AI uses armor just fine (though it lload heavy armor until there is less than 7 left, then light until there is less than 3 tons left, and then loads light, because that is what I told it to do). The AI cannot use structural suports because they have no weight and you have to give the AI design parameters by weight (or tell it to use just one, which would be silly).

The current armor system is not complicated at all, for the player. He knows that research invested in armor will yield incrementally better armor. There is always a new version of armor awaiting amy given investment.

My only issue with the armor system (besides the structural supports, which I think was a neat idea but will not use because the AI cannot use it and it is unclear how the player should use it) is that it is unclear to the new user that you need to research chunks of armor advances at once, or else not at all. Otherwise, all you are doing is creating a huge chunk of components that will be replaced on your ships, but from which you gain little benefit (and battleships with 20% armor have a LOT of armor components).

One way around this is to size armor for the hulls, making each armor worth, say, 5% of the hull size, and scaling using mounts (as is already done for engines). Another way is to create some larger armor components. However, I don't now how either solution would affect the "leakiness" of the existing armor, so I am leaving those considerations for the end of my analysis and hope someone else solves them in the meantime! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

IF - thanks for the tip on the tech gridder. It will help a lot.

[Onyx]

Grumbler (or anyone else). Could you post a link to where you downloaded the version of the mod you are using please.
If the AI can at least use armour then that is a good start.
I actually hope I'm wrong on a few things beacause that would mean the mod is in much better shape!

Edit - I found it. Much better but the AI is still producing illegal designs - Multiple Primary Armour. Much better thou. It is even using stuctural supports!

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

SJ, 1, 2 and 4 Y, 3 N. No suggestions.

And no, I'm not just trying to pad my post count!

[Fyron]

Onyx said:
And then a little later you say,

This is what happens when you don't finish a post up right away. Just reread that as "the armor system is mostly right" and it all fits together. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


Onyx said:
The AI isnt using the armour you have now anyway. Simplify it and make it race based and the AI will be more competetive and interesting. I'm not totally sure on this but arent there a limited number of AI tags. Gonna use them up pretty quick this way when they could be saved for other things.

There are plenty of AI tags to go around. Any ability that does not work serves as one. The "AI Tag" abilities are a rather recent (1.91) feature.


Onyx said:
Were they misinformed or did they have a different opinion...

They did not understand how the armor system works. They were misinformed. I don't blame them; it isn't documented very well in the current version of the mod.


Onyx said:
Never really played the stock game so I dont know how that works.

You really should play at least one game of unmodified SE4 to put it all in perspective...


grumbler said:
The AI cannot use structural suports because they have no weight and you have to give the AI design parameters by weight (or tell it to use just one, which would be silly).

Not quite true. The parameters in the design file have no relation to the size of the components. Tell the AI to add 1 Structural Support per kT of ship hull and it will definitely do so. You might need to add this requirement near the beginning, as I am not sure when exactly the AI stops reading the misc ability list.


One way around this is to size armor for the hulls, making each armor worth, say, 5% of the hull size, and scaling using mounts (as is already done for engines). Another way is to create some larger armor components. However, I don't now how either solution would affect the "leakiness" of the existing armor, so I am leaving those considerations for the end of my analysis and hope someone else solves them in the meantime! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

They could have dire affects. Armor would behave quite differently on different sized hulls. In my assessment, each leaky component (of the same class) should have the same size and hit points. Another option would be to remove the tech grid aspect. This would enable each level of armor techs researched to have a significant gain, rather than a very minor, very costly (in terms of retrofit cots) gain. Tech grids are nice, but bewildering, and out of place when there is only one thing in the entire mod that has a tech grid, in my opinion.

[grumbler]

Imperator Fyron said:
Not quite true. The parameters in the design file have no relation to the size of the components. Tell the AI to add 1 Structural Support per kT of ship hull and it will definitely do so. You might need to add this requirement near the beginning, as I am not sure when exactly the AI stops reading the misc ability list.

D'oh! I was thinking of using them as armor, when of course they could be miscellaneous abilities. Still, I think maybe the structural supports might be overkill - I never use 'em myself since they delay the ship's completion, and all they really do is provide a hulk to draw the AI's fire.


They could have dire affects. Armor would behave quite differently on different sized hulls. In my assessment, each leaky component (of the same class) should have the same size and hit points. Another option would be to remove the tech grid aspect. This would enable each level of armor techs researched to have a significant gain, rather than a very minor, very costly (in terms of retrofit cots) gain. Tech grids are nice, but bewildering, and out of place when there is only one thing in the entire mod that has a tech grid, in my opinion.

I was afraid the effects were built into the size of the armor. Well, this is not a crucial point right now, and we have some time to think of a workable scheme to keep the armor system as much as it is as possible. As you note, maybe the grid effect is not necessary.

[grumbler]

Spaceempires.net appears to be down. That is where I got used to tracking where the mod (including my contributions) was. Anyone know where the latest version is hung, for Onyx to download?

If that becomes too hard, I will hang it here, because it isn't really all that long. All images and whatnot are the products of others and available though the image mods. I only have data and AI file changes.

[Fyron]

Spaceempires.net appears to be down. That is where I got used to tracking where the mod (including my contributions) was. Anyone know where the latest version is hung, for Onyx to download?

SpaceEmpires.net is currently being reconfigured. I will post a link to the file when it is available, which should hopefully be in less than an hour...


grumbler said:
D'oh! I was thinking of using them as armor, when of course they could be miscellaneous abilities. Still, I think maybe the structural supports might be overkill - I never use 'em myself since they delay the ship's completion, and all they really do is provide a hulk to draw the AI's fire.

None of the leaky armors can be used as the "armor" category. All of them are misc ability useable. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


I was afraid the effects were built into the size of the armor. Well, this is not a crucial point right now, and we have some time to think of a workable scheme to keep the armor system as much as it is as possible. As you note, maybe the grid effect is not necessary.

They are built into the hit points of the armor. The size is used as a balancing device. Light armor has more hit points per kiloton than heavy, but due to being so small (each piece has a far smaller amount of hit points), it ends up offering more easily penetrated defense than heavy armor does. Really big armor would have the same affect that heavy does to light (and medium).

If you use scale mounted armor components (each hull has the armor take up 5% of the space or whatever), it would make large ships have vastly superior armor capabilities compared to small ships. Not only could they potentially have more hit points, but their single armor component would have far more hit points per component than a smaller ship's would. This would make the armor act more and more as stock armor the larger the ship hull is (due to having more hit points per component as compared to "internals"), which in my estimation is contrary to the whole purpose of leaky armor.

Remember, the more hit points a component has, the more likely it is to be the one selected for being damaged. The more hit points a component has, the more biased these algorithms are towards selecting it. This is the cornerstone of the leaky armor paradigm. Also, it is what really allows heavy leaky armor to be stronger than light leaky armor in the B5 Mod.

[Suicide Junkie]

grumbler said:
D'oh! I was thinking of using them as armor, when of course they could be miscellaneous abilities. Still, I think maybe the structural supports might be overkill - I never use 'em myself since they delay the ship's completion, and all they really do is provide a hulk to draw the AI's fire.

I was afraid the effects were built into the size of the armor. Well, this is not a crucial point right now, and we have some time to think of a workable scheme to keep the armor system as much as it is as possible. As you note, maybe the grid effect is not necessary.

I actually agree that the structural supports seemed like a good idea at the time, but in practice were useless.

The basic armors will have to have two dimensions at least though... the light->heavy->(advanced armor tech area) and the beefing up of armor components in each class.
Though I suppose the light->heavy won't look much like a dimension of a tech grid after the operation.

[Onyx]

They are built into the hit points of the armor. The size is used as a balancing device. Light armor has more hit points per kiloton than heavy, but due to being so small (each piece has a far smaller amount of hit points), it ends up offering more easily penetrated defense than heavy armor does. Really big armor would have the same affect that heavy does to light (and medium).

If you use scale mounted armor components (each hull has the armor take up 5% of the space or whatever), it would make large ships have vastly superior armor capabilities compared to small ships. Not only could they potentially have more hit points, but their single armor component would have far more hit points per component than a smaller ship's would. This would make the armor act more and more as stock armor the larger the ship hull is (due to having more hit points per component as compared to "internals"), which in my estimation is contrary to the whole purpose of leaky armor.

Remember, the more hit points a component has, the more likely it is to be the one selected for being damaged. The more hit points a component has, the more biased these algorithms are towards selecting it. This is the cornerstone of the leaky armor paradigm. Also, it is what really allows heavy leaky armor to be stronger than light leaky armor in the B5 Mod.




Very helpful information. Thanks! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Fyron]

Now that SpaceEmpires.net is partially back online (this does not include the Nuke portal as of yet), you might want to read the section on Leaky Armor (http://se4modding.spaceempires.net/ModdingTutorial.html#LeakyArmor) of SEIV Modding 101 for more information on the concept.

Edit:
Also, I have uploaded the latest version of the B5 Mod that Grumbler sent to me here:

babylon 5 v2.zip (http://www.spaceempires.net/files/temp/babylon 5 v2.zip)

This should be applied as a patch to an install of the full B5 Mod for SE4 Gold, as it is primarily the data and AI files.

[Timstone]

Hi all,

To start. It hink it's great to see such newly gained momentum of the famous B5 Mod. Absolutely fabulous! Thumbs up for ya all!

As you all know I'm in the process of graduating, this sucks up time like a black hole and doesn't leave me with a lot of free time.
I and RagsX have started a version of The Mod too, but due to time restrictions I haven't done anything of late. My primary role in that version of The Mod, I handle the weapons. I design them and make them. To do that I've made a small Excel-sheet. It's not very sophisticated, but it works and helps everyone to make weapons according the same guidelines. Within a week I can finish this sheet and make it a bit more accessable for everyone after that I could send it to IF and he can make it available for everyone. That is if anyone is interested of course.
How about it?

[Timstone]

No takers? Oh well, I've at least showed I want to help. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif
If you people do want to take a look at my sheet, post it here.

[grumbler]

Tim, I have an older version (like spring 2004 at best) version of the spreadsheet, and would love to see the latest version. I think you have my email, if not PM me.

[Onyx]

I'd be interested in seeing what you have done so far.
Just spent the last few months 'disecting' the Star Trek mod to understand this stuff.
I dont know how much help I'll be (my wife is pregnant http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif) but I definately want to see this thing develop. Thanks for continuing the work.
Onyx99au@yahoo.com.au

[grumbler]

Suicide Junkie said:
The basic armors will have to have two dimensions at least though... the light->heavy->(advanced armor tech area) and the beefing up of armor components in each class.
Though I suppose the light->heavy won't look much like a dimension of a tech grid after the operation.

I have been playing around with a version that eliminates the "Armor manufacture" dimension, and it does seem to work a lot better. The AI does not stop and refit ships to gain the advantages of Heavy Armor Class 6C versus 6B, which is good. The steps from class 5 to class 6 are far enough apart that ships can conduct missions before being recalled for refits.

I have finished the basic armaments that everyone has, and tried a game using just them (no specialization). The AI was building much better ships. I then added a few advanced weapons for the Minbari, Narn, EA, and Centauri, and that game is in progress.

I also completely abandoned the (at least) four-times- modified AI_Construction_Vehicle file, and inserted the original one from SE4 1.91, and lo and behold, the AI is kicking *** again. In my current game, I have managed to get back to 11th place after 100 turns (after starting in 4th and slipping as low as 17th out of 20). This is with medium AI player difficulty and medium AI advantage - I don't think you can make the game competitive at less, and want to reserve the higher settings for players wanting more challenge.

Some of the things I have done, and am still testing, are:

1. I have generally decreased RoF and increased range. Missiles, for instance, now generally have a reload time of 3 turns, dropping to 2 turns with advanced technologies (vice 2 turns dropping to 1), but have ranges of 10 with light missiles, 14 with medium missiles, and 18 with heavy missiles. This should get rid of some of the real jumps that the EA, for instance, used to get with advanced ballistic weapons technology. It alos eliminates tradeoffs between payload and range. The tradeoff is now between hill space and range. Lasers are now longer-ranged but less potent.

2. I have toyed with the whole concept of what it means to get more advanced versions of the same weapon, and decided that the tonnage cost and structure benefit will remain constant over the life cycle of the weapon (vice decreasing cost and increasing structure as in the Val version). The assumption here is that the basic components remain the same, but power systems become more efficient, maybe ammo improves, and that further experience with the weapons allow them to be used more efficiently. This will have a beneficial impact on the total hull/component change that occurs with a new version of an existing weapon (as you will not add more armor to compensate for the reduced tonnage of more advanced weapons). If you want to see hull space saved, you will need to get an improved or advanced version of the same weapon type.

3. I have inserted "improved" as a new weapons type intermediate between the basic weapon and the advanced version of the weapon. Sometimes "improved" means a higher ROF, sometimes it means a more powerful volley with an existing ROF, but it almost always means a better range and less loss over range.

I also made a change in the gain per level for weapons. I was using the Timstone method of maybe a year ago, which was that the damage at range 1 for each successive mod was equal to the damage at range 1 for the level 1 weapon, multiplied by 1 1 /x, where X was 11-level (so that at level 2, for instance, range 1 damage was 1 1 /9 of the damage at range 1 for the level 1 weapon). The problem with this approach was that the level 9 weapons was 50% (1 11/9= 1.5)better than the level 1 weapon, but the level 10 weapon was 100% (1 (11-10)=2.0) better. Half of the change between level 1 and level 10 occurred between levels 9 and 10!

Now, the increases in levels should not be arithmetic (i.e. constant change per level) because the cost is not constant. I ended up splitting the difference, and using the average between the Timstone method (which is kida cool, actually) and the constant change method (which is easy to calculate, and so appealed to me! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif) I like the product, but wanted the purists to be warned that change was a'coming. It isn't possible to scale the increased damage to the research cost, because the research cost delta is changeable in game setup.

The real "character change' that the mod still needs is making the facilities race-specific. I have done nothing whatever in this regard - every facility is still generic. Generic facilities work, and some generic-ness is necessary to keep the AI able to compete, but I am looking for ideas in two main areas:

1. Differences between homeworld hubs that don't duplicate racial differences; and

2. System modification facilities that we can both use as human players and get the AI to use (or else facilities that it does not hurt the AI if it does not use them).

Any thoughts on this are welcome. I hope to start putting the various data files here in the next couple of weeks, with explanations of each, so we can discuss them separately and you can offer suggestions on each.

A big thanks to Timstone for his work on the weapons (and a prayer that he will send an unlocked version of his weapons spreadsheet soon), to pathfinder for creating a version of the mod that worked (and for helping me understand the AI files), to IF and SJ for the whole armor/sensor/ECM concept that adds so much flavor to the game (I am not sure anymore who originally proposed what), and, of course, Val for getting this started. If I left anyone's contribution out, feel free to say so.

Faith manages.

[Fyron]

grumbler said:
...to IF and SJ for the whole armor/sensor/ECM concept that adds so much flavor to the game (I am not sure anymore who originally proposed what)...

That was all SJ. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Timstone]

Grumbler:
Woohoo! My spreadsheet is wanted! Oh yeah!
Thanks for mentioning my name! Much appreciated.
I tell you what I'm going to do. First I'm going to take care of my concept version of my report (won't take that much time I guess) and when I get home I'll start immediately adjusting my spreadsheet to the latest version. I have some changes in it. I completely thrown out the First ones section and upgraded (made more conveniently) the Young/Nomad section. Expect it late this week. It's the best I can do.
If it should be neccesary I'm willing (and more importantly I have the time for that) to make a short list of weapons for the races. I've already sorted out quite a few races, I just need to order the data. With this data and my spreadsheet everyone can make weapons for The B5 Mod.

Thanks guys for your appreciation! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Goatfoam]

I have a facility.txt that's mostly finished, if you'd like to look it over, Grumbler? Could at least give you some ideas. It only includes facilities for the Narn, EA, Centauri and Minbari, but it's a start.


Just so long as you're aware that it's designed for the RP-heavy mod I'm in the process of building, so it probably won't apply directly to your own. Neither has it been tested for balance, which is a side-issue with my mod anyway. But hopefully the ideas will be there for you to draw from.

[grumbler]

Goatfoam,

Sure, put it up. Anything is better than a blank piece of paper!

Status:
I converted all of the general weapon types to race-specific ones (i.e. the lasers were still the same, they just were been labelled Minari Lasers, EA Lasers, and the like) and modified the TechAreas to allow for race-specific weapons and get rid of all "general" weapons and weapons technologies. Quick run of the game on max tech indicates that all of this is working okay.

I am now plugging in the specialized weapons by race (i.e making Minbari molecular weapons of the same type better than, say EA ones or one of the other races not specializing in molecular weapons). There have been a few problems - the Drazi weapons crept into everyone's tech tree, for no discernable reason, but this was easily fixed by using the racial numbers for Drazi tech.

There should be a beta version of this components file ready in a week or so, and if anyone would like to volunteer to take it for a spin, that would be great. I know that there have to be a ton of typos and copy-n-paste errors in there, but I don't have the morale to go back in and try to scan a coupla tens of thousands of lines of text for the boo-boos. Getting people to play the game will reveal where these errors lie.

A quick question for the Ancients in here: I do not recall the reason why Val set up the weapons files as:

Abbai Light Weapons
Brakiri Light Weapons
Centauri Light Weapons
....
Abbai Medium Weapons
Brakiri Medium Weapons
Centauri Medium Weapons
....
etc

I have reformatted them as

Abbai Light Weapons
Abbai Medium Weapons
...
Brakiri Light Weapons
Brakiri Medium Weapons
...
Centauri Light Weapons
Centauri Medium Weapons
....
etc

so that if you want to add a new race, you just need to add it at the end, rather than inserting it in dozens of places.

Now, I suspect that the way it was done before was a product of the software used to build the list, but if it was not, and there is a really good reason for keeping the existing structure, now would be a really good time to remind me! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Goatfoam]

I've attached the current facility.txt to this post, Grumbler. The ones currently in there are mostly copies of the same abilities, just with different values for each race. Like I said, they all likely need tweaking, and there's a few that grant race-specific abilities, which haven't been added into the file yet. I'm trying to finish off the basic components and mounts at the moment, but as soon as I've finished that lot I'll close off the facility file and put them up too.

As for the status of my own mod, it's a couple of weeks away from beta. If you give it a bash and see anything in it that you like the look of, Grumbler, feel free to take the idea and run with it in your own work.

Also, on the testing, sure. I'll keep checking back here for the components file.

[grumbler]

Okay, I think I have gone as far as I want to without giving someone the chance to see if this mod makes sense the way it is going.

I am attaching the "vanilla" version of the updated mod (B5 Ver 2 vanilla.zip) as a beta test of sorts. It is vanilla because every race has the same weapons and facilities, they all use the same AI files (only modified as necessary to account for the different race names), and so they will all look and behave very much the same. There are no improved or advanced weapons inserted yet, and every race has the full 10 levels of each weapons tech (later races will get enhanced weapons and lose access to some of the weapons they can access in the beta version).

What I need is to have people help me ensure that the tradeoffs between weapons techs make sense - i.e. that it is not clearly superior to have molecular weapons vice laser ones, for instance. Research costs should figure into this (matter weapons, for instance, cost little to research but are inferior in performance to later versions of the more costly weapons.

I also could use some help in calculating min, org, and rad costs for the weapons. I have not rationalized them all because I really do not have a system yet. If anyone has a rational-sounding system let me know.

Pictures are the other incomplete element. I did a cursory search of component pack 25 and changed a few weapons images, but in a lot of cases large and medium weapons share an image. Somebody with some familiarity with the components image pack might have better luck settling on appropriate images where they do not exist.

Note that, since all 20 races have the exact same weapons at this point, comments need only refer to the weapon and not the race.

To use this mod, you will need to download it, unzip it into its own folder, and then move the files to the appropriate folders, replacing those with the same name. Obviously, this will incapacitate the mod as it stands, so if you want to use the existing version of the B5 mod, create a new version for this beta test version. You need to have B5 mod version 2 (http://www.spaceempires.net/files/temp/babylon%205%20v2.zip) installed first and overwrite the applicable files with these files.

Report any findings of note here (even if it to say you think things look okay so far). The sooner I can get feedback, the sooner I can add the finishing touches and specialize the weapons and facilities.

[Timstone]

Grumbler:
Like I said before. I have made a little spreadsheet that covers everything for the weapons. So when I'm done with the sheet I will send it to you and all your problems concerning the weapons will melt like a snowball in Hell. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif
But as you noticed, I'm running late with the sheet. I promissed to send it to you late last week. Sorry, graduating... I'll try to do it this week. This wek should be possible, because this week I'll have to hand in my concept report. So most of the work has been done then.

[grumbler]

Well, Tim, I look forward to getting the spreadsheet, but, alas, you approached the weapons the same way Val did (starting with damage and getting weight, etc from that) while I am apporaching it from tonnahge and deriving evrything from that. The difference between the approaches occurs because I am primarily interested in getting the AI to build competitive shhips, and Val was looking to make a competitive human-human game.

In any case, I think the supply values you come up with will be extremely useful (as I am staring at a "blank page" right now as far as methodology is concerned). If the spreadsheet can be modded (i.e. it isn't locked like the last one) I can change the tonnage values to be fixed and not variable and use the sheet as it is designed to be used.

BTW, I found out with a bit of checking that the beta mod:
1. doesn't allow the AI to properly build units, and
2. uses the wrong hull size for designs (and so ends up with less armor than planned).
I am fixing and will post the fix here (it is a combination of AI_D_C, component_enhancement, and component file errors).

[Suicide Junkie]

Damage per shot is very important for any leaky shield/armor system.

It does need to be balanced against weapon power, but if you pick reasonable sizes, the fire rate can be adjusted to make that balance.

[grumbler]

Yep, SJ, that's one of the reasons I want some others to play with the beta version, because that kind of balance isn't easy to test for.

Right now, it looks like 10% armor seems to work best (less, and you cannot take a turn's worth of shots without being crippled - more, and you cannot deal out the damage). But that is just from testing one type of weapon (lasers). I wanna see how that balance works in other opinions using more weapons.

It also seems to scale - 12 v 12 gives outcomes favoring less armor than does 6 v 6. The smaller the fleet, it seems at first blush, the more critical the armor is. That is, I think, due to the "first salvo" effect, which in small fleets can cripple one ship and leave that side at a permanent, and increasing, disadvantage.

[Suicide Junkie]

You could also send in a very heavily armored ship as the leader. It would be the decoy, absorbing a ton of damage, while the next ships in line dish out the hurt after the enemy has locked onto your leader as the "nearest" ship http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[grumbler]

SJ, how does the AI decide which ship in a fleet is the leader, do you know?

If it does it by tonnage, that would be doubleplus good, because in any general ship class (escort, destroyer, cruiser, battleship, dreadnought, base ship) the distinction between "light" normal, and "heavy" is armor - they generally have the same components otherwise. If the AI makes the largest ship the leader, this would result in the most heavily armored ship becoming the leader, which is the way you say it should be.

[Timstone]

Grumbler:
I'm sorry I haven't send you the spreadsheet yet. I'm currently in the last days before I have to hand in my final report. I'm sure you can understand I have better things to do right now. Sorry.
Next tuesday I have to hand in the final report, so after that I certainly have time to look at the spreadsheet again. I'll unlock it this time, hehe...

btw, I believe in the last version you were able to change a few things. Like the tonnage/damage conversion rate, but i could be wrong though.

Stay tooned! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

grumbler said:
SJ, how does the AI decide which ship in a fleet is the leader, do you know?


Nope, sorry.
It probably puts them in as they arrive where the fleet is being formed.

[grumbler]

Tim,

I am in a holding pattern, awaiting any feedback. In a coupla weeks I will just publish the last AI and Comp files and leave it at that, if no one really cares enough to give feedback. Your excel files have been invaluable to date, and I would like to see the final versions, but like you last spring, I don't think it is worthwhile to spend lifespan polishing a project no one cares about. The mod plays well for me, anyway (barring fleets).

SJ: Thanks. Too bad, as I am pretty sure that someone used to talk about fleet composition modification. Right now, the neutrals concentrate ships at war points where major powers have shown up and AI major powers send multiple ships per turn through, one by one, to be slaughtered.

[Timstone]

Grumbler:
Thanks for your appreciation. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon14.gifhttp://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon14.gif

I'm now busy correcting the sheet. I hope I can finish it tonight. I'll see how far I can get. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Timstone]

Okay Grumbler, I finished a UNLOCKED version of the sheet. The accuracy function isn't working yet. I have some cool ideas for that, but I though you would like to have a crack at it already. Expect the next version before the end of this... year. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif
BTW, of course I didn't bother to change the text on the first page, the basic thought behind the sheet works and that is enough for now.

[Timstone]

Okay, I admit I'm stupid. I forgot to attach the actual sheet itself. Doh!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif
Here it is!

[Ron_Lugge]

I'm interested in the mod...

Just not of much use http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Timstone]

Well at least you're taking the effort to post here and tells about your interest. Great!
I hope you will like the upcomming B5 Mods (if they all see the light of day).

[Onyx]

I'm always here. Thanks again to all those who are continuing the work.

[zircher]

In the interested lurker category, any plans for the Hyach? I built an SE IV classic ship set for them many moons ago. Are you all basing your designs solely on observations from the series or the B5W rules?
--
TAZ

[Atrocities]

I started a Shadow set but have not had time to work on it past the ships I had already posted links too. FYI, The Hyach set was one of the sets that inspired me to go ahead and make my own versions of Star Trek ship sets. Thanks Todd. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[pathfinder]

zircher said:
In the interested lurker category, any plans for the Hyach? I built an SE IV classic ship set for them many moons ago. Are you all basing your designs solely on observations from the series or the B5W rules?
--
TAZ



The Gold version I did awhile back used the Hyach shipset by you.

Val, then I used the B5 minature game data by Agents of Gaming to base the MOD on. Not sure what the rest are doing as far baseline data.

[zircher]

Coolness. Thanks for the info.
--
TAZ

[Val]

Hey all, anyone care to update me on how things are going?

Good to see you PF, and Timstone, SJ & Zircher... (I've only read the past page so far and my head is already spinning!)

[Captain Kwok]

It's a ghost!

[Fyron]

Wow! Val, long time no see! How have you been?

[Val]

Boo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Good to see you two as well!

Doing ok - how are y'all doing?

[Fyron]

Well enough, I suppose. Where did you wander off to oh so long ago?

[pathfinder]

Val said:
Boo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Good to see you two as well!

Doing ok - how are y'all doing?



Yo!

[Timstone]

Holy cow!! WTF!!
It's Val!
*Does a little victory dance*

Absolutely great to see you Val! How are you and where have you been?! Please tells us (or mail me...).
(kaptein-aso [shift+2] planet [dot] nl)

Edit:
Grumbler:
Have you DL'ed my Excel sheet? Is it any good?

[grumbler]

Zircher: The Hyach are still in the mod. In everything but weapons they are as Path left them. Right now, like everyone else, they just have "stock" weapons but if people are satisfied with the weapons v armor balance the Hyach will get the best rating for Laser weapons.

I don't think the Spinal Laser (single huge laser per ship) think will work well against leaky armor, though. Big weapon samage ratings essentially negate the armor because too small a portion is drawn off by the armor and too big a percentage "leaks" through.

Val: Great to see you back! It has been a long time, and we were worried. Thatus is roughly as follows:
1. SJ aded "leaky armor" to the game, I think right before you left.
2. Pathfinder converted the game to Gold and cleaned up the AI files a lot.
3. I added QNP for the fighters and changed engines to the ":mount" system for both fighters and ships.
4. Tim and I scaled down the facilities a bit to ensure the AI built "smart" planets, but the "racialization" was never completed.
5. In order to get a better handle on the balance between weapon damage rate and leaky armor, and to test my idea for AI ship designs, I made all weapons the same, with plans to make them more race-specific once everyone was satisfied that the balance between weapons and armor worked well.

I am putting together the data and AI files that I have changed as part of this playtesting, and will post them later today.

Tim: Downloaded, but I haven't had time to do more than scan it over. It looks good, though, and I will use it for the "final" weapons versions.

[Ragnarok-X]

Wow, im amazed to see Val here, it must have been at least 2 years, maybe even longer ?

[Ron_Lugge]

Hate to interupt the welcome-home-party, but if someone wanted to D/L this (from scratch) how would he go about it?

The best I've done is find a rather out-of-date version.

[grumbler]

Ron_Lugge said:
Hate to interupt the welcome-home-party, but if someone wanted to D/L this (from scratch) how would he go about it?

The best I've done is find a rather out-of-date version.


Ron,

Go to http://www.xmission.com/~rstulce/B5Web.htm and get version 1.80 (which is updated through SE4 Gold 1.91) and then replace the applicable files with the ones from the file attached to this post.

Note to all: The attached files update the AI files and several of the data files so that the AI correctly builds units and arms its ships correctly. There are NO images here and it assumes you have component image mod pack 25.

Comments are appreciated, as I really will not go much further until I am satisfied that the weapons versus armor balance is right (i.e. that tonnage spent on armor and tonnage on weapons give roughly the same benefit in combat).

Note that the facilities are still bare-bones, but I am looking thorugh several suggested mods by race and hope to hhave something completed along those lines soon. I just have to make sure the AI can use it properly, or else make their cost/benefit be such that their use is somewhat moot.

[Timstone]

Top notch Grumbler! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon14.gifhttp://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon14.gif
Great work!

After my graduation I plan on making a collection of weapons (the data) for 42 (!!) races of the B5 universe. This collection can be used as input for my Excel Sheet. After graduation I'll update the Excel Sheet (correct text and such) and add a formula for the accuracy. I haven't had time to play around with a nice formula, but I know in which corner to seek for a nice solution.

Oh yeah, I'll graduate (again) on April 14th. Keep your fingers crossed. Unfortunately I'm not allowed to publish the report I've made. Otherwise I would have shown you guys what I do best (besides doing nothing... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif).

[Timstone]

Woot! Tomorrow I'll have to present the findings of my research to some high ranking Suits. I'm sure I'll pass with ease. Though they can pose me with the most difficult questions because they know the subject. When I'll have to present my findings to some professor I have the advantage, because I know the subject and he doesn't. So if I pass tomorrow, I'll be homefree.

Just wanted to post my 1600th post in thsi thread, call me sentimental... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Nomor]

The B'stard

Will all those who contributed to the Val Memorial Fund please PM me with suggestions on what to do with the current balance.

I don't relish posting hundreds of small cheques but will return monies to the major contributors.

Timstone: those milk tokens are not redeemable here in the United Kingdom; should I return them?
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Timstone]

Nomor:
Ah crap Nomor! What do you want me to do with 1,4 metric tons of milk tokens?! I had to charter a fishingboat just to get them to you. Now what?

[solops]

grumbler said:

Go to http://www.xmission.com/~rstulce/B5Web.htm and get version 1.80 (which is updated through SE4 Gold 1.91) and then replace the applicable files with the ones from the file attached to this post.





I saw nothing attached to your post.

Edit: Never mind. I just spotted it at the top.

[grumbler]

solops said:
I saw nothing attached to your post.

Edit: Never mind. I just spotted it at the top.

Great. Feedback is necessary, so I would appreciate any comments. I am not going to go back and finalize the weapons until I know if I am in the ballpark (the workload is crushing and I will do it only once), because the weapons/armor balance can only be established heuristically, and for that I need people to test and comment.

Comments on things other than weapons are welcome as well, of course, but the issue of "do I spend the tonnage on weapons or armor" needs to be presented correctly if the mod is to work.

[Ron_Lugge]

Just doublechecking, but that .exe file is the same one as was released several months ago, right?

No need to re-D/L the whole thing?

[Nomor]

Just a quicky.

Why is a Fission Engine 1 500kT?

I must have done something wrong http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Fyron]

There may be scale mounts for the engines (under "Weapon Mounts"). If not, probably too big. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nomor]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif Ta

[Nomor]

Ooh; I like this Engine Mount thingy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Just been terminated by an access violation though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif

[grumbler]

The .exe files should not have been included, it was an oversight. The .exe is the 1.91 from MM.

[grumbler]

Nomor, what was processing when you got the access violation? These are not good! Usually, it is an AI thing. Make sure that you don't have any races but the ones I have included AI files for. The old AI files don't match up with the new tech file.

[Nomor]

Thanks
I reinstalled the various mods and seem to have cured the problem. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Are you using the facilities text file from Rambie's Site.

I'm not really sure what version I'm testing at present.I think it's the Beta 2, but not the vanilla version.

[Timstone]

Hahaha...
The many, many, many versions of The Mod are getting confusing, no?
I'm almost done with my graduation. Just another week and I'll have much, much more time to dedicate to The Mod. Then I'll start making the weapons everyone is waiting for soooo long. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

[grumbler]

Nomor,

I am not using any of the data files from Rambie's site (though some of them may have the same dates, since I have't changed much except tech, components, comp-enh, vehiclesize, and facilities.

None of the .txt files from the 1.80 version are still good - they all need to be replaced, including the "upgraded facilities" file.

I don't want to get into versions until the beta version has been tested and I start to produce "production" versions, but will start to versionize at that point.

[Ron_Lugge]

OK, so since my effort isn't working, why don't you go over what I did wrong?

Do I need to install the facility.txt from the site (since its facilities that are the problem) or is there a facility file floating around somewhere that I'm missing?

[Nomor]

Ron_Lugge:
Upgrade to SE4 Gold 1.91 from patch.
Install "Babylon 5 mod v1.8".
Ignor the facilities file on Rambie's Site.
Unzip B5 mod Beta 2 txt files, copy and paste the 4 folders and overwrite the folders of the same name in the Babylon 5 mod v1.8 folder.
I think thats what I did. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif


Agricultural\Mining Colony

If we keep the current starting facilities as representative of mature planetary settlements, would it not be true to natural tech development that smaller modular colony facilities would be further down the research tree.

Researching Minerals\Organics\Radioactives Extraction would provide us with smaller (say 5th of starting size) modular type facilities that could then be produced on the more remote or alien atmosphere planets, suitable for low population colonies.

When you are starting to get clobbered by the Vorlons or getting ganged up on you could at lest run away and start up again without needing a Homeworld as backup.

Maint Bot. 50kt Only used on Space Stations.

Is it not possible to have this on all ships with enough kT space.
Is it possible to make it dependent on say a Maint Bot Central Control Unit (100kT)
We can then make this "Maint Bot CPU" built (hard wired)into Space Stations and certain Capital ships like Carriers and Destroyers upwards or have it as a separate component that needs to be installed. If you want your capital ships to have repair abilities you have to give up some of your firepower.

The Repair Tug could also have this "hard wired" into its design. As you research more, the Maint Bot CPU is able to control more Maint Bots.

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

[Suicide Junkie]

You could make maintenance bots into repair drones, and have the control unit be a launcher.

[Ron_Lugge]

Time to go back over my install, because that didn't seem to work... Maybe I copied and pasted wrong somewhere...

[grumbler]

Nomor said:
Ron_Lugge:
Upgrade to SE4 Gold 1.91 from patch.
Install "Babylon 5 mod v1.8".
Ignor the facilities file on Rambie's Site.
Unzip B5 mod Beta 2 txt files, copy and paste the 4 folders and overwrite the folders of the same name in the Babylon 5 mod v1.8 folder.
I think thats what I did.


That sounds correct. There is a facilities.txt file in the beta mod that is pretty much completely different than that on Rambie's site.


Agricultural\Mining Colony

If we keep the current starting facilities as representative of mature planetary settlements, would it not be true to natural tech development that smaller modular colony facilities would be further down the research tree.

Yes, but in a sense this is what the colony hub represents. It is expensive and takes some time to establish, representing the time a colony strugles to survive without worrying about exporting anything. I would love to have some facilities that could only be built on homeworlds. The problem with smaller colonial facilities with perhaps an upgrade when the colony gets larger is that the IA cannot handle that kind of thing well.


Researching Minerals\Organics\Radioactives Extraction would provide us with smaller (say 5th of starting size) modular type facilities that could then be produced on the more remote or alien atmosphere planets, suitable for low population colonies.

When you are starting to get clobbered by the Vorlons or getting ganged up on you could at lest run away and start up again without needing a Homeworld as backup.

In essence, that is what the Aggressive mining facilities are: facilities that are cheap to build but which slowly wreck the plant they are on. Use these for those small methane planets and whatnot that you will never use for anything else. Remote mining, rad collecting, and farming satellites to the same thing on a smaller scale.


Maint Bot. 50kt Only used on Space Stations.

Is it not possible to have this on all ships with enough kT space.
Is it possible to make it dependent on say a Maint Bot Central Control Unit (100kT)
We can then make this "Maint Bot CPU" built (hard wired)into Space Stations and certain Capital ships like Carriers and Destroyers upwards or have it as a separate component that needs to be installed. If you want your capital ships to have repair abilities you have to give up some of your firepower.

The Repair Tug could also have this "hard wired" into its design. As you research more, the Maint Bot CPU is able to control more Maint Bots.

I toyed with this idea, but finally decided that the show just had to many examples of even big ships limping back to B5 for repairs that it made sense to keep Val's concept of repair bots. I kinda like the idea of the repair tug being filled with bots as oposed to having inherent repair capabilities, and will make it so, using mounts to keep the Maint Bot CPU from being installed in the other hull sizes.

Good ideas here. Thanks for the fedback, and keep it coming.

[grumbler]

Ron, if you can be more specific about where the fgame is hanging up, that would help with the trouble-shooting.

[Ron_Lugge]

It isn't hanging; I just don't seem to have any facilities. Well, a few, but no ship yards, or mining facilities, and IIRC no research.

[grumbler]

Ron,

There are no shipyards. The homeworld and colony hubs give the ability to build spacecraft, but the main construction of spacecraft will occur in orbital facilities, per the series and books.

What is the date and size of the facilities.txt you have in the data folder?

[Fyron]

Did you select appropriate racial traits? You need to select a trait for your race and another, "standard" or "ancient" race or somesuch, if I remember correctly.

[grumbler]

Excellent point, IF. Make sure you start with one of the pre-existing empires and just modify it to get you to the race points you want. You must be a B5 Standard Race (none of the other racial categories work right now) plus your own race. You can be B5 telepathic as well, but none of the crystalline or spiritual things work as yet.

[Ron_Lugge]

Ancient doesn't work? Maybe that was the problem...

Though I could have sworn I tried at least one "normal" race... without the ability to build ships. Will go look harder.

Thanks for the help.

[Nomor]

What is it that determines maintenance costs. I'm thinking mainly of Organics . I don't think I've built another organic producer other than the one that came with the Homeworld, and I'm sitting on a mountain of sprouts with nothing consuming them.

Should not Life Support in ships and Troops and Infantry attract a maintenance overhead. Troops sitting on colonies need to be fed and Life Support should require raw materials.

So far there is little need to produce Organics and thus no limiting factor on Troop/Infantry production. Is it not possible to give these units a maintenance component.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Glad you liked the Tug Maint. Bot thing, but I liked the Drone idea of SJ 's too. Is it not possible to blend the two. I have no experience of drones yet having never encountered them in a game. Drones could be a further development of the former? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Nomor]

This rar file has bmp's of race portraits that I thought had already been added to the B5Mod. It should be safe to just copy the pictures Folder over the Folder of the same name. Delete any you don't like before doing so.

New Hurr, Abbai, Pakmara, Brakiri and Dilgar http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Sorry no can do. I have a rar file 181 KB (185,720 bytes)in size. Is there someone I can email it to for consideration? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif I have no Home Page http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[grumbler]

Nomor said:
What is it that determines maintenance costs. I'm thinking mainly of Organics . I don't think I've built another organic producer other than the one that came with the Homeworld, and I'm sitting on a mountain of sprouts with nothing consuming them.

Should not Life Support in ships and Troops and Infantry attract a maintenance overhead. Troops sitting on colonies need to be fed and Life Support should require raw materials.

So far there is little need to produce Organics and thus no limiting factor on Troop/Infantry production. Is it not possible to give these units a maintenance component.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif



Regrettably, it is not possible for units to require maintenance, but I agree 1000% with your feelings on the futility of organics production as the mod stands. I have played with the rads production a bit, to require ever-increasing amounts of rads for engines as they get more powerful. This has not made a big difference though as rad production is esential a "freebie" that comes with mineral production.

The maintenance requirement for ships is based on the initial cost and the maintenance requirements in the settings.txt file. Thus, to increase the maintenance cost for organics, you need to increase the build cost in organics.

I am playing with the idea that colony hubs and (to a lessor extent) other facilities are driven by their organics cost, not their mineral cost. this means that a player would need to maintain a high level of organics production early on while he is building his planets up, but those resources do not translate into resources useful for the big shipbuilding campaigns that charactorise the end of the midgame and the whole of the endgame.


Glad you liked the Tug Maint. Bot thing, but I liked the Drone idea of SJ 's too. Is it not possible to blend the two. I have no experience of drones yet having never encountered them in a game. Drones could be a further development of the former? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif


What i want to avoid is having repairs occur too easily. One of the cool things about the game is the way the lack of shields results in trashed fleets even for the winner of a space battle (unless tech diferences are huge). If it is too easy to repair that damage without returning to a base, then that flavor is lost.

But I don't know where the balance lies, and would welcome a discussion on this.

[Nomor]

Re: Repair Tugs

If the number of components repaired each turn is dependent on the number of Maint. Bots on a ship,
and the number of Maint.Bots is dependent on the Maint Bot CPU tech level, it should be possible to totally disable a ships repair capabilities if say the Maint. Bot CPU is destroyed. If it is possible to require the CPU to be intact for Maint. Bots to work.

Further to this, it word be prudent to allow the Repair Tug to have a hard wired ability to repair at lest one component, so that if its CPU is damaged in a fleet action you can repair the CPU and then repair the rest of the ship. This would be the unique benefit of having the Repair Tug. It should always be able to repair its self unless completely destroyed.

However if we exclude Capital Ships from having Maint.bots can we at lest allow Carriers to have this ability. It is in Carriers that the drone idea might work as a higher tech level. One can always restrict the number of drones a launcher could carry. After all some of the lager Ships can have 20 or more components. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Nomor]

Re: Ancients and Combat

My understanding of ship combat is that no matter the state of your ships supplies when you enter combat you actually start combat with full supplies based on the supply capacity of the ship.

Would it not be more balanced if the ancients i.e. the Shadows had a heavy power drain if using their "big guns".

e.g. Shadow Cruiser has 3000 supplies. Its "slicer beam" uses 300 supplies each slice, so it can only fire 10 times before it has to quit combat and run. This would balance the battle when engaging a fleet of Destroyers by not allowing one ship to wipe out a group of Capital Ships.

The Shadows from the series always seemed to engage from a position of advantage and hit hard and then vanish. We can infer that the Slicer beam had a great drain on the stored bio energy of the living ship and that a sustained engagement was out of the question?
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Organics.
I notice that Life Support (for Troop/Fighters) and Crew Quarters have no Organics cost. This might result in a maintenance increase if they had? Or have you already said that? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Fyron]

Nomor said:
My understanding of ship combat is that no matter the state of your ships supplies when you enter combat you actually start combat with full supplies based on the supply capacity of the ship.

You have the supply levels you had before entering combat when entering it. You do not get filled up at the start of combat.

However, the B5 Mod causes supplies to be refilled completely every game turn, so running of of supplies in combat in one game turn will not translate to the next. This may be what you are seeing. The first combat of a new turn, especially for a defender, can very easily start with full supplies. But if there are more combats involving those ships in the same game turn, they will have reduced supply levels.

Personally, I do not like this system, as it eliminates supplies from being a necessary strategic consideration...

Nomor said:e.g. Shadow Cruiser has 3000 supplies. Its "slicer beam" uses 300 supplies each slice...

This would also result in the ships being crippled for the rest of the turn. 0 supplies leads to 1 movement both in combat and on the strategic map. Their ships would become sitting ducks for the rest of the combat and game turn, unable to escape. While a human player in tactical combat could keep enough supplies to run, the AI would never be able to handle it.

[grumbler]

"Personally, I do not like this system, as it eliminates supplies from being a necessary strategic consideration... "

But that is the point. In the show, supplies were NOT a major strategic consideration. Ships routinely spent years "out on the rim" and the only apparent supply consideraton was the lack of fresh fruit!

My thinking is that damage, not supply, was the limiting factor that ties fleets to bases. That is why I am so interested in getting the ship-based repair capacity "right." Ancients have self-repair capabilities and thus are not tied to bases at all.

As an aside, I have been playing with the Shadows and Vorlons as non-player races (no research, no colonization, no population growth) and have most of the bugs worked out. My current plan is to have one each of the "full" races and one each "outposts" that are neutral race versions of the full race. The ancients wil;l kick *** locally but will eventually be swampable through numbers. Thoughts?

[Nomor]

Ok, been thinking on this all day:

0 supplies leads to 1 movement both in combat and on the strategic map. Does this also apply to Bonus Movement points as Abilities?

If we treat the Ancients or Vorlons and Shadows differently and make their combat moves more dependant on Bonus Combat Movement Points , we could then use the supplies side for their weapons. The Slicer Beam can then fire each turn, but stops when exhausted, and the Shadow can still retire by using the Bonus Combat Movement side.

We can either make the Bonus Combat Movement part of the Ship Hull, or related to the Slicer Beam, or as a new component: Bio Battery or Cell: that provides Bonus Combat Movement, as long as there are Engines.

Of course if you make it part of the Engine and the engines are destroyed then the ship stops.

This is all meaningless if "no supplies" cancels Bonus Combat Movement. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

Grumber: Did you get the new Race portraits?

[Fyron]

Nomor said:
Does this also apply to Bonus Movement points as Abilities?

Yes. Look at the stock game for an example. Design a ship with 6 Quantum Engine IIIs and a Solar Sail. Get it to run out of supplies. Movement will be 1. This ship uses both bonus movement and extra movement points.

[Ron_Lugge]

Personally, I like the way that reactors store supplies. It means that you have to really worry about "lucky" hits. In earlier versions, I remember cursing on several occasions as my rather large, powerful reactors got hit early on (by accident) and leaving my ultra-powerful ship dead in the water. Its a nice dichotomy.

[Fyron]

Yeah, having the supplies stored only in reactors and not the engines themselves is a nice affect. I personally don't like the supplies being completely refilled every turn, but that is just me.

[grumbler]

IF, it is a signature part of the mod that supplies are restored after each turn. I have not touche it for that very reason. It would take some justification to make any change, but that just means the ball is in your court. Why should energy supplies NOT be restored every turn, given what we know of the B5 universe?

[Phoenix-D]

If you set engines to use 0 supplies, do you still drop to 1 movement when the supplies are gone?

After all, if supplies are filled up each turn there's little point to the engines having supplies at all..

[Nomor]

Phoenix-D: Hey; might that work? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif


I note that most of the info on Listening Posts and Military Outposts is missing so we have to guess all of their relevant functions.

I can remember though that there was no range to the scanning levels which I thought made things too easy. Can we not make the scanning based on range , starting at say 2 sectors and increasing with tech level.

Also I hoped that ships sitting in an Asteroid Belt ,and not moving, could be invisible to the opposition, unless they were in range of say a Listening Post or a Ship with some level of scanner.

This would fuel the need for overlapping Listening Posts or stationing a ship or satellite to watch your local Asteroid Belt. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Ships could hide in Asteroid Belts for ambush or if damaged and in hiding pending the arrival of a Repair Tug.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I think the AI might even be able to use this as there were sectors in the basic SEIV game that where opaque to some types of scanners. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Fyron]

Phoenix-D said:
If you set engines to use 0 supplies, do you still drop to 1 movement when the supplies are gone?

Yes, movement still drops to 0. Check out solar sails in mods such as Pirates & Nomads and Adamant. They are exactly that, "engines" with 0 supply usage and 0 supply storage (at least in Adamant; I forget whether they store supplies or not in P&N). You must add a supply storing component to get more than 1 movement, even though the solar sails will use no supplies when the ship moves. When the ship later runs out of supplies through weapons fire (or cloaking devices, etc.), the movement rate will drop to 1.

Grumbler said:
IF, it is a signature part of the mod that supplies are restored after each turn. I have not touche it for that very reason. It would take some justification to make any change, but that just means the ball is in your court. Why should energy supplies NOT be restored every turn, given what we know of the B5 universe?

Ships still have to go back for supplies periodically in the B5 universe. Anyways, I wasn't speaking from any canonical viewpoint, more of the gameplay aspect. I personally think that gameplay is always far more important than canonical concerns. The replenishment of supplies every turn removes one of the important strategic aspects of the game. In other mods and the stock game (to a lesser extent), managing supplies can be a crucial factor in overall strategy. Sure, you can run out of supplies during a turn in the B5 mod, but this is not really relevant when you can just add another reactor or two to get far more supplies than you need. This is also why I am not too fond of the "quantum reactor" ability... That's just my opinion; take it as you will.

Nomor said:
I can remember though that there was no range to the scanning levels which I thought made things too easy. Can we not make the scanning based on range , starting at say 2 sectors and increasing with tech level.

Sadly, the long range scanner ability with range limits (ship LRS in stock) is not useable on facilities. The facility LRS ability has no range limit. Further, the cloak detection abilities (ie: tachyon sensors) have no functionality for limited range; they always affect the entire system.

Nomor said:
I think the AI might even be able to use this as there were sectors in the basic SEIV game that where opaque to some types of scanners.

I do not believe the AI is capable of making effective use of cloaking storms (or asteroids or planets, etc.).

[Timstone]

Everybody seems quite fond on bold lettertypes these days... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Fyron]

It makes more compact posts than using the quote tags. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Nomor]

I thought to would help you to see the wood in all the trees . http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Are you just trying to up your post count again? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif Colonel? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Timstone]

Yeah sure, why not. Posting useless posts are one of my strong points. How do you think I got this amount of posts? I sure as hell haven't posted that many usefull comments... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

I really like it that this thread is living up again. Quite soon I'll start work on the weapons. I just need to figure out a nice formula for the accuracy. Maybe someone has a few good ideas?

[pathfinder]

Nomor said:
Are you just trying to up your post count again? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif Colonel? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif




But of course....corporal http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[grumbler]

Imperator Fyron said:
Ships still have to go back for supplies periodically in the B5 universe. Anyways, I wasn't speaking from any canonical viewpoint, more of the gameplay aspect. I personally think that gameplay is always far more important than canonical concerns. The replenishment of supplies every turn removes one of the important strategic aspects of the game. In other mods and the stock game (to a lesser extent), managing supplies can be a crucial factor in overall strategy. Sure, you can run out of supplies during a turn in the B5 mod, but this is not really relevant when you can just add another reactor or two to get far more supplies than you need. This is also why I am not too fond of the "quantum reactor" ability... That's just my opinion; take it as you will.

I understand what you are arguing, but my point is actually a bit different.

What I am saying is that one of the signature elements of this mod is precisely that it does away with the whole supply management issue, so long as ships are well-designed. Now, it could certainly be argued that eliminating the "max range from base" consideration adversely effects gameplay, but I have not seen that argued. Ships in the B5 universe literally went years without returning to resupply (remember Captain Sheridan's lust for freash fruit after having been out among the League worlds for over a year?).

Given all the thought and work that so many have put into this mod without changing the supply system, I am very reluctant to change such a crucial design feature without a pretty good justification.

This is not to say that you are wrong - quite the opposite. However, it is to say that even though you are right I don't feel empowered to make such a change. This is really not my mod. If Val wants that change made, he can make it (or, for that matter, so can you by just eliminating the supply regeneration capability of the reactors and increasing their storage - Homeworld hubs and colony hubs provide supply).

[Captain Kwok]

You could try making weapons use much more supplies, in which case if a certain ship sees a lot of action, it'd need to re-supply more frequently as you'd expect...

[Suicide Junkie]

You'll probably have to reduce engine supply usage by a lot too.

[Timstone]

Kwok/anyone:
Could you give me some advise then regarding the supply useage of weapons? I'm in the process of making a suitable equation for the supply useage of the weapons.
I would like to base it on damage, the more damage a weapons does, the more supplies it will use. This is couteracted (or balanced) by the ROF (Rate Of Fire). This way you can still have a fastfiring deathspewer and a slowfiring peashooter.

[Nomor]

Before you start on the supply usage for weapons it might be better to establish the amount of supplies you start with and work back.

As things stand you can have as many reactors as you wish so any value you put on a weapon's consumption is almost meaningless.

If you limit a ships design to say 2 reactors then the whole choice of using say 2x 5kT or 1x 5kT and 1x 20kT has more impact on what kind of ship you want. One that can travel far or fight longer.
It might be better to limit the engine choice as well, between the various classes. e.g.

Scouts, Escorts, Corvette : 2 to 4 engines
Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser : 4 to 6 engines
Battleships and Carriers : 4 to 6 engines*

*The Larger Capital ships can have more reactors, say 3 or 4 so that they can act as supply vessels for a Fleet.

Specialist Vessels such as the Repair Tug can have more reactors by default and maybe more engines to enable them to travel further on rescue missions.

If we decide on a mean average supply storage for any particular ship class, which we know is replenished each turn, we can then decide how far a ship class can travel before exhausting all it's supplies by setting the consumption of a mean number of engines.

This might have to be achieved by setting the reactor supply generation to a value less than the supply storage.

Say your Ship has Supply Storage of 5000 , but the reactors only generate enough to replenish 1000 , and each turn, if your ship uses all its movement points it consumes 2000 supplies, a net loss of 1000 supplies result. After five turns your ship would have to rest to refill its supply capacity. This would be your effective operating range. i.e. 5 movement turns from your base.

Ideally it might be better to lower this to say three movement turns or three systems distance. Having Supply Bases in settled systems would act as top ups so that you can operate at full efficiency.

This might simulate the reactor/ mission duration scenario of B5 whilst making local support bases more essential to successful campaigning.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Now none of this takes into account weapons consumption on any given turn, and as pointed out if you are out of supplies your movement is reduce to 1 space. Is this such a bad thing? Can it be crooked by providing emergency movement points for some vessels e.g. Ancients so that they can out run a Young Race if both sides have exhausted supplies in battle.

Making the Ancient's Slicer Beam and say EA Heavy* Lasers eat up supplies means you can set the number of shots each class is able to make in combat. *They can also then take up less kT so that you can have three Heavy Lasers, not just one. Otherwise what is the point of having Multiplex Tracking . If you fire three Lasers in three directions, you just run out of supplies sooner and are then left with your no supply usage weapons.

Your weapon supply use can then be regarded as your battle fatigue rating. If you have bigger reactors/supply capacity and the lower number of engines, your ship should in effect be able to fight longer with it's capital weapons before having to rely on it's secondary weapons systems.

This creates a better pro verse cons choice for some of the crappier medium weapons some of which can have no supply usage.

I don't know why medium lasers can not be used to target all types of target. After all it still has to hit the target, and fighters and seekers have a "to hit advantage".Makes use of developing Targeting computers.

Other weapons such as point defence can perhaps use no supplies .

Missile and Torpedo weapons can be assumed to have their own supplies and be restricted by reload/range and seeking speed .
Hows that? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gifhttp://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Fyron]

Limiting engine choices would in my opinion be a very bad move. QNP is a great system to keep around. It allows the player to choose how to use ship hulls, rather than being forced into arbitrary predefined roles. Also, it immediately creates balance between larger and smaller ship sizes by making all ships require about the same percentage of hull space devoted to engines to get he same movement rate.

[Suicide Junkie]

Engines don't (or at least shouldn't) store supplies.
Don't go breaking the QNP in your quest for supply balance.

Just remember that big ships will be using more supplies per movement point since they are heavier.

Question:
Why do you want to limit the number of reactors per ship?

- One or two big reactors should be more efficient in supplies per KT, and thus be good.
- Small reactors would be less efficient, but can't be killed by a lucky hit in combat. (Remember the leaky armor!)

Thus both big and small reactors are useful.

Note:
On a small ship, "big" refers to the medium reactors.
On a large ship, "small" refers to the medium reactors.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Timstone]

Nomor:
Thanks for the info and suggestion to work backwards. Very useful. I think I can do something with that. I already have a nice equation for the supply useage (based on the system Val laid down). Download the weapons sheet listed in my sig to see for yourself.

The only thing not incorporated into this sheet is an equation for the accuracy of the weqapons. I'm busy with that right now and I have some good idea how to do it, but I'm still curious to your opinions. Please feel free to give me some advise.

[Nomor]

Would it be possible to place some gravity wells in the Hyper Space Systems, that acted like the black holes , in that they pulled you towards them.

Rather than being destroyed, could they not just warp you to another system ( ideally another Hyper Space system?)
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[narf poit chez BOOM]

The movement and destruction parts of a black hole system are seperate abilities, so you could do the first part. However, I know of no auto-warp ability.

[Timstone]

Sounds very cool, but I think it can't be done with SE IV. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif

[Ron_Lugge]

Too bad, it sounds cool.

[grumbler]

The problem with black hole-type effects in this mod is that colony ships are usually too slow to escape them, with the AI will continue to send colony ships into the black hole until its entire population has been sent down the drain. A black hole that the AI could escape from (i.e. one with a pull of one) seems too trivial to bother with.

[Nomor]

Imperator Fyron said:
Limiting engine choices would in my opinion be a very bad move. QNP is a great system to keep around.



That's fine, but using grumbler's current mod as a test bed I find that the margin for engine choice has been reduced anyway to the options I gave.
If you go over the higher number I listed you basically have a ship that is all engine. Which I suppose makes my limiting things a bit meaningless. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif


Suicide Junkie said :
Engines don't (or at least shouldn't) store supplies.Don't go breaking the QNP in your quest for supply balance.



I was not implying engines store supplies. My figures were based on the supply capacity of the reactors. But by making the generation of supplies within each size of reactor less that its supply capacity , you have a ship that will eventually run out of supplies if it uses more supplies than it generated in a particular turn.

If however the ship does not use all it's movement points in a turn then it will have more supplies when it starts it's next turn.

This will still allow a ship to travel right around the map, only it would need to rest whenever it was over stressing the supply management. However looking at the reactors again one is more or less restricted by available ship space to throw reactor limitation out. However this might be an opportunity to make the efficiency of the reactor size more telling.
(Of course this only really applies in systems with one star.)


grumbler said:
A black hole that the AI could escape from (i.e. one with a pull of one) seems too trivial to bother with.



Not if your fleet is suffering from battle damage. It would allow some players to form strategies for capturing other races ships if they could use one fleet to damage engines and then move in with another fleet to board ships that suffer from the movement penalty. (But this is not such a priority at the moment.) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

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

[grumbler]

Nomor said:
That's fine, but using grumbler's current mod as a test bed I find that the margin for engine choice has been reduced anyway to the options I gave.
If you go over the higher number I listed you basically have a ship that is all engine. Which I suppose makes my limiting things a bit meaningless. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif

Well, my version assumes that you want to devote 30%, 40%, or 50% of the space on most ships to engines. Given that the rest of the command and control stuff generally takes about 10% of the hull (and tha6t is why some small hulls don't need Crew Quarters or life support) that leaves you with 60%, 50%, or 40% of hull space for everything else.

Some ships, like scouts, will probably be unarmed and unarmored, and so have more speed, but by and large the tradeoffs between speed and everything else are pretty linear. With a few classes, minimum requirements for, say, cargo or fighter launch facilities limit engie choices more severely, but this was intentional, as the human player can exploit the speed versus capacity tradeoff more than the AI (and a ship with twice the speed but half the capacity is generally much better for the human than one with normal speed and capacity, at least for hauling cargo and pop). Extra speed is of very limited utility to ships that will e in fleets, of course, unless you give every ship the additional speed.

Still, there is always room for tweaking. Any thoughts in this area are worth looking at. In particular, I am wondering if the early-game advantage of propulsion expertise (which increase your colony ships by a full 50% in speed) is not unbalancing.

[mottlee]

I have just D/Led this mod and have found that some tech is not there, is this for a reason or have I just not researched enough to see it? also seams like a long time to build anything.

[Ragnarok-X]

Exactly what most ppl are bragging about...

[Fyron]

Ragnarok-X, that is nowhere near the truth...

[grumbler]

mottlee said:
I have just D/Led this mod and have found that some tech is not there, is this for a reason or have I just not researched enough to see it? also seams like a long time to build anything.

Examples would be useful. Everything is researchable or findable in the version i am running myself, except a few non-active race techs and some leftover SE4 techs like crystalline which i left in because I didn't know if they were to be used.

The ancients are not active, and you should not use any of the ancient races. However, anything other than that should be available and i would appriate feedback on techs that seem not to work.

[mottlee]

Here are some....
CLOAKING NONE

SHEILDS NONE

COMPUTERS NONE

STELLAR MANIP NONE

PLANET UITIL NONE
Some of these are researched 1 or 2 levels and still say none, and this is not all of them.

have learned you DO NOT want to take GAS as your home planet type http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, given that it is a B5 mod, Shields -> None is good.
You should be researching armor instead.

Although, really, the shields tech area could be removed to avoid confusion.

[mottlee]

There are 2 armor in tech tree....working on one the other is NONE http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif


(Edit) also Specil Ops II will upgrade to I http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

If it is anything like the armor I made for the mod, you might just need to research your way out of the prototype armor before you will see advances appear in the other tech areas.

[Fyron]

The mod has numerous tech areas with multiple prerequisites. Unfortunately, the research window does not handle this well and just displays "None" when just the next tech level researched won't provide the items and another tech area is required as well. You might need to enable the full tech tree view or look in the data files (techarea.txt) to see what leads to what.

[Timstone]

SJ:
The shield research tree could be used in the future. The Abbai and a few other races (mainly Ancients) use shields. They might not be the übershields like in Star Trek, but they sure add something to the effectiveness of a ship.

[Suicide Junkie]

Are you sure?
Many of my computer cables are shielded.

Scifi shields are icky, especially without scripted plots to make them fail. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Fyron]

The third space aliens used energy shields, but I never saw any other races (including ancients) using energy shields in the series. It was all armor. Some advanced races, such as the Minbari, had stealth/ECM fields that interfered with scanners, but those definitely are not "shields" in the SE4 sense.

[Suicide Junkie]

And those thirdspace aliens were oozing scripted plot out the wazoo.

[Timstone]

I of course base myself on the B5 Wars books.
And I swear I've seen a Vorlon Dreadnought taking fire from another ship and deflecting the attack by means of an energy shield. Maybe that was in one of the movies?
But I agree that energy shield don't make up the bulk of the defensive systems in the B5 universe. Most defense is based on EMC, stealth, sensors, armour and PDC's.

[Fyron]

They have emissive/refractive/whatever silly name used armor that reflects/channels/whatever part of the energy from every hit back into space. Perhaps it was this?

[Timstone]

Well, in the B5 Wars books they also have a shield ability shown at the Vorlon Dreadnought. So I assume they hold true to the movie/episode I saw it in.

Edit:
The Shadows have refractive/whatever armor though. No shields. It specifically states so at the ship descriptions. They use the tentacles of the ship to dissipate the energy of the weapons fired upon the ship.

[grumbler]

mottlee said:
Here are some....
CLOAKING NONE

SHEILDS NONE

COMPUTERS NONE

STELLAR MANIP NONE

PLANET UITIL NONE
Some of these are researched 1 or 2 levels and still say none, and this is not all of them.

have learned you DO NOT want to take GAS as your home planet type http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif



Cloaking you should nevcer see (it requires physics level 3 and 2 is the max level for physics)

Shields does not exist in the techarea file (yours should have 13 changes noted at the top - if not, then download my mod and over-write the one you are using.

Computers lead to Advanced Planetary Weapons

Stellar Minipulation is there, but will be removed in the next round.

Planetary Util does not exist.

You definately do not want to make up races for this mod. It is heavily (and deliberately) skewed in favor of oxy/rock planets.

As an addendum, people should make sure they are not using any racial AI_DesignCreation, AI_Construction_Vehicles, or AI_Construction_Facilities. The only AI files that work for those right now are the default AI ones.

[Timstone]

Hey Grumbler! Long time no "see". How's life going?

[grumbler]

Tim, things are going well as the school year winds down. All I need now is some playtest feedback on the mod, and I am ready to wrap it up (pending whatever you want to do).

[Timstone]

Great to hear Grumbler.
I'm still busy making my way through graduation, there have been some bumps in the road.
I'm also starting to learn Newtek Lightwave. It's really cool. If you search the web, you can find a Whitestar tutorial. I'm currently busy with that.
For some reason I'm not as motivated to start on the weapons for a B5 Mod. Very strange, because I only have to type in the numbers. Maybe some time with a nice lady can give me the energy I need to start working on it... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[mottlee]

grumbler said:

mottlee said:
Here are some....
CLOAKING NONE

SHEILDS NONE

COMPUTERS NONE

STELLAR MANIP NONE

PLANET UITIL NONE
Some of these are researched 1 or 2 levels and still say none, and this is not all of them.

have learned you DO NOT want to take GAS as your home planet type http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif



Cloaking you should nevcer see (it requires physics level 3 and 2 is the max level for physics)

Shields does not exist in the techarea file (yours should have 13 changes noted at the top - if not, then download my mod and over-write the one you are using.

Computers lead to Advanced Planetary Weapons

Stellar Minipulation is there, but will be removed in the next round.

Planetary Util does not exist.

You definately do not want to make up races for this mod. It is heavily (and deliberately) skewed in favor of oxy/rock planets.

As an addendum, people should make sure they are not using any racial AI_DesignCreation, AI_Construction_Vehicles, or AI_Construction_Facilities. The only AI files that work for those right now are the default AI ones.




IF you never see it why have it in the list????? makes people (me) research them for nothing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif

[Zaamon]

Cause you cant shoot projectiles down, you should add some shield points to PDC and Defense Grid and that kinda weapons.
Not much, but some.

[grumbler]

mottlee said:
IF you never see it why have it in the list????? makes people (me) research them for nothing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif


Well, to be honest, beause there are literally thousands of posts on this mod, and I have tried to do as little damage to the original mod as possible while making the improvements I think the mod needs (like engine mounts and a coherent weapons policy).

This is not my mod to do with as I please. It is a collaberation with people who are better than I am at modding this game, but who have other interests.

In short, it is a work in progrss. Please make suggestions for improvements, because what exists is just what various people have suggested over time. I do not think any definative version will be created before the mod is overtaken by the next version of the game, but it is fun to play with the "what ifs" and the AI.

[Timstone]

Grumbler:
You said it right. You do not own the mod, but then again, none of us (except Val or course). But because the long absence of Val I think it's more than reasonable to say we (the people who contributed to the further development of this great mod) are all a bit owner of it and they can make changes to it as they please. Unless people have serious objections to the changes.
So go ahead an consider The Mod as your own and make changes to it as you see fit. But be sure to mention them here, so we can discuss them if the situation requires it.
Damn, this really sounds official. Of course it isn't that serious and by no means I'm trying to set the situation to my hand. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[mottlee]

I am not meaning to stomp on toes it was a question...I did not know the maker of this is AWOL...sorry, I do like the modw just confusing to research something and get nothing
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif

[grumbler]

Mottlee,

I definately want to hear about things like research that leads nowhere (which I can "make invisible" without deleting it pending someone else's contribution that uses it). Some changes to the mod (like the simplification of the armor system) are not really my idea, but I implemented them, so I am definately the person to ask if there is spomething there you do not understand (though my answer may be that I do not understand it, either).

No stomping on toes is possible with me, as I have no particular dog in this hunt. I just threw in what I did to make it work for me, and if people don't like some of the bits like modular engines they can leave those out.

The main focus of the mod right now is to
1. "tweak" the weapons so that they are balanced and all of them are worth researching; and
2. "Racializing" the facilities so that each race has a different set of at least hub facilities but no race ('cept the Ancients) have an advantage.

Finishing those two areas, plus smoothing any rough spots (like Stellar Manipulation research going nowhere) will pretty much finish this version of the mod.

[Fyron]

grumbler said:
...Some changes to the mod (like the simplification of the armor system) are not really my idea, but I implemented them...

I am not seeing any simplification of the armor in the version of you work that I have on SEnet. Is this a more recent, as of yet unreleased change?

[grumbler]

Imperator Fyron said:
I am not seeing any simplification of the armor in the version of you work that I have on SEnet. Is this a more recent, as of yet unreleased change?

Really? I dropped the "manufacturing" tech and left in engineering and physics, so you should have just armor size and number (heavy 0, light 4, etc).

I downloaded everything over again and that is the way it is working for me.

I probably should take a couple of hours and put together a "clean" version of the mod in toto. Next rainy day, that is what I will do.

In the meantime, here is the latest components and techarea, just to be sure. Some may note that this components file includes ancients components, unlike the last version. I am still tweaking these to make Ancients work (though not as player races, as they will have no research and start with all of their techs, hulls, components, and facilities).

[Ron_Lugge]

In that case, "Rain, day, RAIN!

edit:

Can anyone tell me how to get emails when threads are updated? I can't figure it out.

[mottlee]

OK I have researched a "Jump Gate", built same....HOW IN THE HE** do you get it to work???!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif said I have no movement left...Dooh it's a base! Have put a base engine on it, solar sail but no luck...HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ed Kolis]

If solar sails in B5 Mod are like in stock, they don't provide any movement unless you have at least 1 regular movement point's worth of engines. This is an essential feature of the propulsion system in Carrier Battles Mod, incidentally...

[Fyron]

The only jump gates that I see are mountable on ships, not bases. Very old versions of the mod did have them mountable on bases, but they can not work without the ship/base having movement points, so it was removed. Are you sure you have the latest version?

[mottlee]

Hmmm....I D/L off the link here in the forums...may not be
no ver number so I don't know, in the game there are 2 warp point openers..1 4995Kt and the other is like in stock game altho I can not get above Lvl 1 on it

[Fyron]

Did you apply *this file* (http://www.spaceempires.net/home/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownloaddetail s&lid=437&ttitle=Babylon_5_Mod_v2#dldetails) (babylon 5 v2.zip) as a patch?

Also, did you apply the latest Components.txt and TechArea.txt files (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/download.php?Number=356327) posted a few posts down by Grumbler?

In these versions, there are 5 levels of Jump Gates. They are 4985 kT and are mountable only on ships, not bases. There are also Jump Drives, whihc are 1000 kT and also only mountable on ships. These are the only two types of components with the "Open Warp Point Distance" ability.

[mottlee]

Ahh..... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif.....no....D/L now.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif.....
Thanks..will hope t will not kill saved game but oh well

[mottlee]

Well, I D/Led and installed patches, now I get a lot of errors at start up and in game, I could not get 1 turn then I had an access violation error, was going through the race pics and crashed on one (did not get the name) do I (should I) delete and reD/L all again?

[Fyron]

What is the last race before you get a crash? The offending shipset is the next one alphabetically.

[mottlee]

Race is Lnaw, there are not bmp files in the folder, also after the ahhh..update getting error as to anti matter (I think) type 16 and 17 will try to write them down next time

(edit) Click "New Game"
Error Could not find type 16 Name in record B5
Could not find type 16 Chance in record B5
Could not find type 17 Name in record B5
Could not find type 17 Chance in record B5

[Fyron]

Did you apply this as a patch over the old Gold version, or as its own mod? It should be applied as a patch.

[mottlee]

I installed the link from the forum (top of page) then the patch and the other patch you hooked me up with, I have it on 2 machines and both do the same http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Fyron]

What is the "link from the forum (top of page)?"

[mottlee]

"New Members Look Here" B5 link to site

[Fyron]

The 1.80 version does not include the LNAW as a major race. The 2.0 version has updated AI files for them as a major race, but no images. You can get their images from here:

LNAW (http://www.spaceempires.net/home/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=204)

Make sure to copy ONLY the images over. Do NOT copy any text files from this archive into your B5 folder.

grumbler, if you would like to send me the latest text files for the mod (all *.txt files in the B5 MOD folder, including data and AI) and a list of which races should be in each of the Pictures\Races and Pictures\Neutrals folders, I can compile a current version of the mod and put it up on SEnet.

[mottlee]

another problem..1.80...not supply depot....wat there before but after the update they are not in the build window http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[mottlee]

Is there supose to be sounds with weapons firing? all I get is "Ding"??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[grumbler]

Imperator Fyron said:
grumbler, if you would like to send me the latest text files for the mod (all *.txt files in the B5 MOD folder, including data and AI) and a list of which races should be in each of the Pictures\Races and Pictures\Neutrals folders, I can compile a current version of the mod and put it up on SEnet.

I have been busy with the end of the school year, but will do that this weekend. I still do not have the Ancients working exactly right but can send a clean copy of everything else.

[grumbler]

mottlee said:
another problem..1.80...not supply depot....wat there before but after the update they are not in the build window http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

You do not need supply depots - they are part of the colony hub.

[grumbler]

mottlee said:
Is there supose to be sounds with weapons firing? all I get is "Ding"??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

Try creating a subfolder called "new" under "sounds" and copy (not move) all the sound files to it. Let me know if sounds work then.

[mottlee]

OK Thanks as to supply depo,
"New" folder worked...NO MORE "Ding"!!!!!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

Alternatively, under the Game Menu (F2) -> Options -> Sound
Check off the "use classic sounds" (instead of the new ones)

[mottlee]

OK, I have had to reformat my drive, Have installed mod, patch and data files (in that order) I have Depots and errors about no "Antimatter" tech any Ideas???

[Suicide Junkie]

AI errors?
Or is it game-stopping mod error messages?

[mottlee]

AI as to "Antimatter" research I also have the da*n ding back!


maybe when I can afford it I'll buy a "Good" computer! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif


(Edit) For some reason this time I also do not have "Ship Yards"

[Zaamon]

I have same kind problems when it is Raiders turn. It gives box with errors. Game goes well when I press Close-button. I come every time when it is Raiders turn. With AI. Dont know about other races. Playin whit Minbari, Centauri, Narn, Dilgari and Raiders. Other races work wll, but they arent so intelligent.
BTW: I have Drazi race file, but when I take it, I get Vorlons.