New Mod: The Art of War Mod

[geoschmo]

As a spinoff to our discussion about SEIV strategy, I am going take a crack at modding some of these ideas.

The goal of this mod will be to offer players a few more choices in ship design and tactics. I am not one who thinks the game has only one right answer, but I will admit that as the game goes on the choices that have any legitimate chance at success get narrower. I want to hopefully tweak some of the weapons that become obsolete so that they can retain there usefullness longer into the game. I'd also like to try and offer the player some "Guns or Butter" choices so that the game is not strictly a matter of a race to the best ships.

The first decision I made was that I would be conceding the AI. Primarily this is becasue I have never been very good at tweaking them, and they are always the lion's share of the work in any mod I have ever contributed too. They have to be adjusted every time a new patch comes out, and in many cases they prevent some good ideas from even being attempted, because they just aren't capable of using some techs properly. Because of this this will be a strictly multiplayer mod. In fact I will be building the No AI Mod into this mod so one of the goals will be to get the AI to do nothing in the event you miss a turn in a multiplayer game.

More details to follow. If you have any suggestions by all means feel free. I wont promise I will use them, but I will listen.

Geoschmo

[Bman]

You might as well incorporate different cloak types at different levels...for example, cloaking devices that only block 1 or 2 types of sensors. So if you want to be invisible to the entire spectrum you must carry several different devices (that required different research) and likewise if you want to detect all possible cloaked ships you must have researched/built several different sensors.

Armor - Regular armor is really not viable in the longterm: It's damage/kT ratio is lower than shields and it requires repairing after combat. I have always thought it should have a better damage/kT ratio than shields *because* it needs to be repaired. Hopefully armor can be improved so that there is a real choice between shields and armor in the mid to late game.

By that same token, I cannot think of any non-racial armor-skipping guns except for the null-space cannon and of course the special weapons (engine/weapon/computer killing). The problem with nullspace is that it skips shields too. It would be nice to have some more armor-skipping weapon choices. They should be at least as expensive as PPB's. And consideration must be made for crystalline/organic races. If everyone gets armor-skipping weapons real easy then these races would suffer. Perhaps do as others have done and remove the "Armor" ability from Crystalline/Organic armor and make them act like regular components and make them have higher damage/kT ratios. This way, they will not block every shot, but when they do block a shot they are more effective and they are also immune to armor-skipping weapons. In fact, it would be nice to have some Versions of "regular" armor that do not have the Armor attribute. This gives you a "bread and butter" choice: Do you want armor that always gets hit first but is vulnerable to armor-skipping weapons? Or do you want armor that does not always block the damage, but is not vulnerable to armor-skipping?

Engines: Make Versions that give different amount of supplies or use different amounts when used. This will give you a choice between range and speed. Also, make more Versions that are "heavily shielded". This gives a choice between speed and/or range vs survivability esp. against engine-killing weapons.

Well, those are some ideas off of the top of my head. I am not a modder though so take it for what it is worth.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:
As a spinoff to our discussion about SEIV strategy, I am going take a crack at modding some of these ideas.

The goal of this mod will be to offer players a few more choices in ship design and tactics. I am not one who thinks the game has only one right answer, but I will admit that as the game goes on the choices that have any legitimate chance at success get narrower. I want to hopefully tweak some of the weapons that become obsolete so that they can retain there usefullness longer into the game. I'd also like to try and offer the player some "Guns or Butter" choices so that the game is not strictly a matter of a race to the best ships.

The first decision I made was that I would be conceding the AI. Primarily this is becasue I have never been very good at tweaking them, and they are always the lion's share of the work in any mod I have ever contributed too. They have to be adjusted every time a new patch comes out, and in many cases they prevent some good ideas from even being attempted, because they just aren't capable of using some techs properly. Because of this this will be a strictly multiplayer mod. In fact I will be building the No AI Mod into this mod so one of the goals will be to get the AI to do nothing in the event you miss a turn in a multiplayer game.

More details to follow. If you have any suggestions by all means feel free. I wont promise I will use them, but I will listen.

Geoschmo<hr></blockquote>

[mottlee]

Maybe (if possable) weapons that can tgt like the bridge or SD device so boarding will be better without killing the hole thing, I am not sure but if the bridge is killed, have the Attack and Def suffer Just a thought

[dogscoff]

Looking forward to this mod. I have a few suggestions to throwinto the pit:

1- Horribly complicated tech tree. Lots and lots of crossover techs will encourage players to research a variety of areas rather than committing themselves utterly to just one or two.
Also, you might consider duplicating certain techs and having identical components in different branches of the tech tree, to give players more choicve within their chosen research areas.

The other thing I'm suggesting not so much because it fits in with your mod but more because I can't believe I've never seen it suggested before and I'm itching to mention it: Multi-unit launchers: Once you've researched fighters 3 and drones 3 (Construction 2 as well?), you get a unit launch component that will launch fighters or drones. Ditto mines/ sats. They would probably have a small cargo and/ or launch rate penalty compared to the dedicated launchers.

[geoschmo]

Multi unit launchers 'eh? Why hasn't anyone thought of that one before. Also, what about giving standard cargo bay some launch capability, maybe one per turn. I mean, what's wrong with opening the door and shoving it out into space. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Not sure what the benifit would be, but it's something to think about.

[PDF]

Does the game really need a major weapon overhaul to restablish balance ? I'm quit newbie so haven't much hindsight, but from what I've read (and I did read a lot http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ) the main imbalances were with CSM in early game, then PB and PPB, each being too effective vs competition.

So why just tweaking/downing these a bit ?
While I don't have anything against mods http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , I 'd largely prefer a mod that can be made compatible with the others and allow AI play rather than a new incompatible one only for PBEM/PBW games.

Very few people will be able to really get into this, and it will create new design/game paradigms only applicable to it (instead of refreshing he whole design thing for many players that play the vast majority of their games vs the AI).

Just my 0.02

[Cylapse]

Damn... its about time this was initiated *LOL* You have a good head on ya shoulders, Geo. I notice you are typically a voice of reason.

Bman had a good point about the armor skipping weapons. I also fashioned one of these, as I feel its a fair enough advantage to have available to most players - at the sacrifice of damage and effectiveness at high range... I made mine taper off, so that at far range it does next to nothing, hell it generally doesnt even show on the damage meter (tactical)... But up close, its a fierce weapon... Called it 'Cold-Fusion Cannon' and made it part of its own tech area along with a weapon called Dark-Matter Torpedos (futurama fan, and dark matter just sounds so cool *LOL*)... they however, cannot skip armor and act as more of a bludgening assault. The Cold-Fusion Cannons (CFC's) are generally balanced, but thats my distoted view, would be happy to have someone good at balancing look them over - as they are a permanent part of my games.)

(sorry for double post, hit tab-enter on accident - or somethen! LOL)

Anyway - enough rambling. This looks interesting... I love variety and the rp aspect... I dont play PBW coz WTF? Why play if I have no choice but to play against a buncha cutthroat babies? LOL The game has an elegant flair, and it should be better utilized.

Its an amazing format for RP, which is what makes the choice so much nicer...its kinda lame when you engage an alien race who has the same armament as every other race. Good concepts, I am interested... wanna see how this evolves.

[geoschmo]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by PDF:
Does the game really need a major weapon overhaul to restablish balance ? I'm quit newbie so haven't much hindsight, but from what I've read (and I did read a lot http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ) the main imbalances were with CSM in early game, then PB and PPB, each being too effective vs competition.<hr></blockquote>Nope, you are quite right. I do not belive the stock game is extermely unbalanced. I am simply wanting to tweak a few that becom obsolete too early, and to give some more choices in the game. Anyone expecting huge radical changes to the weapons tech will be disapointed with this mod.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by PDF:
So why just tweaking/downing these a bit ?
While I don't have anything against mods http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , I 'd largely prefer a mod that can be made compatible with the others and allow AI play rather than a new incompatible one only for PBEM/PBW games.

Very few people will be able to really get into this, and it will create new design/game paradigms only applicable to it (instead of refreshing he whole design thing for many players that play the vast majority of their games vs the AI).<hr></blockquote>
Right again. Since most people do play most of their games against the AI, I don't ever expect this mod to get the widespread following of a TDM mod. This will be a mod for those like me that don't care to play aginst an AI, no matter how good you make them. Because, no natter how good you make them, they will never equal even a bad human player in my mind, unless you give them bonuses or handicap yourself in some way. And even if you could manipulate the code to such a degree that the AI was truly as challanging as a human, there is just something about knowing that there is a human intelligence controlling those ships. A human intelligence that is reacting to your actions, and planning your demise. It gets my blood pumping in a way that no AI ever will.

I think there are enough people like me that I will be able to get a few games out of it at least. And if not, that's fine too.

Geoschmo

[ 30 April 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]</p>

[Cylapse]

PDF - I do agree on one aspect, I would prefer to have -some- AI support, but thats an extremely daunting task.... If at all a possibility, Geo, you may need to hire an outside contractor for AI work ;-)

[geoschmo]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Cynapse:
PDF - I do agree on one aspect, I would prefer to have -some- AI support, but thats an extremely daunting task.... If at all a possibility, Geo, you may need to hire an outside contractor for AI work ;-)<hr></blockquote>As with almost all SE4 mods, this one will be a hodgepodge of ideas of my own, and stuff borrowed from others. If when I have it completed someone wants to take it upon themselves to make the AI useable with it, that is fine with me.

I am going to have fun with this and use some ideas that I think will give any prospective AI designer real headaches. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

[LGM]

I have never liked the fact that you have to know how to build mines in order to clear them. I propose mine clearing devices available outside of the mine building tech tree.

I would like to see mine clearing technology in a separate tree from mine building technology. Make Mine clearing components avail in their own tree with something like a 50K base. Perhaps in order to get a more effective mine clearing device, you need to have at least level 1 mine building.

Secondly, give the common direct fire weapons intrinsict mine clearing ability of 1 mine to DUCs, MC, Point Defense Cannons, and APB).

Third, there should be some sort of scanner that can detect mines.

Keep mines cheap enough so the counters above still give players an incentive to develope special mine clearing devices.

[Taz-in-Space]

While you're modding weapons you could add a little variety by adding weapons that only damage at certain ranges.

for example: 0 0 10 20 40 70 40 20 10 0 0 0 0
or
0 0 0 0 0 10 10 20 20 40 40 70 70

I know that the AI's might not handle this kind of
thing well, but in a non-AI game...

[LGM]

Here is another suggestion that I have seen other propose: Change the Supply Container to be recognized as a Cargo container for freighers (Allow Fuel Ships on Transport Hull). Do this by giving Supply Cargo a Cargo capacity of 1 unit on top of the 500 units of Supply space.

Create 5KT Versions of Cargo, Supply, and Armor so that space is not wasted early on when you have that odd 10KT you do not know what to do with and later, when you have that odd 5 KT when using a large mount weapon that has a size that is a multiple of 5.

[Baron Munchausen]

LGM:

I've already made most these changes to mines in my own personal 'mod'... mine sweepers are a seperate area from mines, and mines have only level 2 cloaking so you can see them once you get advanced sensors. I've still got to test whether the 'stealth armor for mines' works or not to improve their inherent cloaking ability a little bit. I have considered putting mine sweeping ability into PDC cannons but I'm afraid the AI might then use those instead of true sweepers in a mine sweeper design, or might start treating other ships as mine sweepers.

Geo:

Multi-unit launchers may cause the same problem as mine sweeping on a PDC. The AI might get confused about the roles of certain ships. Other than that, it might be considered a 'cheat' of sorts that reduces the value of the specialized bays and makes some aspects of the game too easy. It's worth a try. Only play testing will tell.

As far as armor piercing weapons, I've been requesting a 'lesser' weapon ability than the 'skips armor' since before the game was released. Simply have a 'double damage to armor' ability like the 'quad damage to shields' ability. I'd give this ability to the DUC (Mass Driver) because it's a solid projectile rather than a beam. A few simple extra abilities like this would make the game so much more fun! We can only keep asking for them. :-/

[ 30 April 2002: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]</p>

[LGM]

Make weapon research costs higher. The 5K base for most of them means you do not bother deploying them until you max out the level. Does anyone ever deploy a ship with a PPB I? The always research to 3 to 5 before actually deploy it.

It seems silly that you sepend 155K of research to get PPB I but for another 10K you get PPB II. The weapon improvement should be much more difficult. Make weapons something like 15K or 20K and racial weapons 30K or 40K instead of 20K. Especially make the good weapons like Null Space and PPBs be larger bases.

[Baron Munchausen]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Taz-in-Space:
While you're modding weapons you could add a little variety by adding weapons that only damage at certain ranges.

for example: 0 0 10 20 40 70 40 20 10 0 0 0 0
or
0 0 0 0 0 10 10 20 20 40 40 70 70

I know that the AI's might not handle this kind of
thing well, but in a non-AI game...<hr></blockquote>

Not the AI, the combat system itself doesn't handle a weapon that does 0 damage at any range before its final range. You'll have to start with some sort of non-zero damage. And yes, others have already modded weapons that do increasing dmaage with range. The DUC is a logical choice since the projectile gains momentum with range.

[Phoenix-D]

"Armor - Regular armor is really not viable in the longterm: It's damage/kT ratio is lower than shields and it requires repairing after combat. I have always thought it should have a better damage/kT ratio than shields *because* it needs to be repaired. Hopefully armor can be improved so that there is a real choice between shields and armor in the mid to late game."

Easy enough to do..

By that same token, I cannot think of any non-racial armor-skipping guns except for the null-space cannon and of course the special weapons (engine/weapon/computer killing). The problem with nullspace is that it skips shields too. It would be nice to have some more armor-skipping weapon choices. They should be at least as expensive as PPB's. And consideration must be made for crystalline/organic races. If everyone gets armor-skipping weapons real easy then these races would suffer."

Yeah, they would. I like having more armor (and shield!) skipping weapons though.

Geo: this is like what I was doing for techmod, only explained better! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Hopefully you can pull it off better. I got bogged down in the missiles section of the tech tree (5 missile levels, 7 warhead types, ~50 entires PER WARHEAD TYPE.. ug)

Phoenix-D

[Sinapus]

Re: armor.

I created some extra standard armor levels for Armor 4-6, though am still tweaking the amount of protection to give them.

Oh, and I made a "lvl 0" armor called "basic armor" that takes up 10kt and has 10kt of structure. Like I said, basic armor that everyone has.

I also have a "lvl 0" point defense weapon called a "point defense cluster" that has pathetic performance, but is better than nothing.

Other things I'm testing are some lvl 0 facilities. Mainly an intelligence center and an atmosphere converter. The intel center has a low cost and low amount of intel points generated. The converter takes 200 turns to convert an atmosphere. Both are mainly for the AI since I've noticed they just don't build those things on their worlds very well, so I might as well use them as place holders.

Oh, and I'm still testing what I like to call the Seekers From Hell suite of seeker weapons. Basically, more levels of CSMs, Plasma missiles, seeking parasite and crystal torps with higher damage and higher seeker damage resistance so those designs w/tons of point-defense cannons aren't completely invulnerable. Muahahaha.

[geoschmo]

LGM, I think I see what you mean. Give the weapons techs higher tech costs but take them out of the higher branches of the theoretical sciences. To put some distance between the levels, but keep the higest levels from becomeing astronimcaly expensive?

Baron, <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>The DUC is a logical choice since the projectile gains momentum with range.
<hr></blockquote>Not that it matters for game purposes, but wha? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif How does a projectile with no internal propulsion gain momentum with range? Projectiles won't decelerate in a vacuum, but they won't acelerate either. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Phoenix, I remember your "modular" missles. I was disapointed when you couldn't complete that, it sounded way cool. I may add a simplified Version of it. I don't have to teach the AI to use them, so that helps a lot. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

And now for an idea of my own, sort of. Devnull mod has tacheyon armor that protects weapons from the weapon damaging wepons that skip normal armor. I will be adding something similer that protects the engines, if I can pull it off. I think I have it figured out, just have to test it.

Geoschmo

[Baron Munchausen]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:

Baron, Not that it matters for game purposes, but wha? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif How does a projectile with no internal propulsion gain momentum with range? Projectiles won't decelerate in a vacuum, but they won't acelerate either. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo<hr></blockquote>

Well, my physics is not up to snuff at this time so it's hard to give the correct technical explanation. But this is a fact of armor and armaments from armor-piercing anti-tank weapons down to 'bullet-proof' vests and ordinary handgun bullets. The closer you are the LESS effective the round is in penetrating the armor. Granted, beyond a certain range there is a drop off in power due to loss of velocity to friction. But momentum is somehow related to the distance traveled before hitting the armor and it does make the weapon more powerful to travel a greater distance.

[Baron Munchausen]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:


And now for an idea of my own, sort of. Devnull mod has tacheyon armor that protects weapons from the weapon damaging wepons that skip normal armor. I will be adding something similer that protects the engines, if I can pull it off. I think I have it figured out, just have to test it.

Geoschmo<hr></blockquote>

I've been wanting to verify how to make 'decoys' for all of the standard 'special damage' weapons, shields only, weapons only, and engines only. Does Devnull mod have all three of these? If not, what other mods have these so I can see exactly how it's done?

[Bman]

DUCs: Maybe they are emitting a stream of particles behind them which would propel them forward. Or maybe they are launched in a super-energetic state or something and as they travel this energy converts back to matter making the projectile have more mass, and thus more momentum. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Engine Armor: Good idea. I am guessing you make a new "engine component" which is just a damage sink? It might get tricky with the "all the engines need to be the same type to get the bonus" rule of se4.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:
LGM, I think I see what you mean. Give the weapons techs higher tech costs but take them out of the higher branches of the theoretical sciences. To put some distance between the levels, but keep the higest levels from becomeing astronimcaly expensive?

Baron, Not that it matters for game purposes, but wha? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif How does a projectile with no internal propulsion gain momentum with range? Projectiles won't decelerate in a vacuum, but they won't acelerate either. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Phoenix, I remember your "modular" missles. I was disapointed when you couldn't complete that, it sounded way cool. I may add a simplified Version of it. I don't have to teach the AI to use them, so that helps a lot. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

And now for an idea of my own, sort of. Devnull mod has tacheyon armor that protects weapons from the weapon damaging wepons that skip normal armor. I will be adding something similer that protects the engines, if I can pull it off. I think I have it figured out, just have to test it.

Geoschmo<hr></blockquote>

[geoschmo]

Devnull has weapons only desoys, not the other two (Unless Rollo added them since the Last time I looked at it). Weapons only works by making an armor component that has low damage (No damage?) weapon ability. Since it's a weapon it gets hit by the weapon only attacks, since it's armor it gets hit before all the other weapons.

Shield only decoys and Engine only decoys would work the same way, at least that's my theory. I haven't tested it yet.

For engine armor though you run into the the problem of the Engine armor counting against your max number of engines per hull size. However, for AOW mod I will be making some changes to the propulsion system, including removing the max engines per ship limits, so it should work fine.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>It might get tricky with the "all the engines need to be the same type to get the bonus" rule of se4.<hr></blockquote>Yeah, I haven't quite figured that one out, which is why I am saying it should work, but not that it will work. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif


Geoschmo

[ 30 April 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]</p>

[Bman]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:

For engine armor though you run into the the problem of the Engine armor counting against your max number of engines per hull size. However, for AOW mod I will be making some changes to the propulsion system, including removing the max engines per ship limits, so it should work fine.

Yeah, I haven't quite figured that one out, which is why I am saying it should work, but not that it will work. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif


Geoschmo

[ 30 April 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]<hr></blockquote>

One solution is to take all the different engines you will be making and make armored-Versions of them instead of making an engine-armor component. They are the same except they have a higher damage rating. They are available if you have researched the required propulsion tech for the regular engine, plus some level in Armor. Perhaps you could make varying Versions of each armored-engine. The tradeoff could be more armor for less supply for example. It would lead to *alot* of different engines for people to pick from though.

[Cylapse]

Yeah I was wondering about that too - I had read somewhere that someone modded armor that wasn't pierecable by null weapons... or whatever. Just how -did- you accomplish that, anyway? The level that modding can be taken to seems to impress me every time.


Also - with regards to momentuum.
I came upon this issue too - how does it get faster in space? I read once about mass-drivers that the projectile is fired by "A series of magnetic rings that fire in a sequence, each gripping the core and sending it along the railgun to the next magnet, and so on... until the increasing moment barrels the core out of the cannon and well.. At that point, I have no idea why it would do more damage *LOL* but c'mon.... its a valid weapon concept - Just needs some technobabble or something to make it work. A torpedo weapon seems ideal for this... maybe it has some kind of ramscoup on it that harnesses stellar particles or some **** *LOL* So as it travels, damage increases. To be fair, it should really only be applied to seekers. Direct fire can be lethal with Talismans and an increasing range weapon. Its just not fair LOL

[Phoenix-D]

"Phoenix, I remember your "modular" missles. I was disapointed when you couldn't complete that, it sounded way cool. I may add a simplified Version of it. I don't have to teach the AI to use them, so that helps a lot"

I could complete them, they work fine. AI wouldn't be hard to adapt either- they all have different families.

It's not bad actually DOING it- though having all the missile graphics be so similar is a bit funky. The problem is balancing. Make one simple change and you've got to change many many entires. The torpedos were even worse. OTOH, I *could* send you what I've got. Let me know if you want them.

Phoenix-D

[geoschmo]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Bman:
One solution is to take all the different engines you will be making and make armored-Versions of them instead of making an engine-armor component.&lt;snip&gt;Perhaps you could make varying Versions of each armored-engine.&lt;snip&gt; The tradeoff could be more armor for less supply for example. It would lead to *alot* of different engines for people to pick from though.<hr></blockquote>I think I can do the same thing by creating the armor component and give it the appropriate movement bonus but no standard movement. You would have to choose the correct armor for your engine, but if I have the tech req's and families correct it should be fairly easy for the user. Just need to come up with some tech sounding reason why you have to switch armor (Engine Harmonics? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) and then it should work fine. That will allow the user to choose the amount of engine armor they feel is appropriate for the situation, and reduce the overall number of components.

Geoschmo

EDIT: Actually I think I jsut figured out this isn't even nessecary. Apparently the movement bonus doesn't have to all be the same, you just get the lowest bonus of all your engine components. So if I give the engine armor movement bonus equal to the highest possible engine level, then one armor should work for all the engines regardless. Cool! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ 30 April 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]</p>

[Phoenix-D]

"EDIT: Actually I think I jsut figured out this isn't even nessecary. Apparently the movement bonus doesn't have to all be the same, you just get the lowest bonus of all your engine components. So if I give the engine armor movement bonus equal to the highest possible engine level, then one armor should work for all the engines regardless. Cool!"

Are you going QNP propulsion or sticking with the regular system? Because in QNP movement bonuses can be pretty imbalancing.. but you're said you're removing engine limits, and that would be nuts in the regular system, unless you really really want to make the smaller ships even more obselete.

Phoenix-D

[geoschmo]

Phoenix, I am not going with the QNP, and I am removing the engine limits, and I am not nuts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

What I have planed, and this may end up getting modified or scrapped altogether, is a system similer to what was used for SEIII. As the ships get larger, the Engines per move goes up, but not as quickly as with QNP. And engines will always have one standard movemnet point, but with the higher level ones getting the bonus movement as is the current stock system. My idea is that the escort with level 1 engines to go a speed of 6 has 6 engines, and has 40% of it's mass dedicated to engines. That's percentage for a movement of 6 I want to remain steady as the ships get larger.

So for the Destroyer, it will be 2 engines per move, for the cruiser, 3 per move, etc. Every 150Kt step in hull mass will bump the engines per move up one.

So I will remove the max engines per hull, but the highest actual speed for a ships will be in the 12 to 15 range, and that will be with all engines. And I have some ideas to keep that further limited.

Again, it's all kind of preliminary at this point, so I am not sure how much of the current ideas I am kincking around will be in the final mod.

Geo

[Phoenix-D]

OK, that I could see working. I was picturing a dreadnaught running around at speed 30 or something, running down the hapless escorts who could only go 12, max.

Phoenix-D

[geoschmo]

"Scotty...we...need...more...speed!

Cap'n, I'm givin' her all she's got. She's comin' apart at the seams!" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Actually, the more I think about it though I may have the levels wrong. As it is the destroyer will ahve less room for stuff than the frigate. Not sure that's right. Have to play around iwht it some more I think.

[jimbob]

You probably know most of this already, but if this is of any help...

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> Weapons only works by making an armor component that has low damage (No damage?) weapon ability. Since it's a weapon it gets hit by the weapon only attacks, since it's armor it gets hit before all the other weapons.<hr></blockquote>

I think that p&n has a lot of specialized armor types (engines, weapons, etc). The component is designated "armor" so it is damaged first, but then it has an ability too. So for example, the component can specifically protect against weapon destroying weapons because it is designated "armor" but has an attack capacity (damage 0 at all ranges) so it is also considered a weapon.


<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> damage: 0 0 20 30 40 30 20 0 0 0 0 0 <hr></blockquote>

well, okay, not a direct quote, sort of a paraphrase... regardless, weapons that do no damage at close range but more damage at longer range do function quite well. Again, p&n (v2.6) and Ultimate (v?.?) both have weapons with increasing damage, out to a maximum range. Beyond that the damage starts to drop off again. I used the weapons, and had no problems. The weapons were successfully employed by AI, but I only saw them used by weapons platforms (stationary).

I look forward to this mod. Mods are great, it's like getting a new game every time a new one comes out. Keep up the good work!

[Deathstalker]

Geo,

I've got an old mod gathering dust in the download sections (the 'D-Mod'), you are welcome to use/incorporate/change any of it (new ship classes, anti boarding party weapons etc), as well as the Mount Mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

The D-Mod had lots of 'extra' weapons as well as some funky facilities. (Decoy missiles to soak up PDC, shield skipping missiles, low damage weapons that can strike VERY far away, Shields that incorporate PDC, regenerating engines, solar engines, Knowledge shrines, etc, etc, etc,).

[Cargus10]

Some ideas that may or may not have merit:

- All direct fire weapons have many penalties to hit (say, -50 or so base). Warships will need fire-control sensor arrays (low mass and damage absobtion, high cost) to offset this. Kill the firecon, and the ship is in trouble. Multiple levels are possible, plus hardening, etc. Alternatley, split this to hit bonus between the firecon sensors and the firecon computer (on the bridge). Gives the aux con a reason for being.

No limit on engines per hull. Go as as fast as you want, but if you are all engines, you have room for little else. Also, make engines powerful, but big. A frigate might have only one engine and still go speed 8. Once it's damaged, though....

As weapons improve, don't nessescarily make them longer-ranged or more damaging...lots of improvements are in miniaturization....The APB I is 30Kt, maybe the APB II has the exact same stats but is 25kT.

Wish there was a way to handle MIRVed warheads for missiles, but can't think of one off-hand.

Engines that have zero (or near zero) inherent supply. Requires supply to be put in as "fuel tanks".

I'm sure I'll come up with more, but sleep is overtaking me now &lt;L&gt;.

[Phoenix-D]

"Wish there was a way to handle MIRVed warheads for missiles"

Drone. It's pretty much the only way.. then again, drones launched in tactical have unlimited range and you can't pick the targets.

Phoenix-D

[PDF]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:


Well, my physics is not up to snuff at this time so it's hard to give the correct technical explanation. But this is a fact of armor and armaments from armor-piercing anti-tank weapons down to 'bullet-proof' vests and ordinary handgun bullets. The closer you are the LESS effective the round is in penetrating the armor. Granted, beyond a certain range there is a drop off in power due to loss of velocity to friction. But momentum is somehow related to the distance traveled before hitting the armor and it does make the weapon more powerful to travel a greater distance.<hr></blockquote>

Definitely *not* true ... AP penetration is a game of energy, E=1/2 Mv², M is given, v decreases with range (grav + air), so penetration too, always ! Only tweak is that "discarding sabot" rounds could have problems at point-blank range...
Where did you read that ?

[PDF]

And another idea : why not have "armored cargo/supply" comps, which will have more damage resistance but less free space ?
At the limit we will have "totally armored" comps which will just have damage resistance and no free space, sort of "damage soaking compartments", immune to armor-skipping.
So I'll go for 4 types of comps : normal/lt armored/hv armored/armored only.

This can be setup for any mod, perhaps armor tech requirements should be needed.

Feedback ?

[geoschmo]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Cargus10:
Engines that have zero (or near zero) inherent supply. Requires supply to be put in as "fuel tanks".
<hr></blockquote>

This is something I am considering. I need to be careful though as this will again put a strain on the smaller ship sizes to be useful later in the game. I may give the smaller ships some inherant fuel supply to counter this. Haven't decided yet.

I have done some more number crunching and I don't like making Destroyers need two engines per move. I am currently leaning towards following the levels of SEIII closely in that respect. i.e Cruiser, 2 per move, Drednaught, 3 per move. Basically the engines per move will match with the number of life support/crew comps currently.

This does make the Cruiser a little weak. Going from LC to Cruiser and keeping the same speed will only net you an additional 20Kt of space after the required comps. Add to this the reduction in defense bonus (Allthough that will be chonged a lot in this mod anyway) and you don't have much incentive to build cruisers. Honestly I am not sure this is much different in the current game, it woulld just be a little more pronounced. I rarely build cruisers in the stock game, prefering to wait for the Battle Cruisers before shanging hull sizes. I may try to come up with some things to counter that. Maybe giving the Cruiser extra fuel storage, or adding a mount for the 500kt design. Haven't decided yet.

I could also make the cruiser a little larger. Looking at the SEIII hull sizes compared to the SEIV ones the Light cruiser in SEIV is proprtionaly much larger than the Light Cruiser in SEIII and the Cruiser in SEIV is proportionally a little smaller. That accounts for the differance. Since I am modeling the propulsion system to SEIII it may make sense to tweak the hull sizes accordingly.

I am also strongly considering adding some "advanced" hull sizes, say for example when you get to Ship constructiuon lev 4 along with the 400Kt LC hull you also discover a new 150Kt ES hull, but that has an inherant speed of +1? That would make the smaller ships more usefull right? A little anyway.

Geoschmo

[Bman]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:

I am also strongly considering adding some "advanced" hull sizes, say for example when you get to Ship constructiuon lev 4 along with the 400Kt LC hull you also discover a new 150Kt ES hull, but that has an inherant speed of +1? That would make the smaller ships more usefull right? A little anyway.

Geoschmo<hr></blockquote>

Oh yes that would be sweet. You can do some very interesting hulls based on ideas I've seen floating around this board recently:

Reach Ship Construction-? and Propulsion-? and you get a FastEscort hull.
Reach Ship Construction-? and Cloaking-? and get a CloakedEscort hull.
Reach Ship Construction-? and Sensors-? and get a hull with increased accuracy.
Ship Construction-? + Shields-? gives hulls with builtin shield generators.

Higher levels of the required techs would give you the advanced Versions of the bigger hulls. This kind of thing would basically increase the usefulness of smaller-sized hulls later in the game since they would essentially get some "free" space.

I'm sure there are more interesting hull abilities that could be given also...maybe one with a built-in bridge.

[Cylapse]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Maybe giving the Cruiser extra fuel storage, or adding a mount for the 500kt design. Haven't decided yet.<hr></blockquote>

I like the fuel storage idea... (SEIV has a major fuel problem. The reactor becomes a necessity, but Id rather not have to use it. Id rather just assume a ship has enough fuel for at least 50% more of what they give us now... the SEIV mentallity is fleet-based, which is cool and all, but I prefer individual ship superiority in smaller numbers than huge dependant fleets... ya might lose a vital supply ship and they are all screwed. Ugh. But I disagree with the mount, simply coz then its also available to Battle Cruiser, one more reason to hold off... I personally use BC for the flagship, usually supported by an optional fleet of sick-*** cruisers... Could be a better fleet if they were BCs, but its a matter of style. Adding a fuel incentive for each cruiser would make that battle cruiser much happier, coz it doesnt have to worry about a reactor as much, as each cruiser becomes a shaved-down Fuel Tanker with armor and weapons.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> I am also strongly considering adding some "advanced" hull sizes,
<hr></blockquote>
I like this one too... I made a type of cruiser that comes with a certain racial trait, (man...adding a new one teaches you a lesson about emp files, I tell ya. I was freaked at first.).. a kind of streamlined (yea yea, no streamlining in space...I've heard the argument) Version that allowed for a more compact ship... Still smaller and weaker, but a lotta misc functionality... a small launch bay, etc, that kinda thing. It made coz my thoughts were along the same lines...
"What the hell is cruiser good for?" LOL
I like em though. Style is everything.

[geoschmo]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Cynapse:
"What the hell is cruiser good for?" LOL
I like em though. Style is everything.<hr></blockquote>Exactly! Of all the ship hull names, "cruiser" just sounds the coolest. You have to say it slow, and you can't help but smile... CRUISER

I gotta' find a way to make them usefull in this mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Geo

[Cylapse]

*lmao* Right on Geo, I feel ya.
Battle Cruiser sounds forced, ya know? LOL
Light cruiser is cool, but nothing tops that happy median of Cruiser. Engine modifications seem to be the most rational, since it is for cruisen ;-)

[Talenn]

Hey all,

Just a few thoughts from the Peanut Gallery:

Regarding Cruisers and other hull types:

One easy fix to do is to make the 'Hulls' cost significantly more as you go up in size and then climb steeper towards the top...ie, a 'surcharge' if you will on Capital Ships (above Cruiser size). This will encourage folks to make the bulk of their fleet the small fry and Cruisers, but have some Capital Ships available (maybe in mothball) for the inevitable wars.

Also, the artificially inflated costs make the build time longer which I also found to be far more realistic. Of course, for any of this to work, you have to make the Capital ships really worth it. To do that you have to break the basic mold of going up approx 100kt per size. The Capital Ships should have significant size difference to make up for the cost.

There are some other items that can be used to differentiate the big boys too. For example, an Armor component that takes up ~100kt but has a VERY nice ratio can go a long way to making Capitial ships nearly immune to small ships and will guarantee that only they can carry them. Some Weapons can be made to do the same thing...Massive damage and range, a nasty to-hit penalty and a huge size (although maybe a modest cost). Weapons like this would be required to penetrate the 'main armor' on other Capital ships, but would be nearly useless vs smaller, faster opponents.

In other words, the ship would have to have secondary batteries to deal with small fries or else be escorted. If you want some of the small guys to be able to affect Capital ships, weapons like a Torpedo that does good damage but fires once or twice a battle are a good option. Capital Ships wont want em because they can get the same performance from a Main Battery, but people can then design some small craft with lethal firepower at the cost of RoF and having vulnerability to other small craft.

Armor vs Shields can be a trade off between cost and space. Shields can be effective but have a MUCH higher cost (and thus add to the build time and maintenance). Armor is far cheaper, but more mass intensive. Weapons that defeat one or the other can round out the interaction as desired.

The possibilities here are endless if you dont have to worry about an AI.

A few other ideas to throw out:

In my original mod, I made the neglected resources much more necessary. This had a good effect on the game IMO as it required some actual resource management, but wreaked havoc with AIs. One way I encouraged the other two was to make Facilities on planets cost HIGH amounts of Organics and Radioactives...if you want to be colonizing a lot, you will need those two in much larger quantities. If you are simply going to war, you can dispense with some of them. This allows people to go on a 'war footing' by converting planets over and requires a retooling of the econ to go colony-happy...it made for a fairly good 'Guns or Better' decision-making process.

Population can be made to be far more important by adding a lot more early pop-breaks and giving the lower pops a huge resource and building penalty. That, coupled with higher cost facilities slows colonization down to a more 'realistic' level, but without the extreme slowdown of the 'Proportions' Mod.

I also agree with slowing down research a bit on Weapons. IMO, have the breaks come less often, but be more pronounced. I never really saw the point of having 10 levels of a weapon that you could get through all of the early levels in a few turns each. It just made for a micromanagement hassle of having to redesign the ships every few turns anyway.

The Missile/Anti-Missile Defense of the Devnullmod are quite good and IMO, should be a firm base for an AI-less mod. I havent explored all of the ins and outs in detail, but Missiles seem viable early on without being overwhelming and can continue to be viable even into the later game.

If using a Ship Size system as I had above, there is a lot of scope for Missile techs. Smaller Missiles are perfect for scrubbing the 'swarmers' and 'Ship Killers' can be made that are tough to knockdown, fast, and have huge warheads and space requirements. Give them a once or twice a battle RoF and they are good to go. Again, unlimited variety if the AI is not a factor.

Well, anyways, those are just some thoughts. If I had the time and the player-base locally for an AI-less mod to be successful, I'd love to take those ideas and pair them with some of the other great thoughts I've seen here and make a mod. Maybe these ideas will inspire y'all in ways I haven't even seen as well.

Thanx,
Talenn

[PirateRob]

Armor penetration has everything to do with the balistic properties of the ARMOR.. when talking about modern firearms. What makes some people think that the ability to penetrate armor increases with range is the fact that modern Kevlar armors are LESS effective against slow moving projectiles. Hence, at point blank range where projectile speeds are highest, Kevlar armor is effective.. Of course, armor penetration is ALSO effected by the cross sectional area of the bullet (which is why a .22 calibur round penetrates better than a .45 calibur round) so speed isnt the only factor to take into account.

So, for a DU Cannon in space, range is going to have no effect on armor penetration.

Now I think the MESON bLaster is the item that should do more damage at range http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif reason being that mesons pass right through normal matter without effecting it.. until the meson decays into a normal particle (neutron? I don't recall the exact physics involved) So, over time, more mesons in the beam decay into high velocity neutrons that DO effect normal matter when they hit the target.. longer range means more time has passed = more mass the beam hits with = more damage. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Technicaly, the meson could decay into a neutron IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SHIP and thus skip over any armor. Only a small percentage would though so most of the damage would be to the outer parts of the ship. Shields should be effective against a meson beam though.

Rob

[Talenn]

IIRC from my 'Traveller' days, that's exactly how the Meson Cannons worked. They ignored armor completely but were subject to a 'Meson Screen' that caused the premature decay of the meson before it hit the hull.

The end result was you had a Spinal Mount that basically was a ship killer regardless of the size and armor of the ship. If the shot hit and penetrated the Screen, the ship was essentially dead.

The upshot for fleet design was that even the largest of combatants were very vulnerable to opposing capital ships with spinal mounts. Smaller ships were harder to hit with those mounts, but they couldnt carry a spinal big enough to penetrate the larger ships' screens. Groups of smaller ships, however, could overwhelm the missile defenses on the larger ships and scrape weapons,sensors and screens off of the Caps making them more vulnerable.

Overall, it gave very interesting fleet and ship design mechanics for a game that was primarily a role-playing game.

Talenn

[Taz-in-Space]

While we are talking about things to put in a mod,
I had a thought about a new component. While playing P&N I thought how nice it would be to have a COMPONENT that would store resources. I
haven't checked out it the program will recognize
a COMPONENT with resource storage, but if so it would have been nice to have in a P&N game!
SO YOU GURU'S OUT THERE, IS THIS POSSIBLE? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

[Baron Munchausen]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Taz-in-Space:
While we are talking about things to put in a mod,
I had a thought about a new component. While playing P&N I thought how nice it would be to have a COMPONENT that would store resources. I
haven't checked out it the program will recognize
a COMPONENT with resource storage, but if so it would have been nice to have in a P&N game!
SO YOU GURU'S OUT THERE, IS THIS POSSIBLE? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif <hr></blockquote>

I believe that it did not work the Last time it was tested. We have been asking for this for ages, since it is necessary to make 'nomadic' races work properly. This, and research/intel from components and a 'habitat' module to grow populations in space. MM needs to know this is wanted. Keep asking. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[geoschmo]

Taelenn, I like the sounds of your ideas. I hope to incorporate some of them. If you still have the files availabel somewhere I would love to see them. You could email me.

Ok, since combat +/- has so much impact on combat, and since all the bonuses add, instead of multiplying, I am looking at some major changes in these areas.

First of all, ECM. I am looking at ten levels of ECM instead of 3, but topping the maximum defense bonus at 10% (Maybe 20) instead of the current 60% for ECM III.

I will also be modifying the racial attack and defense characteristics to make them much more expensive. And I have some thoughts about changes to the training facilities.

The goal of these changes is to slow down the progression and lower the top end of these types of combat modfiers, so that combat doesnt' get so out of whack so early in the game. This will hopefully put more of a premium on the number and overall quality of your ships. You shouldn't be able to destroy 50 enemy ships with 5 of your own and not even get a scratch just because you have a level or two more of ECM tech. At least that's my opinion.

Comments?

Geoschmo

[Gandalph]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:
You shouldn't be able to destroy 50 enemy ships with 5 of your own and not even get a scratch <hr></blockquote>

I agree. ECM 3 and religious talisman = victory without a scratch unless extremely outnumbered(20 to 1?).

[Phoenix-D]

Combat bonuses are tricky. They need to be powerful enough to be useful, yet not so much they are an insurmountable advantage, agreed? So researching improved weaponry rather than improved sensors should be a viable option- miss more, but make up for it with better weapon performance. You can't really do that in standard SE4. Extending the ECM/CS tree while lowering the actual benifits sounds good.

Something else I've thought about, inspired by the proportions mod: better sensors/ECM, but they are bigger than the normal type and non-stackable. Again, it becomes a choice between increased accuracy (or defense) and firepower/direct defense. Proportions doesn't go far enough with it IMO; the components are always small enough that except on very small ships you aren't sacrificing much combat capability to go with the best.

Stealth and Scattering armor are a good example here IMO. You get 15% more defense plus a few other stuff- it's not the best cloak, it's not even the best armor. And it's fairly big; sticking both plus ECM on a ship makes you pretty hard to hit, but you pay a nasty price size wise.

Two other thoughts:
-making ships tougher? So that who gets the first shot in matters less.
-should ships really be able to *outrun* missiles? How about running away to give PD more shots?

Phoenix-D

[Talenn]

geoschmo:

Unfortunately, those files are long gone. I had given up SE4 long ago (before Gold was announced). All of my old stuff was on a PC that I no longer have....In retrospect, I should have backed them up onto something in case I ever wanted to mess with 'em again, but they had been so outdated by patches that the work required to get them working again was just staggering, especially once I had been away from the game for a while and couldnt even remember whatall needed to be changed...oh well...

As for some other thoughts, I agree that To-hit and Defense bonuses should be in smaller incremental chunks (I believe SE3 DID do it by 10s instead of 20s and 25s). I'd also be really careful about things like the Religious techs that give auto-hit etc. They could potentially screw up balance horribly, especially if you are looking at mods like my own where a lot of weapon to defense interactions are being based on size and 'agility' of the target. Having what should be a VERY low accuracy 'Ship-killer' weapon hitting 100% could be too ugly to contemplate. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Phoenix-D:

Yes, IMO, Capital ships should be very tough to kill. Realistically, only overwhelming numbers, specially designed 'torpedo craft' (or whatever), or other Capitals should really be the only way to deal with them.

In line with that, I also think that everyone should START with ability to make ships of most sizes. It just doesnt make sense to me that people cant build larger combatants earlier in the game however inefficiently. For the most part, the 'technology' doesnt change, just the scale of the project.

Incentives to research Ship Construction could be cheaper hulls of the same size (especially if the starting hulls are very questionable in cost effectiveness), better defense bonuses, or simply better efficiency in engines...ie a 'Cruiser' hull in the early game could be 500kt and cost 800/100/250 while a later game one could be 550kt, cost 500/75/150 or have -5% to be hit instead of the extra 50kt. The scope there alone is nearly endless. Add in differentiations in max speeds and whatnot for even more variety. My vision of it would be that everyone can build a FG,DD,CL,CA,BC,BB of some sort at the beginning. Refinement of the Tech could open up other classes and modify those classes.

Hand in hand with that is the max speed/hull. It is my firm belief that smaller ships should have higher movement maxes and they shouldnt have to burn as much mass percentage to achieve the higher moves. This alone would go a long way to ensuring their longevity in the game. Having nothing but Ships of the Line that can only go 3 or 4 on the strategic map is going to be a serious liability against someone who has a Cruiser squadron capable of going speed 6-8 in strategic. Sure, you can stack the warp points, but if they DO get in, you'll never be able to track them down.

Finally, I definately dont like the feel of outrunning MOST Missiles. Sure you can add some slow but extremely long ranged ones for the initial salvos and whatnot, but when the push comes to shove, I like the missiles going about speed 12+. This is what actually makes them viable. With PD getting TWO shots at every salvo, they are quite worthless.

Another thought on Missiles is that nothing says that they HAVE to be huge, menacing, low Rate of Fire, all or nothing affairs. Smaller missiles that dont do ungodly damage could still be incredibly useful if they have long ranges. There is plenty of scope for Missiles that have varied characteristics.

My vision of would be that most fleets dont go either guns or missiles, but they mix them up a bit. Guns can be more lethal, but shorter ranged and less accurate overall (especially vs smaller combatants) while missiles are long range duelers that can hit anything if they can get through the PD fire. Of course certain exception weapons can exist in that environment as well. Its all really just a matter of how you want to see combat pan out.

More thoughts to follow.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Talenn

[PDF]

I like the idea of larger, "inefficient" hull designs at lower Ship tech levels.

It should be easy to implement : for each hull size up to 2 "inefficient hulls" have to be defined, and each tech level could allow "next" hull size inefficient-1 and 2 sizes larger inefficient-2 (more inefficient than 1).
Inefficient-1 will have some 10% less usable space than normal, inefficient-2 15% to 20% less, and perhaps lower speed constraints (larger hulls still have to get more room than smaller one, so a Frigate should have more than 150 Kt useful !)

So for example ship tech-1 will allow :
Escort
Frigate inefficient-1
Destroyer inefficient -2

then ship tech 2 will give
Normal escort and frigate
Destroyer inefficient-1
Lt Cruiser inefficient-2
etc etc

It'll be particularly useful in high start/low progress games such as Proportions.

[dogscoff]

Here's an idea on the ECM/ combat sensor debate... how about doing away with the ECM and CS components completely, and building the bonuses into ships / weapons respectively.

It would create a huge mess of new components (meson bLaster II + CS I, meson bLaster II + CS II...) but you might find / write a script to generate them automatically. Would the game engine be able to handle such a huge components.txt file?

Not sure what this would achieve in termms of game balance, bnut it could be interesting. It would certainly give the modder more control over the whole combat bonus system.

[geoschmo]

Yeah D, that's an idea. I don't think I will totally eliminate ECM/Sensors, but by reducing the effectivness of them, it will give more of an incentive for people to choose the weapons with inherant bonuses. More tradeoffs like that is what I am looking for.

With the reduction of combat sensor and racial to hit bonuses, I am concerned that the Tailsman may become even more powerful. I am considering changing it so that instead of a guaranteed hit, maybe it will have like a 60% bonus to hit or something like that. It will still be way better than regular sensors, as it should be for the cost involved, but not quite so overwhelming. That's not a final decision. I need to test that a little. Perhaps I will add some Religious only weapons that do have the guaranteed hit (If that's possible that is without transfering the ability to everything on the ship) but that has a limited rate of fire. Maybe two or three times per combat.

All these ship hull ideas are great. One thing I have run up against though is the lack of families and supercedences with vehicle sizes. Unfortunatly there is no "Only latest" in the hull list, so it's going to get kind of cluttered. But oh well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Also, since I will be slowing down and capping the ship and fleet training facilities, I will probably make the Combat Neural net researchable by everyone . Maybe put it up high in the computer branch. I think that is a cool component that just doesn't get enough use. Probably because it's so easy just to train all the ships the regular way.

Geoschmo

[ 03 May 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]</p>

[DirectorTsaarx]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:
&lt;snip&gt;
I will also be modifying the racial attack and defense characteristics to make them much more expensive&lt;snip&gt;

Comments?

Geoschmo<hr></blockquote>

Don't forget that you can get attack/defense bonuses using various cultures, and those are free. You may want to either reduce the bonuses in the respective cultures, or just eliminate the cultures that provide attack/defense bonuses...

[geoschmo]

Yes, I wasn't planning on eliminating those, but I was planning on reducing them and adjusting the culture file to make them a little more painful in other areas to choose. Just so it's not basically "free" like it is now.

IIRC someone put out a "balanced" culture file a while back that calculated the number of points that would be needed to get the advantages from the culture files and assigned negatives that were equal in value. That sounds like a good thing to me. I'll probably do something like it for AOW.

Geoschmo

[Quikngruvn]

I like the idea of multiple hulls, but could you retrofit, say, a Frigate Inefficient-1 to a standard Frigate? My gut tells me no, but I haven't tested this.... I like the idea of having multiple, progressive hull types, but I don't like the idea of being stuck with an inefficient hull if I build it.

Otherwise... this looks to be a really nice mod once it's fleshed out and finished.

Quikngruvn

[Baron Munchausen]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Quikngruvn:
I like the idea of multiple hulls, but could you retrofit, say, a Frigate Inefficient-1 to a standard Frigate? My gut tells me no, but I haven't tested this.... I like the idea of having multiple, progressive hull types, but I don't like the idea of being stuck with an inefficient hull if I build it.

Otherwise... this looks to be a really nice mod once it's fleshed out and finished.

Quikngruvn<hr></blockquote>

As I recall, the 'modified maintenance ability' is effective when placed in a component. So, rather than have various hulls with different maintenance levels, have all hulls with higher maintenance costs initially and have an 'engineering' tech field that produces crew quarters with increasing levels of maintenance reduction ability. Just retrofit your old ship with the newer crew quarters (standing for newly trained engineers who will save your resources).

[geoschmo]

Nope, once you build a hull you are stuck with it or you can scrap it. You can retrofit components, but not to different hulls, even of the same size. You can see this youself in the stock game if you try to retrofit a smal transport to a colony hull.

Geoschmo

[Phoenix-D]

"As I recall, the 'modified maintenance ability' is effective when placed in a component. So, rather than have various hulls with different maintenance levels, have all hulls with higher maintenance costs initially and have an 'engineering' tech field that produces crew quarters with increasing levels of maintenance reduction ability. Just retrofit your old ship with the newer crew quarters (standing for newly trained engineers who will save your resources). "

Very good idea. One thing to keep in mind is that the hull selection window has NO obselete function. In other words, if you have a tech area that gives 10 ships, each a replacement of the Last.. those ships will always show up. It gets really cluttered, really fast.

Phoenix-D

[geoschmo]

Ok, I muddled around with this idea for a couple days waiting for inspiration and I think I came up with a combination that I like.

The plan as it is now is to allow all the ship hulls to be built at level one of ship construction. Instead of adding a bunch of hulls though I am doing what was suggested and adding a component that modifies maintenance. I tested this and it does work fine. This will allow designs to be upgraded.

For those that are interesed in the details, I have changed the exsisting Life Support component to "Primary Life Support" and added a One per ship restriction to it. I then am adding a component with life support ability called "Engineering Deptartment" that is also one per ships and is larger and more expensive than the Primary Life Support. In the component description I state that this is required for ships and bases larger than 500Kt. Since the pimary life support can only be added once, people should use the enginering dept for cruisers and above for the second life support comp.

Then I am adding an "Auxillary Life Support" that is also larger and more expensive than the primary life support and Engineering section for the larger ships/bases that require more than two life supports.

At higher levels of ship construction the engineering dept and auxillary life support will be smaller and less expensive, but in the early levels they will be large enough and expensive enough to significantly restrict the effectiveness and efficency of larger ships. Also they will never be as small as Primary life support so they should never be used in place of Primary life support, although there is really no way to prevent that if someone wants to be contrary. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Also at higher levels of ship construction the Engineering Dept will offer progressively larger reductions in maint, which will make the bigger ships much more useable later in the game.

I am also considering furhter penalizing the larger ships early in the game by giving the hull a maint penalty which will be offset later in the game by the engineering dept.

Geoschmo

[Fyron]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>I am also considering furhter penalizing the larger ships early in the game by giving the hull a maint penalty which will be offset later in the game by the engineering dept.<hr></blockquote>
That would be a good idea. Of course, then you could design small ships with the engineering department, and get really low maintainence ships.

[geoschmo]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

That would be a good idea. Of course, then you could design small ships with the engineering department, and get really low maintainence ships.<hr></blockquote>True. Early on the Engineering dept will be large enough and offer little or no maint reduction though so that should not be abused. Later in the game though once the eng dept gets small enough to use on the smaller ships and the maint reduction comes into play it could be a valid comp to put on a smaller ship and the lower maint should help to keep them a viable option, which is part of the goal of this whole thing.

Geoschmo

[geoschmo]

Art of War Beta Version .70 (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1020746169.zip) is available.

Not everyhting discussed has been added yet. Mainly smoothing out the combat modifiers and wroking on the ship hull ideas. Have not change anything with the propulsion yet, or added any new weapons or tweaked any old ones.

Kick it around and tell me what you think. You should be able to play against the AI, at least to get a feel for it. I haven't totally shut them off yet.

Geoschmo

[dumbluck]

Well, um, I wish I had something productive to add to the discussion. I have been following the thread, and I guess I just wanted to give some moral support. That's it! I'll be the cheerleader!!!

NOT!

Anyway, this should be a cool mod for PBW. More power to ya!

[Talenn]

geoschmo:

I took a quick look through the hull sizes and whatnot at the start of a game. I didnt have time to play it out, but here are a few quick observations:

1) Larger ship hulls arent going to be used at all early on in the current form, even with the Eng Dept. They have to be made a bit more attractive. Maybe certain 'large ship only' components will help. I know the goal is to have them become more useful as time goes by, but they should at least be viable (if expensive) in the early game or there really isnt a choice to build them.

2) CAs appear useless in this build. CLs only lose 100kt, get a defensive bonus, an offensive bonus, and dont get the hideous 50% maintenance penalty. IMO, the CA should be the largest 'standard' hull that people use...ie, the workhorse of the fleet. Anything bigger (Cap ships) should start to cost the hideous maintenance, but start getting the 'power' returns...ie, greatly increased space, components that only they can benefit from, weapon mount bonuses etc.

3) The smaller hulls probably dont really need a To-hit bonus AND a Defense bonus. I think the two together are working against what you wanted originally by trimming the bonuses back on the Sensors/ECMs etc. If the rest of the mod is in place, I dont think they will be necessary and could unbalance things farther down the road. As it is now, without missiles, some of the larger cant hit the small guys at all, but receive no real benefit in return.

All of this is just my opinion. I applaud your efforts and I wish I had more time to tweak with it and send you some working data. Please dont take any of this as an 'attack' on your work.
I have thought the hull size interactions through a bit after my Last mod and I can probably work up some other rough numbers for you to look at if you want.

Thanx,
Talenn

[geoschmo]

Taelenn. No ofense taken. The reson I posted them is that I wanted feedback. Yours especially as a lot of what I am doing is based on comments you have already made in the thread.

Personally I like all the hulls having defensive and offensive bonuses or penalties, depending on the size. I think it fits with the overall feel of the mod, and with the goal of keeping the small ships viable later in the game. I may have gone a bit high with them though. I went with the exsisting defense bonuses/penalties and just filled in the gaps for ths ships that didn't have them in the stock game. With the other combat modifieing comps though I decresead these, and I probably should have with the hulls. I will probably cut the pluses and minuses in half for the next Version.

The attack bonus is already half of the defense bonus for the hulls. This balances wiht the ECM-Armor/Combat Senosrs though, as currently I have the sensors with an advantage. This is planned though as I want sensors to be stronger than ECM to lessen "Hot kinfe through butter" effect of a slight sensor tech diparity now in combat. Yes the higher tech should win, and destroy the enemy, but they shouldn't walk off the field without a scratch.

Also the larger ships have the turret mount that increases chance to hit, did you see that?

Personally I don't think the maint for the larger ships is an issue. I didn't intend to make them viable early, just available for someone if they wanted to pay enough for them, since in the stock game they aren't even evailable.

However the lack of space is an issue. The need for the engineering section and additional crew quarters does limit the Cruiser, and that's without implementing my proplulsion changes, which will futher cramp things for them. I think what I may do there is raise the size of the Cruiser, or add an other step or two in there. Maybe Light Cruiser, Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser, battle Cruiser? And maybe shuffle the sizes of the smaller ships some. I don't know. I'll have to think that one over.

Keep the comments coming.

Geoschmo

[Baron Munchausen]

Geo:

Why did you use the life support instead of the crew quarters? It seems to me that the crew quarters represent the real maintainers of the ship. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Also, what about Master Computers? Should they have the same bonus or maybe a higher bonus than whatever crew components you make into an 'engineering component' to control maintenance costs?

It's too bad we can't use the 'restrictions' abilities in the vehiclesize.txt to control how much of various other components besides engines and cargo bays can be put into a given hull. We could have cruisers able to carry a higher proportion of armor or weapons than a light cruiser and so have an advantage even if it's only slightly larger.

[ 07 May 2002: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]</p>

[geoschmo]

Not sure why I used life support instead of crew quarters for the egineering section. Just did. Could have been either.

Yes, using a master comp as is instead of the engineering section would put a severe crimp on the maint for larger ships. I suppose there is nothing stopping one from using a master comp and an engineering section.

I will have to work on that. Perhaps the master comp will have tech reqs in computers and ship construction, and the higher levels of ships construciton, you will get a master comp with a better maint reduction. Keep it equal to the same level of engineering section. That could work. Of course then you'd have people using master computers on small ships and getting free maint. Maybe I don't want to do that afterall.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Geo

[ 07 May 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]</p>

[Phoenix-D]

Also remember that unless the maintance bonuses don't stack, people will probably put both a master computer and engineering section on, just to get the enhanced maintance reduction.

EDIT: you never did tell me if you wanted the "warhead + body" missile types I made. I'll assume that's a no http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Phoenix-D

[ 07 May 2002: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]</p>

[geoschmo]

I believe maint bonuses do stack. So that about clinches it. You will still need to have an engineering section on you ships with master computers, ubless you have pleanty of money and don't care about the maintenance reduction. But for a large ship the 40Kt sholdn't be that critical.

I am still interested in the missles. I just haven't got to that point in the mod yet.

Geoschmo

[Phoenix-D]

OK. I'll try and clean them up a bit, balance them out better.

Are you planning on adjusting weapon damage any? Because these were based on the standard CSM damage and changed from there. PM me when you get around to wanting them, and I'll send over what I have.

Phoenix-D

[Taz-in-Space]

Geoschmo, One thing I really liked about the deathstalker Mount Mod was the Mini Mount for components. (you know, the one that halved the size of non-weapon components for twice the price)
This allowed you to create 'Elite' ships that were costly to build, but could carry much more.
This trade-off between Build time/Maint-and- repair-cost and capability was self balancing IMO.

[Skulky]

This mod is really cool, i haven't played too far yet but it is very interesting. I liked all hte work you put in on the ships. I did go after ECM tech as i usually would and found to my dismay and then eventual joy that it didn't work as well.
This is much more realistic and i really like that, also the engineering component thing is cool too.

[QuarianRex]

Geo,

Nice mod concept, I like. Took a look at the components and was a little taken aback with the sensors/ecm balance. I know that you wanted sensors to have the edge but by five times? Ouch. Was that intentional?

Wouldn't a 50/30 or even a 50/20 sensor/ecm split be somewhat better? At least then you'd have some small sense of accomplishment (having researched ten levels of combat support after all).

I would think that any self-respecting Supreme Galactic Overlord would have his researchers flogged for so piddling a result as 1% per level. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[geoschmo]

If you add in the ECM bonus for Stealth and Scattering armor it's not nearly as bad for the sensors. But I still wanted the sensors to have tha advantage.

One of my biggest problems with combat in the stock game is that with a slight edge in ECM+Stealth+Scattering Armor your ships become almost unhittable. Throw a couple PDC's to hanlde the missles, and a couple shields to soak up the few lucky shots that do manage to get through, and you have a ship that all to often will escape a battle completely undamaged.

It's not even uncommon for battles to be so lopsided that 10 ships with said ECM advantage can wipe out 50 or even more that are otherwise equal in tech, without losing a single ship, or even suffering much damage.

By giving sensors the advantage, or less of a disadvantage at least, those battles have a different dynamic. You should still expect to win with superior tech and equal or nearly equal numbers, but you should at least suffer some casualties and damage and have to be more selective about when and where you fight.

What I was going for with the slow progression of the combat modifying techs is to make it take more of a comitment from an empire to develop them. To keep anyone from getting a big advantage very early. However one side effect of this is that if a race ignores these areas long enough it will be next to impossible for them to catch up. Not sure if I have the balance right yet.

I also wanted experience to be more of a determining factor, because that's something I can't really control since it's hardcoded. But I weakened the training facilities so you have to earn the experience the hard way.

Geoschmo

[ May 19, 2002, 23:37: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[dumbluck]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I also wanted experience to be more of a determining factor, because that's something I can't really control since it's hardcoded. But I weakened the training facilities so you have to earn the experience the hard way.

Geoschmo<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I wish I had more time, I'd like to check out the beta. So when I make suggestions, keep in mind that it's kind of like the blind leading the blind. But anyway, have you looked at SJ's P&N for inspiration here? The way he handles it (numbers are rough estimates, I haven't used his training facilities for a while) is that level one goes up to 15%, with 3% gained per turn (maxed in 5 turns). Level 2 goes up to 20% but with only 2% gained per turn (maxxed in 10 turns). Level 3 goes up to 25%, with only 1% gained per turn (max in 25 turns!). So to get the higher % takes much more time. I thought that was a pretty cool idea. Maybe you could plagerize, or at least use it as inspiration? Or not, I don't know. Hell, maybe you already have!

[Phoenix-D]

"I haven't used his training facilities for a while) is that level one goes up to 15%, with 3% gained per turn (maxed in 5 turns). Level 2 goes up to 20% but with only 2% gained per turn (maxxed in 10 turns). Level 3 goes up to 25%, with only 1% gained per turn (max in 25 turns!). So to get the higher % takes much more time. I thought that was a pretty cool idea."

Or if you build all three it's maxed in 23 turns, total.

Phoenix-D

[dumbluck]

Hey, quick question: Do those facilities stack? If not, how does it choose which facility is "active"? (does it pick most increase per turn, or highest max?)

Edit: sorry for taking this thread OT. It won't happen again, I swear!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif

[ May 20, 2002, 08:09: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Phoenix-D]

even if they don't, just put them on nearby planets.. I haven't tested it.

[geoschmo]

I am not aware that these facilities stack. According to the description they do not. Phoenix appears to be saying they do however. There may be a bug. I haven't tested it.

P&N is a nice way to do it, however it wasn't what I was looking for. In AoW I made five levels of each instaed of three. In all five levels they rate of experience is 1% one per turn. The lower levels can only gain 6% percent max, the highest levels only 10%. I wanted to limit the amount of experience you cold accquire "artificaially" an make the ships earn it the hard way through combat.

One thing I did change to help in this area though is I made the Combat Neural Net a researchable component, instead of making you find ruins to get it.

Geoschmo

[Batman]

Hello,

A couple of things I thought about while reading this thread:

1) Change the ship construction costs so that smaller craft are much much cheaper compared to the larger. Also, give larger ships an inherent bonus to damage resistence. I've always been a little annoyed when I compare Se4 navies to modern navies. Take WW2 naval distributions: battleships took forever to build/repair, but were very tough to knock out (and even tougher to destroy outright). By comparision, destroyers etc were pumped out 'en masse'. In the game, maybe a single shipyard could construct more than one small ship per turn. Captial (Cruiser and up) ships should take a really really long time.

If the modifications suggested below to increase the late-game usefulness of the smaller hulls were included then Se4 fleets would start to resemble real life fleets, with a capital ship never being put to sea/space without attendent destroyers to use as scouts/screens.

(Sorry that rambled on a bit)

2) Ancient ruins. I think it would be interesting if ancient ruins not only supplied a new tech level, but perhaps opened access to an entire tech tree; imagine scientists finding a piece of technology that is initally useless, but allows access to whole new concepts/branches (Think of the broken arm and chip found in Terminator 2)

[capnq]

Ancient ruins. I think it would be interesting if ancient ruins not only supplied a new tech level, but perhaps opened access to an entire tech tree; imagine scientists finding a piece of technology that is initally useless, but allows access to whole new concepts/branches <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This can already happen in SE IV on a small scale, when you find one or more of the normal techs rather than a Unique tech. (For example, in one of my games, I recently found Military Science on a Ruins world, which opens three other tech areas for research, but gives no immediate components.)

[Fyron]

Training Facilities:
First off, there are 4 types of training facilities: Sector ship training, Sector fleet training, System ship training, and System fleet training. Taken separately, each of these functions identically. When combined, Sector and System training facilities (Normal ones and the Psychic ones) both stack, for a possibility of 6% per turn.

That being said, I will focus on Sector ship training facilities. If you have multiple training facilities on one planet, only one facility functions. The facility with the highest training rate adds experience each turn. Once that facility's limit has been reached, it can no longer add any experience. This does not matter in the standard facilities, since more advanced ones increase both the rate and the max. Once the facility with the highest rate has been maxed, the second highest rated facility will train the ship. I will use this example to illustrate how this works:
----------------
Level I (L I):
3% per turn
15% max

Level II:
2% per turn
20% max

Level III:
1% per turn
25% max
----------------
Consider a planet that has all three facilities built on it. Ship X with 0 experience parks in orbit.

Turn 1-5:
L I is the highest rated trainer, so it adds 3% per turn. On turn 5, Ship X has 15%.

Turn 6-7:
Since Ship X has 15% exp, L I can not train it anymore. So, L II, the 2nd highest trainer, takes over. It adds 2% on turn 6, and then 2% on turn 7, bringing Ship X to 19%.

Turn 8:
L II could add 2% still, but it's limit is at 20%. So, it can only add 1% to the total, bringing it to 20%. Only one facility works at a time, so L III does not add anything.

Turn 9-13:
L III now takes over, since L II has maxed out. It adds 1% per turn for 5 turns, bringing the ship to 25%.

So, if you only build a L III, it takes 25 turns to maximize exp. If you build one of each, then it only takes 13 turns.

Edit: Hmm... I hope that isn't confusing as hell. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ May 23, 2002, 02:19: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[dumbluck]

So, um, not to sound like the impatient child who isn't willing to help out, but how is this mod coming along? I was hoping to play it sometime soon...

[geoschmo]

Heh, well between finding time and waiting for inspiration, I am kind of at a stand still here. Sorry. Maybe this will be just one more in my list of things I never got around to doing. I've always said I am more of an idea man that a do'er. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[geoschmo]

I have. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Sorry. Maybe I'll get around to it someday.

[dumbluck]

Oh well. . . . http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif I forgive you, but only cause you're associated with PBW... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[dumbluck]

No, I haven't forgotten.

Budda bump http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[dumbluck]

I was thinking of resurrecting this mod on my own, with my extremely limited abilities. More specifically, I was wanting to incorperate most of it's ideas into a tech-grid kind of mod. (you know, one where, for instance, you research different techs to increase missile range, increase missile damage resistance, increase missile speed, etc. etc. etc.) Would you be willing to let me use what you've got so far, Geo? (if you still have it...)

edit: my keyboard can't spell!

[ November 03, 2002, 07:02: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Pax]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
More details to follow. If you have any suggestions by all means feel free. I wont promise I will use them, but I will listen.

Geoschmo<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, if you'd like, I'll gladly write up a mQNP mount package, if you want to use that system for movement (yes, this is essentially a shameless plug for my idea, heh). Obviously you'd have to let me know if you plan to change any ship sizes, and, let me know what sort of WNP mass:propulsion ratio you might want.

I also suggest looking at the mount ideas in Deathstalker's mount mod, many of them are IMO quite fun.

From later int eh thread, also posted by Geo
What I have planed, and this may end up getting modified or scrapped altogether, is a system similer to what was used for SEIII. As the ships get larger, the Engines per move goes up, but not as quickly as with QNP. And engines will always have one standard movemnet point, but with the higher level ones getting the bonus movement as is the current stock system. My idea is that the escort with level 1 engines to go a speed of 6 has 6 engines, and has 40% of it's mass dedicated to engines. That's percentage for a movement of 6 I want to remain steady as the ships get larger.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And, what's better, mQNP can do this.

The concept is, each engine produces an increasing numbr of movement points (for my own Exodus mod, I'm planning on 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, for each successive level of propulsion). No engine produces bonus movement points.

You then decide what % of a ships mass will be needed to produce that speed form a single engine; with the engine component itself godawfully huge (Exodus will have engines massing 1,000kT each!), you then use MOUNTS to bring the final engine size down to what a given ship size needs to have.

For example, if you chose 10%, and used 1,000kT engiens ... a 200kT Frigate would use a mount that reducesthe engine size, cost, supplies used, and so on ... by 98%. The mount would specify 200kT as both the maximum AND minimum size of ship that could utilise that mount; each ship size would therefor have it's very own mount for engines.

The only trick is, the beginning escort would need to be reduced to 100kT in size, as I don't believe mounts can use fractional % reductions ...

Also, you can have multiple mounts -- an armored Version, or a normal Version. Each variation of engine you want to model with a mount, simply requires another "Set" of engine mounts. For example, taken from Exodus:

(Note, the Comp Family entry is blank as I haven't yet assigned specific family numbers to the various engine types).

A normal engine mount, intended for the 100kT Escort hull:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Long Name := A Series Engine Mount
Short Name := A Series
Description := Engine mount for 100kT hulls
Code := A
Cost Percent := 1
Tonnage Percent := 1
Tonnage Structure Percent := 1
Damage Percent := 0
Supply Percent := 1
Range Modifier := 0
Weapon To Hit Modifier := 0
Vehicle Size Minimum := 100
Vehicle Size Maximum := 100
Comp Family Requirement :=
Weapon Type Requirement := none
Vehicle Type := Ship</pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">An armored mount, intended for the same hull:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Long Name := Armored A Series Engine Mount
Short Name := Armored A Series
Description := Armored Engine mount for 100kT hulls; +100% cost/structure.
Code := ArA
Cost Percent := 2
Tonnage Percent := 1
Tonnage Structure Percent := 2
Damage Percent := 0
Supply Percent := 1
Range Modifier := 0
Weapon To Hit Modifier := 0
Vehicle Size Minimum := 100
Vehicle Size Maximum := 100
Comp Family Requirement :=
Weapon Type Requirement := none
Vehicle Type := Ship</pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That shows the smallest mount available (resulting in 10kT engines, so engines in use at the game's start will be a familiar size to SE4 players ... as the ships get bigger, the engines get bigger but the speeds remain the same).

At the other end of the scale are the M-class engines:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Long Name := M Series Engine Mount
Short Name := M Series
Description := Engine mount for 2500kT hulls
Code := M
Cost Percent := 25
Tonnage Percent := 25
Tonnage Structure Percent := 25
Damage Percent := 0
Supply Percent := 25
Range Modifier := 0
Weapon To Hit Modifier := 0
Vehicle Size Minimum := 2500
Vehicle Size Maximum := 2500
Comp Family Requirement :=
Weapon Type Requirement := none
Vehicle Type := Ship</pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Now you might wonder why M-Class engiens don't simply form the basic size; the intent is to pretty much force players to use the mounts, either through sheer unusable size (originally, Exodus was to use 4,000kT engines, which would NEVER fit un-mounted, in any mobile hull), or through costliness.

Now, the thing is (and thanks for the idea), one can now make an armor component that is also a 0-movement ENGINE. It can have -both- properties, serving as normal armor, and as an engine, to absorb engine-destroying weapons fire (call it Polarised Armor or whatever). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif No move-bonus conflicts whatsoever, but still the "feel" of QNP-style movement ... with minimal player installing-gobs-of-engines just to move speed 1 (P&N's Battlemoons are -annoying- ... 30+ engines for speed 1 ... sheesh!).

Say the word, give me a list of ship sizes and mass ratios, I'll write up similar style mounts for you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Posted yet LATER in the thread, still by Geo:
I will have to work on that. Perhaps the master comp will have tech reqs in computers and ship construction, and the higher levels of ships construciton, you will get a master comp with a better maint reduction. Keep it equal to the same level of engineering section. That could work. Of course then you'd have people using master computers on small ships and getting free maint. Maybe I don't want to do that afterall.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Or, a parallel to the Master Computer -- "Automated Maintenance System" or "Automated Engineering" ... no control-component abilities, but a maintenance reduction, based on similar techs to the Master Computer ... ?


Had some more to put in, andonly now realised how old the thread is, and that Dumbluck is looking to resurrect it. Oh well, the offer still stands. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif


[ November 03, 2002, 11:13: Message edited by: Pax ]

[dumbluck]

Yes, I would be interested (that's just less work for me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ), but I am just starting and so haven't gotten any kind of firm #'s yet... I'll let ya know.

[ November 03, 2002, 10:43: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Timstone]

Good luck Dumbluck, I really like the idea of this mod. Hope you can get it of the ground. If you need any help with pictures or numbercrunching, give me yell.

[geoschmo]

Dumluck, If you scroll back through this thread, I always posted the current Version of what ever I had done. I haven't touched it in quite a while. Feel free to do whatever you want with it. I obviously will never get around to it.

Geoschmo

[Pax]

Dumbluck, I am indeeeed willing to take on the hull/propulsion work; I've had a few more ideas, in fact.

I've been thinking of the ship sizes; I think dropping the 150kT hull off the bottomof the scale, and shifting every military ship-hull name] and image one step "up" woudl work nicely. Thus, you would have:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">200kT ... Escort; each engine 20kT
300kT ... Frigate; each engine 30kT
400kT ... Destroyer; each engine 40kT
500kT ... Light Cruiser; each engine 50kT
600kT ... Cruiser; each engine 60kT
800kT ... Battlecruiser; each engine 80kT
1000kT ... Battleship; each engine 100kT
1600kT ... Dreadnought; each engine 150kT</pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">(the 1600kT size for the dreadnought is for mQNP purposes, see below)

Alternately, what about shifting them like so:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">(Light ships; +100kT per increase)
200kT ... Escort; each engine 20kT
300kT ... Frigate; each engine 30kT
400kT ... Destroyer; each engie 40kT

(Medium ships; +200kT per increase)
600kT ... Light Cruiser; each engine 60kT
800kT ... Cruiser; each engine 80kT
1000kT ... Battlecruiser; each engine 100kT

(Heavy ships; +400kT per increase)
1400kT ... Battleship; each engine 140kT
1800kT ... Dreadnought; each engine 180kT</pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The second one allows for roughly the same range of sizes (only +300kT at the highest end). either one would allow for a 2000kT base engine size, preventing use of un-mounted engines entirely (making the mQNP usage "idiot-proof"). Just divide the tonnage of each ship hull by 200, and you would have the size/cost % for each engine, from 1% for the Escort, up to 8% or 9% for the Dreadnought (depending on which size set you wanted).

Designing an escort for early scouting, presuming most other components remained Stock SE4-ish, would give us a 200kT hull. Bridge, LS, Crew, that's 30kT. 5 engines (the max) is 100kT more, total of 130kT. If Supply Bays come in 10kT increments, there's now room for 7 of them -- or 4 of them, and an early APB for dealing with other hostile scouts; in either case, teh supply capacity woudl be the same as 3.5 or 2 current supply bays.

Currently, 6 engines, bridge, quarters, life support, and three supply containers makes a 150kT escort; one less supply bay allows mounting a meson bLaster.

So the two would be reasonably comparable, IMO.

[dumbluck]

For pictures, I've got the imagemod. For the numbercrunching, I'll let you know. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[dumbluck]

Pax:I like the second Version of your ship sizes. But what about the baseship/worldship/whatever the proper name for it is (I never use em...)
Edit: PS. I am planning on stealing your idea for engine tech you described to me, if you don't mind... And I'm planning on stealing a lot of stuff from SJ, too... If he doesn't mind, of coarse...

And Pax, did you extend your engine mounts down into the fighters, too?

second edit: I should have read your post more closely. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif

[ November 04, 2002, 10:32: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[dumbluck]

Geo: I could only find one Version listed in this thread: AoW Beta Version .70. Is that the most current Version?

Here is a { link } (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1020746169.zip) to that Version...

[ November 04, 2002, 09:43: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[dumbluck]

Ok. Here's my first real contribution to this mod. Tell me what you think. I'm expanding on Geo's idea of a maintenance reducing component, called Engineering. First off, I must admit that I didn't like his engineering replacing Life support; I thought it fit much better as a Crew Quarter. Yes, I know, it makes no difference to the program. But I'm just picky that way. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Anyway, his setup was that research into Ship construction gave Engineering components with progressively higher maintenance reductions. But what if instead, hulls get progressively worse Maint. penalties, in 10% increments, starting with the escort. Then, by researching Ship Construction, maintenence reduction components become available (1 per level). Each component gives a 10% reduction, and should be about 5kt. Make them count as crew quarters, and limited to 1 per ship. There are 9 levels of ship const., so 9 components are needed.

So, an escort gets a 10% Maintenance penalty, but also needs 2 CQ. (1 regular CQ (10kt) + 1 maint. reducer(5kt and 10%maint. Reduction), both available from the start.) A frigate gets a 20% penalty, but needs 3CQ (1 regular and 2 maint.reducers). A Destroyer gets a 30% penalty, and needs 4 CQ (1 normal, 3 special). Etc. Etc. Etc.

This also gives the benefit that ships smaller than the currently largest available get an additional 10% maint. reduction by replacing the regular CQ with a maint. reducing comp.! And there is the added benefit that there is no longer that hump at the L.Cruiser/Cruiser switchover...

Names for maintenance reducers:
</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Aux. Bridge ((available with Computers 1 and ShipCon 3) acts as bridge if bridge is destroyed, reduced to 5kt.</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Engineering Department</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Crew Mess </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Officer's Mess</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">First Aid Station (available with biology + ship const. )</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Maintenance Access Tube</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Recreation room (available with Psychology + ship const.)</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Small arms locker (available with AdvMilSci + ship const 6.) (grants small Boarding Party defense)</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Automated Repair Drone (available with Repair 3 + ship const. 7)(repairs 1 per turn)
</font><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Of coarse, now I have to figure out how all the other ships (Lrg Transport, Starbase, Heavy Carrier, etc.) fit into all this... Any Ideas? Also, if you have any suggestions about crossover maint. reducers, let me know. It is important, however, that we have not many more than 9 components total (a few extra wouldn't hurt, though). I don't want any maintenance free battleships running around!!!
And one other thing for all you modding gurus out there: Will this work? If I've got a ship hull with (for example) an inherant +60% maintenance modifier, will it be cancelled out by 6 components each with a -10% maintenance modifier?
PS. I know there is a modding tool out there, but I can't find it... Any pointers would be appreciated...

[ November 04, 2002, 11:50: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Pax]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
Pax:I like the second Version of your ship sizes. But what about the baseship/worldship/whatever the proper name for it is (I never use em...)<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Exctly: many folks never use 'em. The images for them are usually just "flying starbase". Excise them, or, put them in at a 2000kT size (or better, 2200kT, so that they can be used for SW and RW construction? Hmmm ...). Only catch is, of course, someone could accidentally (?) install an egine without a mount at all on the baseship if it's over 2000kT in size (planning on 2,000kT engines, after all)

Edit: PS. I am planning on stealing your idea for engine tech you described to me, if you don't mind... And I'm planning on stealing a lot of stuff from SJ, too... If he doesn't mind, of coarse...<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No problem at all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

And Pax, did you extend your engine mounts down into the fighters, too?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Fighters will require their own engine, and series of mounts, to preserve the mQNP process there (the Excort already has a 1%-size mount, I don't believe SE4 will LET you get smaller). But with, say, 10kT/20kT/30kT for Small/Medium/Large, it's child's play to set up a mount for mQNP fighters. 40kT Fighter engine, with small/medium/large getting 4%/8%/12% engines, respectively.

second edit: I should have read your post more closely. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[dumbluck]

All very good points, and I can't argue with any of them. Hell, I even thought of the negative maintenance=resource generation before I checked back here! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif And I very much like the idea of ship-specific mounts (ala mQNP). So that is the way it will go. Of coarse, now I have to dig into the mounts text file, that I don't even know the name of (tells ya how much I've played in THAT file, huh http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

Of coarse, I was kinda fond of the crossover components that had other functions as well... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Besides, it would have helped with the roleplaying... Hmmmmm... An idea is forming....

wait for it...

wait for it....

lost it. Oh well....

[ November 04, 2002, 13:03: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[geoschmo]

Well dumbluck just remember, when it's your mod you can do whatever you want. So it's not really neccesary for you to agree with anyone. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[dumbluck]

Ah, HA!

consider this:

All levels (corrosponding with shipcon levels ) of the mounts for Engineering Department gives a 5% reduction. It is the only component with a mount available to escorts.

Maintenance access tube mount is available from level 1 on up, and grants a 10% reduction for levels 1 and 2, and a 5% reduction for level 3 on up. The component itself is attained by researching Shipcon 2. It is the only component (besides engineering) available for Frigates and escorts.

Crew's Mess mount is available from level 3 on up, and grants a 10% reduction for level 3. Level 4 on up gets a 5% reduction.

Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

In this way, the lowest maintenance percentage a hull can achieve (without racial modifiers) is 95%. I think. Anyway, I gotta run.

[ November 04, 2002, 13:20: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Pax]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
All very good points, and I can't argue with any of them. Hell, I even thought of the negative maintenance=resource generation before I checked back here! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif And I very much like the idea of ship-specific mounts (ala mQNP). So that is the way it will go. Of coarse, now I have to dig into the mounts text file, that I don't even know the name of (tells ya how much I've played in THAT file, huh http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">CompEnhancements.txt

And it shouldn't be too hard, just adapt the general format I gave an example of for the Engine-oriented mQNP mounts.

Of coarse, I was kinda fond of the crossover components that had other functions as well... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Besides, it would have helped with the roleplaying... Hmmmmm... An idea is forming....

wait for it...

wait for it....

lost it. Oh well....<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here's one: just lower the % reduction for maintenance for each part. Maybe give 'em 3 levels, and make the reduction 1% per level per part. Then, even nine parts, all at level 3, is still only a 27% maintenance reduction. That's a workable range, if you go up ... um ... say 3% per ship level, in maintenance PENALY levels ... and borrow SJ's maintenance model from P&N (higher innate maintenance rates, with each ship getting a discounted rate, etc, etc).

[dumbluck]

I haven't really dug into the guts of P&N, I just like to play it! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif In fact, I've never really dug into the guts of ANY mod till now...

But I think I'm gonna stick with this model for now, at least until I find that it isn't working as well as SJ's... Why did he do that, anyway? Is that how he "fixed" the maintenance aptitude trait?

[Suicide Junkie]

Why did he do that, anyway? Is that how he "fixed" the maintenance aptitude trait?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Correct.

I set the basic maintenance rate to 100% of ship cost per turn.
I then added a 75% maintenance reduction to the ship hulls.

Since the maintenance reduction trait SUBTRACTS from the basic maintenance, a race that takes +20% to maintenance reduction would pay 80% maintenance per turn. The ship hull's ability then reduces that to 80% x (100%-75%) = 20%
A race that takes +60% to maint redux, will end up paying 10% maintenance instead of the normal 25%.

1) Race maintenace modifiers and the basic rate will ADD with each other.

2) Ship/base/component modifiers will ADD with each other.

3) The two Groups' totals are multiplied together for the final calculation.

[Pax]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
Ok. Here's my first real contribution to this mod. Tell me what you think. I'm expanding on Geo's idea of a maintenance reducing component, called Engineering. [...]

Names for maintenance reducers:
</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Engineering Department</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Crew Mess </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Officer's Mess</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">First Aid Station (available with biology + ship const. )</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Maintenance Access Tube</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Recreation room (available with Psychology + ship const.)</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Small arms locker (available with AdvMilSci + ship const 6.) (grants small Boarding Party defense)</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Automated Repair Drone (available with Repair 3 + ship const. 7)(repairs 1 per turn)
</font><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'd say ... no dice. The problem here is, what's to stop someone with a 200kT escort from essentially getting more maintenance -reduction-, than they get -maintenance- ... ?
The upper limit of maintenance reduction must not drive a race with so much inherent maintenance reduction they are already paying very little as-is, or their ship could be PRODUCING resources (and I don't know if negative maintenance costs gives the EXE fits or not). Possibly a maintenance model more like that of P&N could help.

But the main thing is, the "one per ship" components, won't have a minimum shipsize (unless you go with an mQNP style series of mounts for THEM, too. Come to think of it, mount-based Lifesupport and Crew Quarters and Bridge units sounds like an interesting idea ... the bridge of a 1600kT Dreadnought should be larger than the bridge of a 200kT Escort ... shouldn't it?).

And one other thing for all you modding gurus out there: Will this work? If I've got a ship hull with (for example) an inherant +60% maintenance modifier, will it be cancelled out by 6 components each with a -10% maintenance modifier?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, the protential problem is, ESCORTS with net NEGATIVE maintenance. An escort where you get, say, 25% of it's value back, every turn ... ugh! (120% racial maintenance trait, 3 maintenance reducers at 10% each, stock SE4 maintenance costs paradigm; your normal 5% maintenance costs, minus 30% from the components, gives you back 1/4 of the cost to build the ship in the first place).

The problem is, I don't believe COMPONENTS can be limited to minimum hull sizes.

Also, some of the medical-related and Pyschology-based facilities might do well as Life Support replacements, or else, a LS/Maintenance component especially for Organic-tech ships (a la Living Ships in P&N perhaps).

PS. I know there is a modding tool out there, but I can't find it... Any pointers would be appreciated...<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Check the SE4 Modder thread. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Or maybe PBW's Utilities downloads ...

[geoschmo]

Regarding the maint reduction comp taking the place of the life support. You aren't by any means the only one to disagree with that. Although I can't for the life of me understand how anyone would disagree. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif It jsut seems totally natural and obvious to me that a comp that reduces maintenance would have something to do with life support and nothing whatsoever to do with crew quarters. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Since I decided to call the comp an engineering comp, it made even more sense since nobody would sleep in engineering. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif IIRC my engineering comp didn't totally replace LS, except in the smaller ship, which would have less of a need for LS, but still need CQ, unless the crew would be sleeping in the halls. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Now, to more of an on topic comment. Requireing additional components on the smaller ships? Even though they are small ones, wont that decrease the usefullness of an already small ship? And nine different maint reduction comps? It will certainly work, but personally I think it will make the ship designs a little cluttered. What about instead using a mount based idea similer to Pax's engine idea to limit each maint reducer to a specific hull size. Then each ship only has one new component to worry about.

Geoschmo

[Haven]

Is the new Version of this mod ready yet, where can I find a copy.

[Pax]

Well, I have the mQNP mounts scripted, and need Dumbluck to send me a private message with his email address so I can send it along.

Dumbluck, d'you also want me to handle the vehicle sizes?

[Phoenix-D]

"Crew's Mess mount is available from level 3 on up, and grants a 10% reduction for level 3. Level 4 on up gets a 5% reduction."

Note that if you're doing multiple redundant mounts, the mount screen is going to get very messy very quickly. Mounts can't be obseleted http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Then again, upgrading the component (which can only be added via the mount) might work..

Phoenix-D

[dumbluck]

Hmmmm... That sounds simple enough. I'll try to do some number crunching/modding this weekend. Hell, if I'm real lucky, I might even get a new beta out...

[dumbluck]

Originally posted by Pax:
Here's [an idea]: just lower the % reduction for maintenance for each part. Maybe give 'em 3 levels, and make the reduction 1% per level per part. Then, even nine parts, all at level 3, is still only a 27% maintenance reduction. That's a workable range, if you go up ... um ... say 3% per ship level, in maintenance PENALY levels ... and borrow SJ's maintenance model from P&N (higher innate maintenance rates, with each ship getting a discounted rate, etc, etc).<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, yea, but that kinda defeats one of the main ideas of the mod...

[dumbluck]

No, I haven't had much of a chance to work on my changes this week. If I'm really lucky, I'll have time to get one out this weekend, but don't count on it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Ph-D: Actually, the components weren't necessarily going to be upgrades of each other, or they would become "obsolete". But I was hoping to have one mount per ship size that is applicable to all the relevant components.

Hmmm.... this might get interesting....

[dumbluck]

Geo: Since I've followed your example and forsaken the AI, could you send me a copy of the no AI mod files, and a quick note giving the general idea of how to implement them? I've PMed you my email addy....

[dumbluck]

No, I haven't forgotten. my first beta is almost ready... But I doubt that it will include the mQNP. In fact, it won't be that different from what Geo put out. This modding is harder than I thought!

[ November 12, 2002, 15:17: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[dumbluck]

Ok. The files are ready for my first beta test. If the game doesn't crash, I'll post the beta for you all to take a look at, post comments, etc. For now, here's my To Do list. (Gee, do ya think I like P&N or something?)

o-Add mQNP (ships resized for now)
X-Add no-AI mod files.
X-Add TDM Formations
---Add most P&N mounts.
X-Maint reducing components & ship specific mounts;
X-P&N maintenance settings.
---Small racial armors. (ala P&N)
---P&N armors
---P&N shields
---Various weapons balancing issues.
X-Ground combat down to 3 turns.
X-Space combat down to 20 turns.
---Add OA ability to all hull sizes. (including sats and drones)
---Make new Turret and Heavy Turret mounts for each size of ship.
---Rebalance the tohit%/ecm%
---Add Manuevering thrusters.
X-Rebalanced # of Lifesupport and Crewquarters with shipsize.
X-Adjust ship hull costs to 1.2$/kt.
---9 levels of SY, researched thru ship construction, along with Temporal counterparts.

(X- = completed, o- = partially completed, --- = not started yet.)

Edit: Art of War v0.71 (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1037545005.zip) is here. Give it a test drive, kick the tires, then tell me what you think!

[ November 17, 2002, 14:59: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Phoenix-D]

"Add OA ability to all hull sizes. (including sats and drones"

Umm..why? Units do not take partial damage, organic regeneraiton won't do anything for them!

Phoenix-D

[dumbluck]

Good Point, P-D. Silly me!

Edit:
to do list:

x-Add mQNP (ships resized for now)
X-Add no-AI mod files.
X-Add TDM Formations
---Add most P&N mounts.
X-Maint reducing components & ship specific mounts;
X-P&N maintenance settings.
---Small racial armors. (ala P&N)
---P&N armors
---P&N shields
---Various weapons balancing issues.
X-Ground combat down to 3 turns.
X-Space combat down to 20 turns.
X-Add OA ability to all hull sizes. (excluding units)
---Make new Turret and Heavy Turret mounts for each size of ship.
---Rebalance the tohit%/ecm% (increase costs of characteristics, ala P&N)
---Add Manuevering thrusters.
X-Rebalanced # of Lifesupport and Crewquarters with shipsize.
X-Adjust ship hull costs to 1.2$/kt.
X-9 levels of SY, researched thru ship construction, along with Temporal counterparts.
---Balance the Cultural Modifiers.
---Supply usage decreases with engine tech level.

[ November 18, 2002, 14:39: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[dumbluck]

Heh. Just realized that I never even checked the research costs of the new shipyards... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif No time now tho. Play my PBW turn, then to bed...

[Suicide Junkie]

Hey, are you going to include some leaky shields/armor for the first few levels of the appropriate tech?

[Captain Kwok]

SJ:

It's always about the leaky shields, isn't it?

[dumbluck]

Huh? How can they "leak"? WHAT can they "leak"??? You totally lost me on this one... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

[dumbluck]

Oh, hey SJ. I guess I really ought to make this official: Do you mind if I use parts of your mod (P&N) in the Art of War? Some are being used as insperation, some as a starting point, and some parts are just being ripped from your mod and stuck into this one...

[Suicide Junkie]

Huh? How can they "leak"? WHAT can they "leak"??? You totally lost me on this one...<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Leaky Armor:
Allows some damage from enemy weapons to penetrate, and thus damage the internal components before all armor is destroyed.
Adding more and more armor to a ship will decrease the rate at which internals are destroyed by enemy fire.

Leaky Shields:
Allows some damage from enemy weapons to penetrate, and thus damage armor and/or internals before the shields are completely eliminated.
Depending on implementation, shield absorption rates can be set to 0%,20%,33%,50%,66%,80%. Or set to range between zero and any of the values above as the generators recieve damage.
In some circumstances, especially VS very low damage weapons, the absorption can be higher than the expected value.

DL:
I don't mind if you use parts of my mod, as long as you end up with something reasonably different.

CK:
Yes. Yes it is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Captain Kwok]

SJ:

I think you should post how you get those percentages! Just so everyone can follow along and see what you mean.

[dumbluck]

To Do list

+++Maintenance+++
X-P&N maintenance settings.
X-Maint reducing components & ship specific mounts
---Adjust maint. reduction of Crew Areas.
X-Rebalanced # of Lifesupport and Crewquarters with shipsize.
X-Adjust ship hull costs to 1.2$/kt.

+++Miscellaneous+++
X-Add no-AI mod files.
X-Add TDM Formations
---Add most P&N mounts.
---Balance the Cultural Modifiers.
---Add empty Racial Traits slots for future expansion.

+++Damage Allocation+++
---Small racial armors. (ala P&N)
X-Add OA ability to all hull sizes. (excluding units)
---Base shields and armor on P&N style.
---Various weapons balancing issues.

+++Ground Combat+++
X-Ground combat down to 3 turns.
---Make planet glassing with normal weapons next to impossible.

+++Space Combat+++
---Change space combat to 50 turns.
---Rebalance the tohit%/ecm% (increase costs of characteristics, ala P&N)
---Add Manuevering thrusters.

+++"Weapons or Butter"+++
X-9 levels of SY, researched thru ship construction, along with Temporal counterparts.

+++Engines+++
---Smaller vessels can mount more engines than larger ones (ala dreadnaught and baseship).
---Supply usage decreases with engine tech level ala P&N
---Reduce Capital Ship movement combat movement rates by 1/2. (missles, fighters, and drones(?) remain normal). Strategic movement rates remain normal.

Note: mQNP is out, for the time being. One of the reasons is that I've got too many other things I want to experiment with (heck, I'm still coming up with ideas!). Another is that it might restrict the number of players interested in the mod. Once I get most of the basics worked out, I'll add it in (or perhaps make 2 Versions of the mod, on with mQNP, and one without). Of coarse, if there is a large public outcry, I could probably be persuaded to put it back on the to do list... ;P

================================

So, has anyone taken a look at v0.71? Any thoughts? Version 0.8 is pretty much done, I just need to bugtest it first.

Edit:

v0.80
-Added 9 levels of Space Yard(facility) and SY(component), researched thru Ship Construction and Space Yards(tech), along with Temporal counterparts.
-Added Armor Regeneration ability to all hull sizes. (excluding units)
-Cosmetic bug fix on abilities displays for hull sizes.

v0.71
-Ship Sizes changed in preparation for mQNP addition.
-NoAI mod files added.
-TDM Modpack formations.txt file added.
-Added Maint reducing components & ship specific mounts.
-Added P&Nv3.1b Maintenance settings.
-Ground combat changed to 3 turns.
-Space combat changed to 20 turns.
-Adjusted ship hull costs to $1.2/kt.
-Rebalanced the number of Crew Quarters and Lifesupport with vessel size.

Second Edit: Here it is. didn't have time to test it though, let me know if it crashes!
AofWv0_80.zip (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1037796142.zip)

[ November 20, 2002, 12:45: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[dumbluck]

Hmm. The armor I can understand; just take away the "armor" ability.
But how do you do that with shields??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

Edit: And to answer your question, I don't plan on using leaky armor or shields at this time. It might be neat for later (much later, at this rate), but I've got other things I want to put in first.

[ November 21, 2002, 12:34: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
A few questions from my to do list (Man, it just keeps getting longer and longer...)

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">---Make planet glassing with normal weapons next to impossible.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Can anyone point me to some threads/mods that demonstrate how this is done? I vaguely recall that it involved increasing the damage to kill 1m population and increasing the damage of planetary weapons. But I'm looking for specific explanations/examples to study.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here is one. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=001062#000014

Basically though you have the idea with your comment above. Raise the damage to kill one pop to a very high level. High enough that standard ship to ship weapons have little or no effect. That change alone will make glassing planets almost impossible. Since planetary shields, weapons plats and other untis on the planet are damaged before any damage is applied to population, they will still be susceptable to orbital bombardment as normal. Then if you want players to have an option to glass the planet with specialized weapons, you raise the damage levels of the neutron bomb accordingly, or create some other weapon with the population only damage type. I do not suggest rasing the damage of other planetary wepons like the Napalm, cause that would make them extremely powerful against the weapons platforms. That's not what you want I think. You want the ship V Waepons platform combat about the same, but make it more difficult to glass the population once the planetary defenses are gone. Corrrect?

Geoschmo

[Suicide Junkie]

The leaky shields are achieved with the crystalline ability.
Given a large amount of crystalline ability points, shots impacting the ship will have on average 50% of their damage absorbed.
0% = shield skipping OR armor skipping damage
20% = Quad to shields damage
33% = Double to shields damage
50% = Normal
66% = Half to shields
80% = Quarter to shields.

In some cases, such as vs very low damage weapons, the absorption percent can be higher that that.

If you make the shield generators "armor", or have leaky armor, you can have the absorption percentage fall as the shields take damage, and the crystalline ability value becomes important.

[dumbluck]

A few questions from my to do list (Man, it just keeps getting longer and longer...)

---Make planet glassing with normal weapons next to impossible.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Can anyone point me to some threads/mods that demonstrate how this is done? I vaguely recall that it involved increasing the damage to kill 1m population and increasing the damage of planetary weapons. But I'm looking for specific explanations/examples to study.

---Balance the Cultural Modifiers.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I remember that someone did this, once upon a time. Would that person mind if I incorperate their work? Oh, and I'd need a pointer to that mod...

edit: One Last question: Anyone care to share their impressions of v0.80?

To Do list:

playtest v.80 !!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

+++Maintenance+++
X-P&N maintenance settings.
X-Maint reducing components & ship specific mounts;
---Adjust maint. reduction of Crew Areas.
X-Rebalanced # of Lifesupport and Crewquarters with shipsize.
X-Adjust ship hull costs to 1.2$/kt.

+++Miscellaneous+++
X-Add no-AI mod files.
X-Add TDM Formations
---Add some P&N mounts.
---Balance the Cultural Modifiers.
---Add empty Racial Traits slots for future expansion.

+++Damage Allocation+++
---Small racial armors.
X-Add OA ability to all hull sizes. (excluding units)
---Base shields and armor on P&N style.
---Various weapons balancing issues.

+++Ground Combat+++
X-Ground combat down to 3 turns.
---Make planet glassing with normal weapons next to impossible.

+++Space Combat+++
---Change space combat to 50 turns.
---Rebalance the tohit%/ecm% (increase costs of characteristics, ala P&N)
---Add Manuevering thrusters.
---Ship/Fleet Training components ala P&N

+++"Weapons or Butter"+++
X-9 levels of SY, researched thru ship construction, along with Temporal counterparts.
---extend resource extractors down to 10 levels (9 researchable)
---Adjust Research Center and Intel Center points generation.
---Adjust Citizen Database and CCC bonus %s.
---change monolith research to be dependant on resource extraction research. (ala P&N)
---Adjust Robotoid Factory bonus %s.

+++Engines+++
---Smaller vessels can mount more engines than larger ones (ala dreadnaught and baseship).
---Supply usage decreases with engine tech level ala P&N, Exodus
---Reduce Capital Ship combat movement rates by 1/2. (missles, fighters, and drones(?) remain normal). Strategic movement rates remain normal.
---Extend tech tree (ala Exodus mod)

Note: mQNP is out, for the time being. One of the reasons is that I've got too many other things I want to experiment with (heck, I'm still coming up with ideas!). Another is that it might restrict the number of players interested in the mod. Once I get most of the basics worked out, I'll add it in (or perhaps make 2 Versions of the mod, on with mQNP, and one without). Of coarse, if there is a large public outcry, I could probably be persuaded to put it back on the to do list... ;P

[ November 22, 2002, 12:47: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[dumbluck]

Geo: Correct. Thanx.

SJ: Ummm... so what do you put the CA ability ON? The hull itself? Armor? Shield generators (that would have to have the armor tag as well, right?)? All of the above?

[Captain Kwok]

SJ never really explains how he comes up with those darn numbers.

Dumbluck:

You would give the ability to only the shield generators for leaky shields.

Leaky armor is created by getting rid of the armor's damaged first ability and reducing regular components structure size. That way, the armor is still most likely hit first, but not always.

[dumbluck]

Kwok: That sounds like a lot of work! It will most likely go at the bottom of the priority list, if it even makes it on to the list at all!

[Suicide Junkie]

The components by default have pretty good hitpoint values for a leaky armor mod.

All you really have to do is alter the armor.
Make armor 1 be 1kt, 20 hitpoints, armor 2 be 3kt 50 hitpoints, and armor 3 be 7kt 100 hitpoints.
And of course, remove the armor ability.

That'll give you a pretty good start. If you do the division, you will see that the higher level armors have fewer hitpoints, but during combat they will leak less often, and overall will be better.

For shields, try dividing their output by 10, their size by 4, and adding a crystalline ability with the same amount as their new shield generation amount. 20-30 physical hitpoints would be good for the leaky armor effect.

As for getting the % numbers, 50% = 1 shot hits the shields, 1 shot hits the armor, boosting shields back to their original strength. Overall every other shot hits, averaging 50%.
If the weapon does quarter to shields, you need to hit it 4 times to drop the shields that you created when you hit the hull. Five shots per cycle, 4 of which are blocked by the shields. 4/5 = 80%

[dumbluck]

Dormant, but not forgotten.

[mlmbd]

So, how is the Mod coming? Gatta know!

mlmbd http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[dumbluck]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
Dormant, but not forgotten.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Doesn't that say it all? I've been too busy to touch it lately... And I'm actually (tentatively) planning on scaling back some of my planned changes, to keep with the intentions of the mod. Maybe someday I'll use this mod as the genesis for a mod that is distinctly my own, and add all those big ideas to it. Of coarse, by then SE5 will probably be out... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[mlmbd]

Guess so. I was just asking so if there was anything new I could report it. You know where.

mlmbd http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[mlmbd]

dumbluck, lots of really great things there! From now on I will keep very close tabs on your progress. Shoot if I post about what a great mod this is going to be. Maybe some outside stimulus will arrive! Nothing like that, for inspiration! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Like you actually need any.

mlmbd http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[dumbluck]

Sure, here's my latest history file and to-do lists. I've been working on the "Weapons or Butter" decision balancing lately.

History:
to do: v0.81
X-Reduced the Robotoid Factory bonuss by 1/2.
X-Move individual resourse bonus facilities to their own trees.
X-Balanced facility costs for individual Resource bonus facilities (mineral scanner, etc.)
---Balance Robotoid Factory facility costs.
---Balance facilty costs for Resource Extractors.
X-adjust Crew Areas maint. reduction.
---extend resource extractors down to 10 levels (9 researchable)
---change monolith research to be dependant on resource extraction research. (ala P & N)
---Adjust Research Center and Intel Center points generation.
---Adjust Citizen Database and CCC bonus %s.

v0.80
-Added 9 levels of Space Yard(facility) and SY(component), researched thru Ship Construction and Space Yards(tech), along with Temporal counterparts.
-Added Armor Regeneration ability to all hull sizes. (excluding units)
-Cosmetic bug fix on abilities displays for hull sizes.

v0.71
-Ship Sizes changed in preparation for mQNP addition.
-NoAI mod files added.
-TDM Modpack formations.txt file added.
-Added Maint reducing components & ship specific mounts.
-Added P&Nv3.1b Maintenance settings.
-Adjusted ship hull costs to $1.2/kt.
-Rebalanced the number of Crew Quarters and Lifesupport with vessel size.

To Do list:
--Cut out some of the more extreme changes. Stick to the basics for this mod---
-- playtest v.81 ---

+++Maintenance+++
X-P&N maintenance settings.
X-Maint reducing components & ship specific mounts;
X-Adjust maint. reduction of Crew Areas to 8%.
X-Rebalanced # of Lifesupport and Crewquarters with shipsize.
---Adjust ship hull costs to 2.0$/kt.

+++Miscellaneous+++
X-Add no-AI mod files.
X-Add TDM Formations
---Add some P&N mounts.
---Balance the Cultural Modifiers.

+++Damage Allocation+++
---Small racial armors.
X-Add OA ability to all hull sizes. (excluding units)
---Various weapons balancing issues.

+++Ground Combat+++
---Ground combat down to 3 turns.
---Increase "damage to kill 1m population" setting.
---Increase damage rating of the Neutron Bomb.

+++Space Combat+++
---Change space combat to 20 turns.
---Rebalance the tohit%/ecm% (increase costs of characteristics, ala P & N)
---Add Manuevering thrusters.
---Ship/Fleet Training components (NOT facilities)ala P&N
--- ??? Change tohit size bonuses to 12% per 100kt.
---Correct tohit% size bonuses on non-standard hull sizes.

+++"Weapons or Butter"+++
X-9 levels of SY, researched thru ship construction, along with Temporal counterparts.
X-extend resource extractors down to 10 levels (9 researchable)
---Adjust Research Center and Intel Center points generation.
---Adjust Citizen Database and CCC bonus %s.
---change monolith research to be dependant on resource extraction research. (ala P&N)
X-Reduce Robotoid Factory bonuses by 1/2.
X-Move individual resourse bonus facilities to their own trees.
X-Balanced facility costs for individual Resource bonus facilities (mineral scanner, etc.)
---Balance facilty costs for Resource Extractors.
---Balance Robotoid Factory facility costs.

+++Engines+++
---Supply usage decreases with engine tech level ala P&N, Exodus
---Double combat movement rates for fighters, missles.
-??Smaller vessels can mount more engines than
larger ones (ala dreadnaught and
baseship).
OR
Add combat movement bonuses to smaller
hulls
OR
Make size-specific mounts for
manuevering thrusters; they add the
combat movement bonus.
---Extend tech tree (ala Exodus mod)

Note: mQNP is out, for the time being. One of the reasons is that I've got too many other things I want to experiment with (heck, I'm still coming up with ideas!). Another is that it might restrict the number of players interested in the mod. Once I get most of the basics worked out, I'll add it in (or perhaps make 2 Versions of the mod, on with mQNP, and one without). Of coarse, if there is a large public outcry, I could probably be persuaded to put it back on the to do list... ;P

[dumbluck]

Is anyone besides mumbles following this? I could use some feedback on my "Weapons or Butter" modding (ie I think I might have been a bit too ... enthusiastic with some of the changes). I've got most of it planned out, I just need to go in and actually make the changes.

edit: One other question. Do you think I should include mQNP?

[ December 17, 2002, 10:57: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Haven]

Do you think I should include mQNP? <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I tend to play more with the original movement system, but find the mount based mQNP to be intersting.

[dumbluck]

That's it? ONE vote? I'm disappointed.

[Krsqk]

I vote for mQNP, too.

[Pax]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
That's it? ONE vote? I'm disappointed.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Oh, come on. mQNP is my BABY. Did I even realy have to give VOICE to my vote ... ?

Well, just in case, it's YES. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[dumbluck]

Ok. Due to popular demand (relatively speaking), mQNP is back in. I was going to upload the newest Version (0.81) but after some playtesting I decided that some of the numbers need "jiggled" a little bit...

edit: Of coarse, I'll probably have to re-jiggle them once I get the population modifiers in...

[ December 21, 2002, 12:35: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[mlmbd]

Yeah, mQNP!

mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[Pax]

Woo hoo!

[dumbluck]

A new Version! 0.81 is out, get it here: Aow v0.81.zip (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1040898082.zip)

This upgrade consists almost entirely of "guns or butter" decision work. You'll spend a lot more time in the early game researching infrastructure techs now. If you don't think you'll get rushed, that is... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Note: I haven't had much of a chance to playtest the changes to the resource/research/intel bonus facilies yet.

History:
v0.81
-Reduced the Robotoid Factory bonuss by 1/2.
-Move individual resourse bonus facilities to their own trees.
-Balanced facility costs for individual Resource bonus facilities (mineral scanner, etc.)
-Balance facilty costs for Resource Extractors.
-Balance Robotoid Factory facility costs.
-adjust Crew Areas maint. reduction.
-extend resource extractors down to 10 levels
-Balance component costs for Robo Miners.
-Extend RoboMiners down the 10 levels of resource extraction.
-Adjust Resource Extraction research costs.
-x-Re-adjust Resource Extraction research costs. (could still use some fine tuning)
-Expand research and intel facilities to 5 levels.
-Expand research and intel bonus facilities to 5 levels.
-Balance research and intel facility costs
-Balance research and intel bonus facility costs.
-Reduced the intel and research bonuss by 1/3.
-Reduce default build rate to 1000m/o/r per turn.
-Move intel and research bonus facilities each to their own research trees.
-?-Adjust Research and Intel research costs. (More playtesting required)
-Change space combat to 20 turns.
-Ground combat down to 3 turns.
-Add Eyecandy Systemnames, Events, Empire names, etc.

v0.80
-Added 9 levels of Space Yard(facility) and SY(component), researched thru Ship Construction and Space Yards(tech), along with Temporal counterparts.
-Added Armor Regeneration ability to all hull sizes. (excluding units)
-Cosmetic bug fix on abilities displays for hull sizes.

v0.71
-Ship Sizes changed in preparation for mQNP addition.
-NoAI mod files added.
-TDM Modpack formations.txt file added.
-Added Maint reducing components & ship specific mounts.
-Added P&Nv3.1b Maintenance settings.
-Adjusted ship hull costs to $1.2/kt.
-Rebalanced the number of Crew Quarters and Lifesupport with vessel size.

To Do list:
+++Maintenance+++
X-P&N maintenance settings.
X-Maint reducing components & ship specific mounts;
X-Adjust maint. reduction of Crew Areas.
X-Rebalanced # of Lifesupport and Crewquarters with shipsize.
---Adjust ship hull costs to 2.0$/kt.
---Add Base only crew areas, researched with base construction tech. (extra's like minor repair ability, etc.)
---Adjust Crew areas mounts so that instead of a fixed tonnage structure, CrA now take up x% of total hull tonnage structure.

+++Miscellaneous+++
X-Add no-AI mod files.
X-Add TDM Formations
---Add some P&N mounts.
---Balance the Cultural Modifiers.
X-Add Eyecandy Systemnames, Events, Empire names, etc.

+++Damage Allocation+++
---Small racial armors.
X-Add OA ability to all hull sizes. (excluding units)
---Various weapons balancing issues.

+++Ground Combat+++
X-Ground combat down to 3 turns.
---Increase "damage to kill 1m population" setting.
---Increase damage rating of the Neutron Bomb.

+++Space Combat+++
X-Change space combat to 20 turns.
---Rebalance the tohit%/ecm% (increase costs of characteristics, ala P&N)
---Add Manuevering thrusters.
---Ship/Fleet Training components (NOT facilities)ala P&N
--- ??? Change tohit size bonuses to 12% per 100kt.
---Correct tohit% size bonuses on non-standard hull sizes.


+++"Weapons or Butter"+++
X-9 levels of SY, researched thru ship construction, along with Temporal counterparts.
X-extend resource extractors down to 10 levels (9 researchable)
---Extend Repair tech down to 5(?) levels
---change monolith research to be dependant on resource extraction research. (ala P&N)
X-Reduce Robotoid Factory bonuses by 1/2.
X-Move individual resourse bonus facilities to their own trees.
X-Balanced facility costs for individual Resource bonus facilities (mineral scanner, etc.)
X-Balance facilty costs for Resource Extractors.
X-Balance component costs for Robo Miners.
X-Extend RoboMiners down the 10 levels of resource extraction.
X-Balance Robotoid Factory facility costs.
---Change population bonuses (ala proportions, P&N PBW
-x-Adjust Resource Extraction research costs.
---Change: increasing facility tech levels equate to increasing construction costs.
X-Reduce research and intel bonus %s by 1/3.
X-Expand research and intel facilities to 5 levels.
X-Expand research and intel bonus facilities to 5 levels.
X-Balance research and intel facility costs
X-Balance research and intel bonus facility costs.
---Reduce default build rate to 1000m/o/r per turn.
X-Move individual intel and research bonus facilities to their own trees.
-?-Adjust Research and Intel research costs.


+++Engines+++
---Supply usage decreases with engine tech level ala P&N, Exodus
---Double combat movement rates for fighters, missles.
-??Smaller vessels can mount more engines than
larger ones (ala dreadnaught and baseship).
OR
Add combat movement bonuses to smaller
hulls
OR
Make size-specific mounts for manuevering
thrusters; they add the combat movement
bonus.
---Extend tech tree (ala Exodus mod)
---Due to popular demand (relatively speaking), mQNP is back in.

[ December 26, 2002, 10:37: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[mlmbd]

dumbluck; You have been a buzy little beaver, I can see! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[Pax]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
A new Version! 0.81 is out, get it here: Aow v0.81.zip (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1040898082.zip)

***Oni No Snippage wanders through for a light snack***

---Due to popular demand (relatively speaking), mQNP is back in.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Excellent! I'll download this and do some testing for you right away! 8)

[dumbluck]

Pax: I'm not entirely certain anymore if I had modded the sizes for the non-Ships of the Line hulls. You might want to double check that.

Edit: Also, be aware that I intend to do a little more modding to the Engines/move of the various hulls (with the intended end result being that smaller hulls will have a higher max speed than bigger hulls).

2nd edit: Of coarse, it might be easier to just add some bonus movement to the hull, instead of trying to adjust the engines per move...

[ December 26, 2002, 22:08: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Pax]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
Pax: I'm not entirely certain anymore if I had modded the sizes for the non-Ships of the Line hulls. You might want to double check that.

Edit: Also, be aware that I intend to do a little more modding to the Engines/move of the various hulls (with the intended end result being that smaller hulls will have a higher max speed than bigger hulls).

2nd edit: Of coarse, it might be easier to just add some bonus movement to the hull, instead of trying to adjust the engines per move...<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The best way to do this is, differing caps on how many engines each ship can HAVE. mQNP is baed ont eh premise that X kT of engine will move Y kT of ship at Z speed .... while 5X will move 5Y at 5Z ... in a fairly linear fashion.

Let light ships (escort, destroyer, frigate, maybe light cruiser) have, say, 6 engines; medium ships (cruisers, battlecruisers, battleships) have 5; and heavy ships (dreadnought and up) have 4.

You might toy with a higher EPM for "noncombat ships" -- transports and such -- but even there ...

mQNP doesn't use epm to directly fiddle with X-engine-gives-Y-speed rates.

I modified my local copy of P&N to use mQNP (SJ hasn't been able to check it out yet AFAIK), and I set EPM universally at three, without changing the movement points of the engines. That changes how the engine-tech improvements work, but a given engine, properly mounted, will move ANY hull at the same speed ... the engine simply gets bigger as the hull gets bigger.

I won't mind doing the actual writing-of-datafiles work for the ships, engines, and mounts; you have my email, and I'm often in #se4. Drop by, we can discuss what you want done vs what I can do, then I'll take the grunt work off your hands, and let you focus more on the butter-or-guns parts of AOWar. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[dumbluck]

Now, what's the fun of modding if I let you do it all? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I still like my idea, and will prolly toy around with it for the fun of it, just to see if I can actually make it work. If you have serious objections to people tinkering with mQNP, I'll just release your stock Version. I have another idea simmering in the back of my mind that might accomplish what I'm trying to do.

Edit: I forget, did you extend mQNP down into the fighters and drones?

2nd edit: my keyboard can't spell!

[ December 28, 2002, 11:11: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Fyron]

You know what you need DL? Tech grids. That would add a lot of art to researching. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Pax]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
Now, what's the fun of modding if I let you do it all? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I still like my idea, and will prolly toy around with it for the fun of it, just to see if I can actually make it work. If you have serious objections to people tinkering with mQNP, I'll just release your stock Version. I have another idea simmering in the back of my mind that might accomplish what I'm trying to do.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm not at ALL un-amenable to people tinkering with mQNP ... in fact I *encourage* it. I'm merely offering to take osme fo the grunt work off your hands, in teh process of your using something *I* have been kinda pushing for. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Edit: I forget, did you extend mQNP down into the fighters and drones?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, the sample I sent you was just that, a sample -- based solely on the ship hulls. Okay, a *functional*, useable sample ... but a sample nonetheless.

2nd edit: my keyboard can't spell!<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Heh. Well, I'm posting froma friend's NT box, on a cable modem ... and I am JEALOUS of the modem ... it loads these forums up in an eyeblink ... !

I'll trade my slow-as-frozen-molasses-on-the-moon's-dark-side modem, and my keyboard, for your can't-spell-worth-crud keyboard and (probably) faster net connection!

LOL http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ December 29, 2002, 01:49: Message edited by: Pax ]

[LostCommander]

This looks like it will be really neat! Keep up good work! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[dumbluck]

Fyron: (emphasis added)
Originally posted by dumbluck:
I was thinking of resurrecting this mod on my own, with my extremely limited abilities. More specifically, I was wanting to incorperate most of it's ideas into a tech-grid kind of mod. (you know, one where, for instance, you research different techs to increase missile range, increase missile damage resistance, increase missile speed, etc. etc. etc.) .... <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This is pretty low on the priority list, right now. I'm no longer even sure if I'm willing to commit that much time and effort into this mod (look how long it's taken me to get this far!!!). But I'm keeping it in mind.

[dumbluck]

Pax: The reason that I like messing with the EPM is that it allows for a high amount of granularity. (is that even a word?) However, another way of (sorta) achieving what I'm looking for is to slowly decrease the efficiency of engines as hull size increases. For example, you have total engine tonnage that are always 10% of the total hull tonnage (I don't recall the actual #s off the top of my head). What if that % slowly increased with hull size? So that an Escort uses 10% for engines, but a Frigate uses 12%, and a destroyer uses 13%, etc. etc. etc. Even better would be to set it up based on tonnage increase, instead of class increase. Now, every time the hull size increases 100kt, the % needed for engines goes up 1%.

Does that make any sense? Of coarse, these numbers are just off the top of my head, atm...


...you have my email...<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I do? I hope it's in my mailbox, then...

PS: I have a cable modem, too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ December 31, 2002, 14:37: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[dumbluck]

Ok. First off, thanx to mumbles I know that I left a minor file out of the Last .zip file. Here is the corrected file:

AoWv0_81.zip (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1043063142.zip)

2nd: Pax, if you're still interested in working on this with me, I'm leaning towards the Hybrid model of the mQNP. 9 levels of ship construction is easily divided into 3 levels of Engine sizes. Oh and I can't find your e-mail addy anywhere, so if you could send me a quick email, I'd appreciate it.

3rd: If you read the Alpha tester thread, you may have noticed that I mentioned a departure from the standard SY model. This is what I was thinking of:

---3 levels of SYfacilities, with very low build/repair rates, researchable thru the SY tech field.
---9 levels of base mountable SYcomponents, small and with low build rates. Components increase in size as tech levels advance (but the build rate/kt ratio improves with tech increases). They are researched thru the Ship Construction tech field. They have minor repair abilities. Base SYcomponents are NOT limited to one per ship. So their buildrates are stackable. (If I understand the game mechanics correctly)
---3 levels of ship mountable SYcompontents, larger than and with faster build rates than Base mountable Versions. However, they are intended to be considerably less effiecient than a dedicated Base SY. The build rate/kt ratio improves with tech increases; or alternately, increased tech levels may just reduce the maintenance penalty (see below). They're limited to one per ship. They might also include a minor repair ability. They are researched thru the SY tech field. I haven't yet decided whether they will be more or less efficient than Planetary SYs.
---Each SY tech level (or possibly Base Construction instead of SY tech) also yields mounts that reduce the size of Base SY components slightly.
---I'm also considering adding a maintenance penalty to the components to make them cheap to build, but expensive to maintain and run. I have yet to decide whether to make the penalty decrease with tech level, remain steady, or tie it to the buildrate/kt ratio.

The general idea is that Planetary SYs would be just about useless. You need them (or a ship based SY) to build your first orbital Base SY, but after that, you'd probably be better off scrapping it to open up the facility slot. Most ship construction would occur at Base SYs. Mobile SYs give up a lot of efficiency in exchange for that mobility, and would probably have steaper maintenance penalties than the stationary variety (after compensating for the base hull mainteance bonus).

I'm hoping to keep it down to about 5 SY components per base in order to avoid absurdly high repair rates. Thus the gradual size increases, to somewhat keep up with the implementation of larger base sizes.

Of coarse, this whole concept hinges on the assumptions that SY build rates stack and that I can remove the one per ship tag on the SY components. Assumptions I haven't tested yet.

OK, are there any questions/comments/observations?

[ January 20, 2003, 12:49: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Fyron]

You can not have a ship or base design with more than 1 SY. Only planets can be set to use the SY Expansion Projects.

[geoschmo]

Fyron is correct there DL. The Space Yard component doesn't have a one per ship restriction to remove even. If you look in the components file it says none on that line. The one per ship limit is a hard code thing.

You could simulate it though by having several different space yard comps at each tech level, with progressivly more construct ability and progresivly larger size as well.

Geoschmo

[Phoenix-D]

"The one per ship limit is a hard code thing."

So is the one per planet thing, but SJ found a way around that. The retrofit code is probably a bit tighter though. More easily abuseable.

Phoenix-D

[dumbluck]

So I discovered. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif It was a cool idea, though (in my admittedly heavily biased opinion). Oh well, that just saves me the trouble of trying to balance the new SY system! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[mlmbd]

Is it possible to mod a componet/facility that has ship building ability, without it being a shipyard?

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font>

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by mlmbd:
Is it possible to mod a componet/facility that has ship building ability, without it being a shipyard?

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, the ability is what defines it as being a shipyard. That is what the game is looking for when limiting the number of them allowed. It's not simply looking at a name or something.

Geoschmo

[mlmbd]

geo, OK, Thanks! Was just wondering!

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font>

[KirbyEF]

Dumbluck,

Please see my post in the Alpha testing thread.

KirbyEF

[ January 30, 2003, 21:53: Message edited by: kirbyef ]

[dumbluck]

No, I haven't forgotten. I've just been a little busy in the Real World. I did have one other thing I wanted to do with the economic issues before moving on to Fighter/PDC/Missle balance: Population bonuses.

If any of you programming gurus would like to help with this one, I'd greatly appreciate it. I can describe what I want the production/construction curves to look like, but I'm not relishing the 3 hours it would take me with a hand-held calculator to figure it all out for every step up...

[Krsqk]

Have you checked out the pop curve SJ has on his site? It's ~700KB, IIRC.

[Fyron]

Send your ideas to SJ. He has a little program he wrote to generate the data for pop curves. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[dumbluck]

Krsqk: Yes, I'm a big fan of P&N on PBW. (it's 2 of my 3 PBW games http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ). However, I was looking for something not quite so.... steep with this mod... for now at any rate. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

IF: Thanx, I should have known to ask him first... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Fyron]

You really thought he wrote a 700 kB settings.txt file by hand? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[dumbluck]

Fyron:Well, you never know.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

All: And no, I haven't forgotten about this mod. I've just been doing a lot of "conceptual" work instead of actual modding... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Ed Kolis]

Always helps to have the concepts laid out ahead of time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif