Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek's Mod Gold [Archive]

Derek

May 8th, 2002, 03:37 AM

Long ago, I wrote a mod or two variously known as Derek's Mod/Dave's Mod. Devnull took that and used it to form the base of the original Devnull mod. Many of the ideas I had were based off the Starfire universe as written by David Weber. Geoschmo and Rollo took over the Devnull Mod, eventually ending up with Devnull Gold, including Space Monsters and such by Rollo.
In a completely seperate course, PvK wrote the Proportions mod, which drastically altered the economic and facility model, and also changed some other things, though none as drastic as the economic.

I took the Proportions and Devnull mods, combined them together, added QNP, along with some of my own things, and ended up with Derek's Mod Gold v1.00 Here it is for anyones enjoyment. If you have any questions feel free to ask on the Boards, or via email (listed in my profile)

Attached is the basic readme for Derek's Mod

<blockquote>quote:<hr>
Summary of Changes

V 1.00 05/07/2002

Initial release as a beta testable mod. If you encounter problems or suggestions, let me know.

Added the Events file from the EyeCandy Mod on the Gold CD, authored by Richard Bradley (Dracus).
The events data file increases the number of events from 17 to 55. There are about 10 positive
events included. The ratio insures that the lucky trait is not degraded.

Added the facilities of Proportions Mod, along with the economic model and some other minor
things from proportions.

Added most of Devnull Mod by Devnull (originally), modified by Geoschmo and Rollo.

Space Monsters courtesy of Rollo.

Added Heavy Sheild Generators from Suicide Junkie.

Added in quasi-Newtonian Propulsion, courtesy of many.

Changed Missiles to 40kT. They were 25kT in Devnull; I thought this was too little.

Changed all the ship sizes; see the attached spreadsheet for a list of the ship sizes and
abilities

Most of the ship sizes now include a good amount of radioactives for production, re-emphasizing
rads.

Added fighter mountable missiles to help absorb some of the point defense that fighters hate.

Weapon mounts are changed so that increasing classes of ships (scout class, destroyer class,
cruiser class, ship of the line, and Monitor) have increasing weapon mounts available to them

Changed many, many other things which I haven't typed up in a readme.
<hr></blockquote>

Enjoy!

Derek

Devin D.Bass

May 8th, 2002, 04:24 PM

Wow! This looks like a great MOD. In fact it might be the ultimate MOD. However, I do have a question...I was looking in the component enhancement and I didn't see large mounts, heavy mounts, or massive mounts that were with devnull or standard SEIV. Did you remove them? And if so what was your rationale? Also, I see that you increased the cost of missles, did you think that it was unbalanced in devnull? I thought it made it extremely challenging, forcing you to pay atttenion to point defense. Finally, I have never used the proportions MOD before what economic changes were made and how will they make a difference in game play. Thanks for the great mod!!!

adder_inf

May 8th, 2002, 04:36 PM

Where are you hiding the mod? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

thanks

Derek

May 8th, 2002, 04:42 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by adder_inf:
Where are you hiding the mod? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

thanks<hr></blockquote>

That would be in the mods section, located here (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000002)

Derek

oleg

May 8th, 2002, 04:43 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by adder_inf:
Where are you hiding the mod? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

thanks<hr></blockquote>

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1020821557.zip

oleg

May 8th, 2002, 04:47 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Devin D.Bass:
Wow! This looks like a great MOD. In fact it might be the ultimate MOD. However, I do have a question...I was looking in the component enhancement and I didn't see large mounts, heavy mounts, or massive mounts that were with devnull or standard SEIV. Did you remove them? And if so what was your rationale? Also, I see that you increased the cost of missles, did you think that it was unbalanced in devnull? I thought it made it extremely challenging, forcing you to pay atttenion to point defense. Finally, I have never used the proportions MOD before what economic changes were made and how will they make a difference in game play. Thanks for the great mod!!!<hr></blockquote>

From Proportion' ReadMe.txt:
Mod Description:
================

Proportions makes large changes to the proportions of economy and development
in Space Empires IV. The scale of several aspects of play have been made more
realistic, along with various other changes.

The most important changes are that homeworlds now begin stocked with
"Cultural Center" facilities which represent the developed cultural homelands
of an empire. These would take a very long time to reproduce on an alien
world, and they are much more productive and capable compared to facilities
which can be quickly constructed on colony worlds. As a result, homeworlds
begin the game quite powerful, whereas colonies are less productive and would
likely take longer than an entire game to develop to the same level as a
homeworld. Colony worlds can be developed to fairly impressive levels with
enough time and population. More achievable than full cultural centers are
city facilities of various sizes, for example.

Contributing to this effect are the changes to populations, which now grow at
a more realistic rate (about 1/10th the normal SE4 rate) and which also
require a more realistic amount of effort to transport to planet to planet,
since they now weigh a more realistic 1000 kT, and cargo capacities mean a
large ship is required to move even one of these. A colony with a small
population also builds at a much slower rate than a world with billions on it.

All of this means that developing a colony infrastructure is still very
important but is also more challenging, and will not so quickly alter the
balance of power or research.
========================================

Derek

May 8th, 2002, 04:51 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Devin D.Bass:
Wow! This looks like a great MOD. In fact it might be the ultimate MOD. However, I do have a question...I was looking in the component enhancement and I didn't see large mounts, heavy mounts, or massive mounts that were with devnull or standard SEIV. Did you remove them? And if so what was your rationale?
<hr></blockquote>

Yes; I decided to go with a limited number of mounts, based on ship class. While there are a large number of ship sizes, thy fall into the following five classes: Escort, Destroyer, Cruiser, Ship of the line, Monitor. Each class allows a new type of mount to be available, from light, to normal, to beam and pulse, to spinal to high energy.

Beyond that, I made a conscious decision to limit the number of mounts.

<blockquote>quote:<hr>
Also, I see that you increased the cost of missles, did you think that it was unbalanced in devnull? I thought it made it extremely challenging, forcing you to pay atttenion to point defense.
<hr></blockquote>

Yes. I felt that 25kT was too small for missiles. On the other hand, I felt 50 Kt was too large. So I settled on 40 kT. In addition to the basic missiles, however, you have the one shot per combat external mounts at 10kT, and you can mount external mount missiles on fighters. Combined, this should be enough to give any point defense problems. I was hoping to emphasize combined arms.

<blockquote>quote:<hr>
Finally, I have never used the proportions MOD before what economic changes were made and how will they make a difference in game play.
<hr></blockquote>

Big question. Proportions basically de-emphasized the colonies, and emphasized your homeworld. It takes a lot longer to build up a colony to produce near as much as a homeworld; the reproduction is lowered to 10% in Proportions. I changed that to 20%, but still, it is large. Also, for low popualtions, the production and construction rate is extermely low. Finally, 1million pop now weighs 1000kT, and you can fit one on a small transport, 2 on a medium, and 3 on a large, along with 1 on a Colony ship and 2 on an Ark ship (large colony ship)

It changes the game quite a bit; I would recommend reading the Proportions mod threads to get some more info on it.

I will get a good read me for my mod, but it might take another couple of days.

<blockquote>quote:<hr>
Thanks for the great mod!!!<hr></blockquote>
You're welcome! Thanks should also go to PvK for Proportions, and Rollo, Geoschmo and Devnull for Devnull

Derek

[ 08 May 2002: Message edited by: Derek ]

Captain Kwok

May 8th, 2002, 05:13 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr> 1 million pop now weighs 1000kT <hr></blockquote>

Are the colonists storing fat to survive the long haul to their new homes?

1 000 kT = 1 000 000 T / 1 000 000 colonists = 1 T/colonist or 1 000 Kg/colonist...

wr8th

May 8th, 2002, 05:15 PM

It's the cryo-chambers. Those things weigh a ton (literally) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

geoschmo

May 8th, 2002, 05:27 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Devin D.Bass:
Wow! This looks like a great MOD. In fact it might be the ultimate MOD....<hr></blockquote>

Mr. Devin D. Bass,

You must immediatley cease and desist from using the term "Ultimate" in referance to the "Derek's Mod Gold". The term "Ultimate" is intellectual property of a Hadrian Aventine and SpaceEmpires.org and is pending copyright proceedings. No use of the term in referance to "Derek's Mod Gold" or any other Space Empires IV mod other than the official "Ultimate Mod" or "Ultimate Mod 2" is permitted.

Sincerly,
I. M. Kidding, esquire
Dewy, Cheatum, and Howe
Attornies at Law

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ 08 May 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Derek

May 8th, 2002, 05:45 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Captain Kwok:

Are the colonists storing fat to survive the long haul to their new homes?

1 000 kT = 1 000 000 T / 1 000 000 colonists = 1 T/colonist or 1 000 Kg/colonist...<hr></blockquote>

Heh. No, but when you consider all the luggage, supplies, support structure and such that you would have to take to emigrate to a completely new planet, along with life support and such for the journey, you might get more than 1 ton per person.

Look at it this way: on a modern cruise ship, which never sails too far from land, and in which you only take enough luggage to Last a week or so, you still have each person occupying a large amount of space. I would say easily tow or three tons per person. Cruise ships weigh on the order of 70kT nowadays, and only hold two or three thousand passengers, along with the same amount of crew. They don't even have to carry their own oxygen.

Even when you consider military transports, you still have a lot of space taken up by incidentals.

Finally, it slows down the growth of colonies, which is part of the point of the economic model of Proportions, and as such, my mod.

On the other hand, I am considering cutting it in half, to 500kt per population point. Thats what playtesting is for http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Derek

Growltigga

May 8th, 2002, 06:06 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:
Dewy, Cheatum, and Howe
Attornies at Law
<hr></blockquote>

are they the US sister firm of Robbem, Screwem and Scarper over here in England?

Wardad

May 8th, 2002, 06:13 PM

Naaa,

They don't SOLICIT at THE BAR in the US. lol

Ok not so funny, you heard it before.

_________________________________________

Rock, Paper, Scissors

[ 08 May 2002: Message edited by: Wardad ]

PvK

May 8th, 2002, 06:58 PM

That's correct.

If you just want nude colonists with no equipment or food or life support, and to drop 'em off on a planet where the gravity and temperature and atmosphere and weather and local creatures are all completely alien to them, and then ask them to start cranking out the Capital ships ASAP, well... they won't even survive the trip. They'll weigh less, but won't do you much good unless your race has the "just add water - freeze-dried hybernation" advantage, or something. And even then, they'll need all sorts of construction, manufacturing, life support, power generation, medical, and other equipment to keep them alive and productive (instead of just becoming castaways) on the alien world.

The other thing is that 1 kT = an abstract measurement that determines what can be put on a design, but otherwise can't be expected to be consistent. We had a long discussion of colony ship sizes and so on on one of the Proportions threads - I think the "Proportions 2.1 released" one. If you start doing math thinking in terms of volume, Proportions' pop sizes start seeming really generous.

Derek, if you include the Starliner Modules from Proportions 2.2, the maximum population transportation rate more or less doubles, which would be easier (and IMO more interesting/realistic) than halving their mass.

PvK

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Derek:

Heh. No, but when you consider all the luggage, supplies, support structure and such that you would have to take to emigrate to a completely new planet, along with life support and such for the journey, you might get more than 1 ton per person.

Look at it this way: on a modern cruise ship, which never sails too far from land, and in which you only take enough luggage to Last a week or so, you still have each person occupying a large amount of space. I would say easily tow or three tons per person. Cruise ships weigh on the order of 70kT nowadays, and only hold two or three thousand passengers, along with the same amount of crew. They don't even have to carry their own oxygen.

Even when you consider military transports, you still have a lot of space taken up by incidentals.

Finally, it slows down the growth of colonies, which is part of the point of the economic model of Proportions, and as such, my mod.

On the other hand, I am considering cutting it in half, to 500kt per population point. Thats what playtesting is for http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Derek<hr></blockquote>

Talenn

May 8th, 2002, 07:03 PM

PvK's post brings up one question I have about this mod. What 'level' of Devnull and Proportions is it up to and is it going to be updated to include the latest and greatest changes as they occur.

I only ask this as I dont want to get addicted to a mod that eventually becomes 'orphaned' like my own original mod did. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Are there plans to keep this bad boy updated? It truly looks like it might be an 'ultimate' (err, yeah...that word) mod.

Thanx,
Talenn

Derek

May 8th, 2002, 08:45 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Talenn:
PvK's post brings up one question I have about this mod. What 'level' of Devnull and Proportions is it up to and is it going to be updated to include the latest and greatest changes as they occur.
<hr></blockquote>

Well, it is based off of Proportions 2.2 and Devnull 1.60, the latest. It even includes some little things that PvK and Rollo told me after they released their mods and gave me permission to use/abuse their mods.

As Proportions and Devnull update their mods, I will look at the updates and see which parts I want to include and which parts I don't. This goes for this release, also; not everything from either Proportions or Devnull is included, and some of the things are new.

<blockquote>quote:<hr>
I only ask this as I dont want to get addicted to a mod that eventually becomes 'orphaned' like my own original mod did. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Are there plans to keep this bad boy updated? It truly looks like it might be an 'ultimate' (err, yeah...that word) mod.
<hr></blockquote>

Well, I won't promise to update religiously, as I have a life, also, but I do plan on doing my best. I will promise to at least let everyone know if I have to abandon it. It shouldn't come to that, however.

Derek

Derek

May 8th, 2002, 08:49 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr>
Derek, if you include the Starliner Modules from Proportions 2.2, the maximum population transportation rate more or less doubles, which would be easier (and IMO more interesting/realistic) than halving their mass.

<hr></blockquote>

I probably will; I kept them out of the original release; I'm not sure exactly why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Some more playtesting is necessary, I think. The engine model is currently not working out exactly how I wanted, for one.

Derek

Derek

May 8th, 2002, 09:18 PM

Next component, by the way, that I am working on is the 'Bomb-Pumped X-Ray Laser'

The range will be extreme (10 for level 1 up to 20 for level 5) and it will skip armor (possibly also shield, but not sure about that) but the damage it does will be very low. I'll see how it works.

Derek

Nebraskan

May 9th, 2002, 01:41 AM

Derek, I D/L'd your mod today and was checking it out and found something missing, I think.
You hve left in the tech and ship sizes for making mines and mine layer components for laying mines. However, I could not find any mine sweeper components for removing them.
Are the sweepers hidden or were they left out on purpose? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

oleg

May 9th, 2002, 07:43 PM

It is not the ultimate mod for sure. To become one, Derek must add pirate/nomade races. That would do it.

Tnarg

May 9th, 2002, 09:02 PM

Whooo, I've been waiting for something like this for a long time. Thanks for consolidating almost everything into one mod. This makes my life much easier.

Couple questions.

One I noticed that in the quadrant choices, they are just the standard choices offered in the regular game. I know that the proportions mod has quiet a bit, did you just leave those out?

Two I spent about a week designing a map from proportions that I was going to use: A Tri Polar with lots of goodies here and there. Probably can't use that in your mod right?

Three, I noticed that their is the small infantry (from proportions) file in the pictures folder; however, in the game when I try to design my troops, just the regular small, medium, and large show up.

Four, now that you have heavy bombers and gunboats, would the ability to load boarding parties or landing troops on these be kind of hard to incorportate perhaps in the future as an idea.

Five, thanks again, just what I needed.

PvK

May 9th, 2002, 09:45 PM

Offhand, I would expect you to be able to generate a map in Proportions and/or the map editor, and then load it into other mods like this one... because... I think most of the map data occurs during creation and editing, rather than being referred to data files during play. Not sure though - you'd have to go check.

PvK

capnq

May 9th, 2002, 10:13 PM

If you save a map within the game, then load it into the Map Editor or another game, the systems and system objects will be there, but nothing will be colonized. The Map Editor will let you specify which planets will be players' first homeworld, but there's no way to control a multi-planet start.

If you're trying to set up a scenario, you have to do it as a savegame.

Derek

May 9th, 2002, 10:27 PM

Originally posted by tnarg:

One I noticed that in the quadrant choices, they are just the standard choices offered in the regular game. I know that the proportions mod has quiet a bit, did you just leave those out?
I will be adding those in in the next release, due out sometime this weekend; I wanted to make sure things worked first without those.

Two I spent about a week designing a map from proportions that I was going to use: A Tri Polar with lots of goodies here and there. Probably can't use that in your mod right?
Shouldn't be a problem, as soon as I add in the Tri-Polar

Three, I noticed that their is the small infantry (from proportions) file in the pictures folder; however, in the game when I try to design my troops, just the regular small, medium, and large show up.
I was going to muck about with the ground combat stuff, but then decided I wanted to work on the space combat and economy first. Ground combat changes may or may not make it into the next release.

Four, now that you have heavy bombers and gunboats, would the ability to load boarding parties or landing troops on these be kind of hard to incorportate perhaps in the future as an idea.
I would love to do that, however, I am not sure yet the effect on game balance, if it is even possible. I'll have to see. Probably not in the next release, but maybe after.

Five, thanks again, just what I neededYou're welcome; be sure to welcome PvK and Rollo, also.

Derek

Derek

May 9th, 2002, 10:29 PM

Originally posted by oleg:
It is not the ultimate mod for sure. To become one, Derek must add pirate/nomade races. That would do it.That is on the list of to-do's, but way down near the bottom. Part of the problem is that Pvk's Proportions so changes the economic model (in ways that I like, mind you) that Pirates & Nomads will have to be changed drastically to work correctly.

Derek

jimbob

May 9th, 2002, 11:52 PM

Hmmm.. I think the P&N v2.6 (currently beta) will help a great deal with this fusion of the mods.

Of course, Suicide Junkie is the guy to ask.

ZeroAdunn

May 10th, 2002, 12:05 AM

Actually I was thinking about how to add pirates to Proportions:

1: Make two race types ala P&N mod.

2: Make the city type facilities and colony modules require normal.

3: Give pirates some sort of early boarding abilities, a maintanance reduction component, and scraping bonus facility.

Why didn't you add a warbase? It would be nice to see larger sized bases.

How about a battle moon??? I love those things.

ZeroAdunn

May 10th, 2002, 12:11 AM

Forgot to mention that I think proportions is perfectly suited for Pirates. The low increased value of ships, and the slower advancement produces an atmosphere where pirates could seriously prosper. Also the increased number of transports milling about produces a greater number of targets for pirates to attack.

I geuss pirates would probably need some sort of uber storage facilities too.

jimbob

May 10th, 2002, 12:15 AM

In P&N they have said Uber-Facilities (me thinks so anyway... oh, now 'm double guessing meself)

Edit - me spelling

[ 09 May 2002, 23:16: Message edited by: jimbob ]

Tnarg

May 10th, 2002, 12:19 AM

Alright, few more questions:

one, I noticed in the readme that the Derek's Mod Gold incorporated some newtonian travel methods. I'm used to the proportions method of bigger ships, slower travel, how drastically different is this from the travel method utilized in the Derek's Mod Gold? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

two, I also noticed in the readme that some of sizes of ships have certain amounts of engines allowed. In the colony ships, and smaller, I can have as many as space allows. Is this supposed to be like that? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

three, the PD cannons have the special ability to sweep mines, which makes sense. Can they also serve as regular anti seeker and fighter purposes like the description says.

Four, gravitic drive is gone? Does the solar sail replace its functions? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Five, I like how you added a few more advanced trait technologies. Any more up your guys sleeves?

Thank you for time and patience.

Just for curiosity sake, when do you think that you would be release the next Version. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Derek

May 10th, 2002, 12:22 AM

Originally posted by ZeroAdunn:
Why didn't you add a warbase? It would be nice to see larger sized bases.

How about a battle moon??? I love those things.Hmm, well, I was thinking about it; 2500kT is pretty large, allready. What size do you suggest for a battlemoon or warbase?

Also a problem with the battlemoon is if you use QNP, it will generate a range check error, since the number of engines per move must necessarily be huge, and the corresponding number of movement points will overflow the 255 limit in the hard code.

Of course, you can fix this by not letting a battlemoon use engines at all, and instead assigning a base movement rate, unchangeable.

I'll have to think about it.

As for Pirates & Nomads, I haven't put enough time into understanding it to implement it in Derek's Mod yet. When I do, I'll contact SJ and ask him for permission to pilfer P&N and incorporate many parts of it into my mod.

Derek

TerranC

May 10th, 2002, 12:24 AM

Originally posted by Derek:
[QUOTE]What size do you suggest for a battlemoon or warbase?

Also a problem with the battlemoon is if you use QNP, it will generate a range check error, Of course, you can fix this by not letting a battlemoon use engines at all, and instead assigning a base movement rate, unchangeable.
2000KT for Warbase
1750/2250 for battlemoon

"Gravitational slingshot effect creates natural movement for battlemoon" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Suicide Junkie

May 10th, 2002, 12:27 AM

Yep.
Name := Pirate Hoard
Description := Large, hidden cavern which stores unused resources.
120,000 gold in them thar hills, arrrr!

How about a battle moon??? I love those thingsE-yep. Nothing like a Napalm bomb the size of a Battleship (800 KT) to put fear into the enemy!

Derek

May 10th, 2002, 12:32 AM

[QB]Originally posted by tnarg:[QB]
one, I noticed in the readme that the Derek's Mod Gold incorporated some newtonian travel methods. I'm used to the proportions method of bigger ships, slower travel, how drastically different is this from the travel method utilized in the Derek's Mod Gold? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif
It incorporates quasi-Newtonian propulsion. What this means is that each engine type gives a certain amount of standard movement points. Add up the totals for all engines on a ship and divide this by the enigines per move, and you will get the actual movement rate of the ship. For example, if you have 7 Military grade Quantum engines on ship, each engine gives 5 movement points for a total of 35 movement points. If this ship is a Heavy Cruiser, it requires 6 'engines per move'. 35 divided by 6 gives 5, with a remainder. The remainder is dropped, giving an actual movement rate for the ship of 5.

The engines per move is basically, the kT of the ship, divided by 100, rounded down. The Military grade engines give 2, 3, 4, or 5 from Ion to Quantum, and the Commercial give 1, 2, 3, 4 from Ion to Quantum, but are more efficient in supply usage.

two, I also noticed in the readme that some of sizes of ships have certain amounts of engines allowed. In the colony ships, and smaller, I can have as many as space allows. Is this supposed to be like that? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif
The max engines per ship is 99; in other words, your ship can go as fast as you can fit engines into it, with regards to space.

three, the PD cannons have the special ability to sweep mines, which makes sense. Can they also serve as regular anti seeker and fighter purposes like the description says.
Yes, of course they also act as normal PD. In the next release, I am putting Mine Sweepers back in and reducing the mine sweeping ability of PD, but not eliminating it completely. There will be some use for both PD and for Mine Sweepers.

Four, gravitic drive is gone? Does the solar sail replace its functions? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
Yes; solar sail is from original SEIV. I'm sticking with that for now, although I might introduce Gravitic Drive as a possible combat speed enhancer.

Five, I like how you added a few more advanced trait technologies. Any more up your guys sleeves?
Maybe; it depends on how creative I get.

Thank you for time and patience.

Just for curiosity sake, when do you think that you would be release the next Version. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif No problem; the next release Version should be this weekend.

Derek

Krsqk

May 10th, 2002, 12:35 AM

Giving the battlemoon a definite movement rate will prevent Ionic Dispersers from destroying their engines in combat. Of course, Ionic Dispersers probably couldn't take out engines for a ship the size of a tiny planet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

jimbob

May 10th, 2002, 12:46 AM

Also a problem with the battlemoon is if you use QNP, it will generate a range check error, since the number of engines per move must necessarily be huge, and the corresponding number of movement points will overflow the 255 limit in the hard code.Shouldn't the battlemoon be incredibly slow though? If this is the case then a maximum speed of say 5 would require 250 mp total (50 mp/movement). The best output by a engine is about 5, so make the limit for the number of engines = 50. If the poor sucker doesn't have quantum engines, he'll just have really slow battlemoons.

My preference would be to have mammoth engines that have much larger mass and higher output (but still a max output ratio of 0.5 mp per kT). This would allow the player to design the ship without having to manually put 50 engines on, and then have to go through the whole thing again when a new engine comes along.

my .02$

Suicide Junkie

May 10th, 2002, 01:07 AM

A couple of points:

1) For a relative scale, my BattleMoons are 10,000 KT.
This gives an EPM of 200 for P&N. Since your thrust scale is half of mine, a 10,000 KT ship in your mod would have 100 EPM.
At that rate, your Battlemoons would be able to go 2 or 3 sectors per turn (3 with propulsion experts).
You may want to increase the size further in order to slow them down without bending your laws of physics;)

2) Adding a large price to the hull of your BattleMoons can help immensely in balancing the tech. Be sure to test their combat effectiveness against standard ships.

3) Mammoth engines are very nice and useful for Human players, but they will FUBAR any and all AI designs. If you intended to make this a humans-only mod, ignore this.

4) You do not need to place any artificial restrictions on the number of engines. If a player accidentally goes over the 255 limit, SE4 will RCE, but will continue running. The player can remove the offending engine and continue play normally.

Derek

May 10th, 2002, 01:42 AM

Err, no. I'll check on that. However, PD also acts as mne sweeping; thats a relic from the early days of SEIV when the AS never would put minesweeping components on ships.

Thanks for the headsup.

Derek

Derek

May 10th, 2002, 06:25 AM

Here is the current summary of changes for Derek's Mod Gold v 1.02

Summary of Changes

v 1.02 05/09/2002

Added Mine Sweepers back in; these were originally taken out in the Devnull Mod, and Mine Sweeping was given to Point Defense. I changed Mine Sweepers to 20 kT as opposed to 30Kt but I added in a radioactives requirement to simulate the methods of mine detection

Reduced the mine sweeping ability of Point Defense Levels 1,2,3 now sweep 1 mine, and lvls 4 & 5 sweep 2 mines

Added in Combat Bridge; 20 kT vice the bridges 10kT and costs much more minerals and rads, along with some organics, but armored and improves offense and defense by 5%

Added in Weapons Platform Command Centers; live human crews running weapons platforms give offensive bonuses, but cost more.

Added in boarding defense to Crew's Quarters; it makes sense that any crew could defend its ship, even if they are only Navy squids....

Added in 10kT Cargo Compartment and 5kT Cargo Niche to fill up ship space

Same thing with Supply Compartment and Supply Niche

Added Deep Station (1000kT) and War Base (2000kT as new base types; changed Base Construction tech to reflect 5 levels of base types, but cut cost of Base Construction in half

Played around with Base Mount sizes to ensure each new level of Base allowed a new type of mount

Added in Gravitic Drives (I, II, III) which increases combat movement, and give combat defensive bonus, but are 100kT. Worth it for larger ships.

Changed Engineering Department to generate extra movement, rather than combat movement. It now does not interfere with Gravitic Drive. Also acts as somewhat of a damage control, as it takes 50kT of space, but is worth 250kT of structure. Also increased radioactive cost

Cleaned up the Facilities.txt, removing all duplicate facilities that are relics from Proportions; they were there so that Proportions could be easily upgraded.

Added in Large Planetary Shield Generators, which are about half as effective, and more expensive than the alien Version, but still provide protection for a planet. Also added in associated technology.

Replaced my quadranttypes.txt with the one from Proportions; rather than doing the work myself, I figured there was no reason to re-invent the wheel, and used the excellent one in Proportions written by PvK

Increased the Combat Bonus of Combat Sensors by 5% each sensor; I felt there were not enough hits at long ranges in combat.

Added in Kaon Torpedos; torpedos made of kaons, a type of mesons with an interesting decay pattern that results in Kaon Torpedos doing more damage at longer ranges. Also put in the associated technology, which requires Physics 4 and Torpedos 6 before Kaon Weapons can be researched.

Increased the Combat to hit of every attack ship size by 5, same reason as for Combat sensors

v 1.01 05/08/2002

Added bomb pumped X Ray Lasers. Long range, low damage, skips armor and shields. They need tech area 'X Ray Lasers' which needs a number of other techs

Changed Capital Ship Missiles speed to 8 from 6

Changed HBM Missiles to speed 5 from 4, and added in Quad damage to shields.

v 1.00 05/07/2002

Initial release as a beta testable mod. If you encounter problems or suggestions, let me know.

Added the Events file from the EyeCandy Mod on the Gold CD, authored by Richard Bradley (Dracus). The events data file increases the number of events from 17 to 55. There are about 10 positive events included. The ratio insures that the lucky trait is not degraded.

Added the facilities of Proportions Mod, along with the economic model and some other minor things from proportions.

Added most of Devnull Mod by Devnull (originally), modified by Geoschmo and Rollo.

Space Monsters courtesy of Rollo.

Added Heavy Sheild Generators from Suicide Junkie.

Added in quasi-Newtonian Propulsion, courtesy of many.

Changed Missiles to 40kT. They were 25kT in Devnull; I thought this was too little.

Changed all the ship sizes; see the attached spreadsheet for a list of the ship sizes and abilities

Most of the ship sizes now include a good amount of radioactives for production, re-emphasizing rads.

Added fighter mountable missiles to help absorb some of the point defense that fighters hate.

Weapon mounts are changed so that increasing classes of ships (scout class, destroyer class, cruiser class, ship of the line, and Monitor) have increasing weapon mounts available to them

Changed many, many other things which I haven't typed up in a readme.
Thats enough for today; some more changes tomorrow, and some more AI tweaking, and v 1.1 should be released during the weekend.

Derek

[ 10 May 2002, 07:09: Message edited by: Derek ]

Tnarg

May 10th, 2002, 07:26 AM

So this is an update already? Wow, where do we download?

Tnarg

May 10th, 2002, 07:35 AM

whoops, sorry, should have finished the paragraph.
This weekened sounds good.

Suicide Junkie

May 10th, 2002, 07:38 AM

Added in boarding defense to Crew's Quarters; it makes sense that any crew could defend its ship, even if they are only Navy squids....Crew quarters already have a built in FOUR points of boarding defense. That is the equivalent of 16 troopers/turrets in the descriptions. Even though it doesen't show up as an ability in the text file, it IS there, hardcoded.

They don't need an extra explicit ability.

However, Psychic races should probably get thier own copy of the crew quarters with added defense points.

Derek

May 10th, 2002, 08:03 AM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Crew quarters already have a built in FOUR points of boarding defense. That is the equivalent of 16 troopers/turrets in the descriptions. Even though it doesen't show up as an ability in the text file, it IS there, hardcoded.

They don't need an extra explicit ability.

However, Psychic races should probably get thier own copy of the crew quarters with added defense points.I did not know that. I'll have to do some thinking, then, especcially in rgards to Psychic races.

Derek

ZeroAdunn

May 10th, 2002, 08:40 AM

I've got this idea that I think would be cool, I've been working on modifying the Data files from Devnull to allow you to capture a space monster and then "disect" it to get a new tech area which will allow you to "Grow" space monsters. My idea is it will give you basicly the same components, just a little bit weaker or larger and way more expensive.

I was also had the idea of adding a space monster that has no weapons but instead cargo holds ala farscape. Probably creating a creature that could carry 5-8 pops, thus making a wonderful prize. Though I don't know how the AI would handle this.

Great work, I love this mod!

Phoenix-D

May 10th, 2002, 09:03 AM

"Probably creating a creature that could carry 5-8 pops, thus making a wonderful prize."

Wonderful prize indeed.. that thing could carry an absoultely hidious amount of troops, fighters, mines, whatever.

Phoenix-D

ZeroAdunn

May 10th, 2002, 09:10 PM

Oh yeah, and with their regen abilities they would make some monster troop landers!

Devin D.Bass

May 10th, 2002, 10:09 PM

Derek, please consider putting in some of component mods that are in devnull, such as heavy, massive, dreadnought, ER range mounts.

Question, could I swap the component.txt file in devnull with your component.txt? I love everything else.

Thanks again!

Derek

May 11th, 2002, 02:41 AM

Originally posted by Devin D.Bass:
Question, could I swap the component.txt file in devnull with your component.txt? I love everything else.

Thanks again!Do you mean the compenhancement.txt, which is the one that contains the mount information? If so, I have no problems with that. If you mean the actual components file, you are also more than welcome to do so, but you should know that I started with the basic devnull component.txt and added things to it. I changed some things in devnull (most notably, I increased the missile weights from 25kT to 40kT) but I did not take anything out of devnull components.txt, but rather added more to it.

Regardless, you are welcome to do whatever you want with it, as long as you have fun!

Derek

jimbob

May 11th, 2002, 07:44 PM

Regardless, you are welcome to do whatever you want with it, as long as you have fun!Man, that's what I love about this forum - everyone is pretty willing to share their ideas for the betterment of the game experience. I did some modding stuff on Age of Kings, and some of those people were downright posessive (and some just lived to crap on other people's work http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif ). While some of the work was great, I just shook my head at the protectionism and insults.

It's nice to be in a modding community where there's a significant level of respect and cooperation. (I think it shows in the quality of the mods too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

TerranC

May 11th, 2002, 07:50 PM

And that is why this game is one of the best in the 4x league. Cause everybody wants to have a piece of it.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Free Modding Economy.

Derek

May 14th, 2002, 12:45 AM

Both because of real life, and because the Boards were down, the next Version is delayed till Tuesday afternoon, California time.

I promise it will be out then.

One thing going in will be some changes to monsters; it is rather embarrassing to be the creator of a mod, and have part of your mod killing you consistently. My excuse is that Rollo actually made the space monsters, I merely included them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Derek

Rollo

May 14th, 2002, 03:47 AM

Originally posted by Derek:
...One thing going in will be some changes to monsters; it is rather embarrassing to be the creator of a mod, and have part of your mod killing you consistently. My excuse is that Rollo actually made the space monsters, I merely included them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

DerekYeah, monsters are pretty tough aren't they. In Devnull Mod missiles work well against them, but you toned them down in your mod http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif (no offense, just banter).
I agree that monsters need some modifications and the new Version is almost ready (next weekend, I suppose).

Rollo

Derek

May 14th, 2002, 08:04 PM

Here's the latest changes:

v 1.04 05/14/2002

Added in BuckyTube Gel Plating, courtesy of Suicide Junkie, from his P&N mods. Also added in 'BuckyTube Engineering' tech area, to complement it.

Messed with the AI over the weekend. It still needs work.

Raised Monster Tech to 250k (from 200k) because the monsters are still kicking my butt when I play it....that'll show 'em!

Cleaned up a number of minor things

v 1.03 05/11/2002

Changed the combat to hit modifer per square from 10 to 5; I wanted long distance weapons to have a reasonable chance of hitting

Changed population mass from 1000 to 500; while I like the Proportions model, I wanted it to be a bit faster, especcially in moving people around

I would be posting v 1.04 today, but, no uploads on the board. When the uploads are working, I'll post it.

Derek

Tnarg

May 14th, 2002, 10:01 PM

I'm trying to use a downloaded ship set. Do I just extract the image files into the pictures folder of Derek's Mod, or everyhting or what? I have never quite been able to use other ship sets in other peoples mod. I need someone to write "Modding for Dummies" Thanks.

Suicide Junkie

May 14th, 2002, 10:11 PM

You want the shipset's files to end up in the following place:

c:\...\se4\"modname"\pictures\races\"coolshipset"\"coolshipset"_cruiser_portrait.bmp

Where the items in quotes should be changed appropraitely for the shipset and mod.

Tnarg

May 14th, 2002, 10:30 PM

Suicide Junkie, um, I don't know how I really did it, but it seems to work. I extracted the ship set, SWemp1 into only Derek's Mod folder. I didn't do anything other than that.

I loaded up a game to see if they were there and they were. Might I be expecting some crashes in the future because I extracted this way? Thanks.

Tnarg

May 14th, 2002, 10:38 PM

Oops, one Last thing, Derek mentioned that the mod update is done, just not available for uploading on this formum. Is it available to upload somewhere else. Thanks

Derek

May 15th, 2002, 01:09 AM

Well, here you go. The latest Version, v1.04 is up.

Located here (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=50;t=000002)

Derek

Talenn

May 15th, 2002, 04:56 AM

Derek:

Just FYI, I dont believe the Missile mounts are functioning properly. I did some tests with your mod and one of my own using Missile mounts that did increased damage and the extra damage doesnt appear to be added.

This was something I recall from the initial release of SE4 and it doesnt appear to have been implemented.

You can run some tests yourself (it works best if you REALLY increase the damage so that you can easily see if they are getting it or not) and if there is something I'm missing, please let me know.

Thanx,
Talenn

Tnarg

May 15th, 2002, 05:12 AM

Just because:

I think I have Star Wars fever, and therefor am starting a campaingn of conquest of a new galaxy utilizing the Star Wars Empire ship set which conviently contains extra ship styles to accomadate the Derek's Mod extra ship classes nicely. I like variety. Unfortunately, there are only three troop types. Derek, What are the odds that you might add a few more, ie: infantry (a bunch of pee shooter bearing grunts that serve as track pads) and huge troops (those majestic ironclad behemoths that instill mortal fear in those common folk that don't know any better -without firing a shot) so that I may utilize some of those cool stormtroopers and AT-AT's. I really like your fighter concept, and it adds nicely to creating specialized units, I would like to extend that to the ground pounders.

Maybe like in PvK's proportions, you could manipulate those track pads into cannon fodder masses(cheap, but sure can hold their ground - defense bonus) and specialized infantry with some to hit and defense bonuses, but really expensive(something that could be greatly utilized in cargo holds of a gunship sized fighter and dropped covertly past enemy planetary defenses.)

Breakdown:
Infantry *TL I (Pea Shooters)
Small Troops *TL II (Light and Heavy Weapons)
Medium Troops *TL III (LW and HW, armor and other gizmos, ex: IFV's)
Large Troops *TL IV (tanks and artillery)
Specialized Infantry *TL IV (special forces, rangers, recon)
Huge or Behemoth Troops *TL V (Toys R Us on the go)

Also, I don't know if I requested this before; but, what about adding boarding party components to be utilized on gunship sized fighters, perhaps the ability to land troops on planets too(see above example of special forces). I don't know if this would be hard to mod in, it sure would be cool though.

Did I mention that this is an excellent mod. Bravo. So what do you think about those troops. Thanks.

Derek

May 15th, 2002, 05:34 AM

As for the ground troops, ground combat has never been a big thing for me in SEIV, so that wasn't high on my priority list. I will be getting to it, perhaps in the next release Version.

Boarding partys on gunbaots worry me, since I'm not sure how the AI will handle it. Could be interesting. I will look into that. What will most likely happen is that the boarding party component will be so large, it will render the gunboat useless for most other things, in order to prevent the boarding parties from being put onto the smaller fighters.

Just FYI, I dont believe the Missile mounts are functioning properly. I did some tests with your mod and one of my own using Missile mounts that did increased damage and the extra damage doesnt appear to be added.

This was something I recall from the initial release of SE4 and it doesnt appear to have been implemented.
I remember that, back in the days of the original Derek's mod. I'll check it out, and let you know.

Derek

Derek

May 15th, 2002, 05:43 AM

Thouroughly depressing. The HE missile mounts decrease the range of the missiles, as I wanted them to, but it didn't increase the damage. I'll have to come up with another scheme.

Derek

PDF

May 15th, 2002, 06:52 AM

Originally posted by Derek:
Thouroughly depressing. The HE missile mounts decrease the range of the missiles, as I wanted them to, but it didn't increase the damage. I'll have to come up with another scheme.

DerekHaving a HE mount doing double damage for only -2 to range without additional space/cost needed seems somewhat unbalanced IMHO...
(edited, I streamlined the idea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ) :
Why not trying rather to have mounts change only ranges (considering that bugs prevent damage modifier from working) ?
Create :
* a short range mount : 75-80% size/cost, range -2
* and a Long Range mount : 120-140% size/cost, range +3 or +4 (call this one Long Lance !)
(you can even make more variations...)

We'll basically have a smaller and a bigger missile with same explosive charge and varying amount of fuel.. Neat ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ May 15, 2002, 07:06 AM: Message edited by: PDF ]

PvK

May 15th, 2002, 09:45 AM

I thought range didn't do anything with missile mounts, either, no?

In essence, you can't change the missile itself with a mount - only the launcher. So you've only got a few things to play with using missile mounts:

size
structure
cost
rate of fire

At least, that's what I thought.

PvK

Derek

May 15th, 2002, 11:56 PM

Well, thouroughly depressingly, it appears you all were correct. You can not affect range, or damage with mounts for missiles. Well, you can actually reduce range, but not increase it. If you increase it, the game will let you fire at the increased range, but the missile will dissappear once it is outside it's normal range. If you decrease the range, the game won't let you fire outside the decreased range.

Anyways, I took out the missile mounts.

Derek

oleg

May 16th, 2002, 02:17 AM

Is it possible to set an upper hull level for mounts ?

If yes, then you can turn all arond : normal missile will have a long range, but only a "small" mount will be available for small hulls that gives a penalty to the range. Large hulls will have larger mounts with smaller penalty till they reach "normal" missile.

Derek

May 16th, 2002, 02:23 AM

No, unfortunately not. However, the AI will use the highest mount it is allowed to use for a certain hull size, so you won't see AI ships with lesser mounts. If two mounts have the same hull requirement, the AI will use whichever one comes Last in the compenhancement.txt file.

As modifiable as the game is, there are some limitations. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Derek

Tnarg

May 16th, 2002, 03:29 AM

I'm curious on how the luck trait applies to Derek's Mod. Yes, half the chance for bad events; but, half the chance for good events too, or double? On that note what are the frequency rates for medium or high catastrophy frequencies. 1 out of 20 for high and something like 1 out of 50 for medium? I have only once encountered a catastrophic event, and I was playing at a medium rate for the most part.

Then on to technology research rate. Am I going to be looking at impossibly long periods of research ie, 10-20 years the further I advanced, or would you recomend just playing with average tech cost.

I have been reading some of the previous Posts, and it looks like mounted missles are no good to use. Am I correct on that assumption? Thanks

Derek

May 16th, 2002, 05:17 AM

Originally posted by tnarg:

I have been reading some of the previous Posts, and it looks like mounted missles are no good to use. Am I correct on that assumption? ThanksYes, you are correct. In the next release there won't be any special missile mounts, because they just don't work.

Then on to technology research rate. Am I going to be looking at impossibly long periods of research ie, 10-20 years the further I advanced, or would you recomend just playing with average tech cost.
Well, I've been playing as much as I can, both for fun, and to figure out the bugs, and while I never get the huge amount of research points that you get in regular SEIV, I still slowly push it up to around 100k research points. This shouldn't take too long to research anything at that rate, except some of the highest levels of ship construction, and a few other techs.

The key is to research computers until you get Central Computer Complex III and then scrap one of the facilites on your homeworld and replace it with a CCC III. This will really help your research.

Derek

Tnarg

May 16th, 2002, 07:59 AM

So do you play the game with the technology tech cost set to medium or high?

PDF

May 16th, 2002, 09:35 AM

Originally posted by Derek:
No, unfortunately not. However, the AI will use the highest mount it is allowed to use for a certain hull size, so you won't see AI ships with lesser mounts. If two mounts have the same hull requirement, the AI will use whichever one comes Last in the compenhancement.txt file.

As modifiable as the game is, there are some limitations. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

DerekSo you however could let choice between :
- "LR" mount with max missile range (having upped the missiles range themselves), mount size 125%
- "Normal" mount with somewhat reduced range (-2), size 100%
- "Small" mount with more range reduction (say -5), size 80%

Any ship could carry any mount, but you can tradeoff between say 3 LR mounts/4 normal/5 short.

Is it possible to have a "fast mount" with reduced reload time (to 2) ? How ?

Derek

May 16th, 2002, 03:36 PM

Originally posted by tnarg:
So do you play the game with the technology tech cost set to medium or high?Medium

PDF: Thats not a bad idea. I might look into that. There are no changes to reload rate allowed in the missile mounts, however.

Derek

Derek

May 16th, 2002, 03:40 PM

Addendum: You can make all new components that launch faster, and thats one of the thoughts I have for Derek's Mod; missile launchers that have a faster rate of fire, at a cost of extra supplies, less damage, more cost, etc...

Derek

Derek

May 16th, 2002, 05:43 PM

Also, I don't know if I requested this before; but, what about adding boarding party components to be utilized on gunship sized fighters, perhaps the ability to land troops on planets too(see above example of special forces). I don't know if this would be hard to mod in, it sure would be cool though.
Remember what I said earlier about how some things are unchangeable? Well, it appears that fighter type craft cannot be used to capture other ships, even if they mount boarding parties. It appears to be a hard code issue. If anyone knows more about this, let me know.

Derek

Derek

May 16th, 2002, 06:37 PM

A note about future Versions of the mod:

It requires the image mod; all the images in the imagemod are from a variety of sources, including Proportions, Devnull, P&N, and many others. The point of the image mod is to download one set of images to be used for all mods, and put the imagemod files into your main SEIV pictures directory, thus decreasing the d/l size of the various mods out there, instead of having each mod come with its own images.

So, having said that, you can go to the main Imagemod page HERE (http://www.geocities.com/hohoho611ca/imagepack.html)

If you have trouble installing it, after reading the readme files, let me know, and I will do what I can to help, or refer you to someone who can. This will also be posted on the message when I upload the next Version of Derek's Mod Gold, sometime next week, most likely.

Derek

PvK

May 16th, 2002, 09:01 PM

If you really want to do this, you could try using the allegiance subverter ability, although I think that might not be resisted by security stations.

PvK

Originally posted by Derek:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />
Also, I don't know if I requested this before; but, what about adding boarding party components to be utilized on gunship sized fighters, perhaps the ability to land troops on planets too(see above example of special forces). I don't know if this would be hard to mod in, it sure would be cool though.
Remember what I said earlier about how some things are unchangeable? Well, it appears that fighter type craft cannot be used to capture other ships, even if they mount boarding parties. It appears to be a hard code issue. If anyone knows more about this, let me know.

Derek<hr /></blockquote>

geoschmo

May 16th, 2002, 09:13 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
If you really want to do this, you could try using the allegiance subverter ability, although I think that might not be resisted by security stations.

PvKYes, I think you are right about that. It's too bad that the Master computer's ability to resist the subverter and it's ability to replace ship control functions aren't seperate abilities. Then you could mod something like this in I think and just give the security station the resists subverter ability.

Geo

[ May 16, 2002, 20:14: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Tnarg

May 18th, 2002, 08:29 AM

Derek,
I tried clicking on your imagemod here to download and I got a "sight temporarily down". Any where else that I can download this, or is this just a temporary thing? Thanks.

Oh yeah;If you don't mind my prying, but what do you have in store for us on the next round? Again, thanks.

Derek

May 18th, 2002, 06:57 PM

Originally posted by tnarg:
Derek,
I tried clicking on your imagemod here to download and I got a "sight temporarily down". Any where else that I can download this, or is this just a temporary thing? Thanks.
Well, it's not my image mod; IIRC, Suicide Junkie is the one who compiled all the images together, and made all the files match. Many people had input into it, but SJ is the final coordinator.

The site goes up and down; you should eventually be able to get the imagemod from there.

Oh yeah;If you don't mind my prying, but what do you have in store for us on the next round? Again, thanks.Here is the latest couple of changes from the readme file:

v 1.06 05/16/2002

Imported, basically intact, the ground combat troops and components from PvK's Proportions Mod. Basically, there are two types of troops:
Infantry, with a weight of 1kT and Infantry Small Arms and Heavy Weapons which weigh 1kT, so those infantry units can use them, and regular small/medium/large 'troops' (which I will probably rename to something else) which can mount the normal troop components. Also, I made the changes PvK did, so that fighters can only mount fighter weapons, and troops only troop weapons.

Introduced Rapid Fire Missile Launchers I - V, a new component that launches missiles every round in order to saturate point defense, but the actual missiles are much lighter, with less damage resistance and do less damage, at slightly shorter ranges.

This Mod now REQUIRES the image mod. It is not included in the mod, but is located for download here : http://www.geocities.com/hohoho611ca/imagepack.html
If you do not have the imagemod, I recommend you get it and put it in your main SEIV directory; it holds images for almost every mod out there.

Fixed some typos in the tech areas that messed up the tech requirements for Kaon Weapons and for Bomb-Pumped X-Ray lasers

v 1.05 05/15/2002

Removed missile mounts, since no matter what you do in compenhancements.txt, the missiles still do the same samage, and have the same range. Depressing.

PvK

May 18th, 2002, 07:58 PM

"Imported, basically intact, the ground combat troops and components from PvK's Proportions Mod. Basically, there are two types of troops:
Infantry, with a weight of 1kT and Infantry Small Arms and Heavy Weapons which weigh 1kT, so those infantry units can use them, and regular small/medium/large 'troops' (which I will probably rename to something else) which can mount the normal troop components. Also, I made the changes PvK did, so that fighters can only mount fighter weapons, and troops only troop weapons."

- I would also recommend, if you haven't already, getting the AFV shields, AFV armor, and the relevant settings.txt entries (militia strength, number of ground combat turns, ground combat damage multiplier), or at least looking at what's in Proportions and adjusting from there. Note too that some of the tech requirements were changed in Proportions, to stretch them out beyond the puny 3-level tree for ground weapons in the standard set - you might need to make sure all the AFV equipment is reachable with your TechAreas.txt file's maximum research levels.

PvK

Fyron

May 18th, 2002, 09:02 PM

You can download the Image Mod from one of the mirrors. Mine is located at:
http://galileo.spaceports.com/~kazharii/other_art/imagepack/imagepack.html

[ May 18, 2002, 20:06: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Derek

May 19th, 2002, 06:35 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
- I would also recommend, if you haven't already, getting the AFV shields, AFV armor, and the relevant settings.txt entries (militia strength, number of ground combat turns, ground combat damage multiplier), or at least looking at what's in Proportions and adjusting from there. Note too that some of the tech requirements were changed in Proportions, to stretch them out beyond the puny 3-level tree for ground weapons in the standard set - you might need to make sure all the AFV equipment is reachable with your TechAreas.txt file's maximum research levels.

PvKAlready on it. Thanks for the heads up, however, I might have missed it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Derek

Wardad

May 21st, 2002, 12:18 AM

Derek, is it ready for PBW?

Derek

May 21st, 2002, 01:59 AM

Originally posted by Wardad:
Derek, is it ready for PBW?Good question.

Answer: I have no idea. I have never done the PBW, so I don't know what needs to be done to get it ready for PBW. If you know, or can point me in the direction of a set of guidelines, I would be more than happy to do what I can.

One caveat: it will be sometime this week that I release a new Version, incorporating some changes, including the changes pertinent from Rollo's Devnull Version 1.61.

Derek

Fyron

May 21st, 2002, 03:07 AM

Basically, being ready for PBW means that there are no crippling bug or play-balance issues.

Derek

May 21st, 2002, 03:29 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Basically, being ready for PBW means that there are no crippling bug or play-balance issues.Then the answer is yes, with one caveat: playing as a space monster would be a crippling play-balance issue.

Derek

PDF

May 22nd, 2002, 11:05 PM

Hmmm, I didn't know 1.04 was NOT save-compatible with 1.00 ... My ships have fancy comps now, I just have to start over http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif !
Any ETA for next Version ? (so I can wait before starting a new game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

[ May 22, 2002, 22:13: Message edited by: PDF ]

Derek

May 22nd, 2002, 11:18 PM

Later today, or early tomorrow. I promise!

Derek

Derek

May 22nd, 2002, 11:20 PM

Oh, and sorry about the save imcompatibility. I made a conscious decision not to expend effort worrying about save compatibility. I should have said that.

Once again, sorry about that.

Derek

Derek

May 23rd, 2002, 03:26 AM

Latest Version (v1.08) posted. This should be the Last one for a while that messes with the components file, so you can avoid worrying about save incompatibility.

Here's the list of changes:

v 1.08 05/22/2002

Played with AI some more. Still have AI problems.

Lowered the Tech Level requirements for Kaon Weapons and X Ray Laser Weapons so that they might actually be used

Changed Research generation of Research Facilities to 150/200/250 for I/II/III (compared to standard SEIVg of 500/600/700 this is still low) to speed up research a bit. Also slightly increased research amounts of various city/colony/arcology types.

v 1.07 05/19/2002

Incorporated the changes to Monsters from Rollo's DevnullMod v1.61

v 1.06 05/16/2002

Imported, basically intact, the ground combat troops and components from PvK's Proportions Mod. Basically, there are two types of troops: Infantry, with a weight of 1kT and Infantry Small Arms and Heavy Weapons which weigh 1kT, so those infantry units can use them, and regular small/medium/large 'troops' (which I will probably rename to something else) which can mount the normal troop components. Also, I made the changes PvK did, so that fighters can only mount fighter weapons, and troops only troop weapons.

Introduced Rapid Fire Missile Launchers I - V, a new component that launches missiles every round in order to saturate point defense, but the actual missiles are much lighter, with less damage resistance and do less damage, at slightly shorter ranges.

This Mod now REQUIRES the image mod. It is not included in the mod, but is located for download here : http://www.geocities.com/hohoho611ca/imagepack.html
If you do not have the imagemod, I recommend you get it and put it in your main SEIV directory; it holds images for almost every mod out there.

Fixed some typos in the tech areas that messed up the tech requirements for Kaon Weapons and for Bomb-Pumped X-Ray lasers

v 1.05 05/15/2002

Removed missile mounts, since no matter what you do in compenhancements.txt, the missiles still do the same damage, and have the same range. Depressing.

Here (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=50;t=000002) is the thread from which you can download the mod.

Derek

Spoo

May 23rd, 2002, 06:19 AM

Changed Research generation of Research Facilities to 150/200/250 for I/II/III (compared to standard SEIVg of 500/600/700 this is still low) to speed up research a bit. Probably just a typo, but how does decreasing the research generation speed up research? By the way, great job on this mod!

Phoenix-D

May 23rd, 2002, 06:42 AM

I think he upped them from an even *lower* amount, and was comparing the new amount to unmodded SE4.

Derek

May 23rd, 2002, 07:23 AM

Originally posted by Spoo:
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> Changed Research generation of Research Facilities to 150/200/250 for I/II/III (compared to standard SEIVg of 500/600/700 this is still low) to speed up research a bit. Probably just a typo, but how does decreasing the research generation speed up research? By the way, great job on this mod!<hr /></blockquote>Well, in the previous Versions, the research centers were straight from PvK's Proportions Mod, which had them at 100/120/140 So, 150/200/250 is a big jump, but it still maintains somewhat of the sense of the Proportions, which is what I wanted. By the way, the point behind Proportions mod, as PvK has said, is that your homeworld, of which you have only one, is the most important planet. There can be colonies that are almost as good as it, but never as good as.

Derek

Tnarg

May 23rd, 2002, 08:47 AM

Does anyone know if the lucky trait in Derek's Mod has any effect on getting those good events.

Yeah, half the chance for bad events, but is it also half the chance for good events too? Or does it really work to the advantage of a lucky race and good times just happen around every corner.

Thanks,

Derek, thanks for putting in the extra troops. One fellow ground pounder to another. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Tnarg

May 23rd, 2002, 09:38 PM

Another question. I noticed in the new mod 1.08 that the external mount missles were supposed to be taken out. However, I noticed that I can still research them. Should this be so? Or am I thinking that something completely different was taken out.

Also when I researched Missles II and the icon for Rapid Fire Missles came up as an orange laser looking cannon. No fears though; in the ship component screen, red triple mount missles appear.

One Last thing, what exactly does the telepathic armor and stunning troops do? Hows' that work in the game?

Thanks.

Tnarg

May 24th, 2002, 05:20 AM

Ok, I promise this should be it for a while. I noticed that the heavy bombardment missle doesn't show up in the little component box, but for the main description it is there. I tested to see if they work, and they do, it's just an aeshtetic issue i guess(blank box), and one can't tell what the percentage to hit is in combat. Is there any easy way fix this?

I have downloaded all of the image mod too. Other than that my game is coming along beautifully. The AI actually has me contained, not for long though. Arrghh.

Thanks

Shadowstar

May 27th, 2002, 08:01 AM

Help!

I've installed the mod and run it for a while and its great but Im having some trouble with it.

It seems to be missing some images. I installed the image mod files but Im still missing a bunch.

I can't view some of the facilities descriptions/modifiers screens because it cant find the image files it needs. I looked at my pictures/facilities folder and I see the problem.

The pictures I seem to be missing are Facil_072.bmp all the way through Facil_100.bmp. I have 101 through 241, which were installed by the image mod.

These images aren't in the mod and they aren't in the image mod, so where do I get them? Someone help me out here!

Fyron

May 27th, 2002, 08:36 AM

and one can't tell what the percentage to hit is in combat...Umm... missiles don't have a chance to hit. They either hit the target, or run out of "fuel" and die.

Derek

May 27th, 2002, 04:41 PM

This weekend is incredibly busy, but as soon as it's over, I'll look into the image problems people seem to be having.

Sorry about the lack of a quick fix!!!

Derek

PDF

May 30th, 2002, 02:26 PM

Derek,
A little quirk in my games : the AI fills all his "transport" designs with Colony modules...
I suppose this is due to the fact that the Cargo cap of a Colony module is superior to a 20kT cargo...
Simple solution IMHO is to make like in Proportions a much bigger Colony Module and a bigger Colony ship so that modules don't fit in transport hulls http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
This thread needed a *bump* also http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PDF

May 31st, 2002, 05:48 PM

(follows my previous post)
Bug is proven, all AI transport designs use Colony modules http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif
I tried to make the colony modules 800Kt and the colony ships 1000Kt and ARGGGL ! Now the AI does not put ANY cargo in the Transport designs (ship should not even be allowed !). I checked this for several races so it's not an issue of a particular Ai design file ...
What's the heck ? The files correctly lists "cargo" as Must Have ability 1 , so ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

oleg

May 31st, 2002, 09:44 PM

Increasing the colony module size will not help.

Similar, albeit slightly different, problem exist in Proportions with Starliner module and cargo bays. PvK solved it by assigning bogus ability to Cargo bays, for example "Star - Unstable". Then he replaced "cargo" with "star - unstable" in transport designs in AI_design.txt file. Since only cargo bays have this ability, AI build ships with cargo bays !

PDF

May 31st, 2002, 11:13 PM

Oleg,
Thx for the reply, but I don't understand how the AI design work... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif
* My Colony ships have required "colony" ability and size is OK, and the AI don't design any !! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif
* And the transports have cargo requirement, why don't they put standard cargo bays, (now that colony components too big to fit), and instead design ILLEGAL ships ???? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
AI is mad ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif
I really want to avoid bogus ability use, it makes AI files even more cryptic ...
Perhaps the simplest solution is just to remove any cargo ability from colony module and making colony ships big enough to hold colony comp + 500 Kt cargo yo hold 1M pop.
Whaddaya think of this ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ May 31, 2002, 22:15: Message edited by: PDF ]

capnq

June 1st, 2002, 12:06 AM

the transports have cargo requirement, why don't they put standard cargo bays, (now that colony components too big to fit), and instead design ILLEGAL ships ???? It's well known that the AI doesn't follow all of the design restrictions placed on human players.

Derek

June 3rd, 2002, 10:35 PM

Please forgive me for the lack of updates. This Last week has been really hectic. Among other things, I am now a 2ndLt of Marines, as opposed to a Staff Sergeant. Not long from now, my life will get even busier. However, I do promise to keep up the work on Derek's Mod. Among the issues that currently need resolving are the image problems, the cargo problems, and the AI problems.

Well, this week seems like it won't be so busy, so I should be able to get some work done.

Derek

PDF

June 5th, 2002, 10:33 PM

Finally I have made cargoless colony comps, they seem to work OK as far as design is concerned http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ... but I don't know if AI manages to colonize in this case (ie you have to put a pop trans along the colonizer to have the colony produces anything). I'll have a look... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Phoenix-D

June 5th, 2002, 11:14 PM

"but I don't know if AI manages to colonize in this case (ie you have to put a pop trans along the colonizer to have the colony produces anything). I'll have a look... "

Look in settings.txt, there's an entry to make colonies start out with a certain amount of population.

Phoenix-D

Spoo

June 6th, 2002, 06:08 PM

I was using DavidG's Tech/Facility/Component Viewer, and I think I found 2 small bugs:

1) Commercial Grade Contra - Terrene Enigines I generate 2 movement points, but II and III generate 3. The Military grade all generate 3. This makes the Commercial a better choice for this limited point in the tech tree.

2) ECM III, IV, and V all come at Combat Support level 3.

ZeroAdunn

June 11th, 2002, 04:24 AM

So what is going on with this mod?

Suicide Junkie

June 11th, 2002, 04:29 AM

1) Commercial Grade Contra - Terrene Enigines I generate 2 movement points, but II and III generate 3. The Military grade all generate 3. This makes the Commercial a better choice for this limited point in the tech tree.I reccommend making the Military grade engines slightly smaller, rather than increasing thrust.

That will give you finer control over the value difference between the engine types.

Derek

June 11th, 2002, 06:42 AM

Originally posted by ZeroAdunn:
So what is going on with this mod?Still working on the next Version. I have NOT abandoned it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Derek

Derek

June 11th, 2002, 06:53 AM

Another question. I noticed in the new mod 1.08 that the external mount missles were supposed to be taken out. However, I noticed that I can still research them. Should this be so? Or am I thinking that something completely different was taken out.
The mounts were taken out, were similiar to the mounts for weapon types, in that you could have the smae weapon, PDC for example, as a heavy mount, or large, or pulse, etc...

Mounts for missiles don't work correctly, and it is a hard code issue, so nothing I can fix.

External mount missiles were/are entirely different components. They are single shot missiles, (reload time of 30), that take up on 10 kT of space as opposed to regular missiles, with 40 kT(IIRC) of space. So, you can load more of them, but once they fire, they are done for that combat. It simulates a large number of missiles in tow, or mounted externally to the the ship, and are used to overwhelm the enemies point defense in the initial barrage.

Derek

Derek

June 11th, 2002, 06:56 AM

The image problems are rather weird; I am having the same problems. Not sure what is wrong.

Derek

Tnarg

June 11th, 2002, 06:58 AM

Still with you, this is a great mod; however, I'm curious to know what you might be adding to the next update, and a possible ETA. Would it by any chance radically change my current game. Which I might add is getting incredably involved and intense.

The AI, a 20th place AI, actually is putting up a hellish defense. I've finally taken their homeworld, but their remaing fleet refuses to give in and is doing a number on my assault fleet. Good job who ever revised the Serregetti AI.

Derek

June 11th, 2002, 07:02 AM

Originally posted by Tnarg:
Still with you, this is a great mod; however, I'm curious to know what you might be adding to the next update, and a possible ETA. Would it by any chance radically change my current game. Which I might add is getting incredably involved and intense.
No, no radical changes, mostly bug fixes.

The AI, a 20th place AI, actually is putting up a hellish defense. I've finally taken their homeworld, but their remaing fleet refuses to give in and is doing a number on my assault fleet. Good job who ever revised the Serregetti AI.[/QB]Glad to hear it!

Derek

Derek

June 11th, 2002, 07:10 AM

Part of the problems people are having with images even though you have d/l ed the image mod, you still have to do the following as per the readme file in the image mod

To install this imagemod, copy all the contained files into your ".../SE4/Pictures/components" directory.
Replace "components.bmp" with "Newcomponents.bmp". All of the original SE4 images are contained in the new BMP, so all other mods and saved games will not be affected.
Do this, and all should be fine, I think.

Derek

Derek

June 11th, 2002, 07:12 AM

I take that back. All problems with components should be fixed, but the facilities.bmp is wrong. I'll look into it some more.

Derek

Shadowstar

June 13th, 2002, 07:35 AM

its not just the facilities.bmp, its actual missing files. Like I had posted earlier, I am missing image files between Facil_073.bmp to Facil_100.bmp

These are actual files missing from both mod zips. To fix the problem, simply include these files in the next release.

[ June 13, 2002, 06:36: Message edited by: Shadowstar ]

Phoenix-D

June 13th, 2002, 08:19 AM

"To fix the problem, simply include these files in the next release."

The mod does not and never HAS included those images. See, they are from the area reserved for standard SE4 images. Are you sure you aren't using the wrong #s?

EDIT: OK. Proportions uses some of those slots for images. In the Imagemod those were bumped to higher #s since 1-100 was reserved for standard SE4 images in case MM decided to add more images.

Phoenix-D

[ June 13, 2002, 07:24: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

Derek

June 13th, 2002, 04:45 PM

Somehow I seemed to have gotten those files into my pictures directory. Most likely, they are relics from other mods, Proportions being the prime suspect. The next Versions of Derek's Mod will have the correct image numbers for the correct facilites.

Sorry about the confusion/problems.

Derek

Tnarg

June 21st, 2002, 07:49 PM

Derek, I have been pluggin along trying to figure out why the mini images don't show up. I have tried editing in new component images, but still the little mini images never show up. These are the ones found in the ship design screen, and when there is combat. They just show up as a white box or black. The description or large image does however show up when you click on the white or blank box.

The components I am having trouble with are the Bomb-pumped laser, Kaon Torps, Rapid Fire Missle Launcher, and the Heavy Bombardment Missles. I also beleive that there are a few facility images that don't show too.

Do you have any advice on how to fix this?

Thanks.

dumbluck

June 21st, 2002, 08:26 PM

Is this mod going to use the Image Mod?

Suicide Junkie

June 21st, 2002, 08:31 PM

The minis are all found in components.bmp

It sounds like you have the comp####.bmp, but you missed the components.bmp.

If you are trying to use the imagemod, You need to delete (or move or rename) your old "components.bmp" and replace it with "newcomponents.bmp"

I didn't want the imagemod to overwrite any files automatically, but if it saves trouble, I might just have it overwrite just that one...

Tnarg

June 21st, 2002, 09:03 PM

Suicide Junkie, what did you mean by your first statement. The one about having component ####.bmp, but not component.bmp?

Also I have removed the original component file and replaced it with the newcomponent file. This is in the Derek's Mod Pictures Folder that I have done this, in the components folder.

I tried this in the original SEIVgold pictures/component folder once before and have found that I can not load any other mods other than Proportions and Derek's Mod. So I had to go back and place the original components.bmp with the newcomponents.bmp. Why?, I do not know.

Derek

June 21st, 2002, 09:46 PM

What you have to do, is place the newcomponents.bmp in your main pictures file in your main SE4 directory, and then rename it as components.bmp It sounds like you are doing everything correct, except for the renaming part.

The facilities image problems will be taken care of in the next release. It was mostly a mistake on my part.

Derek

Derek

June 21st, 2002, 09:47 PM

Originally posted by dumbluck:
Is this mod going to use the Image Mod?Yes, it does, as of Version 1.06 of Derek's Mod

Derek

Derek

June 21st, 2002, 09:51 PM

By the bye, the reason there is no new release lately is twofold.

First, I am stuck for ideas. I would like to add/change some things, but I am not sure what.

Second, I am waiting for the next patch of SEIV to come out, so I can modify the compenhancements.txt file for some things.

Third (ok, threefold, not twofold), I am waiting for PvK to release Version 2.3 of Proportions, so I can see what parts of that I am going to incorporate.

Most likely, whether the new patch for SEIV is out or not, the next Version of Derek's Mod will be out shortly (within a day or two) of PvK's Proportions v2.3

Provided, of course, he does not mind that I am still basing the economic portion of my mod on his mod

Derek

Tnarg

June 22nd, 2002, 05:37 AM

Ahhh at Last, all I can say is duh. Thanks Derek, my image problems have finally been solved. Isn't it funny that the most obvious solution is the one that is most steered away from. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Derek

June 22nd, 2002, 07:13 AM

Originally posted by Tnarg:
Ahhh at Last, all I can say is duh. Thanks Derek, my image problems have finally been solved. Isn't it funny that the most obvious solution is the one that is most steered away from. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif Everyone, no matter how smart they are, occasionally makes a dumba$$ mistake http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Actually, it's usually the smart ones that make even more mistakes...

Derek

PvK

June 22nd, 2002, 07:54 AM

Originally posted by Derek:
...

Third (ok, threefold, not twofold), I am waiting for PvK to release Version 2.3 of Proportions, so I can see what parts of that I am going to incorporate.

Most likely, whether the new patch for SEIV is out or not, the next Version of Derek's Mod will be out shortly (within a day or two) of PvK's Proportions v2.3

Provided, of course, he does not mind that I am still basing the economic portion of my mod on his mod
I'm happy you are, Derek!

Proportions 2.3 ... I said this Last week, and maybe the week before, but I really mean to try to release it this weekend. The AI has just been hard to get right, and I've had very little clear-headed time to do it.

PvK

[edited for punctuation]

[ June 22, 2002, 06:55: Message edited by: PvK ]

Tnarg

June 22nd, 2002, 08:40 AM

As far as ideas go, what about:

1) One more round of troops. What are there so far? Infantry, mobile, small, and large? I really like the diversity of sizes in the fighter class, so maybe a little bit more diversity in the ground troops. Huge troops. (For those of us that like to build them anyhow.)

2) I read in some novel somewhere that an advanced alien race used "Organic Engines". The engines were basically a special species so evolved that it basically could manipulate time/space. In SEIVGold perspective they could be sort of an Organic branch solar sail, gravitic drive, or something.
2b) Utlimatley these organic engines folded space like the "Guild Steersman" from dune. Obvisouly creating warp points is a bit more complex, or is it? Perhaps one of the racial traits combined with the Stellar manipulation tech that allows warp point manipulation. Cheaper?, Farther Distance?

3) The Kaon torpedoes are great, as is the X-ray bomb pumped lasers (for picking off weapon platforms) Perhaps some more excotic weapons to expound on incorporting unconventional quantum physics, or any other new and theorized phields of physics.

4) Quantum Computer technology and facilities for defeating intelligence programs of other races.

5) I still would like to really see one of the gunboats to be able to load boarding parties. Yes I know that it is a coding issue. But darn it, would that be fun.

6) Some sort of component that would enable one to turn an asteroid belt into a drone or missle arsenal. Manipulation of asteroid trajectories to turn them into heavy bombardment missles, or in for praticallity drones with only planet warheads. Only works in the system that there is a targeted planet and asteroid.

7) More crystalline technology. For what one spends, there is so little to offer. Perhaps a few more tech levels, and the higher level weapons, really do heavy armor skipping damage.

8) Perhaps one or two more classes of ships. Really, really big, 5000kt or so, but really, really expensive. The pride of the fleet, the secret weapon, the one that decides all. The one that bankrupts your empire.

9) Is there any way to incorporate an area effect weapon. I have noticed a few AI grouping their ships in a tight formation. I think MOOII had a few area affect weapons to break up formations. Of course this is not MOOII, but you would know more than me as to if area effect weapons are possible in SEIVGold. I fear that this is a no, pehaps in SEV.

I have plenty more locked up in the ol brain, but I have an empire to run. If interested in any more let me know. Some of it is pretty off the wall bizzarre stuff though. Stuff that I don't think the current SEIV programing can do.

Thanks for spending the time to read this.

Spoo

June 22nd, 2002, 08:23 PM

8) Perhaps one or two more classes of ships. Really, really big, 5000kt or so, but really, really expensive. The pride of the fleet, the secret weapon, the one that decides all. The one that bankrupts your empire. I second this one. Something Battlemoon/Worldship sized.

Tnarg

June 23rd, 2002, 09:24 AM

I have been playing around with DavidG's mod editor, trying to create new components. I think that the Organic Engine thing could work.

I set it up similar to a gravitational resonator?(warp point opener), changed a few things here a few there. Instead of being destroyed after use I just had it cost a whole heck of alot, and used tons of supplies, and was of course big. To avoid leaving open warp points all over the galaxy I suppose one could include a warp point closer on their ship too. Maybe it could somehow be included in the abilities of the actual engine. Opens a warp point and simultaneausly closes one. I'll play around with it some more.

Instead of being just an Organic tech, it would seem more logical to have it obtainable only with an Organic/Temporal Race, being that in theory the engine actual folds time/space, but it is an organic highly specialized and evolved bieng that mentally does this.

mottlee

June 23rd, 2002, 07:59 PM

Hmmm....I may have a prob, I doo a lot of R&D so this my be the prob, I find ruins but get no tech from them, any Idea?
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

PvK

June 24th, 2002, 07:32 AM

There are two reasons (in Proportions, not sure about Derek's) for not getting tech from ruins.

One is that you already knew the tech you discovered.

In Proportions mod, there is the added chance that the ruins actually didn't have anything useful enough to give you a sudden tech boost. The Proportions planet types include a lot more ruins or things that look like ruins, but actually won't give you anything. This way, you have to explore to find out if you'll actually get something or not, which adds uncertainty and makes sense. I don't know if Derek kept this in his Version of the planets file, or not.

PvK

Derek

June 24th, 2002, 03:06 PM

Yep, sure did http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

On a side note, because of unavoidable circumstances, I will be gone/out of touch for about 3 weeks. This means no updates. On the other hand, by the time I get back, the next patch for SE4 should be out, and I can incorporate those changes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Derek

Shadowstar

June 25th, 2002, 12:10 AM

In my ongoing development of Starscape, I've included a much more detailed level of ground combat.

I've got 3 types of infantry: small, medium, and large, they don't require any kind of "bridge" and are very cheap. The research is also cheap, you research "Infantry" (there is no more "Troop" research field)

The other type of ground unit you can develop is Ground Vehicles, researchable as "Mechanized/Mechanical Combat". This field costs more to research and the units are more expensive (as well as much bigger), but have alot of advantages over infantry.

There are 4 types of ground vehicles: small, medium, large, and assault (real big). Most of these vehicles can mount some of the larger "small" weapons that normally appear on ships, whereas infantry can't. Additionally, I've added vehicle mounts that only the ground vehicles can use, ranging from small vehicle (which is larger than the "normal" mount - intended for infantry), medium vehicle, and large vehicle (real big).

Although ground combat isn't as detailed in the game as Space Combat, I figure that's no reason I can't make it more interesting... Obviously, vehicles are better to use than Infantry, but are more costly and require control centers. I also created a sort of aux. bridge for the vehicles. If the pilot is killed, a computer system can kick in and pilot the vehicle to safety. You have to research computers as well as mech combat to get it. Dunno if it will actually be of any use though.

Anyway, if Derek wanted to include something like this in his next update, it would be cool for me to see how these ideas would actually work, as Starscape is still a long way from completion. I've got a bunch of new ship types and I want to make new shipsets for the existing Starscape races. Right now, I'm just trying to put together a generic race set. I've also still got to work on AI and get it fixed up to work with the new features.

I'm thinking of borrowing (with permission) components from Derek's mod too. They would work well in Starscape with some of the new ideas I'm experimenting with.

So, how bout it? Can I borrow them?

Suicide Junkie

June 25th, 2002, 12:39 AM

Note that damage to troops is not tracked at the component level. Either the entire troop fully operational, or it is completely destroyed.
Any "backup" components will never be used.

Also, be watch the damage per kt on the weapons.
A meson bLaster may do 20 damage using 20 kT, but a small meson bLaster does 5 damage using only 2 kT.

Shadowstar

June 25th, 2002, 01:07 AM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Note that damage to troops is not tracked at the component level. Either the entire troop fully operational, or it is completely destroyed.
Any "backup" components will never be used.

Also, be watch the damage per kt on the weapons.
A meson bLaster may do 20 damage using 20 kT, but a small meson bLaster does 5 damage using only 2 kT.Ok, so I can remove the emergency backup system for the vehicles.

I haven't actually changed any of the weapons around, aside from the ground cannon which I'm developing into more of an infantry-only weapon (renaming it combat kits I, II, and III - basically provides enough standard issue weapons/equipment for the entire unit.) Right now the only thing preventing a player from using combat kits on a vehicle is that the combat kits are pretty useless for anything but infantry.

It's still in development, but I'm thinking about creating a whole set of weapons designed specifically for infantry. They would be small enough so that infantry could carry them, but I would also like to prevent vehicles from mounting them in huge masses (I think it would look and work strangely). I suppose the best way to do that is by using damage per kt, and just give the troop weapons a worse ratio, and low building/maintenance costs so that they are ideal for infantry.

What effect (if any) does weapon range have on ground combat? Or is it all about the damage?