To Suicide Junkie

[ArchAngel7]

I'm playing the P&N mod 3.1b and I've noticed that NONE of the other races colonize- not a single one. I'm wondering how to approach this mod now because it basically became a walk through for me. I absolutely love the tech. in this mod!. But should all the other races be choosing pirates or nomads? Shouldn't some be colonizing? Or should I be approaching the mod as a pirate or nomad in order to play as it was designed. Can I go to the traits file and delete the pirates/nomads trait option? Would that make the races into colonies while still allowing me to play with your awesome tech. I need your help here!

[Suicide Junkie]

All of the AIs should be purchasing the Normal Trait.

You do have to set the game up for at least 2000 points, though, or the AIs don't have a chance to choose traits.

If you have added new races, such as TDM, you will also need to use the AI Patcher.

P&N is designed to be playable with the human as a Normal race. It will be a bit easier than standard SE4 or TDM, though.
The Pirate and Nomad traits are there for a much harder and very different type of game.

[ArchAngel7]

I gave all of the races maximum on everything. But even by turn 50 not a single race had colonized another planet. I simply took my ships and glassed all their planets. It seemed to me that it was easier than the normal game. In the regular game the other races were colonizing and building fleets. That's another thing I noticed was the absence of fleets. If all the races are suppose to choose normal where do the pirates and nomads come into play?

[Suicide Junkie]

All the AIs should be picking the Normal trait...
If you right-click on one of them, and check out which traits they have purchased, what does it say?

The Pirate and Nomad traits are there for the human player to choose, and result in a totally different game. It basically turns into an up-close-and-personal game of survival at any cost.

When you are playing as a Pirate or Nomad against properly working normal AIs, you can and should use any cheap tricks you can come up with. Tactical combat is a must, and capturing ships for tech is very important.

[ October 21, 2002, 23:44: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[ArchAngel7]

I clicked on about a half dozen and they were all normal traits. How do you account though, for the fact that not a single one is colonizing. This is about turn 56.

[Suicide Junkie]

Hrm...
The colony ships don't have a 3life-support requirement, do they?

[ArchAngel7]

Yes they do.

[Suicide Junkie]

That would be why they're not building colony ships then...
I didn't think that little test tweak had gone beyond my test game with Fyron.

[ArchAngel7]

What do I need to change in the data/ship file? Make it 1 life support?

[Suicide Junkie]

That should do it.

I'm on dialup right now, so I'll have the official link corrected by tomorrow.

[ArchAngel7]

I guess I should have asked this Last night, but is the Battlemoon expected to move in this mod?

[Suicide Junkie]

In order to get a battlemoon to move, IIRC, you need 67 Ion Engines, or 34 Quantum engines.
Just keep piling on the engines, and it'll go.

If you add too many engines, the speed will overflow, and SE4 resets it to zero.
Thus, the maximum speed available is 1mp on a battlemoon. If you have propulsion experts, this becomes 2mp on the system map.

[ArchAngel7]

The reason I asked is because you have it written as " engines per move- 200", "requirement max engines- 99". If you need 200 for 1 movement but can only put on 99 your never going to go anywhere.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by ArchAngel7:
The reason I asked is because you have it written as " engines per move- 200", "requirement max engines- 99". If you need 200 for 1 movement but can only put on 99 your never going to go anywhere.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Enignes per move is not actually ENGINES per move. It's actually movement points per move. In the stock game each engine gives one movement point, so these two are the same. In this mod engines give more movement points per engine, so it is possible to have more than 200 movement points, and still have less than 99 engines. So she'll go. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

[ October 22, 2002, 15:20: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Geo's got it.

Ion engines give three standard movement, CT gives 4, JP 5, Quantum 6, and Grav drive IV's give 7 movement points per engine.

You need one movement point for every 50 kt of ship in order to get 1 speed.
The Battlemoon weighs 10,000 kt, so 10k/50 = 200 points to get speed 1.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Geo's got it.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">*blush*

The reason I knew that is because that exact point is what took me so long to get and why I didn't understand the QNP for the first year your mod was out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I kept looking at "Engines per move" and thinking "ENGINES per move" and it was confusing me big time.

Geoschmo

[ArchAngel7]

No offence SJ, but is there anyway I can change the engine movement back to the regular SEIV. It's killing me to take up one third of my available kts to move maybe 8 or 9 movements. Actually I did indeed try to adjust it, but it seems that even though there were restrictions showing on engine allowance and I had to abide by them in ship design the races AI were able to bypass them somehow. IE I made engines per movement 1 and max. engine requirements 2 or 3 depending on ship size. These restrictions did show up on ship design, but during the game I noticed some races with 15-20 engines anyways and I wondering how they were able to do that with the new engine restrictions I created?

[Pax]

Originally posted by ArchAngel7:
No offence SJ, but is there anyway I can change the engine movement back to the regular SEIV. It's killing me to take up one third of my available kts to move maybe 8 or 9 movements.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You'll hate exopdus, then. It uses a new "m/QNP" format ... I posted the idea some time back, but in essence, Se4 v1.78 allows form mounts specific to certain ship sizes, and even specific to a single component family (or a list of them), like say ... only engines.

Using those, Exodus sets engines to be 40% of ship mass, to produce their rated movement (2 to 6 apiece). While you can have up to 2 engines -- and solar sails which give 1 to 5 bonus movement points -- on a single ship, that leaves not much room for aught else. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

The concept is, a bigger ship should require more engine to move at X speed, than the smaller ship did.

Actually I did indeed try to adjust it, but it seems that even though there were restrictions showing on engine allowance and I had to abide by them in ship design the races AI were able to bypass them somehow. IE I made engines per movement 1 and max. engine requirements 2 or 3 depending on ship size. These restrictions did show up on ship design, but during the game I noticed some races with 15-20 engines anyways and I wondering how they were able to do that with the new engine restrictions I created?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">First off, editting datafiles after a game starts, might leave some designs already in place for the AI ...

Second off, to change it back, you need to (first) hunt down every Last Engine's entry in components.txt, and change their abilities back in line with stock SE4 (1 MP each, ascending bonus move levels, etc). You will then have to go into vehiclesizes.txt and modify each and every entry there, to reflect stock-se4 style movement values.

[Suicide Junkie]

It's killing me to take up one third of my available kts to move maybe 8 or 9 movements.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Woah, 9 movement! You must be in a hell of a hurry. (well for a warship, anyways. For a scout design, that's quite slow)

If you can't afford the speed, simply go slower! Take off a few engines, and cruise around at 6 to 7 MP.

In standard SE4, speed is life. Always put the max engines on. Boring, no thought required.

QNP fixes that, and forces you to consider the tradeoffs. More speed is good at first, but then starts to impact your combat worthiness. Decide what's best for you!
The point of QNP is that you get to find your own balance of Speed / Weapons / Defenses.

In games with my family, my Dad goes for super-fast, defenseless ships. My brother likes slow, lightly protected, Weapon-heavy ships. I load up on defense.
The strategies, respectively are: "Win by being everywhere at once, and never getting hit", "Blow 'em away before they can fight back", and "Win by never dying, outlive your enemy"
Which one is best has yet to be determined.

The only Version of P&N that has regular SE4 style movement is P&N classic, and that's for SE4 v1.49 (pre-gold)

In order to change QNP back to standard SE4 propulsion, you'd have to:
1) Change all ships to have 1 engine per move, max engines 6, or whatever their normal max is.
2) Delete all engines, solar sails, and replace with normal SE4 drives.
3) Replace all AI_design_creation.txt with the files for unmodded SE4.
4) Clean up the mess that makes in things that depend on the QNP. Battlemoons, for one. Probably lots more.

[ October 22, 2002, 19:01: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Phoenix-D]

"These restrictions did show up on ship design, but during the game I noticed some races with 15-20 engines anyways and I wondering how they were able to do that with the new engine restrictions I created?"

AIs don't care about restrictions, and they don't abide by them unless you design them to.

Phoenix-D

[ArchAngel7]

I prefer speed, warp speed!. I'm playing with Fyron's maps and it will take 3 or 4 years to see the galaxy at 9 movements per turn http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ! There's no way I'm going to go through the procedure you just outlined to change it back http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Possibly I can change the kt size of the engines to leave more room for other things, or increase the size of the ships. Why did you put a limit on the number of movement points per ship anyways? Just curious.

[Suicide Junkie]

The limit on MP per ship is a hardcoded thing. The movement points on a ship are stored as a single byte in memory, so 255 + 1 = 0 (overflow)

Also, how does FQM affect the distance from one side of the galaxy to the other? Its 13 moves max from one side of a system to the other, and warppoints are instantaneous to the next system.

You can always develop warppoint manip if you're really in a rush!

[ October 22, 2002, 20:24: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[ArchAngel7]

Your right. But do you think I could enter a PBW game with my escorts at 1500kt? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

You know, that gives me an idea for the Humans- Only Version.

I could add a tech area "!Speed-Turbo", and one called "!Speed-Medium".

They would be disablable by the person creating the game, and the best available one would trump the others.

Slow would be say -2 speed on all engines currently in the game.
Medium is normal.
Turbo could double engine speeds.

Instant speed options, and only one mod to download!

[ArchAngel7]

I like it! Go to it Mod Meister SJ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Ragnarok]

That does sound like a pretty spiffy idea.

[ArchAngel7]

By the way SJ, I seemed to have lost the .bmp for the Battlemoon and I'm wondering what AI races in the mod were actually programmed to build this thing?

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, none of the AIs are actually designed to use battlemoons.

They're a bit too big and expensive, and I'd hate to see them get a few stuck in a black hole system (not enough speed to ever escape)

The battlemoon image is taken from images\planets. It is the Huge Rock/None world with the giant crater in the otherwise-smooth surface. Looks somewhat like a deathstar. Just copy into the generic shipset folder and rename it.

[ArchAngel7]

Well, I think it's a "must-have" if you're going to play as the Galactic Empire http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

You can always build battlemoons, its just that (most) AIs aren't programmed to build anything that big.

Even if the shipset dosen't include a Worldship picture, the mod will use a planet picture instead.
There are few races that include their own special image, and the image is not required for the mod to work. The space Vikings are one that does include one; try 'em out.

[ArchAngel7]

I added drones to vehicle size and components but they still don't show up under unit creation. What do I need to do? Thanks. - for P&N of course!

[Suicide Junkie]

I am planning to add drones as a Pirate-only tech.

If you add the regular drones without further modding, they'll be really messed up as to speed. Pull out the movement bonus, and watch the mass/engines per move setting.

You will need to alter the following entry in techareas.txt to get your drones available for research:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Name := Drones
Group := Applied Science
Description := A dummy tech area
Maximum Level := 5
Level Cost := 10000
Start Level := 5
Raise Level := 0
Racial Area := 999
Unique Area := 0
Can Be Removed := False
Number of Tech Req := 0</pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

[CombatSquirrel]

S_J,

Still getting the biggest kick out of P&N, but I wanted to ask you the rational of increasing the Tonne Structure of Engines so rapidly in comparision to the damage delivered by Engine Destroying Weapons. Was this just necessary for play balance?

The way it works, for my solo games, is that my nomads can rarely develop EDW to a level to have any effect on the planet-bound, bonused AI. I can sink the lion's share of my diminished research into the attempt, but it seems to be always 2 or 3 levels too few.

Combat Squirrel

p.s. did I say thanks yet?

[Baron Munchausen]

Did you factor mounts into your estimate of Engines-only weapons vs. engine size? Larger ships have a very substantial advantage with any weapon, even the specialized ones.

[Suicide Junkie]

The way it works, for my solo games, is that my nomads can rarely develop EDW to a level to have any effect on the planet-bound, bonused AI. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Uhm, not really. The engines all still have 20 hitpoints each.

You do know that shields will block engine disruptors in the latest patch, right?
Try throwing some shield depleters in before your engine disabling weapons.

Vs humans, you may also find players using the high quality mount to toughen up their engines, but the AIs will always use unmounted engines.

[ October 26, 2002, 22:48: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[CombatSquirrel]

S_J,

I mispoke. It is the armored Versions of your engines that are giving me fits. I AI-adapted the TDM-Modpack races over and a slew of them luv those engines. 40 structure on an Armored Ion Engine I is a real challenge for a nomad player that races for propulsion and EDW early. I will just have to abandon that strategy for now, and find another angle to use to pick off those colony ships.

Several of the changes in Gold and its patches have caught me by surprise. The shields counting against damage for EDW was a shocking jar, and the fact that bases have been crippled for resupply was a major kick in the pants for my nomads. Makes P&N much more challenging... which is always a good thing.

Baron, if I had had Light Cruisers early enough the mounts would have been invaluable, but by investing my research on EDW, my boarding ships don't have the gusto to capture engine-armored enemy LCs for analyzation, and I didn't research the Ship Construction tech soon enough.

Now, I am afraid that I will have to live out the rest of my remaining life pathetically huddled in opaque space storms dreaming of what might have been...

Combat Squirrel

[CombatSquirrel]

Ahh, the answer has come:

Engine Destroying Mines from P&N have given me a new (temporary) hold on life...

Combat Squirrel

[Suicide Junkie]

So what are you up to? Dropping engine mines, then bLasting the immobile hulks with missiles until it is safe to board?
Come to think of it, you could probably do that with regular mines.

[ October 28, 2002, 03:40: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[CombatSquirrel]

Yeah, I really needed to capture some ship's Tech, and I didn't have comparatively powerful enough ships to do it by "duelling" or ambush.

But I could lurk hidden near a few Engine Destroying Mines in a Warp Point trade lane and scavenge the cripples after a few Organic Missiles. Regular mines would do more damage to those very components that I need to HighJack: EDMs do a greater proportion of damage to the engines, which I don't need, and of course hobble his supply to fire remaining weapons and power shields.

I know this stragedy is only going to work for a short time before the Sweepers put a stop to it, but without some way to get scavenged Tech at that point in the game, I was going to be totally ineffective later, and all I needed was a ship or three.

Combat Squirrel

(I really did mean to say thanks...)

[CombatSquirrel]

S_J,

Typo or inside joke?

Name := Hawking Reactor
Description := Direct matter-to-energy converter utilizing a black hole as a catalyst. A vast amount of supplies can be stored in a miniscule space using this device.
Pic Num := 37
Tonnage Space Taken := 35
Tonnage Structure := 35
Cost Minerals := 1000
Cost Organics := 250
Cost Radioactives := 20000
Vehicle Type := Ship\Base
Supply Amount Used := 0
Restrictions := None
General Group := Supply
Family := 25
Roman Numeral := 0
Custom Group := 0
Number of Tech Req := 2
Tech Area Req 1 := Resupply
Tech Level Req 1 := 5000 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif
Tech Area Req 2 := Astrophysics
Tech Level Req 2 := 2
Tech Area Req 3 := Tractor\Repulser Weapons
Tech Level Req 3 := 1
Number of Abilities := 1
Ability 1 Type := Supply Storage
Ability 1 Descr := Can store 50,000 units of supply.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 50000
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Weapon Type := None

[CombatSquirrel]

S_J,

Also, as I am always seeking to learn, I wonder why you have reduced supply cost for all Tractor/Repulsor weapons in P&N from the 5 supply required in Gold to 0 supply required for your mod? This an interesting choice, and makes that family useful in intriquing ways....

Combat Squirrel

[Suicide Junkie]

Re: Hawking reactor
That was a partly-modded Quantum Reactor. The level 5000 tech requirement is to disable it until it is ready.

Re: Supply usage.
All the weapons' supply costs have been tweaked. Supply cost is meant to represent physical supplies, such as bullets, drive fuel, and other types of consumable matter.
The other side of the coin is energy costs. That gets represented by radioactives maintenance.

As such, Energy weapons tend to have little to no supply use. They cost dearly in radioactives, though.
Bullets and missiles, on the other hand, require only token radioactives for things such as the reloading mechanism. They bleed supplies like there is no tomorrow, though.

It should be fairly obvious that the energy weapons will be best for attack fleets in enemy territory, while physical weapons are best for defense fleets, who can sit on top of resupply depots, and save maintenance costs.

[CombatSquirrel]

Makes great sense... lasers seldom need "reloading". I first discovered this change in supply usage not from the Data files, but from trying to pounce on a (mostly) disabled enemy. Having my boarding ship get flung across the map by a hulk with no engines, no supply storage, and no other defense was an, ah, .... unexpected treat. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Why the comparative lack of smaller weapons for the Racial Tech trees? Too difficult miniturize, or unbalancing for units?

Combat Squirrel - Nosey Nate, 1st degree http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

Really? Shoot.
I'll have to double-check those now.

I did intend to leave out some of the fancier damage-type weapons, like the energy dampers, and the seekers.

PS: thanks for inadvertently testing the "no supply use = still works when supplies are zero" thing for me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ October 29, 2002, 16:29: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[CombatSquirrel]

It would be Deluxe if you do decide to expand the smaller components without giving too much additional power to the Racial Techs. If I can be of any help, let me know.

Combat Squirrel

[ArchAngel7]

I'm ready to add the P&N tech to the TDM mod, but I'm still a little leary at this point that the two will mesh. This won't mess up the AI of the TDM mod races will it? Just want a little assurance!

[Suicide Junkie]

It most certainly will.

You need to do it the other way around, and put the TDM AIs into P&N.

1) Copy the TDM AIs into the races folder of P&N.
2) Go to the P&N downloads link in my sig.
3) Download the AI Patcher.
4) run the AI patcher, and patch each of the TDM AIs you've copied.
5) Run SE4, and play TDM + P&N

[ArchAngel7]

I would like to increase the Battlemoon movement to more than 2 (possibly 4-6 ). What do I need to do to do this? Thanks!

[Suicide Junkie]

The Battlemoons are supposed to be dead slow. It would be pretty silly to have planet-sized bases zipping around, wouldn't it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

The Battlemoons are useful for siege warfare, since they're so powerful, and have extra-range mounts. They are next to useless for interception/defense, which is what Battlecruisers and Dreadnoughts are for.

Mixed fleets, ArchAngel. Different ships for different purposes.

Besides, with a Battlemoon, you can just include a warppoint opener/closer combo, and overall, they'll be able to keep up with the rest of your fleet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[MacLeod]

I have a problem SJ...

I downloaded P&N v3.1 off the site on your sig but many of the new components are missing their pictures.

I wouldn't even care but for the fact that SE4 doesnt want to display info for components without pictures, gotta read the data file for info.

Is this a slipup or am I supposed to download some extra pack of images?

V3.0 seems to work fine but I am liking v3.1 more so far.

[KirbyEF]

SJ,

How is your latest harddrive working?

I feel your pain.... one of mine HD's died too, a 60 GB.... I remember one of the things I heard when I first starting working with computers, "backup, backup, backup"... Unfortunely, I heard it after the drive died... I have some of the stuff backed-up and the rest I will have to rebuild (dl,rip,etc.) oh well... Live and learn (hopefully)...

Good luck with your new one....

KirbyEF
P.S. UDF-CDRW's rock...

[dumbluck]

MacLeod: You need to download the Imagepack. (see SJ's signature for a link) Just replace your default images with the imagepack ones. (Notice I said replace the default images, not delete them. Just rename them to something else, and rename the imagepack images with the old default names.)

[Fyron]

The Image mod is linked in my sig.

[MacLeod]

Ahhhh
I thankye

Wow that's a lotta components...

[Suicide Junkie]

Kirby:
Well, at the moment the only thing I know that works is my CPU fan and my case. I think my RAM might still be good, and there is a chance my motherboard/chip might still work, but the rest is toast.

Should be getting some new parts today though!

[MacLeod]

hehe new problem...

When invading a planet if the invasion takes too long, the combat stops and the defending planet gains control of all of the formerly invading troops.

Ouch

At least I can still nuke 'em!

Doubt you can fix this but just making sure you know.

[Fyron]

You should post a savegame in which that happens...

[Suicide Junkie]

Too long as in how long?

I have had combats Last more than a year (10 game turns), and eventually won.
What happens there, is the planet will remain under the control of the original owner, and both forces remain on the surface. The planet will be marked with a "Forces of the XYZ Empire are attempting to capture the planet"

Ground Combat resumes at the end of every subsequent turn until the conflict is won by one side or the other.

[ December 08, 2002, 23:24: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[MacLeod]

I think I know what's happening but I will have to test to confirm.

If I join in on a treaty with the intended victim combat stops and he gains control of all my troops on the planet.

[Fyron]

That makes sense then. Your troops can't stay on his planets if you sign a peace treaty with him. The game engine has no idea when a troop transport of yours will be around to pick them up (as the transport could easily have left, or been blown up by other enemy ships). So, it just gives them to the defender. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[jimbob]

I guess it's a good enough decission on the computer's part... sure beats the whole game crashing!