Requested new features for SE:IV [Archive]

Ed Kolis

January 6th, 2004, 12:22 AM

Some of those can be modded in:

Weapon system rework - See mods like P&N and Adamant, which have torpedoes with a to-hit bonus.

New unique technology - See Adamant, which has techs like Megafluxer (super powerful shield generator), and Devnull, which has an entire racial tech tree for space monsters!

Faster escorts - Devnull features "corvettes" which do just what you say. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif And some mods even feature "quasi-newtonian propulsion", which means that the speed of a ship is proportional not to the NUMBER of engines on it but instead to the RATIO of engines to hull size... so you could theoretically make a speed-24 baseship http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif but it wouldn't have much firepower due since the engines take up most of the hull; only on smaller ships would it really be practical to fill up the hull with engines (since they're so expensive ton for ton compared to, say, shields)

Will

January 6th, 2004, 01:01 AM

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
so you could theoretically make a speed-24 baseship http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif Theoretically... the size of the variable holding "propulsion" in SEIV isn't big enough to hold the value that would make baseships speed-24 the way it's set up with most mods. Might be able to pull it off if you made the engines have a propulsion value of 1, and just made them smaller as tech goes up. That might allow the creation of an uber-fast baseship... Might have to try that out...

Imperial

January 6th, 2004, 01:24 AM

The Grau mod--which can be found on the PBW mod listing has alot of the features your asking for-its a mix af many of the popular mods and has tons of mounts, facilities ,ship sizes, weapons etc--give it i a try --may be to your liking.

Fyron

January 6th, 2004, 01:59 AM

Originally posted by Will:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
so you could theoretically make a speed-24 baseship http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif Theoretically... the size of the variable holding "propulsion" in SEIV isn't big enough to hold the value that would make baseships speed-24 the way it's set up with most mods. Might be able to pull it off if you made the engines have a propulsion value of 1, and just made them smaller as tech goes up. That might allow the creation of an uber-fast baseship... Might have to try that out... <hr /></blockquote>Nope. At least, not without using bonus movement. You can only have at most 255 standard movement points on a ship before it gets divided by engines per move for the hull size. More standard move on a component or smaller components makes no difference. You can, however, use scale mounts based on hull size (different mount for every ship size), combined with large (1000 kT or so) engine components. This will allow you to get more movement on larger ships, while still making engines take up more space on larger ships for the same movement rate.

HEMAN

January 6th, 2004, 02:06 AM

SE3 way of how componets are placed on a ship during game turn http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif cool. Shouldve been in se4 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif ,that way i have a use to use(Repair Priorities)Which is in, se4 gold..

Fyron

January 6th, 2004, 02:10 AM

Originally posted by Imperial:
The Grau mod--which can be found on the PBW mod listing has alot of the features your asking for-its a mix af many of the popular mods and has tons of mounts, facilities ,ship sizes, weapons etc--give it i a try --may be to your liking. The readme should be updated for that mod in regards to the Image Mod. The actual home of the image mod is:

http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/Imagemod/index.html

The only mirror (at this point) that is up to date (or will be soon) is the SE.net mirror. It has better bandwidth than the primary site. It is located at:

http://imagemod.spaceempires.net/

narf poit chez BOOM

January 6th, 2004, 02:11 AM

Nope. At least, not without using bonus movement. You can only have at most 255 standard movement points on a ship before it gets divided by engines per move for the hull size. More standard move on a component or smaller components makes no difference. You can, however, use scale mounts based on hull size (different mount for every ship size), combined with large (1000 kT or so) engine components. This will allow you to get more movement on larger ships, while still making engines take up more space on larger ships for the same movement rate.
i use 100kt engine. that way, each % counts as 1kt. except that my engine's fluctuate in size and cost to make up for the fact that there's no decimal movement. but ignore that Last, since most people i explain it to don't seem to understand it anyway. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ January 06, 2004, 00:12: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

gregebowman

January 6th, 2004, 11:04 PM

Imperial

January 7th, 2004, 12:13 AM

Originally posted by gregebowman:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Imperial:
The Grau mod--which can be found on the PBW mod listing has alot of the features your asking for-its a mix af many of the popular mods and has tons of mounts, facilities ,ship sizes, weapons etc--give it i a try --may be to your liking. Is this a PBW mod, or can it be played solo also? <hr /></blockquote>Im playing the Grau Mod solo-- I made a test empire with high tech so i could browse through the ships, mounts comps facilities--etc. It has alot of content and im giving it a try--so far its pretty cool.

[ January 06, 2004, 22:16: Message edited by: Imperial ]

Fyron

January 7th, 2004, 12:21 AM

Yes, but how much original content does it have, as opposed to just being a combination of other mods? Not that those are bad or anything, just curious.

Imperial

January 8th, 2004, 01:29 AM

It has alot of proportions mod items, and alot of new and different weapons and different components--like rail guns, new engines , and many variations of other content. There are alot of mounts available, again these are probably found in other mods as well.It does however package all of these items and ideas into one mod to use--rather than having to combine mods and hunt and peck for stuff. I am not a mod guru, so i cant say for sure what has been used in other mods--I would say that the mod combines proportions, FQM, mount mod(dunno whose), ultra vehicle mod, and possibly formations too-- but it tweaks the ideas found in the mods--for example the need to populate planets for higher production results found in proprotions is present, and similar--but it is different(tweaked so not as important). Again the main point is that it seems to tie up alot of content into one mod.

Paul1980au

January 8th, 2004, 01:34 AM

The more detailed and incorparated mods - are better to use. Heres another game you guys might like to try its a wall street economic and stock trading simulation - cheap to register (15 bucks) and you download straight off the web plus monthly free updates. Very detailed

www.roninsoft.com (http://www.roninsoft.com) (Wall street raider) or W$R.

gregebowman

January 8th, 2004, 03:42 PM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Imperial:
The Grau mod--which can be found on the PBW mod listing has alot of the features your asking for-its a mix af many of the popular mods and has tons of mounts, facilities ,ship sizes, weapons etc--give it i a try --may be to your liking. The readme should be updated for that mod in regards to the Image Mod. The actual home of the image mod is:

http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/Imagemod/index.html

The only mirror (at this point) that is up to date (or will be soon) is the SE.net mirror. It has better bandwidth than the primary site. It is located at:

http://imagemod.spaceempires.net/ <hr /></blockquote>Fyron, I'm still not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that we have to add the latest Versions of the facilities and components pictures to what's already in the mod? Or something else?

gregebowman

January 12th, 2004, 03:41 PM

Originally posted by Imperial:
The Grau mod--which can be found on the PBW mod listing has alot of the features your asking for-its a mix af many of the popular mods and has tons of mounts, facilities ,ship sizes, weapons etc--give it i a try --may be to your liking. I d/l this mod and tried playing it the other day with just the files that were on the PBW website, but after I ended my first turn, I got a files missing error message. Does anyone know which files are missing? Do I need to upgrade the graphic files, or is there something else that need to be added? Was this game designed for 1.84?

gregebowman

January 12th, 2004, 11:10 PM

I just thought of an idea I'd like to see incorporated in SEV. Have it where when you are trying to build a facility on your planet, have it where the facilities that are already on that planet are blacked out, or at least earmarked somehow, so that you know that you already have such a facility on this planet. Some facilities you could have multiple times on the same planet, but others can only be on the planet once. Looking at the production screen, you have no idea of what you got on that planet, unless you want to get out and then check out the facilities on the planet detail screen. It would save me a step or two if I could see on the production screen that I already have facility X on the planet.

Fyron

January 13th, 2004, 12:34 AM

Originally posted by gregebowman:
Fyron, I'm still not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that we have to add the latest Versions of the facilities and components pictures to what's already in the mod? Or something else? Umm... no, just pointing out that mentioning the actual homepage of the Image Mod is a good idea, rather than just one of the mirrors. Also, there are lots of cool new pics in the Image Mod that the mod author might want to consider using, but there is certainly no obligation to even look.

Originally posted by gregebowman:
I just thought of an idea I'd like to see incorporated in SEV. Have it where when you are trying to build a facility on your planet, have it where the facilities that are already on that planet are blacked out, or at least earmarked somehow, so that you know that you already have such a facility on this planet. Some facilities you could have multiple times on the same planet, but others can only be on the planet once. Looking at the production screen, you have no idea of what you got on that planet, unless you want to get out and then check out the facilities on the planet detail screen. It would save me a step or two if I could see on the production screen that I already have facility X on the planet. The game does complain when you add a facility with an ability that you already have present, but that is a fairly clunky solution (though it does cover the problem of having multiple facility types that use the same ability(s)).

[ January 12, 2004, 22:36: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

gregebowman

January 14th, 2004, 05:20 PM

Originally posted by gregebowman:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Imperial:
The Grau mod--which can be found on the PBW mod listing has alot of the features your asking for-its a mix af many of the popular mods and has tons of mounts, facilities ,ship sizes, weapons etc--give it i a try --may be to your liking. I d/l this mod and tried playing it the other day with just the files that were on the PBW website, but after I ended my first turn, I got a files missing error message. Does anyone know which files are missing? Do I need to upgrade the graphic files, or is there something else that need to be added? Was this game designed for 1.84? <hr /></blockquote>I'm bumping this up because no one ever answered my question. Has anyone tried this since it was mentioned the other day, and are they having problems with it? Does it need to be patched for 1.84, or is it something else that's causing the error message I got?

Paul1980au

January 15th, 2004, 05:12 AM

Id like to see MM fix it for v 1.85 - perhaps they should charge $3 to download each upgrade - this would generate more income and perhaps instead of SE5 coming out sooner they could slowly overhaul the game with more regular patches / upgrades i know www.roninsoft.com (http://www.roninsoft.com) do this with each new Version which is big changes to wall street raider (stockmarket trading sim) instead of issuing a new game.

Fyron

January 15th, 2004, 05:17 AM

That would be horrible. Patches are free. Charging for them is silly. A new Version of a game has major overhauls to the game engine (or a completely new one in most cases) that can not really be done incrementally with patches to the old Version. Patches are evolutionary. New Versions of a game series must be revolutionary.

[ January 15, 2004, 03:18: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Paul1980au

January 15th, 2004, 05:25 AM

Continue the free patches and have 3 monthly paid upgrades and also automatically upgrade the game CD with the same thing. This would generate more money for the game maker and lead hopefully to more time and a better game long term. They need to take profits and make the game better - but i can see how some wouldnt agree with me just throwing around ideas

Fyron

January 15th, 2004, 05:46 AM

Erm... MM has made SE4 much better than it was for years, for free. Discounting the Gold upgrade, there have been a lot of free patches, and lots of added features. This game is definitely a lot better now than when it first came out.

[ January 15, 2004, 03:46: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Paul1980au

January 15th, 2004, 05:51 AM

Well that is good - i was just thinking that the programmers might pick up another revenue source. ?

gregebowman

January 15th, 2004, 03:29 PM

Well, there's what Strategy First does. Have a network which you can Subscribe to and get free upgrades that way. I did that because it was only $30, but to renew it when it runs out will cost me $60, and that's a little too steep. Maybe if they made that a lifetime subscription for that price, I'd do it. But not a yearly charge.

Fyron

January 15th, 2004, 07:50 PM

Such systems just invite piracy...

tesco samoa

January 19th, 2004, 01:55 AM

how about a little button on the build menu that you can click on for launch units... Remove that tedious build and then next turn launch and then hit repeat...

Personally for SEV I would like the option that the build unit builds and launchs automatically turned on... You have to turn it off... Or it turns off automatically when you hit max units for that area ( if on repeat build ) and clears the que...

Another thing i would like is Mines... If you cannot see them you cannot sweep them... And If you can detect and sweep them it slows you down an number of movement points... Based on the number of mines and the mine level ( ie size in this game and damage size )

Baron Grazic

January 19th, 2004, 02:34 AM

I'd like to have the ability to copy Enemy Ship Designs. If you capture an enemy ship, you should be able to select that design and 'copy it' or 'upgrade it' to the latest technology that you have.

Then you would be able to obtain an old 'Racial Trait' Ship design, upgrade it with your parts, without changing any of the 'Racial Trait' parts, and have a unique ship.

This would add a new dimention for allied games, where with no Racial Traits, you could Buy and upgrade Organic Armored, Talisman, Psychic ships from your allies.

dogscoff

January 20th, 2004, 06:01 PM

I'd like to have the ability to copy Enemy Ship Designs. If you capture an enemy ship, you should be able to select that design and 'copy it' or 'upgrade it' to the latest technology that you have.
yeah, this would be really nice for retrofitting captured enemy ships, or designing out those unrepairable organic weapons & armour.

One thing I'd love to see is a change to the pathifinding routines, so that if a ship's route takes it near a friendly supply depot, it will check to see if it can detour through the depot without expending any extra movement points and, if it can, do so.

Obviously I don't know how much work this alteration would need to implement, but I imagine that it would be fairly minimal, yet it would take a hell of a lot of irritating micromanagement and pointlessly stranded ships out of the game. Perfect final patch material, IMHO.