Infinitech Mod Starting

[MrToxin]

Well, started rather, but it's a mixture of old ideas I had for a Space Empires IV mod that never got finished. All things considered, SEIV just didn't do what I wanted it to. For the most part, SEV does. I have the framework laid out, cultures, societies, racial abilities, vehicle types, sector types, quadrant types, and some of the other crap done. So now I'm going to talk about features and want some good idea/bad idea critique while I get this working.

I should also mention that, first, it's going to be datafiles and completely redo pretty much everything. Afterwards, I'm going to work on ship sets (I need to learn to be better at 3D art anyway) and much better artificial idiots (this is going to take the longest, yes, but I do have ideas).

Main Features

Loads of Tech - The main idea is to make every tech area deeply researchable, like 200 levels or so. Because these branch out into other things, the idea of ever researching every last thing in the game is an impossibility. Though most modules will have a specific technology that changes its overall level, other technologies will give things various bonuses. Think like a Heat Ray that improves by level but gets a damage bonus from Thermodynamics.

Vehicle Sizes - The smallest is a Sloop at 200 kT. The biggest, aside from bases, is a World Ship at 22,500 kT. These get bonuses to their kT based on your levels of Naval Architecture. They also receive bonuses or penalties to defense, depending on size. World Ships are nearly impossible to miss, while Corvettes are rather hard. Small ships also get a maneuverability bonus to hit, while bigger ships receive no penalty.

^^ - Every ship size is available from the beginning. However, being able to afford the biggest ones is another thing entirely. I want them to take decades to build for a young empire or have the upkeep be cripplingly huge. This also ties in with my idea of making every ship size useful for the entire game, as a horde of Frigates would have trouble doing appreciable damage to a World Ship, while the World Ship would have oodles of trouble hitting the Frigates with its massive weapons.

Mount Modifications - Rather than straight and even bonuses to damage and size, the damage increases faster than the size. The biggest mount gets a 7,500% bonus to damage but is only %3,750 bigger. However, it gets a -105 chance to hit. This allows the truly ridiculously huge weapons to be as ridiculously huge and unwieldy as they should be.

Infrastructure - This is the hardest one to implement. The idea is, you get bonuses or penalties to all sorts of things depending on what you built in your empire and on what size of planets. I haven't quite gotten everything nailed down 100%, but this should make expanding too quickly too early a bad idea, as you end up losing tons of production potential. Also, the maximum population of a planet is HEAVILY influenced by what was built on it, with habitation modules available for increasing that specifically. The idea is that only small numbers of people can carve out a subsistence living on an undeveloped planet, while a developed planet can support more people. All the while, the percentage of your planets you have space ports on as well as the number of them gives general bonuses.

Facilities - All sorts of new stuff, including Orbital Facilities that are just like their regular counterparts but only take like 5 kT of space. Of course, there are some things that can't be orbital while other things are better either in the orbit or on the ground. There are also city-type facilities that are big but allow for huge population numbers as well as giving the planet special bonuses. These also change your infrastructure and other stuff. There will also be various types of Capital modules (like GalCiv) that are available one per system or one per empire that give bonuses to stuff. The Imperial-level ones, for instance, grant a small bonus to the entire empire but a big one to the planet it is currently on. Also, one idea I like is being able to play without ever colonizing other planets.

Specialized Crews - Though every ship does require that pesky first unit of Regular Crew, different types of crew are available. These also open up other types of modules as well as other types of crews. For example, Officers gives access to the Admiral's Quarters, which both give nice ship bonuses. The Admiral also gives bonuses to the whole fleet or sector (depending on which works). Meanwhile, some Scientists opens up nifty lab-type modules with various effects. Obviously, small ships will be largely crewed by regulars while bigger ones have all sorts of people working on them. Lastly, there will also be a Skeleton Crew type of module that can run small ships though not exactly well. They negate the use of specialists.

Modules Require Crew - Though I've seen other ways of doing this that seem a bit clunky to me, I imaging giving modules a negative Amount 1 should do the trick. This also circumvents the problem of destroyed modules still requiring crew.

Specialized Societies and Governments - These can drastically alter what your race does, as the effects of some choices have been radically altered from stock SEV. The idea is that different societies think and behave differently, while different types of government are conducive to different types of people. For example, Nomads migrate like crazy and have a low reproduction rate, while Industrialists have resource bonuses but overworked, unhappy people. Dictatorships have happiness problems but are more tolerant to war and more loyal, while government in Anarchic empires is prone to serious loyalty problems but free and jubilant.

Colonies Don't Do Much - Freshly colonized planets don't produce much of anything. However, they can eventually become as good as your homeworld. I like the ideas behind the old Proportions Mod, but I think that colonies should have potential when invested in. Of course, if supporting a monolith build around a planet supported by planets covered in tents is your thing then go for it. Anyway...in the end, if you want to develop another planet extensively, the possibility is certainly there.

More Drastic Cultural Stuff - Some of the cultural research areas have penalties in return for the bonuses you give them. The idea is that drastic change to a culture should come with drawbacks. Though artistic appreciation is a direct bonus, things like sports encouragement give various bonuses but cause your people to eat more. Meanwhile, Asceticism will make them eat less and be more loyal but less happy.

QnP - I LOVE the idea of Quasi-Newtonian Propulsion and am stealing it. However, I'm planning on just altering the engine size to change with the tonnage of the ship. If that doesn't work, I'm going with the 1 point per engine, points per move depending on ship size. However, adding 225 engines to a World Ship just to get one point would be needlessly tedious.

Unlimited Speed - An empire that has spent a million research points developing its engines has every right to have Corvettes with a move of 80. That's all I'm saying. Aside from that, some of the high-end engines get ridiculous.

Comments

I'm obviously going for complexity on this one. I'm planning for a simpler version later, as well as a mod version based on Heighliners from Dune. More on those later, but y'know.

I imagine this will change a lot as it progresses and I'll release v0.1 as soon as I humanly can. But, in the mean time, do you think good ideas/bad ideas?