StarFire Mod v-Beta 2

[President_Elect_Shang]

1) Unfortunately there is no way to duplicate shear planes in SE4G, and since the tractor effect in SE4G is instantaneous a shear plane would not actually work.

2) Overload dampeners: I am pleased to report are in the Mod, I think that once you see it you will understand why I moded it the way I did. In other words it does not follow the “cannon” effect perfectly, however this is one of the components that I managed to capture the “spirit” of, and very well at that.

3) XO Racks: Even if this Mod comes out of the Beta stage DOA I think my solution to the XO rack is a legacy that will live on. I don’t want to say too much about it here as I am still looking forward to the surprise factor.

4) Force beams and Energy Beams: I wanted to keep some of the SE4 flavor so that those uninitiated to StarFire would find a connection back to SE4G un-moded (other than the graphics and interface) and not feel to “alienated”. I have split most all beams up into two categories, energy stream weapons and energy pulse weapons. For a little preview of the Mod here is an excerpt from the Tech Area text:

Energy Stream Weapons: The most powerful energy weapon family, but must smash shields and armor first.

Energy Pulse Weapons: A weak family of energy weapons that can skip shields, armor, or both.

I am sure this does not fully answer your questions; however you only have two days to wait now. I will be back later to give an update as to the status. I am still toying with the missile and interdiction field as they are not operating very well, more later have to run now…

[Growltigger]

Ooooh, you is a smug person aren't you Mr Wubbles - look forward to seeing if the Beta is as grand as you are promising - expectations are running rather high!

[President_Elect_Shang]

The problem I ran into is when I brought two missile armed corvettes together to fight; the regenerative ability of the interdiction effect prevented either one from damaging the other. I have a possible solution but I will accept suggestions.

Keep those expectations up as I have a fairly good “hunch” that you will not be disappointed. Also keep in mind that this is a Beta Version, look for problems no matter how pleased you are.

[Growltigger]

Nah, I am just going to run off with the beta, play to it my enjoyment, make sarcastic remarks and bare my broad buttocks at the lot of you.

I am certainly not going to help.

Hmmm, not sure what to suggest about the interdiction field regenerating. My immediate thought was to turn off the regeneration ability, but then that wont work if other weapons can knock down the shields attributed to the engines.

Let me have a think.

As to the sheer plane, not bothered that you havn't included it, as I dont think I ever designed a starfire ship that had it....

Brilliant

[President_Elect_Shang]

I have just had my first major fleet action, both sides involved were HTL1 and I must say that I was rather pleased. How many of you have tried to role play against yourself and with no less than 5 empires? It is the craziest thing I have ever done, I have role played in the past (D&D, etc) but this is something else. The new solution I implemented for the interdiction effect seems to be working good enough. I have unfortunately run across a new problem that I think will have to be accepted as a “necessary evil”. Even after all of the engines where blown out on one of the destroyers it still had combat movement. This is because I moded the combat movement onto the hull as it would not have worked on the engine. Comments, questions or concerns?

Yummy, buttocks!

[Dan Kochheiser]

Originally posted by President Elect Shang:
I have just had my first major fleet action, both sides involved were HTL1 and I must say that I was rather pleased. How many of you have tried to role play against yourself and with no less than 5 empires? It is the craziest thing I have ever done, I have role played in the past (D&D, etc) but this is something else. The new solution I implemented for the interdiction effect seems to be working good enough. I have unfortunately run across a new problem that I think will have to be accepted as a “necessary evil”. Even after all of the engines where blown out on one of the destroyers it still had combat movement. This is because I moded the combat movement onto the hull as it would not have worked on the engine. Comments, questions or concerns?

Yummy, buttocks!

Is there a way to use the hull engine power to be divided/multiplied into the engines used? In this way, as engines are lost, speed would reduce.

Dan K

[President_Elect_Shang]

Actually Dan it is doing that now, unfortunately there is a limitation to this effect. Namely that it does not apply to any “abilities”. To give the ships their extra speed in combat but keep there cruising speed down I had to add in the “combat movement” “ability”. As the engines are lost the ships are loosing speed, but this is only to the extent of the natural speed (the non “ability” speed) provided by the engines. Let me give you an example (not from the mod).

You have a ship with 6 engines and the hull of this ship has the ability “combat speed” set at 2. Out of combat the ship will move at speed 6 (assuming 1 engine per movement point). In combat it will move at speed 5. Formula:

Out of combat: 6 engines at 1 point each = 6 movement points.
In combat: 6 engines at 1 point each = 6/2 (all non-combat movement is halved) = 3 + 2 combat movement = 5.

So when all engines are destroyed if the combat movement is added to the engines the ship stops. If however, as is the case here, if the combat movement is added to the hulls the ships keep moving but at a reduced speed as it is no longer getting the first portion of the In Combat formula:

As above:
In combat: 0 engines (all destroyed) at 1 point each = 0/2 = 0 + 2 combat movement =2

Did I just confuse you? The upside to this is that a ship with one or more working engines can out run a ship with no engines even though the ship without engines can still move, and once combat is done the ship is “dead in the waters”, you will not be flying it home for repairs. The downside to this is that you still can move and thus ramming takes on a new light. I could reduce or even eliminate ramming damage to offset this, if I do reduce/eliminate the Sr will still work as it does damage on top of any caused by the ramming attack.