Ascendancy Mod Idea (need some help)

[narf poit chez BOOM]

My suggestion? Divide it up into portions. Make one or two empires at a time. If you try to take it all on, you run the risk of being overwhelmed.

[Fyron]

6. I am going to try and make it so that the smaller ships are still useful even into the late game.

Quasi-Newtonian propulsion (same % of hull space devoted to engines to move at speed X for all ship hulls; eg: A 200 kT ship requires 50 kT devoted to engines to move 5. A 400 kT ship requires 100 kT for the same speed), Leaky Armor (armor components have no armor ability, so are not a magic wall of protection, and they have lots, and lots, and lots of hit points), and Leaky Shields (shields generate low shield levels, but use the crystalline armor ability to simulate partial protection from each shot, instead of magic wall protection as in stock SE4) can help in this regard. Not to mention the vast improvements to tactics and strategy they provide... Some other common methods to make small ships more useful is to give larger ships increasing combat penalties, and possibly increasing maintenance costs. Removing the absurd stock game scale weapon mounts would be a good idea as well. There is nothing wrong with a mount that makes a weapon 3x the size and do 3x the damage (well not much wrong anyways). But a weapon that makes it 2x the size and 3x the damage is bad, and is one of the biggest culprits in making small ships useless once the larger, heavier ships are available.

[Starhawk]

How do I make ship sizes "race specific"? Because I know I've seen that in the Startrek mod but I can't figure out how he did it.
Can anyone help me out there?

And does anyone here know how to write challenging AIs?

Oh and Narf the Alpha will only have the Terrenesi, Icaran Empire/Rebels and possibly the Corim. The beta will add another one or two races.

[Ed Kolis]

To make race-specific ship sizes, give them a tech prerequisite that has its Racial Area set to one of your defined racial areas in RacialTraites.txt. Just like you do for a component
But remember, if one or more of an item's prerequisites (direct prerequisites only - not prerequisites of prerequisites) is non-racial, then the technology can be traded or stolen by other races! (That's how some of the special techs in the Star Trek Mod are stealable )
E.g. if Gelf Frigate has prerequisite Gelf Technology which is racial, Gelf Frigate will only be buildable by Gelfs, even if Gelf Technology has prerequisite Physical Paradigm or something... but if Gelf Frigate has prerequisite Gelf Technology and Ship Construction which is NOT racial, then Gelf Frigates can only be built by Gelfs UNTIL they trade the tech away or someone steals it, either by espionage or ship capture.

[Starhawk]

So to make a race specific ship basiaclly put something like

Requires: Gelf Technology

Then how do I make it buildable of I can't put what level of ship construction it needs?

Or is it possible to put something like

Requires: Gelf Ship construction lvl2?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Entirely. As long as Gelf Ship Construction is in the TechArea.txt

[Starhawk]

Okay this may sound Incredibly stupid but would you guys mind typing up an example?

I.E. type up a weapon that is size and race specific

And type up a ship size that is racial trait specific

Just so I can get it in my head, I have a cold right now so thought process are going slow for me.