SE 4 Gold

[Captain Kwok]

Err... when I clicked on buy boxed game, I get taken directly to the shopping cart screen with all the costs laid out...?

[c_of_red]

Ok, I'll try again, but that isn't what happens with me. My cokkies are enabled, but only local and short term.

[c_of_red]

Thanks Capt', that time it worked. I figure by monday or tuesday, it will be here. I'm so excited my toes are curling.

[Suicide Junkie]

While you are waiting, you should download the updates, mods and expansions.

1.95 patch:
http://malfador.com/se4dwngp.html

The imagemod:
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/MM/SE4/imagemod/

And any mods that strike your fancy.
I reccommend my own, Carrier Battles mod
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/...arrierBattles/

[c_of_red]

Updates yes, mods no. I'm not much on modding. I'll play for a year or so and then once I have the basics down, I'll try to find a fill in slot in an on-line (PBW?) game. I'm retired and have the time, so it would be a nice hobby. Brsides, the mods I've looked at seem like something from a Buck Rogers re-run. The Movie not the series. There is absolutly no need for aerodynamics in space, so a real spaceship will look more like a box girder bridge then 'spaceship'. Why go thru the cost and manufacturing problems to provide air-tight envitonments where they aren't needed? Curved surfaces cost more to design, manufacture and asssemble, not to mention, they are radar reflectors.
A spaceship most likly will be a main spar with the engines on one end to form a thrust axis and Modules with everything else attached to that spar. More like a tinker toy project then something from Star Trek. It is quicker, easier and cheaper to build a little box to put equipment in that needs atmosphere to function then to put that equipment inside an airtight 'hull' and pressurize it.

The reason why I want IV instead of waiting a few months for V is the patches. IV is a 'mature' game with the bugs worked out and the quirks know. V will have to go thru that process without me.

[Fyron]

None of the mods I have seen look anything like a Buck Rogers universe. What does the talk about how space ships look have to do with mods? Unless maybe you are confusing shipsets with mods?

If you think about it, why would advanced star-faring nations make ugly, purely functional ships? You don't inspire much fear or awe when your ship looks like it is just cobbled together. Further, the added cost of curved surfaces vs. boxy ones would be fairly trivial compared to all the high tech systems inside. I don't think it is reasonable to assume that real spaceships (at the point when we can travel to distant stars quickly and form 100s of planet empires, not in the very near future where it costs a considerable portion of GNP to just get a few spaceships running) will look like box girders or just be modules strapped to a spar.

And besides, there are a ton of SE4 shipsets that have no thought given to aerodynamics, only to aesthetics. But don't take my word for it, have a look for yourself.

There are some shipsets that look like your model of a spaceship though. 2001, for example.

[c_of_red]

Prolly I am. I was looking for patches and ran across a bunch of stuff that was called mods and consisted of new sets of Icons for various ship types.
I have thought about it. What is the point of building something esthetic that will never be "seen" except by radar or infared? You install all the fear and awe you want, I'm going to blow stuff up and kill things.
As far as cost goes; Nervos belli, pecuniam infinitam.
2 ships with the exact same performance and weapons, only yours is 'pretty', or scary ( to you, I doubt that your opponent gives a hoot. I KNOW the Computer doesn't), while mine is cheap and ugly. So your's cost 10K whatevers and mine costs 8K. So for 100K units, you get 10 and I get 12.
Like Uncle Joe said "Quanity has a quality of it's own"
Example; In WW2 the best US Figter was the P-51. What made it the best was that 14,819 were built in 4 1/2 years. The P-47 and F4U had better performance then the P-51, but they were more expensive to build (P-47) and took longer (F4U).
Technology changes, people don't. An engineer of 200 years in the future is going to look for the best solution, just like an engineer of today or 200 years ago.