Devnull Mod Gold: updates and discussion

geoschmo · #1 September 14th, 2002, 03:55 AM

Rollo,

I have a request from someone that want's the 1.70 setup as a Version on PBW. Were you going to be putting out a new Version soon or should I go ahead and set that one up.

Geoschmo

Mylon · #2 September 14th, 2002, 06:40 AM

Well the power plant idea wasn't a solar panel idea. It would be something regardless of the number of suns in a sector. Like say a nuclear reactor on board that gave a constant +100 supplies per turn. You could theoretically remove bridge components entirely and give power plants the "bridge" flag so that they're required. Likewise, you could also have fusion reactors, singularity reactors, quantum reactors (not to be confused with the unlimited supply component!) to represent different levels of power generation. Solar generators would probably be a good addition as well, but I would think the solar panels would have to be modified in some way to prevent a proliferation of supplies and make sure that large ships with good reactors are still capable of running out. You could even experiment with removing resupply depots totally, but I think that would be a bit too drastic of a change to make without a _lot_ of extensive testing.

I also think the prospector hull is broken. It provides 80% maintenance reduction, and a crystalline race can easily turn that into a cash cow if >100% reduction = resource production.

Mylon · #3 September 14th, 2002, 06:49 AM

Nevermind! I have a Crystalline restructuring plant (+20%) plus a prospector hull (ship design says 80%, ability tab says 90%. Typo somewhere?) and a racial trait of +5% to maintenance reduction. I'm paying approximately 1.6% of it's cost in maintenance versus the 17.4% I'm paying for other ships in other sectors, so I think it's pretty safe to give relatively large bonuses of maintenance reduction to bases, but I still defend the idea that maintenance reduction component shouldn't be allowed for ships.

geoschmo · #4 September 15th, 2002, 01:14 AM

I tested all this a while back. IIRC the ship maintenance reductions for the hull and the components if any will add together before being calculated. So you could get a negative maintenace if you weren't careful.

But the total maint reduction for a ship would be calulated separatly from any maintreduction due to empire characteristics,culture, or system facilities. So if your ship had a comp that gave it a 90% maint reduction and a faciliity that gave all your ships in that system a 90 % maint reduction you wouldn't get 180%, it would do the first 90%, and then take another 90% off the remaining 10%. In effect the reduction in that system would be 99%.

Geoschmo

Rollo · #5 September 14th, 2002, 02:46 PM

Geoschmo, yes please do set up DNM 1.70 for PBW. I have gotten no bug reports so far and haven't found any myself. So it seems to be stable. There is no update planned for some time.

Mylon, there is no ability that will produce supplies regardless of the suns.
Maintenance reduction would not be available to ships, only for bases.
Not sure what you mean with the typo for the prospector hull. I checked it and found no error. The 80% is for the combat disadvantage, the 90% is for maintenance reduction.

Jimbob, thanks for your input.

One problem that I see with strategic movement for bases is the Propulsion Expert advantage. Maximum movement for bases would be one. Of course that means two for prop. exp. Big advantage? y/n. Especially when base movement is easy to come by. Maybe the ruins tech solution would be good? This way you can't really plan on getting and using it (plus I'd love to add more ruins stuff

). Or just can the idea altother? Hmm, more pondering needed... sorry for rambling.
I sure wish that the emergency propulsion worked for vehicles with zero movement. That looked like a very promising solution. Oh, well.

Rollo

Rollo · #6 September 14th, 2002, 02:50 PM

Two things I forgot to mention:

1) There is a PBW game starting soon that will use the new 1.70 Version. There are still some slots left. Please come and join the fray

.
Game is called 'Devnull2', Binford is running it. Looks like we might be using monsters, too

.

2) Has anyone encountered the 'Sonne' race in a solo game, yet? If yes, how do they do?

Rollo

Mylon · #7 September 14th, 2002, 04:03 PM

I'll join if there's time, and yes, I have encountered the Sonne race, and they scare the crap out of me! They've been at peace with _everyone_ and have quietly taken over about 70% of the quadrant! The current victory condition is Last man standing, so I have an odd feeling that I don't stand a chance. And I _think_ they singlehanded whiped out the monsters. I saw some of the monsters, but I never saw any of their planets, even though I've flown through their claimed sectors. My only hope is to build 3-4 ringworlds, beef them up like crazy, and hope that it'll be impossible for them to kill those planets while I slowly edge out my empire. I have an odd feeling that those 4-5 star systems will be _very_ handy when I get stellar manipulation 5. And even better is the _huge_ surplus of minerals my very treaty with them is giving me.

No, I haven't tested them in combat, but I'm too scared to at the moment. Does anyone know if the AI do the evil empire thing to other AIs?