Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I did not say missiles were a bad example, I said that gravitic weapons were a bad example.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Pax,

I'm glad you like the grav. tech tree http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
It's good to know that somebody is using it. I personally thought that the slower the missile, the more PDF fire it would take... so the obvious method to increase missile value was to make 'em faster! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

I have to admit that I haven't really tried out the bombardment missiles yet - they looked to massive to be worthwhile. Have you found them to be significantly useful (i.e. how does it compare vs 2x normal missiles; how do the normal and bombardment missiles compare when using the grav. tech tree)?

cheers,
jimbob

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Gee, I keep making you so busy releasing all these Versions when I notice yet another bug... but this isn't really a bug, more of a design decision - perhaps Natural Merchants should be more expensive since Spaceports take so long to build on fledgling colonies?

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, here's the thing. Comapre identical levels of missile -- without gravitic tech.

CSM versus HBM, you get 2 CSMs per HBM. Against unshielded targets, therefor, theCSMs do twice as much damage.

But each HBM takes FOUR times as much damage. If the enemy can shoot down 1 CSM per turn, teh HBM catches up in damage immediately. If they can shoot down 2 or 3 CSMs per turn, but not four, the HBM wins, period.

And that ignores the quad-to-shields trait of the HBM. In the same PDC/PDL environment, the HBM is superior to 2 CSMs against shielded targets, at ALL points of comparison.

...

Now, with Gravitic Technology, you get the G-Spike Versions. +10kT mass per launcher, and somethng close to 50% extra speed.

G-CSMs mass 60kt, G-HBMs mas 110kt. So, the comparison isn't quite 2:1 anymore; now it's 11 G-CSMs to 6 G-HBMs. The G-HBMs have the same damage resistance as twenty four G-CSMs ... for slightly better than half-damage, you are MUCH more likely to get a missile through. That only compounds with the higher-speed-means-less-PD-shots-taken benefit of the G-Spike launchers.

...

With all that said, however ... I don't know how effectvie it will TRULY prove to be, Ihaven't tried it out against humans yet. However, if nothing else, it should force opponents to devote MUCH more tonnage to PD weapons than they would otherwise. Especialy using G-Spike HBMs.

G-Spike alone helps tweak missiles better. HBMs alone are very useful when you consider how many get through as of chief importance.

G-Spike HBMs are just pure gravy, IMO. 8)

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">VEry VERY good point ... !!! Saving thirty+ turns is a BIG help.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Hmm, it looks like the ship mounts are showing up when you design bases... while this could be useful in certain situations (there's no equivalent of the Large Ship Mount for bases, for instance - the Large Base Mount is equivalent to the Heavy Ship Mount plus a range/tohit bonus - and you might not have enough space for another Large Base Mount weapon), it would get kind of cluttered... how about doing something similar to what you did to keep the base mounts off ships - make duplicate entries of each ship mount - Large Ship Mount would be 400-449 kT, 451-1749 kT, for instance (given that there are no 1750+ kT ships)

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

One thing you missed was the supply usage, and the rads cost of the G-spike "addons"

Two questions about natural merchants:
1) Do people actually use natural merchants that often in the regular game? IE: Will this simply help balance its use?

2) Is it really that advantageous? The scale of all building is altered by the same factor; IE even though the spaceport takes longer, the resource facilities take longer (about 7 turns), too.

I imagine you would place all the extra population immigrating to the new system on the spaceport planet first, so your spaceport will see a higher build rate, and by the time your other colonies actually need the spaceport, it should be almost done.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Okay! New component mounts file.
Ship mounts are not an option for bases, and supply use multipliers follow a nice damage^1.5 curve.
That also means you will have a lot of trouble finding ammo for your Core Mount Polaron Torpedo Launcher http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Be sure to carry a couple of hawking reactors and have supply ships standing by, or just use more conservative weapons.

Of course, by the time you've got battlemoons, you probably couldn't care less about such trivial matters as practicality http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

P&N3.1c R5.zip

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

IMHO, natural merchants is now underpriced. That's why I took it for my empire! "I shouldn't have told you that..."

PS: Bonus points if you can name that character/movie quote.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yep, all the time.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Put it this way -- I take Natural Merchants, you don't; we have the exact same culture, and Construction rate, etc. we each build one colony in a new system.

Your colony will have it's first resource center built and functioning ... sending resources to the capital ... in 37 turns.

In that time, I will have FIVE resource facilities -- with 2 entire turns to spare.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Or you build OTHER stuff faster. Research labs, maybe, tog et better tech -- meaning better pop transports ... meaning better immigration rates ... meaning better empire-wide construction rates.

Plus, all those OTHER colonies, which leapt right to building resource facilities, contribute THEIR utput to the empire right away too. Take the above example -- we each plant FIVE colonies. Assume you immigrate to teh SP first, and I psread it out. Assume that means you get 7 turns per colony world per resourcer, and ~20 turns for the SP. By the time you have the SP done, with 2 resourcers per off-colony ... assuming I immigrate evenly, and get 5 turns per resourcer per world, in those 20 turns, each of my four worlds has 4 facilities.

20 facilities producing for me, and some of them have BEEN producing (5 for 15 turns, 5 more for 10, and 5 more for 5), to your 8 facilities, which JUST came Online.

Trust me; the longer ALL build times are, the better not having a SP becomes. Especially with 30-turn SPs.

In P&N ... NM is worth 1500 to 2000, IMO.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hagrid, in HP:TSS, of course. DUH. 8)

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Good points.
In order to get the rate down to 5 turns per facility, you'd need about 100M per planet.
With a 5 planet system, that's 500M, or +20% when concentrated, giving the other player's spaceport planet 3x the normal buildrate.
The spaceport finishes in about 10 turns, while the resource facilities finish in 7.
The natural merchants would end up ahead by +(first 7)2+3*2(7th to 10th)= 8 facility-turns @ 26% (100M per planet).
Which is 1400 resources, or 1000 research points.

Naturally, given a smaller number of colonies per system, the benefit of natural merchants increases exponentially.

A similar amount of points spent on resource gathering traits will allow you to vastly increase the productivity of those same colonies as well as your established planets.

For example: spending 1000 points, I can boost all resource production to +7%
With -98% production due to size, that makes for quite the jump, and boosts production even in your established systems by 49 points per facility (any resource extractor).

With 1000 points concentrated, I could add 26% to research.
For a new colony in an established system, that amounts to 13x more production or 100M extra people, or 130 research points per facility (182 if it were resource production).

Heh. You know what they say about Statistics http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
What do you think about natural merchants now?
(Note: I am still flexible, just trying to get a counter viewpoint out, and incite a little doubt in your race setups http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I am still convinced it should be a 1500-cost trait. I am so regretting NOT taking Natural Merchants in Tsunami (P&N 3.1b, we started a couple days before 3.1c came out).

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Not to be annoying... but I've always assumed this was intentional - ALL the Nutty mounts are 80% tonnage structure - that's 80% of the STANDARD hitpoints, not 80% of the regular Version of the mount. In other words, a Large Nutty Mount APB has 24 kT structure. A Heavy Nutty Mount APB has 24 kT structure. A MASSIVE Nutty Mount APB has 24 kT structure. That WAS intentional... right? Or have I just forced you to release yet another tweak of P&N? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Alrighty, then.

1500 for natural merchants sounds fair, and nutty mounts give between 60% and 75% of the normal mounted hitpoints.
The nutty hitpoint multiplier now follows the weapon's size multiplier, raither than its damage multiplier as the other mounts do.

P&N 3.1c-PBW Revision #6.zip
So, anything else need tweaking? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

so it's been one week, and nobody is suggesting any changes. SJ finishes his Last midterm today (good luck) and so we can probably start this game right away... right?

cheers
jimbob

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

if you're refering to horrible doom, ZA for some reason is still asking the admins to update the game to revision 4... ??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

4, not 6? Hmm, better let him know... {emails ZA}

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Ya, it should be #6... unless SJ comes out with another revision http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Well I do have a minor change ready, are there any other comments or tweaks to add?

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

It's been a week, I guess not...

(really waiting for that Horrible DOOM game to start http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

edit: oh wait, there is one thing... not really a problem but more of something you ought to let people know about so they don't get confused... since you implemented bases as ships, that means that the "bases can be fleeted" option is effectively on no matter what it's set to (it's currently set to false)... I was about to tell you that bases had no means of being resupplied before solar collectors are researched but then realized that they're really ships so they can be fleeted with supply ships! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

edit 2: oh, remember those 10 kT "MiniPlats" I suggested that could be used for armoring a planet? might not be a good time to put those in but it's a thought... hmm, you could put combat sensors on those too... of course they'd get destroyed even before the armor so that would be a bad idea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ March 14, 2003, 19:40: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

SJ and Crew: I'm really really sorry, but I can't find my original gold disk anywhere!! If you're willing to wait until Monday, I'll try and go buy one from CompuSmart. Otherwise I could send someone the design of my race and you could put it together for me and I'll just miss the first few rounds.

SJ: regarding the ongoing pre-gold game, noticed a few minor bugs (typos really). The large G-spike engines do not use enough resources per turn as compared to other large engines. I don't know if it's just a typo or if the problem is in the code... I'll leave that to you.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Buy an SE4 disk at a store??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif They sell them there now? Hmm, maybe it wasn't MOO3 that gave us all these new members all of a sudden http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Besides, you can still run the game from your hard drive even without the CD, you just won't get to hear the music (which probably crashes your system anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

P&N had gravspike engines before the gold Version? &lt;checks data file&gt; hmm, I'll be darned, I thought they were newer than that! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif but I know it didn't have large engines... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif oh well that's just me babbling on about what I know nothing about http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The G-spike engines are supposed to have a slightly lower fuel use.
Since there are only four levels, they go up in thrust at the same time they go down in fuel use.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Yah!!!!

I found my gold disk, so I don't have to go and buy a new one! (my internet is at work, and I didn't have the game on it... and I'd tried to just copy it straight across, but no dice. Doesn't matter now, cause I can just reinstall http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

Oh, and I've got a friend (Stargrazer, he's in on the B5 game right now) who would like to try this mod too. Could we shoe-horn him in?

If so, we'll both get our races in on Monday.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Jimbob will get me all the updates as I have dial-up, and then I will be able to play, if I am allowed...

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Well, we're also waiting for the PBW admins to change the game to P&N blah blah blah R6, since we keep getting new releases of P&N every other day now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Well I just downloaded R7, so should I burn Stargrazer a copy now, or wait another day (only so many 'free' CDs here at work ya know http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )?

SJ:
regarding the engine error I mentioned before. I realize that the supplies used decreases for the grav spike engines... but should the Large and Small both use only 9 supplies? That's where I think the typo is...

[ March 24, 2003, 20:49: Message edited by: jimbob ]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Hrmm.. On my copy, I see the "large grav drive I" using 43 supplies.

And all of the small (fighter) drives use either 2 or 1 supplies (well, zero for sails).

[ March 25, 2003, 00:26: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Yes, for the P&N 3.1c this is likely true. However I'm talking about the P&N v2.6. It may be that the engine is actually using 40+ supplies, but I'm certain that the description is coming up with supply use "9". Of course I could actually be going insane (quite likely actually http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ), so if it would be handy I could send you the password for my empire, and you could have a look.

But talking about the P&N 3.1c (R7 I believe). I was getting an error when the computer players turns went by (I know it's a human only, but I just wanted to be sure my race would work, try out some tech, etc). Something about unknown fleet orders for "drone attack". Will this cause problems when the PBW game is processed?

Hope these little trouble shoots help. As always, the P&N universe(s) is/are my favorite, so thanks for making it/them.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Woo-Hoo! Revision 7!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[ March 25, 2003, 17:44: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Ah! That makes all the difference http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

All of the recent things were about 3.1c, so I didn't think to check the classic Version.

You are right, and it should be 43 supplies used.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Well gents,

I'll be out of town this weekend (back Monday night) so I'll be happy to play the game, and have my empire in, etc. etc. But I need to know if we're using R(evision)7, or if we can wait till monday for R8. SJ?

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

There is no planned revision 8 at this time.

The bug reported below was for the SE4 classic Version, not the Gold PBW Version which Horrible Doom was planning to use.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

All right!

I'm ready to boogie on the new game (revision 7). I need some advice on the fact that I've installed the 3rd gold patch -- will this screw up everything? Is my race .emp file going to be okay?

Can we start soon though? I've noticed that a long lag time at start up often costs us players in the PBW realm. I'm really looking forward to this game, and hope everyone will stay on board!

Jimbob

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Patches will NOT adversely affect your EMPs or even savegames for P&N.

You can't load a patch 3 savegame under patch 2, but that isn't an issue here.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

SJ have you checked your private Messages lately? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Actually, yes, but that was on the weekend, and I hadn't gotten any Messages for a month http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Today I have two, thanks!

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Ladies (if any) and gentlemen,
Let me teel you about the pirates shipset (Version 2.0), created for P&N (and now full neostandard compliant for your modded games).
AI files compliant with stock game (because it's impossible to have a pirate working AI !).

http://diesel2035.free.fr/pirates/

[ April 12, 2003, 11:11: Message edited by: trooper ]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

SJ's Industry Patch.zip(141 kb)

Courtesy of the Tech Gridder, this patch enables A ten level industry tech area. It reduces component costs by 7 to 8% per level researched, giving up to a total of 50% off the original prices.

Requires 7 megabytes of free Hard Drive Space (!)
NOTE: This is NOT compatible with savegames.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

SJ's Industry Patch.zip(141 kb)
"Requires 7 megabytes of free Hard Drive Space"

Don't text files compress well? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Phoenix-D

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Yep. The compression ratio was quite a pleasant surprise.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Say, how about if Cheap Components used more supply and Premium/High Quality used less? Would prevent players from going with a Cheap Mount warp opener and saving thousands of resources http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif well they could, but it would use even more obscene amounts of supply!

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

*blink*blink*
no updated much. narf suprised.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Any reason the Psychic Ship Training Facilities were removed in the PBW Version? Sure, ship training got moved to components, but why can't the Psychic tech get some too? It's kind of pathetic at the moment... only Psychic Sensors for the first 3 levels http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif You didn't just forget did you? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

edit: well, actually psychic sensors aren't so bad... what with the diversified cloaking it's not like you can just research cloaking devices to defeat them... psychic sensors can detect any ship that doesn't have a master computer, right? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

of course they'd be useless against drones, mines, satellites, etc. I'd presume... what, they're NOT? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif but they're not MANNED... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

[ May 13, 2003, 23:01: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Oooh.

Sounds like revision 8 is coming http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
Unmanned vehicles get Psy cloak...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, organic armor will mask lifesigns against level 1 scanners, but pretty much, yeah, and only Military Grade MCs are for good protection. The civilian computers have too compact intelligences, and can be detected by Psy.

---

No, wait, nevermind!
I just remembered why I didn't add psy cloak to those vehicles...
They'd always try to be cloaked, and you'd have trouble using them for defense.

Other than mines, of course, which are permanently invisible (except for large-mass mines)

---

Also:
Update for non-PBW gold P&N
Dataupdate.zip

From playtesting in a LAN game, there are some tweaks here to fix a null space upgrade bug, and an AI fix to prevent micro-mounted rocket pods (micro mount causes zero range, and makes for useless fighters)

[ May 14, 2003, 03:35: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Now this is really nitpicking, but the 94% maintenance reduction on bases gives 76% reduction from the base 75% reduction, not another 75% http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

ISTR a problem with fighters in my Last P&N game--the United Flora were using micro-mount somethings with the boarding party picture on them. Zero damage at any range, so I didn't fear their carriers too much. I didn't run into any other races with carriers--most died too quickly (not by me; by the UF http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif ), so I don't know if the AI's picking a wierd component family or weapon family or what.

[edit]Forgot to specify P&N v3.1 non-PBW.

[ May 21, 2003, 05:22: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

lemme add my part to the long thread.... i have the P&N and am in a PBW game with it. now iway too lazy to go and find out myself... how pirate and nomad races are different from normals?

a quick list would be enough http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ May 21, 2003, 05:32: Message edited by: Taera ]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Rounding Error http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm pretty sure that only pirates ever had boarding parties for fighters (which never did work, and got removed)...

This Dataupdate.zip deals with an issue regarding the AIs putting micromount "Rocket Pods" on their fighters and thus reducing their range to zero...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Pirates & Nomads don't get colonies... instead, they get other special advantages, such as:
Nomad:
- Superlow (1% before race modifiers) mainteance ships
- +2 levels in fighter tech
- 100kt shipyards
- cheap boarding parties

Pirate:
- Low maintenance, completely undetectable "Civilian Ships"
- 100kt shipyards
- cheap boarding parties
- "slave labour camps" (facility)

There is certainly more, but the general idea is that the Pirates & Nomads have the capacity to live without needing colonies.