Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

I dunno.

What's a good armor thickness to use, anyways?
20 to 100 in cm?

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

I think with armor mounts you are getting a few too many mounts.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/...s_prealpha.zip

Strategies make a huge difference.
I just tried a simulator combat, small carrier loaded, vs 7 anti-fighter destroyers, which should be roughly balanced construction and maintenance costs wise.

With default strategies, the destroyers lose only one ship, and have only one or two damaged.

With smarter fighter strategies (not tactical combat - actual strategies), those destroyers all get disabled by the fighters. Although the fighters all die, the destroyers are worse than dead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
In the combat I ran, the destroyers were left with weapons mostly intact, but immobilized and bleeding supplies.

In this case, the whole fighter load was set up as heavy dogfighters. Anti-Missile action was not a priority for any of them, though they did take some pot shots at missiles when there were no ships in range.

Note: Most of the tech levels are not finished, and race design has not been looked at yet.
This is just a Pre-alpha peek http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Suicide Junkie said:
"I think a thickness mount for armor will be good too:
EG:
Steel Armor Plating I
size - 1
HP - 3

Then we have mounts:"

*SNIP*

This is very exciting, thickness mounts for armor. Now you'll be able to decide if you want light armor to provide some defense, or build a massive flying brick of a warship.

If only the armor had another detriment -- say, making to ship too very massive would rob you of some propulsion. Can you give armor a fractional minus to propulsion? So piling armor onto a large ship robs you of some movement, but the average amount of armor on a smaller ship wouldn't notice it at all.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

QNP does that automatically.

If you want to spend 10% more space on armor, you have to take the tonnage out of engines (or guns), and thus reduce your speed (or firepower).

If you want to allow some "free" armor, you can add some 0-kt components with a 10-per-ship limit.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Suicide Junkie said :
Would putting a level of Multiplex Tracking on the hull solve this, assuming that the anti-missile weapons can't target anything else?

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Oops, didn't really think that through, did I? Sorry, I was stuck in the standard game rules late last night. Hee.

But the free space armor is always nice. P&N has buckytube gel armor, maybe you could call the free armor in this mod "re-enforced bulkheads", if you feel like being original.

I always wanted that as an option when building an important warship -- one specificall designed to stand up to punishment.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

There were no missile-specific weapons on the figthers, so no.

I'm not sure if fighters get free multiplex, but I think I'll add some to the hulls just to be sure.
There are lots of fighters in the stack, so multi-targetting should not be a problem.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Suicide

Hows the progress going, I'm really interested in this idea and wanted see if the idea is still alive.


VaultDweller

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Lots of progress I think.
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/...tles_alpha.zip

Almost all of the base missiles are in, plus four standard guns.
Only one level of each weapon for now: the tree can be extended once the balance is right.

The balance between fighter and ships still needs work...
The stacking of small fighter guns is a problem.
Making the fighter guns do quarter to shields might help, but having some really high damage anti-fighter missiles is probably nessesary in order to force the fighter group sizes down.

---

One odd glitch I've noticed in the simulator; only one missile in a stack actually dies when the stack is hit, unlike normally where PD toasts a handful of missiles per hit...

PS:
Beware of the strategies... they're only half-decent and shouldn't be used in public http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

So far I like it, definately like it. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Fired up a live-combat exercise just now, with some anti-fighter cluster missiles.

Interesting stuff...
The two carriers were optimised for defense, and were loaded with lots of anti-missile and anti-fighter weaponry.
Fighter loadout included some bombers, heavy attack and armored interceptors. With Maxrange/CAP/Point Defense strategies.

1) The fighter-launched missiles only die one at a time, max. Odd, since they still hit as a stack for one big damage punch.
The interceptors were crucial to the defensive effort, since they fired multiple shots from the various stacks, and whittled down the incoming missile stack one missile at a time.
2) AI targetting of the Anti-missile missiles is good.
It fired about enough missiles for a 4x overkill on each target, then moved to the next with its remaining missiles. When it ran out of targets, it would save some shots for the next round of combat.
3) Since the combat was pretty balanced, it was down to the two carriers in the end. Without direct fire guns to worry about, and the other carrier's missiles to attract them, the two carriers ended up side by side with a thin haze of fighters dogfighting around them.
Both carriers were launching volley after volley of anti-missile missiles, shooting down the enemy anti-fighter missiles as fast as they could be launched http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif.
4) Supplies were way out of whack.
Engine usage has been cut by 10x and ship's supply storage has been increased by 10x.
The 600kt carriers took about 2000 supplies to cross about 3 systems, and cooked off 7000 supplies worth of missile fire during the battle.
Considering that this happened with no extra supply storage components, I'll probably reduce the supply storage by half.
Fighting a battle like this will then require one or two supply bays or a supply tanker ship to restock from after battle. You'll definitely also need cargo ships with a fresh batch of fighters. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
5) The final score was all but 5 fighters lost (half a wing of bombers successfully ran after firing), and a handful of components damaged on both carriers. Mostly armor, with 1-2 spare engines knocked out.
6) Maintaining the carriers from the homeworld was hard... some economic tweaking will probably be next.

I've updated the zip.
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/...tles_alpha.zip

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Suggestion for drones:
Make them on par with fighter sizes, make it so components allow them to either be short range weapons delivery systems, or long range scouting vehicles (lrscanner component)

Or they could simply be similar to automated fighters.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Sorry, just gotta give this thread a bump.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

This mod looks cool. It will be nice to see some all-carrier battles.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Just finished a busy week, but I'm back.

For race setup, I'm thinking that it could be interesting to have almost all of the variations built into the culture, and leave the characteristics for minor tweaks. Should make it easier to balance the traits I think...


Some example cultures I've been thinking of:
Berzerkers:
-25% to production, construction and repair, for 20% more combat prowess.

Preservationists:
-50% to production and construction, for maintenance free ships.

Disposable Society:
-5 to combat. Double maintenance. -100% to repair. Doubled SY rate.
(Handy for replacing those fighters, may be a bit too powerful in practice)

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Can't be done with cultures or characteristics. There's a hardcoded minimum of 5% maintenance cost, and the only way to get around it is a racial tech like the Pirates&Nomads mod's Ultra Recycler Node.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

I'm using the 100% base maintenance rate, and dropping the maintenance further with hull abilities.

In practice, you'll be paying 95% less than everybody else, which is close enough to maintenance free http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

In regards to disposable economy:

Would be good, except when you show up to a planet that is filled to the brim with fighters, launching thousands at you. I suppose to prevent this you could fiddle with planetary storage and cargo facility storage.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

A disposable economy race would have an advantage on defense due to the rapid replacement of units, yes, but they'd also be at a disadvantage on offence, since they can't field as many carriers. And we all know, fighting a strategic defense is bad news.

I would also expect everybody's planets to be chock-full of fighters and troops, regardless of their culture. Most of the time, at least... you could always attack early after colonization, or right after a large fleet has restocked and moved out.

---

It'll all come out in playtesting, though, and I'm expecting to have to change the numbers at least a bit.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Updated the posted zip on imagemodserver...
I'll probably be writing out the weapon level II to X components soon, and adding the Masochistic happiness type from GritEcon http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

I think Preservationists could be more indepth. I mean what that really says to me is that their stuff is built to last, right? Well it stands to reason that it would be tougher, too. Just something that struck me.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

The problem with capital ships shooting at fighters, is that the AI always shoot to whatever is closer, so it waste all its shots on fighters that cna rarely be hit because of the size bonuses.
That's why I believe ship weaponry should not be capable of shooting at fighters at all. Only PD cannons and/or missiles should.

The AI behaves like a WW2 battleship prefering to fire its 14 inch guns at a fighter flying close-by than at the big enenmy battleship half a mile away.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Actually, that depends entirely on your strategies.

You can make your battleship run and try to chase down missiles if you set them to do so.

If you check off the "use type priorities" option, you can sort the targetting priority by ships/fighters/missiles/planets/etc.

---

PS:
In this mod, you really don't want your capital ships running through the cloud of fighters in the hopes of getting into range of a ship across the map. They'll just get cut to shreds by the sheer volume of tiny guns.

---

Re: Preservationists
The culture settings don't have an option for scaling hitpoints.
It could perhaps be simulated with a small combat bonus, but I think the culture is already quite powerful.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

In regards to expanding out the weapons levels:

Couldn't you just use the tech gridder to automaticly do this?

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

As I said earlier, I've never even bothered to install a single mod before, but you can bet I'll cut my teeth on this one!

I'm positively giddy with anticipation!

Umm... can you say "giddy" without sounding totally gay?

(Not that there's anything wrong with that...)

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gifTurin

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

ZA:
Sure, but the gridder can't pick balanced numbers for you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Turin:
You may want to download and install the imagemodpacks while you wait, since this will definitely need the combatpack, componentpack, and probably the facilitypack.
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/MM/SE4/imagemod/

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

This sounds like a problem to me, at least at first glance. Let me know if I'm right, because the impression I get from this statement is that of a swarm of Wildcats being able to strafe the Yamato to death. That's something I don't think should happen, so perhaps some emissive armor is in order. (Or just targetting restrictions. Might be easier)

A swarm of Dauntlesses dive-bombing the Yamato to death, well, that's a different story. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

The leaky shields do help a LOT against the tiny fighter weapons, and if you force them to spread out into smaller stacks with anti-fighter missiles, then the leaky shields work even better.

But when there are hundreds of fighters zinging around, some with mini-torpedoes, you'll simply get crushed by the massive volume of fire... one of those hits will leak through to a shield generator and your defenses will start to crumble.

The distraction may be worth it, and allow your fighters to get a few rounds of free hits to turn the tide of the fighter war, or the enemy fighters may just ignore your ship in favour of blasting at your cloud of fighters.
It all depends on the strategies you each have set, really.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Uh... hate to sound dense... but remind me what program opens a .rar file...

Turin

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Speaking of strategies, what happens if two types of fighters in a stack have different strategies?

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

In combat, they'll be launched as separate stacks, I'm pretty sure.

Strategic launched mixed stacks would probably use the strategy of the first fighter to be launched.

However, since large stacks of fighters are bad for combat, and for the most part, fighters don't have strategic movement, this shouldn't come up too often.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

The zip has been updated on imagemodserver (under miscellaneous mods)

I've fleshed out the direct fire weapons tech, and picked out some nifty images for them all.

---

Suggestions and comments are welcome.

PS:
For winamp users, I made this the other night:
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/nick/t...ara_Sunset.avs
Pretty nifty.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

SJ, if you're planning to add more cultures, take a look at this. Adds a helluva lot of cultures. Some may be too powerful/too weak for Carrier Battles, but check it out.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Inter-Species Intelligence Agency?

For a culture? That seems kind of silly. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

I've dome cultures of all kinds - societies, government types, and even corporate structures. Now, an independent organization COULD be working as an inter-species intelligence agency... hiring themselves out to the highest bidder or simly trying to grab power by means of intelligence.

Note, however, that this was part of the Cultures and Demeanros Add-On, which also explains the 40% maint reduction as it has a modified Settings.txt with 50% standard manintenance.
The full C&D version 1.01 zip file can be found here:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...amp;PHPSESSID=

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

I can see that, but it seems unlikely that an entire species would comprise a multi-species intelligence agency..that's all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

I'm not too worried about cultures at the moment.
I will take a look at the link, though.

What I'm interested in at the moment is making sure the weapons are reasonably balanced, and that there are no major gameplay problems.

I think facilities will be next, followed by intel projects. That should cover the core mod files.

After that, the extra cultures, random map balancing, funky racial techs, default name files, etc will be extras.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

As I have said before, I love this mod. Now all I want is a working AI and a finished off component tree.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

AI is my weakest subject in modding.
Would you be willing to help get them started?

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

AI modding is not easy. In fact its a PITA.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Uh.... I would love to. But I every attempt I have made at making a truly custom AI (keep in mind I also use a mod centered around fighters) has failed, especially getting them to use carriers consistantly.

And I really don't have the time right now, currently working two jobs, don't have a lot of spare time.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

I am working on my own new mod so I cannot help at this time SJ. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Look at fyrons Adamant mod, it still needs help with its AI and its over a year old now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif So I know you will get 'R' done. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

It kind of makes me feel better to know that the AI file is just as daunting to the veterans of this game as it is for me.

Keep the faith though SJ, I'm really looking forward to this one getting done.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

In reality is all you would need would be one AI, that uses the basic functions of the mod, and then to tweak it for each race. You know, I have about an hour that I was planning on spending watching BSG, but I think I might work on an AI for your mod. I'll post whatever I come up with.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

SJ: I have started modding the AI, but ran into a problem. All of the missiles occupy the same weapon family number.

Secondly: I am still at it, but I can't seem to get the AI to build carriers for some reason. I'll let you know if I come up with something.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Oh, coolness.

Just tell me what you need tweaked to help the AI, and I'll get it going.
Unique weapon families coming right up!

---

http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/...tles_alpha.zip
Updated with unique weapon numbers, plus the Test1 savegame has a nice set of pre-made designs to play with.

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Was just checking this out.

The Heavy Carrier class is using the wrong ship image. Using a Light Carrier instead of a Heavy Carrier http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I'll report any other mix-ups I notice

Re: Carrier Battles Mod
 

Updated.
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/...tles_alpha.zip

- Fixed heavy carrier pic
- Tweaked support ship image use towards bigger, cooler hulls.
- Reduced fighter weapon damage by 50%
- Decreased fighter hitpoints
- Teched out the missile trees.
- Reduced missile speeds at the low-tech end.
- Added -1 speed to external-mount missiles.
- Added a "Launch figthers in groups of 3" strategy. The strategy editor dosen't allow you to select groups of three, but you can copy this entry if you want them.

Support ships now stand a better chance of survival against small fleets of fighters. With decent shielding and small weapon mounts, your support ships should be able to survive for a little while in fighter-infested territory.

Appropriately used, the launch-3 strategy can cause some havok. Cluster missiles will be horribly inefficient against such tiny groups, thus discouraging their use. With fewer cluster missiles around, your larger groups will be able to survive, and can penetrate capital ship shielding with thier combined firepower.