Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Do you guys know how to make a cloaked planet? If not, then I can tell you.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Do you guys know how to make a cloaked planet? If not, then I can tell you.<hr></blockquote>You can put it in a nebulae with level 5 obscuring.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Egregius:What I still need is a speechfile with everything garbled (shouldnt be that hard),<hr></blockquote>Change the sppech file. Easy, as you said. <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> a way to make the AI not build anything except the monster vehicle sizes, so they dont build colony ships, and a way to make the AI use ONLY the monster tech, not anything else (thus any research they do should be moot).<hr></blockquote>This is also not too much of a problem. The colony ships part is easy. Simply remove any designs calling for colony components. The other stuff is nto as simple, but it can be done. You could do it through the ship designs as well, but it will take some trial and error to keep it from choosing standaard components in csome cases. You can also do the idea mentioned before where every non-monster has a special non-monster racial trait. That way the monsters wouldn't have any access to the non-monster components. That would be less trial and werror, but a lot more work, unless you use a patching program like SJ has. <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>And to figure out how to get the ai to actively harvest organics from various places while spawning new vehicles from there.
And a way to get them to attack occasionally, but not all-out suicidal, with or without home-planet.<hr></blockquote>These two I am not too sure about. I have heard that the AI won't do remote mining beacuse of a bug. Never tested it myself. Also the ai not doing anythign after there planets are destroyed may not have a solution outside of a patch.

Geoschmo

[ 18 January 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]</p>

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>And to keep the monsters alive longer, give them very strong planet based shielding from the get-go... even if they are discovered, the most a player can do is intercept the enemy ships as they're manufactured... er, born.<hr></blockquote>3 words: Null Space Projector http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

"You can also do the idea mentioned before where every non-monster has a special non-monster racial trait. That way the monsters wouldn't have any access to the non-monster components. That would be less trial and werror, but a lot more work, unless you use a patching program like SJ has."

I'll stick to figuring out design creation =)

BTW can't you just add a cloaking device (level 4, so late game they can be found) to the homeworld, and put it in the standard space-monster tech and the standard homeworld construction?

[ 18 January 2002: Message edited by: Egregius ]</p>

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
3 words: Null Space Projector http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif <hr></blockquote>

As I remember from separate discussion, planets (weapon platforms at least) do not have separate shields, all shield and armour points go directly to the structure. Because of this, organic and crystall armour and shield regenerators do not work, but as a benefit, null-space and pnase-polaron beams lose shield-piercing.

Oleg.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Gryphin:
Just wondering:
Would Space Monsters attack each other? If so, would you want to or could you design this out of them? I think I dreamed about this Last night.<hr></blockquote>

Not unless you make two different space monster-races. I can imagine a crystalline space-monster race, but question would be how they would be different from the Cryslonites themselves.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>As I remember from separate discussion, planets (weapon platforms at least) do not have separate shields, all shield and armour points go directly to the structure. Because of this, organic and crystall armour and shield regenerators do not work, but as a benefit, null-space and pnase-polaron beams lose shield-piercing.<hr></blockquote>Sort of... Platform shields become planetary internals, but planetary shields remain shields.
You can make the planetary shields phased, but null space will always skip them.
Platforms and defending troops/militia will get damaged by null space, and then troops can be dropped to capture the planet.

The platforms might not be replaced by the AI, and facilities can still be destroyed.

Is it possible to make a level 5 planetary/sector cloak part of a facility? If not, put it on thier bases, so that players can only destroy monster infrastructure with a nova bomb (sun buster)

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Egregius, Yes, that is what I ment. If there were more than one space monster race. I guess it never occured to me that there would be just one. Just thinking outside the envelope.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Just wondering:
Would Space Monsters attack each other? If so, would you want to or could you design this out of them? I think I dreamed about this Last night.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
...Is it possible to make a level 5 planetary/sector cloak part of a facility? If not, put it on thier bases, so that players can only destroy monster infrastructure with a nova bomb (sun buster)<hr></blockquote>

Haven't checked myself, but I read (somewhere) that sector cloak doesn't work on facilities.

Making a sun destroyer the only means of killing the monster planet seems like the best solution. Totally gets rid of the capture problem.

I am currently running some preliminary test with monsters. Looks pretty good http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

Rollo

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

So planetary cloaks dont work? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

What then? You could only put them in a nebula with a map-editor, and that wouldnt work for random games.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Sector cloak on a base, then.

Phoenix-D

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

I don't believe that works either. Sector cloak only works for storms IIRC. Someone talked about a way to make a storm during the game that would have cloak ability. If you do a search yo9u may turn something up. I can't remember how they did it exactly.

Geoschmo

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Sector cloaking on a component placed on a base works perfectly. It makes the planet, and everything in orbit around it, disappear from sight. Also, if your ships happen to enter a sector that is cloaked by an enemy, your ships will also disappear.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Also, if your ships happen to enter a sector that is cloaked by an enemy, your ships will also disappear.<hr></blockquote>Woah, really? The cloak-er race can still see their own ships, can they also see the enemy ships that they are cloaking?
That could be a very nasty trap: place the cloak on a wormhole exit, and any ships that go through are lost, but still pay full maintenance!
After the first time that happens, a human would chain orders so the ships don't stop there...
Would entering a minefield clear orders?
BwaHaha http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

I think that is a misunderstanding. Of course your ships do not disappear. Just like in nebula you can still see your own ships. But if you have a ship above the monster planet (with sector cloak), the monsters cannot see you (again, same as in a nebula).

Rollo

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Ok, well I stand corrected. If this works then its simply a matter of adding a base design for the monster race including the sector cloak component and making that base a high priority for them to build. As long as they get it built before the planet is discovered then the planet should be safe. Even if they dont' get it built before being discovered, once it's built the others can't attack without sufficent sensor capability to defeat the cloak. You can make the sector cloak level higher than any available sensor and you will have a permanent unbeatable cloak too. Planet will be safe for ever, unless they scrap the base.

Unless for some silly reason the AI doesn't know to turn on the cloaking device. Has that been tested?

Geoschmo

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

I created the sector cloak in my mod about 6 months ago - It is a base component, there is a thread floating around somewhere when I was discussing it.. It is in the MOD1 mod on the DL site. I have been refining the AI use of fighter missiles for the mod.
I found that there were problems with sector cloaks. You would mask the enemy ship on your turn if he moved into the same square. My solution was to allow the sector cloak to detect cloak vessels up to the level of the sector cloak.

There was a situation created by doing this however - if a cloaked ship moves into your square with the cloaked planet, they detect each other.

Also - you cannot sector cloak warp pts or stars.
Only asteroids, planets and anything the base is with in that square..
I also found that it was unbalancing, if the vessel that had a sector cloak, moved . Thats why I limited them to bases. They are very powerful.

In my mod - hyperoptics III will detect the Stellar cloak.

the first one listed is the researched component the second was the artifact Version in my mod.

Name := Stellar Cloaking Device I
Description := Cloaking device used to cloak a sector of space.
Pic Num := 247
Tonnage Space Taken := 40
Tonnage Structure := 40
Cost Minerals := 200000
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 100000
Vehicle Type := Base
Supply Amount Used := 0
Restrictions := One Per Vehicle
General Group := Shields
Family := 2800
Roman Numeral := 1
Custom Group := 0
Number of Tech Req := 4
Tech Area Req 1 := Cloaking
Tech Level Req 1 := 3
Tech Area Req 2 := Shields
Tech Level Req 2 := 10
Tech Area Req 3 := Physics
Tech Level Req 3 := 4
Tech Area Req 4 := Stellar Manipulation
Tech Level Req 4 := 6
Number of Abilities := 2
Ability 1 Type := Sector - Sight Obscuration
Ability 1 Descr := Renders all vehicles and/or planets within sector invisible to normal sensors. Prevents level 4 scans.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 5
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Ability 2 Type := Sensor Level
Ability 2 Descr := Cloaked vessels and enemy mine fields can be detected while stellar cloak is active.
Ability 2 Val 1 := EM Active
Ability 2 Val 2 := 5
Weapon Type := None


Name := Sector Cloaking Device
Description := Cloaking device used to cloak a sector of space.
Pic Num := 248
Tonnage Space Taken := 20
Tonnage Structure := 40
Cost Minerals := 100000
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 50000
Vehicle Type := Base
Supply Amount Used := 0
Restrictions := One Per Vehicle
General Group := Shields
Family := 2900
Roman Numeral := 1
Custom Group := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Sector Cloaking Device
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 2
Ability 1 Type := Sector - Sight Obscuration
Ability 1 Descr := Renders all vehicles and/or planets within sector invisible to sensors. Prevents level 3 scans.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 4
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Ability 2 Type := Sensor Level
Ability 2 Descr := Cloaked vessels can be detected while sector cloak is active.
Ability 2 Val 1 := EM Active
Ability 2 Val 2 := 4
Weapon Type := None

[ 21 January 2002: Message edited by: AJC ]</p>

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

If I remember correctly from my tests, sector cloaks don't *have* an on/off switch. That only works for ship cloaks.

(fighters, FYI, work the same way with ANY type of cloak- the cloak is always-on)

Phoenix-D

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
If I remember correctly from my tests, sector cloaks don't *have* an on/off switch. That only works for ship cloaks.

(fighters, FYI, work the same way with ANY type of cloak- the cloak is always-on)

Phoenix-D<hr></blockquote>

Mothballing the base - turns the cloak off!

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Yep, I just tested this and there is no on/off for sector cloaks. They are always on.

Soemthing odd I found too was if the monsters planet is cloaked, then encountering other ships does not trigger a first contact. The monster ship has to actually come across a planet of another race to make contact. This could affect your a mod where the AI controls the monsters, so you need to take it into account.

Cloaks on fighters? According to the abilities file the sector cloak does not work on units, so I didn't even test it. If it does you could make the monster cloak a sattelite instead of a base. If you wanted that is.

Since it's so easy to cloak you could really make the Monsters tough if you let them colonize. Can you imagine stopping them as they spread acroos the quadrant? Everytime they plant another colony, it disapears!

Geoschmo

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

I meant regular cloaks for fighters, not sector http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Phoenix-D

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Since it's so easy to cloak you could really make the Monsters tough if you let them colonize. Can you imagine stopping them as they spread acroos the quadrant? Everytime they plant another colony, it disapears!<hr></blockquote>OOOH... Cool scenario type thingy: a space-time experiment gone wrong, and the universe slowly collapsing around you and your neighbours. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif
Now that I think about it, there was a ST:TNG episode about that sort of thing.
Heh. When the universe shrunk smaller than the length of the ship, and the forward hull ceased to have ever existed:
Computer: Explosive decompression on deck 10.
Dr Crusher: Cause?
Computer: Structural Design Flaw.

If you made the Space Monsters zero-maintenance, and really good resource extractors, could you get them to build ringworlds, colonize, and "eat" the star too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ?

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Oh, man that was my all time favorite TNG episode! Let me see if I can remember....

Crusher: Computer. Specify nature of design flaw.

Computer: Ship exceeds paramaters of known universe.


ROFL! I loved that one.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Gryphin:
... Victrory condions for the human running this race could be any of the belo:
1) To have fun
2) Be based on a minumum of kt destroyed
3) How many turns it survives
...<hr></blockquote>

Hehehe, if the monsters are controlled by a human the victory conditions for all NON-monster players should be "Last to be wiped out" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif .

Rollo

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

I kind of lost this thread when people started talking about sector cloaks and all that high tech gizmo.

Question - practically, what form/style would the monsters take? If you want my tuppence worth, I always thought it would be cool to use either the high tech Borg style of beastie or preferably (given my decisively low tech triats) a sort of 'swarm' style thing a la the swarm mother in the Wild Cards books (ie the mutants not the marines)

If that were moddable - that would be the sort of monster I would love to play

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

RE cloaking:
Translation:
- The spacemonsters lair can't ever be seen or attacked.
- The only way to kill the infested planets is to blow up the star.

The high-tech beastie thing is probably not scalable... At the beginning, they will be too powerful, and at endgame they will be only a nuisance.
The swarm could probably be handled better, since as the monsters take over new territory, their swarms will smoothly scale up. This is also probably good against minefields, since the loss of a hundred would not hurt the overall swarm later on in the game.

I would go with the swarm preferably, since the AI can screw up tactically with a few ships and not ruin the whole attack.

For variety, of course, there will have to be plenty of Borg monsters and middle of the road evil.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

SJ - glad you agree, a few individual rampaging starbeasts (a la Starfleet Command II if any of you play that) would be quintessential to this game. The swarm would be the "uber-beast". I would think the following would be prerequisites:

1 no diplomacy whatsoever
2 sole purpose to occupy and destroy planets
3 gains resources by 'converting' population into more beasts, possibly can do the same thing with organics
4 uses organic technology
5 moves slowly, spreads slowly - for this to work it needs to be a creeping death style of thing
6 basic cloaking abilities apply to the swarm
7 needs a swarm mother ie some kind of superbaseship able to create more little rampaging darlings
8 needs to be tip top at ground combat

Would this be hard to mod?

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

1: Everything you can possibly do politically (even nothing?) increases their anger towards you. No prob.
2: AIs naturally expand. They won't focus on adding territory, since they will attack any ships they see, but you don't want them expanding too fast.
3: Not gonna happen. Unfortunately, the soylent green facilities were tried and failed. They're gonna be building Farms on their invisible planets just like everybody else.
4: Super-organic tech. Organic + P&N "Living ships" at the very least. Add organic engines and electronics, and you'll be set.
5: Make swarm spores (colony ships) have a max of zero engines, with a built-in 1 standard movement point. They cannot be disabled http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .
6: Add it to the hulls. They should be very vulnerable to psychic sensors, but average against Grav & temporal, and strong against EM.
7: I don't think AIs handle mobile constrution ships very well. I could be wrong though. They can always use their planet-based hives to produce ships.
8: Not a problem. Dogscoff and his Space vikings should be able to give some pointers.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

SJ - sounds like you have the answer for pretty much everything. Pity about the consuming ability not being a doer - my thought was that rather than glass planets, the swarm scoffs the populace and converts it into organic points or whatever

I have not downloaded the P&N mod or indeed any mod yet until I get the hang of it more

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

GT: Sentyou a PM. Check out "my profile"

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

SJ - got your PM and sent one back, I can see your a modding genius, answer my command and communication query if you can - Spaceballs as favourite film? pluuuueeeeeaaaaasssseeee http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

SJ, have a few questions, If you have 0 engines with movement of only 1, this would take their colony ships forever just to cross 1 system, I agree slow expansion, but shouldn't their colony ships be a little more speedy otherwise they become real sitting ducks and would take far to long to colonize thus negating their real threat. In regard to expansion, I understand the colonizing planets part, but once on a planet, since its a swarm type race, I would (my opinion only) increase their re-production on a planet by at least 25-30% more then the other races. Slow expansion, but once landed, rapid re-production, thus over population, causing even more colony ships to be sent out. Also what type of atmosphere? Probably should be able to use all types to be real threat. I like the idea of the mother planets only being eradicated by blowing the star. That way you can burn them off of planets, but until you find/locate a mother world, they will just keep coming. You could have more then 1 mother planet just to make it more interesting. (if possible)

just some ideas mac

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

One MP colony ships are fine. There should be hundreds to thousands of bugships flying around, and you won't be able to catch them all. You won't stand a chance of stopping the colony ships if your own border systems are being pillaged by a hundred million Tons of Bugs (100 Dreadnaughts) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

If you want, set every planet to build a "Bug Hive" as the first facility. It would provide Spaceyard, Atmosphere ConVersion, and sector cloak (just in case).
The rest of the facilities would be solar resource generators "Bug Farms"

It would really help to have a facility sector cloak that worked, so we could ensure one and only one sector cloak per planet. The bugs will be wasting a lot of resources on building excess cloaking bases, and might eventually run into the base limit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif We'd have uncloaked planets and planets with 21 cloak bases. Unless the AI guys know some tricks...

[ 24 January 2002: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]</p>

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>but shouldn't their colony ships be a little more speedy otherwise they become real sitting ducks and would take far to long to colonize thus negating their real threat. <hr></blockquote>Not if the colony ships have cloaking. You can't kill what you can't see. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>We'd have uncloaked planets and planets with 21 cloak bases. Unless the AI guys know some tricks...<hr></blockquote>I am pretty sure this is doable, or the AI's now would be building tons of bases. It might take some trial and error to get it tweaked, and you might never get it to exactly one and only one per sector, but you could probably get close. But the facility would be better, cause that's less time the monster planet is exposed.

Geo

[ 24 January 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]</p>

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

For a Borg-like Monster, Cloaking the colony ships would be OK.
For swarm monsters, the player should be much to busy fending off the warships to worry about the colony ships. Colony ships can be set to swarm as well.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

I don't think these 'crutch' measures will ever make an effective 'space monster'. You'll have to play by self-restricting rules to make it work. I think MM has to alter the hardcode with some new AI routines and some special powers to make space monsters feasible.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

I would agree if your goal is to make a giant space-borne monster like what you see in many sci-fi shows, it would be tough without hard-code changes.

But I think a very acceptable and playable "swarm" monster race could be done with the suggestions in this thread.

Geoschmo

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Baron:
Are you saying that you would find a monster race, using invisible & invulnerable planets, and spawning loads of Bugships & fighters every turn, easy to defeat?
You can't cut them off at the source, and they will only expand ever larger until you start blowing up every infested starsystem.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:
But I think a very acceptable and playable "swarm" monster race could be done with the suggestions in this thread.
Geoschmo[/QB]<hr></blockquote>

Goody, can we call said beast Growltigga's revenge?

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

"I would agree if your goal is to make a giant space-borne monster like what you see in many sci-fi shows, it would be tough without hard-code changes."

You could do it; the tricky part is getting it to do anything! (or not die/be out-researched into oblivion)

Phoenix-D

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Hi everybody,
wanted to post here earlier, but couldn't get to the site http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif .
I am currently working on a monster mod together with Puke.
I'll comment/answer to some of the earlier Posts.

Growltigga:
1 no diplomacy whatsoever
* the diplomacy part is done. The monsters simply declare war on everybody after first contact.

2 sole purpose to occupy and destroy planets.
* was there ever any other purpose? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

3 gains resources by 'converting' population into more beasts, possibly can do the same thing with organics
* that cannot be done.

4 uses organic technology
* they will use any technology that our (and your) evil minds will come up with. Since we will make our own technologies and components anyway, we don't have to restrict ourselves to organics.

5 moves slowly, spreads slowly - for this to work it needs to be a creeping death style of thing
* don't have plans for expansion. they will just stick to their homeplanet(s)

6 basic cloaking abilities apply to the swarm
* some of them will have cloaks, some not

7 needs a swarm mother ie some kind of superbaseship able to create more little rampaging darlings
* we have considered that as well. Needs testing though, to check out how the AI handles that

8 needs to be tip top at ground combat
* no monster invasions at this time

Baron M.:
"I don't think these 'crutch' measures will ever make an effective 'space monster'. You'll have to play by self-restricting rules to make it work. I think MM has to alter the hardcode with some new AI routines and some special powers to make space monsters feasible."

I can see your point and I agree. The monsters will basically just behave like a normal AI. But with their special tech and some of their quirks (no colonization, huge single "ships", no resource problems, super fast build-rate, no plantes to attack) they will sure make a new and interesting challenge.

Geo: "I would agree if your goal is to make a giant space-borne monster like what you see in many sci-fi shows, it would be tough without hard-code changes."
Phoenix: "You could do it; the tricky part is getting it to do anything! (or not die/be out-researched into oblivion)"

The way I currently envision the monsters is not a swarm, but few huge beasts that operate mostly alone. The monsters will research and get stronger as the game progresses. For each level of "monster tech" there will be one or more monster(s)-of the-line that might have totally different weapons/abilities/tactics than the previous ones. If carefully tested/balanced the monsters should be a good challenge at any stage of the game. At the later stages the monsters could also "team up" in small fleets. Another good thing about the different tech levels is that you could have the monsters stay dormant for, say, the first 20 turns or so. This way you (or the other AI) don't get wiped out right away before you found your footing.

I was also wondering, if somebody else is working on making a monster mod. We could exchange ideas/concepts so we don't have to invent the wheel twice.

ROLL CALL: we need some cool monster pictures for the graphics. Anything goes from giant amoeba to space dragons. If somebody already has some pics or wants to do some, please let us know.
Question for Andres (if you read this): Can we use a few pics of the Cephalopeia?
I know there was a really nice picture of a dragon some time ago, but I cannot find it at the moment.

Okay, enough for now. Sorry about the lengthy post...

Rollo

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Rollo: yes I was busy making a spacemonster mod, as I posted earlier (I was the one who topped the thread out of oblivion after all).

I did some testing, ripping components from another mod and tweaking them, but I have the greatest difficulty getting the AI to design their own ships using the vastly superior monster components (like connective tissue that acts as life-support) and to get them to add to their own build cue correctly.

I am a total sputz in modding the designcreation file. I dont understand half the stuff there, like major weapon family etc. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Anyway for a picture set I advise using either species 8472 (some of their ships look like squiddly thingys with tentacles) or the Cephalopeian shipset which was basically meant as spacemonsters. Just ask permission I guess http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Edit: my idea was also one planet which spawns the beasties (preferrable would be they didnt have a homeplanet but that doesnt work) which builds one starbase with a sector cloaking component (to avoid they get whiped out easily), and the planet keeps spawning them in various sizes, amongst which those able to harvest organics from asteroids (I hope the AI has some way of figuring this out), and a few sizes which can spawn new ships.

Their special shipsizes have -100% maintenance for obvious reasons.

[ 25 January 2002: Message edited by: Egregius ]</p>

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

I've another concept for folks to ponder.
In a game with 3 or more human players, give one of the humans control of the Monster Race. Put certain limitaition on the race. Victrory condions for the human running this race could be any of the belo:
1) To have fun
2) Be based on a minumum of kt destroyed
3) How many turns it survives

I have no idea how to create this mod but based on the other Posts here, it apears to be possible.

Please don't ask how I come up with these ideas. Even my therapist doesn't know.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Egregius: Sorry, I must have missed that you were working on those, too. My bad. I'd be glad to exchange thoughts and compare notes.
If you are having problems with the desigcreation file, I am sure that I can be of help. I have some modding experience with that (done two races for standard SE IV so far, as well as a couple for the Devnull Mod Gold). If you have any question, just post them or drop me an email (snickelsen@web.de). There is also a design creation "cheatsheet" made by Atraikius that is of great help to figure out that AI file. You can find that in the mod section somewhere. Btw, thanks Atraikius http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

edit:Found it. Look for a post by Atraikius on June 7th 2001 that has a "Design Creation Cheat Sheet" attached.

As far as life support and so on, you can make the hull needing no life support, if you want. I don't know what the connective tissue is supposed to do, but you can add that as an extra component. For all the other components/abilities (sensors, ECM, cloak, whatever) needed for a monster, you can just add them to the hull (body) of the monster and not worry about the design minister choosing the wrong parts. Weapons can be added quite easily, just give your new monster weapons their own weapon numbers and use those for the primary and secondary weapons. You can also give some monster part bogus abilities like "star - unstable", "ancient ruins", or "ancient ruins unique" and use those abilities to add specific parts to a monster.

Thanks for tip about the pics. I was planning on using not a complete shipset, but different pics for the various monsters. The Cephalopeia will be good for some monsters, but I don't want them to be "squids only". I want Dragons, Amoeba, Jellyfish, sentient gas clouds, and whatnot as well. You know, the whole suite of classic space monsters.

About harvesting asteroids: sorry, but AFAIK the AI cannot do remote mining. But this is not a problem. The space monsters will not need resources much anyway. If give them a large enough maintenance reduction, the will actually not pay maintenance, but produce resources with their ships (negative maintenance = resource production). So the more monsters are out there, the more resources will be gained.

To all: If you have any ideas for a specific space monster that you would like to see (like a Dragon that spits a hundred fireballs per turn), just post here.

Rollo

[ 25 January 2002: Message edited by: Rollo ]</p>

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Do you mean that you'll make a "monster shipset" that includes all those kind of monsters, or that there'll be different races of monsters in different systems?
I didn't find the pictures I had yet. If I don't find them soon I'll be easier to just make new ones.
I hope I can get to work in the dragon shipset again and finish it soon.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

I want to make one shipset for the monsters that has the different monsters (squid, dragon, whatever) in them. The monsters will just be one race in game terms.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

Actually, setting the lifesupport requirement to zero will make a hull without lifesupport valid, but you will still lose 3/4ths of your movement because you have no lifesupport components.

Just make a "Heart", "Brain" and "Nerve Tissue" to function as Lifesupport, bridge and crew quarters.

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Actually, setting the lifesupport requirement to zero will make a hull without lifesupport valid, but you will still lose 3/4ths of your movement because you have no lifesupport components.

Just make a "Heart", "Brain" and "Nerve Tissue" to function as Lifesupport, bridge and crew quarters.<hr></blockquote>

Yep, that is true. I forget to mention that all monsters treated that way should have a built-in master computer in the hull (which is a good idea against psychics anyway).

Rollo

Re: Space Monsters!!!
 

http://se4kdy.cyberwars.com/temp/monstercomps.zip

Here you have a couple of components (couldn't find the old ones and just modeled these) + a preview of the dragon shipset you can use (I'll give you a few more dragon sizes soon).


I had fightes that didn't require life support in the SW mod and they seemed to work fine. Maybe it's no the same with ships.