Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Almost forgot, visit this website: http://hyperspace.isnnews.net/

See also http://www.b5tech.com/index.htm IT's pretty good for getting a good idea of what ships are armed with. I think it's mostly accurate.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Y'all should check out the Non-Standard Hulls forum topic ( http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...&f=23&t=004185 ).

We were talking about adding several "new" ship classes to help standardize mods and ship sets. The "WorldShip" which we could use for these planet killers. Other types that were added include:

Scout - Smaller than an escort.
Corvette - Between Escort and Frigate.
DestroyerHeavy - Between destroyer and light cruiser.
CruiserHeavy - Between cruiser and battlecruiser.
DreadnoughtHeavy - Between Dreadnought and Baseship.
BaseShip - Very big base sized ship (Standard hull without standard image)
BaseShipHeavy - A larger Version of the baseship.
WorldShip - A gigantic ship which resembles a moon or planet.
ResourceShip - A ship designed with resource production in mind.
ResourceStation - A ship designed with resource production in mind.
CarrierTiny - Smaller than the light carrier
CarrierMassive - Bigger than the large carrier
WarStation - A base between BattleStation and StarBase
ColonyShipLarge - A Bigger Colony Ship
TransportTiny - Smaller than TransportSmall, and probably faster.
FighterHuge - Bigger than FighterLarge.
FighterMassive - Bigger than FighterHuge. Possibly a bomber.
TroopInfantry - Good old fashioned foot soldier (or tentacle soldier, wing soldier...)
TroopHuge - Like TroopLarge, but bigger.
Barge - A very big and slow ship, probably not designed for combat.

These give us quite a few different pictures to choose from and fill up. The Fighter Huge and Massive also allow us to incorporate the larger Centauri and Drazi fighters. TroopInfantry lets us incorporate the GROPOS foot troops. The other ships give us some good filler.

I'll try to have a VehicleSize.txt file with the various sizes available by next Tuesday. There was a really good one posted by Geoschmo (I think) that covers most of them and could save us some time.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I got the green light from the Fire on the Suns license owner to work on a multi-player tactical combat game. I'll finish up all the Hyach images and include all the DoGA stuff used to make them. But, I fear that I'll too busy minding my own ducks to do much more than that. Fortunately, the Gaim are know for salvaging or buying ships from other races, so some artwork can be touched up and re-used for them.
--
TAZ

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Zircher:

Congrats on the project, you'll have to keep us up to date (and in mind for playtesting perhaphs) on your project! Thanks for the work on the Hyach, can't wait to see the finished shipset http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Thanks, I'll do my best to not be a stranger.
Model wise, just got troops, platforms, and the drone to do. Of course, I'm being persnickity (is that a word or just a hold over from growing up in the midwest?) and mulling over several design ideas for these units. For some reason, I'm drawn to funky gun shields...

BTW, are we allowed to tap into existing artwork and images for the racial pic? Faces are not my specialty.
--
TAZ

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I think most of the racial images are stock photos, so I don't see any reason not to.

Funky gun shields? Like a riot shield over the gun barrel to help protect the user?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Exactly. Anglular shields, hemispherical shields, bat winged beasts. Haven't found that one design that says, "I'm a Hyach hover vehicle." Probably because I can't imagine the Hyach getting involved in a groundwar. Time to stretch the imagination. :-)

Ding. I should to try a knock off of the Martian War Machine from the War of the Worlds movie.
--
TAZ

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Finially got to spend some quality time on the computer and finish the Hyach graphics. I'll post them in the mod section as well as the DoGA L3 models used to make them.

Please take the time to review them. (Ack! Posted them in the wrong mod thread, corrected.)
--
TAZ

[ 03 December 2001: Message edited by: zircher ]</p>

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Hey Zircher, just swung by your website, some interesting stuff. I couldn't seem to find any information about the game itself though.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

"Hey Zircher, just swung by your website, some interesting stuff. I couldn't seem to find any information about the game itself though."

I have a different site for my game dev stuff.

http://www.geocities.com/tzircher

Of course, there isn't much there yet as I just started revamping the site. Currently working on the game concept doc and game design doc. You can find a rough draft of the GCD at:

http://www.geocities.com/tzircher/tcom_gcd.htm

While the words are pretty much in place, the pictures are just place holders for later game art. My Version of the Hyach vessels might make an appearance once I file off the serial numbers. :-)

The links to the original Fire on the Suns site and WildTangent might be more educational than my site until it gets up to speed.
--
TAZ

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

The Hyach shipset is great!! Excellent job!! How long did it take (roughly)?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

"The Hyach shipset is great!! Excellent job!! How long did it take (roughly)?"

Thanks, always good to get an outside opinion.

Looking at the date/time stamps, it took four days. Figure about 20 hours to do the models and another 4 or so to render/assemble all the images in the right sizes and mask test them.

That's the outside estimate, being married with children cuts into any project with all the little distractions. :-) You can easily build a set over the course of a weekend since one model 'evolves' from the next, much faster than building 30 unrelated models.

DoGA CGA is really good for quick modelling and Lesson 3 (L3) in the series is really good with textures and materials. I'm tempted to make a 1024x768 glory shot of the fleet to show off the details that are missing from the portraits and icons.
--
TAZ

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

That's heartening to hear that it would only take about a weekend, though with my 3D modeling ability I might be able to stretch that into the better part of a month http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I've been continuing work on our Mod – adding ShipSets y’all have worked up (including the Hyach), Ramsie’s Intro pic and edited data files (listed below).

Here’s what I have for history so far:

1.49.06 - Added Hyach ShipSet

1.49.05 - Added new EmperorNames, EmperorTitles, DefaultColonyTypes, DefaultDesignTypes, EmpireNames. Editted CompEnhancement.txt to give Weapon Platforms and Satellites greater ranges and added several new mounts. Changed VehicleSize.txt to meet new ShipSet standards. Editted TechArea.txt to accomodate editted VehicleSize.txt file. Working on Breaching Pods and Shuttles (Cargo and Boarding Parties for Fighter class ships).

1.49.04 - Fixed some discrepancies in EmpireNames.txt and EmpireType.txt files. Editted EmperorTitles.txt and EmperorNames.txt. Put in updated Vorlon shipset. Added Culture Mod (by Joe Skarupinski, Jourin. v.1.0) to Mod for more balanced cultures.

1.49.03 - Editted Settings.txt : Changed Maximum Number of Systems to 200, Maximum Trade to 40, Nuber of Quick Start Styles to 7. Added in title screen for B5 Project. Still need to change Lose.bmp, HumnDead.bmp, Victory.bmp and add additional races to quick start styles.

1.49.02 - Added a Babylon 5 map. Changed the SystemNames.txt file to have all B5 systems found on Babylon 5 map. Editted EmpireTypes.txt and EmpireNames.txt to include all the B5 empires.

1.49.01 - Compiled all currently available B5 races into a single zip.

A few notes on the above: though the VehicleSize.txt file has been updated to include the full range of ships talked about in the Variant Hull thread, as of yet we don’t have any specific artwork for these new sizes. So, for the time being the file uses duplicate pics for the various classes and there is a second file called VehicleSize2.txt that is ready to roll once we have the new pics. Also, Breaching Pods, Shuttles, Assault Shuttles and the Planet Killer are really not all that useful without the tech that will be added to the Components. As of right now I can’t get cargo or boarding parties to work on fighter class ships (and don’t think it’s possible), but I will see if anyone knows how. There is an Excel file in the History folder on the mod that has a comparison of the different ship classes.

I can post this mod in it’s current unfinished state if anyone would like (it’s about 9.5 Megs – or only 1.5 without all the Ship and Intro page Art). It is a working Mod, it just doesn’t have any of the B5 tech or sounds as of yet and I am still plugging away at the map in my spare time.

I also want to take a vote on if we should stick to the standard SE IV ship movement or use the more Newtonian form SJ used in P&N (with his permission) or something else altogether.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

"I also want to take a vote on if we should stick to the standard SE IV ship movement or use the more Newtonian form SJ used in P&N (with his permission) or something else altogether."

It it an all or nothing conVersion? In the B5 universe we, see both forms of movement. Older races like the Centauri, Hyach, and Mimbari use gravitic drives (normal SE4 movement) while younger races like the EA use a Newtonian system.

If it is all or nothing, we can always give the older races exceptional movement capabilities to represent gravitic technology.
--
TAZ

[ 04 December 2001: Message edited by: zircher ]</p>

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I believe we can represent that in a couple different ways:

1) As a "racial" ability
2) As a different type of Component drive limited to races with Gravitic drives or such.
3) Adding a list of ships to the VehicleSize.txt file with racial specific requirements. (I want to use this Last way to represent the Drazi Super Heavy Fighters and Vree Ultra Light Fighters.)

I guess the main root of the question is: Do we want bigger ships to need to take up more space for engines?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Val,

Your the man. Your doing a great job.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Older races like the Centauri, Hyach, and Mimbari use gravitic drives (normal SE4 movement) while younger races like the EA use a Newtonian system.<hr></blockquote> Just because you use a gravitic drive dosen't really mean you're not following the laws of physics.
If you're using a gravity gradient to accelerate your reaction mass, you could perhaps get better fuel efficiency and higher thrust per KT of engine, but you'd still need thrust to accelerate.
Any ship that accelerates has to accelerate something else the other way in order to conserve momentum.

The quasi-newtonian propulsion is for systems where a bigger ship needs bigger (or more) engines.
This is the case in B5 even minbari ships, since the engines on thier biggest ships take up about the same fraction of the hull as on their littler ships. We can assume a little bit of "buy in bulk" efficiency improvements, too, so scaled up engines are overall smaller than the pile of smaller engines needed to do the same job.

There are so many advantages to QNP, including a huge variety of useful ship designs (ie. there is a useful design that dosen't max-out on engines http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ) Slow & powerful, or fast and weak, your choice.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Atomannj - Thanks for the compliment, but this Mod wouldn't be going anywhere without everyone who has been helping, especially ShipSet designers such as yourself, Oleg, Ramsie and Zircher.

I'm more inclined to lean towards the Q-N style of engines for many of the reason SJ had mentioned, plus we can easily have Gravitic engines (and the Shadows form of propulsion) give other bonuses, such as a proportionally higher speed to help represent the agility of a whitestar over a Hyperion.

Also, is anyone interested in working up an AI for the Hyach? Anyone interested in rounding out a Drazi, Vree or Brakiri (or another race altogether) ShipSet? Should we start work on "filling-in" the other ship classes on the existing shipsets (eg: Scouts, Corvettes)?

Thanks!

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I would like to place a vote for the Q-N engines.

Looks like a lot of stuff has been done. Looks good. ( I am just amazed at what has happened here with this game, Its like a year end rush http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

Later.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Sure, sounds good to me.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Ok, unless I hear otherwise, I am going to make the change to the VehicleSize.txt to require 1 engine per 50 tons of ship to move a ship 1 space. I will save a second VehicleSize file with the old SE IV style in it for those that prefer the 1 to 1 ratio.

Does anyone want me to post what we have so far for group review? It is playable, but like I said, it does not yet have any specialized B5 tech yet.

Is anyone interested in rendering the components (or at least some of them)?

What else would everyone like to see added to this?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Ok, I finished the VehicleSize file and gave most of the ships a 50 ton to 1 thrust/engine value, though I did give the Scout and Fast Courier a 1 to 1 value (would normally be 2 and 3 to 1) to represent their speedy designs. I also gave all fighters a 1 to 1 with the exceptions of the Shuttles and Large/Massive Fighters (which have 2 to 1).

Please feel free to download this and let me know if you think anything should be changed.
1007595665.txt

Also, in the data folder on the mod I added a sub-folder with both the Q-N style and the normal style of movement (as well as adding the same two files with the neostandard shipset names).

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

All of the ship sizes in your file have zero max engines! Doesn't this prevent them from having any at all? I think that you need to set the max engines to 99 (that's what they are in P&N, anyways).

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I found (quite by accident) that 0 engines max and Requires Engines is set to True then you can put an unlimited number of engines on board (at least in my copy with the 1.49 patch). If someone else is having trouble, or if this doesn't work with Gold SEIV then I would up the Max number of engines to the highest I could (it takes a LOT of engines to move the planet killer).

Another question for y'all: Since we are using the Q-N system for our drives, this forces you to get multiple engines to get each movement point, but components that give bonus Movement points negate this to a degree. For example: 1 Quantum Engine on a destroyer would give the destroyer a 3 movement right off, while it would take 18 Ion Engines to achieve the same effect (6 Quantum Engines would give it a move of 4, 18 Q-E a move of 6).

So I was going to propose three things/ideas:
1) Only Gravitic and Ancient drives will get a bonus move (1 for Gravitic and 2 or 3 for ancients).

2) Drives tonnage will be reduced to half as you research better drives to help ease size constraints - this will represent better tech.

3) Agile ships (represented with extra movement) can be created with either "Agile Drives" with bonus movement or just a single component that gives bonus movement.

Opinions?

[ 06 December 2001: Message edited by: Val ]</p>

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

" I would up the Max number of engines to the highest I could (it takes a LOT of engines to move the planet killer)."

Careful on this. The max engines you can have is ~ 255- IF you use standard values for engines. If you use higher-propulsion engines (like in Pirates and Nomads) you'll run into problems earlier. If total move value given by the engines goes over 255, you'll get a Range Check error.

Phoenix-D

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>So I was going to propose three things/ideas:
1) Only Gravitic and Ancient drives will get a bonus move (1 for Gravitic and 2 or 3 for ancients).
2) Drives tonnage will be reduced to half as you research better drives to help ease size constraints - this will represent better tech.
3) Agile ships (represented with extra movement) can be created with either "Agile Drives" with bonus movement or just a single component that gives bonus movement.<hr></blockquote>1) seems ok on the surface, but more engines reduces efficiency. (1 QE gives 4 (1+3bonus), but 3 QE gives 6(3+3bonus). Adding those two engines reduces the power of individual drives by half!

2) Silly, reducing size is pointless. As drive tech goes up, you increase their thrust. You get the same effect. (thust per KT improves) Also, offering larger engines as tech goes up would be good.
EG: By the time you get up to an LC, you're putting 20 engines on your ship, but we can replace 7 10KT engines with a 65KT Capital Ship Drive. Less clicking when building a ship.

3) Rather than bonus movement, which applies to straight-line strategic map flying, add the Afterburner ability from fighters, so they only get the bonus in combat. However, like bonus movement, it is not affected by ship size, so beware large values like three.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
1) seems ok on the surface, but more engines reduces efficiency. (1 QE gives 4 (1+3bonus), but 3 QE gives 6(3+3bonus). Adding those two engines reduces the power of individual drives by half!

2) Silly, reducing size is pointless. As drive tech goes up, you increase their thrust. You get the same effect. (thust per KT improves) Also, offering larger engines as tech goes up would be good.
EG: By the time you get up to an LC, you're putting 20 engines on your ship, but we can replace 7 10KT engines with a 65KT Capital Ship Drive. Less clicking when building a ship.

3) Rather than bonus movement, which applies to straight-line strategic map flying, add the Afterburner ability from fighters, so they only get the bonus in combat. However, like bonus movement, it is not affected by ship size, so beware large values like three.<hr></blockquote>

1) Right. The cost doesn't have to be much higher, but this bonus move would give older races a little edge that the young races don't have.

2) I was thinking about making engines at 5tn instead of 10tn so we can have a bit more varience in the different hull types for speed. 1 Bridge/LS/CQ & 24 Engines on a Destroyer gives you a speed of 4 and only 30 tns left for other stuff. We could accomplish the same thing by halving the number of engines required though.

65 Ton Capital Ship Engine : Can you give me an example component? How would this work when you require X # of engines/move? If you lowered the # of required engines per move then people would use the smaller engines, wouldn't they?

3) Sounds like a reasonable idea.

Finally, does anyone know if we can require ships to have a different component? If so we could require the ship to have a reactor (and a set type or number if possible) and then just use engines as thrusters.

[ 06 December 2001: Message edited by: Val ]</p>

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

SJ - I think I may have answered one of my own questions.

Would you have the larger engines simply generate more standard movement? So by making an engine that generate 7 standard movement, a ship that requires 7 engines per movement will only get 1 movement for each engine added.

Just tested that and it works http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Exactly.
Say 50KT = 1 EMP.
And the basic engine gives 3 MP. So the CSE gives 21 MP.
If you stuffed a Captial Ship Engine onto an ES, which requires 3 EMP, you'd get 7 movement, and save 5KT over lots of small engines.

"Engines per move" is inaccurate, really it means "standard movement points per actual in-game movement point"


PS: to shipset designers
Could you design the "shield" effect to look like a hull bLast of some sort?
I'm using a small amount of SE4 shield to simulate SE3-style emissive armor effects, and I wouldn't want anybody to get the wrong impression.
This is mainly for shadow ships, but everybody should have one or two SE3-EA points to their armor, and it would look silly to have a phong-shield image pop up every time the ship gets hit.
Some electric arcs, or white firey flare (will always occur just before a hull-damage explosion animation) would look good.


Example armor:
Note that the values are quite small, since they will be used in large quantities to achieve the "Armor holes" effect (where shots can occasionally hit internals before the armor is gone)
Also, note that hitpoints & damage are multiplied by 10x, to slow down in-combat repair rates.

Name := B5 Normal Armor
Description := Normal hull type protective material. Easily pierced if thin, the more the merrier.
Tonnage Space Taken := 1
Tonnage Structure := 90
Number of Abilities := 0

Name := B5 Shadow Armor
Description := Able to resist moderate amounts of incoming fire, but can be overloaded if too much is brought to bear at once. Completely protects internals.
Tonnage Space Taken := 10
Tonnage Structure := 1000
Number of Abilities := 4
Ability 1 Type := Shield Generation
Ability 1 Descr := Has a maximum emissive capacity of 100 ADU per hit.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 100
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Ability 2 Type := Shield Generation From Damage
Ability 2 Descr := Can emiss up to 20 ADU between hits.
Ability 2 Val 1 := 20
Ability 2 Val 2 := 0
Ability 3 Type := Shield Regeneration
Ability 3 Descr := Can emiss up to 50 ADU between combat turns.
Ability 3 Val 1 := 50
Ability 3 Val 2 := 0
Ability 4 Type := Armor Regeneration
Ability 4 Descr := Can be healed during combat.
Ability 4 Val 1 := 1
Ability 4 Val 2 := 0

[ 06 December 2001: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]</p>

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Ok, I'm working on the Engines and Reactors now, should have something for everyone's approval by Monday at the latest.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

SJ and I are still talking about ideas for Engines/Reactors, so it will still be a little bit.

So far, what we're thinking is using reactors to power/supply the engines and weapons, but we are just trying to figure out how to make it generate the points fairly for the different classes.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

So how's it goin? Any files ready for download. I would really like to get a look at this mod.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

We'll try to get something posted this week. Having some trouble with setting it up for AI to use the new mod components.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Are you limiting armour to certain ship classes ??

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

SJ is actually doing the armor work and from what I've seen it looks good. Armor is going to be more like structural mass for a ship so the ship can take a huge beating, but there is still a chance of hitting something vital.

Where I am having trouble is with the Engines. Since we are using a Q-N style I have engine categories ranging from Light to Massive, but I am having trouble with making the AI pick a good mix of classes, maybe if I just make them pick the class best for a ship size and limit each shipsize group. Any ideas?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Where I am having trouble is with the Engines. Since we are using a Q-N style I have engine categories ranging from Light to Massive, but I am having trouble with making the AI pick a good mix of classes, maybe if I just make them pick the class best for a ship size and limit each shipsize group. Any ideas?<hr></blockquote>Try giving the engines a useless ability, such as "organic extraction", or "star-unstable"

Light: minerals extraction (the facility ability)
Medium: organic extraction
Large: radioactives extraction
Heavy: Planet - shield generation
Massive: Star - unstable

For each Category of ship, you can then make the AI use some of each, and you can vary the proportions as you go.

Alternatively, you could give all engines all 5 abilities, and have them stand for certain characteristics, such as fuel efficiency, speed efficiency (thrust/size, so AIs won't pick an engine twice as big because it provides 10% more movement points), etc.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Just so y'all have the meat and bones of the Mod, here it is:

B5Mod.zip
(It's about 7.5 Megs)

This includes: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

1) EA, Narn, Minbari, Vorlon, Shadow, Hyach and Centauri shipsets. Along with available AI, Empires and Design Names.

2) Edited Data Files:

• CompEnhancement.txt - New mounts for sats, WPs and Mines
• Cultures.txt - Used Jourin's culture mod
• DefaultColonyTypes.txt - New colony types added
• DefaultDesignTypes.txt - New design types added
• EmperorNames.txt - Now includes Emperors and leaders from B5 Universe
• EmperorTitles.txt - Added a variety of titles and included all B5 titles
• EmpireNames.txt - Includes Empires from B5 universe
• EmpireTypes.txt - Added a variety of types and included all B5 types
• Settings.txt - Some adjustments
• SystemNames.txt - Used all the B5 system names (well over 200) for randomly generated universes
• VehicleSize.txt - Added all the NeoStandard sizes and created a subfolder with VehicleSize.txt files for Q-N and standard SEIV movement and NeoStandard and SEIV standard shipsets for individual tastes
• TechArea.txt - Raised the following levels to make compatible with VehicleSize file : Ship Construction - 15, Base Construction - 5, Fighters - 5, Troops - 4

3) Maps: B5.Map - Still WIP map of B5 universe. Put on hold while working on components, but fun to see.

4) Modinfo file that works with SEIV ModPicker Utility.

5) Changed Intro Screen with B5 Art

Things that are not in it... yet: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

1) Updated Components - Including:[list][*]New Weapons - 10 different families[*]New Engine Types - For Q-N style of play[*]New Reactor Types - To supply power (supplies) to ship[*]New Armor - Done in a whole new way![*]New Targeting/Tracking/Sensors/Cloaking - For a B5 feel

2) Finished Map

3) Scenarios

4) New Victory/Defeat/HumDead pics - Not yet finished

5) Alternate Sounds - These go with the components, so no point in wasting space

6) Anything else y'all would like to see that hasn't been mentioned yet

So, right now this pretty much works like a regular game of SEIV, but with a B5 feel, races and some tweaks. Once other data files are changed and AI is updated, I'll repost.


Everyone, please give some feedback on what is here so far, and what direction you want it to go in. Also, any suggestions or corrections are welcome!

Finally: Looking for volunteers for Hyach AI (for standard SEIV) and anyone who would like to continue with helping this along.

[ 18 December 2001: Message edited by: Val ]</p>

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
PS: to shipset designers
Could you design the "shield" effect to look like a hull bLast of some sort?
<hr></blockquote>

Is there an example of this in the current B5 mod file?
--
TAZ

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

These 3 files will point the Centauri, Narn & Minbari to the correct Design names in the mod rather than the generic ones.

AI_DesignName_Fix.zip

Here are three sample components for the engines (Fission, Fussion & AntiMatter)

EngineSamples.zip

Also, any ideas for B5 style facilities y'all would like to see?

[ 18 December 2001: Message edited by: Val ]</p>

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Here's a non-artist's impression of how the Vorlon armor might look in B5.

Vorlon_Shields.bmp

For the younger races, just use a white flare, or something. It'll work like an intro to the hull impact animation, since the "shield" effect will only subtract 2 or 3 points of damage, and thus both are guaranteed to appear in order http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

You shuold consider doing engines similar to the way I did it in the neomod. Create two components: 1: thrusters, and 2: Drives (both generic names)

Thrusters give standard movment and drives give bonus movement (like the solar sail)

I like the shield image.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I was actually making them Engines (Thrusters) and Reactors (Power/Supplies).

Here are the components and techs related to Engines/Reactors I have so far:

Comp&Tech.zip

The idea is that the reactors will self generate the supplies you need to keep the ship running, but if you lose a few you will be looking at 'power' shortages.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I was thinking about doing something similar for my mod.. but it just seemed weird to have a fusion reactor make more energy with more stars, and none with none.

Phoenix-D

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

The trick is to make the maximum storage = the amounte generated by one star.

That way there is no difference in production.

You do have to modify the systemtypes to hide some stars in nebulae and blackhole systems.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I like what you've done with the engine system.

I would however change the name of the ancient reactors to "Hyperspace Tap" This is the generally accepted name for the reactor used by the Ancients.

[ 19 December 2001: Message edited by: ZeroAdunn ]</p>

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by ZeroAdunn:
Rambie there are some problems with your shipset, The Hyperion (what class is that ship anyways?) is actually smaller than the Nova class destroyer. And a whitestar is smaller than The Hyperion. The ShadOmega (omega-X whatever) is the same size as the Omega. Thats all....<hr></blockquote>

The EA set is being changed for the next Version. the Whitestar is now in the Minbari shipset. I'm changing around some other ships as well, though I hadn't thought about the Hyperion/Nova thing. I know the Shadow Omega is the same size as the Omega, but it's more powerful so I make the shadow one the Battleship.

I'm re-rendering the 36x36 mini pictures of most of the ships too.

If you have more suggestions I'd love to hear them.

[ 20 December 2001: Message edited by: Rambie ]</p>

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

OMG Rambie, I thought you were dead. Well maybe not. I must say though I really like your shipset, it is by far my favorite shipset for SEIV so far.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Yeah, I was going to use HyperSpace Tap for the ancients ships, but had termed it "Ancient" at some point in one of my Excel spreadsheets and I wound up with the name being generated for all the engines on my merge. I will change it back to HyperSpace Tap before we release the new components file http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Does anyone else have any other suggestions, corections, and/or comments?

Here is an alternate intro screen that Tony is working on:

VorlonIntro.zip

Does anyone have any B5 material they have been working on that isn't in the mod yet? Any more ideas on what should be in the mod?

Right now SJ is working on the armor/shields, Rambie is reworking the EA and has talked about the Narn as well and I am working on the engines/reactors, weapons and infantry. Anyone working (or want to work) on anything else?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Please comment on the new intro screen i made (on page 7, in Val's message). Point your criticism, so it can be improved.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Those ships look very good, but the font is quite hard to read.
Perhaps if you blacked out the front face of the letters (if you see them as 3D, with the green as the side of the letter). Maybe a hyperspace or jumppoint texture on the lettering?
It might be nice to get a variety of races in the picture as well.


I think this mostly has to do just with Val & me, but I've described hitpoints & damage in terms of "ADU" which stands for Arbitrary Damage Unit.
EG: "Crystalline Ability(100pts): can withstand up to a 100 ADU impact without significant damage."

What do you guys think?


I've also come up with an idea for implementing a "decreasing returns" effect.
On any one ship, you can choose a primary ECM (10:20:30), a secondary ECM (4:8:12), tertiary ECM(2:4:6), and auxiliary ECM (1:2:3).
Each type is limited to one per ship, but they stack amongst each other.
So, at tech level3, you can spend 10KT, and get 30%, or 20KT and get 42%, 30 KT and get 48%, 40KT gets you 51%

This same theory applies to anything.
For armor, I want to make a "Conductive Armor - Primary" which gives a full "emissive" ability. It is limited to one-per-ship. Then, "Conductive Armor - Additional", will give a much smaller "emissive" ability (since my virtual emissive ability will stack).
That way, I can give small ships a decent ability rating (use just the primary chunk), while giving the larger ships an improved ability, but not emissive invulnerability.