Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I noticed that the VehicleSize.txt file for P&N 2.4c has 'Requirement Max Engines' set to 99 instead of the old value of 42. Has the 256 movement point limit been removed?

[ 08 December 2001: Message edited by: Torkle ]</p>

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

No, that's hardcode. You'll get RCE's if you try to add a 43'rd Quantum engine, but you can add up to 84 ion engines without a problem (besides lack of hull space).

Players just have to realize that the RCE means you have too many engines.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Does that affect the AI in any way? I presume not, since they can make ships with two spaceyards, etc..

The engine limit only really functions as an "idiot check" before, then?

Phoenix-D

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Yep. In fact, with a limit of 42 engines you would get the RCE before the "too many engines" warning appeared. It really seemed pointless.

In regards to the AIs, they just try to make about 30% of their hull full of engines, and that works out to 41 engines at most, on a baseship http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

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

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

JimBob: a few comments on what I've seen:

Images: You altered component image #130, which happens to be the one I use for Plasma Projection Armor. I will be moving this to image # 283, which is free.
All the other images were added to the empty image slots, so they're OK.

"Halo" PD seems quite overpowered, since it has more range than PDLs and more damage than PDCs, all in a 20KT package.
PDCs have 75 @ range 2
PDLs have 40 @ range 8
Do you want to reduce the damage, the range or a bit of both?

The black hole projector has the lowest damage rating in the game (0.16) That will have to be improved. I want to reduce the reload to 5-7 or so, and by the next Version, all black hole weapons will do armor skipping rather than quad2shield.

Inertal dampers will have some funny effects with the QNP in the game... I want to make them part of the ship hull itself, so I can assign a lower EPM rating, rather than a fixed constant speed boost.

Grav lenses look great, though I may have to lower the top end component's effects.

Tractor/Repulsor beams nice. They'll be called "Advanced" rather than "Type B"

And those Warp gates will turn out nicely once I tweak the normal tech manip techs.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> Images: You altered component image #130, which happens to be the one I use for Plasma Projection Armor. I will be moving this to image # 283, which is free. <hr></blockquote>

And I thought I'd checked all the free images. That one slipped by somehow. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif I hope it won't look to strange to have ships warping through a giant Version of your Plasma Projection Armor. I don't know, maybe no one will mind.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> "Halo" PD seems quite overpowered, since it has more range than PDLs and more damage than PDCs, all in a 20KT package... Do you want to reduce the damage, the range or a bit of both? <hr></blockquote>

How about PDGs (Point Def. Gravity). Yeah, I guess I didn't downsize them enough for the P&N Universe. My vision was of a PD that was powerful, but that had a highly unique Achilles heel - it has a nonfiring zone (it cannot fire at objects immediately next to itself). Once the enemy moves within this range, s/he can pop off as many missiles as they want. The enemy just needs to set their fleet strategy to 'point blank range' and may the fastest ship win (read WPlats and Space Stations lose). Additionally, I think the cost of the device is considerably higher than for PDCs and PDLs. My suggestions would be to keep the long range (and the nonfiring zone) but modify the damage and cost (which is quite high) of the device.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> The black hole projector has the lowest damage rating in the game (0.16) That will have to be improved. I want to reduce the reload to 5-7 or so, and by the next Version, all black hole weapons will do armor skipping rather than quad2shield. <hr></blockquote>

Never worked out the ratio... boy, they sure suck!! (and they're expensive too) I strongly agree that their attack value should be increased. I'd suggest increasing the damage level rather than decreasing the reload time. Again, the Achilles heel is the nonfiring zone - once the enemy closes with the planet, a higher reload rate won't matter. Then again, if the Advanced Repulsor beams can push ships back into the firing zone...
(can a weapons platform push a ship? what are the rules on repulsor/tractor beams anyway?)

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> Inertal dampers will have some funny effects with the QNP in the game... I want to make them part of the ship hull itself, so I can assign a lower EPM rating, rather than a fixed constant speed boost. <hr></blockquote>

Brilliant! I never even considered changing the EPM Ratings.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>(can a weapons platform push a ship? what are the rules on repulsor/tractor beams anyway?)<hr></blockquote>For ship-ship beams, you can only affect equal or smaller sized ships. Since the platform is planet based, it should be able to push anything around (or we would have heard complaints by now).

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Once the enemy moves within this range, s/he can pop off as many missiles as they want.<hr></blockquote>The only problem is that missiles suck at close range combat, compared to beam weapons. And with a fleet, you'd get a lot of overlapping fire, leaving almost no deadzones.
Also, you have the halo doing normal damage; have you though about making it a PD repulsor? If it was a repulsor, firing a missile amidst a fleet of enemy ships would cause them to bounce it around inside, wasting a lot of PDR shots, thus enhancing the central "dead zone" effect even with fleets of ships.
One of the other cool effects of a PDR is that they can reduce the damage from plasma & polaron missiles, even if they can't stop them completely http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>I never even considered changing the EPM Ratings<hr></blockquote>Ok, so how much should the effect be, % wise? Also, should the effect be rounded down for the smaller ships?

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

OK, so they've written the final exam, now I just have to mark it. And you know what that means...
procrastination!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

So now that I finally have some spare time,

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>have you though about making it a PD repulsor? If it was a repulsor, firing a missile amidst a fleet of enemy ships would cause them to bounce it around inside, wasting a lot of PDR shots, thus enhancing the central "dead zone" effect even with fleets of ships. <hr></blockquote>

That's a good idea. The player would start opting for the more spaced out formations - finally a reason for them (me, I'm a 'wall' formation kinda guy). I like things that make us play the game differently, so I'm sold!

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Ok, so how much should the effect be, % wise? Also, should the effect be rounded down for the smaller ships? <hr></blockquote>

My thoughts on this are that the "device" (even if built into the hull) should be able to 'negate' the effects of a finite amount of mass. (someone in another thread wondered how a single 10kt armour could protect a massive battlecruiser as effectively as it does a tiny escort - good pt.) So I think that these devices should actually have a greater mass neutralizing effect on the small ships than on the larger ones.

Your ratio seems to be a linear relationship of one 'movement point' per 50ktons (assuming the engines are the basic ones, no bonus movement).
Unfortunately, at the smaller sizes calculations get messy because fraction numbers are not allowed. So here is my suggestion...

....................Current....# Engines....# Engines
Ship.....Mass...# Engines...with IN 1....with IN 2
Escort....150.......3......2(=33% bonus)...1(66)
Frigate...200.......4.........2(50)........2(50)
Destroyer.300.......6.........4(33)........3(50)
LCruiser..400.......8.........6(25)........4(50)
Cruiser...500......10.........7(30)........6(40)
BCruiser..600......12.........9(25)........8(33)
BShip.....800......16........12(25).......11(31)
DredN....1000......20........16(20).......15(25)
Baseshp..1500......30........25(17).......24(20)

Thus there are diminishing returns as the ship gets bigger. I think this will encourage the player to play some of the smaller ships (Cruisers), which sort of get forgotten by most in the later game anyway. Again, I think that this would add something new to the game, the reuse of the small ship designs in the late game.

I'd also suggest distributing the various bonuses due to manouverability (ie defensive) in a similar manner, that the very small are now hyper manouverable (even if they don't have the high speed) due to their lowered apparent mass, while the larger ships would gain less manouverability, so should have less of a defensive bonus. The negative bonuses should be the same for all ship sizes because it affects the physiology/psychology of the crew.

Hope this is of some help,

[ 12 December 2001: Message edited by: jimbob ]

[ 12 December 2001: Message edited by: jimbob ]</p>

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I've checked, and repulsor beams work on weapon platforms. They are ineffective on sats.

I do have a concern with the Inertial Negator operating on the smallest ships.
There is no way that I can have the ES with 1EPM.
Using quantum engines, you could design a plaguebomber with 60 movement points! That's 30 in combat!

I might have to change the I.N. into a third form, and have it give you an engine that provides +1 thrust (plus a cheaper Version at higher tech). That would make Ion engines be the same as your opponent's CT engines, etc.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> I've checked, and repulsor beams work on weapon platforms. <hr></blockquote>

Hey, that's great.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> I do have a concern with the Inertial Negator... I can have the ES with 1EPM.
Using quantum engines, you could design a plaguebomber with 60 movement points! <hr></blockquote>

Yup, that's a problem alright. My suggestions might be of some value, so here goes.
1) Maybe reintroduce the maximum # of engines thing for just these special ships. You can work out what you feel is a reasonable # of movement points (remember they can have solar sails) and limit how many engines they can have to acheive this.
2) make it so only Inertial Negators (IN) level 1 reduce the engine/movement ratio, and the higher levels only give the other bonuses (like to-hit values, etc.) on the smaller ship sizes.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> I might have to change the I.N. into a third form, and have it give you an engine that provides +1 thrust (plus a cheaper Version at higher tech). That would make Ion engines be the same as your opponent's CT engines, etc <hr></blockquote>

That's good too. Maybe the higher levels would even give +2 thrust? For a fractional advantage the engines could be smaller (like 8ktons instead of 10kt) because then the player could put in just a few more to get just a little more movement.

good luck.