Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>How do you solve the problem with large engines and AI?<hr></blockquote>Set a "useless ability" on each of the engines (different ability for different size), with a value1 to indicate relative usefulness.
Then, you can call for one "star-unstable" Massive 200KT engine, with a couple "Minerals extraction" (Facility abil) 10KT filler engines.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Explain the seeker/pdf thing a little further (gotta run so I won't be replying till way later)<hr></blockquote>With the 10x scaleup of hitpoints, our ships have something on the order of 10,000 hitpoints.
Seekers have 50-100 hitpoints.
If PDCs can target ships as well, then any not used to fend off missiles can poke at ships.
Enough PDC to kill 70 missiles would be enough to wreck a Light Cruiser given the same amount of time for both tasks.

Its more of a "kitchen sink" desperation weapon, but could be useful.

Advanced armors will be able to shrug off the PDC with no effect, so you probably should give them a quad2shields damage type, allowing them to do some small amount of physical damage even in the endgame.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

The AI will attempt to place the best (biggest) when the design file calls for Minimun Speed and Desired Speed, it will look for engines and you can't change it for a "useless ability" here.
(Note it's called min and desired speed but it's actually the number of engines).
The only way would be to set them to 0 and always add all engines as a Misc Ability.
It would require mayor patching of the AI but it may work.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>It would require mayor patching of the AI but it may work.<hr></blockquote>Exact same deal as with P&N.
I need to rebuild my AI patcher one of these days, and I can easily add support for multiple mods.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

To keep y'all up to date, and for your reading pleasure, here is the most recent list of weapons (total 1990 lines worth of weapons and components).

FullWeapList.zip

I've fleshed it out more and set it up for the eventual merge to a text doc (to be added to the components file). I also added the seekers - though I need some help in the images (I had initially thought it used the single image in the race_main.bmp) that seekers use. Anybody know?

This should give an idea of ranges, damage, abilities & supply usage. There is also a column at the end for what Race it is most commonly used by.

Let me know what y'all think!

I'm working on images for the components now.


Imp Fyron:

What formula were you going to use? I could plug it in and make it run for everything.

Everyone:

Does anyone have pics of any B5 related weapons? Close shots, tech prints, etc?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I'd prefer to get a functional mod first and add the pictures later.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Here's a 350KB http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif text file to paste into Settings.txt. Population Modifiers.zip
(Zipped up to 7% size http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

This one uses a right-hand resource production limit of 50%, and runs right up to a maxed-sphereworld spaceyard modifier.

PS: I pasted it into P&N, and SE4 rolled right through the file like it wasn't there. No problems at all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Um, I've just been lurking in this discussion, so forgive me if this is an ignorant question, but what is the point of the Last 1000 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif modifiers all being 50. Isn't that redundant? Would you not have the same effect by stopping at the first break point that hit 50?

Geoschmo

EDIT: Oh crud. Soembody smack me. I see it now. There are different modifiers for production and construction. Duh.

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

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Is it possible to add political penalties if you use certain weapons? For example using Mass drivers, plant cracker beams, Drahk plaegue, or death cloud give you negative political points.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

That's automatic when playing against humans. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

AI's don't really care, though.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I do recall some sort of negative when using certain weapons. If it is possible, it will be done (had planned on it at least).

Also, I was going blind working on the weapons so I took a break and made some ships for the Gaim (7 ships) and added the Markab neutrals (with 2 ships, AI not done).

Update.zip

Does anyone know if a neutral uses ships from it's folder before going to the generic set?

Anybody know how seeker's refer to pics?

The tech tree is getting pretty involved, there is a common root of tech that all races can have and from there they can continue on the common thread or branch into their specialty weapons.

Oleg:

How is the soulhunter ship?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Anybody know how seeker's refer to pics?<hr></blockquote>Below the "Flag" in an empire's shipset, you place a seeker image. Not sure which file, but it is part of the shipset.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I know that there is a seeker image in the "Main.bmp" for each race, but I noticed some seekers give a number from 0-3 afterwards for the image number, does this choose from the different pics avaiable in the main.bmp? Do you know if a torp image can be used with a seeker object?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I don't have a shipset with me, but there may be multiple seeker images in the same BMP with the flag & race mini & whatnot

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

If you d/l the update file with the Gaim and Markab there is a Main.bmp (the one with the flag and seekers) in it to refer to.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I see 3 missile images there, so what is the problem?

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

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Yes there are 3 seeker picture in every main.bmp. I made many of them.
I don't remember exactly what, but there was something funny with the number of seeker pics.
I think they start conting from 0 and from the left. In one ocasion a wrong number made the seeker look like a piece of the empire's flag.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Imp Fyron:

What formula were you going to use? I could plug it in and make it run for everything.<hr></blockquote>

Umm, what exactly are you refering to? I think I forgot because I've been away for a few days.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Also, what type of weapon is supposed to be the "standard" weapon type? In normal SEIV, the Anti-Proton Beam is the standard weapon that other weapons are judged by. It provides a good baseline for determining if a particular weapon is powerful, weak, average, or whatever. I was wondering which weapon would be a good one to use for this baseline in B5.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Another small update, just added the other Gaim fighter, changed the settings file to use SJs pop mod and also put in two prelim weapon component pics - Heavy Laser and Medium Plasma Gun.

Update_2.zip

Also, there is another settings file called B5Settings that is setup to work with a B5 music CD I setup from MP3's I downloaded and turned into a audio CD. I compressed the CD and it is 67 megs (!!) so I am not posting it. I will be happy to provide the links and the order the tracks should be in for anyone who wants to download them. Also, I will copy the CD for anybody who sends me a blank CD w/return postage.


Fyron:

The formula of damage to tonnage you were talking about.

Also, I think the basis weapons are the particle weapons - lower end tech that every race will start with. Or we could use laser tech as the baseline as Narn/EA (and a few others) use that as their average tech.

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

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

IMO, the APB is not a good "standard": it is the strongest ranged weapon in the game, with 85% of the range of "artillery" guns.
The DUC is a much more reasonable weapon to compare with: average range, average damage, available early.
(I "fixed" the APB early in my mod) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

A smallish Main Gun for one of the capital ships would be good to use here.
Then you get the long-reload heavy guns on one side, and the rapid-fire close-in guns on the other.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

The standard particle beam might be good then. It is the most common weapon on ships in the series. It isn't very strong, isn't too weak. Has the standard reload rate (1 turn) for most weapons. Range isn't too far, but more than most PDF weapons. It will also be one of the first weapons developed in research after the basics are covered.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Val:

For the damage/rate/kiloton formula, here's my plan:

Pick values that you want the damage ratios to be for every weapon type at tech level 1. For weapons with variable damage, use the average damage for determining the ratio. Make the small weak guns have a ratio of 0.8, the medium/average guns have a ratio of 1.0, and the big, slow guns a ratio of 1.2. If you want a particular weapon to be more powerful, then increase it's ratio by a few tenths. For weapons with special damage types and to-hit bonuses, decrease the ratio by a reasonable amount. Then, do this:

Damage / Ratio / Rate = Kilotons

for each weapon to get the size you want. Make each tech level for that weapon be the same size.

And, voila! Weapons are nearly balanced from the start. Then, just do a bit of play-testing and tweaking to get the final values. Of course, my ratio values are hypothetical, and could be bad or unbalancing. The ratios I proposed are up for debate. What do all of you think?

SJ:

Yeah, I know the APB's are deadly. I just used it as an example cause its what most AI's use.

[ 26 January 2002: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]</p>

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

NP. Just making sure you don't take the ABP as the average weapon, and then sit there wondering why everything dies so fast http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif .

RE: Damage on artillery/maingun/close defense
IMO, you've got that backwards.

Big, slow guns should NOT have a higher rating than the small guns.
- the big gun does all its damage on the first turn, 1200, say.
- the little gun ship only does 800 damage by the time the big gun reloads.
- the big gun gets to fire first, at long range, so it may get to fire two or three times before the small guns close into range.
Not good.

The Massive guns should do pitiful damage (0.5), since they get to dish it all out on turn #1, possibly crippling the opponent and thus eliminating the threat. In any case, by the time the opponent closes to medium gun range, the big guns will be almost reloaded, and you may even get a second free punch.
The tiny guns need to do lots of damage (2.0). By the time you get close enough to use them, you are way behind in dealing damage, and need to catch up.

PS: you may notice in SE4 Classic, the Ripper beams do 2.0 ADU/KT/Turn, while WMGs do 0.67 ADU/KT/Turn.
Its all about making lots of different strategies viable.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

APB should be weaker...

DUC looks like it was designed for BAB5 right from the get go.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

So I mixed the ratios up. Big deal. I haven't played SEIV for a few weeks, so I just forgot. Big ratios for small weapons sounds more correct than what I said.

So is a range for the ratios from 2.0 for small guns to 0.5 for huge guns good with everyone?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>So I mixed the ratios up. Big deal. I haven't played SEIV for a few weeks, so I just forgot. Big ratios for small weapons sounds more correct than what I said.<hr></blockquote>Hey, no problem. Just wanted to be sure.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

IF:

Thanks for the ratios (and subsequent correction)!

So what are we going with?
0.5 = Massive Gun
0.8 = Large Gun
1.0 = Medium Gun
1.4 = Small Gun
2.0 = Tiny Gun


I made a few more component pics over the weekend (ballistic, laser, particle & plasma weapons - and a few extras - mass driver, plasma battery, grapling hook). Now that I have the formula I'll plug that in and we should be that much closer to a Version of the modd with weapons, armor and engines unique to our Mod!!!

ComponentSample.zip

Opinion Time! -

What does everyone think so far?

What direction should we head?

Most important/least important to accomplish?

Hope y'all had a good weekend!!

[ 28 January 2002: Message edited by: Val ]</p>

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Val, are you going to submit these components to the Image Collection Mod?

We have the weapons almost done, so now we should work on making defenses to counter-act them. Since there aren't any shields in B5, we could use the "shields" as an extra layer of armor. Make somwe high-powered weapons "phased" so that they can be partially armor piercing. Then, give the ancient races (Vorlons, Shadows, and maybe Minbari) phased shields for their armor. Or maybe make reinforced armor for all the races that has less physical hp, equal shield hps, and "phased shields".

Also, races will have to rely heavily on ECM for their defenses.

We should use the various cloaks and sensor types for different stealth/cloaking modes. There should be a lot of levels in cloaking technology, maybe 10. Give ECM components levels in Active EM Scanning cloaking. Give Combat Sensors levels in Active EM Scanning. This could simulate various levels of scanner jamming, which only has one level in SEIV. Make stealth devices available to everybody, which have Passive EM Scanning cloak. Give the Minbari +2 levels in this cloak at each tech level because they are masters at stealth technology. Allow "stealth scanners" to be researched. Give the Shadows level 8 Temporal Cloaking at the start. Allow them to research lvl 9 and 10, but make them very expensive. This would simulate their cloaking device, which can't be detected in B5. However, this could be really unbalancing in SEIV, so allow maybe the advanced races to research Temporal Scanners (very expensive) to combat this. Make a couple of Unique Ruins Techs that allow for level 8, 9 and 10 temporal scanners, so that it is possible to find First Ones tech that is capable of detecting Shadows. Are there other races with stealth/cloaking technology? If not, we can use Gravitic and Psychic cloaks and scanners as Unique Ruins Techs.

We could have a race of "First Ones" which would operate similar to the monsters being discussed and modded in the http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...&f=23&t=003164 thread.

Make Vorlon and Shadow troop weapons and armor uber-powerful. They are energy-based, and it took about 20 people armed with PPG's to kill one Soldier of Darkness.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I figured since SJ is coordinating the efforts for the compilation, I'd just pass them on to him here. I have quite a few more to do, so I will use the blank space wayyyyyy at the end http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I'm also working on Facilities (Looking for suggestions for B5 facilities). I already gave him the beams and torps. I don't have any planets, but I would like to get the homeworlds (especially Zha'ha'dum) in the planet list.

Armor is being worked on by SJ, go back a few (5/6) pages to read about it (or ask him to reexplain).

The idea of setting up the other first ones as "Space Monsters" had been mentioned before (I think by Atomannj) and I think it's a good idea!

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Quick question, anyone know (off the top of their head) what the max number of systems in a game is? I'm thinking about restarting the B5 map and generating the universe according to B5 specs and then repositioning everything to match the map. This will save me the hassle of creating all the systems, I'll just have to recreate the jump points.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I believe the limit is 255 systems.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

That's what I thought... I was hoping it would be more so I could create "hyperspace" systems under the "realspace" systems. Guess I could move it to special quadrants like SJ did, though I wanted to keep the warp paths more consistant to the B5 game maps.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

IF: The current armor setup goes like this:

Most armors are actually inert internal components, that are extremely likely to be hit before any other components.
They come in 4 grades:
Structural: Extremely high HP/KT rating. Usually hit Last. Comes in 1KT chunks.
Light: high HP/KT. Usually hit before sensitive electronics, but after anything larger. Small chunks
Medium: moderate HP/KT. Usually hit before anything other than the large guns. Average sized chunks.
Heavy: low HP/KT (for armor). Approximates SE4 classic armor. Massive chunks.

Then we have the fancy high tech armor & items.
Shield generation + Crystalline ability forms the basis for things such as "refractive armor", "shadow armor", and "gravitic deflectors", all of which can knock off the first few points of damage from a hit.

To keep the ability levels on these armors from stacking too high on large ships, there are two Versions of each.
Primary X Armor: Limited to 1 per ship. Provides the full ability amount.
Additional X Armor: Unlimited amount, provides 10% to 25% of the ability amount of the primary, and is slightly larger & stronger.

That makes the additional plates more likely to be hit first, and means that a 1650KT ship will have only 2 to 3.5 times more special ability than a 150KT ship.

One thing I'm wondering is:
How much stronger should the armor get as tech improves?
Should it keep pace with weapons tech, or become relatively stronger/weaker?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

That's a good question... B5 weapon/shield tech wasn't too much a priority in the show, it seemed like new weapons were being developed throughout, but not much in the way of shield/armor. I would say it should keep pace with weapons tech in percentages, though I think it should be very expensive to research as you go up levels, maybe even require the person to research "Advanced Armor" tech before freeing up the next level of each armor group. Also, the armor/shields should plateau at some point before weapons do - in effect this will allow the weapons of a particular 'age' to outstrip armor from the same tech 'age' (Young v. Middle v. Old v. Ancient).

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Val:
That's what I thought... I was hoping it would be more so I could create "hyperspace" systems under the "realspace" systems. Guess I could move it to special quadrants like SJ did, though I wanted to keep the warp paths more consistant to the B5 game maps.<hr></blockquote>

I wouldn't stress over hyperspace. I'd rather see a big map with plenty of systems to conquer than "hyperspace" systems.

Keep up the great work, it's looking great!

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I was thinking about layering another map under the existing map with the different warp points set distances from each other, this way it takes some time to move through hyperspace, rather than the instantaneous transfer. Would be much easier to have a move delay on jump points http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Layering another map? Can two systems exist in the same spot on the map? Or were you making these "hyperspace" systems be in an adjacent spot to the system that they are supposed to represent?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Two systems can be at the same location on the map, but the only thing that accomplishes is being a pain in the butt when trying to select systems.
Better to place them "up one and right one square" or somesuch.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I had actually tested it out and put several HS systems 'under' the existing systems. The effect was that it WAS a pain to monitor the HS systems, unless you had a ship in it (then go through the ship list). The HS systems also allowed time to be chewed up on jumps, rather than the instantanious jumps in the current B5 Map. It worked well, just a ROYAL pain to create.

Also - anybody out there have any pics/closeups of any B5 weapons? I've completed ~60 or so to date, but I am having trouble with what some of the Gravitic (Brakiri) and Antimatter (Vree) weapons look like. Any pics would be of help http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Val: RE hyperspace.

Since you're making a map in the editor anyways, why not create paths through hyperspace.

IE: fill up a "hyperspace" system with red storms, that dish out 5000 damage. Then, create a warppoint in, clear a path straight across (arbitrary number of squares), then a warppoint out to the destination.
Ships which veer off course get demolished by the storms, and you can make the travel time whatever you want.
If you use only one or two paths per hyperspace system, you can have the storm damage vary with distance from the path.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

SJ:

As always, full of good ideas http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I'll give it a try tomorrow night while I'm working on the map. I actually want to mod in a new quadrant type for B5 that will make more B5 race friendly systems, and also mod in the 'invisible' stars in nebulas, black holes and such.

Also, before I make the final weapons, what was decided for structural tonage values? Are we going for x10 still? Or have we given up on that due to the organic armor effect not working? I have to set the damage values up by x10 still as well if we go that way.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I'd go with the SE4 scale damage. The whole point of the 10x was to get the regen right.

Might as well go with a normal scale.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Wanted to make sure that we had given up on the repair ability for now - until they fix the armor stacking. SO, the numbers stay as they are. Do you have the armor/shield/ecm stuff ready?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I've got the plans & some prototypes, and I'm trying to find a good balance between tech level, weapons, armor hitpoints, armor absorb %.
I need to run some more simulations... this armor is hard to tweak due to the way it works.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Would you like the weapons to test with them? Or are you just testing it with the SE IV weaps for now?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

Using the B5 weapons has to be better than the SE4 standard ones.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

The current armor settings give the following results:
Ships
All: Bridge, 2x LS, 2x CQ, Aux. Con, 5x Heavy APB, 5x Quantum Engine.

Light: 6K hitpoints, 76 x 75hp light armor + 10x18 structural support.
Heavy: 4K hitpoints, 13 x 300hp heavy armor
Mixed: 5K hitpoints, 7x300hp(H) + 7x200(M) + 7x75(L) + 40x18(SS)

Heavy vs Light:
Heavy wins 5 of 15 battles.
Heavy wins 12 of 20 battles.
Heavy wins 7 of 20 battles. (one light-on-the-run)
Heavy wins 7 of 20 battles. (one tie, one heavy-on-the-run)

Heavy wins about 40%
How? Heavy armor blocks a higher % of damage. Light has a higher chance of losing critical components, such as weapons. With more surviving guns, the heavy can sometimes overcome the 2000 hitpoint difference to take a win.

Heavy vs Mixed
Heavy wins 27 out of 50, with one count of Mixed sucessfully running away.

Light vs Mixed
Mixed wins 23 out of 50, with two counts of Light running away.

7 on 7 fleet action!
(Fire until weapons gone, 50% damage strategy)
Heavy vs Light: Light loses half on average.
Heavy vs Mixed: Mixed loses half on average.
Mixed vs Light: Light loses half on average.
Note: in 1 of 10 cases, the underdog team won the battle, or stalemated at 1 on 1!

I tactical'd one of the heavy-vs-lights, and the results were:
All heavies destroyed.
Light 1: OK.
Light 2: 30% damage. 26 armor, 2 engines lost.
Light 3: Totally Destroyed.
Light 4: 14% damage, 13 armor lost.
Light 5: 60% damage. 51 armor, 5 APBs, 1 Crew quarters lost.
Light 6: Totally Destroyed.
Light 7: 18% damage. 15 armor lost.

Plenty of Collateral damage for everyone http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I can't say anything about the quality of the tactics (all on auto), but there could have been a couple rammings by otherwise-disabled heavy ships.

I expect the armor-penetration to rise when the large engines & weapons are included, posibly tipping the balance towards heavier armor, but who knows http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

What would happen if you, say, used 50% light armor and 50% heavy armor?

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

50% by mass or by hitpoints or by space used? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Also, how about making the Structural Supports zero KT, 5 hp, and $25 each?
2,000 extra hitpoints cost 10,000 resources.

Re: Babylon 5 Mod
 

I was talking about by space used. With 200 kilotons of armor, use 100 for light armor and 100 for heavy armor. What would that so?