True Solar Sails
 

With Salvo! coming out soon, I was thinking about a possible "Age of Sail" mod for SE4... and THAT got me thinking once again about the Solar Sails in SE4 and how to make them more realistic!

Recipe for more realistic solar sails:
1. Remove all engines but solar sails from the game. (They don't fit into the new engine paradigm we're going to set up)
2. Take away supply usage from all components. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif
OK, we're done with what you have to give up for this to work. Now on to the fun stuff! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
3. Limit solar sails to One Per Ship
4. Give solar sails lots of standard movement (remove the bonus movement) with mQNP applied
5. Give solar sails Supply Storage, Supply Usage, and Solar Supply Generation of some arbitrary amount - it doesn't matter what as long as they're all equal.
6. Optional - For added realism, give solar sails the Armor ability so they tend to be hit before other components, unless you heavily armor your ship http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

So what does all that do? What you get is, now solar sails will ONLY function in systems which actually have stars to produce the solar winds! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Now if I could figure out how to make the movement depend on the number of stars... could increase the supply capacity of the sails and change the movement back to bonus movement, but then they would continue to function for several turns after leaving a multi-star system for a no-star system... I guess that represents inertia or something... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: True Solar Sails
 

Very interesting concept. I'd like to see the final product. Of course, to help with your solar sails, you can research the heck out of stellar manipulation and create your own stars eventually in the systems you control.

Re: True Solar Sails
 

Wouldn't this make blackhole systems impossible to cross?

You could change engines to be emergency propulsion pods, then have a component called "reactor" or "engineering" and make it a spaceyard with zero build rate and repair ability of 1.

Hmm... is it possible to give emergency propulsion the organic armor ability? Then it could repair itself each turn.

Re: True Solar Sails
 

Or just have engines be really slow.

Re: True Solar Sails
 

Regeneration only repairs after combat, not from being damaged by stuff outside of combat or from being destroyed by using an emergency propulsion type ability.

Re: True Solar Sails
 

While we're on the subject, here's a sneak preview of how I did solar sails for my (hopefully) forthcoming Mother of All Mods mod...

(NOTE: Quasi-Newtonian movement rules in effect)

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Comments?

Re: True Solar Sails
 

Just one question: Why the defensive minus???

[ May 07, 2004, 14:20: Message edited by: Renegade 13 ]

Re: True Solar Sails
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's hardly a defensive bonus...it's a 75% penalty to defense. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: True Solar Sails
 

that way if you loose your engines in combat you're easier to hit.

EDIT: or not.

[ May 07, 2004, 02:29: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

Re: True Solar Sails
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I guess its to simulate the HUGE size of the sails if you were going to be even vaguely realistic about it. Hence really easy to hit.