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.

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 </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif Whoops. I think I mighta screwed up with my typing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: True Solar Sails
 

once the sails are destroyed, does the penalty go away?

either way, this significantly penalizes heavily shielded or armored ships. would be best to pack on weapons or use leaky armor so that you are sure that the solar sail is the first thing to go in combat.

you could also imagine that the solar sail gets folded or detatched in combat, as in battletech.

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. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Just so. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes - but so does your movement. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">My idea for this component is to have a viable propulsion alternative for ships that would (most likely) not be engaging in combat.

Re: True Solar Sails
 

For making speed depend on the number of stars in the system, would this work:

Make the solar sails give triple the movement, like 18 instead of 6 for example. Also increase the supply storage, but only make them generate enough supplies for 6 points of movement to be possible. This way, when you have a system with three stars, the ship would generate three times the supplies and could use all the 18 points of movement.

Or, is there a problem with this theory?

Re: True Solar Sails
 

I like the solar sail idea as well, but you said earlier you'd eliminate supply usage from all other components. Are weapons and shields included? IOW, do we have unlimited ammo for weapons? IMO, weapons should not fire at all if you have no supplies.

Also, it kinda' goes against my way of thinking to be able to transverse Warp Points using just inertia. Shouldn't you have to use some kind of active propulsion, if nothing else for vector control, when going thru WP's? Remember, warp lines are not 'in space' so they don't have solar radiation to act as passive propulsion.

It would be nice if SS's were truly sails and not a modified engine component / bonus feature. I can envision Intra-system ships being able to use zero supplies with a Master computer and a solar sail running repeat orders indefinitely. Should be slow movement when compared to active propulsion, but not use any supplies.

Nice ideas nevertheless. I for one would use something like this in my games if available.

Re: True Solar Sails
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That would suffer from the little "inertia" problem I mentioned earlier. And ships would show up with triple their normal movement points at the beginning of their turn, confusing the player. But those are minor issues http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: True Solar Sails
 

Originally posted by rdouglass:
I like the solar sail idea as well, but you said earlier you'd eliminate supply usage from all other components. Are weapons and shields included? IOW, do we have unlimited ammo for weapons? IMO, weapons should not fire at all if you have no supplies.
Yes, I do mean weapons and shield regenerators. I suppose it might work if they did use supplies and thus drained your movement immediately instead of just when you would normally run out... that would certainly be interesting http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
edit: and yes, it's hardcoded that weapons do require supplies to work, no matter if they actually use any or not... so I guess a ship at the end of its movement won't be able to fire?

Also, it kinda' goes against my way of thinking to be able to transverse Warp Points using just inertia. Shouldn't you have to use some kind of active propulsion, if nothing else for vector control, when going thru WP's? Remember, warp lines are not 'in space' so they don't have solar radiation to act as passive propulsion.

I always thought of warp points as acting like they do in Starfury - you fly into one and you just magically appear on the other end a little while later... Unfortunately there is no way to restrict warp point travel to certain ships, other than to make those ships into fighter hulls, as has been done with the Highliner Mod...

It would be nice if SS's were truly sails and not a modified engine component / bonus feature. I can envision Intra-system ships being able to use zero supplies with a Master computer and a solar sail running repeat orders indefinitely. Should be slow movement when compared to active propulsion, but not use any supplies.

Possibly one of the original intents of Drones... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[ May 07, 2004, 16:22: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]

Re: True Solar Sails
 

I would like to have a Ground based laser facilty. Using this would give a boost to the sail's movement. It would also allow it to work in systems with no stars You would still need a planet, so there would still need to be a star there except for special cases.

Hmmmm. Remote beamed supplies. Interesting.

I could also see them operate in pairs. One could be destroyed to "Fold it up" and have it not have the movement or the defense penalty. Organic armor ability could then "Unfold" it.

Re: True Solar Sails
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you have 0 supplies, no weapons can fire, not even those that use 0 supplies.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There is no way to do this in SE4. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Organic armor only repairs components during combat or immediately afterwards. It does not do any other sort of repair.

[ May 07, 2004, 20:50: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: True Solar Sails
 

Even ships with no supplies were gunning down my fighters with 0-supply use PDLs in P&N.

And weapons stop firing before you are totally out of supply. They won't work if there isn't enough supply for a full shot.

Re: True Solar Sails
 

Even though the description says they use solar winds to generate extra movement, a star in the system is not required for solar sails to work. The ability for them is just the ordinary extra movement ability. Same thing if you change that to standard movement in your mod. Either way they will work in systems with no sun, or with black holes.

Edit: Ok, I see what you are doing. You make the sails create energy and store just enough to keep them moving as long as you have a star to create the energy to begin with. Interesting.

Of course you would still have 1 point of movement in a system with no star. Sargasso Sea? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ May 07, 2004, 12:13: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: True Solar Sails
 

Perhaps if you change it slightly to the solar sail generates X supplies per turn (with X supplies needed for full movement), and can store X+1? That way, 0-supply weapons would still have the one supply unit to work with.