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Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)
Ok...I'm making an SFB mod. I'm starting this thread to keep track of ideas, questions, etc...
Here is the first set of questions: Is there any way to allow Bases to provide supply for ships? I found in settings.txt a true false statment for bases and fleets pertaining to supply. I think I could use that. What is the lowest amount one can use for tonnage/space of a component? Is it atleast 1? Can I put in say, 0.5 or 0.2? Can Racial Specific tech be traded? I know it can't be researched if captured. Race tech can only be use if captured on the ship it's on, and I don't think it can be repaired, correct? That's enough for now... Kana |
Re: Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)
I think that if you put a quantum reactor on a spacestation, it would resupply everything. Not really sure about your other questions, though.
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Re: Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)
Is there any way to allow Bases to provide supply for ships? I found in settings.txt a true false statment for bases and fleets pertaining to supply. I think I could use that.
Yes, just set that value to true, and you can fleet ships and bases together to resupply the ships. Alternatively, you could take a cue from Suicide Junkie's (unfortunately little-played) P&N PBW mod and set all the base hulls to be ships with built-in supply storage, so even bases could need resupplying! A third idea, though I'm not sure if this would work, is to give bases the ability that Resupply Depots have (what is it, "Supplies Ships in Sector" or something?). If you do use SJ's idea, though, I think you'll have to resize the Space Station and fiddle with the weapon mounts so that you can still use the base mounts on bases-that-are-really-ships http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif What is the lowest amount one can use for tonnage/space of a component? Is it atleast 1? Can I put in say, 0.5 or 0.2? Zero, actually. While fractional values aren't allowed, you CAN have zero-sized components. This means you can have an infinite number of them on any ship design (unless you set One/Two/etc. Per Ship), so you'd better give them some sort of limitation like being practically useless except in huge, highly expensive quantities - see Adamant Mod's "Structural Support" components for an example. If you do set the limit per ship, they could be used, however, as "essential" systems that every ship is going to have exactly one of; MOO2 did some systems like engines that way; you could only have 1 engine per ship and you needed 1 to move, so its engines didn't take up any space. Can Racial Specific tech be traded? I know it can't be researched if captured. Race tech can only be use if captured on the ship it's on, and I don't think it can be repaired, correct? It can be traded/captured IF it has a direct prerequisite tech that is NOT race-specific, or if the trading/capturing empire has the same trait. So if you add "Biology" as a requirement to Organic Armor, then Organic Armor should become tradeable/captureable (IIRC). |
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Re: Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)
Bases can resupply ships like a Resupply Depot if the line you mentioned is set on True. If you would like Bases to only give a fixed amount of supplies, you could make them "Ships" without any movement, as SJ did in the PBW Version of Pirates and Nomads (P&N PBW). Obviously, the AI isn't going to like such a change.
The lowest tonnage you can use is 0kt, which basically means no space taken at all. You cannot put something like 0.5 however, as the game will otherwise crash when loading the components.txt file. Racial technology *should* be able to be traded with other Empires having this technology, but not with anyone else. It cannot be repaired, and a captured ship with racial technology will work fine even if you do not have the technology. However, if it is what you would like to do, you could make a workaround to allow an Empire to research "unique" technologies even if it doesn't have the correct trait. It would go along these lines: (I do not quite recall the specifics however, so someone else more knowledgeable in this regard may want to correct me here) - Technology A is racial tech, and can only be research by an Empire having the needed racial trait. (It would be something like the Theoretical research) - Technology B isn't a racial tech, and can only be researched once you have technology A. Therefore, an Empire gaining this technology would be able to use this "unique" technology, even if it doesn't have the appropriate trait. Edit: Stop reading my mind Ed! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif We virtually wrote the same post, while I didn't look at yours before posting mine. I guess I should learn how to type faster. [ May 13, 2004, 18:11: Message edited by: Alneyan ] |
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Re: Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)
Ohh, StarFleet Battles. I remember those days. So many hours, struggling as an Hydran or a WYN, battling Klingons and Romulans...
Well balanced, well defined game. I really wish there was a REAL Version of SFB on computer (not a real-time thing). |
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Please keep Posts pertanent to the discussion at hand. IE questions and answers for the mod. Thank you.
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Ok new round of Questions. By the way thanks for previous Posts...will be very helpful...Using Questions and answers for brainstorming and such.
Can the Combat Area be made bigger or smaller? I didn't think I could...just thought I would ask... Do the weapon ranges only go out to 20? Can they be increased? Will they appear in the interface? Does Demeanor do anything? Can you add more? Thanks, Kana |
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[quote]Originally posted by General Woundwort:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by Kana: Quote:
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Check out: http://se4modding.spaceempires.net/ |
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Ok new round of questions...
While messing around with Dave G' modder, and considering my mod, I would like to delete components and tech areas, and add my own from scratch. What components/tech areas are permenantly part of SE4? Are they the ones with the listing of 'Removable: False'? Supply Cost for Component usage--Tied to Ship size or Mount? One Component...IE Cloak...that uses up different amount of supplies based on Ship Size...I assume a cloak mount could be used to increase the amount or make seperate components and some how restict them to a certain size of ship. Restricting Weapons/Components by Ship/Unit Size? I might have asked this before...but basically want simulate certain weapons being to big or ship size not big enough to provide a stable platform for the weapon/component. Thanks, Kana Modding while waiting for PBW to be revived... |
Re: Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)
Finally someone to take on the challenge.
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You can remove about everything in the data files, as long as you provide an adequate replacement, so you would be able to remove *all* tech areas and components. The line you mentioned means that you can (or cannot when set to false) disable the technology at game setup.
Mounts should be able to alter supply usage (the Large/Heavy/Massive weapon mounts do this as a side effect in the vanilla game), so you would need to make one such mount per vehicle size. Lastly, there are a few ways to prevent a given weapon from being used in, say, a Light Cruiser and below: - You may make this weapon too big to fit on any ship below Cruiser, while increasing the size of the hulls above Cruiser. For example, this weapon could take 500kt, and a Cruiser would have more tonnage available. The problem is that you will have more tonnage on some of your ships that you would like, unless you intend to make a dedicated ship acting as a weapon "platform" for these powerful weapons. - You could make the weapon too big to fit in any ship, and design a mount reducing its size to acceptable levels for a ship of at least 401kt in tonnage. While this way is easier, you wouldn't be able to apply any other mount to this weapon, which may be a problem if your mod requires a lot of such mounts. - If you do not mind doing a lot of copy/paste, you could make two series of mounts: one for the "regular" weapons (as usual), and a second one for the "restricted" weapons. These would be the same as the first, but would reduce the size of the "restricted" weapons enough. This way, you would have an easy way of restricting the use of a given weapon to certain ships without preventing the player from using other mounts for this weapon. [ May 18, 2004, 16:18: Message edited by: Alneyan ] |
Re: Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)
Ok quick question...
I asked what the lowest number was for tonnage size. Answer was 0...and no fractions allowed. I believe the highest number is somewhere around 65000. Does this apply to all numbers in the game? I do know that 255 is the max for number of planets. Are there any other weird restrictions? Reason being I was considering really simplifying research by basically having each Research Faciliy providing 1 RP. An various Tech Areas being anywhere from 1 to ???? RP. Basically not the 5000 to 1000000 range that we see now. Kana |
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If you make research facilities give 1 RP, you're going to have some rather funky rounding errors. I'd recommend not going below 100.
eg, 10% racial bonus to research gives: 1 RP facility, either 1 or 2 RP produced 100 RP facility, 110 RP produced |
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[ May 24, 2004, 05:57: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ] |
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Ok...Question for Modders familiar with SFB...
Expanding Sphere Generators...ESG's basically energy shields that damage mines, sats, drones, fighter, and even ships. Can be used at range 0, 1, 2, and 3. This is basically a ram attack, but an object/target can run into it the ESG's range as well... I was thinking of setting this up as some form of DF weapon with a short range, and the PD tag to automatically target items in range. Add in to hit bonus, and possibly low amounts of shielding...Does this sound all right? Any other ideas...? ------------------------------------------------- Stasis Field Generators, SFG's....Is there a way to make a weapon do more than one damage type? Ideally this weapon would stop a ship, and not allow it to fire any weapons or move...The push and pull, and Distrupt/Increase reload times would probably work for this...If I could include all 4 it would be the most ideal situation...I don't believe I can though...which sucks...Also again any ideas? If not I might not include it...or if it is, it will have some effect from above... Kana |
Re: Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)
ESG sounds right as a range = 1 PD weapon that damages all types. A fiddly but accurate way would be to make it small so many can be put on one ship. Make the reload time larger than one though (maybe 4-6 turns?) to represent the time and energy needed to recharge it. I would not give it shields, though, because in SFB it does not protect against incoming fire. Probably not minesweeping either, since it can't be operated all the time to protect against unexpected mines.
In Settings.txt I would adjust ramming damages to zero to reflect SFB's reasonable ruling that no one will kamikaze a starship into another, even if they could manage to hit. Stasis Field Generators are impossible to mod accurately, but you could have somewhat similar effects from the reload-increasing effect (see crystaline Energy Dampener and not the Psychic weapon, or MC will resist it). or the Warp weapon also is similar in that it removes the ship from combat for a time, both for friendly and enemy fire. PvK |
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Warp Weapon ability was considered...but I was saving that for the Andromdean Displacement Device.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
Your right on the shields option for ESG...it shouldn't block incoming fire...(except maybe Hellbores) but there is no way to do that. I have to think about it some more... Kana |
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Displacement Device and SFG could use the same ability, but have very different properties such as range, rate of fire, cost, size, supply use, to-hit modifier.
PvK |
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Ok...I have a small question on economics. I have considered simplifing things for the mod similiar to the Starfire mod...but I'm not sure yet. I was wondering how some modders have tackled this problem. Especially like how components and facilities get their 'cost'. What is a good baseline? I assume trying to make things comparable to stock SE4 is one way...but I don't know if really want to do that. I would really like to decrease the numbers in this mod...Yet I know it has been suggested that I don't take certain numbers under 100 due to the abilites modification on percentages...If you have any experience with SFB, I would love to hear input from you. Also any and all suggestions used...will recieve credit in the mod...
Thanks again, Kana |
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Really depends upon how large you want your fleets to get. If the cost of facilities is high, then most likely your AI will spend more to obtain the growth that it is required to maintain. Sticking close to SEIV norm may or may not be the best thing.
In Facilities you could require the cost in Organics to be higher than other resources, and for ships the cost in minerals is higher than the others, while components cost about equal in all. The choice is really up to how you want the AI to consentrate its resources, for production, or for maitenance. I hope this rambling helps, if it makes no sense, well thats just me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif |
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Question on Drones...and I guess Engines and Supply as well.
1. Drone engines...like all engines...use up supply during combat...correct? 2. If 1. is correct...How much supply is used? I'm considering using drones instead of seeking weapons option. But I need to have a limited endurance for combat, and a possible long range endurance for out of combat. Can I get this to work? Kana |
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No propulsion uses supplies during combat. All engine supply use is out of combat.
The closest thing that comes to mind would be a drone that has enough supplies to launch a seeker, and then runs out of supplies and I assume vanishes. I'm not sure it would vanish in combat though - it might become a ram-drone at that point. No really good solution comes to mind with the tricks I know of - that's about as close as occurs to me. I think I would just use seeker weapons. PvK |
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Well crud...I was hoping to make different size and capacity Drone Racks. Which could then be filled with different sized and different type of drones/missles. I would have to make seperate components and probably some form of mount to do this then...hmmm...grrr...blah...
Kana |
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Any drone can be loaded into any cargo bay, whether it is a drone launcher or not. Any drone launching component can launch any drone component, irregardless of size. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
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Question on Leaky Shields/Armor....
What I would like to emulate is SFB like shields. Basically they have six seperate shields any single one of which can be knocked down, then weapons fire will affect the ship. Since there is no arcs of fire or anything like that in SE4...I would assume a form of Leaky Shields could be used. With the "Leaky" random change emulating the possibility that the an individual shield is knocked down, or if there is already shield damage, the possiblity that damage gets through a "down" shield. I am already planning on having a form of leaky armor (Hull), which is basically free damage hits. Plus in some instances actually armor. Also some form of Power absorbing shield/armor, which can repair itself. Any Ideas or thoughts...? |
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With leaky shields, you have to get past the initial shield points before any leakiness comes into affect. This essentially has that affect, where you have to take down part of the shields before damage can be done to the hull. Not by generator component, but instead by shield points.
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Yeah, would be true to SFB but you could probably come pretty close to it by having different drone rack components - that fire their type of drones (seekers) with special damage types and different speeds (can't wait to launch a volley of speed-32 drones!)
As an old SFB fanatic, I'm gonna enjoy wathcing this develop. If I had ANY modding ability, I'd offer to help...as it is, I can probably just kibbitz. How do you think you might handle: * the use of Andro displacement devices on themselves? * regular v. overloaded weapons? * I would offer that ships in SFB mod should generally have a lot of shield regeneration capability. Man, I'll have to find all my old SFB stuff and refresh my memory. I threw a LOT of money at that game, and many years of my life...I hope I kept it all... Good luck with this. Watching with eager anticipation... Alarik EDIT: ooh,what about Wild Weasels? Can ECM effects be applied to other ships? What about scatterpacks? Quote:
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I have the SfB manuals at home. Blue and red one...
If anyone needs info from them let me know. |
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Kana |
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[/quote]No, I am telling you that leaky shielding acts very similar to what you were wanting... In practice, it has the same effect. Generally, leaky shield systems have the abilities set up so that the components might generate something like 2 times the shields from damage ability (as an example). You can imagine that this represents the various starting shield levels around the ship. Several shots might just damage the shields, and not have any leaky effect. This can represent collapsing a few areas of shielding. Once all initial shield points are gone, a hole has been created in the shield layer and the leaky effect kicks in. Each shot generates some shield points, and the ship gets some damage to internals. The next shot is reduced in damage by the generated shield points from the Last shot. Overall statistically, this represents partial reduction in damage to the ship from each shot from "deflector" type shields (which is how Star Trek shields function). Each shot will either be doing full damage, or no damage, or some percent of damage (depending on the exact values of shields from damage totals, weapon damage per shot, etc.), but it averages out. [/quote] So I would have to use the shield points from damage ability to 'regenerate' the shield to a certain percentage of coverage. The points not gained up to maxiumum shield would represent the 'downed' shield facing...and the remaining points will represent the other shields. I guess I'm a dope...I would have to see it written out in mod form or something to really see it...It does sound abit complicated...I may just not include it, and use the regular shields...and keep the hull internals as a means to absorb damage.... Kana |
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I was operating under the assumption that you knew how leaky shields work from a modding standpoint. It is actually a very simple concept, and very easy to implement. I can not imagine a Star Trek mod without leaky shields, as they very closely replicate the functionality of shields in Star Trek (not per shot, but on average)...
Basically, you give the generators a low level of shield generation, and a similar level of the Shields From Damage ability. This makes the shields function almost identically to the stock Crystalline Armor, other than the shield generators are not "armor." Any damage that damages the ship, when the shield points are 0, causes an equal amount of damage (up to the maximum abilities of the total Shields From Damage abilities of all components on the ship) to be added to the shield totals. The next shot (or two, depending on the exact values in play) hit these shield points. Note that any partial damage left on a component (ie: damage that was not enough to destroy whichever component was pseudo-randomly selected to be hit) will be added to the damage total of the next incoming shot that hits the shields. This odd behavior is a result of SE4 not storing partial damage on a per-component basis. It also applies to partial damage left on a component being added to the damage from the next incoming shot of, for example, and Ionic Disperer. The extra partial damage becomes the type of the next weapon that hits the ship. But I digress... Once all of the shield points are gone, more damage is done to the components of the ship. Points will be added to the shield totals, based on the damage done as before. This goes on until a shield generator is destroyed, at which point the shields added is (potentially) reduced, or until the ship is destroyed. I have attached an example of a leaky shield system, from Adamant Mod. Copy these components into a mod and run some combats with them. |
Re: Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)
The leaky shields may work for what I want but it doesn't seem quite what I want. If you are unfamiliar with SFB combat...here is a quick synopsis:
Each ship has shields. The shields have shield facings. Each representing an individual shield area that can be knocked down, and then shot through without hitting any shields. There are 6 facings (like a hex grid). So basically your number 1 shield facing (front) can be shot down to nothing, but the 5 other shields are still intact. So basically we say that a individual facing has 30 shield points. 6 of those will equal a total of 180 shield points. 30 points of damage reduces a single shield to zero. Leaving 150 shield points remaining, with one area vulnerable with no shields. It seems that 'leaky shields' might work...but the degredation of the shields doesnt seem right...I'll have to look at it in simulation...but I hope this help explain what I'm looking for... Kana |
Re: Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)
Ok. Look at the combat statistically, not per shot. In an abstract manner, leaky shields are the only way to roughly simulate hitting different shield facings. With normal shields, it is all or nothing. All facings have to be knocked down before any damage can be done to the ship. With leaky shields, you do not quite get a shield facing system, but on the average, it works out to have similar affects on combat. SE4 ships do not have a facing, so the shields added from damage can represent one shot hitting a facing without shield points, then the next shot hitting the ship from a different angle, where there is energy in the shield layer. Certainly, shots from the same ship would probably hit the same facing each time in a round. Taken abstractly, it can represent shots from different ships hitting the same target from different angles, thus different facings. It is not perfect, but it is the closest you can get in SE4, and it does make combat far more interesting... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
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Re: Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)
Unfortunately this doesn't work like 'leaky armor'. Which would be a much better emulation I would think. Then a given volley of fire might actually have a chance of getting stopped by no shields at all...but from what your saying that can't be done.
Thanks for the help IM...it has got me thinking... Kana |
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Well, every so many shots is not affected by shield points at all, depending on the values involved... It does function similarly to leaky armor statistically. Not necessarily on a per shot basis, but overall the effects are very similar. Leaky shields would definitely be a plus for any mod.
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Mixing in some shield generation would help, too.
In SFB, all energy sources can be used to reinforce the shields to a significant (and immediate) degree until they are knocked out (rather unlike stock SE4), so you could give shield regeneration ability to all power source components (i.e. engines and auxiliary reactors). PvK |
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Good idea...PvK...I was planning on having the APR, AWR, and Batteries as components...but their use has not been completely defined yet.
Next new question... Shipsets and the ship type file... You can name the ship classes what ever you want right? Can they be different for each race? Is there a maximum size or number of ships in the file? I was considering combining some ideas for early era star trek (Rom-Earth War), and then eventually based on tech advances the ships will start to look radically different...which means I would have to have all of those ships in the shipset, and defined in the ships type file, correct? Kana |
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And as long as it's there, you can still reference it anyway if you need that image.
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Ok...I've been throwing this idea around...
I want to set a required amount of ship space to non-weapon components. So I figured if I give specific components the cargo ability, but with 0 (zero) space, I can then use the cargo percentage limiter to require a certain amount of ship tonnage to certain components... Does this sound like it will work? Kana |
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Components with a cargo ability with value 0 still count as cargo components. Yes, it should work.
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Cool...
I wonder how this all will translate to SEV. I just cant see myself finishing this mod before SEV is released...besides there are a bunch of things in SEV that will end up making this mod better. I just hope that when the beta is released, someone will be able to make some form of modding program like David G's or I will be so undermotivated to do it all by text/hand...:( Kana |
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SE5 will have a bit of a modding program built-in - remember the formula parser and the scripting language? No more APB1, APB2, APB3, etc. entries, just one APB entry which defines all the levels from 1 to whatever you want via mathematical formulas! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif
And in the meantime... hmm, I really do need to work on that new Version of my templatizer program now, don't I? Almost there, I think, just need to get myself motivated again... and school starts tomorrow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif |
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