Capship Mod
 

I've been working on the Capship Mod for some time now... Thanks to Ed Kolis and PvK for giving me early advice to improve the basic template... it's grown FAR FAR FAR beyond what it originally was. Version 0.80 is ready. Test it and tell me what you think.

edit: Renamed the thread to reflect the new subject better.

edit2: Renamed the thread again, back to its old name.

Re: Capship Mod
 

Um, details on what it does would be nice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Capship Mod
 

Oops, sorry, forgot...

Capship (short for Capital (War)Ship) is made to approach SW/Farscape tpye ship proportions. In Farscape, Scarran Dreadnoughts and Peacekeeper Command Carriers... oh what the heck. ModInfo.txt excerpt:

"This mod was designed to approach SW and Farscape in ship scales. The SW Death Stars were massive baseships brimming with weaponry, virtually impossible to destroy. In Farscape, Scarran Dreadnoughts and Peacekeeper Command Carriers appear to be hundreds of kilometres (or miles) long. This mod copies those examples somewhat, as ships in this mod reach up to over 20MT in size. These ships are also immensely expensive, and take hundreds of turns to build. There are also smaller ships, which are also strategically important. A combined-arms campaign is necessary if you want to attain victory here. The massive warships are tough juggernaughts, obliterating enemies easily, but the smaller craft are also important. If you lose one of your massive warships, it'll take over a hundred turns for you to build another one. If you lose a smaller ship, it'll be replaced in not more than five turns."

This about sums it up.

Re: Capship Mod
 

Also added racial crossover tech facilities, anti-capship weaponry, planetary batteries (small WPs made specifically for certain types of comps), planetary storage units (WPs fully filled with a large cargo storage warehouse. It's very expensive, and the thing itself is also big. It's mainly intended for use on large/huge worlds to increase cargo storage for, say, WPs, mines or fighters if it's a border colony, troops/drones/sats for storage compounds, etc.), advanced stellar manipulation, "semi-dead-end tech areas" (expensive little buggers that take looong to complete but provide you with interesting new tech), specialized Ship Sizes (a second line of Destroyers has built-in scanners, a second line of Frigates are fast strike craft, the Hunter Assault Craft is a small very fast strike ship, etc. I'm planning to add more.), and more I can't really think of anymore right now.

Re: Capship Mod
 

Oh, and Capship is always equipped with the latest version of the "Cultures and Demeanors" add-on mod.

Re: Capship Mod
 

Hmmm hundreds of turns for one ship eh? maybe I'll take a look at it.

Re: Capship Mod
 

But only for the biggest... the small (i.e. somewhat normal) warships take less to build. A light cruiser is the size of a Baseship (1500kT) and can be a (small) backbone for your spacefleet. Anything from Light to Heavy Cruiser (Battlecruiser if you're economically superior) can be the backbone of your fleet. The largest ships (anthing above Battlecruiser is a Capship, and a Battlecruiser is 6000kT) take looong to build and lots to maintain. The absolutely excessive costs of COMCAs makes them an economic nightmare... but in a military environment it is worth a solid Sphereworld (Dyson sphere) in compressed diamond. The basic COMCA (where "basic" is nothing but a Master Computer) takes over 100 turns to build, if you fill it with weapons it will be about two to hree hundred. DO TAKE NOTE HOWEVER that the maintenance cost has been INCREASED TO 50%!!!!!

Re: Capship Mod
 

Thank u... PowerArchiver wouldn't store the directory paths... grrr (I place the mod files directly in the source directories. Stupid, I know, but I do it. I've got six or seven or so FULL INSTALLMENTS of SEIV now (among which are P&N and Proportions). Only one was actually installed, but the rest... simply copied from the basic template.)

Re: Capship Mod
 

30 years to build one ship......hmmmm YIKES!

Re: Capship Mod
 

WTF?!? Hadn't Urendi Maleldil (or however you spell it) posted here too? I don't see his post anymore!

Re: Capship Mod
 

Ok, I'd like to test your mod but I don't want to create another installation of SEIV and from the looks of things that's what I'd have to do.

I've taken the liberty of putting your files into a folder structure and rezipping them(file attached). What you need to do now is add to it so that people can play the mod without jumping through hoops. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

You've got some good ideas and I hope you'll take the time to correct the problems so other folks can see them!

Re: Capship Mod
 

There is an "edit post" button you can use to avoid multiple posts in a row...

Re: Capship Mod
 

Thnx, Nodachi... that's what I was talking about in my previous post. Urendi Maleldil had already done such a thing, but now I don't see it anymore...

And I know it's better to have a mod directory path, but I had already duplicated SEIV before I knew of this. And I also have certain races I only want to use in certain mods, so that's another reason why I did it.

I know about the "Edit Post" button, but I kept forgetting...

And one more thing: If you test it, please, post your opinion and/or advice here. It's only a beta version as of yet. I'm planning to add more, and I haven't really playtested it myself - partially because the AI will NOT be able to handle the mod, and I don't really want to play against myself for that long.

Re: Capship Mod
 

What problems are you specifically talking about, Nodachi? The issue with the anti-capship missiles? The Advanced Stellar Manip things? the Advanced Physics tech types?

Re: Capship Mod
 

Dude, the game can't load the mod unless someone duplicates your set-up. Even when I reworked what you had posted into folders and rezipped them it still won't load due to missing files. What I would suggest is that you go ahead and get everything laid out correctly and repost the mod.

I hope I'm not coming off as an ***, honestly I'm just trying to help. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Capship Mod
 

Please follow der suggestions! Sounds fun.

Re: Capship Mod
 

I know... I've forgot SectType, which now uses the denominators "Halo Ring World" and "Dyson Sphere" instead of ring/sphereworlds.

Oh, and if you're talking sbout the error message at 78% loaded of the AI files, it's OK. The AI for this mod hasn't been reworked yet, and since I split up Ship Construction into approx. seven projects, the AI needs to be told to research those projects instead of Ship Construction. However, I took one look at the AI Research files and took off. It seemed too darn unreadable... I don't think I'll ever get round to it, so I'm hoping for someone to volunteer to do the AI work here... for now it's human-vs-human only. (Or human-vs-alien, or alien-vs-alien, whatever.)

Re: Capship Mod
 

I tried to upload a .zip file with all the directories in place, but for some reason it got posted as a bad file so I deleted it.

Here's another try.

Re: Capship Mod
 

You can have a Pictures folder in the mod too. Add a Races folder, only add folders for the races you want to be available in that mod. If it is a stock race, you can even just have a blank folder in the mod, and SE4 will find the missing files in the default folders. Or, include some customized AI files as necessary, and SE4 will fill in the gaps (such as images).

Re: Capship Mod
 

Oh, I see. Thnx for clearing that up Urendi http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I know, but I wanted some STOCK races NOT to appear in some mods. For example, I don't really like the Eee - with their globular ships. Or the Sergetti. And in one mod I used only several downloaded ST races - not all, but some. (And yes, it WAS an ST mod - but my own one. I knew (a little) about the AT ST Mod, but I just created it anyway. Never really got round to finishing it completely.)

I'll be uploading SectType soon.

Re: Capship Mod
 

Please Note: This Is Only A Beta Version. Full Version Not Yet Available.

Re: Capship Mod
 

That's Fyron's point, though.

If you put a pictures/races folder into your mod, only the races listed there will be in your mod.
You don't even need to copy the BMPs and TXTs, just have the racename folder for ONLY the races you want to include in the mod.

Re: Capship Mod
 

StrategiaInUltima, you are more than welcome to take a look a the mod I was working on. It has some of the same concepts that your's has and I'll probably not go back to it. Strip it out, use anything you happen to like, delete it and tell me to STFU, whatever. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Here's a download link.

Re: Capship Mod
 

If all you have in your Modname\Pictures\Races folder is a Jraenar folder, ONLY the Jraenar shipset will be available.

Re: Capship Mod
 

Thank you Nodachi... I am indebted 2 U http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Capship Mod
 

Erm... Nodachi... I've tried three times, but something's wrong - perhaps with my copy of PowerArchiver or with the file or the disk. When I download it it shows up as being 79kB, and it conitnues to say that when I put it on a disk and transfer it to my own computer (I've got no internet connection on my PC, so data transfer has to happen with disks.) but when I open it, it shows only "changelog.txt" as being 200kB and packed as 400kB, and it won't open or extract. Could you plz make a zipfile of your mod and post it again? Perhaps then it'll work...

Re: Capship Mod
 

OK, zip file attached. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Capship Mod
 

Thankyou... it looks very promising http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif I'm sure to use some aspects of it...

Re: Capship Mod
 

[approx. diameter of eyes: 10 cm, approx. diameter of pupils: 20 angstrom] EEP..... the engines! The engines! [faints]

Re: Capship Mod
 

Are you referring to my mod? If so, the engines and control components use scale mounts.

Re: Capship Mod
 

I know... I've seen... but... but... it's... it's... just so MANY of them! Endless lists of engines! Enough engine types to fill a Dyson Sphere!

(The rest STILL looks very good tho.)

Re: Capship Mod
 

but why do ALL facilities generate shields AND regenerate them at the same rate? This way, glassing a homeworld will be IMPOSSIBLE...

Re: Capship Mod
 

Shield regen and shields-from-damage don't work on planets.

PS:
Click "show only latest"

Re: Capship Mod
 

Oh and... is it possible for weapons to have multiple damage types? Like, for an Orbital Thermonuclear Scatterpack ("The Evil Ruler's Best Friend." as taken from the sales folder of the Intergalactic Evil Supermarket, 2413.5 (Intergalactic Evil Supermarket is registered trademark of EvilEmporium, Inc.(EvilEmporium, Inc. is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation.))) you could have normal AND conditions damage type, AND perhaps also a Plague (i.e. radiation sickness). Is that possible?

Re: Capship Mod
 

You need WinRar (shareware) or 7-Zip (freeware/open source) to handle RAR files. Zip is such a poor format...

Glassing a homeworld should be very difficult to do... Glassing planets in stock SE4 is way too easy to accomplish. A decent sized fleet should be able to overcome even large amounts of planetary shielding. Unless, of course, Nodachi gave them 50000000 shield points each or something. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Capship Mod
 

I use PowerArchiver, which can handle EVERYTHING from zip, rar, cab to BH, and whatnot. It's got a whole list of archive types to use. It is a "Meta-Zipper", and that was not the problem. It's OK now, it works.

Re: Capship Mod
 

Nodachi's RAR had no problems at all for me when I opened it in WinRar. Either Power Archiver doesn't fully support RAR format or you had a corrupted download...

And now that I have actually looked at his mod... 500 to 2000 shield points per facility are trivial compared to decent sized fleets. The shield points just prevent you from doing silly things like sending one ship to 10 colonies in one turn and blowing all of them up. On the best of worlds, that is just 60,000 shield points. Have a weapon that does 50 damage, say 4 per ship, and you can get through that in 10 rounds with just 30 ships. Even if someone were to fill a planet with Space Ports (5000 shields each), that would still only be 150,000 shield points, which can be destroyed in 10 rounds with 75 ships. A bit tougher to crack, but quite doable. Especially if you have any stronger weapons available... I am fairly certain that shields do not prevent you from dropping troops on a planet, so you can just drop troops and bypass the shields.

Re: Capship Mod
 

Hmmm... and the regeneration? That makes it an all-or-nothing hit... and I probably had a corrupted download. The zip file took about seventeen seconds to download, whereas the rar was done instantly. It now works, tho. And my question still stands: can you make weapons with multiple damage types?

Re: Capship Mod
 

And I'm planning to add planetary shielding facilities in Capship too - gonna keep the Ruins shield, and make that one something massive, like the Rebel shield generator on Hoth.

Also, is it possible to create facilities with weapons? Like the Missile Bases in SEIII?

Re: Capship Mod
 

No, unfortunately you can't use multiple damage types.

Re: Capship Mod
 

About the engines, there are the same number of engines as in the stock game.

No, facilities can't have weapons.

Re: Capship Mod
 

Then what is Engines.txt?

Re: Capship Mod
 

Oh damn! I forgot that was in the folder when I rezipped the mod for you. Engines.txt is the file I got when I was playing around with the tech gridder. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Capship Mod
 

Doesn't mind. Made me think. Gave me inspiration.

Re: Capship Mod
 

You say you don't have a working AI yet? I'll work on it, see what I can do. AI's aren't exactly my specialty, but I may get something rudimentary going. I'll let you know.

Re: Capship Mod
 

Re: Capship Mod
 

I like the idea of facilities generating shield points, I think I will add that to my mod.

Re: Capship Mod
 

Sorry, I worked on getting an AI to work for about the past 3 hours, and nothing. I hope someone else can get one working.

Re: Capship Mod
 

One more question: what does the "Drop Troops" ability do?

Re: Capship Mod
 

Nothing. Like Palace, Star - Unstable, and several others, it is 100% non-functional. Such abilities can be handy as extra AI Tags and to add more bullet points in the description of the component. A very common use is to use a non-functional ability to add a tag mentioning any to hit bonus/penalty a weapon has, since this value is displayed nowhere in-game.

Check out SEIV Modding 101 for a complete listing of all abilities. Tells you what they do and which files they are useable in. Many facility abilities can be used as ship components, and vice versa. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

http://se4modding.spaceempires.net/M...html#Chapter16