Splitting PD
 

Hello all

I've been working on a mod idea on and off for a while and recently got back to it and remembered why I stopped last time: Splitting the PD into an anti-fighter and an anti-seeker version and then getting the AI to actually use them! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

At the moment the AI will only fit the anti-fighter version and the only way I know to get the anti-seeker version on is to change the ship design, at which point its a ship full of PD with no guns.

So I was wondering if anyone had done it before or had any clever ideas I should, but don't know.

If not then would giving a standard PD a big drop in chance to hit and missiles a corresponding increase in chance of being hit work? That way the PD has less chance against fighters, but seekers still get shot down.

Cheers

Re: Splitting PD
 

This idea has been used in many mods over the years.

The idea of using PDC's as seperated weapons is a logical alternative to just having PDC's. PDC's are very powerful and will decimate fighter groups, drones, and such so many modders have taken the steps to seperate them.

The thing is, you have to mod so that the AI will use on its designs. You will have to change weapon family numbers, add the ability to the Design creation files, or use AI Tages.

Getting the AI to use your weapons is an effort of trial and error.

I suggest reading or posting over at www.spaceempires.net forums in the Mod Works section and asking some questions there as well as here.

Re: Splitting PD
 

Missiles (seekers anyway, not Missile Pods) hit ALWAYS. Plus or minus damage modifiers are useless. It will hit a ship with -500 to hit, simply because it tracks its target.

Re: Splitting PD
 

I was thinking more of a big combat to hit defence minus. Or a very similarly named attribute http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. Like big sized ships have a penalty and are easier to hit, so the missiles would have the same type of penalty so making it easier for the PD to hit.

I'm leaning towards going that way, mainly as it avoids touching the AI. TDM seems to have no problem with what I've done so far and after a few pokes at the research and ship design files some of the races are using the new weapon families. Frankly I think that was more luck than judgement and I really don't want to dabble in the black art of AI poking more than I have to

Re: Splitting PD
 

I don't believe that what you're saying is possible, but you COULD split the PD if you can manage that and then make the anti-missile PDCs have a high Weapon Modifier (as Combat To Hit Offense Plus affects ALL your weapons). Weapon Modifiers can be found approx. 2 lines below the weapon damage.

Here's hoping Aaron puts are-of-effect weapons into SEV so we can make flak cannons as PDCs... would be more realistic.

Re: Splitting PD
 

Well there goes another otherwise damn fine plan...

Still I might as well give it a try, what's the worst that can happend hey?

Re: Splitting PD
 

If I understand you correctly, you would like missiles to have a defence penalty. If that's so, this line in settings.txt is your friend:

A negative number should work fine, but I have never tested it. I am not sure I understand what you would like to do though (besides toying with the AI, but that's something I know nothing about).

Re: Splitting PD
 

Point Defense Cannons are added by the Point-Defense AI tag ability. It does nothing other than allow the AI to add PDCs as a miscellaneous ability. You must add a new AI tag ability to the point-defense weapon that the AI does not currently use (just replace Point-Defense ability with it) and add this to the AI ship designs. Otherwise, the AI will only use the PD weapon that it considers to be the "Most advanced." Information on how the AI evaluates the "most advanced" component is located *here*.

Re: Splitting PD
 

Nothing to do with the AI, infact avoiding AI poking is the aim of the plan.

The idea is: Give seekers a defence penalty, but the PD cannon less good at hitting things. These two should balance out if I put the same number in both right?

If thats right then the PD cannon would also be less good at hitting fighters, but still effective against missiles. So making fighters more usefull without having to split PD into two seperate groups and mucking around with the AI.

Re: Splitting PD
 

You should then remove that defence bonus seekers get, and reduce PDC accuracy bonus by the same amount, and voilà! Seekers are still as easy to hit, and fighters will be harder to hit.

I am not sure if a negative value would work here, but I think it would be fine (planets have a negative defence penalty).

Re: Splitting PD
 

You could also make another version - humans only - in which you split the PDCs anyway and have one type handle all the seekers and the other handle the rest of the irritating pests. You should then give the antimissile cannons +40/60/80 or something modifier.

Re: Splitting PD
 

You succeed and we are all envious and steal your work for our mods.

Re: Splitting PD
 

Possible, but then imitation is the sincerest form of flattery http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Anyway thanks Alneyan , that was exactly the line I wanted. Seekers still get knocked out of the sky but fighters have a good chance. Perfect http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Unfortunately I've now lost another excuse not to start the game story I've been promising myself I will write "just as soon as the mods finished". Bugger I may actually have to start it this weekend http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: Splitting PD
 

PD missiles can be very useful and entertaining too.

With no autofire built in, your ships will have to use their multiplexing to pick and fire at incoming missiles / fighters / etc.
Although each missile individually has 100% chance to hit, there are still the problems of lead-time and overkill.
The former involves the fact that your missile must reach the enemy missile before the enemy missile reaches your hull http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
The latter involves organization between ships and among the weapons of each ship. You want to spread out your targets, so that you don't waste missiles against targets that have plenty of missiles inbound.

Overall, you get a healthy mix of offense and defense chance. When the defense outnumbers the offence by a large margin, there is still a chance to score some hits. Missiles fired from short range are liable to hit their targets before the PD can land their shots. The defenders will also be firing a lot of overkill, wasting supplies.

As the number of attackers increases, the missile targets spread out more, and you get less overkill. Defense efficiency improves, although they still will suffer more hits due to the larger volume of fire incoming.

Re: Splitting PD
 

Make multiple types of PD!

Make small, rapidfiring guns that can target only seekers and have a big positive weapon modifier (as the guns fire very rapidly, you can easily predict the path of your bullets). Make PD missiles, in various sizes, with smaller, more rapid-firing versions targeting all but doing minor damage, larger ones target only fighters/sats/drones and doing larger damage. PD lasers (as in Proportions (or was it P&N? I get them confused all the time.)) that have a large weapon modifier but fire slowly/do less damage/are very large/etc. Very large PD cannons, that have varying ROFs (lvl 1 has ROF 4, lvl II 3, lvl III 2, lvl IV 1 etc.) and do large amounts of damage and have the capability to target all small things but which are prohibitively large and expensive (think 100kT, 5000 minerals).

Experiment a while and think about what you prefer.