Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Is there any way to mod SE IV into a differant game. Say a game that is based on a planet where the worlds are replaced by islands and the star chart is an ocean?

Where the star ships become naval ships, and fighters become more like RL fighters. Where Troops are artiliary and infantry. Warp points become shipping lanes and components and facilities are based upon real world concepts.

Can it be done?

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Probably. Only need to explain warp-points. Whirlpools?

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Nah - ocean currents/trade winds - you can go places FAST when the water/wind is pushing you in that direction. The warp points are simply the safe places to join the currents - if you try to jump in from the side current, your boat would be torn asunder from the speed difference in the water when you are halfway through - the "points" are places where the change is gradual.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

There have been several attempts - at least in discussion - of just such a thing. There was a naval battles mod IIRC, but I don't think it lasted too long. It would not be that difficult to accomplish; the people working on these mods just disappeared from the forums...


Great Naval Battles (which I might add, Atrocities was the second replier in that thread! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)
Great Naval Battles 1.0

This one had so much promise... alas:
Carribean Mod

Some other threads:
Great Naval Battles 1.1 coming
: NEW SE4 Mod (ideas, suggestions help?)

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

I have not read the other posts so please just bare with me.

I would say they are Trade Lanes and use an icon for that.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

For the other mods that may have attempted this, all I can say is that I have been talking about it for years with many others. I wish they had stayed on but nope. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif If it can be done, I would like to try and do it. I honestly don't know how to pull it off, but I would like to try.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

The bulk of the work will be in creating the components and hulls and such. Converting the map to be oceans with islands is trivial. Well, once you decide what the planet types and atmosphers are supposed to represent, anyways...

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Planet types and atmosphers cannot be editied. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif So they will have to be remain the same. I guess they can be explained away by localized habitat phenominon. Make all the races ROCK - Oxygen and if possible set up the mod to use more rock oxygen types than other. Some islands are more hospitable than others, and have better resources while others are less hospitiable, and my be poluted with poor resources.

Making the island images is going to be the hard part. As for ships, planes, and other images, well those will just take a lot of time.

To begin with make one basic set for all with differant flag and emblem colors. The ships will all look pretty much alike but will have a differant color strip on them like in Empire Earth.

How would we use satellites and DRones? Drones could be ICBM's, and Satellites could just be that, Satellites.

Weapon Platforms can be ground based AA weapons and or Surface to Air and Surface to Surface (SAM, SAS) sites.

Fighters will be a focus for the mod of course as the players navy should focus around the carrier as in RL.

The mod does not have to be based on earth, it can be based on any planet.

I think it would be a fun mod to try and make. I don't know about playing, but that too would be nice. In stead of glassing an island a player would have to land troops. Give islands a heavy defense bonus, and set most weapons to not target Islands (planets).

The propulsion system will need to be figured out though.

Long range fighters can be small ships (set up to be fighters if possible.)

Mines are mines are mines.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

I've often dreamed of a mod like this as well and would really like to see it happen. I'd love to give it a try, even though I've never modded SE4 (or any game for that matter...)

Atrocities, as for islands, I might be able to help out in that respect, since I'm a cartographer.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Sounds like a really nice mod. Nothing better than amphibious landings with massive fighter support.

Reminds me of the good old WW2 board games.

Remember to rename all the different types of weapons. Like 9 inch guns etc.

How would you explain shields? Imagine 2 dozens sailors lined up with umbrellas to repel enemy bomb shells ha ha ha

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

How about you remove shields? Or even better, use leaky shields as armor.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Properly a good idea just to remove shields. I can't see a way to explain them.

But armor should stay. Do SEIV got armor penetration weapons? If not, that would be a good idea to add to your mod.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Would there be a way to randomize the amount of damage per hit to cater for critical/non-critical hits?

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You could use leaky shields, and have damage 'leak through' the 'armor'...

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

of course as one of the more expensive techs

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

That would be the leaky armor system right there.
Most hits are blocked by the armor, and occasionally a hit will hit internals instead, sometimes crippling the ship if it hits the bridge or the ECM, or some other important components.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Armor skipping and shield skipping are in the game.

Hi, welcome to the forums. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Based on what I was able to do in the Fantasy Empires Mod, I'd say, YES, it is definitely possible to mod se4 into a real-world naval game. There are some hardcoded things that can't be modded, but I don't think they detract too much from the immersion.

Fyron hit the nail on the head when he said:
Don't underestimate the amount of time this takes. I basically just cut-n-pasted images from the web for components in my mod (see link in sig), and it still took a very long time to do.

Also, debugging some of the .txt data files was a lot more troublesome than I though it would be.

All said, you'd probably be hard pressed to get the mod out before SE5 ships, especially if you are doing most of the work yourself. (depending, of course, on the complexity of the mod and your amount of free time.).

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Or you could just wait until SEV comes out, and do this mod in the for SEV....

Kana

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

When is the release date for SEV?

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Shields CAN stay, they just need to be very expensive and big, and only stop certain energy weapons (like I'm doing for Capship - projectile weapons skip all shields, as shields are just EM fields anyways, torpedoes skip normal shields as the advanced phased shields can suck the energy out of the antiparticle warheads but normal EM shields can't, and energy beams are stopped by all shields.).

You could create the mod as playing somewhere in the near future, with early EM disruption weapons, large, bulky lasers, perhaps an early plasma weapon (as needing VERY advanced technology, and even then could be only a cannon firing shells with a plasma explosive, or small globules of plasma being fired with a railgun). Some of these energy weapons (EMP, weapons firing raw plasma) would be stopped by normal EM fields (normal shields), whereas weapons like lasers would be stopped only by the strong EM field emitters (phased shields).

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Well it all depends on what Atrocities has on his mind. If he plans to base it on world war II technology then a battleship with shields to absorb EM damage is pretty hard to explain...

But I like your idea with big bulky laser weapons. It figures that in our world, early laser weapons would be large and using a lot of power (supplies).

So it basically boils down to what Atrocities want? Future tech, present tech or earlier tech?

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

He (or someone else) said it would not necessarily have to play on Earth, but anywhere..... and if he's using ICBMs and satellites, I don;t think it's WWII.....

And laser weapons are already being tested. Mainly to shoot down missiles, but I read once that a company in Italy was busy developing an actual laser rifle and that it would be finished somewhere - I can't really remeber, could be 2006 or 2012, whatever.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

There already are laser rifles, but they require massive power packs (backpack size) at the moment so are still impractical. Then again, we do just fine killing one another with projectiles it almost seems redundant to build another weapon type.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Are you referring to the (in)famous US antimissile program? Too bad they can't hit... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

I guess that I missed the part about missiles and satellites. My fault, sorry

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

The Star Wars project involved sats with both weapons lasers and railguns to take down Soviet nukes.

I meant actual practical laser rifles that don't require you to carry a nuclear power plant around.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

The first thing would be to just get the ocean map and a few island images made. The systems and quardant files will have to be modded right off. The components and facilites list can then be worked out.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Will you post your ocean map and island images as you make them? Always exciting to follow the progress http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

How are you going to solve the issue with the WP images? I can imagine you editing Starmap and the planet images, but what about the WPs/shipping lanes?

edit: Perhaps you could make use of these images.....?

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Very true.
Simply change the system graphics and the shipsets, and you'll be halfway there.

When that's done, you'll have a seafaring game with components and facilities that sound too high tech in the descriptions.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Then just change the descriptions!!!

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I'd suggest changing just about the entire list of comps+facils..... so you'd have entirely different types of weapons, and you could make facilities which have multiple specialities, so that each facil will do at least one thing.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

Just the fact that you will have a playable game right off the bat will help.

Heck, you could take something like Carrier Battles for the guts, and combined with the graphics changes, you'd be almost there.

Re: Is There Any Way To Mod
 

I'd love to help you..... I'm not good at graphics, but I could help you data-wise..... recreating the comps should be a lot of fun.