A mod idea :)
 

Hey some of you may or may not (most likely not) remember that I mentioned the idea that I would be making a mod sometime in the future.

Well I have finally come up with an idea and I'd like ya'll to tell me what you think before I lose hours and hours of work on something nobody would play http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Anyway here be the ideer (yes that was on purpose):

Concept: I started doing boardwars when I was 13 and kept up with them for the next 4 years, in that time I had met some GREAT people with some excellent ideas, back then I asked them for permission to perhaps someday in the future make a mod of their races, and all but 2 gave me permission (jerks lol).

So it took me a few years to come up with how I would like to best portray my time with the Boardwars and the friends I made there, whether I should make a story about them (I already have with my Icarans and Fisks Mantisorans and am still working on this story), or whether I should create a new mod for them.

I have finally chosen to make the mod to immortalize my time and friends there (not really immortalize obviously as some day Space Empires will be gone and we all will be gone as well.)

Credit to:
Yoshi (The Swarmers creator)

The General (The Hunter's creator)

Mephesto Odium (may he rest in peace the creator of the Hra-Thrall my Terrenesi's most beloved allies and hated enemies)

Frish (United Shipping Corporations creator)

Korim (Kerensky)

Starhawk (me) (Union of Man, Icaran Star Empire, Terrenesi Federated Empire)


Pluses and minuses of each race:

Swarmers: They are a totally mechanical race as in they don't have ANY organic parts what so ever, they are however programmed to be highly agressive and to spread themselves to other worlds.

Traits:
Universal colony ability

Their whole fleet is carrier based, they do not have "line ships" but instead have swarm command ships which carry "fighters" into battle. Mind you the largest of these "fighters" will be destroyer sized and the Swarmer mega-carrier with the proper swarmer carrier bays will be able to hold about 50 per ship.

Being that they do not require life support or crew quarters at all swarmer ships have a lot of spare mass to devote to carrier bays.

Average weapons strength: They don't have much in the way of awe inspiring firepower but they don't need each gun to be powerful per se when they have 100 weaker guns to make up for it.

Can NOT conquer planets: Being non-organic and totally unwilling to allow organic waste to infest their worlds Swarmers do not land ground forces to capture a planet but instead glass it from orbit.

Slow ships: The swarmers have the mixed blessing and curse of having slow ships, their Carriers are huge lumbering vessels that have not learned to develope grav compensators and thus keep the ship intact at high gee cruising speeds.


The Hunters: A second mechanical race in the universe it is believed they were created specifically to battle against the Swarmers, and their combat technology tends to lend credence to that theory.

Moderate ship cost: Fairly inexpensive ships being that the average swarmer carrier is a weak unit in and of its self that is easily destroyed without it's escorts.

Traits:
Universal Colony ability

Their ships range from destroyer to commandship (dreadnought) in size and are boomerang shaped craft with fair shields and excellent close in firepower focusing on beams.

Their primary armaments are designed not to kill but instead disable a ship to allow a Hunter ship to capture and convert it, thus the bulk of Hunter Weapons are designed to kill weapons, shields, command centers, and engines.

Fair shields: They have average shield technology and rely on the typical mix of armor/shields to keep their ships in battle.

Moderate ship cost: They have fairly cheap and easily produced ships.

Unable to conquer planets: Being mechanical in nature and sharing an almost swarmer like hatred for organics Hunters tend to glass worlds and re-establish their own technology base on the surface.

Hra-Thrall: An ancient and wise race they resemble large squids and live in water environments and reproduce very slowly compared to other races.
Though peaceful the Hra-Thrall have developed excellent war making technology to defend the few Hra-Thrall that there are in the universe.

Traits:

Ultra-fast ships (say 22 movement on map 11 in battle): The Hra-Thrall have developed inertialess drives which allow them massive ammounts of acceleration compared to virtually every other race in the galaxy.

Excellent shields: Powerful shields protect all Hra-Thrall starships, capable of rebuffing firepower that would totally destroy other race's ships Hra-Thrall are never to be underestimated in battle.

Excellent close in weapons: Due to the nature of Hra-Thrall technology their weapons are mainly close in cutting beams and slipstream shard cannons capable of inflicting massive damage but requiring a ship to close into point blank range of their enemies.

NO ARMOR: Hra-Thrall are incapable of putting armor on their ships, it is unknown for sure why this is so but the mere concept of armor seems to shock and baffle Hra-Thrall scientists.

Expensive ships: Hra-Thrall starships though powerful and fast are also expensive and the Hra-Thrall charish each starship as an individual work of art because of this.

Below average ground troops: Hra-Thrall do not like planetary battles but they like destroying whole worlds even less, and so they do their best when they must and they land brave Hra-Thrall on distant worlds to do battle.

Sphereworld tech


United Shipping Corporation: A massive multi-species corporation bent on "conquest through profit" they are excellent merchants and miners and resourcers but not the best soldiers in the universe.

Traits:

Cheap ships: Their largest ship is a "battleship" that is little more then a converted Merchant design, their capital ships are cheap and mass produceable though likewise not very durable.

Huge population growth: The USC is renowned for the fact that it's entire military is made up of Clones, each branch of the service in fact consists of a single series of clones tailored for their jobs.

Due to this fact the USC civilian populace does not have to worry its self for martial prowess at all and instead focuses on life in general which includes of course mating.

Cheap ground units: Being mere clones the lives of the average USC soldiers are not considered valuable at all and so the USC has no problem giving it's average foot soldier a laser a flak jacket and a helmet and sending them off to war ne masse to acomplish their goals.
Same goes for their tanks which are lightly armed and armored.

Cheap/weak weapons/shields: The USC is all about economics and so are it's weapons and defensive systems which are all cheap yet weak compared to the other races and Empires in the known galaxy.

Ringworld tech.

Korim: I'm still getting ideas from Kerensky.

Terrenesi: A massive intergalactic Empire that has sent an expedition to this galaxy along with the Hra-Thrall multi-galactic Empire. The Terrenesi are essentially Humans that were taken long ago by an alien race and genetically engineered into 3 known castes and one suspected one. Each similar yet distinct from one another.

Excellent starships: Terrenesi warrior caste starships are massive powerful craft capable of bringing fear into just about any one unlucky enough to encounter them. (largest ships in the mod go to Terrenesi)

Phased Weapons: Terrenesi technology relies almost entirely on the principal of phasing energy their weapons reflect this in their ability to pass through almost any shield, the phased slipstream shard cannon and Quantum discharge cannons can even pass through armor inflicting massive damage.

Pulse weapons however are fairly weak per shot and fairly close ranged (they do average SEIV damage and have close range)

The exception to this is the Quantum Discharge cannon which is so large only Dreadnoughts (10mt) and SuperDreadnoughts (15mt) can carry them. (they also only fire once per 15 turns)

Phased Shields: These shields while weaker then "pure" energy shields are capable of totally ignoring phased weaponry being fired at them.

Phased armor: Phased armor is a bizzare technology to say the least it actually channels energy that impacts upon it back into the shields, and totally ignores small weapons fire. (basically a single Swarmer destroyer wouldn't even dent it but 50 would destroy it just like any other armor)

Excellent ground troops: Terrenesi warriors on the ground are just as frightening as they are in space, stormers supported by tanks and artillery can easily overcome their equal on any battlefield anywhere.

Expensive military: Being totally devoted to war the Warrior cast has the best of everything, though this comes at a high cost. (most expensive ships and ground troops in game)

Terrapedo: The Terrapedo as it is called literally destroys a planet and rebuilds it from the "rocks up" to create a new world for the Empire and remove whatever enemy was on that planet.

Sphereworld tech

Bad at diplomacy (the ambassadorial caste are few and precious to the Terrenesi and are thus not deployed on every occasion)

Highly aggressive

Re: A mod idea :)
 

Union of Man: The Union of Man are the descendents of many of the independant nations that fled the Solar system during the last great war between Icara and the Sol Coalition. In their years of development the Union of Man has developed an impressive society with some very interesting developments under their belts.

Traits:

Warp point openers/closers (only race to have this right now)

Nova Bombs (creates a blackhole where a system used to be)

Powerful starfleet: (third largest ships in game) The Union Navy is a powerful force capable of defending the Empire from most threats.

Moderate Shields: The Union's Shield technology while not in it's infancy are also not the best in the galaxy.

Superb Armor: The Union Navy to compensate for it's sub-par shields has excellent armor capable of absorbing a lot of damage before the ship is destroyed.

Excellent ground forces: The Union army with it's powered armored infantry and massive battletanks is a fearsome foe to say the least. (second only to Terrenesi on the ground)

Missile tech: The Union navy relies largely on missiles to do the damage, their laser warheads are capable of inflicting impressive damage for their size, while not as powerful as ship board energy weapons they are often launched in vast swarms that are designed to overwhelm point defenses.

They are also the only race to employ the "cluster missiles" for anti-fighter/countermissile use, these missiles are capable of inflicting massive damage on both fighters and missiles.

Expensive units: Given the size and make up of the Union Army it is ironically the most expensive force in the Empire (ships are less expensive then Swarmer and Terrenesi ships)

Ringworld tech


Icaran Star Empire: You all know em by now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Traits:

Powerful long range weapons: The Icaran way of battle relies on powerful long range beam cannons to use brute force to take down enemy shields and slice up enemy hulls. (I-las are the longest ranged energy weapons in game)

Talisman system: The religious talisman except in this case it will be tech instead of religion.

Impressive Navy: The Icaran Royal Navy is an impressive organization with large powerful warships (Icaran Battlemoon the size of the Terrenesi Dreadnought, Icaran SuperDreadnought 5mt and so on)

Good Army: The Icaran Army often relies on numbers to win the day against some of the more horrendous enemies in the galaxy, the Average Icaran ground pounder carriers his AP assault rifle into battle wearing fairly good unpowered battle armor.
Icaran tanks are lighter then most tanks employed by other races but they are also fairly inexpensive and mass produceable.

Sphereworld tech

other race ideas to come. Anyway I intend to make each race have it's own tech base and advantages and disadvantages let me know what ya'll think so far:)

Re: A mod idea :)
 

How do the Swarmers get resources if they can't conquer planets?

Re: A mod idea :)
 

They CAN colonize worlds they just can't capture them from other players worlds, this is mainly to compensate for the fact that Swarmers and Hunters START with universal colony tech, being able to capture intact worlds with pre-built infrastructure would be WAY to big an unbalanced feature in my opinion.

Re: A mod idea :)
 

IMO, if you're enjoying working on the mod, you should do it. Other people enjoying playing it, too, is just icing on the cake.

I made my Hypermaze mod to try and overcome a difficulty Suicide Junkie (IIRC) encountered while making his FTL map. I've played my mod numerous times, and have gotten feedback on it from all of two people. I have a second mod that I tinker with on and off that may never be "finished" enough to release, but I still work on it because modding is fun. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: A mod idea :)
 

Well I hope my mod gets to be popular not just for my own ego but because I really do want to do a tribute to what got me started in Sci-Fi writing and gaming and that is the Boardwars and the Boardwarriors who played them.

Re: A mod idea :)
 

I have a question for the modders out here, should I finish making the shipsets for the races I am including and THEN work on scripting and modding or finish the cripting and modding and THEN make the races?

Re: A mod idea :)
 

If you build the mod first, then people can start playing it on PBW sooner. You can then add the AI files for the single player game later. That's just my suggestion, but you can do it any way you like.

Re: A mod idea :)
 

Well here my friends is the Hra-Thrall Harbringer (Dreadnought) sized vessel http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A mod idea :)
 

That looks like one big fish.

Re: A mod idea :)
 

Well in "canon" the Hra-Thrall harbringer was just over 12.9km long 4.8km high and about 1.8 km wide so yeah that is a BIG Hra-Thrall starship, though not the biggest the biggest is actually the "Legacy" ships which I haven't modled yet.

I was going for the aquatic look since the Hra-Thrall basically look like giant walking squids (on land they swim like our squids when in their own environment). and the first thing that popped into my head was what I saw of his designs and they looked organic and aquatic so I did the best I could to copy his designs.

Re: A mod idea :)
 

Okay some details I've decided for what I'm going to do:

Fighters: Some races will NOT have them and others will have them purely for fighter and interceptor (as in MISSILES people http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif) duty others like the swarmers will use them extensively including "destroyers" which are actually going to be the SIZE of a destroyer but under the fighter classification.

I am increasing the capital class ship weights MUCH larger then the smaller ships for example:

Icaran:
Frigate= 300kt
Destroyer=350kt
Light Cruiser= 425kt
Heavy Cruiser=500kt
Battlecruiser= 1,000kt
Dreadnought= 4,000kt
Super Dreadnought= 6,000kt
Commandship = 8,000kt
Battlemoon = 10,000kt

Hra-Thrall

Supressor Frigate= 350kt
Light Destroyer = 400kt
Heavy Destroyer = 500kt
WarCruiser = 4,000kt
Harbringer = 5,000kt
Legacy = 7,000kt

Terrenesi:
Frigate = 250kt
Destroyer = 300kt
Fleet Destroyer = 500kt
Heavy Cruiser = 800kt
Battlecruiser = 3,500kt
Dreadnought = 10,000kt
Super Dreadnought =15,000kt

The reason you are seeing such DRASTIC changes is because it's hard for me to see Space Empires fleets compared to those of "real" fleets, you don't see such tiny changes from size to size a modern Destoryer is MUCH larger then a frigate and a modern cruiser is MUCH larger then a destroyer and a modern Carrier is orders of magnitutde larger then a cruiser.

So basically as your ship classes go up they get to be TRUE capital ships as opposed to skirmishers and lightweight combat ships.

Also I am modding in shield mounts so that a SD mount will be MUCH more powerful shield generators then say a battlecruisers (that's per shield generator not just because the mass of ship you have available for shields).

I'm also lowering the average weapon fire from 1 to 2 turns per cycle.

Basically I want people playing to see REAL naval slugging matches where a battle can last several GAME turns and where if they see even 30 Dreadnoughts entering their space they get a wee bit squimish http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Of course with AI this will also be easy to pull of because I can put say 5 battlecruisers to his 1 dreadnought so even if your one of those players who goes for quantity over quality your going to regret it when his 1 dreadnought chews your battlecruiser formation to peices.

Re: A mod idea :)
 

Very Nice !!!

Re: A mod idea :)
 

Ladies and gentlemen the Hra-THrall Legacy (superdreadnought) starship.

Re: A mod idea :)
 

Okay I was thinking to make this more realistic especially considering the tonnages of the ships (10+ megaton components plus probobly hundreds of megatons in hull weight) I would make it so that you can only build starships of the larger sizes in oribtal shipyards.

My questions on this are:

1: Is there anyway to make it so you HAVE to build a certain hull size from a certain shipyard type?

2: If there is is there anyway the AI would be smart enough to know it has to build orbital yards or would it be dumb enough to build destroyers the whole game?

3: If it's NOT possible is there anyway I could still execute this style change without it hurting gameplay?

Re: A mod idea :)
 

1. You can't make it so you HAVE to, but you can make it EXTREMELY inconvenient not to - say you want highliners to be buildable only in space - then give planetary space yards 1 build rate in rads and make only highliners use rads to build! Or just have "gradations" of spaceyards which have vastly different build rates and costs, so it's impractical to use a micro yard to build a highliner but wasteful to use a mega yard to build a scout!

2. AI tags perhaps?

3. I don't think you'll reach this point - SE4 is quite moddable and the community is quite innovative http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: A mod idea :)
 

1. SO basically make it so that the orbital yards are the only thing that can build to X amount of say Radition while the small hulls dont use or need RADS at all.

The problem is that don't all weapons require a certain amount of Radioactives when bought/resupplied?

Re: A mod idea :)
 

Not unless you make them need it, no.

Re: A mod idea :)
 

Well see now I've actually come to a slight problem, I am unsure of precisely WHERE the tech tree should start for each race.

I mean if I went the route of the original SEIV tech tree then we could have some issues as hra-thrall have NO armor technology and swarmers have no ship to ship combat weaponry besides that of their "fighters".

And since the Union of Man is a missile heavy nation they would utterly dominate the other races early on as they have the best fastest and deadliest missiles.

So I am not quite sure where to start the tech.

Any suggestions based upon the description I've given of each race so far?