OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

While I wait for the patches that keep my mod down I thought I would start writing a little fiction about it. You should be warned I am no pro and it may get bumpy. Also I prefer to take a third person point of view when writing. I hope this time by writing it will keep my spirits up and my hope focused so that I can keep this mod on track and not let it slip. Not to say it slipped last from lack of spirit or hope. More correctly it slipped because SE4 just couldn’t model what I needed. If nothing else I am having fun. Finally by writing this may kind of pave the way for my mod, meaning it is a completely different take on the SE universe.

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

A little background for the start. All empires are run my me! What you think I have AI when I can’t even complete the mod yet? HA-HA-HA! All empires get sight around their home worlds and everything else is exploring. I didn’t need to set it up this way but later tech will cover why I did, duh testing components maybe… I have finite resources; it shouldn’t make an impact on the game since the vague three resource system has been replaced by a highly abstract economic system. This should be fun! I need to finish out some files first but I hope to sucker Kana into testing. I haven’t started buttering him up yet so if you see him before I do don’t say anything. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I didn’t do that spread evenly crap, that’s for butter on toast. Also I did the wp anywhere but not the all planets same size crap. I will give a short intro of the empires when important events take place but only one intro each. The main player is [naturally] my empire. Gee go figure! Speaking of which… role the next post:

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

The Tal-Re Republic is the sole government on its home world. Once a planet that was divided by many governments, they gradually united under one ruling system. The driving force for this move toward a world government was the depletion of natural resources of their home world. As industrialization took hold the resources which were pulled from the land to fuel the growth seemed limitless. Soon enough though the truth made itself terribly clear as one by one the resources became less and less, seemingly impossible to locate and extract. As the resources dried up the governments of the nation states found it harder and harder to maintain basic services. The only answer was to join with other friendly governments pooling what resources could be had at. This though proved to be a temporary solution, staving off total collapse rather than stopping it. The only solution was to move into space and to reach that ends the only method was to lay aside all differences and unite; thus the Republic was born! By the time the last of the nation-states united the planetary population had already been decimated by wars, starvation, and the plagues that inevitably follow such things. Although this is not an actual Republic the name was adopted to honor the nation-state which provided the cornerstone of the planets constitution. In fact that cornerstone was gradually modified to form the Representative Democracy which currently holds the power.

The Republic is controlled by the following administration command, provided is the current position and which (if any) other command that one serves under along with major points about the command being discussed.

Office of the President-Elect:
The Office of the President is the ultimate position within the Republic. Properly called the President-Elect to indicate his status is due to elections by the people and not stemming from heredity or any other such source. This has mostly become a matter of formality and the title of President is used in non-ceremonial matters. Most of the powers of the Republic and almost total control of its military is vested in this position with the intentions that in a time of emergency the response to a crisis will be dramatically reduced and any actions more effective if one person makes the final decision; as opposed to waiting on the results of a committee debate.
Senate of the Republic:
This position does not actually constitute a full blown senate composed of many members. Instead the Republic is composed of two senates. The Senate of the System deals with the day to day affairs of the system it represents. Members are elected from the settled planets their respective system. The member of the Senate of the Republic on the other hand is a single individual elected from the Senate of the System. So a Senator elected to this position acts as the representative for his system and deals only with the affairs of the Republic as a whole, being legally barred from holding any power in his systems elected senate.
The following is a list of positions and ranks in order of power from greatest to lowest within the current structure of the Republic. A brief description of the duties of the rank is provided as well except in the case of positions which have already been discussed.

President: See Office of the President.
Senator: See Senate of the Republic.
Chairman: Duties depend on the department assigned to, i.e Department of War, Department of Internal Affairs, Department of Xenobiology, Department of Construction, Department of Exploration, Department of Colonization, etc.
Sky Marshal: This position holds the ultimate authority on the deployment and use of mobile and non-mobile units. Although he must follow the guidelines set forth by each Chairman he is only answerable to the President.
Fleet Admiral: This position is reserved for a front line commander who has been assigned the control of two or more mobile combat fleets to conduct offensive or defensive operations. Non-mobile combat fleets will fall under the control of any Fleet Admiral in the system but only during times of war.
Admiral: This position is in command of any mobile combat units which have been designated as a permanent fleet.
Vice Admiral: This position is in command of any mobile units in his/her assigned system.
Rear Admiral: This position is in command of any non-mobile units in his/her assigned system.
Commander: This position is in command of any mobile units which have been designated as belonging to a task force, an exploration force, or an exploration fleet.
Captain: This is the individual in charge of any single mobile or non-mobile combat or non-combat unit.

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

2401.0: Cord: 9, -1 in the Jura System. The home system to the Theselean Contemplative.
The Theselean Contemplative and the Opchi Empire make first contact. Hostilities break out after only a few hours of attempted contact when the Theselean captain misinterprets the Opchi ships attempt to regain the warp point as an attempt to crowd his ship. The Theselean ship stands on the warp point forcing the unarmed Opchi ship to take up position further out. Believing any attempt to gain entry to cross the warp point would only result in a futile game of chicken the Opchi captain decides to hold position and await a relief force. Since neither empire has ever had contact that relief force maybe some time coming.

The New Players
The Opchi Empire: The Opchi Empire is a military anarchy under the control of a single warlord. That warlord guides the council into making decisions he feels are best for the empire. Several other families via for control of the empire and only the promise of granting these families their own star systems keep them “playing nice”.

The Theselean Contemplative: The Theselean Contemplative is, as the name implies a contemplative form of government. War was a little talked about facet of life in the history classes of the Contemplative. Sure it happened but not that often, not that bloodily, and definitely only as a last resort. Ask a Theselean how they managed to escape the god of wars grime gaze and they will quickly answer that was the lack of a central government that kept absolute power away from histories rulers. And without absolute power there is little room for corruption.

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

YOur off to a good start. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Don't get discouraged by lack of posts just keep writing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

Its ok, I’m not looking for any replies here. I’ll start a new thread for mod comments later when Aaron gets the patches out I need to finish. As for now I have to test solo since it means having to stop and start the game periodically to get the phased out tech to phase out! Not that I’m discouraging comments here mind you.

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

Are you going to post some pics?

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

Pics? Of...

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

2401.3 Cord: 5, 3 in the Narcisston System.
Message as follows to all parts of self. Detected one object. Non-natural occurring. Stop instruction set U5028. Start instruction set S1638.

The New Players
The Self-Aware: I am self-aware!

The Gom Theocracy: The Gom Theocracy is a species ruled by the warrior code. They serve Gom the High One who created all things. In the early days of the empire when travel to the stars was still fantasy the word of Gom was little known. One group of warriors spread that word (by force) to all parts of the species homeworld. Now the word of Gom must be spread to the stars and honor (along with a large warship) must be the vehicle by which that word is spread. Should another life be found Gom’s word need not be forced upon it! As long as that life shows some willingness to hear the word that is…

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

What? Who me? Oh no...run away !!!!!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

Pic's for your story. Sometime a pic or two goes a long way to opening a door to ones imagination!

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

Ok so pics to set the flavor? I’ve never been very good at those things and the story evolves out of play testing my mod. What kind of pics could I use for that?

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

Combat Screens...System Screens...Close ups of ships...Pics of the PE...

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

OH! Man had it been a snake…
Maybe when I get a little further along I can toss in a few pics of the ships that take part in combat. System and quadrant screens, umm sure once the empires flesh out a little more. This really is the start of the game and most empires haven’t gone beyond one or two jumps. Combat maybe but I wouldn’t hold my breath. How do I take the pictures anyway? Ctrl+Print Screen then past and save as a…?

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

JPG gets you the best compression ratio for a given quality of SE5 screenshots.

PNGs would be better for SE4 screenshots.

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

2401.7: The Tal-Re Republic (hence forth simple the Republic) continues its exploration into the stars. Growth on the Republics first extra solar colony continues and they complete their first organics facility; which means they can finally feed themselves. PE Shang summons several of his Chairmen and charges them to develop an “Other Man” scenario and to include the designs for the Republics’ first warship. The design presented to him; the Enterprise Class (see attachment) is based on a DD hull (300kt) which is the largest warship hull the Republic can currently build. It features: 30kt of Armor, 2 Small Crew Quarters, a Small Cargo Hold, a Small and full sized Magazine providing 280 rounds for the 3 Missile Launchers. The Missile Launcher fires an endurance (more commonly known as a non-sprint) type missile which trades high speeds for greater range. Our scientists tell us that it may be possible to design and construct a weapon capable of providing a “point defense” to stop non-sprint missiles. This however; is more speculation than theory at our current tech level. The design presented has the Enterprise Class being powered by 7 Commercial Engines. Currently this is the only inter-system engine; however, researchers are working on a replacement which they have dubbed the Military Engine. It should be finalized within the next 6 months. It will provide the same thrust but only require half the space (10HS as opposed to 20). After much consideration and more than a few heated arguments the Chairman for Construction aggress to ask funding from the Senate for construction of the Enterprise Class but only after the Military Engine is developed and the designs updated.

New Item: Small Crew Quarters combine the function of both Crew Quarters and Life Support into one unit. This single unit comes with a higher price and can only service half the crew of a full Crew Quarters.

The Commercial Engine is a transplanted technology. That is it was transplanted from one tech level to another. The reason for moving it was that (1) without adding tons of restrictions and general fruitiness I can’t model the Commercial and Military Engine correctly. So I made my own versions! Also (2) I want this mod to be backward compatible. In other words if someone says “Hay I like this mod but instead of starting at Industrial 2 I would like to start at Industrial 1. If that should ever happen when said person looks under the hood to add in the new components (or whatever) they will see this mod is ready to be digressed, or even progressed if High Tech level 16 isn’t enough.

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

There is definitely a lack of context in the pic. Too bad we can't right click on screenshots http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

When combat starts to become important, it would be good to post a weapon comparison chart, and the design stats screen.
(From the top level of the design screen, selecting a ship should show a handy stats box at the top and a components list in the middle, IIRC)

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

I did think about including the info box for the Missile Launcher as well as the two other weapons at this tech level. However, I decided against it in favor of keeping some element of mystery. If Aaron doesn’t fix the generational components problem than I will never be able to finish the mod. In such an unfortunate case I will post a weapons comparison while holding out hope for SE6.

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

Keep working at it. It is the only to get better and your doing a great job. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif Keep telling your story and maybe you'll inspire someone reading it to come up with some pictures through reading it!

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

2404: With the development of the Military Engine the President, Sky Marshal, and Chairman for Construction go before the Senate to present the “Other Man” scenario. In this scenario another intelligent species is encountered with roughly the same technological level. Utilizing the revised designs for the Enterprise Class DD Sky Marshal Kana outlines how the Republic would be quickly conquered. The only option is to create two combat ready fleets. One fleet would be dedicated to the defense of the Republic and the other would be created specifically for offensive operations. Initially most of the Senate balks at the notion that any intelligent species would want to make war, or even think about it. Pushing the Sky Marshal aside PE-Shang takes the podium and asks “Since we have just thought of such a thing does that mean we are no longer ‘intelligent’?” Approval for the funding of two fleets is quickly passed.

I won’t include the designs of the improved Enterprise Class DD yet. To keep this thread down in size and number of posts I would rather not attach screen shots of every redesign. This redesign is significant because the change over to the Military Engine freed up 70HS. However, there is new tech on the horizon…

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

Anything new?

I want hear more about this great sounding guy Sky Marshal Kana...

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

Not right now, I hit a stopping point when the default strategies fell apart. Thanks to SJ’s guidance I found the problem and wound up re-writing the entire Strategies.txt file. I just finished last night and now I am faced with a new problem. Should I continue and rebuild each empire’s strategies one by one or should I recreate the empires so the defaults become the new ones I wrote? I will decide later tonight; and as I’m sure you must have figured out by the above comment. The mod is not yet in a condition that I can have others help me test.

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

Sorry; I’m going to have to let this story go and start all over at a future time. Now I am completely rewriting the crew experience levels. At this point I don’t see much of the stock files being left. I think this is going to be a total conversion when I am done. That is much more work than I planned but the new modding freedom Aaron has built in is allowing me to recreate the universe on levels I couldn’t have dreamed of with SE4. I do promise to bring Sky Marshall Kana back.

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

Arent' most good mods, a total conversion anyway...

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

That is a positive way to look at it; however, sitting here watching my “to do” list grow as fast as I work can be a little… intimidating.http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Re: OT: Fiction for my Mod:
 

Re: Experiencetypes.txt

I suggest some of the following:
- Negative experience per turn
- Generous experience gains.
- A light exponential increase in required points per level (Say, double cost every 2 or 4 levels) to ensure that there is lots of variety among the common ships
- Cool abilities on the high end ships; repair, supply/ordnance generation, bonus damage, extra movement points, sensor power, maintenance reduction, unit launch rate, etc.