What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

If you look at Comp_119.bmp in your components
picture directory, you see something that
looks like a lifepod...

Lifepods were in MOO2 under a different name
, as escape vehicles allowing your ship
captains to survive the destruction of their
vehicles, and keep their experience in your
fleet.

I think that for a life-pod equipped vessel, you should get a new option: Abandon Ship, in which your surviving crewmembers
run to the lifepods and bLast away from the
smoking flaming hulk their ship has become,
becoming a group of fighter-scale craft.

If you want to keep your crew (and their
experience), you have to win the battle
or recover the lifepods before you flee.

Conversely, this could add strategy to the
game, as you could capture enemy lifepods,
and ruthlessly interrogate their crews,
learning a few new systems on the
starmap from the crew, and maybe a tech or
two if you manage to capture an engineer
(see below).

If you added a "Crew Complement" statistic
to the ship/component screen, it would be
quite useful, because you'd have a BASE
complement for each hull size, and that
would be added onto with each component
you put on, for example, a MASSIVE gun mount
would need 50 gunners to fire it, etc,
Ion Engine Is would need 50 engineers
to run, while Ion Engine IIIs would only need 15 (reduced maintenance needs and
more automation)....

This conversely, could bring about NEUTRON
GUNS...an insidious weapon that if a ship
has NO shields, kills 'x' number of crew
per turn, with NO DAMAGE to the ship, allowing you to capture an intact hulk http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon10.gif

Comments?

Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

All good ideas.

Unfortunately, they will probably never be implimented. Maybe SEV, perhaps. I am , however, planning on adding neutron beams to my mod. And I am making boarding actions a very important part of tactical combat right from the word go.

Imagine a space-faring race spending years trying to figure out how to board an enemy ship. That should be a tech they start with.
I've also added ground infantry....another starting tech. I'm only a few weeks into the mod, but I should have something playable in August.

Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

:Grins:

I added Infantry as a starting tech, along with Power Armor as an intermediate tech
you get with Small Troops (cheap alternative
and all that).

I've also added:

HOLODECKS: Increases Ship Training by 1% per
turn up to 25%. Sucks lots of supply though.
Unfortunately, I cannot make the holodecks
randomly explode, wounding your command crew
when they try to play detective mysteries, or
have holographic entities try and take over
the ship http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon10.gif

TRAINING BRIDGE: Not tested yet. Like
holodeck above, but for a fleet. Takes up
150kt of space, so it's better to build special
"training" ships to train cadets with, rather
than putting one on each BB. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon10.gif

External Supply Pods I to III: Holds
about 60% of what normal Supply Compartments
hold, but takes up only 5kt of space. The downside? It acts as 5kt of armor too. Get
in a battle, and watch your external supply
pods get turned into vapor, stranding you http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

External DU Gunpod I to III: For fighters/troops. As powerful as a normal
DU cannon of that level, but only takes up
1kt or 2kt of space. Fires once every 30
turns, simulating the limited ammo in
gunpods.

I have more...

Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MKSheppard:
HOLODECKS: Increases Ship Training by 1% per
turn up to 25%. Sucks lots of supply though.
Unfortunately, I cannot make the holodecks
randomly explode, wounding your command crew
when they try to play detective mysteries, or
have holographic entities try and take over
the ship http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon10.gif
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

im not sure if this is facility only, or if you can put it on components. you should be able to have them increase the bad event chance though.

------------------
"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

Also, I don't think that any component that isn't an engine or a weapon will use supplies. Then again, I'm not exactly sure, so, correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm putting external cargo and supply storage in my mod as well, and since all races will start out with armor as a tech at level one, you won't see the A.I. USING them as armor.

Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

components that you 'use' can have supply requirements. examples are cloaking and stellar manipulation (that is, at least i think they fixed it so SM uses supply)

------------------
"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>components that you 'use' can have supply requirements. examples are cloaking and stellar manipulation (that is, at least i think they fixed it so SM uses supply)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>It definitely uses supply--so much so that you either need Quantum Cheesies http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif or a repair ship with massive supply storage and solar collectors in the same fleet.

Since this component wouldn't be "used," you could probably just give it a supply storage capacity of, say, -2000 or so. (Don't know what would be reasonable; that's just the first number that came to mind.) I didn't realize you could put Ship Training and Fleet Training as component abilities--I thought they were facility-only. If they work on components, they should work for every ship in the same sector, according to the abilities.txt file.

------------------
"The Unpronounceable" Krsqk
Basic Tech Mod
--Basic Tech Mod v.75

Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I'm putting external cargo and supply storage in my mod as well, and since all races will start out with armor as a tech at level one, you won't see the A.I. USING them as armor.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The armor effect is a 'bonus', gained from
having the stuff on the exterior, between
the hull and space, acting in effect, as
de facto armor.

Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

Positive Random Event.


------------------
"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Captain Picard STNG
New Age Ship Yards

Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MKSheppard:
The armor effect is a 'bonus', gained from
having the stuff on the exterior, between
the hull and space, acting in effect, as
de facto armor.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I know that, and you know that. But, the AI doesn't, and if they don't have a better weight:KT ratio armor, the AI will design ships with external components as armor. So, if armor isn't a starting tech, you will see some weird-*** designs.

Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

Lifepods would be particularly cool if SE took a crew's morale into consideration.In fact morale would be an excellent addition:

Each ship could have a morale rating, much like a planet's happiness rating. When a ship is built, it's initial morale would be based on the happiness of the planet/ spaceyard which built it.

A ship with good morale would benefit from small combat bonuses and a slight reduction in maintenence & supply usage (since a happy crew is more efficient).

Poor morale would increase the chances of a crew insurrection suceeding and even make spontaneous mutiny possible. Maintenance, supply usage and performance would all get worse.

Things to improve a ship's morale:
-Battle victories
-shore leave (parking in orbit around a friendly planet for &gt;1 turn.)
-certain empire events (treaties etc)
-training facilities and special "morale boosting" facilities.
-having escape pods on the ship (unless you are playing a warrior race, who might see escape pods as cowardly)
-joining a high-morale fleet

Things to reduce a ship's morale:
-Too long in space without shore leave. (although special components should be available to counter this.)
-Low on supplies
-Committing genocide / destroying unarmed ships/ destroying escape pods. (except for genocidal/ emotionless races)
-Special "anti-morale" intel ops and psychic weapons.
-taking damage in battle (espcially crew quarters, bridge or life support)
-Seeing friendly ships destroyed in battle.
-empire events
-joining a low-morale fleet

Do you think it's worth suggesting this to MM? Maybe it could be added to SE4 one day.

------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?"

Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

http://www.spanamwar.com/olympiatourbunker.htm

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
The coal that was needed to power OLYMPIA
was stored in coal bunkers. Coal bunkers
were large compartments in the ship that
were simply storage rooms used strictly for coal. These storage rooms were arrayed on
the ship in a way that allowed them to
function as additional armor. They were
placed along the hull, to protect the more
vital inner areas, such as the engine rooms
and boiler rooms, in case of attack. The
thought was that if the ship took a hit, the
projectile or torpedo would explode on
impact with the coal in a coal bunker, if
it did explode when it hit the hull. The
mass of coal would protect the inner
portions of the ship, and the coal bunker
could simply be sealed off to stop the
flooding.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>