Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

Malfador could you add area effecting weapons? In other words weapons that effect a 2,3,4 block radius. I'm trying to add weapons like multiple warhead missiles, pulse bLasts, poximity mines, a true Wave motion gun, ect. Is this possible in this engine?

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

Or at least a second "damage at range" entry, for those shots that miss. (for splash damage)
Could be set to zero for weapons such as DUC's, or even higher than direct hits for "improbability cannons", whose damage is inversely related to your accuracy http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Typical area weapons could be set to do 1/4 damage when they miss.

This small-scale type of splash damage would have the coding advantage of hitting only one ship (the targetted one), and would require only a small change (that misses do damage just like hits, with a different amount)

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

As long as we are talking about new damage types to enter, lets see the following:

Damage on the way
IE: anything it hits on the line of fire on the way to the target takes damage.

Radius Damage on Impact
It shoots out hits the target and then detonates with a radius damage affect that may hit those around it.

Radius Damage regardless of Impact
It shoots out and detonates with a radius similiar to above but if it misses it goes out to max range along the line of fire and then detonates still.

Damage to shoot
Weapon shoots ship shooting takes some damage

Damage regardless of miss
You miss the miss still does some damage

And Last but not least (for now) different levels of armor and phase piercing.
IE level 1 armor piercing goes through standard armor but energized armor prevents that but null space is level 5 armor piercing and thus penetrates even that. Repeat examples for shielding.

That is all. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

Multilevel Phased-ness and piercing power would be sweet for modders, and should be fairly easy to implement.

DOTW: What do you do about squares the shot only skims?
unless the shot is exactly horizontal, vertical or diagonal, there will be squares that the shot goes through "just a little bit"

RDOI: How would you stop friendly fire with the crazy manoevering that the fleet AI does? "Optimal range" would have to check for loaded RDOI weapons on your other ships, and avoid moving to point blank with the enemy.

DTS: Similarily, the "destroyed on use" ability working for weapons would be good.

Also, having multiple weapon abilities in one component (and in one shot) would be awesome. You could have Trek style 90% normal, 10% shield skipping. You could have a small repulsor beam effect when BIG guns hit a ship.

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

Cyrien, interesting ideas, but I flinch at getting the AI to comprehend that firing an full-beam effect weapon past it's own ships is a bad thing..

Phoenix-D

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

I would like to see at least the capability for defenses against every type of weapon damage. Even if its not in the released game , I would like to see it put into the Abilities.txt file. It would be nice to be able to create a mod with the options to use a defense for every type of weapon.

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

Yep, yep! I've requested all of these repeatedly in the beta forums and out here in the public forums. The "Engine Pulsar" from MOO, for example. And simple collateral damage to adjacent ships when one blows up. And the "lightning shield" missile defense. That's probably a no-no with missiles as unbalanced as they already are... I wanted multiple levels of armor effectiveness and armor-piercing too, instead of just the one "ignores armor" ability. We need 'Neutronium' armor that cannot be pierced by anything... Best idea we ever had in the beta forums was a settable modifer for each weapon for its damage to shield or armor. So, you could have all sorts of variations in weapon effectiveness against shields or armor. It would probably require a complete re-write of the combat engine to implement this. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

MM is just too busy with bug-fixing to add new stuff right now. I hope we'll at least get drones before the "SE IV Gold" re-issue that seems to be in the works. Space monsters and/or pirates would also be a nice bonus. Especially with an intel project to create them against your enemies. But all these fancy new weapon effects seem likely to be put off for SE V.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 18 October 2001).]

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I would like to see at least the capability for defenses against every type of weapon damage. Even if its not in the released game , I would like to see it put into the Abilities.txt file.
It would be nice to be able to create a mod with the options to use a defense for every type of weapon.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Have you ever tried P&N http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon10.gif?
There is currently a defense against every specialty weapon, except for Engine-destroying.
(Armor skipping, weapons-only, shield generators only, even null-space)
And the engine destroying weapons are hampered by the fact that every captial ship will have 30 to 40 engines rather than 4 to 6 (thus requiring lots of hits to disable).
My next release will also include explicit Engine defenses you can add on.
Of course, defending against every possible type of attack will be very expensive and space-consuming.

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

How did you get the shield defenses to work? I still haven't got the stupid things to actually take the hits..

Phoenix-D

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

As of P&N v2.3c, the description of the Buckytube gel claims to have shield-protection, but it dosen't work. It has been changed for the next Version.

The shield defenses that DO work are the Heavy Shield Generators and the Hardened mini shields.

Both have high physical strength, and so resist shield disruptors well. The HSGs have 200 hitpoints, and so will only be destroyed by a Massive-mount Shield disruptor IV or V, from point-blank range.
HMSGs have 20-40 hitpoints, so you will only lose one per hit, up to 7 from a Massive mount, SD V at point blank. Even then, you only lose 7 components, for a maximum loss of 455 shield points.
Remember that Massive mounts only fit on Baseships or Battlemoons. You shouldn't be going to point blank range with them http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

The biggest flaw I think the game has is the limited range of defences. When I first was playing SE4 and discovered scattering and stealth armour, I thought it was a great start. I kept looking for other armour types. Things like ablative armour, powered armour, reflective armour, etc, etc. These are things that really should be added.



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"You don't know the Power of the Dark Side. I must obey my Master"

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

suicide_junkie:

How well does the AI handle defences that cancel the null-space ability of null-space weapons? Will it only use null-space "resistant" components when faceing an opponent using null-space weapons? (I suppose this is really a question about the AI's component-awareness in general.)

I wonder if SEIV's lack of "defense against every special damage" is because the AI currently can't handle it well. (I feel guilty about going around with nomal-shield ships and zapping all the nomal-shielded AI ships with PP weapons, and then zapping them all with something with a high raw damage as soon as the AI goes to P-shields.)

Or I suppose it might not be an issue if the null-space resistance is built-in to something that ship designers would include anyway, or if the resistance is part of a very cheap, small component....

Oh, what the heck. This is off topic, but as long as I'm here: How challenging is the AI in P&N? Does it handle all the (very interesting) additions well? I play regularly against only 1 human foe, but I've got, uh, lets see.... 46 races going, so that's quite a bit of AI adjusting if I want to us P&N.

OK, yeah, I could just drop all the non-P&N races when using P&N. :P to you. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

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I know how God can make a rock so big he can't move it.

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

one thought I have had to provide a limited defense against special damage is create one more of each component in the game. these components are gained through a combination of achieving several standard techs. these components would regenerate as a form of self repair (nanobot technology as a description?) - a limited defense vs tachyon, ionic weapons, null space weapons, computer virus..etc

If the tech prerequisites were common enough the AI would use them without modifications once it reached the tech levels required.



[This message has been edited by AJC (edited 21 October 2001).]

Re: Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?
 

Tarquelne:
Rather than fill this thread with P&N stuff, I have replied in the "A Pirate's Life For Me thread.

AJC: That sounds like the Borg http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif
It would certainly work, but Organic races would have a big advantage, since their armor would provide tons of stored up regen points. Plus their armor would regen even if only one of the internal regen components survived.