Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

In the discussion about the SE4 Image Neo-Standard (Non standard Hulls thread), my Starwars mod was mentioned.
That mod was made some time ago, it was never completed (I was going to add a Force Sensitive racial trait that was never fully implemented) and it was never updated to work with the Last patch.
Of course that I thought about updating and completing the mod now.
But there's this idea that I've been having for a long time. But only now there are enough race styles and mods (completed or in progress) to make it feasible.
The idea is simple, a simple mod that combines Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5 and maybe some other sci-fi.
Not only the races (shipsets) but everything else that can be modded into the game: weapons, vehicle sizes etc.

This has always been my favorite game theme, I played sci-fi crossover wars since the times of SE3, but creating a mod that adds the actual techs of everyone should give it another proportion.
I know this project is too ambitious and would probably never get the time to finish it all by myself, so I need your help.
Balance will be a difficult topic here.
There's always a trekkie who will point that lasers are useless against their shields and that their superior phasers should be able to bypass sw shields and take down a star destroyer with one shot! (Sorry but trekkies tend to babble more than other sci-fi fans, probably because they think what they hear in the shows is scientifically serious)
That is of course wrong, and our objective must be to make all techs balanced and worth playing. Obviously that every one will have its own advantages and disadvantages over the others.

By now I'm in the research and preliminary design stage.
As you know I'm more a star war fan, and I'm more familiar with that technology, so I may need to be reminded of most important tech of the other SCI-FIs.
A good point of reference will be standard se4 tech. For example the damage/tonnage/firerate ratio of weapons must not exceed that of similar se4 weapons.

In the beginning let's try to keep things simple and use only the most common and representative techs for every race. More exotic technologies can be added once the basic mod is finished.

A good point to start would be the races. The 20 races needed already exist. (There are more, they could be added later but don't think they're really needed right now, and no more than 20 races can be in a game at once):
Star Wars:
1- Empire 2- Rebellion 3- Trade Federation 4- Sith Empire 5- Yuuzhan Vong

Star Trek:
6- Federation 7- Klingons 8- Romulans 9- Borg 10- Cardassian 11- Dominion 12- Ferengis 13- Sp 8472

Babylon 5:
14- Earth Alliance 15- Minbaris 16- Centauris 17- Narns 18- Shadows 19- Vorlons 20- L of N-A Worlds

So the first things I need to answer are these questions for every race.

What weapons they use? What are the most representative ship sizes they use? Tonnage or estimation if possible. How do their shields and armor work? How do they use fighters? What other technologies they have?

Analyzing the answers we should be able to determine which technologies will be available to all players, which will be available to all of the same sci-fi and which will be race-exclusive.

[ June 19, 2003, 05:40: Message edited by: Andres ]

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>The idea is simple, a simple mod that combines Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5 and maybe some other sci-fi.
Not only the races (shipsets) but everything else that can be modded into the game: weapons, vehicle sizes etc.<hr></blockquote>

I have been considering doing a Trek Mod for sometime. I have several options open to me, including improving upon the TREK MOD, but I would rather just start from scratch.

Another option was to do my Trek Mod according to the New Age Theme. That would be very interesting to do as all of the races would be equal and that is explained.

What you are proposing is huge. Your right, balance would be an issue, but that issue can simply be solved by stating that ALL tech have simular levels. IE, phasers would be as powerful as Lasers, but would have an extra accuracy or range. Lasers would have lower component cost. Things such as this.

Develop the tech for each Race type, Star Trek, Star Wars, B5, and then compare and work out them out.

I have a rather complete list that I have been working on for star trek. Tech based off of the all 5 series, the 10 movies, and all of the games.
I do not have the list on this PC, but can get it in 3 to 5 days from my other PC. (It is out at my fathers house.)

[ 25 November 2001: Message edited by: Atrocities ]</p>

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Sounds like balance is going to be the toughest issue. A group of us are working on a B5 Mod right now, and it would probably save us all some time if we head towards your goal of a fully balanced system. We have a list of quite a few weapon techs and some non-weapon techs. I'll try to toss it all in an Excel sheet on Monday/Tuesday so you can compare ranges and damage.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>What you are proposing is huge. Your right, balance would be an issue, but that issue can simply be solved by stating that ALL tech have simular levels. IE, phasers would be as powerful as Lasers, but would have an extra accuracy or range. Lasers would have lower component cost. Things such as this. <hr></blockquote>I would really prefer to make them be different racial ages.

IE. Low tech start gives you the bare minimum for B5 tech. Behind Earth-at-the-beginning-of-series tech. Research gets you up to Vorlon-ey tech, then you develop shields and move into a StarTrek type tech tree. At the top end of that, it merges smoothly with a StarWars type tech.

You start at B5 tech, when you have one planet & a colony. As you grow to include many starsystems, you move slowly into TrekTech, and by the time you can control a large portion of the galaxy, you will have StarWars tech.

It seems pretty natural to me.

As a bonus, you could add a required tech "Trek", and "SW". Then by disallowing the tech in the game setup, you'd have a TrekMod or B5 mod.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

The different racial ages idea is good, and would make for a much more balanced system.

But I think (and I may be wrong) that the idea is to see how the different races square off against each other. Yes?

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>But I think (and I may be wrong) that the idea is to see how the different races square off against each other. Yes?<hr></blockquote>
I agree with you Val.
What I want are the races portrayed as faithfully as possible going against each other.
I think it’s something many people wants to see and when done will attract new players to se4.
suicide_junkie your idea sounds interesting, but it’s not what we want to do.
Are you implying that ST technology is more advanced to B5’s, and that SW’s is superior to ST’s? That could be true in some tech areas, but not in others.
But your point is good and I see it as a potential problem. In each of the mentioned sci-fi universes some races are portrayed as advanced and powerful while others are weaker and relatively unimportant. Making all of them be faithful interpretations, and also balanced will be difficult.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</fonArial">quote:</font><hr>Do SW ships even have shields? They're certainly very vulnerable to fighter attacks..and I can't imagine a shield that could stop incoming kinetic energy weapons (slug throwers) yet let fighters through.<hr></blockquote>

Well, in the X-Wing games, cap ships are vulnerable to fighters because it makes the game more fun, but in the movies, fighters can't do squat to a cap ship unless its shields are already down and, even then they can only make pinpoint strikes against exposed targets. I'm not saying fighters are worthless, mind you, after all, once the bridge shields went on the Executor, and a-wing took it out and sent the ship careening into the Death Star. So in response, fighters never got through cap ship shields, they were already down before the fighters started making runs.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Disadvantages are weaker shields, weak ground troops, and no fighters what-so-ever (probably because you can't put a warp core on a ship the size of an x-wing ). Can't speak for B5, as I know nothing about it.<hr></blockquote>Actually, trek does have fighters, they are shielded, they do go FTL, and they don't have full size M/ARCs.
Shuttlecraft are light fighters.
Just look at the dominion war (DS9).
There, they have the runabouts with torpedo launchers (medium fighter)
And the military designed-to-be-a-fighter fighters. (large fighter)

You don't actually need a Matter/Antimatter reactor (aka warpcore) to run warp drive, but it requires less fuel and is more compact (size:energy output) than the comparable Fusion reactors. Most ships don't carry enough fusion reactors to move at a decent warpspeed.
Shuttles only go warp 2 or so since they have smaller powerplants.

IMO, Trek vs Wars fighters would suffer worse than the capital ships.
Wars fighters are somewhat stronger than Trek fighters, and the Trek fighters can't use FTL attacks effectively on moving targets.
(I believe that the only chance Trek ships have against Wars capital ships would be "Warp Strafing", where they launch torpedoes at FTL speeds, and the enemy can't see them until they've gone past)

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Well, here's my .026 (Cdn$)

It appears that balance play is going to be a problem... at least initially. However, it seems to me that each of the sci-fi realms is looking at 'empires' at different stages of development. By putting the realms together we need to have a "multi-era" view.

Bab 5 - initial era (growing). Several hyper advanced aliens do have better tech, but not by much. Only a few of the empires have peaked, the rest are still 'coming into their own.'

Star Trek - intermediate era (vigorous). Rising empires are in great conflict due to tremendous growth. The tech levels are starting to peak, but the empires have not become static... yet.

Star Wars - late era (decay). The great republic/empire has peaked in maturation, has become static, and has started into decay.

So what? Well, I think that the relative strength or weakness that appears to be a problem is actually due to us comparing empires that are mostly at tech level 2 to empires mostly at tech level 10. We simply need to "fill in" the lost eras for each genre.

i.e.
Bab 5 - add the more powerful top end techs for when they reach the middle to end game. Maybe they should never get shields, but that's okay, really strong hulls and armor can be developed.

Star Trek - develop more fully the early techs (lucky for us, Enterprise should help) and the extremely late techs. Races from this realm will have the advantage of highly manouverable capital ships (special: dilithium crystals), their weakness will be the absolute lack of fighters (except perhaps the dominion)and relatively slow non-combat speed.

Star Wars - develop more fully the very early techs. I don't think that the SW techs are really all that advanced, I think that much of the 'late era' stuff we see in the SW movies is due to specialized development of a few key technology branches. That is to say, their movement rates are extremely high, but their combat movement is not nearly as high as the Star Trek ships. They have developed excellent fighters, but personally I don't think the turbo-lasers are nearly as powerful as say photon torpedoes and phasers(IMHO). The only time we see missles fired is from fighters at incredibly short range (that is, they have no capital ship missles).

Finally, I think it is important to critically define the ships by relative size, not by the names given to them by the genre. The Star'Destroyers' are late empire ships... they are 1400+ metres in length which is slightly bigger than the Enterprise from Next Gen (intermediate era). Both should be defined as 'battle cruisers' because of their absolute size... this lets players compare apples to apples.

-jimbob

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Actually, trek does have fighters, they are shielded, they do go FTL, and they don't have full size M/ARCs.
Shuttlecraft are light fighters.
Just look at the dominion war (DS9).
There, they have the runabouts with torpedo launchers (medium fighter)
And the military designed-to-be-a-fighter fighters. (large fighter)

You don't actually need a Matter/Antimatter reactor (aka warpcore) to run warp drive, but it requires less fuel and is more compact (size:energy output) than the comparable Fusion reactors. Most ships don't carry enough fusion reactors to move at a decent warpspeed.
Shuttles only go warp 2 or so since they have smaller powerplants.

IMO, Trek vs Wars fighters would suffer worse than the capital ships.
Wars fighters are somewhat stronger than Trek fighters, and the Trek fighters can't use FTL attacks effectively on moving targets.
(I believe that the only chance Trek ships have against Wars capital ships would be "Warp Strafing", where they launch torpedoes at FTL speeds, and the enemy can't see them until they've gone past)<hr></blockquote>
Shuttles are not fighters. As for Tac Fighters and especially Peregrines, well, you can call a boulder a pebble, but it's still a boulder. A tac fighter might be too small to be called a small cap ship, but it's way too big to be called a fighter. Heavy bomber maybe. A peregrine is hardly smaller than the Defiant.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Star Wars - develop more fully the very early techs. I don't think that the SW techs are really all that advanced,<hr></blockquote>
Careful, we're trying to make a mod, not start a vs. debate.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>I think that much of the 'late era' stuff we see in the SW movies is due to specialized development of a few key technology branches.<hr></blockquote>
That's impossible. You can't say someone has extremely advanced weapons (for instance), but everything else is crap. If their weapons are super powerful, they need hull materials and shock absorbers that can take the recoil, you need reactors that can power them, etc. To paraphrase Mike Wong, if you gave Leonardo DaVinci the blueprints for a modern car and explained to him how it worked, he still couldn't build it because technology in a thousand other areas just isn't there.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>That is to say, their movement rates are extremely high, but their combat movement is not nearly as high as the Star Trek ships.<hr></blockquote>
That's true, Trek ships have higher sublight acceleration because they submerge most of the ship's mass in subspace using the warp drive.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>They have developed excellent fighters, but personally I don't think the turbo-lasers

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Gritsucker:
I would say that the advantages of Star Wars are bigger cap ships (1600 meters for a mere destroyer), lots of weapons, fighters, and the Death Star (if it's included). Disadvantages might be slow cap ships, lack of cloaks, and innacurate weapons.<hr></blockquote>

This just made me think of a quote from one of the movies, I think Empire Strikes Back (Ep.V). It basically goes:

Sensor Officer: "Sir, the ship has disappeared from our scopes."
Captain/Admiral: "Impossible! No ship that small has a cloaking device."

The ship in question was the Millenium Falcon, and it attached itself to the side of the Star Destroyer tower thing, so it couldn't be seen on sensors. So there is such a thing as a cloaking device in StarWars, just not on a ship that small.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

well if you go into the star wars novels, the empire developed cloaking devices but never perfected them. I think it was in the series with Grand Admiral Thrawn that they are used to cloak asteroids around coruscant so the New Republic can't safely use the planet. Also in the rebel assault games. I think the second one had phantom ties in it that had cloaking devices on them. Of course since you're only using info from the movies all this is irrelevant so I will stop my needless rambling http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Gritsucker quoting Mike Wong... That’s a good quote. In general I do like MW’s work ( www.stardestroyer.net ), and the scientific analysis he makes, but don’t agree with all of his conclusions. I’d like to see someone scientifically comparing sci-fi as serially as he does with a more impartial point of view.
I feared that trekkies would have delirious of grandeur, but it seems that Mike Wong readers are the ones.
Anyway let’s try to avoid the vs. debate.

About the phaser vs turbolaser discussion. I think they are even, and if they’re not we’ll make them even.
IMHO Turbolasers have shorter range and do less damage, but they shorter reload time and are smaller. Their damage rating may be slightly higher than phasers.
Phasers should have longer range do higher damage and have accuracy bonus, but bigger and with longer reload time. Like with WMGs, the first volley of fire will be powerful, but if you can’t kill the target with it, you’re in trouble.

About SW shields, there are separate ray shields and particle shields. As stated in the rebel debriefing the exhaust port in the Death Star was ray shielded but not particle shielded. That’s maybe because of its normal function, a particle shield would have blocked the particles it was supposed to exhaust.
There’s also the possibility that the Death Star shield worked somehow like the Gungan bubble shield, permeable only to slow moving objects.
Anyway normally ships carry a combination of both shielding systems what protects them from any kind of weapon. I don’t see a reason why in the mod SW shields need to be stronger or weaker than ST shields.
Planetary shields are a different story, and should be much stronger than ruin se4 shields. We have many examples that state that bombarding a shielded planet is useless (and most SW planets are shielded). The rebel shield in Hoth was umbrella shaped, so the Empire was forced to use ground troops, when bombarding from space would have been easier. The more advanced Imperial shield in Endor, not only prevented bombardment and troop landing but also protected the Death Star in orbit.
Such a strong planetary shield may be unbalancing, so I think it should be weakened in the mod, but it should still be strong enough to absorb all damage made by a small enemy fleet.

About ship sizes. In starwars most triangular ships, regardless their size, are called Star Destroyers, and of course have nothing to do with se4 destroyer. And you’re right, star wars ships are very big, according to my estimations imperial star destroyers are far beyond an se4 baseship.

About speed, hyperspace is the fastest FTL propulsion method, and should be represented by ship having more strategic movements. And they should also be relatively slow and not maneuverable in combat. Unfortunately there’s no way to simulate this in SE4, I tried a negative Combat Movement ability but it didn’t work.

There are cloaking devices in star wars, but they are not common because they are very expensive. A cloaked ship is invisible, but also blinded to the visible universe, and you can explode if you attempt to jump into hyperspace while cloaked.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Gritsucker quoting Mike Wong... That’s a good quote.<hr></blockquote>
Wouldn't have used it if it wasn't http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>In general I do like MW’s work ( www.stardestroyer.net ), and the scientific analysis he makes, but don’t agree with all of his conclusions. I’d like to see someone scientifically comparing sci-fi as serially as he does with a more impartial point of view.
I feared that trekkies would have delirious of grandeur, but it seems that Mike Wong readers are the ones.<hr></blockquote>
Not sure if I'd use the word delusion (I assume that's what you meant when you said delirious). I'm not a vs. debater, I just like to watch the debates, and I've heard a lot of hard-to-refute evidence from the Wars and hardly any from Trek. In fact, I don't think I've seen a single calculation showing weapon/shield, etc. strength to be higher in Trek that hasn't been discredited.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Anyway let’s try to avoid the vs. debate.<hr></blockquote>
I think a little vs. debating is inevitable and healthy, but let's at least try to stay on task and not turn this thread into a vs. thread.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>About the phaser vs turbolaser discussion. I think they are even, and if they’re not we’ll make them even.
IMHO Turbolasers have shorter range and do less damage, but they shorter reload time and are smaller. Their damage rating may be slightly higher than phasers.<hr></blockquote>
Should be less accurate, too. Like -10 mod or something. Sheer numbers will tend to make up for this, though.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Phasers should have longer range do higher damage and have accuracy bonus, but bigger and with longer reload time. Like with WMGs, the first volley of fire will be powerful, but if you can’t kill the target with it, you’re in trouble.

About SW shields, there are separate ray shields and particle shields. As stated in the rebel debriefing the exhaust port in the Death Star was ray shielded but not particle shielded. That’s maybe because of its normal function, a particle shield would have blocked the particles it was supposed to exhaust.
There’s also the possibility that the Death Star shield worked somehow like the Gungan bubble shield, permeable only to slow moving objects.
Anyway normally ships carry a combination of both shielding systems what protects them from any kind of weapon. I don’t see a reason why in the mod SW shields need to be stronger or weaker than ST shields.<hr></blockquote>
There isn't a good reason yet, but if one side ends up being more powerful, we can mess with the shields to even them out.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Planetary shields are a different story, and should be much stronger than ruin se4 shields. We have many examples that state that bombarding a shielded planet is useless (and most SW planets are shielded). The rebel shield in Hoth was umbrella shaped, so the Empire was forced to use ground troops, when bombarding from space would have been easier. The more advanced Imperial shield in Endor, not only prevented bombardment and troop landing but also protected the Death Star in orbit. Such a strong planetary shield may be unbalancing, so I think it should be weakened in the mod, but it should still be strong enough to absorb all damage made by a small enemy fleet.<hr></blockquote>
This isn't easy to balance. SW would end up being too powerful if they got the biggest ships, the best fighters, AND shielded planets.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>About ship sizes. In starwars most triangular ships, regardless their size, are called Star Destroyers, and of course have nothing to do with se4 destroyer. And you’re right, star wars ships are very big, according to my estimations imperial star destroyers are far beyond an se4 baseship.<hr></blockquote>
Not to even mention the Executor and its ilk. We should probably fudge them downward a bit. Have a Sovereign equal maybe a battlecruiser, and an Imperator equal a dreadnought?
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>About speed, hyperspace is the fastest FTL propulsion method, and should be represented by ship having more strategic movements. And they should also be relatively slow and not maneuverable in combat. Unfortunately there’s no way to simulate this in SE4, I tried a negative Combat Movement ability but it didn’t work.<hr></blockquote>
As far as I know, there's no way to create stragetically fast but tactically slow ships. I've tried.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>There are cloaking devices in star wars, but they are not common because they are very expensive. A cloaked ship is invisible, but also blinded to the visible universe, and you can explode if you attempt to jump into hyperspace while cloaked.<hr></blockquote>
I know SW has cloaks, I was saying no cloaks for the purposes of the mod.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>About speed, hyperspace is the fastest FTL propulsion method, and should be represented by ship having more strategic movements. And they should also be relatively slow and not maneuverable in combat. Unfortunately there's no way to simulate this in SE4, I tried a negative Combat Movement ability but it didn't work.<hr></blockquote>Just go the other way. Make everybody else's movement slower, and give the others built in combat movement bonuses.

Better would be to make hyperspace a WarpPoint opener tech. If we could make unstable warppoints that collapse on the next turn, it would be best.
Or, you could try my FTL map.

Or you could give SW some big emergency movement pods.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Going the other way doesn’t sound good. You’ll end up with everyone else moving too slow in strategic, or everyone moving too fast in combat.
A warp opener would be too much and leave lots of opened wps. Too bad that those auto-collapsing wps are impossible.

I like the idea of the emergency mov pods, and think it’s our best option. Using it would represent the “jump”. Too bad that now they can’t be repaired. Would it work if it gives more movements than the normal movements of the ship?

Wouldn’t it be great to have a controlled Version of that event that moves your ship to a random location?

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

What about giving the Starwars tech special ship sizes that only allow for two or three engines but have a special component like a regenerating emergency propulsion pod that generates a high strategic movement or something for a "hyperdrive". That would be slow tactically but fast strategically.

Leaving warp points all over the place would be like Borg transwarp conduits.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Would it work if it gives more movements than the normal movements of the ship?<hr></blockquote>Yep. When you pop the pod, you can get 7/2 movement, or 11/6, whatever.
If you go into combat, however, you will lose any movement over the max, and will leave combat with at most, one less than your max.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>regenerating emergency propulsion pod <hr></blockquote>Just give the ships a space yard with zero production rate.

The only problem is that the ships can then retrofit and scrap & stuff. If you only allow it on capital ships, that's reasonable.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

How about this? SW gets an emergency pod that generates a lot of movement, and a repair bay that repaires 1 component per turn and weighs and costs nothing, but only 1 can be mounted on a ship. If the hyperdrive is not used in a turn, it would repair something else, and that would be cheating, but I can't think of a better solution.

[ 27 November 2001: Message edited by: Gritsucker ]</p>

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Not to even mention the Executor and its ilk. We should probably fudge them downward a bit. Have a Sovereign equal maybe a battlecruiser, and an Imperator equal a dreadnought?<hr></blockquote>
Actually a Sovereign Class is bigger than an ISD, you’re probably talking about a Victory Class Star Destroyer.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>How about this? SW gets an emergency pod that generates a lot of movement, and a repair bay that repaires 1 component per turn and weighs and costs nothing, but only 1 can be mounted on a ship. If the hyperdrive is not used in a turn, it would repair something else, and that would be cheating, but I can't think of a better solution.<hr></blockquote>
Yes, that’s what we were thinking about, but since Last mod emergency pods can’t be repaired. That was to prevent the supply pod cheat, but was extended also to the mov pod. Only space yards can repair them, that’s why s_j proposed a 0 building (built-in?) space yard.
Maybe giving them ships 120-150% larger than normal, normally slower, but extremely fast when using their mov pods (too bad AI doesn’t seem to use them).
Also most large capital ships are all in one, attack ships, carriers, and troop transports, maybe we should make them all semi-carriers, with a 20-30% minimum fighter bays.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Will:

So there is such a thing as a cloaking device in StarWars, just not on a ship that small.[/QB]<hr></blockquote>

They had mentioned cloaking devices on a Super Star Destroyer prototype in some old Star Wars lit in between the release of Empire and Jedi. They also mention it in the Star Wars Role Playing game as far back as first edition and of course it played a big part in the Heir to the Empire trilogy by Tim Zahn (as mentioned by Chewy027). There just appears to be one massive constraint on cloaked vessels, the cloak requires a LOT of power and space and cost a bundle.


Also, I have some workups on the B5 weapons (in an Excel sheer) that we were going to use in the B5 Mod. Does anyone have something similar for the other two mods that we can use to compare/balance?

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

I'd tell you to post that excel file as an example, but since attachments don't work yet can you please email it to me?

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Actually a Sovereign Class is bigger than an ISD, you’re probably talking about a Victory Class Star Destroyer.<hr></blockquote>
Actually I meant the ST Sovereign, like the Enterprise E. Giving the Empire Sovereigns or Eclipses would be unbalancing, methinks.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Yes, that’s what we were thinking about, but since Last mod emergency pods can’t be repaired. That was to prevent the supply pod cheat, but was extended also to the mov pod. Only space yards can repair them, that’s why s_j proposed a 0 building (built-in?) space yard.<hr></blockquote>
Didn't know they did that. Haven't played since v 1.35.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Maybe giving them ships 120-150% larger than normal, normally slower, but extremely fast when using their mov pods (too bad AI doesn’t seem to use them).
Also most large capital ships are all in one, attack ships, carriers, and troop transports, maybe we should make them all semi-carriers, with a 20-30% minimum fighter bays.<hr></blockquote>
That's true. Maybe 30% min. fighters is too much, since the 1.6 km Imperators only housed 6 squadrons, but I'd go for a 15 or 20% min. fighter limit and a 5 or 10% min. cargo limit. How's that sound?

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

I will E*Mail it either tomorrow or Thursday. It is pretty much a list of the various standard weapons with Min/Max/Avg damage values and ranges based off the board game Version (Bab 5 Wars).

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Hi, I am new (kinda, well new to Sharpnel but not to SE4. I just left posting a reply to my pley for help. Thanks there Atrocities, you didn't get the "nail on the head" but heck, your nuke was good enough. I also am looking on an "Universal Mod". I had not really given thought to Star Wars yet, but here are my players: B5, Star Trek, Star Wars (now added), and StarFire. It is really very simple to have everyone use difrent types of ships. Ie: StarFire can have the choice to build an Explorer size hull and Star Trek a Galaxy size. The only draw-back would be the ever increasing size of the text files involved. That (to me atleast) is a very small price to pay for what I will get in play-ability. If I can help to make this dream come true than I will give it my all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

What's StarFire?

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Justin Flynn:
What's StarFire?<hr></blockquote>

ever read any of the Honor Harington books? David Weber, i think?

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Actually, the Insurrection/Crusade/In Death Ground group of books is more like Starfire.

Starfire's a board game, and reportadly the inspiration for SE.

Phoenix-D

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Ok, sorry it took so long to get back. StarFire is an Empire building game that aloows you to break it all down to the tactical level. If you go to the MM website they have a link to the StarFire Design Studios website. That will explain it much better than I can here. If you want a little more SF I think a manual or two that I can E-Mail you, but with out the starter manuals I don't really think they will be much help. Sorry http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif If you need more pointed answers or want a copy of the rough data files I can send them to you. Keep in mind that they are not done and also that they are HIGHLY specialized to the SF universe and my playing style. IE: I got ride of they intellagnce projects as they are based on the concpt that we humans will sell each other out. But we really do this to a bunch of blue skinned andorians that are talking about "here is some cash now blow your supplies into space and die with the rest of the crew? Double Ummm!

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

OK, my bad. i promise to slow down and check what I type. Just skip the type O's in the below post. Sorry about that all.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by President Elect Shang:
OK, my bad. i promise to slow down and check what I type. Just skip the type O's in the below post. Sorry about that all.<hr></blockquote>

the pencil-and-paper icon lets you edit your post, you know..

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

This list is not complete but IMHO it's a good start.

STAR WARS RACES

General SW Tech - tech open to all races (except the Vong)
--------------------------------------
Turbolaser Weapons
all of them are small, short reload
Laser Cannons (for fighters)
Turbolaser Battery
Ion Cannons (disable ships with minimal damage, makes boarding a piece of cake, but the boarded ship would be vulnerable for the rest of the battle, should do normal damage to shields and disrupt movement and fire, or maybe destroy supplies once shields are down)
Since that damage type is not possible, make it a shields only weapon.


Seekers.
Most of the time used against fighters. Anti-unit seekers would be an interesting addition.
They are often fired at point blank (to avoid point defense fire) by other fighters, but in the flight simulators I've seen long range shots and capital ships fire them too.
They carry thermonuclear explosives, what makes them theoretically not as strong as a matter-antimatter explosives.
Concussion missile - very fast and light, specially suited against small fast fighters
Proton Torpedo - heavier general purpose seeker
Heavy Rocker - heavy damage low long reload slow seeker, only good against slow bad point defended capital ships
Heavy Bomb - heavy Version of the rocket, easy to outrun but should destroy a medium ship with 1 shot

Hyperdrives (strong mov pods)
Shields and Planetary Shields

Galactic Empire
-------------------------------
Superlaser (very big, massive damage, very long reload time but not 30, it should fire several times during a combat, also destroys planets)
Big and slow capital ships (semi-carriers?)
Death Star

TIE Fighters (small and cheap, but fast fighters)

Rebel Alliance
-------------------------------
Big (but not as big as imperial) and slow capital ships.
Bigger fighters.

Trade Federation
-------------------------------
Massive Transformed Transports ships.
Droid Fighters (small cheap and fast, but with lower accuracy/defense bonuses. Use some kind of master computer instead of cockpit/life support)

Yuuzhan Vong
-------------------------------
Many big ships up to the size of the Death Star
They abhor any kind of non-organic tech. They should not have any of the standard techs, but have organic equivalents for most of them.
Some of them are:
Dovin Basals (gravitational manipulating creatures) engine + shields, and at higher levels some stellar manipulation e.g. planet destroyers
Yammosk - Sector Combat Bonus, Neural Net
Volcano Cannons (organic Plasma cannons)
Biologic Solar Sails
Shapers - slow build / fast repair space yard comp
Shipwomb Facility

STAR TREK RACES (According to Warp9)
-------------------------------
FEDERATION
Phasers
Torpedoes
Matter Replicator
Warp Core

ROMULAN
Disruptors
Torpedoes
Quantum Singularity Drive

FERENGI
Shield Depleters?
Engine Overload?

BORG
Cutting Beam
Borg Boarding Parties
Borg Armor
Borg Shields
Nanoprobes
Transwarp

8472
Organic
Plagues
Planet Killers

KLINGON
Disruptors
Torpedoes

CARDASSIAN
Phasers
Torpedoes

DOMINON
Disruptors
Phasers
Torpedoes

BABYLON 5 RACES (Originally posted by atomannj)
-------------------------------


General Tech - tech open to all races
--------------------------------------
Laser Weapons-
-Light Laser cannons (long reload, strong)
-Heavy Laser cannons (Long reload, very strong)
-Lite/Heavy pulse lasers (to hit bonus)
-L/H particle lasers (quicker reload)

Missiles-
-Small & Large missile types
-Fusion
-Nuclear

Planetary Bombardment
-Mass drivers (Political backlash penalty)

Plasma (armor penetration)
-torpedo
-cannons (long reload)

Anti-matter
-cannon

Earth Alliance
-------------------------------
Shields
-Defense Grid Energy Projectors (weak d

Projectile
-Railguns (long range)

Centauri
---------------------------------
Particle
-Twin Particle arrays (to hit bonus)

Ion
-Ion Cannons
-Gravimetric Defense Grid

Narn
---------------------------------
-Energy Mine (fighter defense, small, to hit bonus)

Defense shield
-Electromagnetic Defenses

Minbari
-----------------------------------
Gravitic
-Gravitic Neutron Cannons (shield piercing, long reload)
-Gravitic Fusion Beam Cannons (shield piercing)

Neutron
-Cannons (shield piercing)

-Minbari Stealth Device
-Defense Shield Grid

Shadows
---------------------------------
Slicer Beams (shield piercing, armor piercing)
Jump Point Disrupter
Bio-Organic armored hull
Shadow Shields (phased shields)
Tractor Beams
Phased Hyperspace Cloaking Dev
Death Cloud

Vorlon
----------------------------------
Vorlon Shields (phased shields)
Tractor Beams
Vorlon Sensor Jammers
Super Death Ray (planet destroying)
Death Ray Cannons (high damage,sp,ap,long reload)
Flame Beams (shield piercing)
Lightning Guns (armor piercing)

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>BABYLON 5 RACES
...
Shields-<hr></blockquote>Ack! No! Please don't ruin B5 with shields!
See B5 mod (about halfway down the page by now)

I'd still really like to make the SF universes merge as civilization "ages". In order to keep it balanced for play vs other ages, try balancing it by maintenance.
(EG: B5 ships are very low maintenance/ cheap to build, so you can throw lots of 'em at the shielded ships from the other universes (Just imagine how many ships B5's humans could field if they had 30 fully developed worlds(as you might find in an SE4 game), compared to how many ISD's the SW empire could support given only 30 worlds, not the entire galaxy))

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

And I still don’t like your ages ideas.
I don’t want to start like present Earth, evolve into B5 Earth Alliance, then into the trek Federation, and then into the sw Empire, then somehow mutate into the Yuuzhan Vong http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif , to finally evolve into the Vorlon to end up being Q! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif
Do you like this ages order?
What I want to do, and think most of the others want is play any of those races and fight against the others.

Your point about B5 lack of shields is well seen. It will be harder to balance that with armor and lower costs, but it’s possible.
I just copied the first post, but I read the others.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

It dosen't have to be ages, it could be racial techs (or even both). Just disallow the "ages" tech tree, and enable "B5","ST","SW", etc tech trees during game setup.
Please don't homogenize all of the SF universes.

In regards to B5 ships, their weapons are decently powerful, probably within an order of magnitude of Trek. Putting ten B5 capital ship beams into a Galaxy class ship should breach the shields pretty quick, and they could win (with heavy casualties, though)
I'd image the fight to be like a BattleMoon vs 20 DNs, or a bunch of frigates against a baseship.
A completely valid way to fight a war.

In terms of population & morale, B5 races are used to grinding, high-casualty warfare. Trek races would be more sensitive to losses, but have fewer, larger ships, and thus fewer losses to get upset about. Giving a reduced unhappiness from ship losses to B5 races would be a good idea.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Now this is exactly what I am trying to do with my mod? Send me the raw data. I only work three days with four off so I have the time to sort it out and turn it back for testing.
The idea of a racial ability allowing access to say the Star Trek tech tree is how I planned to tackle the problem. Evolving into an ages idea is just not the way to attack this.

Ok phoenix-D has brought up the point that I was missing this thread all together. So someone else is also working on this idea. I will work hand-in-hand with him if he would like the aid. I got the tech ideas from lower in this thread, now how about ship sizes for the deferent players involved. Star Wars, Bab5, and Star Trek?

[ 29 November 2001: Message edited by: President Elect Shang ]</p>

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

This is what we were thinking about. Maybe even 2 racial traits, one general for each sci-fi and one for some races.
For example you may need to select the "General Star Trek" + the "Federation" racial traits.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

The raw data, and particulary the balance between the different origin races is what we're trying to agree with.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Look at what I found!
http://www.red-jack.com/~sfbtng/indexbtw.html

Now all we need is to find a way to convert all that to SE4 and revise it carefully.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Ha, Ha. Now that is what I am talking about! I need help with the ship sizes. If I could make heads or tails out of the website than I would have say that each race will need its own ship sizes. I have no problems creating that, however I do need to get the hull range down. Good job Andres! Now who is going to get that part covered?

I also agree with you on the multi-qualifications (traits). Some will need it so here is my idea, just an example.
1) Star Wars (cost 1000)
a) Rebals (Cost 1000)
b) Empire (Cost 1000)
c) Sith (Cost 1000)
See where I am going here? This can be done for everyone. Taking the Category trait (ie Star Wars) will give you access to the general techs. Taking the specialized trait (ie Rebals) will give you access the that specialzed tech tree. And the bonus is: anyone who wants a real challenge can take two general traits and try to win with the handicap. They will still have some techs and weapons but will lack having the really good stuff!

What thinks thou now!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ 29 November 2001: Message edited by: President Elect Shang ]</p>

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Yes, that's what we're talking about.
Creating them is not the problem, the problem is defining wich techs will be in each general trait and wich in each race. And that's what we've been discussing here.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Umm, I have to work for the next couple of days. Say I try to get a rough draft to you by next wed or thur? Yo can look it over and see if you think that the techs are going to the proper places/people. This will only be a first draft so don't flip. If you like it than we can post a link to the file and let everyone else rate it?

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

B5 Shields:

We were using some of the Agents of Gaming material for the B5 mod, and also referring to the tech books. While there really aren't that many examples, some races do have 'shields', most specifically the Vorlon, Abbai and Brakiri (also a few other ancients). The White Stars also have some sort of shield and most large EA ships have an Energy Web (mentioned by both Warner Brothers and the B5 game) that acts as a shield.

Even with this being said, I don't really recall too much shield-like tech in the actual series except with the ancients.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

I was thinking more along the lines of controlling techs with free traits, and you just have to make sure no one takes more than one general and one specific.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>FERENGI
Shield Depleters?
Engine Overload?<hr></blockquote>

Can I offer a suggestion here? I would also add alegance subverters as well, as the Ferengi are masters at bribery.

Also other possible ideas for trek races:

Sub Space Weapons
Transwarp Drive
Quatum Slip Stream Drive
Transphasic Weapons
Metaphsic Weapons

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

A question on movement:

Didn't someone create a non-warp point mod of SE IV? If so, it could be used to simulate the differences btwn SW, ST, and B5.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

It wasn't a mod so much as a map combined with *extreme* amounts of patience. He used the map editor and placed EVERY WP by hand.

Obviously not really workable for long-term use. A quicker alternative would be making WP openers (and closers) easy to get and really cheap/small.

Phoenix-D

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

I was thinking of doing something like that for the B5 mod for ships with Jump Drives.

Does anyone know if there is a way to set a warp point to "automatically" close a set number of turns after opening.

Also, is there anyone who has figured out how to either create a movement delay/penalty on a warp point or in a Storm (the storm could then be placed over a warp point to simulate the delay)?

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

Quote: "He used the map editor and placed EVERY WP by hand."

Holy Crap! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif
That's a bit of work, eh?

Sort of negates what I was thinking, so I'll just keep it to myself.

Re: Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)
 

I created a new file based in known ship stats, and comps listed in them.
http://se4kdy.cyberwars.com/temp/race&ships.htm
It looks better than the other one I had posted here before.

I found a few interesting things I didn’t know:
About Babylon 5 races and shields. Most races have no shields but use VERY HEAVY armor. If I understood correctly, largest Earth Alliance ships have an armor up to 15 meters thick. To represent this in the mod, players would have to put an important amount of armor in their ships to get a decent (balanced) protection.
Vorlons and Shadows seem to have shields, and probably the other First Ones too. Mimbaris have something called "Defense Shield Grid" that I'm not sure if is a shield or some kind of EMC or PDC like EA "Defense Grid Energy Projectors".

Please help me complete correct this file that I think would be great as raw file to make the mod.