Questions about SE4 Gold
 

I have a few questions about this game before i purchase it. I have played SE4 (not the gold ver) for a while now and enjoy it greatly.

Now for the questions.. I would like to have a ship component that allows a ship to jump from one star to another without using a wormhole. This is so that i can start a game with no wormholes, so that wormhole technology is a boon later in that you dont need the jumpdrive. Or maybe a Jumpgate ability that allows a base station to send all nearby ships to a different starsystem. Would this be possible with the gold edition? for that matter can you design new abilities at all?

Are weapon ranges of 21+ supported? or still limited to 20?
can you put colonys on asteriods?
Can you create binary/trinary star systems?
How about a item that would be the Last item destroyed on a starship?
Or an ability that can repair any component simular to the armor regeneration, so mixed with
the Last question can get nano-repair modules?

If anyone can give me answers to these i would greatful.

Re: Questions about SE4 Gold
 

I would like to have a ship component that allows a ship to jump from one star to another without using a wormhole.
Not really. My FTL map comes close, though (look in my sig)
See how you like it, but know that the AIs will be unable to navigate on that map. Your captains will also be confused if their current order invloves doing something at a place they don't have line-of-sight to.
Great for PBW.
Took me 12 hours to make in the map editor http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Are weapon ranges of 21+ supported? or still limited to 20?
A while back, someone said that if you add a 21st entry to the damage at range list, you could get missiles to have infinite range, doing that 21st amount of damage if they hit after that.

can you put colonys on asteriods?
If you mod the secttypes.txt, you can make planets that look like asteroids, and are thus colonizable.
You could thus turn gas giant colonization into asteroid colonization.
Alternatively, you could make a Version of the tiny size planets that look like asteroids.

Can you create binary/trinary star systems?
Only in the map editor, or by the random map generation.
In the map editor, or by editing the systemtypes, you could make multi-star systems with unlimited numbers of stars.

How about a item that would be the Last item destroyed on a starship?
Armor components with large hitpoint values are usually hit Last.
Internals with low hitpoint values are usually hit Last.
If you made a component with 1 hitpoint, or possibly even zero, it would almost always be hit Last.
If the ability is what you want to survive, rather than a component, you gcan give the ability to the hull itself, by editing Vehiclesize.txt

Or an ability that can repair any component simular to the armor regeneration, so mixed with
the Last question can get nano-repair modules?
For gold, and component that has the armor regeneration ability can be healed by other components with the armor regen ability. It does not have to be armor.
Give all the combat-repairable components the armor regen ability with value 1 set to either zero or one. The smallest value that works is probably what you want.

[ 14 April 2002: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]</p>

Re: Questions about SE4 Gold
 

[QB]I would like to have a ship component that allows a ship to jump from one star to another without using a wormhole.
Not really. My FTL map comes close, though (look in my sig)

wow.. that map sure is confusng at first glance. althou i would prefer not to have do it that way. Do the people at the company take suggestions as to new abilities? it would be easyier for them to add a few abilities and just let us incorporate them into our games ourselfs.

Are weapon ranges of 21+ supported? or still limited to 20?
A while back, someone said that if you add a 21st entry to the damage at range list, you could get missiles to have infinite range, doing that 21st amount of damage if they hit after that.

that works for what i want.

can you put colonys on asteriods?
If you mod the secttypes.txt, you can make planets that look like asteroids, and are thus colonizable.
You could thus turn gas giant colonization into asteroid colonization.
Alternatively, you could make a Version of the tiny size planets that look like asteroids.

again a good way to do it.. forgot i could change those items

Can you create binary/trinary star systems?
Only in the map editor, or by the random map generation.
In the map editor, or by editing the systemtypes, you could make multi-star systems with unlimited numbers of stars.

i am not sure why they limited us in this. if a race could make a sun in the first place, making it a binary or more would really be a piece of cake

How about a item that would be the Last item destroyed on a starship?
Armor components with large hitpoint values are usually hit Last.
Internals with low hitpoint values are usually hit Last.
If you made a component with 1 hitpoint, or possibly even zero, it would almost always be hit Last.

hmm ok i will have to play around with that and see how it works. Althou again i wish we could just add in a new ability for this. I dont really want to go and add the armror regen ability to ALL components in the game to get an ability i want for the organics trait to have, without making duplicates of all the ships just to give them a regen ability. not to mention if i did make all new hulls i will still have to go modify all the compents i want to be able to regen.

Re: Questions about SE4 Gold
 

Do the people at the company take suggestions as to new abilities?
Aaron does incorporate a lot of user input, but that kind of change is likely to be a very major coding problem.

Are you talking an instant teleport, or running an FTL drive for a few months to travel between stars?

Re: Questions about SE4 Gold
 

i am not sure why they limited us in this. if a race could make a sun in the first place, making it a binary or more would really be a piece of cake

Maybe the process of making the star requires relative tranquility in the local gravitational fields. So, the presence of another star disrupts the sensitive device.

Re: Questions about SE4 Gold
 

well in my opinion things like how many stars you can have in one system should be left up to the MOD designers/Players. If the person designing the game envionment wants to limit players within his current game thats fine but at least give us the option. not to mention that the game dosnt limit you as to where in the system that you can create stars. If you wanted you can put the star you make into one of the far corners. I do relize that some things can and will be hard to code but as for the star creation they can have a setting in the settings file as to the max number of stars a player can max out in for one system.

As for the ship jump system.. i dont really mind how it is done. Either instant or the first value could be the distance in LY and the second value the time it take to jump 1 LY. So a 10, 5 system would allow you to jump a max of 10 LY at a time of 1 month per 5 LY traveled. Granted the second option would be harder to code, so honestly i would prefer the instant trip. I would just limit the distances to very short ranges at the lower lvl techs

[ 14 April 2002: Message edited by: martin ]</p>

Re: Questions about SE4 Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Armor components with large hitpoint values are usually hit Last.
Internals with low hitpoint values are usually hit Last.<hr></blockquote>

Nobody else noticed this http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by martin:
Can you create binary/trinary star systems?<hr></blockquote>
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by martin:
i am not sure why they limited us in this. if a race could make a sun in the first place, making it a binary or more would really be a piece of cake.<hr></blockquote>

Even if you could, why would you want to? I cannot imagine this as anything other than a complete waste of resources. What possible advantage is there in doing this? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Questions about SE4 Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Even if you could, why would you want to? I cannot imagine this as anything other than a complete waste of resources. What possible advantage is there in doing this? <hr></blockquote>
Turn each star into a sphereworld.
Solar resource generation facilities (crystalline tech) would make more resources.
Solar panels would generate more supplies.

Re: Questions about SE4 Gold
 

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


Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Armor components with large hitpoint values are usually hit Last.
Internals with low hitpoint values are usually hit Last.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nobody else noticed this

<hr></blockquote>


Hmmm, actually this is a common knowledge. You can check it by running combat simulator and taking notice of the order of components destroyed.

As to creating stars : Even SE IV tries to follow the laws of matter and energy conservation. You do not create star from nothing, you condense nebula or convert black hole. Presumably, once you create a star, you use all available matter (except for small spare change for planets) and nothing is left for another.

Re: Questions about SE4 Gold
 

Martin, It is possible to make starsystems with as many stars as you want using the Map Editor or simply go in and alter the systemtypes.txt file to put more stars in star systems automaticly. I have made systems with 16 stars in them so I could make 16 sphereworlds in that system, realizing that in reality stars do not form in that density normally. However anything is possible in a great game like SE4Gold.

Re: Questions about SE4 Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by oleg:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Gaurav:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Armor components with large hitpoint values are usually hit Last.
Internals with low hitpoint values are usually hit Last.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nobody else noticed this
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hmmm, actually this is a common knowledge. You can check it by running combat simulator and taking notice of the order of components destroyed.<hr></blockquote>

Unbelieveable! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif
Oleg: Which is Last, large hitpoint values or low hitpoint values? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

[ 17 April 2002: Message edited by: Gaurav ]</p>

Re: Questions about SE4 Gold
 

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


Unbelieveable! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif
Oleg: Which is Last, large hitpoint values or low hitpoint values? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

[ 17 April 2002: Message edited by: Gaurav ]<hr></blockquote>


Exactly as Suicide Junkie posted before:

Smaller armour component is likely to be hit before bigger one.

The reverse is true for internals: bigger components are more likely to be damaged before smaller.

The later is easy to rationalize: Let's assume that ship has 100 hit points worth of components. When ship is hit, SE IV rolls a dice and decides where inside structure to allocate the damage. Then, component with 40 hit points has 40% chance to be hit, while component with 10 points has only 10%.

It is much more difficult to speculate about armour. May be SE uses reciprocal values ?

Re: Questions about SE4 Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> Smaller armour component is likely to be hit before bigger one. <hr></blockquote>I think it's actually the smaller armor component is more likely to take enough damage in one turn to be destroyed, but I'm not absolutely certain about that.