Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Long ago, I wrote a mod or two variously known as Derek's Mod/Dave's Mod. Devnull took that and used it to form the base of the original Devnull mod. Many of the ideas I had were based off the Starfire universe as written by David Weber. Geoschmo and Rollo took over the Devnull Mod, eventually ending up with Devnull Gold, including Space Monsters and such by Rollo.
In a completely seperate course, PvK wrote the Proportions mod, which drastically altered the economic and facility model, and also changed some other things, though none as drastic as the economic.

I took the Proportions and Devnull mods, combined them together, added QNP, along with some of my own things, and ended up with Derek's Mod Gold v1.00 Here it is for anyones enjoyment. If you have any questions feel free to ask on the Boards, or via email (listed in my profile)


Attached is the basic readme for Derek's Mod


<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>
Summary of Changes

V 1.00 05/07/2002

Initial release as a beta testable mod. If you encounter problems or suggestions, let me know.

Added the Events file from the EyeCandy Mod on the Gold CD, authored by Richard Bradley (Dracus).
The events data file increases the number of events from 17 to 55. There are about 10 positive
events included. The ratio insures that the lucky trait is not degraded.

Added the facilities of Proportions Mod, along with the economic model and some other minor
things from proportions.

Added most of Devnull Mod by Devnull (originally), modified by Geoschmo and Rollo.

Space Monsters courtesy of Rollo.

Added Heavy Sheild Generators from Suicide Junkie.

Added in quasi-Newtonian Propulsion, courtesy of many.

Changed Missiles to 40kT. They were 25kT in Devnull; I thought this was too little.

Changed all the ship sizes; see the attached spreadsheet for a list of the ship sizes and
abilities

Most of the ship sizes now include a good amount of radioactives for production, re-emphasizing
rads.

Added fighter mountable missiles to help absorb some of the point defense that fighters hate.

Weapon mounts are changed so that increasing classes of ships (scout class, destroyer class,
cruiser class, ship of the line, and Monitor) have increasing weapon mounts available to them

Changed many, many other things which I haven't typed up in a readme.
<hr></blockquote>


Enjoy!

Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Wow! This looks like a great MOD. In fact it might be the ultimate MOD. However, I do have a question...I was looking in the component enhancement and I didn't see large mounts, heavy mounts, or massive mounts that were with devnull or standard SEIV. Did you remove them? And if so what was your rationale? Also, I see that you increased the cost of missles, did you think that it was unbalanced in devnull? I thought it made it extremely challenging, forcing you to pay atttenion to point defense. Finally, I have never used the proportions MOD before what economic changes were made and how will they make a difference in game play. Thanks for the great mod!!!

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Where are you hiding the mod? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

thanks

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by adder_inf:
Where are you hiding the mod? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

thanks<hr></blockquote>

That would be in the mods section, located here

Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by adder_inf:
Where are you hiding the mod? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

thanks<hr></blockquote>


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newup...1020821557.zip

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Devin D.Bass:
Wow! This looks like a great MOD. In fact it might be the ultimate MOD. However, I do have a question...I was looking in the component enhancement and I didn't see large mounts, heavy mounts, or massive mounts that were with devnull or standard SEIV. Did you remove them? And if so what was your rationale? Also, I see that you increased the cost of missles, did you think that it was unbalanced in devnull? I thought it made it extremely challenging, forcing you to pay atttenion to point defense. Finally, I have never used the proportions MOD before what economic changes were made and how will they make a difference in game play. Thanks for the great mod!!!<hr></blockquote>

From Proportion' ReadMe.txt:
Mod Description:
================

Proportions makes large changes to the proportions of economy and development
in Space Empires IV. The scale of several aspects of play have been made more
realistic, along with various other changes.

The most important changes are that homeworlds now begin stocked with
"Cultural Center" facilities which represent the developed cultural homelands
of an empire. These would take a very long time to reproduce on an alien
world, and they are much more productive and capable compared to facilities
which can be quickly constructed on colony worlds. As a result, homeworlds
begin the game quite powerful, whereas colonies are less productive and would
likely take longer than an entire game to develop to the same level as a
homeworld. Colony worlds can be developed to fairly impressive levels with
enough time and population. More achievable than full cultural centers are
city facilities of various sizes, for example.

Contributing to this effect are the changes to populations, which now grow at
a more realistic rate (about 1/10th the normal SE4 rate) and which also
require a more realistic amount of effort to transport to planet to planet,
since they now weigh a more realistic 1000 kT, and cargo capacities mean a
large ship is required to move even one of these. A colony with a small
population also builds at a much slower rate than a world with billions on it.

All of this means that developing a colony infrastructure is still very
important but is also more challenging, and will not so quickly alter the
balance of power or research.
========================================

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Devin D.Bass:
Wow! This looks like a great MOD. In fact it might be the ultimate MOD. However, I do have a question...I was looking in the component enhancement and I didn't see large mounts, heavy mounts, or massive mounts that were with devnull or standard SEIV. Did you remove them? And if so what was your rationale?
<hr></blockquote>

Yes; I decided to go with a limited number of mounts, based on ship class. While there are a large number of ship sizes, thy fall into the following five classes: Escort, Destroyer, Cruiser, Ship of the line, Monitor. Each class allows a new type of mount to be available, from light, to normal, to beam and pulse, to spinal to high energy.

Beyond that, I made a conscious decision to limit the number of mounts.


<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>
Also, I see that you increased the cost of missles, did you think that it was unbalanced in devnull? I thought it made it extremely challenging, forcing you to pay atttenion to point defense.
<hr></blockquote>

Yes. I felt that 25kT was too small for missiles. On the other hand, I felt 50 Kt was too large. So I settled on 40 kT. In addition to the basic missiles, however, you have the one shot per combat external mounts at 10kT, and you can mount external mount missiles on fighters. Combined, this should be enough to give any point defense problems. I was hoping to emphasize combined arms.


<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>
Finally, I have never used the proportions MOD before what economic changes were made and how will they make a difference in game play.
<hr></blockquote>

Big question. Proportions basically de-emphasized the colonies, and emphasized your homeworld. It takes a lot longer to build up a colony to produce near as much as a homeworld; the reproduction is lowered to 10% in Proportions. I changed that to 20%, but still, it is large. Also, for low popualtions, the production and construction rate is extermely low. Finally, 1million pop now weighs 1000kT, and you can fit one on a small transport, 2 on a medium, and 3 on a large, along with 1 on a Colony ship and 2 on an Ark ship (large colony ship)

It changes the game quite a bit; I would recommend reading the Proportions mod threads to get some more info on it.

I will get a good read me for my mod, but it might take another couple of days.


<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>
Thanks for the great mod!!!<hr></blockquote>
You're welcome! Thanks should also go to PvK for Proportions, and Rollo, Geoschmo and Devnull for Devnull

Derek

[ 08 May 2002: Message edited by: Derek ]</p>

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> 1 million pop now weighs 1000kT <hr></blockquote>

Are the colonists storing fat to survive the long haul to their new homes?

1 000 kT = 1 000 000 T / 1 000 000 colonists = 1 T/colonist or 1 000 Kg/colonist...

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

It's the cryo-chambers. Those things weigh a ton (literally) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Devin D.Bass:
Wow! This looks like a great MOD. In fact it might be the ultimate MOD....<hr></blockquote>

Mr. Devin D. Bass,

You must immediatley cease and desist from using the term "Ultimate" in referance to the "Derek's Mod Gold". The term "Ultimate" is intellectual property of a Hadrian Aventine and SpaceEmpires.org and is pending copyright proceedings. No use of the term in referance to "Derek's Mod Gold" or any other Space Empires IV mod other than the official "Ultimate Mod" or "Ultimate Mod 2" is permitted.

Sincerly,
I. M. Kidding, esquire
Dewy, Cheatum, and Howe
Attornies at Law

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ 08 May 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]</p>

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

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


Are the colonists storing fat to survive the long haul to their new homes?

1 000 kT = 1 000 000 T / 1 000 000 colonists = 1 T/colonist or 1 000 Kg/colonist...<hr></blockquote>

Heh. No, but when you consider all the luggage, supplies, support structure and such that you would have to take to emigrate to a completely new planet, along with life support and such for the journey, you might get more than 1 ton per person.

Look at it this way: on a modern cruise ship, which never sails too far from land, and in which you only take enough luggage to Last a week or so, you still have each person occupying a large amount of space. I would say easily tow or three tons per person. Cruise ships weigh on the order of 70kT nowadays, and only hold two or three thousand passengers, along with the same amount of crew. They don't even have to carry their own oxygen.

Even when you consider military transports, you still have a lot of space taken up by incidentals.

Finally, it slows down the growth of colonies, which is part of the point of the economic model of Proportions, and as such, my mod.

On the other hand, I am considering cutting it in half, to 500kt per population point. Thats what playtesting is for http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:
Dewy, Cheatum, and Howe
Attornies at Law
<hr></blockquote>

are they the US sister firm of Robbem, Screwem and Scarper over here in England?

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Naaa,

They don't SOLICIT at THE BAR in the US. lol


Ok not so funny, you heard it before.

_________________________________________

Rock, Paper, Scissors

[ 08 May 2002: Message edited by: Wardad ]</p>

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

That's correct.

If you just want nude colonists with no equipment or food or life support, and to drop 'em off on a planet where the gravity and temperature and atmosphere and weather and local creatures are all completely alien to them, and then ask them to start cranking out the Capital ships ASAP, well... they won't even survive the trip. They'll weigh less, but won't do you much good unless your race has the "just add water - freeze-dried hybernation" advantage, or something. And even then, they'll need all sorts of construction, manufacturing, life support, power generation, medical, and other equipment to keep them alive and productive (instead of just becoming castaways) on the alien world.

The other thing is that 1 kT = an abstract measurement that determines what can be put on a design, but otherwise can't be expected to be consistent. We had a long discussion of colony ship sizes and so on on one of the Proportions threads - I think the "Proportions 2.1 released" one. If you start doing math thinking in terms of volume, Proportions' pop sizes start seeming really generous.

Derek, if you include the Starliner Modules from Proportions 2.2, the maximum population transportation rate more or less doubles, which would be easier (and IMO more interesting/realistic) than halving their mass.

PvK


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


Heh. No, but when you consider all the luggage, supplies, support structure and such that you would have to take to emigrate to a completely new planet, along with life support and such for the journey, you might get more than 1 ton per person.

Look at it this way: on a modern cruise ship, which never sails too far from land, and in which you only take enough luggage to Last a week or so, you still have each person occupying a large amount of space. I would say easily tow or three tons per person. Cruise ships weigh on the order of 70kT nowadays, and only hold two or three thousand passengers, along with the same amount of crew. They don't even have to carry their own oxygen.

Even when you consider military transports, you still have a lot of space taken up by incidentals.

Finally, it slows down the growth of colonies, which is part of the point of the economic model of Proportions, and as such, my mod.

On the other hand, I am considering cutting it in half, to 500kt per population point. Thats what playtesting is for http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Derek<hr></blockquote>

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

PvK's post brings up one question I have about this mod. What 'level' of Devnull and Proportions is it up to and is it going to be updated to include the latest and greatest changes as they occur.

I only ask this as I dont want to get addicted to a mod that eventually becomes 'orphaned' like my own original mod did. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Are there plans to keep this bad boy updated? It truly looks like it might be an 'ultimate' (err, yeah...that word) mod.

Thanx,
Talenn

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Talenn:
PvK's post brings up one question I have about this mod. What 'level' of Devnull and Proportions is it up to and is it going to be updated to include the latest and greatest changes as they occur.
<hr></blockquote>

Well, it is based off of Proportions 2.2 and Devnull 1.60, the latest. It even includes some little things that PvK and Rollo told me after they released their mods and gave me permission to use/abuse their mods.

As Proportions and Devnull update their mods, I will look at the updates and see which parts I want to include and which parts I don't. This goes for this release, also; not everything from either Proportions or Devnull is included, and some of the things are new.


<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>
I only ask this as I dont want to get addicted to a mod that eventually becomes 'orphaned' like my own original mod did. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Are there plans to keep this bad boy updated? It truly looks like it might be an 'ultimate' (err, yeah...that word) mod.
<hr></blockquote>


Well, I won't promise to update religiously, as I have a life, also, but I do plan on doing my best. I will promise to at least let everyone know if I have to abandon it. It shouldn't come to that, however.


Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>
Derek, if you include the Starliner Modules from Proportions 2.2, the maximum population transportation rate more or less doubles, which would be easier (and IMO more interesting/realistic) than halving their mass.

<hr></blockquote>

I probably will; I kept them out of the original release; I'm not sure exactly why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Some more playtesting is necessary, I think. The engine model is currently not working out exactly how I wanted, for one.

Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Next component, by the way, that I am working on is the 'Bomb-Pumped X-Ray Laser'

The range will be extreme (10 for level 1 up to 20 for level 5) and it will skip armor (possibly also shield, but not sure about that) but the damage it does will be very low. I'll see how it works.

Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Derek, I D/L'd your mod today and was checking it out and found something missing, I think.
You hve left in the tech and ship sizes for making mines and mine layer components for laying mines. However, I could not find any mine sweeper components for removing them.
Are the sweepers hidden or were they left out on purpose? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

It is not the ultimate mod for sure. To become one, Derek must add pirate/nomade races. That would do it.

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Whooo, I've been waiting for something like this for a long time. Thanks for consolidating almost everything into one mod. This makes my life much easier.

Couple questions.

One I noticed that in the quadrant choices, they are just the standard choices offered in the regular game. I know that the proportions mod has quiet a bit, did you just leave those out?

Two I spent about a week designing a map from proportions that I was going to use: A Tri Polar with lots of goodies here and there. Probably can't use that in your mod right?

Three, I noticed that their is the small infantry (from proportions) file in the pictures folder; however, in the game when I try to design my troops, just the regular small, medium, and large show up.

Four, now that you have heavy bombers and gunboats, would the ability to load boarding parties or landing troops on these be kind of hard to incorportate perhaps in the future as an idea.

Five, thanks again, just what I needed.

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Offhand, I would expect you to be able to generate a map in Proportions and/or the map editor, and then load it into other mods like this one... because... I think most of the map data occurs during creation and editing, rather than being referred to data files during play. Not sure though - you'd have to go check.

PvK

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

If you save a map within the game, then load it into the Map Editor or another game, the systems and system objects will be there, but nothing will be colonized. The Map Editor will let you specify which planets will be players' first homeworld, but there's no way to control a multi-planet start.

If you're trying to set up a scenario, you have to do it as a savegame.

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I will be adding those in in the next release, due out sometime this weekend; I wanted to make sure things worked first without those.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Shouldn't be a problem, as soon as I add in the Tri-Polar

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I was going to muck about with the ground combat stuff, but then decided I wanted to work on the space combat and economy first. Ground combat changes may or may not make it into the next release.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I would love to do that, however, I am not sure yet the effect on game balance, if it is even possible. I'll have to see. Probably not in the next release, but maybe after.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You're welcome; be sure to welcome PvK and Rollo, also.

Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That is on the list of to-do's, but way down near the bottom. Part of the problem is that Pvk's Proportions so changes the economic model (in ways that I like, mind you) that Pirates & Nomads will have to be changed drastically to work correctly.

Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Hmmm.. I think the P&N v2.6 (currently beta) will help a great deal with this fusion of the mods.

Of course, Suicide Junkie is the guy to ask.

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Actually I was thinking about how to add pirates to Proportions:

1: Make two race types ala P&N mod.

2: Make the city type facilities and colony modules require normal.

3: Give pirates some sort of early boarding abilities, a maintanance reduction component, and scraping bonus facility.

Why didn't you add a warbase? It would be nice to see larger sized bases.

How about a battle moon??? I love those things.

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Forgot to mention that I think proportions is perfectly suited for Pirates. The low increased value of ships, and the slower advancement produces an atmosphere where pirates could seriously prosper. Also the increased number of transports milling about produces a greater number of targets for pirates to attack.

I geuss pirates would probably need some sort of uber storage facilities too.

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

In P&N they have said Uber-Facilities (me thinks so anyway... oh, now 'm double guessing meself)

Edit - me spelling

[ 09 May 2002, 23:16: Message edited by: jimbob ]

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Alright, few more questions:

one, I noticed in the readme that the Derek's Mod Gold incorporated some newtonian travel methods. I'm used to the proportions method of bigger ships, slower travel, how drastically different is this from the travel method utilized in the Derek's Mod Gold? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

two, I also noticed in the readme that some of sizes of ships have certain amounts of engines allowed. In the colony ships, and smaller, I can have as many as space allows. Is this supposed to be like that? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

three, the PD cannons have the special ability to sweep mines, which makes sense. Can they also serve as regular anti seeker and fighter purposes like the description says.

Four, gravitic drive is gone? Does the solar sail replace its functions? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Five, I like how you added a few more advanced trait technologies. Any more up your guys sleeves?

Thank you for time and patience.

Just for curiosity sake, when do you think that you would be release the next Version. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Hmm, well, I was thinking about it; 2500kT is pretty large, allready. What size do you suggest for a battlemoon or warbase?

Also a problem with the battlemoon is if you use QNP, it will generate a range check error, since the number of engines per move must necessarily be huge, and the corresponding number of movement points will overflow the 255 limit in the hard code.

Of course, you can fix this by not letting a battlemoon use engines at all, and instead assigning a base movement rate, unchangeable.

I'll have to think about it.

As for Pirates & Nomads, I haven't put enough time into understanding it to implement it in Derek's Mod yet. When I do, I'll contact SJ and ask him for permission to pilfer P&N and incorporate many parts of it into my mod.

Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

[quote]Originally posted by Derek:

Quote:

What size do you suggest for a battlemoon or warbase? Also a problem with the battlemoon is if you use QNP, it will generate a range check error, Of course, you can fix this by not letting a battlemoon use engines at all, and instead assigning a base movement rate, unchangeable.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">2000KT for Warbase
1750/2250 for battlemoon

"Gravitational slingshot effect creates natural movement for battlemoon" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Yep.
Name := Pirate Hoard
Description := Large, hidden cavern which stores unused resources.
120,000 gold in them thar hills, arrrr!

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">E-yep. Nothing like a Napalm bomb the size of a Battleship (800 KT) to put fear into the enemy!

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It incorporates quasi-Newtonian propulsion. What this means is that each engine type gives a certain amount of standard movement points. Add up the totals for all engines on a ship and divide this by the enigines per move, and you will get the actual movement rate of the ship. For example, if you have 7 Military grade Quantum engines on ship, each engine gives 5 movement points for a total of 35 movement points. If this ship is a Heavy Cruiser, it requires 6 'engines per move'. 35 divided by 6 gives 5, with a remainder. The remainder is dropped, giving an actual movement rate for the ship of 5.

The engines per move is basically, the kT of the ship, divided by 100, rounded down. The Military grade engines give 2, 3, 4, or 5 from Ion to Quantum, and the Commercial give 1, 2, 3, 4 from Ion to Quantum, but are more efficient in supply usage.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The max engines per ship is 99; in other words, your ship can go as fast as you can fit engines into it, with regards to space.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yes, of course they also act as normal PD. In the next release, I am putting Mine Sweepers back in and reducing the mine sweeping ability of PD, but not eliminating it completely. There will be some use for both PD and for Mine Sweepers.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yes; solar sail is from original SEIV. I'm sticking with that for now, although I might introduce Gravitic Drive as a possible combat speed enhancer.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Maybe; it depends on how creative I get.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">No problem; the next release Version should be this weekend.

Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Giving the battlemoon a definite movement rate will prevent Ionic Dispersers from destroying their engines in combat. Of course, Ionic Dispersers probably couldn't take out engines for a ship the size of a tiny planet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Shouldn't the battlemoon be incredibly slow though? If this is the case then a maximum speed of say 5 would require 250 mp total (50 mp/movement). The best output by a engine is about 5, so make the limit for the number of engines = 50. If the poor sucker doesn't have quantum engines, he'll just have really slow battlemoons.

My preference would be to have mammoth engines that have much larger mass and higher output (but still a max output ratio of 0.5 mp per kT). This would allow the player to design the ship without having to manually put 50 engines on, and then have to go through the whole thing again when a new engine comes along.

my .02$

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

A couple of points:

1) For a relative scale, my BattleMoons are 10,000 KT.
This gives an EPM of 200 for P&N. Since your thrust scale is half of mine, a 10,000 KT ship in your mod would have 100 EPM.
At that rate, your Battlemoons would be able to go 2 or 3 sectors per turn (3 with propulsion experts).
You may want to increase the size further in order to slow them down without bending your laws of physics;)

2) Adding a large price to the hull of your BattleMoons can help immensely in balancing the tech. Be sure to test their combat effectiveness against standard ships.

3) Mammoth engines are very nice and useful for Human players, but they will FUBAR any and all AI designs. If you intended to make this a humans-only mod, ignore this.

4) You do not need to place any artificial restrictions on the number of engines. If a player accidentally goes over the 255 limit, SE4 will RCE, but will continue running. The player can remove the offending engine and continue play normally.

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Err, no. I'll check on that. However, PD also acts as mne sweeping; thats a relic from the early days of SEIV when the AS never would put minesweeping components on ships.

Thanks for the headsup.

Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Here is the current summary of changes for Derek's Mod Gold v 1.02

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Thats enough for today; some more changes tomorrow, and some more AI tweaking, and v 1.1 should be released during the weekend.

Derek

[ 10 May 2002, 07:09: Message edited by: Derek ]

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

So this is an update already? Wow, where do we download?

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

whoops, sorry, should have finished the paragraph.
This weekened sounds good.

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Crew quarters already have a built in FOUR points of boarding defense. That is the equivalent of 16 troopers/turrets in the descriptions. Even though it doesen't show up as an ability in the text file, it IS there, hardcoded.

They don't need an extra explicit ability.

However, Psychic races should probably get thier own copy of the crew quarters with added defense points.

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I did not know that. I'll have to do some thinking, then, especcially in rgards to Psychic races.

Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

I've got this idea that I think would be cool, I've been working on modifying the Data files from Devnull to allow you to capture a space monster and then "disect" it to get a new tech area which will allow you to "Grow" space monsters. My idea is it will give you basicly the same components, just a little bit weaker or larger and way more expensive.

I was also had the idea of adding a space monster that has no weapons but instead cargo holds ala farscape. Probably creating a creature that could carry 5-8 pops, thus making a wonderful prize. Though I don't know how the AI would handle this.

Great work, I love this mod!

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

"Probably creating a creature that could carry 5-8 pops, thus making a wonderful prize."

Wonderful prize indeed.. that thing could carry an absoultely hidious amount of troops, fighters, mines, whatever.

Phoenix-D

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Oh yeah, and with their regen abilities they would make some monster troop landers!

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

Derek, please consider putting in some of component mods that are in devnull, such as heavy, massive, dreadnought, ER range mounts.

Question, could I swap the component.txt file in devnull with your component.txt? I love everything else.

Thanks again!

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Do you mean the compenhancement.txt, which is the one that contains the mount information? If so, I have no problems with that. If you mean the actual components file, you are also more than welcome to do so, but you should know that I started with the basic devnull component.txt and added things to it. I changed some things in devnull (most notably, I increased the missile weights from 25kT to 40kT) but I did not take anything out of devnull components.txt, but rather added more to it.

Regardless, you are welcome to do whatever you want with it, as long as you have fun!

Derek

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Man, that's what I love about this forum - everyone is pretty willing to share their ideas for the betterment of the game experience. I did some modding stuff on Age of Kings, and some of those people were downright posessive (and some just lived to crap on other people's work http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif ). While some of the work was great, I just shook my head at the protectionism and insults.

It's nice to be in a modding community where there's a significant level of respect and cooperation. (I think it shows in the quality of the mods too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Re: Proportions + Devnull + special ingredients = Derek\'s Mod Gold
 

And that is why this game is one of the best in the 4x league. Cause everybody wants to have a piece of it.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Free Modding Economy.