Looking for help with mod ideas
 

I would like to create a component that allows a ship to have greater max speed than normal. Does anybody know if this is a possibility? I tried searching the modding guide but did not find anything that seemed to fit.

For example, a stock human destroyer has a max top speed of 1000, but a cruiser only 800. I'd like to create a new component (which would be very expensive of course) that maybe at level 10 would allow that cruiser to get up to 900 instead of only 800.

Similarly, I'd like to be able to add tonnage to a ship via a component as well... maybe a cruiser could carry an extra 100 tons of equipment by having a certain component. Anybody know if this is possible?

I appologize if this question has already been asked an answered, I did try to search but didn't find what I was looking for. If I just missed it I'd appreciate it if you'd point me in the right direction...

RH

Re: Looking for help with mod ideas
 

I'm pretty sure that the extra tonnage via components isn't possible. The only way to change that is to change the tonnage values in the Main_PurchaseShipPlayer.txt or Main_StartingPlayerShips.txt.

Re: Looking for help with mod ideas
 

Extra speed won't work, but you can add extra tonnage with components by using the effect Hull Amount.

Re: Looking for help with mod ideas
 

Phooey. Extra speed was what I wanted most. Maybe I'll try experimenting a bit...

See what I really wanted was to make the fazrah and amonkrie have really fast ships, but with special (and expensive, of course) components you could equip your ship to keep up... I already know how to make faster engines, and have even created the component image for them... but I want to make the ship itself capable of faster speeds.

Are you guys sure it can't be done or have you just never found a way to do it?

RH

Re: Looking for help with mod ideas
 

Well you can go to the Main_PurchaseShipPlayer.txt or if you want to increase the speed of the enemies, Main_PurchaseShipEnemy.txt and change the Maximum speed settings from there.

Re: Looking for help with mod ideas
 

It can't be done -with a component-.

What you CAN do is add a non-engine component that adds to max speed, then boost the max attainable speed in PurchaseShips.

Your engines will still only get you up to whatever their highest value is, but the extra component will push you up beyond that. Just make sure the engines can't hit the max speed on their own..

Re: Looking for help with mod ideas
 

Hmm... OK well guess I'll probably have to abandon that idea. Unless I can find a way to make certain engines not equipable on large ships (say battleships and up)... which probably means another target type, leading right into my next question, which is...

I want to add a new Target Type of BioShip. This will be the type used by the Amonkrie ships, and only certain equipment can be used on these ships (and any equipment they drop won't be usable on your ships).

The modding guide says that the target types allows are Ship Fighter Base and Satellite. Is that something where the game will reject a value outside of those four? Or is it just the only ones it expects and it won't know what to do with something else? I realize some extremely heavy modding would be needed to make sure weapons can target the Amonkrie ships and all that, but I would really like to do this if it's possible. I think it would add a lot of flavor to the game that is currently missing.

And if sucessful then "CapitalShip" for Battleship+ would be next, and I'd create a Dreadnaught and SuperDreadnaught class eventually (I hope)... and I plan to make BattleCruiser a purchasable ship as well. I do like to dream big, if you'll pardon the excessively bad pun.

What do you guys think?

RH

Re: Looking for help with mod ideas
 

Hmm.. I just realized that custom component SLOTS are specifically mentioned as allowed in the mod guide. Maybe I should work with those instead.

Comments? Advise? Naysayers?

RH

Re: Looking for help with mod ideas
 

There are other target types you can use- Planet, Star, Mine, etc- but as far as I can tell you can't make new ones.

Limiting components by slot is a good way to limit them to specific ships, though.

Re: Looking for help with mod ideas
 

Custom slots are good. Especially if you're using a component that each race has different versions but you want to limit their number in a ship. If you just put "Only 1 component allowed per ship" restriction you can still have 1 from every race. So you need a custom slot to do that. I made one for TPM sometime ago.
http://koti.mbnet.fi/sfhaven/aarchiv...pucomptype.jpg