SE V: Unique Abilities And Ideas
 

I was wondering, mainly because I lack indepth knowledge of how SE V works, if the ability "One per Empire" is present?

I cannot over emphesis the importance of having such an ability and would hope that this is an ability that SE V does employ.

I would also like to see the ability "Can Fire While Cloaked." This ability could be used to facilitate a new breed of ship class much like a modern day submarine navy.

I put forth a while back a concept for a subspace fleet, I even went so far as to offer up a model of this concept for use with SJ's CB mod.

Having the ability available to give a ship the power to fire its weapons cloaked would inspire a great degree of creative and imaginitive modding possiblities.

Recently I put a lot of thought into how to make ships of every class unique on to their own.

While I am uncertain as to how many people have actually adopted many of the ideas that I am about to list, I am certain that great minds do think alike that most are already in play.

Each hull size would have specialized abilities such as better armor than any other class, better shields, longer range weapons, faster engines, more manauverablity, greater weapons capacity, better stealth, specialized "only this hull" cloaking, "only this hull" cloaking detection, superior electronic warefare technology, etc.

For example, Cruisers would have better armor than other ships, while destroyers would be faster and cheaper to build. Carriers and Dreadnoughts would be expensive to build, hard to kill, and extremely valuable prizes to either capture or destroy.

While SE V regrettably doesn't seem to not set itself apart fighter wise from SE IV, the concept of modern day fighter superiority in naval and world military doctrine would be especially appealing.

The ability to seperate standard movement from combat movement is vital to the success of any fighter based superiority modding concept. In SE IV, and I am not sure if this is so for SE V, standard movement does give combat movement thus a ship will always have combat movements even if the modder does not desire them or wishes to severely limit them.

Case in point a true Star Wars type mod where larger ships stand off and let their fighters attack. The larger ships can engage each other, as in Episode III and VI, but overall fighters care they bulk of the fighting responsiblities.

Fighters should be very fast compared to capital ship. So in combat they should move away from the capital ships with great speed and determination. Fighters should be by their very nature deadly to larger ships thus fighter on fighter tactics and strategies would be required. Unfortunetly I don't see this being possible in SE V. While I am sure it can be implament in some small degree via clever and adaptive mods, presently in stock it is not so.

The way I have been looking at it is that each hull, regardless of escort or carrier, should possess a unique ability that prompts the player to desire them.

How do current world Navy's determine the value of a ship? What is the value and purpose and unique qualifications of an Escort, a Destroyer, a Carrier, a Battlecruise (Such as the Russan ship Peter The Great)?

If each hull has a defined purpose than having a need for each hull becomes more meaningful.

Re: SE V: Unique Abilities And Ideas
 

Your cloak idea has merit, kind of like in MoO3, where you could find yourself in a space battle and not see the enemy ships.

I do think fighters should have high combat speed, but as for prowess, it should still take many fighters to damage any type of large vehichle. One thing I think would be neat is the possibilty of using fighters for planatary combat.

I've no idea how the mount system technicaly works in SEV, but if it's like SEIV, it would not be hard to create certain specific hull sized components.

I agree with you thtat it would be good to see some sstem of bonuses and minuses used to encourage multiple Hull size use.

Re: SE V: Unique Abilities And Ideas
 

That would be a scope not an ability. As far as I am aware there is not a “One Per Empire” scope. Although depending on the ability you want to use with that scope only one may be effective. Otherwise (scope or ability) the one per, two per, etc restriction is gone like the wind.

Re: SE V: Unique Abilities And Ideas
 

Should of done this in one post, sorry about that AT.

As before this is a scope and the one per, two per, etc restrictions are history. There are other ways to make this sort of restriction depending on what you want.

Nice idea but how would you attack the subs? I don’t see how depth charges could be made.

And headaches, don’t forget the headaches! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

If that’s true why am I here? I’m not great, heck I’m not even sure I have a mind. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

This can be done! Not sure about all of it.

With SE5 you can set the two separately and you don’t even need to make separate abilities, engines or what not. You could set the engines per movement of (for example) small fighter to 1 point per engine then set the movement in combat to 2 points per movement point. In other words your out of combat fighter moves at speed 8 but it can be set to move at speed 16 or more with the change of one line in the vehicle sizes text. I used this to control the speed of my fighters; they need less engines but get faster.

The great speed sure, the great determination? Pilots are pretty fickle, maybe if someone offers to make a beer run for them. I know how dry my humor so why do I insist on torturing everyone here with it? Sigh, the strategies could be set and if the fighter components are right this would certainly work. I think my TC will hit this very close to what you are going for.

Ok that is enough for one post, time to get some cookies!

Re: SE V: Unique Abilities And Ideas
 

The magic line in VehicleSizes.txt is Space Combat Maximum Speed Per Movement Point. In stock ships have a value of 0.001 and fighters have a value of 0.002. Playing with these values could easily give you whatever results you desire.

Another quick note, when working with vehicle speeds the engines per move value does not have to be a whole number, the game will happily use decimal values!

Re: SE V: Unique Abilities And Ideas
 

Electronic Warfare. Destroyers, perhaps even escorts and frigates, would have access to cloak detection technology. YOu can adjust the cloaking to be weak in say passive EM or weak in Gravitic. A weakness that can then be detected with the proper electronic counter measures. (Scanners)

Once a ship "detected" it can be targeted. Have the component that is able to detect a cloaked ship limited to a smaller hull like a destroyer will make destroyers that much more valuable for fleets.

You give only Destroyers a weapon with the abiltiy to fire standard shields while making all other shield generators have phase shielding so that the weapon is useless against them. Or give the Sub superior armor and the Destroy the only armor peircing weapon.

Re: SE V: Unique Abilities And Ideas
 

Speaking of fighters it would be a great assest to be able to set uses. For example, what is the advantage of an interceptor, a dog fighter, a fighter bomber, etc.

Interceptors are fast first strike fighters. Their strength is speed, their weakness is armament.

Dog Fighter, great in combat, but lacks long range.

I believe the US Crusader was one of the last truly inspired dog fighting fighters used by the military until the F-15 and 15 were developed. They were developed because the Phantoms were abysmall dog fighters and Vietnam proved the need to have a good solid dog fighting fighter again.

The F-16 is smaller than the F-15 thus more manuaverable but has a lessor range and less weapons. The F-15 is by far one of the best all purpose fighters ever made in the history of flight, but she is big, consumes a lot of fuel, and requires both a pilot and Rio. Her weakness is her size.

Then we have the F-111 stealth fighter. Can only be used effectively at night or else it can be shot down as was evident in Yugoslov wars. A great fighter BOMBER, but not a true fighter. They call it a fighter bomber because its small.

As to bombers, we have the B2, small fast and effective but limited overall range. Then the big bird the B-52, huge long range and deadly, but an easy target.

I guess what I am trying to say is that we need deversity in the fighter ranks. Not just bigger KT size, but decisive advantages and disadvantages.

Every ship in the game should have its own unique useable and desireable qualifications. Be it a slow moving transport with huge cargo capacity to a small elite dog fighting fighter, each should have its own advantages and disadvantages just like in the real world. Well as much as can be given with the games limitations and restrictions.

When I build a fighter, I want to say this fighter is an interceptor and know that it has its own advantages and disadvantages. Its great long range, its semi powerful, but it lacks armor and has weaker manuaverabilty.

I guess knowing what the advantages and disadvantages to real world fighters are would be a big help. Knowing their types and purposes would also be a huge insight. I mean what is the general purpose of an F-15 compared to that of an F-22? What would an F-16 be used for? (Planet defense)

How would one go about implamenting Bombers? Use small KT ship hulls or make them large fighters? I believe the ability for "Can Warp" is present in the game, so having them as large fighters hulls, but named bombers, would work.

Any thoughts?

Re: SE V: Unique Abilities And Ideas
 

I firmly believe in letting the player's design and strategy determine whether a fighter is a dogfighter, an interceptor or a bomber.

Carrier Battles mod being the prime example of that...
I simply provide Basic fighter hulls, QNP propulsion, and a variety of guns.

If you design the fighter with a small engine, light defenses and a very big gun (or missile launcher), then it is good for anti-ship bombing, but weak vs fighters and useless vs missiles.
If you design the fighter with good speed, light defenses and a large variety of small weapons, then it is great for intercepting missiles, but mediocre at anti-fighter action and completely useless for anti-ship.
If you design the fighter with medium speed, heavy defenses and efficient weapons (as opposed to high damage-per-shot or many small shots) then it becomes great at anti-fighter action, weak vs missiles and weak vs ships.

The player is, of course, free to make a design with compromises between these main types, but since each type has conflicting requirements, the dual-role fighters will be less effective tactically.
(Which isn't to say they can't be effective strategically, due to the fact that having a combo interceptor/dogfighter design means that supply lines are simplified.)

Re: SE V: Unique Abilities And Ideas
 

If I wanted to create dedicated bombers I would adjust the hull size to be slightly different than the other fighters and create a mount with use for certain weapons; the bombs. I would create a range of bombs for different tasks too. Also you can use the Get_Design_Ability_Component_Count("Movement Standard") with an equals as I did so the fighters must have a certain speed and thus number of engines. This is how I managed to make one fighter size yet give it different weapon and component capacity from over 7 generations. I would make the dedicated interceptors small (i.e. 8kt) the duel role medium (i.e. 9kt) and dedicated bombers large (i.e. 10kt). Now if you really must have them all one size than create three vehicle types and then it is as simple as saying this component can work on all three, or just the bomber, etc.

I’m really starting to get hooked on this idea.

Re: SE V: Unique Abilities And Ideas
 

May I inquire as to why you two guys seem to like the idea of iron-fist control over fighter designs?

You could give the player the freedom to do whatever they want, and let the separate fighter roles emerge naturally from the pressures of combat.