My 2 pence of modding food
 

or
Stuff i would really like to do in Space Empires

just Brainstorming here ..

Better control in the Real Time Combat.

Colonies in Asteroid fields ( maybe different buildings )

Sectorized Ring and Sphere Worlds, because there are so huge. ( Ideas I got from the 21st century mod )

Bigger enemy fleets http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Stronger special technologies
some kind of StarCraft feeling, that choosing one changes the tech tree radically, while other special trees like Time become High-End technologie.

I like Zerg.

The biggest Ship should be a carrier rather than a fighting ship
and stellar construction components shouldn't fit on baseships .. there is no gain in building a sphere world in less then four rounds ..

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there will be more ..

Re: My 2 pence of modding food
 

If I can ever get the system generation working right the SFTC already has asteroid colonies.

Bigger fleets would be part AI but mostly the economics. Once again the SFTC has overly simplified economics. Economy should never be a factor, it is the build time of ships that keeps fleets down and makes ships valuable. If you want big fleets you will have to decrease build times which devalues individual ships. There are other problems with having massive fleets as well.

Special techs are simple enough and will come along as more mods are produced. SE4 has some great mods for special techs such as the AST. The species and tech line you pick changes everything you start with and can develop later. I am not sure if that is still possible in SE5 but I don't see why not.

As for the biggest ship I think it should be combat ships. As for the biggest surface area ship I would think carriers; clearly carriers, long and flat with bays running the full length on both sides. That is based on the mental image of carriers having bays leading directly into space. In most genres; BSG for example, that is not really the case. Yes the fighters launch directly into space; however, they are recovered at one point (one each side of the ship) and when another set of fighters needs to be launched they move them into the tubes where the last set launched from. So as I said carriers only because of the mental image I have. Romance, novelty, whatever.

I think I another point that needs changed is this whole kT thing. The scale of that gives me a headache. I was thinking of changing the SFTC units to HS; Hull Spaces. It won't really apply to fighters but since it is more arbitrary than kT it should still work.

Re: My 2 pence of modding food
 

Where can I sign up for your mod ?

I really don´t care about the unit that defines the component size ..

And fleetsize is not that important, i would be happy, if the AI would attack me with something bigger than destroyers

and you caught my thought about shipsize .. thats what I meant with biggest ships .. strong big combat ships, that are still smaller than the hulking, vulnarable fighter carriers .. BSG is a good example .. another thing that I am always thinking about is WingCommander ..

Re: My 2 pence of modding food
 

PES is emerging as one of the many go getters out of the first batch of SE V modders. I would predict that many future modders are going to be looking to him for guidence and help in the (hopefully) years to come. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: My 2 pence of modding food
 

I think you are being too generous At. But thank you for such a potent compliment.

Signing up for my mod is easy, just PM me. If nothing else you can look over the data files and see how I worked the items. There are a number of known problems that you should be aware of first. More of that later, just keep in mind that this is a beta because it is unplayable without patches from Aaron. I am working on a way to get around those problems since I don't see waiting a year just to share this thing. Also keep in mind the planets are not working yet. More precisely the planets work; however, the system generation does not. Ok that's not right either. The system generation does but I can't seem to get the number of planets I want per system. Also there is no AI in the SFTC. I need to make sure the components and other parts work first. AI is very last on the list. Finally this is a TC even though I keep calling it a mod. You may be in for more of a shock than you think. Remember TC = Total Conversion.

I thought of Wing Commander too, but chose BSG because they have double the landing points and thus double the launch tubes. I try to visualize things as I mod them since I intend to learn modeling and create my own ship sets in about a year or so. In other words I want my work to match the picture in my minds eye so the shipsets will compliment what has already been done. All that probably just sounds confusing.