MyMod
 

Okay I'm finally getting to work on my first mod. One of the many things I have been thinking about is a change to the combat system (which mod doesn't do that?). I'm planning to reduce the PDC range to 1 and add a new PD missile with a range of maybe 6 or so. And here comes the interesting part: I'm going to add a new "decoy dispenser" for the fighters which is effectively a fighter-mount range 1 PDC.

My questions are:
1. Does the concept sound interesting to anyone other than myself?
2. Can I change the animation and possibly the sound effect too?
3. Do you see any technical difficulties that I missed?
4. What if I reduce the PDC range to zero? It will surely makes the decoy dispenser much more convincing if it works.

Re: MyMod
 

PD missiles don't travel forwards immediately. The time-to-target might make them useless. A longer range is probably a must (at least 2x the speed of the incoming missiles)

PD missiles also have the problem that they all fire on the same target:
-Launch PD missile!
-Target is still there: fire again!
- Again! Again!
- next turn: One missile hits the target, the others are wasted.

I think PD missiles must be limited to one (or few) per ship, and used as a support weapon. If the number of seekers in combat were kept low, in exchange for super-powerful warheads, then a few high-damage PD seekers would be useful for protection against missiles. PD missiles are useful against large fighter Groups or sattelite clusters, but only when the PD missiles are launched in small numbers, with the next wave waiting for the first wave to hit.

PD range of zero would never fire. All your damage numbers would have to be zero!

The animation is easy to change, and the sound effect is simply a .WAV file, specified in the weapon.
I reccommend using the imagemod combat pack. One of the fireballs could be used for a flare decoy, or the autocannon type sparkly specks could be used for a chaff decoy.

[ June 09, 2002, 16:42: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Re: MyMod
 

Thanks for the quick reply SJ.

Next question: I've noticed that for example, the Torp.bmp has a size of 4x10 containing a total of 40 images. Can I add another row (or column?) if I go over that number? How are the images indexed? From left to right THEN top to bottom I suppose?

Re: MyMod
 

You can add more rows to all of the bitmaps that contain numerous images in them, except for "Racename_Main.bmp" and the game will be able to use them. If you add more columns, the game will ignore them. You could put header info (such as the number of the Last picture in the row to help keep track) in a new column, and the game woudl complain about it.

Re: MyMod
 

Yep. Check out the imagemod for a good example of that.

You can grab a lot of torps & beams at once from the combatpack, and its only 50kb.

If you create any new images, I would be happy to add them.