[Pax]

Originally posted by Ragnarok:
Would you limit the amount of stuff the player could mod though? I think you should other wise you'll have players modding 10 different hull sizes with 20 different weapons to put on there. While another may mod 12 hull sizes and only 12 weapons.

No limit. Here's the catch: the more you GET form a given level of tehnology, the more it should (logically) COST, right? So, the more benefit you get form each level of technology in your own racial area ... the more it will cost you to get into, and advance, that technology.

And/or, the more LEVELS of that technology there will be ... inherently working in a higher reserch cost.

OTOH, limiting it by numbers of components isn't right; MY five components may only do as much as any TWO of yours, for example.

Also, if I played in something like this, I'd be strongly tempted to adapt something from Exodus -- possibly based on the trait "Doctrine: Advanced Carriers", which is intended to make fighter use viable all the way into thelate game. Between fighters, fighter-components, carrier hulls, FIGHTER-BASE hulls (larger-than-normal bases with the "50% fighter bay" requirement), and so on ... that's a lot of hulls and components.

Let's see, if I were to convert it in all it's uber-goodness, I'd have:

... 5 ship hulls (all carriers, one of them HUGE)

... 4 base hulls (CV bases, one of them TRULY gigantic)

... a total of 7 fighter hulls (ranging from 5kT to 50kT in size)

... 19 assorted fighter-launch components

... incredibly numerous, even countless fighter non-weapon components (some 15 just for Control use)

So obviously, it wouldn't be a SMALL racial tech area in terms of what you get, even if I watered it down heavily (almost inevitable to bring it into line with stock SE4, in terms of technology-dependant gians). Most of it would rely on, say, an "Advanced Fighters" field combined with various other fields. But no one component would be as godawful nice as, oh, the Talisman.

Hence needing a third-party Arbiter, an experienced mod writer, playtester, and/or just general "SE4 SuperGuru", to go over all the submissions, balance them, and combine them all into one new collective mod.

[ January 08, 2003, 05:29: Message edited by: Pax ]