[pathfinder]

Originally posted by Sukerkin:
Hi again Pathfinder

I'm now reaching the closing stages of my first B5 game - it's been a long haul but generally speaking very entertaining.

Fathoming out the tech's has been a game in itself as I deliberately didn't read through the data files in detail to find out what research lead to which devices; that meant that I went up a few blind alleys before the scientist types sheepishly owned up that they'd wasted all the funding I gave them :!

A few oddities have shown themselves as the games progressed and I have a couple of more general Queries too:

1) Anti-Matter engines and reactors didn't show up in the 'available kit' list when designing ships until I developed the engines up to Prototype V - then they suddenly popped into existence. The technologies would be reported as discovered in the 'start of turn' news but they were nowhere to be found - curious.

Methinks this is because there are some components (weapons, engines, et al) that start at say lvl 3 or 4 or somefink. not sure why, but I have not bothered to change that (big headache to reverse-eingineer so to speak).

2) Multi-warhead missiles don't seem to be able to target seekers - I wonder if this is because they're not actually Point Defence weapons?

I'll have to check the description, so I'll have to get abck with you on this one.

3) Only Jump Drive I seems to be available, no matter how many tech levels you develop in it - is this a deliberate restriction or simply that the other stages aren't in the Components file yet?

Yeah, only 1 level developed so far...

4) There are no pictures for War-Stations, which gave SE4 a headache when I tried to build one . I transplanted a suitable pic and all was fine again but it would be nice if a race specific image was available (I don't have the artistic skill to do this for myself !).

Yeah, me slowly adding something resembling them. me thinks warstaion should be warbase or vice versa...

5) Despite there being a tech tree for them, there aren't any Advanced Matter Weapons - this was one of the 'blind alleys' I spoke about earlier .

Yeah, another tech tree unfinished (or maybe not going to be there...not sure).

6) I can understand the reasoning behind Ionic Weapons giving a negative bonus to ships with crews but I'm not sure that it makes sense for them also to give a minus when fitted to satellites (tho' I suppose it's possible to argue that as the satellite is so small the radiation has a negative impact on it's electronics).

Me head is hurtin' now dunno, most of the wepon stuff was before my start doing the AI...

7) The "One Space Yard per planet" restriction works fine in the un-modded game but it was an unpleasant surprise in the B5 mod to find out that once I'd built a Space Yard III on an outpost I couldn't then construct an Advanced Military base (which had been the whole point of founding the colony). It might be an idea to put a little warning message on the Space Yard to let players know in advance that this restriction is in effect.

If I remember I'll add some kinda warning in the description. When I can get to it that is...

As before, don't take these minor niggles as nagging criticism - it's a great mod you chaps have developed with a lot of interesting ideas that take the game in whole new directions. I hope you take my comments in the spirit they're intended i.e. a form of play-testing report.

no biggy, I didn't start out doing the AI but was just testing the MOD but when no one came forward to help Val Last summer...I did some race sets, then some basic AI, then....

One Last question ... I understand the concept of 'leaky armour' inherent in the mod and think it's another one of those good ideas the mod's stacked full of ... but ... isn't it a bit too leaky ? I was going up against Destroyers (with fairly puny particle weapons) in Battle Cruisers with maxed out Refractive Armor and was getting big holes shot in my ships!

Only leaky I understand is when I drink too much beer

I guess I was just surprised that the armour was so ineffective and surmise that I must have been doing something wrong on the design front. I was mixing up the various flavours (i.e. Primary, Alternate and Addtional) as well as including ten or twenty units of Structural Supports - does that have a negative impact on the efficiency of the protection? Or did I have unrealstic expectations of how much protection the amounts I fitted (five or six 'slabs') would afford me?

Dunno, my fleets are always prepared to die since I stink at strategy (and ship design)....

Any clues from the designers as to how to properly construct the 'armour belt' for ships will be gratefully received .

Yeah, I know, hard to read my answers in the middle of the quote...so sue me

[ June 17, 2003, 23:26: Message edited by: pathfinder ]