Star Control Mod

Ed Kolis · #1 July 23rd, 2005, 08:16 PM

Anyone interested in helping me make a Star Control mod for SE4? I've already got the vehicle sizes file made (see attachment)... I decided to put in the hulls of every race from SC2 (except Precursors and Chmmr), some generic hulls (colony ship, starbase, etc.), and an extra hull for each race as I saw fit their personality. One thing I'm worried about is the ships' speeds though - I'd intended to have each basic low-tech engine give 5 thrust points, with high-tech engines going up to 12, so a ship with a 100% "speed rating" (what I decided to call max engines divided by engines per move) could move at up to speed 5 with basic engines. A ship with the minimum 20% would move at speed 1 with basic engines and a ship with the maximum 200% would move at speed 24 with max tech engines, completely filling out the range of allowable SE4 ship speeds. Is this completely ridiculous in terms of game balance, given that each race has its own limited set of hulls and some races' hulls are just plain faster than others? (Of course the races with faster ships will tend to have something or another to balance them out...) Keep in mind that I'm pretty sure that every race at least has a ship with 60% or higher speed, so the discrepancy isn't as bad as it seems... but still, one race with ships 3 times as fast as another is something I'm not sure about...

narf poit chez BOOM · #2 July 23rd, 2005, 08:37 PM

The Star Control ships were all unbalanced. Just balance the costs.

Ed Kolis · #3 July 25th, 2005, 05:20 PM

I thought of a way to balance fast ships... make engines use lots of supplies like in Eclipse Mod - that way, they might be fast, but they won't go far!

(The bigger ships usually tend to be slower so they'll have more room for extra supply bays.)

Sivran · #4 July 26th, 2005, 12:02 AM

I <3 Star Control.

That said the Star Control ships were also balanced for "tactical" combat. Even the happy-go-lucky Pkunk would wail in pain at seeing how the SE4 AI would handle their swift, thin-skinned, yet deadly ships in strategic combat.

Ed Kolis · #5 July 26th, 2005, 12:39 AM

Hehehe...

It isn't possible to set an AI's default strategies for its designs in the design creation file, is it? I never got into AI modding...

narf poit chez BOOM · #6 July 26th, 2005, 01:34 AM

Really? I could never manage to kill anything with the human ships.

The missile were slow, didn't shoot very fast, the PDS was also slow, the ship was slow...Everything it had, at least one other ship had better.

Fyron · #7 July 26th, 2005, 01:34 AM

E. Coli, take a gander at Default_AI_DesignCreation.txt. It is the 4th row of each design type.

douglas · #8 July 26th, 2005, 02:19 AM

Quote:

narf poit chez BOOM said:
Really? I could never manage to kill anything with the human ships.

The missile were slow, didn't shoot very fast, the PDS was also slow, the ship was slow...Everything it had, at least one other ship had better.

I don't think anything could match the earth cruiser for long range guided weaponry. It was my tool of choice for taking on Druuge ships, and could slaughter Vux by the score.

Now for something really hopeless, try the Shofixti Scout. Almost completely useless except for its self destruct, which *might* take your enemy with you if you're lucky and the other guy lets you get close enough to use it. The only redeeming aspect of that ship is its cost, which matters very little when you have an easy to reach cap on the number of ships you can have.

narf poit chez BOOM · #9 July 26th, 2005, 02:22 AM

Vux? Those the ones with cloaking? Those were the hardest. Whatever I threw at them, they would fry with that flame-thrower.

douglas · #10 July 26th, 2005, 02:27 AM

No, the cloakers are the Ilwrath. The Vux are the slow guys with really powerful short range lasers and limpets that slow down the enemy if you can actually manage to get them on.

Earth cruisers absolutely suck against Ilwrath because their missiles don't seek when the enemy is cloaked. The Pkunk AI does an awsome job of using their ship's maneuverability to stay just out of range and peck away, but I could never duplicate that feat myself. My preference was usually Orz with the cannon rotated to the rear or my main ship. Against the AI, I could also use Spathi quite well, staying close enough that the AI tries to shoot so my rear guns can use their guidance systems, but too far to actually get hit.