Honor Harrington Mod Discussion

[Phoenix-D]

All right, I'm going to take this one on, ideally to be combined into the SF Crossover. GOLD only however, as it needs elements of the next gold patch, namely the mount changes.

Now, I can do the data files. I can do passable AIs. What I probably can't do is race styles, and I *certainly* can't do race portraits!

Also, if anyone has any input I've love to hear it. I have all the books, and will be using them as referenes (esp. the tech bible section at the end of some!) but any ideas/opinions on exactly how to impliment would be great.

Thus far, concept stage:
-I'll be sticking true to the sizes. In other words, send a BB against a DN, expect the DN to die. Send FOUR BCs against a DN, expect the BCs to die. Quickly. Balanced by the fact that capital ships are much, much harder to build.

-Most missiles will be drones with short ranged one-shot weapons or ramming warheads. Ghost Rider missiles will have *one* strategic movement point, simulating their longer range. All drones with have a very small supply storage; use em or loose em.

-LACs replace fighters. This means LACs can't fire laser-head missiles. Ideas on how to get around this?

-Mounts will be useable on ANY ship- but ideally the larger mounts will have drawbacks that make them prefered in capital ships (large supply usage)

-supply system: reactors will simply be supply storage. This is a reactor+it's fuel supply, so it's assumed that if the reactor goes so does the fuel. Energy weapons and engines will use quite a bit of supply, so the player will have to be careful about budgeting it. Nothing else will store supply, so the ships will always need at least one reactor.

-Propulsion system: right now it looks like this: There are two Impeller Rings, Alpha and Beta. These give standard movement points and are limited to one per ship. The mount system will be used to vary the power levels and restrict access to various nodes (you can't put a SD node in a DD, the thing would tear itself to bits).

-the wedge: I'm out of ideas here..SE4 doesn't seem to allow this. May just have to give the nodes a certain amount of shield generation or ECM.

Inertial Compensators will probably give extra combat movement points. No sails, since there is no hyper in SE4. Alternatively they may be WP openers/closers, but I don't care for this one.

Phoenix-D

[Marvin Kosh]

Well, um, you could get the feel of hyperspace by distributing an edited map with a number of nebulae sectors which render shields useless.

Also, might be nice to stick in the grav lance and the energy torps as in 'The Short Victorious War' (or was it one of the other ones?) So you have a massive shield depleter or something that takes hideous amounts of time to reload, and then torps that do a lot of damage but only to unshielded targets. And make sure everyone has shield tech so they can't complain

It would be really cool if you could replicate the effects of the nodes in combat, because in tactical combat at least you would then have to really manoeuvre for ideal firing position. But there aren't any shield arcs in the game

I would suggest that you mark out the speed difference between the classes for combat, because while the bigger ships survive by sticking to a wall formation and drenching the opposition in missiles, the smaller ships depend on their manoeuverability to survive. Maybe gently nudge their defensive bonus?

I like the idea of the mount system for the propulsion system.... you can buy more speed but it'll cost you space and bucks But you might want to give them a heck of a damage resistance because otherwise it will be real easy to cripple ships.

One other thing I like the idea of is adding a Damage Control Parties component to the ship. Sort of a scaled-down Version of a Repair Bay.

That's all the idea I have at the moment....

[EDIT] spelling

[ June 19, 2002, 03:16: Message edited by: Marvin Kosh ]

[Phoenix-D]

The hyperspace map thing is too limited, really, and still doesn't quite fit.

There is no "can't hurt shields" damage type in SE4. So the energy torps (from On Basilk Station BTW) would have to be toned down in power.

I suppose I could make all weapons EXCEPT the torps do 4x to shields, then have the torps skip armor..

re: the nodes: I'm probably going to make them provide high amounts of ECM, simulating the fact that you can't hit a third of the ship. And after all, in the HH universe if you lose the wedge in combat.. you're screwed. Loosing a lot of ECM would hurt pretty badly too.

The smaller ships do tend to manuver more, probably because the *can* manuver more, where the others tend to close in for massed PD fire. So the smaller ships will have higher inherent ECM, and the larger ships will want to use the Wall formation (or varients) for the extra missile defense.

The nodes will be pretty big; I'm representing the entire system in two parts, so those parts will be bulky. Engine destroyers don't really fit HH tech anyway, so they'll probably be out.

Phoenix-D

[ June 19, 2002, 03:22: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[RWittman]

First of all, great news that you are taking on this diffcult task. I can't wait to try it out. I would be glad to help, but I have no SE4 mod experince. I could beta test or anything else to help. I love the books and have read it twice through. One question, I thought a DN was bigger then a BB (only the Peep's used BB, and they were for system garrision. Only massed for space combat as an idea to give the Peep's some fodder.) But in your example you said DN vs BB, DN dies ?

[Dead Meat]

-LACs replace fighters. This means LACs can't fire laser-head missiles. Ideas on how to get around this?

I don't think that you would be able to get around this with missles being drones, sense units can't launch stuff (though i could be wrong). What you might have to do instead is just have a normal missle for fighters (rocket pods), lower the amount of damage and lower the to hit % so ships could still doge. Remember that LACs wheren't realy use effectivly till the Manties came up with the fore and aft side walls and the LAC carrier. Not to mention the stealth techology so they could get in close to be effective. Till then, they where mostly Last ditch, system defence ships.

I like the Missle = Drones idea. Don't forget that each ship class has a diffrent size missle (not to mention how much ammo they hold) which relates to the damage the missles do. Example would be that a DDs missle is way smaller than a DNs. But where a DN would laugh if a DDs missle hit it, the DD would more or less just disapair if hit by a DNs cap missle. I know one of the books (hard cover?) shows the relations of ship to each other and the size relation of missle for the diffrent ship sizes.

In other words, send a BB against a DN, expect the DN to die. Send FOUR BCs against a DN, expect the BCs to die. Quickly. Balanced by the fact that capital ships are much, much harder to build.

RWittman, right. the BB would lose to a DN. BBs are smaller than DN, but bigger than BCs. You are right about the 4 BC vs a DN. I love that account where Edward Pierre and his 2 BC division got wiped out by that lone DN (see: The Short Victorious War).

[Phoenix-D]

"But in your example you said DN vs BB, DN dies ? "

Uh.. TYPO! Yeah, you're correct.

"Remember that LACs wheren't realy use effectivly till the Manties came up with the fore and aft side walls and the LAC carrier. Not to mention the stealth techology so they could get in close to be effective. Till then, they where mostly Last ditch, system defence ships."

Right, but it's those LACs that relied more on the missile launchers. Eggshells with sledgehammers.

"I know one of the books (hard cover?) shows the relations of ship to each other and the size relation of missle for the diffrent ship sizes."

Got it, using it. They'll be different sized drones, with different sized warheads, ECM mounts, armor/shield (probably shield) etc. Nothing will stop a DD from using a SD's missiles, but it won't be able to carry many of them.

"I love that account where Edward Pierre and his 2 BC division got wiped out by that lone DN (see: The Short Victorious War)."

In one salvo no less..oopsie on their part.