Highliner Mod - 1.04b - PBW Observations & Patch

[Loser]

This sounds like a very creative and ambitious Mod. I look forward to seeing a playable Version of it.

Some interesting limitations, though, in addition to the Cargo and Colonizer ones you have already discovered.

Since Riders are Units they cannot be captured, and cannot use Stellar Manipluation components.

Though I cannot recall the specifics I think there were also certian kinds of Armor that didn't work right for Units, Phased Shields either.

Only Highliners will be able to use Ship Yards, though I think Units can make use of Repair Bays.

Riders will not get repaired. They're either fine or they're gone. For this reason you might want to make them cheaper then their conventional Ship counterparts.

Units do not gain experience, do they?

Also, as Units, I believe your Riders are not going to charge maintainance. Can this be modded?

Can Units cloak?

Can Units sweep Mines?

Can conventional Fighters launch Seekers?

Also some powerfull bonuses.

You can make weapons, huge weapons, that can only shoot Highliners.

Mobile remote mining without maintainance will be a great boon to the dynamics of a Finite game.

Whole fleets (which cannot exactly be fleeted) can be hidden on planets or in Space Stations. Or would you use Satilites as your Space Stations and leave the whole Base hull class out of the game?

One ECM, Sensor, or Relic will benifit a whole Rider stack. These would be Components with fleet-wide benifits on special E-War ships, I suppose. Perhaps you should increase their size so they take up the whole ship.

All-in-all this sounds like it's going to be a great mod. Unique, challenging, a completely different game.

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Loser:
This sounds like a very creative and ambitious Mod. I look forward to seeing a playable Version of it.

Some interesting limitations, though, in addition to the Cargo and Colonizer ones you have already discovered.

Since Riders are Units they cannot be captured, and cannot use Stellar Manipluation components.

True, but given the "scale" of the Mod both of these make sense. One of my personal pet peeves with the SEIV basic tech tree is how *easy* it is to build and transport a component that has the power to create or destroy massive stellar phenomena (stars, nebuae, black holes, etc)! Well, in this Mod, you're gonna need even the larger Highliners before you can do that sort of nonsense.

As for boarding - well, I hope that units can carry the boarding party component (I'm working on the assuption they can), so they can be used for boarding attacks on Highliners. But who ever heard of boarding party attacks on boarding party pods? Again, it sort of fits the scale I had in mind.

Though I cannot recall the specifics I think there were also certian kinds of Armor that didn't work right for Units, Phased Shields either.

Great. More good news. Well, I'll find out when I alpha-run it at home before release, if not before.

Only Highliners will be able to use Ship Yards, though I think Units can make use of Repair Bays.

Again, this fits into the intended "scale" of the Mod, so no worries.

Riders will not get repaired. They're either fine or they're gone. For this reason you might want to make them cheaper then their conventional Ship counterparts.

A good point, I'll see how my test runs go and tweak the costs if necessary.

Units do not gain experience, do they?

I don't think so IIRC. I also think that fighters get their mother ship's bonuses, right? (Another reason to make Highliners expensive and valuable.)

Also, as Units, I believe your Riders are not going to charge maintainance. Can this be modded?

I'm interested to see how this works. They probably can't be made to use maintenance, but I'll just make the Highliners' maintenance more expensive.

Can Units cloak?
Can Units sweep Mines?
Can conventional Fighters launch Seekers?

I think so. We're gonna find out.

You can make weapons, huge weapons, that can only shoot Highliners.

Yeah, but you've still got to work within the "50% of space used for docking bays and/or cargo" rule. So you've gotta trade off somewhere. If I see one of your highliners coming at me at a snail's crawl, I'm gonna know you're packing something.

Mobile remote mining without maintainance will be a great boon to the dynamics of a Finite game.

Again, one of my pet peeves I've been dying to set right. What's the point of having a remote mining ship that costs more to maintain than what it brings in?

Whole fleets (which cannot exactly be fleeted) can be hidden on planets or in Space Stations. Or would you use Satilites as your Space Stations and leave the whole Base hull class out of the game?

No, Satellites and Bases remain. I gave Satellites a defensive bonus because the re-scaling made them targetable by more weapon types than in the basic game. As for whole fleets of Riders based on planets... Yes, planetary assault and defense are going to take on a whole new dimension in this Mod.

One ECM, Sensor, or Relic will benifit a whole Rider stack. These would be Components with fleet-wide benifits on special E-War ships, I suppose. Perhaps you should increase their size so they take up the whole ship.

Don't get your hopes set too high. I reduced the stacking limit for Units to make this less nuclear.

All-in-all this sounds like it's going to be a great mod. Unique, challenging, a completely different game.

I hope so. I plan to finish the AI tweaks this weekend, and then do some test runs just to see that the basic parameters will work. If so, then I will go with the 1.01 release sometime next week. How the AI handles all this will probably be the biggest hurdle to deal with after that.

[Loser]

Originally posted by General Woundwort:
As for boarding - well, I hope that units can carry the boarding party component (I'm working on the assuption they can), so they can be used for boarding attacks on Highliners. But who ever heard of boarding party attacks on boarding party pods? Again, it sort of fits the scale I had in mind.

I don't believe Units can use the Boarding Party Component. And I don't know if the Allegiance Converter works on them, either.

Also, if I recall correctly, nothing will Ram a conventional Fighter in Strategic Combat. I could be wrong on that, but I'm pretty conventional Ships will not Ram conventional Fighters. I don't think conventional Fighters will Ram other conventional Fighters either.

In addition to seeing this mod in action, I look forward to hearing your report or what did, and did not, work for Units. A boundary-pushing mod like this is likely to pin down a whole lot of SE IV mod limitations. Even if these limitations have be discovered before, you'd have them all right here, in one place. Please let us know what you are unable to use on your over-sized Units.

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Loser:
I don't believe Units can use the Boarding Party Component.

I'm going to do some combat simulator tests right out of the starting gate to confirm this one way or the other.

And I don't know if the Allegiance Converter works on them, either.

Another combat test to perform.

Also, if I recall correctly, nothing will Ram a conventional Fighter in Strategic Combat. I could be wrong on that, but I'm pretty conventional Ships will not Ram conventional Fighters. I don't think conventional Fighters will Ram other conventional Fighters either.

That's probably true. And in the case of my mod, even more so - how the heck can a 5000kton Highliner ram a 100kton Rider that doesn't want to be rammed? You might as well try to ram my dad's fishing boat with the USS Wisconsin. Now, Suicide Riders ramming Highliners and Planets... well, I think (and hope) you're going to be seeing a *lot* of that. (BTW, no Drones in this Mod. Suicide Riders totally take over that niche.)

In addition to seeing this mod in action, I look forward to hearing your report or what did, and did not, work for Units. A boundary-pushing mod like this is likely to pin down a whole lot of SE IV mod limitations.

Well, it's certainly been an education for me...

Even if these limitations have be discovered before, you'd have them all right here, in one place. Please let us know what you are unable to use on your over-sized Units.

Whatever the results are will get posted here on this thread.

[cybersol]

I hope you wade your way through all the limitations because this mod is a great idea. I too really loved the whole idea of the massive jumpships hold a dozen or so dropships in the battletech universe.

It would be really cool if you could make a component that would need to be charged before you could use a warp point. If you gave it a 10 turn recharge rate, then you could really simulate the battletech jump ships. "Um, ok we are here, but the enemy has overwhelming force. We need to leave but we have to wait a year? Were are dead meat." Simulating the realistic dropship movement of constant acceleration followed by constant deceleration would be harder.

[Fyron]

And I don't know if the Allegiance Converter works on them, either.

Allegience Subverters will work on units if you change the targeting type to be able to target units.

I also think that fighters get their mother ship's bonuses, right? (Another reason to make Highliners expensive and valuable.)

They do not gain the carrier's bonuses.

Again, one of my pet peeves I've been dying to set right. What's the point of having a remote mining ship that costs more to maintain than what it brings in?

Not all planets and asteroids have things of value to mine.

Don't get your hopes set too high. I reduced the stacking limit for Units to make this less nuclear.

How exactly did you go about this? You can launch everything in cargo at once from a planet, so you can easily get 1000 fighter/drone stacks.

Can Units cloak?
Can Units sweep Mines?
Can conventional Fighters launch Seekers?

Yes, but ISTR some issues with cloaking units, though I do not recall the specifics. Maybe. Yes.

quote:
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Originally posted by Loser:
I don't believe Units can use the Boarding Party Component.
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I'm going to do some combat simulator tests right out of the starting gate to confirm this one way or the other.

Units can not participate in any boarding activities, period. Only ships and bases can do so.

[ June 13, 2003, 21:27: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Allegience Subverters will work on units if you change the targeting type to be able to target units.

Already did that.

Not all planets and asteroids have things of value to mine.

Granting that, I still found that mining even the richest asteroid fields with a remote-miner equipped Freighter was not worth the effort. Besides, I like the idea of cheap exploitation of resources.

How exactly did you go about this? You can launch everything in cargo at once from a planet, so you can easily get 1000 fighter/drone stacks.

Isn't that what the "Combat Fighter Group Amount" lines in the Settings and Strageiges files does?

Yes, but ISTR some issues with cloaking units, though I do not recall the specifics. Maybe. Yes.

We finds out, yes we does, my preciousssss...

Units can not participate in any boarding activities, period. Only ships and bases can do so.

Well, I'm going to put in a really big post in the SEV request forum after this is done, I can tell you...

[Phoenix-D]

Units can cloak. The problem, as of the Last time I tested it, is they STAY cloaked, and won't uncloak.

[General Woundwort]

Weeeellll, shoot! Just going over the thread from front to back , here's everything that won't work in units...

Colony Components - This is a pain, but an increase in the components' size requirements and staying with Highliners fits in the Mod's general theme anyways, so no big deal.

Cargo - A major pain. No troop transport Riders, no Mine/Satellite/etc Layers, etc.; but given the logical [program-code wise] problems of a unit 'in cargo' carrying cargo, understandable.

Boarding Party Component - This sucks big time. And given the consistent idea of Boarding Pods in SciFi - the ones in B5 come to mind immediately - almost inconceivable. This goes to the SEV Request thread at once.

Well, as a great Air Force pilot has said, we haven't come this far to just drop this thing in the drink! So, the (albeit imperfect) interim solution I have in mind is this - a "workhorse" Highliner that has the docking bay requirement dropped to 25%. It will only come in the smallest size (1000ktons) and be intended for the sorts of things I wanted specialized Riders to do, but am barred from doing so by the program code.

So drop the percentages for the data files back a few points while I rework these latest glitches, and keep your fingers crossed...

EDIT - and now Phoenix comes with the bad news that cloaking is buggy too.
Well, in that case, I may just totally drop that tech line and simply beef up the ECM/ECCM limb of the tech tree.

[ June 14, 2003, 02:21: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]

[General Woundwort]

(climbs back out of the datafile salt mines, wipes brow)

OK, here's how it stands.

Cargo, cloak, boarding parties, and colony tech have been ruled "right out" for units. So, here is what I have my Riders ("fighters") able to carry at this moment...

- Scanner Jammer (in armor)
- Medical Bays
- Mine Sweepers
- Remote Miners
- Armor, Shields, & Weapons of all sorts not Banned above
- ECM
- ECCM
- Ship Control
- Life Support
- Crew Quarters

The Last batch of changes, plus the results of some research I did in other threads re: AI design, has put me back a bit in my status report...

CURRENT STATUS

Data files - 99% completed (pending proofread)

AI/race files - 0% (basically starting from scratch)

Image files - 100% (This at least seems foolproof )

Mod Readme - updated on a few points, most importantly with an acknowledgement of the aid and advice given on this thread.

(wipes hands, trudges back into the saltmines)

EDIT - link to old Version of Mod Readme removed, go upthread for latest Version

[ June 21, 2003, 02:55: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]