on the drawing board

[Puke]

heres a few ideas i have on the drawing board:

1 - boarding torpedos. seeker that does crew damage. probably one shot, heavy supply use, slow but realtivly tough for shooting down.

2 - religious bad-mojo altar. uses the Change Bad Event Chance - System ability and will be filed under the religious tech tree. probably on par with the talisman for level, and will mount on a dreadnaught at the very smallest. can be parked in a hostile system and cloaked.

3 - specialty shipyards. its possible to create fairly usefull things with nothing but minerals, and it is possible to create a shipyard that can build with only minerals. maybe it will be cheaper to build the yard, maybe it will do it faster. probably faster. its VERY easy to build cool things with just minerals and radioactives, so maybe as a lesser extension non-organic shipyards could be made. this would probably fit well in line with crystal tech.

4 - more organic tech. organic shipyards that build with only organics. organic hulls from the organic tech tree (this would be far cooler with multiple dependancies). and some organic computers for ship control, a couple other organic exclusive components to make the organic shipyards feasable. im very hesitant about this idea, since play-balancing it will be a royal beach-ball.

5 - counter inteligence component. like the bad mojo altar, but gives a negative intel modifier for the system instead of bad event. could do similar with research.

6 - orbital mining laser. a large component that makes remote resource mining cost effective for ships or bases, not just satelites. would need to figure out a way to make it deplete the resources faster too, for balance.

7 - long range only weapons. say an energy weapon that has a focal point at a range of 8-12, and no damage at closer range. make it do a fair ammount of damage, and the value of repulsor beams will increase substantially. someone else actually brought this up on another thread (forget who..), so thanks to them for the idea.

8 - maybe im just HIGH ON CRACK for thinking this might work, and naturally the computer wont be able to use it and it will only be good in tactical combat.. but how about a shield destroying weapon that does negative damage that you can use to bood the shields of a friendly ship in combat? sure you cant target your own ships, but you can target an aly's ship.. or maybe there is a better way to do it using the "bonus to max shield" ability.

thoughts? suggestions? burning desire to mock me for an idea that obviously wont work if only i understood how the game mechanics worked? please let me know so i dont waste too much of my time farting with it

[Seawolf]

Hurm boarding torpedo??!! I suggest you wait till drones are introduced.

[DirectorTsaarx]

Here come some answers... hope they help...

1 - I think there's a component that does something similar to planets (at least SE3 had it - the neutron bomb, IIRC). Call the "boarding missile" something similar, have it knock out crew quarters, boarding parties and security stations. I wonder if you could build something that knocks out bridges, auxiliary control stations, and/or life support systems... hmmmmmm....

2 and 5 won't work because you can't put facility abilities (like Change Bad Event Chance - System or Intelligence/Research point boosters) onto ship components. Many have tried and many have failed.

3 and 4 are interesting; but I think the AI would have trouble implementing specialized space yards. Heck, I'D have trouble with it - I'd have to keep track of whether a ship requires one, two, or all three resource types! There's enough micromanagement without adding THAT!

6 is interesting; I don't use remote mining very often, and it's always a pain to make sure I get more resources than I pay out in maintenance for the mining ship/satellite layer/whatever.

7 would drive the AI insane... I don't think it's very good at determining "Optimum" Range, so even using "Strategic Combat" (as you're forced to in simultaneous-turn games) would make this a nightmare to use.

8 I don't think will work because I don't think a battle can have more than two races total, so targeting an ally wouldn't happen - you'd never be in a position to fight alongside an ally.

Long live the Moebius Consortium!!!!

[Blue Lord]

1) I've tried making them, but It messed up. The thing is that Boarding Prties don't use weapon range, but missile does.

[Puke]

quote:

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Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
2 and 5 won't work because you can't put facility abilities (like Change Bad Event Chance - System or Intelligence/Research point boosters) onto ship components. Many have tried and many have failed.

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since Lupusman was able to get system nebula abilities on a component, i contend that there is a way to make it work. I will post a test Version as soon as there is one.

quote:

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Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
8 I don't think will work because I don't think a battle can have more than two races total, so targeting an ally wouldn't happen - you'd never be in a position to fight alongside an ally.

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if one race is blocading a planet, a thrid race can cruise in and join battle with the two others. i have actually done this before. similarly, you could invite an ally so share orbit of one of your worlds and help provide defense. a corrdinated attack, however, is not possible unless one is strong enough to keep orbit and wait for the second race to help knock out ground defenses with troops or whathave you.

as for the comments about the AI, youre probably right, but its worth a shot.

[DirectorTsaarx]

puke - ah, you're partially right. And I was only partially right. The propblem isn't facility abilities, it's point generation abilities (like Intelligence and Research). Ship components can't generate Intelligence or Research points (although obviously mining components can be used to generate resource points...). I'm not certain about system-wide bonuses to point generation. Might be worth a shot if you have time to test it.

Interesting feature on how a third race can join battle with two others - I thought MM wasn't allowing that... although it may be a loophole that it works... hmmmm... anyone see an instance where this has happened in freespace rather than around a planet?

[Danny]

I'd like to turn Comp_179 into Structural Integrity Field, gives componets a % more damage points.

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I AM Canadian.

[Daynarr]

8) Guys, You can have several races in the battle at once, AND the game doesn't allow you to shoot on your ships OR ALLY ships.
So that component is no go.

[Ungor]

I think the ability to have combat with more than one side is by design. I'd swear I saw it mentioned somewhere in the manual/help files, but I couldn't find it in a quick browse through the manual.

Personally, I'd love to be able to use Tractor/Repulsor beams on my own ships. It'd be nice to be able to get a crippled ship out of the line of fire, and to move a starbase around to the correct side of the planet.