My own mod thread !! PDFMod !! (design stage)

[PDF]

Hi,
Everyone serious here (and even not so ) seems to have his own Mod thread, so why shouldn't I ? Only because I never modded up to now and am a Frog is no legit reason, so here it is !
The PDFMod Project is launched !

(as for the name, uuh, PDF is my sig ... and my sig is from my initials, don't expect any Point Defense Fuzziness mod or stg like this... !)

So what will it have ?

Moving stars ! ! temporal paradoxes ! ! ! Universe creation ! ! ! Bruce Willis, Aimée Sweet and more ! ! ....

Uh, sorry, that was a teaser, but not yet...

So real :

* More varied ship hulls : the game really needs more/heavier hulls, at least up to 5000 kT. Here I just have to borrow Andrés Lescanos UltimateVehicles and sort ...However due to other mods big ships will be quite more expensive, and tradeoff between small and large ships will be more balanced than in standard (where everyone builds as big as possible...)

* MyQNP : standard QNP, with limited nr of engines/hull , PLUS tweaks : additional components (not categorized as « engines ») that would allow for faster movement, but will be quite heavier and costlier than normal engines.
So for example a Scout will have 6 engines max, 1 eng/move, and go to 6 for 60 kT of basic Ion engines. But you could add « Hi Speed engines » that will gives +1 move, but weight 30-40 kT each.
I could make use of the upcoming1.7 comp limitation facilities to make several Groups, each heavier than the former.

* Revised Weapons/armor interaction
This will be the most « modded » part.
I just hate the « damage soaking » armor model ...Armor is here to STOP damage, either it succeeds and the damage is minimal, or it fails and damage passes through. That's how it works IRL for AFVs and naval ships !
So I plan to rather have « massive » component (basically 1/ship) with a high « emissive » ability (and perhaps regen as well). Structure of these should be high as well, but I have to tinker more with the idea...
Damage soaking will be another matter, and I'll use « Structure reinforcement » components that will behave like ...uhh. SE4 armor , or perhaps like plain components like Proportions' « armor » comps.
So, we'll have big ships basically IMMUNE to low-level DUCs, CSMs et al...Bigger will be needed to beat biggies !
The « fighters combined attack » problem is still there though, but its effect will depend on the emissive level, and perhaps it's not bad to have big fighter Groups able to do damage to armored ships.
Obviously this requires change (up !) to tech reqs and costs (or lowering of damage) of armor-skipping weapons, that'll become VERY effective.
For missiles, I really want them to be in FINITE numbers in a ship (at least within a turn), so I'd plan to have 10 to 30-round reloads missiles, but with more components in ships (so you'd choose to either fire 30 missiles once in the battle or rather 3/round...). PD need tweaking, but not so much as before - emissive armor is here ! !

* Comps Enhancement
Here again I'm for more variety, and really massive mounts will be in order to pierce massive armor : UM and other mods have a good mix, I'll start from here, BUT :
- basically the size/cost multiplier will be LARGER than the damage multiplier, dut to the « treshold » effect of emissive armor
- « armored» (more structure) and « turret » comps (greater accuracy/lower reload time) will be available

* Mines
Ohh those ... I really don't find fun at all the SE4 mine model : they're WAY too effective ! Again, IRL, mines are/were used to provide cheap defense on areas so as to channel attackers, NOT as real killers !
One thing is that I plan to have possibly « visible » mines : instead of being level-5 cloaked right from the start they will start at level 1 and become higher level through tech research. So there'll be a real « arms race » between scanners and mines.
I haven't any good solution for preventing mine warp defense though I suppose than lighty damaging warp points won't work, as they do damage when warping, not sitting up in sector...
Another (untested) idea is to give them less than 100% chance of hitting by making their heads « direct fire » with a hefty negative modifier (say -60% at start, improving through research to -20%).

* Economics
Basically I'll use Proportions'ideas (HW more important, slower colony development, heavy population), but with another, simpler implementation : rather than having big facilities with big flat output (2K min/org/rad ...), HW/fully developped worlds will have expensive, MULTIPLIER facilities (« Cultural Centers »).
« My » CC will give say 300% output planet-wide, and even 150% system-wide (commercial network/facilities).
Here again a series of upgradable facilities (from town to metropolis, with increasing factors) will allow progressive development.
Perhaps more specialized Versions will be welcome (Intel, research...).
BTW, this will not ruin the standard AI « reasoning » as much as Proportions...

Other
« commercial », private run transport ships, with lower maintenance (paid by private corps !) but no fighting ability
Mercenaries/corsairs : build cost reduced, but more expensive maintenance - you have to pay them ! (and some combat penalties...)
...ideas to come ...

Well, that's a pretty heavy design document !

Currently I think I'd be able to do all of this, but will be glad to have help for :
* Permission to pillage other's ideas as in previous mods : PvK, SJ, Andrés Lescanos, just tell me ...
* Feedback ! ! ! ! New ideas ! ! ! And even « It sucks » replies ...
* All AI impacts...I don't really know how to change AI design files..
* Testing ... when I'd have done something !

(ed. typos...)

[ May 23, 2002, 20:10: Message edited by: PDF ]

[Suicide Junkie]

I just hate the « damage soaking » armor model ...Armor is here to STOP damage, either it succeeds and the damage is minimal, or it fails and damage passes through. That's how it works IRL for AFVs and naval ships !
So I plan to rather have « massive » component (basically 1/ship) with a high « emissive » ability (and perhaps regen as well). Structure of these should be high as well, but I have to tinker more with the idea...

I suspect you will have a LOT of trouble balancing that emissive thing. Instead, you may want to consider the following:
Piercable Armor
1) Start with a standard SE4 piece of armor.
2) Remove the armor ability.
3) Increase the hitpoints per KT size immensely. At least 10 HP/KT is good, Tweak to taste.

For example:
Make a 30 KT "armor" chunk, that has 1180 hitpoints, and place it on a standard Escort (which has 120 hitpoints worth of internals)
This piece of armor will absorb about 90% of the hits that strike the ship. The other 10% of the time, a shot will pierce, and shred the internals.
Big guns can destroy the armor, and little guns can zing shots off the armor while hoping for a lucky hit.

In many cases, by the end of the battle there will be a number of burnt-out shells of armor plating, waiting to be salvaged or vaporized by excessive amounts of weapons fire.

You can use smaller/weaker components, and allow layered armor, or whatever you desire.

[oleg]

SJ,

This is exactly how Proportions' standard armor works ! (it has "normal" armor as well)

[Val]

Working with engines of different sizes is something I had tried in the B5 Mod, it worked great for human players, but the AI would have fits when it was designing ships.

Best of luck in making the mod, looking foward to seeing the results

[geoschmo]

Another (untested) idea is to give them less than 100% chance of hitting by making their heads « direct fire » with a hefty negative modifier (say -60% at start, improving through research to -20%).

Please let us know how this comes out. This is actually an original idea I think. I have never heard anybody suggest this before. Of course I could have just missed it. I have probably only read 20,000 of the 25,000 Posts on this forum.

Geoschmo

[tesco samoa]

I always found mines usefull up to about turn 70 then they are just swept away. Since the limit is 100 per location.

So what I did was increase the units per location to 5000.

This kept mines effective for the whole game.

For ship sizes. I found the 575kt and the 650kt sizes very usefull. Especially if you add an additional engine movement to the 575kt and 650 kt.

[tesco samoa]

Watch out on the non weapon component enhancement if you want the ai to use them.

You will have to create default component enhancements for the ai to use.

[Suicide Junkie]

This is exactly how Proportions' standard armor works ! (it has "normal" armor as well)

I had no idea about that until people started telling me it was the same.

I started with the BTG armor in P&N, years ago now. (April 2001)
Then it was a natural extension on that to make armor for B5. Now people are telling me its all over the place.

This is a good example of convergent evolution at work

[TerranC]

Maybe limit Mine warhead to One per mine, make the damage low-moderate the first level to Moderate-heavy to the Last level, as I think this is what could happen:

"Add more antimatter into the warhead!"
"But it only takes up 20 Grams!"

From here:

A mistake can be made that somehow develops more efficient mines, or
A Mistake can be made that blows up the entier lab.

So only a small increment in damage should be made per level.

Mine warheads could also have price increase with increased volatility: hazard pay ya know.

Also: maybe add a little mini space yard per mine for that self-replicating ability?

Also: On the Corsair/Mercenary idea: maybe make it that only neutrals can make them, a special race attribute/ability.

This way, You can give Corsair/Mercenaries tremendous bonuses with a price, that you won't be able to abuse.

I'm sure there is a flaw in that Corsair idea I just made but I'm not sure what...

[ May 23, 2002, 23:00: Message edited by: TerranC ]

[PDF]

Thx to all for the feedback . Looks like I've to think and test somewhat more

Geoschmo, I knew about the Proportions'armor implementation, but I just don't want that... I know Emissive is a nasty beast but I'll stick to the idea, perhaps I'll put this later though.

As for "Direct fire" mines I'll do some tests. Noone have any hindsight on the "less cloaked" mine effects ?

I plan to have the Civilian/Corporate/Corsair types done by just using Bridges comps, as in B5.
It's not a big problem if AIs don't use them.

As for the engines I suppose that the design additions for QNP will allow AI to manage them properly, and else again my "High powered engines" will not be indispensable to AI designs.

Some other ideas also :
- Hulls should come in Early/Standard/Advanced flavor. Early will be available 1 tech level earlier but have less space and some penalties, reverse for Advanced...
- I'd like the "miniaturization" idea also, but would want them to be available only at higher tech than the standard ones, as in MOO (decrease in size was automatic according to tech level). Don't know how to make that easily too ... Comp enhancement aren't tech dependent, and multiplication of comps is not an easy path

Lastly questions :
* Can fighters group size be limited by the Settings.txt entry, or is it just a default group size ? In the first case the problem with "grouped attack" on emissive armor will be fixed!
* If I put multiplier facility, PvK told (in Propotions thread) that only the highest one at planet and system level are used, and they don't all stack... Is that confirmed ?

BTW, I just managed to have some nice weapons and comps Excel tables by allowing exports in settings.txt, didn't know that until today and was ready to ask if someone had them !