Logistics Mod in the making

[Glare]

I'm fiddling with the idea of creating a mod. Been playing SE IV (v1.49) for awhile, and just got the gold Version today.

The mod will remake drones into missiles, change the weapons, mounts, etc. This will cause players to actually start creating and using proper supply lines, fleet logistical bases and escorts. One thing I really disliked was that if you had a quantum generator onboard your ship, you never ran out of missile ammo!! I thought that it was rather ridiculous.

Now the only thing is that I'll probably have to create some new images (or I might edit them from the components file, after I ask the author's permissions first natch)

Would this be viable as I've only just started fiddling with the guts of the Gold Version.

[geoschmo]

Personally I love the idea of making drones into missles. DO a search for "microdrones" and you should find a couple of useful threads.

The biggest problem with it, and what caused me to stop trying to work it into my mod, is the the problem with strategic combat the AI throws all the drones out at once and can't recover them. SO if you have a fleet of missle ships armed with microdrones the enemy could hit you with an escort a couple turns before the main fleet arrives and now you suddently have a fleet of empty missle ships.

If that can be addressed in a later patch though I would love the idea again.

Geoschmo

[Jmenschenfresser]

I'd suggest taking out the solar panels as well. A few of those on a ship and it can virtually go forever..unless it tries to traverse 5 or 6 nebulae in a row.

I think the microdrones are still workable, though not along the perfected lines Geo would like. They depend on size, amount and how many are launched per turn. If your launchers are 50k and they only launch 1 per turn, and the missles are only 5kt or less. Then with a few cargo components your ship can hold far more than it can launch in 30 turns. You could also include with the fleet several cargo ships (since it is a logistics mod) with extra dronemissles. Yes, if a single escort attacks you fleet, you'll waste a lot of your missles in strategic combat, but you will still have plenty left. And besides, how long does a single escort Last against an entire fleet. 6 turns? 10 at the most. But since it is possible for an enemy to drain your supply of these missles, they simply become an attack weapon. They won't work very well for defending plants, but I imagine they would work for ships on the offensive.

[Glare]

Right, here's the basic concept/design doc.
Drones are referred to as missiles from now on

Missiles
- Redo missile sizes in vehicles.txt. What I'll probably do is create an image for each size/Category of missile and just dump it in the generic ship folder.

- Components for missiles will be broken down into the following areas:
. Guidance (computer, ecm, etc)
. Warheads (the stuff that goes boom, or fizzle if you forget to fuse it properly)
. Structure (armour)
. Propulsion (engines, fuel, etc)
This will allow the player and AI the greatest latitude when creating missiles. Cap missiles, anti-figher missiles, anti-ship missiles etc.

Ships
- Engines will NOT have an inherent supply value.

- Supply generating items will be removed (quantum generator, solar sails, etc). Instead powerplants with larger capacites will be introduced (ie supply storage on steroids)

- May change generic cargo storage to dedicated missile magazines (probably use the launch drones tag with 0 as the number, don't know if it will work though). Then fleet colliers, etc cannot be used for general transport duties (see modern navies for this). This should force player and AI to "think" their way through a war. Also effectively prosecuting a conflict will become very expensive

Ground Combat
- I'll probably use a system similar to the GNB (Great Naval Battles) Mod ie: Ground units will be grouped as fighting formations with the components being specific types of troops, armour, etc. That's if the modder agrees to let me

Possible problems
- Drones currently seem to fly forever in combat. Gotta find a workaround to try limit their "range". Maybe just set their move to combat move only and make their "fuel tanks" smaller.

- Also they don't seem to miss when setup as warhead carriers.

- Weapon Platforms wont be able to use the missiles as planets can already launch them. May
change WP's to direct fire and point defence only.

- Don't think Satellites can launch missiles?

Well thats the basics of what I want to accomplish, hopefully (fingers crossed) I can
implement it.

As the saying goes:
Amatuers study tactics, professionals study logistics

[PvK]

Sounds interesting.

You might want to look at Proportions mod for ideas and/or things to borrow for ship logistics. There are some good tradeoffs there in ship design between size, speed, and range.

I don't think there is any way to limit range of ramming drones in tactical. Not a problem, IMO, though.

However, there is a way to make drones have a chance to miss - make the warheads into direct-dire weapons with range 1 and enormous supply use per shot. Haven't tested, but should work.

PvK

[Phoenix-D]

:However, there is a way to make drones have a chance to miss - make the warheads into direct-dire weapons with range 1 and enormous supply use per shot. Haven't tested, but should work."

There are problems though. the drones don't disappear until after combat so they:
-contiune to soak PD fire until destroyed
-get in the way of other incoming drones (and anything else)

[Suicide Junkie]

IIRC, drones with direct-fire weapons will fire, and then ram the target as soon as they can.

That would clear them out of the combat arena, and alter the damage pattern a bit too.

[Mylon]

I actually like the use of limited supply generating components, since they in themselves don't make supplies useless. Now if these power plants actually generate supplies in addition to storing them, I might not care too much, but those solar collectors make nice filler space on my repair ships.

[Phoenix-D]

Suicide: that changes if you change the strategy. And you HAVE to change the strategy, otherwise they will try to ram *first*, then fire.

I supposed "point blank" with the secondary as kamikazie might work.. have to try that.

Phoenix-D