Highliner Mod - 1.04b - PBW Observations & Patch

[General Woundwort]

Question - I was intending to use Neo-Standard images for the Riders (makes much more sense scale-wise), but I could not figure out how to do this without messing up the displays for non Neo shipsets, which I had set as the alternates (some duplications and mixup of shipsizes would occur). I take it that a mod must have all Neo shipsets or all Standard?

[ June 11, 2003, 02:21: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]

[Phoenix-D]

No, it doesn't if you have Gold. Use the neo-standard bitmap as the Primary one, and a standard SE4 bitmap as the secondary.

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
No, it doesn't if you have Gold. Use the neo-standard bitmap as the Primary one, and a standard SE4 bitmap as the secondary.

Thanks. Armed with that bit of info, I went back to the VehicleSize file and made it Neo-Standard compatible. And so...

CURRENT STATUS

Data files - 100% completed (made totally Neo-Standard compatible)

AI/race files - 30% (changes made in generic AI files; Abbidon, Amonkrie, Cryslonite & CueCappa completed)

Image files - 100% (intro screens and substitute highliner/worldship pics complete - two other highliner pics adapted from other graphics)

[JLS]

Absolutely, Neo-Standard compatible, would be the way to go, General Woundwort.

Many of the Ship set Designers are doing an awesome job with the Neo-Standard sets.

[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.