Narf's Mod: Almost done shredding the Facility.txt. Basic stuff only.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
random comments-o-doom

What's the point of researching new weapons tech when it only gets more expensive and bulkier at the same rate that the damage and range increase? Is all armor going to be emissive in this mod?

[well, i fixed it. if weapon size is 100kt and weapon damage is 100, next level it'll be 110 and 120. next level it will be 121 and 142. i think that's the explanation; there's a complete one lower down. generally, armor will be emissive. there will be a few non-emissive's and some armor which rely heavily on emissive.]

You seem to be missing a newline between medium energy engines 17 and 18 in components.txt, that might screw up the game...

[well, it doesn't complain when i load it, but thanks.]

... ... 20 levels of engine mounts for EACH hull type??? I seriously hope that file is program generated!

[nope. all typed by hand. with a spreadsheet program in the lower half it was...well, not as hard as it might have been.]

What's to, eh, keep people from cheating with the engine mounts on larger hulls? It's rather easy to forget to mount your engines

[um...well, other people can see mounts. second, i think i'm going to rip a page of SJ and have the abbrieviation be 'OK'. other than that...well, generally there's a lot of difference between mounted and unmounted engines and well, that's it.]

All those hulls... aren't they really going to clog up the hull list?

[well, they do and they don't. there's a lot of them, but all you have to do is look for the roman numeral on the end. it actually shouldn't take long to find the hull you want.]

thanks. all input appriaciated.

[ January 07, 2004, 03:04: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Krsqk]

What's to, eh, keep people from cheating with the engine mounts on larger hulls? It's rather easy to forget to mount your engines

You could always bump up supply usage on the large engines by a factor of 100, then use the mounts to reduce it back to normal.

[Fyron]

Bump up cost by 100% too...

[narf poit chez BOOM]

if you'll take a look at the engine sizes and mounts, that may mess things up at low levels.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

look, i got a math problem i don't know how to describe. if there's any math genuises out there, i'll send you two files, one is the spreadsheet file for the resource converter and the other is for the ultra-recycler. the spreadsheet for the resource converter does what i want, the spreadsheet for the ultra-recycler is supposed to do the same, only with a reverse efficiency series. it doesn't.

i'll try to explain what i'm doing as well as i can, but it's rather hard for me.

to clarrify the problem more, the percentage series goes from 50% to 93% in 20 steps and the critical number is 100%-the percentage.

[ January 30, 2004, 02:16: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

*sigh*

i feel like i'm being backed into a corner with this mod and the only choice i have is which corner i'm backed into if i'm going to complete it.

for those of you who don't know, ships in my mod are divided into three research area's, small, medium and large, with three ship sizes in each. each size catagory is supposed to be the equal of every other, just not in the same area. ship speed is arranged so that, with 30 or 33% of it's space dedicated to engines, ship speeds range from 11 for escort to 2 for baseship.

ok, this is the basic problem. on one of my early tests of the mod, in the simulater, i noticed that the small ships where racing in, shooting of there missiles at the big ship and racing out. this is great. guerilla tactics are the tactics people using small ships should employ. except for one thing: the big ship didn't get a chance to fire, because they where never in range on it's turn. this was bad. in combat, big ships should be able to take more than there cost in small ships, because the small ships have the advantage of being able to run around the big ships outside of combat.

so, enter solution number 1: make a capital Version of each weapon, the medium and big ones sized so smaller ships can't use it. the medium and big size would have a +1,+2 or +2,+4 range increase and maybe damage increase. enter problem number 1: that means 1, maybe 2 weapons and most, a few normal weapons and no emissive armor unless i eliminate the normal weapons, because with emissive armor they'd be useless. this means no combined arms ships, although you could still have combined arms fleets. also this may render only the fastest ship in each size or some of the sizes useful. comments? help?

enter solution number 2: mounts for each ship size. that would mean that weapons with power decreases wouldn't work right, but i can live with that. each large ship would have a range increase that would mean it could have a chance of hitting smaller, faster ships. ideal, except mount range increases don't work right for missiles, they don't increase maximum range, only move the missile x number of squares out at launch. this would mean that missile would be a bad idea on large ships. another limitation. i want the mod so you could use any logical strategy you can think of. but i can live with it. comments? help?

third solution, lot of work, but ideal. also, impossible: component restrictions for ships. different Version of each weapon for each ship. unfortunatly, or perhaps fortunatly for my fingers, there are no component restrictions.

[ January 30, 2004, 19:56: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]