New SJ mod

[Ed Kolis]

Cheesy Colony Tech? What is that? I've only seen rock, ice, and gas. And why would you want to restrict players from trading Cheesy Colony Tech?

Don't want to give them any more incentives to nuke Narf's homeworld

Gas giant colonies would be cranked way up in size to keep it fair. 50 facilities on a huge breathable, gobs of population, etc.

Fair? I don't know WHAT would be fair in this mod... if you don't even have a hope of colonizing foreign planet types, that means that if everyone but 1 player picks rock, say, that 1 player will have a MASSIVE advantage, having no competitors for colonization... I'd think it would be better to at least allow colonization of really foreign planet types... maybe for rock natives: rock cost = 1x, ice cost = 5x, gas cost = 20x; ice natives: rock cost = 5x, ice cost = 1x, gas cost = 20x; gas natives: rock/ice cost: 10x, gas cost: 1x?

And in order to make huge gas planets get extra population & facility space, wouldn't you need to either give that to huge rock/ice planets as well, or prevent rock/ice planets from being huge? (Which is actually something I was thinking of as a mod idea... if gas giants can't be small, why can rock and ice planets be huge? A ball of rock the size of Jupiter would likely (I haven't done any calculations) be hot enough at its core to be a brown dwarf, not a planet!)

[spoon]

A cool thing from the fantasy mod was to give each ship hull its own research branch. For example, in this mod, after you discover "Frigates" through regular Ship Construction research, you could open up a branch of research called "Frigate Improvements". Improvements could be along the lines of cheaper hulls, slighter bigger hulls, more engines allowed, higher defense/offense, hull specific mounts, etc etc...

Should fit well with your tech gridding you're already planning...

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Don't want to give them any more incentives to nuke Narf's homeworld

Your puny nukes are no match for the power of the CHEESE!

[ December 22, 2003, 17:22: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by spoon:
A cool thing from the fantasy mod was to give each ship hull its own research branch. For example, in this mod, after you discover "Frigates" through regular Ship Construction research, you could open up a branch of research called "Frigate Improvements". Improvements could be along the lines of cheaper hulls, slighter bigger hulls, more engines allowed, higher defense/offense, hull specific mounts, etc etc...

Should fit well with your tech gridding you're already planning...

Except that hulls, like mounts, can't be obsoleted... darn, who wants to start an open-source project and steal - uh, incorporate - all the best ideas from SE4 and all our other favorite 4X (and 5X ) games? Nah, we'd constantly be arguing over whether to use warp point movement or free movement, or maybe a combination of both...

Still, I'd like to do it, if there's enough support... except then we might end up taking away all of Malfador's customers should we ever get anything playable...

[Suicide Junkie]

Value improvement plants:
Planetary Radiation Filter: +1% minerals, -2% rads per year.
Planetary Neutron Pump: -2% minerals, -1% organics, +2% rads per year.
Organics Seeding Project: -1% minerals, +1% organics, -1% rads per year


The cost=size³ for ships and bases with constant maintenance is now in place.
Bases range in size from 1000 to 4000 kt.
More debugging going on...
Now the mounts are in, and the maintenance scales right. Mounts usable on weapons and non-weapons...

Almost time to hit the components, and then cleanup afterwards.

Preview at:
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/Miscel...jmod_alpha.zip

[ January 04, 2004, 00:39: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[dumbluck]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
You know, it's pathetic how I get these Ideas for the AoW mod, then the Mod Monsters like SJ think of them themselves, but implement them better...

sometimes I wonder why I'm even bothering...

I didn't mean to imply that you were STEALING my ideas, merely that you independently came up with the same ideas as mine, but implemented them better. Just a bit of self-depricating humor for you...

by the way, I can't wait to play this game...

[ January 04, 2004, 15:44: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Suicide Junkie]

BTW, the unchoosable racial trait colony tech thing didn't pan out.

Instead, I've gone with 2500-point racial traits for "Rock/ice/gas natives"
You should have to make some fairly big sacrifices to take a second livable surface... I'm also certain that more balancing will be needed in that area.

Shields, I've decided, will have four variants;
- Phased vs Non-phased
- Fully Leaky vs Semi-leaky
The first is obvious, the second not so.

What I have at the moment is "Shields" -> "Semi-leaky" and "Deflector shields" -> "fully leaky"

The deflectors have shield and crystalline effect of 2-14 points depending on tech level, at 40kt each.
The shields have 20-100 shield points and 4-20 regen per turn, per 40kt.

Combat sensors and ECM are downgraded to 5-15% effects, but I'll probably add more levels and use "add-on" components to boost their power a little bit.

Racial combat bonuses have tighter limits, and the base to-hit is only 60% -3%/square.

There will be no weapon mounts like in regular SE4, so damage will remain manageable with respect to the deflector shielding physics.
There will, of course, be some weapons with large punch and long reload or large size.
Heavy hits tend to overload and pierce shields, while small hits will tend to feel the full effect of the deflector's absorption %.

Mixing up weapons is also a known way to weaken shields.
Alternating size and damage types can reduce the effectiveness of shielding. Only during repeated hits from the same weapon will a shield reach its theoretical potential.