New SJ mod

[Suicide Junkie]

The AI don't currently play this, and they'll never play it well.

Decent designs should be possible, and a good tech path is doable. They won't be able to build a good mix of ships, though. Shouldn't be total pushovers, but they won't have the tactics to win much, and they won't be able to repair.

This is still beta...
Start up a single player game, and try out the tech... design a few ships and have a go at the simulator...
Then hit me with the list of bugs

[Ed Kolis]

Any reason the Science Lab component require unreachable levels of Applied Research tech?

You changed the description of the Master Computer I, but not the II or III... and are they that much better than regular crew quarters, anyway?

Your hulls ought to have some backup pics - the general hull 2000 uses DreadnoughtHeavy as both its primary and secondary pics, so what if the player has no NeoStandard ships?

1kT armor? With THAT many hitpoints??? You don't seriously expect us to click hundreds of times on the armor icon for each battleship we design??? How about some armor mounts... maybe a 10x cost, 5x hitpoints "Heavy Armor" and a 100x cost, 25x hitpoints "Ultra Armor"? (Similar to Adamant's armor only using mounts instead of separate components for the different levels of armor) Of course with those kinds of armor you would probably want to reduce the hitpoints per component of armor so it doesn't become nearly impenetrable like it is in stock SE4...

No multi-colony modules yet? They'd really cut down on micromanagement? How about the Colony Tech Mod?

"Plasma Lance" is not capitalized properly... but ooh, those are some cool sounding troop weapons!

Torpedoes say their to-hit bonuses come from "continuous fire" instead of tracking ability!

But you know, those weapons are EXACTLY what I've always wanted to do with a mod!

Ion weapons sap shields? It's believable but not consistent with their behavior in SE4... and neither is it consistent with the Ionization Beam's description! Speaking of which, those ion weapons also look rather weak, given that they damage only shields... or are shields that much weaker in this mod and ion weapons are designed as specialty weapons for boarding ships?

edit: No "engines only" or "weapons only" or other special damage types like that yet?

[ March 23, 2004, 19:48: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Any reason the Science Lab component require unreachable levels of Applied Research tech?
I was working on them, but couldn't get them to work. So I pulled them out for now.

You changed the description of the Master Computer I, but not the II or III... and are they that much better than regular crew quarters, anyway?
Fixed. And they reduce the lifesupport requirements as well, so you save 5 or 10kt of space (depending on level) per computer.

Your hulls ought to have some backup pics - the general hull 2000 uses DreadnoughtHeavy as both its primary and secondary pics, so what if the player has no NeoStandard ships?
Fixed

1kT armor? With THAT many hitpoints??? You don't seriously expect us to click hundreds of times on the armor icon for each battleship we design??? How about some armor mounts... maybe a 10x cost, 5x hitpoints "Heavy Armor" and a 100x cost, 25x hitpoints "Ultra Armor"? (Similar to Adamant's armor only using mounts instead of separate components for the different levels of armor) Of course with those kinds of armor you would probably want to reduce the hitpoints per component of armor so it doesn't become nearly impenetrable like it is in stock SE4...
The armor is intended to have such a high hp/kt ratio. One of the main reasons is to make sure the internal components comprise an insignificant fraction of the total hitpoints of a ship.
The hitpoints of each armor segment needs to be proportional to the regular components as well, since that is what determines the leakyness... it also helps that every hit normally destroys at least one component.

No multi-colony modules yet? They'd really cut down on micromanagement? How about the Colony Tech Mod?
I don't expect that many players will be taking multiple colony techs, due to their cost, but it can't hurt.
The multi-modules will have the same price and size as a single.

"Plasma Lance" is not capitalized properly... but ooh, those are some cool sounding troop weapons!
Fixed.

Torpedoes say their to-hit bonuses come from "continuous fire" instead of tracking ability!
Fixed.
Accuracy bonus was too high, as well.

But you know, those weapons are EXACTLY what I've always wanted to do with a mod!
Glad you like it!

Ion weapons sap shields? It's believable but not consistent with their behavior in SE4... and neither is it consistent with the Ionization Beam's description! Speaking of which, those ion weapons also look rather weak, given that they damage only shields... or are shields that much weaker in this mod and ion weapons are designed as specialty weapons for boarding ships?
Don't forget to account for size, too. The ion torpedo is only 20kt.
Given the leaky shields system, there will almost always be some shields still up, so you can knock them down with a cheap ion bLast, then hammer the hull with antimatter or something.
By alternating some small ion weapons between regular shots, you can negate much of the enemy's shield effects.

No "engines only" or "weapons only" or other special damage types like that yet?
Those damage types have too much skipping effect for this mod.
However, with appropriate armor components, I think it would be a fair addition...
Probably in the quantum weapon types, and if the regular armor could be made to count as engines without adding thrust. That would have about the right effect, I think.

The weapons would be doable in the same sort of way, but the side effects on the weapon list in combat would be horrible.
Still, with tactical combat typically being a disadvantage for the humans, it wouldn't be that bad.

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Note: Fighters can only attempt to shoot down missiles while under computer control AFAIK.
In tactical combat, this means turning on "Auto" for the rounds in which you need them to shoot down incoming missiles

[ March 23, 2004, 21:45: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Atrocities]

The armor is intended to have such a high hp/kt ratio. One of the main reasons is to make sure the internal components comprise an insignificant fraction of the total hitpoints of a ship.
The hitpoints of each armor segment needs to be proportional to the regular components as well, since that is what determines the leakyness... it also helps that every hit normally destroys at least one component.

This is a cool idea SJ. The way you have set it up that is.

[Suicide Junkie]

I also intend to reduce the number of combat rounds to about 30 or 40.
This will hopefully make blockade-storming a viable strategy.

The idea being that even though bases are very inexpensive to maintain (1/4 the cost of a ship independent of relative size at medium tech), you won't be able to simply stack them up on warppoints and make the place impenetrable.

You will, of course be able to deal a significant amount of damage to an incoming fleet, but because of the huge armor everywhere, neither side will even come close to annihilating the other.
There will almost certainly be a very large number of survivors. If your targetting strategies are poor, you'll probably have a large number of undamaged enemy ships as well.
If you hurt most of them a little bit, they'll have to stick together and move slowly, instead of just abandoning the few crippled or destroyed ships and pressing on with a slightly smaller perfect-condition fleet.

Destroying a large fleet with another should involve a running battle with plenty of crippled ships falling by the wayside as you go .

That's my theory, anyways
I hope to be testing it a few weeks from now.

[ March 24, 2004, 00:31: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Suicide Junkie]

In the vs self game I played for a bit, the battles were very back and forth.

Both sides started one jump from each other, and the fleets of ships would end up dying in huge numbers at the warppoint. First one side would push through and win, crippling most of the enemy. Then the other side would retreat the damaged ships and push back with a fresh fleet.
The original side would be damaged and low on supplies, and take heavy damage. Then they would retreat to make room for the next wave.
Out of the 50 ships involved for each assault, no more than about 3 to 5 would actually die in the 90 rounds of combat.
Most of the ship deaths were from 0-move ships that got stuck in the kill zone for multiple battles.

Plenty of assault fleets would get past the battlezone to drop more troops everywhere, and the low-tech ground combat dragged on with rioting.

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I've made a bunch of bugfixes, and added some big city facilities for starting out on your homeworld.

Resource income has been dropped for a more reasonable fleet size. The homeworld should be able to support about 20 warships.

I've also decided to allow a repair facility. It is an extension of the Resupply Depot available at repair level 3.
Most of your repairs will still be done by drones, but if you have a low-value planet to burn, you can get 1 repair per facility slot per turn.

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I'll be rearranging a few techs once this beta game is over too...
I need to fix the wierd mix of techs you get for each level of physics. (Chemical weapons... and shields at the same time?)

[spoon]

Any reason the Science Lab component require unreachable levels of Applied Research tech?
I was working on them, but couldn't get them to work. So I pulled them out for now.

These should work as advertised (mostly), what problem were you having?

[ April 08, 2004, 00:51: Message edited by: spoon ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Originally posted by spoon:

quote:

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Any reason the Science Lab component require unreachable levels of Applied Research tech?
I was working on them, but couldn't get them to work. So I pulled them out for now.

These should work as advertised (mostly), what problem were you having?

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I couldn't see the research points actually getting used.

I just gave it another shot, but I'm not getting anything. Its probably some silly little typo, but I can't see what it is.

[spoon]

When you test it, be sure to check the Research Points Available field up at the top of the main Research Screen (F8). For whatever reason, the points don't show up on the Score screen. Ditto with the Intel Generation components (well, they show up on the main Intel screen...). The resource generation components (mins, rads, and orgs) don't show up anywhere, but they are being generated nonetheless...

[Suicide Junkie]

Fyron helped me get this one.

It was a typo in the ability name.