Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)

[Kana]

Ok quick question...

I asked what the lowest number was for tonnage size. Answer was 0...and no fractions allowed. I believe the highest number is somewhere around 65000.

Does this apply to all numbers in the game? I do know that 255 is the max for number of planets. Are there any other weird restrictions?

Reason being I was considering really simplifying research by basically having each Research Faciliy providing 1 RP. An various Tech Areas being anywhere from 1 to ???? RP. Basically not the 5000 to 1000000 range that we see now.

Kana

[Phoenix-D]

If you make research facilities give 1 RP, you're going to have some rather funky rounding errors. I'd recommend not going below 100.

eg, 10% racial bonus to research gives:
1 RP facility, either 1 or 2 RP produced
100 RP facility, 110 RP produced

[Fyron]

Are there any other weird restrictions?

There actually aren't any "weird" restrictions. 256 (2^8) and 65536 (2^16) are commonly used sizes of various programming language data structures. Depending on how exactly Aaron chose to store the data for a various object is what determines the seemingly weird limits. Resources stored/produced can use much larger numbers. So can population. The exact upper limits are unknown, but you probably won't ever reach them, unless you make your mod use really huge numbers for some bizarre reason.

If you make research facilities give 1 RP, you're going to have some rather funky rounding errors. I'd recommend not going below 100

I'd second that.

[ May 24, 2004, 05:57: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Kana]

Ok...Question for Modders familiar with SFB...

Expanding Sphere Generators...ESG's basically energy shields that damage mines, sats, drones, fighter, and even ships. Can be used at range 0, 1, 2, and 3. This is basically a ram attack, but an object/target can run into it the ESG's range as well...

I was thinking of setting this up as some form of DF weapon with a short range, and the PD tag to automatically target items in range. Add in to hit bonus, and possibly low amounts of shielding...Does this sound all right? Any other ideas...?

-------------------------------------------------

Stasis Field Generators, SFG's....Is there a way to make a weapon do more than one damage type? Ideally this weapon would stop a ship, and not allow it to fire any weapons or move...The push and pull, and Distrupt/Increase reload times would probably work for this...If I could include all 4 it would be the most ideal situation...I don't believe I can though...which sucks...Also again any ideas? If not I might not include it...or if it is, it will have some effect from above...

Kana

[PvK]

ESG sounds right as a range = 1 PD weapon that damages all types. A fiddly but accurate way would be to make it small so many can be put on one ship. Make the reload time larger than one though (maybe 4-6 turns?) to represent the time and energy needed to recharge it. I would not give it shields, though, because in SFB it does not protect against incoming fire. Probably not minesweeping either, since it can't be operated all the time to protect against unexpected mines.

In Settings.txt I would adjust ramming damages to zero to reflect SFB's reasonable ruling that no one will kamikaze a starship into another, even if they could manage to hit.

Stasis Field Generators are impossible to mod accurately, but you could have somewhat similar effects from the reload-increasing effect (see crystaline Energy Dampener and not the Psychic weapon, or MC will resist it). or the Warp weapon also is similar in that it removes the ship from combat for a time, both for friendly and enemy fire.

PvK

[Kana]

Warp Weapon ability was considered...but I was saving that for the Andromdean Displacement Device....

Your right on the shields option for ESG...it shouldn't block incoming fire...(except maybe Hellbores) but there is no way to do that. I have to think about it some more...

Kana

[PvK]

Displacement Device and SFG could use the same ability, but have very different properties such as range, rate of fire, cost, size, supply use, to-hit modifier.

PvK