Starfleet Battles Mod (SFB Mod)

[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

[Kana]

Ok...I have a small question on economics. I have considered simplifing things for the mod similiar to the Starfire mod...but I'm not sure yet. I was wondering how some modders have tackled this problem. Especially like how components and facilities get their 'cost'. What is a good baseline? I assume trying to make things comparable to stock SE4 is one way...but I don't know if really want to do that. I would really like to decrease the numbers in this mod...Yet I know it has been suggested that I don't take certain numbers under 100 due to the abilites modification on percentages...If you have any experience with SFB, I would love to hear input from you. Also any and all suggestions used...will recieve credit in the mod...

Thanks again,

Kana

[Atrocities]

Really depends upon how large you want your fleets to get. If the cost of facilities is high, then most likely your AI will spend more to obtain the growth that it is required to maintain. Sticking close to SEIV norm may or may not be the best thing.

In Facilities you could require the cost in Organics to be higher than other resources, and for ships the cost in minerals is higher than the others, while components cost about equal in all.

The choice is really up to how you want the AI to consentrate its resources, for production, or for maitenance. I hope this rambling helps, if it makes no sense, well thats just me.