Technology Research Suggestions

[ZeroAdunn]

Along the lines of new tech here are some ideas I had:

Rail Guns: Early incredibly cheap tech.
Size: 20
Damage: 20 20 20 20
Increaed chance to hit 50
Standard Everything else

Increase the damage done by fighter kamikaze warheads.

Mod weapons engines and supply storage (maybe armor too) to require more radioactives.

Mod life support and crew quarters to require more organics.

Extend current tech areas.

Just some thoughts

[PurpleRhino]

Not sure if anybody is intersted, but I have most of these suggestions in place in a MOD that I'm tweaking. I've done a lot of things... More mine warheads, some changes to shields, armor, remote mining, engines (not based on size, but I might try this.), couple more missile types, another planetary weapon, another point-defense weapon, a couple tweak to some of the ships, bunches more systems types, another quadrant type, and a bunch of other tweaks that I thought were needed. If people are interested, I'll put it up in the download area. BUT it IS a beta right now. I'm currently working on changing the AI to use all the new equipment.
Later,
-PR

[Sinapus]

I'm making a few mods myself. One I recently finished, but haven't had a chance to playtest much is something I did to phase shields. Basically, I just made their strength 315, 330, 345, 360 and 375 instead of the usual progression. I felt the old method was crippling to an AI player (or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it)
when facing me since I don't tend to use PPB very much and if they reach lvl 6 in shields they suddenly get weaker ships.

Another thing I've done is make the fighter equipment require lvl 1 fighter tech and left the other tech requirements unchanged so the races I have that stay at fighter lvl 1 for awhile can build fighters with better engines, ECM and sensors to make life more painful.

I'm also working on some heavier missiles for missile lvl 6-8 since I've noticed the default AI research is showing the Norak and other missile-using races researching that far. Why not give them even more painful missiles that take multiple hits from a PDC V cannon to kill?

I'm thinking of modifying the massive planetary shield generator so that it gains strength with higher levels of shield tech (including phase shields at lvl 6) but don't know how far to go and if you can make a facility that requires two tech levels to build.

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"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

[This message has been edited by Sinapus (edited 07 June 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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Basically, I just made their strength 315, 330, 345, 360 and 375 instead of the usual progression. I felt the old method was crippling to an AI player (or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it)

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Same reason I had
The only difference between our two methods is that my shield improvements happen linearly with tech level, while yours rise faster at first, then suddenly slow down as the technology matures.
Also, I have phased available earlier (lev2 vs lev6)

[Sinapus]

quote:

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Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Same reason I had
The only difference between our two methods is that my shield improvements happen linearly with tech level, while yours rise faster at first, then suddenly slow down as the technology matures.
Also, I have phased available earlier (lev2 vs lev6)[/b]

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My technobabble excuse is that phasing the energy matrix in the shields, while protecting against phased energy fire, doesn't provide much benefit otherwise.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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My technobabble excuse is that phasing the energy matrix in the shields, while protecting against phased energy fire, doesn't provide much benefit otherwise.

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And I considered that extending the shield to cover phased weapons spreads it thinner, so the phased levels have only a minor improvement in strength over the previous, normal level. "Normal shield" improvements cause the big jumps in strength.

[Wolverine]

How about expanding the colonisation procedure through research?

Personally, I think it's far too easy to build colony ships and colonise planets. Colony ships should be far more expensive.

However, how about having to research Domes to allow colonising different atmospheric planets. Or limit colony modules to a specific distance or timescale unless Cryogenics is researched.