Basic Tech Mod Info

[Suicide Junkie]

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Shouldn't laser weapons be long range, I thought that was the whole point of lasers, they never lose power because they are just light? I think lasers should be very long range low power.

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IMO: Long range, low power, and accuracy bonus (since you don't have to lead the target by quite as much).

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Downloaded the P&N mod. Lots of cool sounding stuff in the components.txt file, but does it all work?
You've tested the weapon only and engine only mines and they do what they are supposed to?

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Almost.
Yes.

Known stuff that dosen't work:
-Shield regeneration for units. SE4 just dosen't check for regen on units. The shields still work fine, and whenever Aaron gets SR for units added, the bonus abilities will kick in.
-Swashbuckler Pods. SE4 dosen't even try to capture a ship using a fighter-mounted boarding party. Unfortunate, really, but I left them in for now. Hopefully one of the future patches will enable them.
-Emissive Armor. Well, it dosen't work right in original SE4 either.

Unknown at this time:
-Quad2Shields ramming warheads

Known (& modified) stuff that works:
-Core mount guns (boy do they ever)
-Engines (basic property of my mod)
-Ablative Armor
-BuckyTube Gel Plating (even works with AIs)
-Nomadic Resource vehicles (Gets resources from space)
-Pirate Tech restrictions
-Swashbucklers (Very Wimpy! You need 2 to capture 1 crew quarters, so a solo 'buckler is nearly useless)
-Harmonic shielding
-Temporal cloning vats
-BattleMoons
-Drop Pods & Bio-enhanced Fanatic
-Healing Crystal.
-Psy armor
-Bio-Crystal armor
-Spirit Crew Quarters
-Living ships racial trait
-Heavy Bombardment Missiles
-PDC vs PDL
-Small space Yard
-Heavy Fighter, Massive Fighter
-Tachyon Dampener.
-Heavy Shield Generator
-Hardened Mini-Shield Generator
-Mini shield regenerator
-Tachyon mines
-Ion Mines
and more...

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[Krsqk]

SJ,

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That stuff can't be anything like my original Ablative armor!
Since you have fractional S/T ratios, the armor is not 1kT in size. And the 5 S/T ratio is pretty low.

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Ablative TL 1 armor is 4kt; TL 2 is 3 kt; TL 3 is 2kt. I did this to make the tech "grid" possible. Here are the S/T ranges for each level:

A.A. I (1): 15/4 (3.75); A.A. V (1): 23/4 (5.75)
A.A. I (2): 12/3 (4.0) ; A.A. V (2): 22/3 (7.33)
A.A. I (3): 9/2 (4.5) ; A.A. V (3): 19/2 (9.5)

Stealth armor is 30kt and goes from 2.67 to 5.33 max; Reflective armor is 50kt and goes from 2.4 to 4.0 max. Reflective may need to be reduced to 40kt to make it more competitive with Stealth Armor. Ablative beats these types out at all levels, though.

***Note: I just checked Std. Armor. Armor I is 50/10 (5.0) and goes up to 120/10 (12.0) for Armor XV, so I need to drop Armor a little (or increase size to 15kt) and up Ablative.

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There were two things the made the armor what it was:
1) 1kT size. Thus, if you get hurt, you're out of the war for a long time.
2) very high HP/kT (8-15). This way, it provides competitive protection (compared to shields).

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1) I tried to preserve this aspect; I think that it will provide an alternative to Std. Armor, once I balance that.
2) There are no shields, so I felt justified in modifying the concept a little. I agree that the very high S/T ratio is necessary when shields are allowed. BTW, I started with the values in Devnullmod and didn't look at the P&N comps.txt file; that may change what I see as reasonable/necessary.

ZA,

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Shouldn't laser weapons be long range, I thought that was the whole point of lasers, they never lose power because they are just light? I think lasers should be very long range low power.

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I see your point. I took the fading laser idea from another post in the previous thread, but on second thought, I'll probably follow your line of thinking. Light does fade out over time (at least theoretically); but probably not over the comparatively small space of combat.

Hope that answers your questions. Now some more questions for you all.

What do you think about 1) engine disabling warheads/missiles, 2) weapon reload increase/disruption (i.e., EMP weapons), 3) monoliths, and 4) damage-reducing components? I think 4) was mentioned in the previous thread, but I don't remember the rationale or the response it got. Also, what about short range, low damage, high reload AP weapons? Would players load up on those? Or is it feasible to have a seeker with Skips Armor, so PD has a chance to kill it? We already have multiple-explosive projectiles, multi-layer reactive armor, etc.; something similar might be possible with a missile payload.

That's it for now. Gettin' crackin' on it!

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"The Unpronounceable" Krsqk
Basic Tech Mod

[This message has been edited by Krsqk (edited 23 July 2001).]

[Phoenix-D]

"4) damage-reducing components? I think 4)"

OK, how this works again:

Take a shield. Remove all the shield graphics from the races. Call it Damage Control. Now, give it a shield strength of about 10 and a regen of the same. Poof, it reduces damage by that number per turn.

Phoenix-D

[ZeroAdunn]

Engine damaging weapons: Sure, just make them missiles, you could say they lock onto the exhaust fumes of a ship, then seek and destroy.

Reload disruption: Not sure how you would explain that away.

Monoliths: Keep monoliths, just mod them to be a lot weeker than reg. facilities. Enough to balance it at least, you can produce 300 of each with one monolith (maybe call it an outpost, or central complex) or you can produce 1000 of one type with a specialized facility. It doesn't sound like it's worth it but if you land on a planet that can produce all three well, then a monolith would be usefull.

Make armor piercing weapons, we have armor piercing weapons now.

I think you should mod missiles too. Make them one fire per round and maybe 20 kt (it doesn't sound usefull, but it is). Then make torpedoes pretty much missiles with multiple fires per combat but less damage... did I mention that earlier.

[This message has been edited by ZeroAdunn (edited 18 July 2001).]

[Krsqk]

Phoenix,

I understand (at least now) how to implement the Damage Control comps; I'm just wondering what excuse I can give for them. What systems do we have today/in the near future that would approximate this effect?

RE: Armor Balance. After looking at the P&N comps.txt, I modified the Std. Armor and Ablative Armor families to better reflect the original intent of the tech. Here's where it stands now:

Std. Armor raised to 15kt; structure runs from 30 to 100.
Armor I = 2.0 S/T
Armor XV = 6.67 S/T

Ablative Armor ratios reworked. Researching a higher tech gives, on average, a 1.25x better S/T ratio (was 1.125x). Increased starting ratio of A.A. I (1) to 4.75 (was 3.75). S/T ranges are now:

A.A. I (1): 19/4 (4.75); A.A. V (1): 27/4 (6.75)
A.A. I (2): 17/3 (5.67); A.A. V (2): 25/3 (8.33)
A.A. I (3): 14/2 (7.00); A.A. V (3): 21/2 (10.5)

Hopefully, this will correct the imbalance.

RE: the Limited Unlimited Supply Generator, I don't know of any way to generate supplies without requiring either 1) component use, or 2) solar generation. Am I missing something? I think a limited Quantum Reactor comp would be good, but these are the only solutions I can think of.

RE: Emergency Supplies, I removed them for exactly the reason expressed elsewhere: If they were built into the ship, they might as well be part of the general supply system; and if they can hold more supplies/kt, then why not exclusively use those components for supply storage instead of bulky cargo containers?

RE: Solar Sails, I don't think they should be included due to conflict/abuse with P&N style propulsion. Giving bonus/extra movement doesn't work in this situation, and giving standard movement can be abused (ships with 40 Solar Sail III--much greater range, minimal supply usage than with best engines in P&N). I may include one level, but it would probably not add much movement; today's solar sails are quite large and would take a great amount of time to generate significant speed. They're probably better off not included, just to keep with the thrust of the mod.

Krsqk out.

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"The Unpronounceable" Krsqk
Basic Tech Mod

[This message has been edited by Krsqk (edited 23 July 2001).]

[Krsqk]

"Make armor piercing weapons, we have armor piercing weapons now."

From my perspective, the problem with AP weaps is balance, there being nothing that will stop them. It's a bit like Null-Space weaps in the std game.

I agree anti-engine missiles are legit; what about anti-engine mines, though?

Can weaps fire 2+ times per round? Reload .5? (from Torp suggestion)

My current thinking on missiles/torps is leave torps alone (as direct fire); missiles will be set up in a research grid similar to armor. Launcher tech will develop launchers (fire rate/weapon size); warhead tech will develop yield (damage); Missile tech will develop delivery vehicles (speed, seeker resistance). Individual sub-tech areas will develop additional areas such as Sprint Missiles, Engine Destroying, High Yield, etc.

Something similar will probably (possibly? depends on time) be done with the slug throwers, with less differentiation, just to give a different feel. PD will probably adapt the P&N style, with name changes (don't know if we have any lasers capable of bLasting nukes), i.e. "short-range" and "mid-range."

Keep the comments coming!

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"The Unpronounceable" Krsqk
Basic Tech Mod

[This message has been edited by Krsqk (edited 23 July 2001).]

[Phoenix-D]

"I understand (at least now) how to implement the Damage Control comps; I'm just wondering what excuse I can give for them. What systems do we have today/in the near future that would approximate this effect?"

Well, you could call it a specialized control center that directs crews which quickly jery-rigs damage as it happens, reducing the overall effect on the ship. Loosing the control center takes away the cordination of quick repairs, and thus the damage reduction.

EDIT:

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RE: the Limited Unlimited Supply Generator, I don't know of any way to generate supplies without requiring either 1) component use, or 2) solar generation. Am I missing something? I think a limited Quantum Reactor comp would be good, but these are the only solutions I can think of.

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That one's easy, if you don't mind fudging it.

Take this:

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Name := Emergency Resupply Pod III
Description := Pod which will be sacrificed to gain extra supplies for the ship. Only one component allowed per vehicle.
Pic Num := 35
Tonnage Space Taken := 10
Tonnage Structure := 10
Cost Minerals := 400
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 0
Vehicle Type := Ship\Base
Supply Amount Used := 0
Restrictions := One Per Vehicle
General Group := Supply
Family := 24
Roman Numeral := 3
Custom Group := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Resupply
Tech Level Req 1 := 4
Number of Abilities := 2
Ability 1 Type := Emergency Resupply
Ability 1 Descr := Generates 6000 supply when used.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 6000
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Ability 2 Type := Component Destroyed On Use
Ability 2 Descr := Component is destroyed after use.
Ability 2 Val 1 := 0
Ability 2 Val 2 := 0
Weapon Type := None

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Remove the second ability, rename it and change the decription, maybe limit it to one per ship and/or make it expensive, and you've got yourself a re-useable, if manually triggered, resupply component. (speaking of which, will ships use these things if they run out of supplies? Will the AI? The resupply minister?)

Phoenix-D

[This message has been edited by Phoenix-D (edited 18 July 2001).]