Mafador could you add a new type of weapon?

AJC · #1 October 18th, 2001, 03:17 AM

I would like to see at least the capability for defenses against every type of weapon damage. Even if its not in the released game , I would like to see it put into the Abilities.txt file. It would be nice to be able to create a mod with the options to use a defense for every type of weapon.

Baron Munchausen · #2 October 18th, 2001, 03:28 AM

Yep, yep! I've requested all of these repeatedly in the beta forums and out here in the public forums. The "Engine Pulsar" from MOO, for example. And simple collateral damage to adjacent ships when one blows up. And the "lightning shield" missile defense. That's probably a no-no with missiles as unbalanced as they already are... I wanted multiple levels of armor effectiveness and armor-piercing too, instead of just the one "ignores armor" ability. We need 'Neutronium' armor that cannot be pierced by anything... Best idea we ever had in the beta forums was a settable modifer for each weapon for its damage to shield or armor. So, you could have all sorts of variations in weapon effectiveness against shields or armor. It would probably require a complete re-write of the combat engine to implement this.

MM is just too busy with bug-fixing to add new stuff right now. I hope we'll at least get drones before the "SE IV Gold" re-issue that seems to be in the works. Space monsters and/or pirates would also be a nice bonus. Especially with an intel project to create them against your enemies. But all these fancy new weapon effects seem likely to be put off for SE V.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 18 October 2001).]

Suicide Junkie · #3 October 18th, 2001, 03:37 PM

quote:
I would like to see at least the capability for defenses against every type of weapon damage. Even if its not in the released game , I would like to see it put into the Abilities.txt file.
It would be nice to be able to create a mod with the options to use a defense for every type of weapon.

Have you ever tried P&N

?
There is currently a defense against every specialty weapon, except for Engine-destroying.
(Armor skipping, weapons-only, shield generators only, even null-space)
And the engine destroying weapons are hampered by the fact that every captial ship will have 30 to 40 engines rather than 4 to 6 (thus requiring lots of hits to disable).
My next release will also include explicit Engine defenses you can add on.
Of course, defending against every possible type of attack will be very expensive and space-consuming.

Phoenix-D · #4 October 18th, 2001, 06:29 PM

How did you get the shield defenses to work? I still haven't got the stupid things to actually take the hits..

Phoenix-D

Suicide Junkie · #5 October 19th, 2001, 01:39 AM

As of P&N v2.3c, the description of the Buckytube gel claims to have shield-protection, but it dosen't work. It has been changed for the next Version.

The shield defenses that DO work are the Heavy Shield Generators and the Hardened mini shields.

Both have high physical strength, and so resist shield disruptors well. The HSGs have 200 hitpoints, and so will only be destroyed by a Massive-mount Shield disruptor IV or V, from point-blank range.
HMSGs have 20-40 hitpoints, so you will only lose one per hit, up to 7 from a Massive mount, SD V at point blank. Even then, you only lose 7 components, for a maximum loss of 455 shield points.
Remember that Massive mounts only fit on Baseships or Battlemoons. You shouldn't be going to point blank range with them

bearclaw · #6 October 19th, 2001, 01:47 AM

The biggest flaw I think the game has is the limited range of defences. When I first was playing SE4 and discovered scattering and stealth armour, I thought it was a great start. I kept looking for other armour types. Things like ablative armour, powered armour, reflective armour, etc, etc. These are things that really should be added.

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"You don't know the Power of the Dark Side. I must obey my Master"

Tarquelne · #7 October 20th, 2001, 04:26 AM

suicide_junkie:

How well does the AI handle defences that cancel the null-space ability of null-space weapons? Will it only use null-space "resistant" components when faceing an opponent using null-space weapons? (I suppose this is really a question about the AI's component-awareness in general.)

I wonder if SEIV's lack of "defense against every special damage" is because the AI currently can't handle it well. (I feel guilty about going around with nomal-shield ships and zapping all the nomal-shielded AI ships with PP weapons, and then zapping them all with something with a high raw damage as soon as the AI goes to P-shields.)

Or I suppose it might not be an issue if the null-space resistance is built-in to something that ship designers would include anyway, or if the resistance is part of a very cheap, small component....

Oh, what the heck. This is off topic, but as long as I'm here: How challenging is the AI in P&N? Does it handle all the (very interesting) additions well? I play regularly against only 1 human foe, but I've got, uh, lets see.... 46 races going, so that's quite a bit of AI adjusting if I want to us P&N.

OK, yeah, I could just drop all the non-P&N races when using P&N. :P to you.

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I know how God can make a rock so big he can't move it.