SE 4 Gold

[Fyron]

None of the mods I have seen look anything like a Buck Rogers universe. What does the talk about how space ships look have to do with mods? Unless maybe you are confusing shipsets with mods?

If you think about it, why would advanced star-faring nations make ugly, purely functional ships? You don't inspire much fear or awe when your ship looks like it is just cobbled together. Further, the added cost of curved surfaces vs. boxy ones would be fairly trivial compared to all the high tech systems inside. I don't think it is reasonable to assume that real spaceships (at the point when we can travel to distant stars quickly and form 100s of planet empires, not in the very near future where it costs a considerable portion of GNP to just get a few spaceships running) will look like box girders or just be modules strapped to a spar.

And besides, there are a ton of SE4 shipsets that have no thought given to aerodynamics, only to aesthetics. But don't take my word for it, have a look for yourself.

There are some shipsets that look like your model of a spaceship though. 2001, for example.

[c_of_red]

Prolly I am. I was looking for patches and ran across a bunch of stuff that was called mods and consisted of new sets of Icons for various ship types.
I have thought about it. What is the point of building something esthetic that will never be "seen" except by radar or infared? You install all the fear and awe you want, I'm going to blow stuff up and kill things.
As far as cost goes; Nervos belli, pecuniam infinitam.
2 ships with the exact same performance and weapons, only yours is 'pretty', or scary ( to you, I doubt that your opponent gives a hoot. I KNOW the Computer doesn't), while mine is cheap and ugly. So your's cost 10K whatevers and mine costs 8K. So for 100K units, you get 10 and I get 12.
Like Uncle Joe said "Quanity has a quality of it's own"
Example; In WW2 the best US Figter was the P-51. What made it the best was that 14,819 were built in 4 1/2 years. The P-47 and F4U had better performance then the P-51, but they were more expensive to build (P-47) and took longer (F4U).
Technology changes, people don't. An engineer of 200 years in the future is going to look for the best solution, just like an engineer of today or 200 years ago.

[Fyron]

25% cost hike? Yikes. I doubt it would be anywhere near that significant just to make it more shapely... Maybe 2.5%.

[psimancer]

closer to the original subject
of mods vs shipsets

in spaceempires mods are actually more used as a way of changing the physics of the universe and adding components
specifically space empires basic uses non newtonian propulsion wheras most mods attempt to add some measure of newtonian physics to spaceship movement
and almost all mods add componernts for ship design like new and different weapons different armors different engines
some are designed to allow simulation of specific mass media environments
an example the starwars rebellion mod is designed to add components ship hulls movement and weapons that simulate the star wars universe

wheras shipsets/races are a set of pictures and sometimes also behavior control files (a.i and minister)to add flavor to the playing experience as such the race/shipsets have almost no impact on game mechanics (exceptpossibly in the mind of the player)

mods range from as little impact as fqm deluxe (allows the generation of larger more populous maps with more realistic terrain features)
to star wars rebellion
to a full change like space food empires or backyard wars (the toys will own your yard !!!!!)

so in actuallity you might try a few mods
the suggested basic mods are fqm deluxe and the image mod (adds additional images for use by other mods )
many people who play single player believe the game's a.i. to be easy to beat so one masterful designer created the TDM mod to add further smarts to the ai and make single player games more challenging

as such you might discover some of these more basic mods could add a bit more challenge to your single player games

[c_of_red]

Imperator Fyron said:
25% cost hike? Yikes. I doubt it would be anywhere near that significant just to make it more shapely... Maybe 2.5%.

This was scary, sort of.
Either you have zero understanding of 4X games or SEIV will end up being another box on the shelf where I keep bogus games. I hope not.
Let me try once to explain. The actual percentage is meaningless. All it (the percentage) does is affect the time factor (t) in the equation.
If you own a widget shop, and I own a widget shop across the street and I have ANY sort of efficeny advantage over you while all other factors are equal, you have a chapter 11 in your future. The difference between 2.5 percent and 25 percent is the time it takes to achieve dominance.
If the game doesn't relect this then It is worth the hard drive space it will take up.
I got the game Saturday and I'll load it tommorrow, so we will see.

[c_of_red]

So the Mod thingy allows players to play god and design a universe run by their own laws of Physics, if I got it right. Does that include the Laws of Economics and Politics as well?
I mean 4X is called 4X for a reason. Physics applies to eXplore and eXterminate mostly, but eXpand is mainly the Economic portion and eXploit is the Political aspect of a 4X game. Not that there is a distinct line between the seperate functions.
While the Laws of Economics and Politics are not as well explored as the Laws of Physics, they are just as immutable.
Any way, I got the CD and I'll start on this tommorrow and I'll know by the weekend.
In 1899 the director of the US patent office recommended shutting dwon the Patent office because everything that could be invented already had been and no new inventions were possible.

[Suicide Junkie]

A 25% advantage is unbeatable.

A 2.5% advantage can be overcome by tactics, strategy and even some luck.


PS:
Charging more for aesthetics is a very lame idea. Looks are completely irrelevant.

[Fyron]

Modding allows one to change many aspects of the game, from what facilites do, to the components you can use, to the types of planets and systems on the map. Check out Data folder.

=0=

2.5% isn't even a strategically relevant advantage. Resource production being equal, that means you can support 102 ships for every 100 (of the exact same tech level and configuration) that the enemy can. If that is all that is determining victory, there is not much of a game at hand.

I'd love to see the business that goes into bankruptcy for no reason other than a 2.5% cost of production disadvantage against its competitors... such a trivial difference is easily overcome by other factors, such as brand, functionality, and marketing (marketing is the bulk of business success in the first place).