Has anything really changed?

[Phoenix-D]

More flexible? SE4 had 20 damage ranges. SE5 has five HUNDRED.

You can do the SE4 system in SE5. It's just a bit more fiddly to create. And if you don't want a perfect match, its easier.

anti-proton beam XII, SE4:
Weapon Damage At Rng := 65 60 60 55 55 50 50 45 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Same thing, SE5: 65 - ([%Range%] / 2) - iif([%Range%] > 80, 10000, 0).

The difference is you have to do it ONCE in SE5, if you do the forumla properly, and in SE4 you'd have to input it 12 times.

SE5 has a built-in mod loader. SE4 does not.

SE5 has modable damage types, planet types, and unit types. SE4 does not.

SE5 has a much more flexible way of making components available. Want to make it so you can research Physics OR Chemistry to get a certain component? You can do that.

SE5 makes the "Tech grid" approach of SE4 look clunky. If you want to, say make missile damage dependant on one tech, missile speed on another, and missile range on a third, you can easily do that. In SE4 it was a tedious process involving HUNDREDS of components, which meant you could only do it for a few items before the file got too large to load.

SE4's combat speed for ships with Strategic Speed /2. In SE5 you can define combat speed seperately, along with acceleration, turning, etc.

Do I need to go on?

[Shadowstar]

Indeed, as a modder I look at SE5 like a kid in a candy store. There's so many things we can play with, I don't know where to begin!

[Onomatopoeia]

Suicide Junkie said:
Just FYI:

There is an explicit SE4-style damage at range field in components.txt, so you don't have to use the formulae.

Code:

---

Weapon Space At Range Distance Increment        := 5.0

Weapon Space Min Damage At Range                :=    50 50 50 50 50 50 50 0

Weapon Space Max Damage At Range                :=    100 100 100 100 100 100 100 0

Weapon Space To Hit Modifier At Range           :=    50 45  40  35  30  25  10 0

---

This is very heartening, and so are all the other options available, but I must admit my real wish is for more weaponry options (AoE and arcing weapons).

Phoenix-D said:
SE5 has modable damage types, planet types, and unit types. SE4 does not.

When you say damage types, I assume you are talking about damage to various components and such? Could you make it so only a few specific components are targeted (i.e. a weapon that only destroys quantum and ion engines).

Another question I have then is whether some form of advanced modding or scripting language could be used to modify the game, so as to allow for things normally impossible, such as area of effect weapons, maybe even extra resources or the like.

[Suicide Junkie]

Arcing weapons? You don't often fight near black holes...

I did submit a fairly simple proposal for generalized submunitions, which would have allowed you to simulate area of effect, along with "cone of death" stuff, supply stealing shuttles going to the enemy and coming back, chain lightning type stuff and more.

[Onomatopoeia]

Suicide Junkie said:
Arcing weapons? You don't often fight near black holes...

I did submit a fairly simple proposal for generalized submunitions, which would have allowed you to simulate area of effect, along with "cone of death" stuff, supply stealing shuttles going to the enemy and coming back, chain lightning type stuff and more.

I'm not sure what you meant about the black holes, unless there is some physics point I'm missing here. I don't think I made myself clear the first time, but I mean the chain-lightning weapons you refer to.
When you say 'submit a proposal', do you mean ask Aaran for it to be implemented? Or have you found a way to introduce them into a game? Please forgive my ignorance, I don't actually own the game yet.

[Phoenix-D]

By damage types I mean things like "half to shields" "skips armor" and the like. But yeah, you could make a weapon type that only targets quantum and ion engines, leaving the other types alone.

[Suicide Junkie]

It was a suggestion to Aaron.

Basically, an addition to the damageTypes.txt file that specified additional weapons to spawn/fire when the original shot detonates. Plus formulae to determine what should be targetted and which direction the new weapons would travel in.

[boran_blok]

I have another suggestion for Aaron, use XML in the next Space Empires, building 3rd party editors is going to be soooo much easier.