Kwok's next Mod

[AstralWanderer]

Baron Munchausen: If you're looking to be logical try hanging the base and ship construction techs off of a theoretical "Engineering" field.

Good idea - this could be supplemented by requiring a second theoretical field ("Minaturisation" in line with the comments above or "Large-Scale Construction") for higher levels of ship design.

Baron Munchausen: And please, please break up Stellar Manipulations already! It's been a catch-all for various almost unrelated techs for much too long.

I'd second..whoops..third this. It would seem better suited as a prerequisite theoretical field.

aegisx: How do you counter that type of expansion other then being forced to follow the same path?

One option would be to add minimum population requirements (if possible) to key facilities (shipyards, resupply depots) and to have these increase with level (on the grounds that more advanced facilities require better infrastructure support even if they need less staff). That way, expanding empires either have to focus on building up one or two colonies to gain access to better facilities faster, or use older facilities on new colonies and upgrade when population permits.

[MasterChiToes]

Are the ruins' tech rewards moddable? I've noticed that they aren't completely random, and with the Balance Mod changes in tech costs the results can be worthless to unbelievably valuable.

[Fyron]

AstralWanderer said:
"One option would be to add minimum population requirements (if possible)..."

Not possible at present.

[BlueTemplar]

you will add the necessity to build a bunch of population transports in order to play effectively

But many players could find it worthwhile to build an attack fleet instead of a coloniser/pop transport fleet!
That would give you a real choice on how do you want to play the game...

[Fyron]

Not really; the guy with the transports will still have warships, able to fight back against the small early game fleets fielded against him. And over time, he will get far, far ahead. I've yet to see it play out any differently in any of the PBW games with such mods I've been in.

Unless you get really lucky and have a successful blitzkrieg, early game warfare in multiplayer usually causes you to lose the game (and often the person you duke it out with). Not expanding is a death wish.

[AstralWanderer]

One useful addition would be seeker decoys - low-cost seekers intended to absorb point-defense fire (rather like MIRVs) giving actual missiles, fighers or drones a better chance to get through a heavy PD defence (which otherwise tends to negate the whole point of seekers).

Another would be external mounts that provide extra tonnage on ship designs, but with the downside of making the components installed on them more vulnerable to battle damage - handled perhaps by restricting these to Armour slots and reducing the structure of the component in question? (this would provide an alternative use for Armour slots given the suggested changes to actual armour posted above).

As for ship design, how about requiring the use of space station shipyards for building larger classes? The rationale for this is that larger constructions would need to be assembled in-orbit - gamewise it would give more reason for using space stations (currently weapon platforms outdo them for planet defense and planet space yard facilities have better build rates).

[Suicide Junkie]

I like the idea of removing auto-fire ability from the point defense in SE4. Then you never know what will happen.

For SE5, there is a nice option for leaky PD utilizing the poission distribution.
1) Set PD guns to -999% to-hit. (IE: guarantee the 1% hit chance despite all bonuses)
2) Set reload time to ~50ms
3) Set the damage to 999
4) Set the PD projectile speed very high, or make it a beam.
5) Disable the PD animations, or at least make them short and simple; flak bursts perhaps.
6) Disable the sound effects, or possibly make them VERY VERY quiet so that 100 of them overlapping isn't speaker-blowingly loud.

Improved PD potency comes from increased range and additional PD guns.
Improved PD penetration comes from increasing seeker speed and larger volleys.

You get 20 shots per second from each PD gun, so the longer the seeker is in range the better your chances.

There is a small chance that you won't shoot down any missiles, but there is also a small chance you will shoot down lots of missiles with just one PD gun. The more the merrier, but nothing is guaranteed, and you get a nice poission distribution of missile-kills.

[AstralWanderer]

Suicide Junkie said:
I like the idea of removing auto-fire ability from the point defense in SE4. Then you never know what will happen.

It would certainly better approximate real-world point defence, but would likely result in severe performance problems, e.g. large battles with thousands of simultaneous PD rounds - even without graphics, there would still be calculation overheads. A less extreme adjustment (doubling fire rate and halving the damage done) may work better.

My preference would be to supply ways of countering strong PD - decoys are one option and improved (faster, tougher, stealthier) seekers could be another.

[Spoo]

Suicide Junkie said:
I like the idea of removing auto-fire ability from the point defense in SE4. Then you never know what will happen.

For SE5, there is a nice option for leaky PD utilizing the poission distribution.
1) Set PD guns to -999% to-hit. (IE: guarantee the 1% hit chance despite all bonuses)
2) Set reload time to ~50ms
3) Set the damage to 999
4) Set the PD projectile speed very high, or make it a beam.
5) Disable the PD animations, or at least make them short and simple; flak bursts perhaps.
6) Disable the sound effects, or possibly make them VERY VERY quiet so that 100 of them overlapping isn't speaker-blowingly loud.

Improved PD potency comes from increased range and additional PD guns.
Improved PD penetration comes from increasing seeker speed and larger volleys.

You get 20 shots per second from each PD gun, so the longer the seeker is in range the better your chances.

There is a small chance that you won't shoot down any missiles, but there is also a small chance you will shoot down lots of missiles with just one PD gun. The more the merrier, but nothing is guaranteed, and you get a nice poission distribution of missile-kills.

I like it.