New Mod: The Art of War Mod

[geoschmo]

Taelenn. No ofense taken. The reson I posted them is that I wanted feedback. Yours especially as a lot of what I am doing is based on comments you have already made in the thread.

Personally I like all the hulls having defensive and offensive bonuses or penalties, depending on the size. I think it fits with the overall feel of the mod, and with the goal of keeping the small ships viable later in the game. I may have gone a bit high with them though. I went with the exsisting defense bonuses/penalties and just filled in the gaps for ths ships that didn't have them in the stock game. With the other combat modifieing comps though I decresead these, and I probably should have with the hulls. I will probably cut the pluses and minuses in half for the next Version.

The attack bonus is already half of the defense bonus for the hulls. This balances wiht the ECM-Armor/Combat Senosrs though, as currently I have the sensors with an advantage. This is planned though as I want sensors to be stronger than ECM to lessen "Hot kinfe through butter" effect of a slight sensor tech diparity now in combat. Yes the higher tech should win, and destroy the enemy, but they shouldn't walk off the field without a scratch.

Also the larger ships have the turret mount that increases chance to hit, did you see that?

Personally I don't think the maint for the larger ships is an issue. I didn't intend to make them viable early, just available for someone if they wanted to pay enough for them, since in the stock game they aren't even evailable.

However the lack of space is an issue. The need for the engineering section and additional crew quarters does limit the Cruiser, and that's without implementing my proplulsion changes, which will futher cramp things for them. I think what I may do there is raise the size of the Cruiser, or add an other step or two in there. Maybe Light Cruiser, Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser, battle Cruiser? And maybe shuffle the sizes of the smaller ships some. I don't know. I'll have to think that one over.

Keep the comments coming.

Geoschmo

[Baron Munchausen]

Geo:

Why did you use the life support instead of the crew quarters? It seems to me that the crew quarters represent the real maintainers of the ship. Also, what about Master Computers? Should they have the same bonus or maybe a higher bonus than whatever crew components you make into an 'engineering component' to control maintenance costs?

It's too bad we can't use the 'restrictions' abilities in the vehiclesize.txt to control how much of various other components besides engines and cargo bays can be put into a given hull. We could have cruisers able to carry a higher proportion of armor or weapons than a light cruiser and so have an advantage even if it's only slightly larger.

[ 07 May 2002: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[geoschmo]

Not sure why I used life support instead of crew quarters for the egineering section. Just did. Could have been either.

Yes, using a master comp as is instead of the engineering section would put a severe crimp on the maint for larger ships. I suppose there is nothing stopping one from using a master comp and an engineering section.

I will have to work on that. Perhaps the master comp will have tech reqs in computers and ship construction, and the higher levels of ships construciton, you will get a master comp with a better maint reduction. Keep it equal to the same level of engineering section. That could work. Of course then you'd have people using master computers on small ships and getting free maint. Maybe I don't want to do that afterall.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Geo

[ 07 May 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Phoenix-D]

Also remember that unless the maintance bonuses don't stack, people will probably put both a master computer and engineering section on, just to get the enhanced maintance reduction.

EDIT: you never did tell me if you wanted the "warhead + body" missile types I made. I'll assume that's a no

Phoenix-D

[ 07 May 2002: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[geoschmo]

I believe maint bonuses do stack. So that about clinches it. You will still need to have an engineering section on you ships with master computers, ubless you have pleanty of money and don't care about the maintenance reduction. But for a large ship the 40Kt sholdn't be that critical.

I am still interested in the missles. I just haven't got to that point in the mod yet.

Geoschmo

[Phoenix-D]

OK. I'll try and clean them up a bit, balance them out better.

Are you planning on adjusting weapon damage any? Because these were based on the standard CSM damage and changed from there. PM me when you get around to wanting them, and I'll send over what I have.

Phoenix-D

[Taz-in-Space]

Geoschmo, One thing I really liked about the deathstalker Mount Mod was the Mini Mount for components. (you know, the one that halved the size of non-weapon components for twice the price)
This allowed you to create 'Elite' ships that were costly to build, but could carry much more.
This trade-off between Build time/Maint-and- repair-cost and capability was self balancing IMO.