Racial Tech-Traits Mod

[PvK]

Is it possible to make the name of a trait contain characters that make it distinct, but not visibly different during play, so that opponents can't actually tell which specific traits another race has chosen by looking at their race info page?

PvK

[PvK]

Muahahaha!

Did a test.

It seems, from my brief test anyway, that the name of a racial trait is essentially a special effect for human benefit only.

Which means that it may be very easy to make the names not contain the information about what traits a race has chosen, or, for instance to have any number of traits with the same name, and give them varying effects, so opponents won't be able to tell exactly what traits a race has simply by looking at their info file.

PvK

[Taera]

hm, this looks a promisingly interesting game idea....

Anyone interested?
we'll need a moderator to oversee techs and make sure they arent too powerful (say a race with uber-shields and skipping weaponry only)

[PvK]

Well, if I were an impartial moderator, I'd probably do like in my Balance mod project, and allow most stuff, but assess balanced costs. Uber techs would have really uber costs. Ya you can have a 5000-point phased shield generator component, but it's tech level 50 in your racial tech, or whatever.

PvK

[Ed Kolis]

This will be fun... Fear the Cheeze Dominion and its army of elite Zealot Infantry wielding the Holy Photon Grenade of Antioch, and ProtoBuster-equipped fighters providing air support... not to mention the HyperSpace VOMM Ray ("It's called that because it goes through HyperSpace and it goes VOMM when you shoot it!") armed UberDoomNaughts (a 15,000 kT base with 1 "Holy Frickin' Crud You Can Move a BASE With That Thing?!?" Ion Drive)... and Level 9 Legendary Spazers on MicroPlats (weapon platforms that are just big enough to hold 1 of my best weapon, so the "build 1 turn's worth" can be used optimally)



Now if I could only stop myself from peeking at the data files...

[Pax]

Originally posted by PvK:
Muahahaha!

Did a test.

It seems, from my brief test anyway, that the name of a racial trait is essentially a special effect for human benefit only.

Which means that it may be very easy to make the names not contain the information about what traits a race has chosen, or, for instance to have any number of traits with the same name, and give them varying effects, so opponents won't be able to tell exactly what traits a race has simply by looking at their info file.

PvK

In other words, everyone gets "Custom Racial Trait" ... and are DIRECTED, when building their final EMP files, "Use the #5 position" ... ?

Hmm, wait. Even better. SE4 only cares about the NUMBER of entries in teh RacialTraits.txt file, right?

Hand out, for EMP building, player-specific racialtraits.txt files. Lots of entries, one of them labelled "yours", the rest labelled "not yours" or used for standard SE4 traits. Each player-specific racialtraits.txt file has NO information on the customs that aren't theirs.

Everything custom, ofc, is appended on to teh end of the REAL racialtraits.txt file, in player order.

Posted by Ed Kolis:
This will be fun... Fear the Cheeze Dominion and its army of elite Zealot Infantry wielding the Holy Photon Grenade of Antioch, and ProtoBuster-equipped fighters providing air support... not to mention the HyperSpace VOMM Ray ("It's called that because it goes through HyperSpace and it goes VOMM when you shoot it!") armed UberDoomNaughts (a 15,000 kT base with 1 "Holy Frickin' Crud You Can Move a BASE With That Thing?!?" Ion Drive)... and Level 9 Legendary Spazers on MicroPlats (weapon platforms that are just big enough to hold 1 of my best weapon, so the "build 1 turn's worth" can be used optimally)



Now if I could only stop myself from peeking at the data files...

Well, TRUE god-modding wasn't exactly my idea, but it could be fun anyway.

I think it would be best if all players in such a game agreed on wether or not the point is god-modding, or not; on wether the game should have a humorous theme, or not; and so on.

Also you would have to agree wether or not the mod used certain conventions, like QNP or mQNP, or not. 8)

What'd possibly be funnier is ... once everyone has their race done up, and their tech balanced and approved ... everyone hand your EMP to the player on your left ... hehehe!

Still, a "Custom Race-Tech" game could be a lot of fun.

[ January 08, 2003, 03:01: Message edited by: Pax ]

[Ragnarok]

This is an interesting idea and could be alot of fun.
Would you limit the amount of stuff the player could mod though? I think you should other wise you'll have players modding 10 different hull sizes with 20 different weapons to put on there. While another may mod 12 hull sizes and only 12 weapons.
Even though the point is sort of a god mod thing going on here I would think you would limit how much they could mod.
Say for instance you set a limit of 7 new weapons.
3 new hulls.
and so on and so forth.

Just a thought.