New kinds of PDCs

[Suicide Junkie]

One more link to Pirates & Nomads

I've already added the small null-space, but didn't notice the SWMG was missing.
I don't know what kind of plan you have for the SWMG, but I would have them do moderate (for a fighter ) damage at range 6 or so.

Beware: the 1.41 patch may have screwed up the Nomads, but I hope not.
Also: V1.6 is posted, but I am working on V2

quote:

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-Will feature quasi-Newtonian propulsion. SE4 still allows instant stop-and-go, but your speed will be proportional to thrust over mass.
-Will include "Bleeding Edge" technology, with costs falling for old/low end components.
-Maximum engine limits will be removed: you decide how much weaponry to sacrifice for speed.
-BattleMoon size ships! 10Mt of space in the core of a hollowed out planetoid provides one hell of a base. New Core-Mounts will be available, increasing weapon size by 100 times. Watch out for the pricetag on these suckers (about 1/2 to 1 million resources before components, depending on how the playtesting goes )
-More crossover techs for regular components.
-More warhead damage types
-Anything else I can think of

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Note: The engine limit will only be used to keep your ship's propulsive force to a value less than 256, so the game dosen't choke .

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 26 June 2001).]

[Baal]

What do you think about a Phased PDC, a Null Space PDC, and the addition of Small Phased Shields?

I have all these set up and good to go.

[Suicide Junkie]

A null space PDC is exactly the same as an All-Shield-Skipping PDC.

Armor-skipping PDCs are pointless.

Units don't lose components, the entire vehicle is either alive or dead. So there is only the shield part, and the total hull hitpoints (comps + armor).
A crystalline shard for example, will normally destroy internals first. But, a fighter dosen't keep track of components, so if it was damaged to 109/110 hitpoints, it would have all its guns/engines/etc working. The armor-skipping weapon has no advantage against units, and acts exactly like a normal weapon.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that a null-space PDC and a shield-skipping PDC will have exactly the same effect. So keep whichever looks/sounds the coolest, and drop the other. OR, make them different somehow (range, damage, accuracy bonus, etc).

[Baal]

Not with Small Phased shields. The Phased PDC doesn't skip them but a Null space would, which is why I stuck it in along with new small phased shields.

[Suicide Junkie]

Exactly.

"Skips all shields" is the exact same as "Skips shields and armor" (ie. null-space), when units are involved.

"Skips normal shields" (ie. phased weapons) would not be pointless since you have phased unit shields.

[Spoo]

quote:

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-Will feature quasi-Newtonian propulsion. SE4 still allows instant stop-and-go, but your speed will be proportional to thrust over mass.

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That sounds really neat. Can you tell us how you did it?

------------------
Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

[Suicide Junkie]

Really, your acceleration should be based on Thrust/Mass, but speed is the next closest thing in SE4 .

So... start with a collection of moddable settings, and facts about SE4:

- Ships with enough engine components to total more than 255 'standard' movement points crash the game. (bonus movement may or may not count towards the total).
- Shipsize.txt has a setting "engines per move"
- The engine ability is: provides x standard/bonus movement points.

Now, we want speed to be divided by the mass of the ship... so we shall make the engine force required for each notch of speed proportional to the mass of the ship.
To keep total movement points below 255, I chose to make the "engines per move" equal to Mass / 50.
Thus, we have:
ES: 150kt, 3 engines per move.
FG: 200kt, 4 EPM
DS: 300kt, 6 EPM
...
DN: 1000kt, 20 EPM
BS: 1500kt, 30 EPM.

Now, I decided to make the DS my pivot, so a DS design would have the same speed in original SE4 and my mod.
Since a DS requires 6 EPM, the typical engine must provide 6 movement points.
I also decided that the "typical engine" as above should be in the middle of the tech tree, so Ion Engine I's would provide less than 6 Movement, while Quantum engine IIIs would provide more.

Now, I said to myself, why not do more messing with the engines? As of now, I think I will have propulsion tech levels that contain:
Chemical Rockets: decent thrust (5), poor fuel efficiency(30-50), large amounts of supply bays will be needed to run these.
Nuclear Rockets: better thrust (6), decent fuel efficiency (15-20), high on radioactives cost.
Ion engines: poor thrust (3), awesome efficiency (3-4)
Singularity Drives: good thrust (7), great fuel efficiency (2-3), uses directed Hawking radiation from a tiny black hole to propel the ship with 100% conVersion of mass to propulsive energy. The only losses are from operating the tractor/repulsor beams required to hold the black hole away from the ship's hull.
WarpPointDrive??: no thrust, poor fuel efficiency, bonus movement, might not be used.

Anyways, back on topic... uh,yeah. Standard engines need to produce about 6 movement, so we go to components.txt and boost the "standard movement" of the engines to numbers near six .

So, an escort with 60kT (6) of the "standard" engine, would have:
6x6=36 "movement" points,
Divide by number of engines per move, and:
36/3 = 12 movement points.
If I were to fill up the escort with 13 engines and a MC III , then we get 13x6/3=26 movement points on a ship than cannot do anything but scout.
Putting on a shield and an antiproton beam brings us back to 6 engines, and 12 movement points.

Now, try the same setup on a DS. Six standard movement only gets you 6*6/6=6 movement. The DS is twice as heavy, so it moves twice as slow! With the extra space on the ship, we could fill it with engines and an MC III again, and we get 28 * 6 /6 = 28 movement (vs 26 for the escort).
It is still a useless ship, but with more engines pushing just themselves and an MC, we get a little more speed.
With a shield and antiproton and MC, taking up 90 space, we have 21 engines left, giving us 21 movement rather than 12.

Now take it up a few notches to our Cruiser. At 500kT, it takes 10 EPM. If we want just the shield, antiproton and MC, we get 41 engines. 41*6/10 = 24.6 = 24 movement. Damn fast, but a cruiser with only a shield and antiproton beam is pretty crappy for fighting.

Now, 41*6=246, which is cutting close to the 255 ceiling. If I want 7 MP engines, I will have to limit the engines per ship to 36. That will make LCs the fastest possible ship.

For a Baseship, we have 30EPM, so we need 5 engines (5*6=30)just to get one movement outta the sucker. 36 engines would provide 7 movement with a single backup engine, but you would have to sacrifice 1/3rd of your baseship to propulsion space, leaving just over 1000kT free. That would be like having an engine-only LC rammed up the rear end of a battlestation .

Anyways, looking back at that, I think I will have to limit the engines after all... well, maybe not... DS/LC will have the top speeds in the game, but the ES can get better fuel efficiency (by using fewer engines).

That baseship, with 35 engines, would burn (35*10*7 = 2450 supplies to move 7 squares in one turn).
The escort, however could get a speed of 8 with 4 engines, using up only (4*10*7= 280)
11% of the fuel that the baseship used!
In SE4 as original, the two ships would use the exact same amount of supplies to move the same distance, despite one being 10x the mass .

Now I'm way off topic, so if you have any questions, now would be a good time