quote:
Originally posted by khanuk:
another thought for the newby whilst I have you guys' attention:
I now have SEIV and have downloaded the 1.49 patch.
I do like the look of all these other empires and races you whizzos have crafted, especially the Babylon V races, the Startrek races and the colonials from Battlestar Galactica (even my cat is called Starbuck)
Given that I am a computer virgin as well as an SEIV virgin, what are Mods and what is the best one to download and where do I find it to get all these wonderful things? is the artwork as good as for the pre-packaged races that come with the game?
Any answers/steers/sarcastic remarks would be greatly appreciated
Cheers
Be aware that there is a difference between a mod and a shipset / race. A shipset is a bunch of graphics and AI beahaviour files that give you another alien race to play against. And yes, the graphics are often as good as the default races. Sometimes better=-)
What is a mod? A mod is something that alters the way the game works. When Malfador made SE4, they were kind enough to leave some of the files which control the game's behaviour out for us to play with. They are in a simple, readable text format in the "data" directory. Take a look.
Mods tend to focus on the tech trees: Adding new components, ships and facilities to research and changing the orders in which you can research them. There are other things which can be altered, inluding the way AIs behave, the way the game generates its maps and more.
Different mods can give the game a whole new flavour. There are mods to allow space borne races, mods to simulate popular sci-fi visions of the future, mods to add newe racial technologies... loads.
If you are looking to download something...
This is the place. Look or threads about mods or races, or just go up to the main forum page and go to the mod archive.
I would recommend you start with Matryx's mod launcher (I think you'll find it in the DEFINITIVE MODS thread). It's a program rather than a mod, and it will allow you to switch between lots of different mods, so you can try them all. Swtching between mods without it is a pain in the arse.
Then I'd recommend the Pirates and Nomads Mod(Huge mod, lots of fun new things to research.), Devnullmod (Well balanced and well conceived tech tree) and TDM Modpack (Comes packaged with a range of killer new races and improvemnts to the existing ones, providing the ultmate vsAI challenge).
All these mods have their own threads here on the forum and I think they are all near the top of the thread list at the moment.
Of course there are plenty of other excellent mods but I either haven't played them or haven't played them enough to comment.
While I'm here, let me just quickly plug my own shipset:
The Space Vikings. The graphics aren't quite aas good as the default races=-) but they are good fun and have a really mean AI for unmodded or TDM modded games.
Have fun...
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SE4 Code:
L GdY $ Fr- C- Sd T!+ Sf-- Tcp-- A% M>M+ MpD! RV Pw Fq+ Nd- Rp+ G-
/SE4 Code
Go to
my meagre SEIV pages to generate your own code.
[This message has been edited by dogscoff (edited 22 November 2001).]