Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)

[Starkiller]

Stop discussing about avatars and get back to the mod!

[Erax]

Actually, Andres is doing the mod, all we are doing is kicking around some ideas about ship and fighter stats. If he likes them, he will try to mod them in.
But you are right... we should get back to SW ship stats. Be with you soon with more numbers.

[Urendi Maleldil]

Here are links to SciFi stats and stuff

Trek:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/

Starwars:
http://www.galacticempiredatabank.com/Main.html
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/
http://www1.theforce.net/CUSWE/default.asp

Starwars/Startrek:
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/index.html

Battlestar Galactica:
http://www.tecr.com/galactica/

[Andrés]

Sorry for the long time without working on this mod.
If I continue at the current speed this mod will never be finished.

I need to recruit some volunteers to help me put together this project that from the beginning was meant to be bigger than me.

I need someone to mod the maps, the FQM could be a good start, but there are several details I'd like to change. Remove some "unrealistic" systems, add some others, add station/planets (there was a thread about this recently).

I need someone to make the B5 mod fit into the standard techs that are being to be shared by everyone, that means shortening or splitting some tech areas. Somehow reduce the number of redundant components, consolidating too similar ones, and if possible making different sizes into weapon mounts, add custom ship sizes for every race according to my "scaling".

With AST mod out and TNG mod in beta testing there should be enough for someone to start working in making trek fit the base tech tree.

I'll try to add SW bases and interdictors to finish the basic part of the two main SW races.

We'll sure want to add more races (B5, ST and SW) that I had not included in the original release.

I also need someone with web design experience to help me manage and improve my site.

[Fyron]

What exactly did you plan on changing with FQM? Tell me, and I'll do it for you.

[Andrés]

Let's see...

* warp points: I had tried to add B5 jumpgates and ST-DS9 wormholes, to make the game pick a normal se4 wp or any of those at random. But it didn't seem to work, although I could pick any of the 3 pics in the map editor, the map generators always seems to pick the first one. This needs more testing and maybe you know a trick involving special types or something like that.

* remove most multi-star systems with planets. Not even binary systems are supposed to have planets, but there are already canonical planets in binary systems so they will make an exemption.

* Sometimes the word system is used to described a close cluster (either physically or only politically close) of several star systems.
I was planning to use this concept in the SW map (that is something else I'd need help with) to overcome the 255 systems limit, by condensing two or three systems into one but making it look like each planet orbits only one of the multiple stars of the system.

* There are at least 2 SW examples (Ossus and Byss/Abyss) of binary systems where the planets follow a bizarre 8 shaped orbit around its two suns. I tried to make these systems but they didn't look very good.

* Most stars are damaging and cloaking.

* Asteroid abilities should be only damage and cloaking.

* Athega system (planet Nkllon) - Description: Strong radiation from the star damage space vehicles, making travel through the system dangerous, but is an invaluable source of metals.
damage + forced None atmosphere planets (at least the inner/s one/s) + very high value or some mining bonus if possible. Too bad we cannot make Shieldships.

* B5 hyperspace system (also SW Version of hyperspace?).

* ST badlands.

* add a few tiny-none planets (large inhabitable asteroids) scattered among the asteroid systems.

* Lonely gas giant system, with 20+ moons!

* Perhaps also some gas giants in other systems with 20+ moons.

* I want medium moons back, even if we have to set some systems to "empires cannot start in" to avoid location problems.

* I had also added a couple of custom planet with and their respective sector types. There will be more.

* add station looking micro planets. 2 or 3 facilities (0 domed) + a relatively large cargo space to make them able to have more platforms and fighters and make them look more station-like. Rock-ox since that’s what most, if not all sci-fi races will breathe. I don't care about having them randomly added. As a matter of fact some rock-ox should have or have the potential to add dozens of them orbiting them.

This is all I can think of right now. While researching data to make the starwars galaxy map I had been studying many description of SW systems and planets. I'm sure there are additional things from other sci-fi that can be added.

[Fyron]

* warp points: I had tried to add B5 jumpgates and ST-DS9 wormholes, to make the game pick a normal se4 wp or any of those at random. But it didn't seem to work, although I could pick any of the 3 pics in the map editor, the map generators always seems to pick the first one. This needs more testing and maybe you know a trick involving special types or something like that.

The game will only use the first entry for normal warp points. You have to make them Unstable Warp Points (I think that's the right term) instead, and then it will use random pics for them.

* remove most multi-star systems with planets. Not even binary systems are supposed to have planets, but there are already canonical planets in binary systems so they will make an exemption.

Does that involve removing the whole system, or just the planets?

* Sometimes the word system is used to described a close cluster (either physically or only politically close) of several star systems.
I was planning to use this concept in the SW map (that is something else I'd need help with) to overcome the 255 systems limit, by condensing two or three systems into one but making it look like each planet orbits only one of the multiple stars of the system.

That is not a problem. I think the limit is something like 255 objects in a system (or maybe it is in the 1000s). How common would such systems be?

* There are at least 2 SW examples (Ossus and Byss/Abyss) of binary systems where the planets follow a bizarre 8 shaped orbit around its two suns. I tried to make these systems but they didn't look very good.

The only way to simulate that would be to place the planets in a figure 8, which would indeed look odd.

* Most stars are damaging and cloaking.

Do you want that for the whole system, or just the sector the star is in? The system would require lots of extra work if you want, for example, some 6 planet systems with cloaking and some 6 planet systems without cloaking. But if you just want it for the star itself, then SectTypes.txt already has entries for those, and the chance of occurence can be increased quite easily.

* Asteroid abilities should be only damage and cloaking.

Easy enough.

* Athega system (planet Nkllon) - Description: Strong radiation from the star damage space vehicles, making travel through the system dangerous, but is an invaluable source of metals.
damage + forced None atmosphere planets (at least the inner/s one/s) + very high value or some mining bonus if possible. Too bad we cannot make Shieldships.

You can not affect the random planet values for specific planets in the data files.

* B5 hyperspace system (also SW Version of hyperspace?).

This can be easily lifted from the B5 mod.

* ST badlands.

I am not quite sure what those would do.

* add a few tiny-none planets (large inhabitable asteroids) scattered among the asteroid systems.

The systems that are just a big field of asteroids with no star? Actually, that is a good idea for the normal FQM.

* Lonely gas giant system, with 20+ moons!

* Perhaps also some gas giants in other systems with 20+ moons.

Eek! 20+ is a huge amount! I don't think that many is a good idea. For the gas giants with 4 moons, I was thinking that those would be the only ones that could support reasonable colonies, or that they abstractly represent more than 1 smaller moon each.

* I want medium moons back, even if we have to set some systems to "empires cannot start in" to avoid location problems.

I don't think I ever removed medium moons. I removed the few large ones I had in the original Versions, but I thought I had left a number of medium moons in.

* add station looking micro planets. 2 or 3 facilities (0 domed) + a relatively large cargo space to make them able to have more platforms and fighters and make them look more station-like. Rock-ox since that’s what most, if not all sci-fi races will breathe. I don't care about having them randomly added. As a matter of fact some rock-ox should have or have the potential to add dozens of them orbiting them.

Kind of like those Machine planets and all, right?

So... do you want domed colonies to be 1/3 as big as in FQM Deluxe, or the 1/5 as large as in normal SE4?