SE IV Gold: Starting tech levels? Yes or No?

[Q]

quote:

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Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
I sent an e-mail to Aaron, so hopefully he'll be able to reply soon, and we'll see what he thinks about starting tech levels...

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Any news??

[Mephisto]

I don't think that it will be included in the gold Version. It would require code changes and therefore play testing. And unfortunately GOLD is running out of time if we want to meet the release date.

[Daynarr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
I think there's a little bit of misunderstanding.

You wouldn't have to edit the files.

You can keep the current SEIV racial trait system etc., and just have the starting tech levels as a free option to give particular technologies to a race at the start of a game...it would be quite useful for roleplaying and making scenarios...and you could even make really challenging games against the AI for yourself.

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That is not as easy as it looks. AI uses scripts to determine its ship designs, production and research. If you just give AI some starting techs, he is still going to design same old ships and follow the same research path.

That basically means that if you give AI some technology it doesn't normally research and use, he STILL won't use it.

And in order to give AI some more advanced techs that he WILL research, you would have to know exact research path for EACH AI.

This could be the basic reason why MM didn't implement this type of game in SE4 - it uses different game mechanic from SE3.

[Q]

Daynarr I do not think this is a big problem. In the worst case you give the AI some technology that he will not use. So what?
And the major technologies as colonization, ship construction, shields, fighters and so on are the same for all races.
I don't know how SE IV exactely handles this, but I believe that the available tech levels for a race are stored somewhere in the savegame file. For MM it should not be too difficult to edit this in the setup of the game.
I really believe the starting tech levels would greatly add to the variety of the game and should be high on the priority list. If not for the gold Version itself, then for the next patch.

[Captain Kwok]

quote:

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Any news??

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Not yet...hopefully soon though...

[Captain Kwok]

The idea of starting tech levels is not necessarily to upgrade the AI's performance...it's more for roleplay and/or scenarios really. You know, create a game, set up some races and give them various levels of tech based on their description - say advanced cyrstalline weapons for the Phong or maybe the Terrans have developed powerful missiles. It helps to 'flesh' out the game just that much more...it could make more competitive between players of different levels...

There's far more good than bad I think and it's more feasible than tcp/ip tatical combat...

Look...

Each race file already has settings that record the level of tech that race has achieved. All that would have to be done is allow that information to be edited/set during the game setup. Also, it wouldn't replace the current low-mid-full tech options, it would supplement them.

[geoschmo]

quote:

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Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Or, you could create a racial trait for "Starts with Fighter tech Level 2", just like my nomads in P&N.
Repeat for all the different techs, and after a ton of work, you never have to do it again: just pick different racial traits rather than different mods.
This would be easiest on the short tech trees, and hard but possible for even the "prerequisite techs".

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S.J.,

This idea intrigues me, but I am confused by your suggestion. It appears to me that you would have to create a parallel set of components and tech areas that are equivilent to standard fighters, but with the bonus of having fighters right off the bat. (Not a bad thing, in fact I am thinking of making a mod to do this exact thing. But it sounds like you are saying there might be an easier way.)

I don't see any way of allowing acces to the standard figter tree by racial traits, without making it impossible for any race to get to fighters without the racial trait.

Could you elaborate on this a little?

Geoschmo