New Mod: The Art of War Mod

[Talenn]

IIRC from my 'Traveller' days, that's exactly how the Meson Cannons worked. They ignored armor completely but were subject to a 'Meson Screen' that caused the premature decay of the meson before it hit the hull.

The end result was you had a Spinal Mount that basically was a ship killer regardless of the size and armor of the ship. If the shot hit and penetrated the Screen, the ship was essentially dead.

The upshot for fleet design was that even the largest of combatants were very vulnerable to opposing capital ships with spinal mounts. Smaller ships were harder to hit with those mounts, but they couldnt carry a spinal big enough to penetrate the larger ships' screens. Groups of smaller ships, however, could overwhelm the missile defenses on the larger ships and scrape weapons,sensors and screens off of the Caps making them more vulnerable.

Overall, it gave very interesting fleet and ship design mechanics for a game that was primarily a role-playing game.

Talenn

[Taz-in-Space]

While we are talking about things to put in a mod,
I had a thought about a new component. While playing P&N I thought how nice it would be to have a COMPONENT that would store resources. I
haven't checked out it the program will recognize
a COMPONENT with resource storage, but if so it would have been nice to have in a P&N game!
SO YOU GURU'S OUT THERE, IS THIS POSSIBLE?

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Taz-in-Space:
While we are talking about things to put in a mod,
I had a thought about a new component. While playing P&N I thought how nice it would be to have a COMPONENT that would store resources. I
haven't checked out it the program will recognize
a COMPONENT with resource storage, but if so it would have been nice to have in a P&N game!
SO YOU GURU'S OUT THERE, IS THIS POSSIBLE?

---

I believe that it did not work the Last time it was tested. We have been asking for this for ages, since it is necessary to make 'nomadic' races work properly. This, and research/intel from components and a 'habitat' module to grow populations in space. MM needs to know this is wanted. Keep asking.

[geoschmo]

Taelenn, I like the sounds of your ideas. I hope to incorporate some of them. If you still have the files availabel somewhere I would love to see them. You could email me.

Ok, since combat +/- has so much impact on combat, and since all the bonuses add, instead of multiplying, I am looking at some major changes in these areas.

First of all, ECM. I am looking at ten levels of ECM instead of 3, but topping the maximum defense bonus at 10% (Maybe 20) instead of the current 60% for ECM III.

I will also be modifying the racial attack and defense characteristics to make them much more expensive. And I have some thoughts about changes to the training facilities.

The goal of these changes is to slow down the progression and lower the top end of these types of combat modfiers, so that combat doesnt' get so out of whack so early in the game. This will hopefully put more of a premium on the number and overall quality of your ships. You shouldn't be able to destroy 50 enemy ships with 5 of your own and not even get a scratch just because you have a level or two more of ECM tech. At least that's my opinion.

Comments?

Geoschmo

[Gandalph]

quote:

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Originally posted by geoschmo:
You shouldn't be able to destroy 50 enemy ships with 5 of your own and not even get a scratch

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I agree. ECM 3 and religious talisman = victory without a scratch unless extremely outnumbered(20 to 1?).

[Phoenix-D]

Combat bonuses are tricky. They need to be powerful enough to be useful, yet not so much they are an insurmountable advantage, agreed? So researching improved weaponry rather than improved sensors should be a viable option- miss more, but make up for it with better weapon performance. You can't really do that in standard SE4. Extending the ECM/CS tree while lowering the actual benifits sounds good.

Something else I've thought about, inspired by the proportions mod: better sensors/ECM, but they are bigger than the normal type and non-stackable. Again, it becomes a choice between increased accuracy (or defense) and firepower/direct defense. Proportions doesn't go far enough with it IMO; the components are always small enough that except on very small ships you aren't sacrificing much combat capability to go with the best.

Stealth and Scattering armor are a good example here IMO. You get 15% more defense plus a few other stuff- it's not the best cloak, it's not even the best armor. And it's fairly big; sticking both plus ECM on a ship makes you pretty hard to hit, but you pay a nasty price size wise.

Two other thoughts:
-making ships tougher? So that who gets the first shot in matters less.
-should ships really be able to *outrun* missiles? How about running away to give PD more shots?

Phoenix-D

[Talenn]

geoschmo:

Unfortunately, those files are long gone. I had given up SE4 long ago (before Gold was announced). All of my old stuff was on a PC that I no longer have....In retrospect, I should have backed them up onto something in case I ever wanted to mess with 'em again, but they had been so outdated by patches that the work required to get them working again was just staggering, especially once I had been away from the game for a while and couldnt even remember whatall needed to be changed...oh well...

As for some other thoughts, I agree that To-hit and Defense bonuses should be in smaller incremental chunks (I believe SE3 DID do it by 10s instead of 20s and 25s). I'd also be really careful about things like the Religious techs that give auto-hit etc. They could potentially screw up balance horribly, especially if you are looking at mods like my own where a lot of weapon to defense interactions are being based on size and 'agility' of the target. Having what should be a VERY low accuracy 'Ship-killer' weapon hitting 100% could be too ugly to contemplate.

Phoenix-D:

Yes, IMO, Capital ships should be very tough to kill. Realistically, only overwhelming numbers, specially designed 'torpedo craft' (or whatever), or other Capitals should really be the only way to deal with them.

In line with that, I also think that everyone should START with ability to make ships of most sizes. It just doesnt make sense to me that people cant build larger combatants earlier in the game however inefficiently. For the most part, the 'technology' doesnt change, just the scale of the project.

Incentives to research Ship Construction could be cheaper hulls of the same size (especially if the starting hulls are very questionable in cost effectiveness), better defense bonuses, or simply better efficiency in engines...ie a 'Cruiser' hull in the early game could be 500kt and cost 800/100/250 while a later game one could be 550kt, cost 500/75/150 or have -5% to be hit instead of the extra 50kt. The scope there alone is nearly endless. Add in differentiations in max speeds and whatnot for even more variety. My vision of it would be that everyone can build a FG,DD,CL,CA,BC,BB of some sort at the beginning. Refinement of the Tech could open up other classes and modify those classes.

Hand in hand with that is the max speed/hull. It is my firm belief that smaller ships should have higher movement maxes and they shouldnt have to burn as much mass percentage to achieve the higher moves. This alone would go a long way to ensuring their longevity in the game. Having nothing but Ships of the Line that can only go 3 or 4 on the strategic map is going to be a serious liability against someone who has a Cruiser squadron capable of going speed 6-8 in strategic. Sure, you can stack the warp points, but if they DO get in, you'll never be able to track them down.

Finally, I definately dont like the feel of outrunning MOST Missiles. Sure you can add some slow but extremely long ranged ones for the initial salvos and whatnot, but when the push comes to shove, I like the missiles going about speed 12+. This is what actually makes them viable. With PD getting TWO shots at every salvo, they are quite worthless.

Another thought on Missiles is that nothing says that they HAVE to be huge, menacing, low Rate of Fire, all or nothing affairs. Smaller missiles that dont do ungodly damage could still be incredibly useful if they have long ranges. There is plenty of scope for Missiles that have varied characteristics.

My vision of would be that most fleets dont go either guns or missiles, but they mix them up a bit. Guns can be more lethal, but shorter ranged and less accurate overall (especially vs smaller combatants) while missiles are long range duelers that can hit anything if they can get through the PD fire. Of course certain exception weapons can exist in that environment as well. Its all really just a matter of how you want to see combat pan out.

More thoughts to follow....

Talenn