Hi, all--

[cswiger]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
Sounds like you want to play PvK's Proportions mod. There's a copy on your Gold CD, and a more advanced Version available here on the forum.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Of course, it's easy for me to talk about making changes...it's harder to implement them and end up with results that are more playable and more enjoyable. Changes made 'for the sake of realism' alone don't always help.

Anyway, I want to do something like making transport ships required and meaningful to actually defend-- ie, making support more important.

Proportions mod, or maybe Derek's mod, which (as I understand it) is a sort of Devnull/ Proportions hybrid.

My first thought was to have a distinction between civilian hardware and military hardware, so that civilian components provide significant maintenance reduction, but are sitting ducks in combat (low damage ratios considering the equipment tonnage, reduced combat bonuses for size), whereas military-grade components cost more up-front and in maintenance.

For example, let's say that civilian "Ion Engines I" also have a 'Combat Movement' ability of -1. The intent would be that civilian freighters should be almost stationary during a fight. A freighter shouldn't be capable of outrunning a missile or a fighter, even with a Solar Sail III.

Perhaps by making cargo required as ammo-- have capital ship missiles/heavy bombardment missiles simulated as drones. Be nice if you couldn't reload all weapon types (ie, missile bays) via solar collectors and actually needed a production facility once in a while. :-)

Your drone idea should work as you intend, but it won't be easy. For one thing, your new missiles will be able to fly from one system to another on their own - they won't be restricted to the combat screen. For another, you may have trouble balancing the cargo sizes. You should be able to do it though.

It will require careful adjustment of drone components and supply, yes. But it's okay if a planet or ship can launch drones to attack several sectors away in a system.

What component abilities control the following behaviors:

"May or may not have the ability to warp through warp points."

"May or may not be under Player control (depends on components)."

More types of warp points are definitely needed, and there should be a reason to equip explorer ships with sensors.

Agreed, although these are largely hard code issues. Still, you might be able to do something that I might not think possible- After all I'm not amodder myself.

To start with, I was going to create different warp points with different turbulence damage levels. If you expect all interstellar ships to at least have minimal armor and/or shielding, that could serve prevent drones & fighters from crossing warp points, because they can't take the damage of the crossing. Or maybe only the larger sizes could make a transit with advanced tech, thus giving a potential to do more with warp point transits as choke points...?

I also need to do something which lets me turn an asteroid field into a source of 'kinetic bolides' which could then be used to bombard planets from the edges of a system, at least if the attacker is given enough time to construct such weapons. Small ones just kill pop. and reduce planet values. Big ones have 'Destroy Planet Size'.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.
-Chuck