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

[Andrés]

I'm working on the Yuuzhan Vong tech tree.
These nasty humanoids hate all non-organic technology so they shouldn't share the tech of any other race (with the only yet unlikely exemption of other advanced organic manipulation races such as the Vorlon)
Although they do breath oxygen, they terraform planets optimizing them for their facilities (shipwombs and others) and rendering them toxic to other races. I'm planning to represent this by making them the only or one of the few races that breath some other atmosphere such as methane and giving them some terraforming technologies (Dweebit Beetles, Red Sphere).
They have a wide variety of troop weapons, but only one starship weapon (Plasma Cannon). I was tempted to convert some troop weapons to starship weapons but decided no to.

One of their most interesting living components are the "Dovin Basals", gravity manipulation creatures, they are used as engines, shields, to disrupt enemy shields and weapons and even for stellar manipulation.
They are very versatile, but they can't do everything at the same time, so I was planning to have several Versions, the 1st, engine + shields at higher levels, another shield zapping specialized, and another one for stellar manipulation.
Can the "Sector - Shield Disruption" ability be used in components? I can't make it affect only the enemy, but I can try to compensate with a "Shield Modifier - System" ability.

[Fyron]

quote:

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Can the "Sector - Shield Disruption" ability be used in components?

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Yeah, and I think one of the mods uses it on bases.

quote:

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I can't make it affect only the enemy, but I can try to compensate with a "Shield Modifier - System" ability.

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This ability won't lower enemy shields, if that is your goal. It only affects your own ships. I don't know if a negative value would work for it, and I don't know if it would work anyways.

Baron Munchausen posted this a while ago:

quote:

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There are far more 'racial traits' available than are used in the current control files. As an old-time executable snooper I loaded the se4.exe into a viewer ages ago. I've only used one so far, but it works fine.
Name := Natural Engineers
Description := Repairs are made at 150% of their normal rate.
Pic Num := 0
General Type := Advantage
Cost := 1000
Trait Type := Repair
Value 1 := 50
Value 2 := 0
Required Trait 1 := None
Required Trait 2 := None
Required Trait 3 := None
Restricted Trait 1 := None
Restricted Trait 2 := None
Restricted Trait 3 := None

This gives a 50 percent boost to repair rate as you would think. The abilities currently used in the default config are:

Supply Cost,
No Plagues,
No Spaceports,
Luck,
Vehicle Speed,
Galaxy Seen,
Planet Storage Space,
Planetary SY Rate,
Tech Area,
Population Emotionless,
Tech Area (racial techs, of course)

Other abilities listed in the executable, which may or may not all work, are the following:

Troops Bonus
Fighter Bonus
Ship Bonus
Mineral Production
Mineral Storage
Organics Production
Organics Storage
Radioactives Production
Radioactives Storage
Research Production
Intelligence Production
Trade
Ground Combat
Space Combat
Maintenance Cost
Ship Attack
Ship Defense

As you can see, many of them look like duplicates. But some experimentation that I don't have the patience for (Edit racialtraits.txt file, start new game, create race & experiment with new trait...) might turn up some others that are usable. Too bad there's not a "Ship SIZE" ability, huh? Having larger ships at all tech levels would be a cool advantage.

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We should try using some of these other racial abilities in the mod. I know that the Resource Storage abilities work, because I tested them before.

[ 16 January 2002: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[ 16 January 2002: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Andrés]

Actually I was thinking of a negative Sector - Shield Disruption + a positive Shield Modifier - System to restore the shields in your ships.
Would the two abilities work fine togeather?

[Fyron]

Yeah, if the Shield Modification - System ability works on a ship component, then they should work how you are planning.

[Suicide Junkie]

Unless one stacks and the other dosen't.
Be sure to test it with multiple ships at once.

[Andrés]

In my first experiments the combination of the two abilities seems to be working even better than what I expected. I though that shields of low shielded ships would be increased to the amount of the abilities, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. Non of them seems to stack what I think it’s ok.
Another problem I found playing with the Vong is that they don’t have a ship size to use as a practical colony ship, since they jump from a 185 kt Corvette to a 2056 kt Light Cruiser (yes it’s “light” assault and grand cruisers are 5023 and 9954 kt).
I should probably give them one or two intermediate sizes, but the question is: should colony ships be available to all races instead of only the ones with the standard SE4 racial trait?

[Andrés]

I was wrong both abilities do stack, but they were nullifying each other.
I hadn’t try with ships in the system but no in the same sector.
My shields were increased by stacked shield modifiers, while enemy shields were unaffected.
The problem is that as their names state the shield modifier affects the whole system while the shield disruption only the sector.
I think that the best solution would be to forget the fancy abilities and just make it a powerful shields-only weapon.

And again, what do you think about colony ships?

[Fyron]

Every race should have access to a colony ship. I don't think you really need to make a different one for every race, so its fine if you just let all races use the same colony ship.

[ 18 January 2002: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Andrés]

Then I'll just remove the Ship Construction 1 tech requirement of the colony ships. (That tech requires the "Standard SE4" racial trait.

[Andrés]

Another thing I found is that the temporary large engine confuses AI that attempt to place it in small ships where they can only put 1 and it doesn't leave space for other components.
I'm removing the temp filler now. And races will get large engines along with the big ships, so that should at least partially sove the problem.
I wish there were engine mounts that worked somehow like weapon mounts increasin their performance and with size limits.