Opinions wanted on new tech (Pirate Mod)

[Trachmyr]

Ok, comments and suggestions....

1) Shield generators are a good idea, however I think you might be overpowering the upper levels... after all they still use only 1 fac spot.

2) I'll get to that at the end

3) I agree that if you make a better mount type for sats it should improve range not damage so much... personally I don't use sats, so I'm not sure how they'll play out, but remeber that the AI will always use the biggest mount (or the one further down the list) available.

4) Even though the hull is strengthened, the struts/thicker wall/ect. will still use some space... perhaps 1-5KT, Also now that "One per ship" restriction is active, perhaps you can utilize that feature for "Heavy/Very Heavy/Extremely Heavy" reinforcement. I'm planning on adding something very similiar to the Crystalline tech (Crystalline Structure... LOTS of hits, uses 20 tons and a lot of radioactives, one per ship)

Now for PD weapons...

I think you set the range for PD lasers too high... I have had PD GUNS (5 Ton, 2 range, 1/2 damage) in my mod for a while.... at first their range was 3, but I found myself never using the cannons. Why? Because at range 3, a few ships could easily protect the fleet from incoming missiles/fighters...
But by dropping range to 2, these guns really only protect their own ship and sometimes their neighbor (the way it should be), thus I still mounted cannons on the larger ships to protect the fleet. I have had a lot of time tweaking theese, so believe me... at range 3, Half damage and only 5 tons... your PD lasers are very unbalanced!

Additionally, as an additional reason for big ships to mount PD Cannons, I added the tag to make PD GUNS be treated as armor... these small, lightly armored turrets get picked off easy by weapons fire, furthermore this gives fighters a chance against these smaller guns/lasers. I also added the "External Missiles" and made the be treated as armor as well.

Here is a list of PD weapons in my mod, if you see anything you like... feel free to borrow it:

PD Cannons: Basically the std PD's from MM, but with a range of 3-6.

PD Guns: As described above, 5Tons, 1/2 damage, range 1-2, deystroyed with armor.

PD Rockets: 40 tons, 50% better damage, range 8-10, reload rate 2. (these are still being tweaked, they are not seekers, this way distant fighters have a chance to get in)

RAP Armor: "Reactive Armor Plating", each 10 ton piece of armor (as good as std armor), has a PD weapon with a range of 1, hits only seekers, reload rate 30, does enough damage to kill any seeker. Ever wonder what the Last few tons should be, PD or armor? Well now you can have your cake and eat it too!

Well that's my 2 cents.

Opps, sorry misunderstood what your PDC/PDL were... I thought you made a smaller Version, (that's what I get for skimming through).... I'm not sure about your arangement, Tell me how they do, I might add analogs to my own mod!

[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited 22 April 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

Opps, sorry misunderstood what your PDC/PDL were... I thought you made a smaller Version, (that's what I get for skimming through).... I'm not sure about your arangement, Tell me how they do, I might add analogs to my own mod!

---

quote:

---

2) Point Defence Lasers. The PDCannons, are limited to 3 range at max, while the PDLasers go 8, but are limited to half damage. PDC's then defend your ship, while the PDL's defend the fleet.

---

PDC:
-range 3 at tech lvl 5
-Full damage (kill one seeker /shot)
-20kT
-reload 1

PDL:
-range 5 to 8, at higher tech
-roughly half damage. (typically two shots /seeker)
-20kT
-reload 1.

Basically, its a short range kinetic kill cannon, or a "scratch em till they bleed" long range laser.

quote:

---

Shield generators are a good idea, however I think you might be overpowering the upper levels... after all they still use only 1 fac spot.

---

You'd be surprised what a 100% hitrate can do for your damage capabilities. But still, when you get 16 tech levels in shields, you deserve something tough. It will also encourage troop landings (like starwars).

I still have to see how they play out, though.

quote:

---

Even though the hull is strengthened, the struts/thicker wall/ect. will still use some space... perhaps 1-5KT, Also now that "One per ship" restriction is active, perhaps you can utilize that feature for "Heavy/Very Heavy/Extremely Heavy" reinforcement.

---

"One per ship" would definitely not be enough. This stuff is not armor, so if you only had one, it would only stop about 4% of the hits. I need this to be lots of components, since its non-armor.

how it works, is that with a 20 component ship, you add 20 HB points, and you reduce internal damage by 50%.
Add 40, internal damage is reduced by 65%
add 60, I.D. is down by 75%
add 80, 80%
add 180, 90%

thing is, at $400 a pop, ($100 maintenance)that comes to:
20 = 8k minerals
40 = 16k
80 = 32k
180 = 72k = 18k mintenance! = bankrupt empire

Think of it as ripping up the carpeting, stripping the walls & putting in ablative armor instead

quote:

---

Also now that "One per ship" restriction is active, perhaps you can utilize that feature for "Heavy/Very Heavy/Extremely Heavy" reinforcement

---

I'm curious as to how that would work. would it be a single armor component, or what?

quote:

---

that and why would I want two componants that have 30resist each that I would have to repair seperately when I could have one with 60 that would need repair less often??)....

---

Ahh, but in this case, it is: "should I use the 30kT armor that gives me 200 hitpoints, or the thirty 1kT armor segments that give me 300 hitpoints, but take four turns to repair?"

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 22 April 2001).]

[Trachmyr]

As for the Heavy/VH/XH concept... I just now realize what your hull strengthening is supposed to accomplish ("decoy" internal componets), so this idea dosen't really do what you want...

This idea I'm going to add to crystaline tech... it's not armor, it only helps prevent the ship from destruction not being "gutted"... diffrent levels have diffrent sizes/hp (would normally have 1 Version per ship size, but since custom Groups is not working, that idea is moot).
I might add some basic abilities to the componet, such as a bit more propulsion w/o supply usage... so even your "gutted" ship can get back to repair faster... even if it has lost all engines.

But now I see what your "reinforced hull" does, and it's quite intriguing... I might just try it out.



[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited 22 April 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

This idea I'm going to add to crystaline tech... it's not armor, it only helps prevent the ship from destruction not being "gutted"... diffrent levels have diffrent sizes/hp (would normally have 1 Version per ship size, but since custom Groups is not working, that idea is moot).
I might add some basic abilities to the componet, such as a bit more propulsion w/o supply usage... so even your "gutted" ship can get back to repair faster... even if it has lost all engines

---

Interesting... a ship Core Component.
You might have a problem if the core gets hit early on in the battle. It'll then absorb every hit until it is destroyed, and would effectively give your ship a lot of armor. You need some way to make sure it is one of the Last components to get hit.

Perhaps if it had no structure points, but had around 150kT of emissive strength. That way, if it was hit, it wouldn't keep taking hits (maybe), and only a big bLast would destroy it.

As for propulsion, supplies would be low, and I think the destroyed engines still waste supplies when you move. If you use a solar sail type ability, with a unique bonus type, you can give it movement without interfering with normal movement or bonus or solar sail bonus. (Val 1 is how much bonus, Val 2 assigns a "family" of bonus, different families add up)

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 23 April 2001).]

[Trachmyr]

150KT strength... oh, man... If you knew how much I modded my game so far you'd think that was funny too... for instance wave motion guns do 600points of damage and a Armor3 componet has 100hits and only weighs 5 tons, a phased shield gen5 gives 1200 shield points.

But as to your comment, I see your point. Do you know exactly how a componet gets targeted... does it give an equal chance for each componet, is it based on tonnage, or does it go after the easiest to deystroy componet first... for instance, I'll have a ship with a few pieces of armor strong enough to resist the damage of damaging warp points... additionally I'll have 4 external missiles and 4 PD guns (both the missiles and guns count as "armor"), never fail that when I take damage from the WP all missiles/PD guns are deystroyed... and the armor is untouched. This leads me to think that damage is applied first to componets the damage CAN deystroy (or the weakest), then to the tougher componets. As far as an "equal or tonnage based" chance of which componet gets hit... I have 4 armor pieces, that weigh 40 tons total and the missiles (10) + the PDs (5) weigh 60... thus if it was random, I should see the ship come out unscated about 1/3 (random) or 2/5 (tonnage) of the time... and if that's the way it works, as long as the "Crystaline reinforcement" has the most hits, it'll be the Last to go. But, then again I'm just guessing untill I test it.

I'm curious, What do you think about my RAP Armor?

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

Do you know exactly how a component gets targeted...

---

Well, with identical components, its random.

Internals only:
As for it choosing the weakest, NO.
As for it choosing by mass, NO.

When I simmed a battle using the HBs, I had a "Bertha ++++" class ship.

The first hull hit destroyed 4 HBs.
The second hit took out 2 Shield Regen, and 1 HBs
The third hit took out an engine or two and some HBs
The fourth hit took out 2 more Shield Regen, and more HBs.
Then the enemy was dead.

I'd have to do some tests for armor damage. There could even be a difference between combat and natural (or mine) damage.

[Suicide Junkie]

Results of armor test:

DN size ship with 6 of every type of armor.

1) 6 ablative armor gone. (14kT damage resist)
2) most of Armor III gone (50kT damage resist)
3) total of 5 Armor III destroyed. 2 stealth armor down (100kT resist)
4) Remaining: 1 armor, 3 stealth, 5 emissive (120 kT +30 emiss)
5) Armor III dead. 5 emiss, 5 crystal, 2 stealth
6) 4 emiss, 4 crys, 1 stealth
7) 3 emiss, 4 crys, 1 stealth
8) 2 emiss, 3 crys, 1 stealth
9) 1 emiss, 3 crys, 1 stealth
10)emiss dead, 3 crys, 1 stealth
11)stealth dead, 3 crys
12)
13) 2 crys
14)
15) 1 crys
16)
17)
18) Crys dead
19)
20)
21)
etc. Clearly, organic armor kicks ***, cause theres still 6 of em.

Round 2:
1) 60 damage shot, kills 4 ablative.
2) 60 dmg, kills 1 ablative, 1 standard.
3) 60 dmg, kill 1 ablative
4) 60 dmg, kill 1 stealth
5) 60 dmg, kill 1 standard.

So, it looks like the armor damage is somewhat random, but favors hits to weaker or smaller segments.

New Test:
Legend
--------------------------------
* = Evidence that the stealth armor has taken partial damage
= Stealth armor destroyed
X = Me screwing up. stealth armor was either destroyed, or evidence was showing & I missed it.
--------------------------------

Start) 10 Stealth (30kT, 100Hp) 30 Standard (10kT, 50Hp)

1) 10 Stealth, 24 standard
2) 10 Stel, 19 stan *
3) 10 stel, 12 stan
4) 10 stel, 7 stan *
5) 8 stel, 4 stan
6) 6 stel, 0 stan

Test 2 (60 at a time)
1) 29 stan
2) 28 stan
3) 27 stan
4) 26 stan
5) 24 stan
6) 23 stan
7) 22 stan
8) 21 stan
9) 20 stan
10) 18 stan
11) 17 stan
12) 16
13) 15
14) 14
15) 13*
16) 13 stan, 9 stel
17) 12 stan, 9 stel
18) 11 / 9
19) 11 / 9 *
20) 10 / 9 the smiley below should probably be here, but i think i miscounted the remaining armor.
21) 9 / 9 X
22) 8 / 9 X
23) 7 / 9 X
24) 6 / 9 X
25) 4 / 8
26) 3 / 8
27) 2 / 8
28) 1 / 8
29) 1 / 8 *
30) 1 / 7
31) 0 / 7

SO....
-There is some element of randomness
-Small/weak armors are hit more often on first impact
-the second component hit is likely chosen in a similar manner as the first hit.

Third test
Start) 10 Stealth (30kT, 100Hp), 10 Crys (30kT, 150Hp)

only showing when a comp was killed:
1) 9 Stealth, 10 crys
2) 7 Stealth, 10 crys !! 2 stealth killed with one 60 dmg hit !!
3) 6 / 10
4) 5 / 10
5) 4 / 10
6) 3 / 10
7) 2 / 10
8) 1 / 10
9) 1 / 9
10) 0 / 9

round 2
1) 8 / 10
2) 7,6,5
3) 4 / 10
4) 4 / 9
5) 4 / 8
6) 4 / 7
7) 3 / 7
8) 3 / 6
9) 2 / 6
10) 1 / 6
11) 1 / 5
12) 0 / 5

Hmm...
-Mass does not seem to be the determining factor.
-Lower resistance armors are hit more often.
-The wandering "partial" damage increases the likelyhood that weak armors will be killed. (strong armor dosent die, next hit, the "partial" damage randomly goes into a weak armor, killing two)

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 23 April 2001).]

[Trachmyr]

Very interesting... supports my theory that damage first goes to things that can be deystroyed... and divided so that the most number of componets can be deystroyed. Any "leftover" damage that isn't large enough to deystroy anything, goes to a random target... or is it carried over?

Thanx for running that test, I wonder if the same "rule" holds true for internal componets... the rammification of this mean that if your "HB" componets have very low hits, they will act more like armor than "decoys", if they have high hits then they will be the Last things deystroyed.

My head spins with the possibilites!

[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited 23 April 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

As for my HB components, they aren't armor, so this dosen't affect them.

I'm pretty sure that internals are totaly random. Otherwise, weapons would always be Last to die, since they have 50-70 HP, while the engines, bridge, etc have 10 HP.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

I'm curious, What do you think about my RAP Armor?

---

Pretty nifty. I'd probably use a Version that had:
-5kT
-maxdamage
-1 range
-50 to 75 armor Hp
-destroyed on use

I'll probably leave the Missiles as is, but make CSMs be described as (shaped chemical warheads) and make a new, Big Missile that IS nuclear, and will be a "quad damage to shields" because of the EMP in the bLast.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 23 April 2001).]