StarFire Mod v-Beta 2

[abc]

I'll think about the supply issue some more.

EDM: I simply copied the fighter/sat/seeker/drone target type! There were no fighters or sats present during my test. Set the target type to seeker or seeker/drone and they'll leave fighters and sats alone.

Btw, i tested XO Sprint Missiles in the simulator yesterday. I set the strategy to drone attack(optimal firing range/ram), but the drones moved to the edge of the map after firing! Has anybody an idea what i did wrong??

Cargo holds: Maybe you could decrease the cargo capacity of cargo components. A level 4 freighter has a capacity of 7500 (1.5 billion population)
And you can build it almost at the start of the game. A level 10 freighter can probably load a homeworld's complete population!

Another suggestion: give the XO Autoloader the armor ability. It reloads XO racks and should be damaged first, too!

Colony Ships: I can use military engines, too. Probably just missed it.

Playing a real StarFire game sounds really interesting I'll send you an e-mail tomorrow...the sun is shining, that is even more interesting

[abc]

Originally posted by President Elect Shang:
XO Missile: You should have set the strategy to ram, try this and they should fire before making contact then move in to ram. With the strategy set to optimal fire range they will want to move away (what happened in your test) until the weapon reloads, but it will not [reload] in that combat phase.

XO Auto Loader: Good point, this is a home made component and not from cannon. I decided not to give it the armor ability for three reasons. (1) The way I envision it is as an internal component that feeds the XO racks by a system of rails, which alone would take away any armor trait. (2) The XO racks have the armor ability and if they get destroyed than the Auto Loader is doing nothing but soaking up damage and eating space. (3) When you develop the Box Launchers (if I don’t change them back to there old form) it would really piss people off to lose all of there ammo when the Auto-Loader gets blown away before there armor is even breached; which could happen if it has the armor ability.

Sprint missiles still don't work correctly. They fire and then move off

Auto Loader: If you decrease the cargo capacity, you'll need real cargo holds anyway. With XO Rack V, a ship can fire 20 XO missiles in two turns!

Weapon ranges: I noticed that there isn't much difference between the range ofenergy/sprint weapons and seekers on higher tech level. Maybe you could create three distinctive weapon ranges: XO Missiles, normal missiles(range 20) and energy/sprint weapons(range 10)

[President_Elect_Shang]

Sprint XO Missile: I don’t know what the h#@l is going on here. I tried it and the drone moved in and rammed without ever firing. I will take a closer look into this and see if I can figure out what the problem is. The default strategy I have for drone attack is ram/maximum weapons range. When I flipped them around the XO Sprint Missile fired but did not ram, then again it did not flee to the far edge of the map.

Auto Loader: That would be true except for two things. One the auto loader only takes up one hull space so it is great for filling in those extra spaces. And two, I just changed the price of the Cargo Hold so that ten auto loaders cost the same as one cargo hold. Now ten auto loaders not only take up the same space but cost the same. Either way the player will not get an advantage but can still us both effectively.

Weapon ranges: Yes I understand just what you are saying, but without having the texts to refer to you probably don’t realize how big of a problem that is. The true difference in ranges becomes apparent at more than 20 sectors. The daddy of the combat field should be the Heavy Bombardment Missile at a max range of 60 sectors. To mimic this I would have to cut all weapon ranges by one third. Not that I am against doing that but I would need some feedback on it from my co-author? Dan K what do you think? If I do this it will also mean that ship combat speed will need to be looked at. First however I think that the range issue should be addressed and tested, once that is done than the ship speed can be looked at.

Supplies: I am thinking that supplies should be cut back to around 10 points per star instead of the current 20, thoughts and feedback?

With all of the detailed testing that you and Dan are doing I feel that I can relax on my testing. This will finally give me the break I have been looking for to start working on the other as yet unfinished files. First though I would like to see you and Dan K start a dialogue here that I can follow, and the bumping of StarFire and Non-StarFire heads should lead to some good results.

[President_Elect_Shang]

I got the Sprint XO Missile to fire and the deciding factor here seems to be the range. After which it moved in and rammed. I can’t understand what is taking place in your situation abc, except that I would suggest trying again with the drone attack strategy set as I outlined it below. Let me know what happens when you do this. If it still does not work than start a new game and try that. Also if you go to the Version_History.txt and scroll down you will see what Build you are using, check to make sure that it says Build 2 below the Build 1 entry at the top. Sorry but I forgot to update that part of the ReadMe.txt or I would just ask you to check there.

I double checked myself by testing this same thing in the base Version of the game. Here to it fired then moved in to ram even though it could have fired again. This tells me that I will need to adjust the speed of the XO weapons. I will take a closer look at them later today and see if I can get away with cutting the speed of only those that are direct fire type however, in all likelihood I will need to adjust almost all of them to maintain a balance.

[abc]

Supplies: 10 point per star sounds good! Let's try it and see how it works out.

Missiles: Can you change the HBM to a drone warhead??

Drones: I'll test them some more, too. there has to be a way to make them work correctly+

Auto Loader: It's really a minor point. The auto loader reloads XO Racks, so it should be exposed to enemy fire, too. But one or more damaged components won't make a difference after a battle. With the new box launchers, ships will need more cargo capacity(multiple cargo holds) anyway.

[President_Elect_Shang]

Supplies: I think the main concern in supplies (correct me if I am wrong) is the fact that with this mod you do not have to return back to a re-supply depot. We can keep the topic open but in Atrocities Star Trek Mod you can add the Bussard Collector (there are other items) that has the same effect. As I mentioned before I think that I will leave the supplies alone.

[Dan Kochheiser]

Originally posted by President Elect Shang:
Sprint XO Missile: I don’t know what the h#@l is going on here. I tried it and the drone moved in and rammed without ever firing. I will take a closer look into this and see if I can figure out what the problem is. The default strategy I have for drone attack is ram/maximum weapons range. When I flipped them around the XO Sprint Missile fired but did not ram, then again it did not flee to the far edge of the map.

Auto Loader: That would be true except for two things. One the auto loader only takes up one hull space so it is great for filling in those extra spaces. And two, I just changed the price of the Cargo Hold so that ten auto loaders cost the same as one cargo hold. Now ten auto loaders not only take up the same space but cost the same. Either way the player will not get an advantage but can still us both effectively.

Weapon ranges: Yes I understand just what you are saying, but without having the texts to refer to you probably don’t realize how big of a problem that is. The true difference in ranges becomes apparent at more than 20 sectors. The daddy of the combat field should be the Heavy Bombardment Missile at a max range of 60 sectors. To mimic this I would have to cut all weapon ranges by one third. Not that I am against doing that but I would need some feedback on it from my co-author? Dan K what do you think? If I do this it will also mean that ship combat speed will need to be looked at. First however I think that the range issue should be addressed and tested, once that is done than the ship speed can be looked at.

If we are trying to stay close to cannon then the ranges are important to keep. Part of what makes Starfire what it is is the arms race that occurs with weapons and ranges. As the Higher Tech weapons get longer reaches and increased damage. THe speed remains a relative constant through out the Tech levels so Speed and Turning is something less of an issue as the biggest issue is getting range.

Supplies: I am thinking that supplies should be cut back to around 10 points per star instead of the current 20, thoughts and feedback?

What is the issue with supplies? In Starfire cannon, the only time you fall out of supplies is when that fleet gets cut off from the empire. Rare enough event in itself. Commerce raiding is real difficult because of the nature of warp points. So far, my fleets have been unable to run out of supplies, but also been unable to fully restock every turn. Though not strictly cannon, it does seem to work close enough to get the 'feel' of Starfire.

With all of the detailed testing that you and Dan are doing I feel that I can relax on my testing. This will finally give me the break I have been looking for to start working on the other as yet unfinished files. First though I would like to see you and Dan K start a dialogue here that I can follow, and the bumping of StarFire and Non-StarFire heads should lead to some good results.

I'm game...

Two disparete views generally will produce a more 'even' product.

Dan K

[Lighthorse]

Just downloaded your starfire mod. Very interesting ideas. The problem I have is the unknown values errors Messages for all the ai races, cannot load research, weapon, this, and that, etc. Is it because I updated my copy of SE4 gold to 1.91 and this mod was design for 1.84?

Lighthorse

[ March 31, 2004, 04:32: Message edited by: Lighthorse ]

[abc]

I think we can drop the supply usage issue.
I am not against unlimited supplies, i just noticed that supply wasn't a problem from the start of the game!
But we are working on a StarFire mod, so that's not a real problem.

BTW, do we really need the resupply depot?Maybe we can give the resupply ability to the shipyard (and/or the spaceport). Spaceports with resupply ability should represent the CFN nicely.
Comments?

[President_Elect_Shang]

I can transfer the ability to the Planetary Shipyards, or even the Space Port. I would prefer to avoid adding it to any kind of ship component, such as the Ship Yard or Medium Ship Yard. The question I have to ask you two is this: After a big fight where your missile ships have sucked your supplies to just about nothing where do you want to go to refuel? If you are putting a Planetary Shipyard on every planet fine but some of those planets are damn small. There is no point in putting the ability with the Space Port, unless you are happy with only one planet per system acting as a refuel depot, building more than one spaceport per system is a waste of money and planetary space. Also keep in mind that new construction does not automatically start out refueled, nor do ships freshly un-mothballed.

If you want my opinion I think that it should go to the Planetary Shipyard, what are the chances you are going to spend lots of time and money to build an orbiting shipyard (Space Station or whatever hull type) and not have some kind of planetary unit below to back it up?