Babylon 5 Mod

[Fyron]

Switch their order in the Facility file. The Last one in the list for the family is the prefered one for AIs, and also is what determines what upgrades to what.

[pathfinder]

My head hurts.....bleah...

hotmail uses McAfee virus scan for attachments. When I tried to send my latest B5 PBW turn it threw up a red flag saying it was infected with a virus. 1 hour later and Norton says nope, no virus. I re-try and voila! the files goes thru without a hitch...

[Geryon]

So do you guys have any thoughts on using other B5 Wars ships? Or is the mod just way too far along to input them in at this point (more trouble than its worth).

I have absolutely no idea how ships and weapons work in this game, if the weapons are set up by individual ship or if they are set up by the type (frigate, destroyer, etc). If they can set up by the ship (meaning you add whatever weapons you want to that ship, I think it might be interesting to use ships with unique weapons such as the Artemis (Rail Guns) and the Sagittarius (L-Class Missiles). Of course if you guys think this a bad idea, it's not possible to set up, or have a planned number of ships per side which already reached its quota then I'll consider it forgotten.

[Suicide Junkie]

Weapons can be placed on any ship where they fit size wise.
Weapon mounts can be restricted to specific hulls, and thus certain weapons can be allowed only on specific hulls, but it gets clunky and ugly.

[Geryon]

Thanks for the info Suicide Junkie. I have modded other games but my knowledge is extremely lacking when it comes to this game. I realize that suggesting changes or additions to shipsets and weapons might result in set backs or worse some sort of unbalance to what was already achieved. Because of any of these and other reasons I'd understand not implementing any of my suggestions.

Still just in case it'd be of any interest, I'll observe as an example the EA at the moment. I have noticed from looking the zips there are pulse, plasma, particle, matter, ballistic and laser weapons in multiple stages. I'm also unsure how exactly tech trees work in this game (it still hasn't arrived due to shipping problems), I think I saw technology can be upgraded in ships (have light pulse weapons and upgrade to med and heavy later on in the same ship)? I also don't know if tech can be exchanged (have say a plasma weapon replaced by a particle or laser as tech becomes available). I'm parting from the premise that weapons in the mod are being kept reasonably close to canon, ex. the Hyperion upgrades its multiple plasma batteries and the main particle cannon and later adds the 2 side lasers but doesn't have the ability to make all its weapons fire lasers, that sort of thing. If it's being kept near to canon, the only ship that should fire missiles right now is the Warlock (save the GodSat). But the missiles on the Warlock are secondary weapons, it's main weapons are the heavy pulse cannons and the new Heavy Particle Beam Cannon. The Saggitarius meanwhile would fire only missiles and work well as an long-range artillery ship complementing other ships using beams and pulses. The way I set up my mod for the other game is that ships use different weapons at different settings so that they need to complement each other (otherwise all I'd need are Warlocks and Omegas). This is a small example, if this sort of thing is being done here or something like it is of interest I'd like to help. I have several B5 Wars books detailing tech and weapons for at least the main races and Dilgar, B5 Wars was closed down before I could get books on the League, since that is at the least an official source of info I can provide anything I have that isn't already being used and of course is needed.

If all this mumbo jumbo isn't needed though then disregard the really huge paragraph in the middle.

[Fyron]

Go play the demo to see how it works. You can retrofit a ship designed with any set of components to any ship design using any components, whether they are new Versions of old components or completely different components. Well, you have to obey the max 150% difference costs. You can only retrofit from design A to design B if design B's total cost is at most 1.5 * design A's total cost (all 3 resources added together).

[pathfinder]

Geryon: I tried to make the outfitting of ships as close to canon as I could (I did most of the AI). I based it mostly on the Agents of Gaming B5 game.

Input is always welcome. One reason for current stagnation is I got a little burned out (not to mention Val's disappearance) ... also big issue was range/damage modeling, some thought it is not as should be for some weapons.

One thing to note: due to the way the AI files are arranged the AI will use whatever weapons are entered into the design file in priority order (hope this makes sense). So I had to make some decisions as to what each size ship (not each model) had for weapons.

[ April 18, 2003, 20:53: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

[Geryon]

I think I'm following what you're saying there Pathfinder. I'm certain that your setup is more than adequate, I'll try to see if I can understand exactly how the ships and weapons work from a modding standpoint once the game arrives (hopefully Monday or Tuesday) or I'll have to dowload the demo.

My question for weapons arrangements was directed towards the idea of making ships more unique and have to depend on one another (as opposed to the standard game where you use the earlier ships only until you can build the newer and bigger ones and then just discard the old ones and massively spam the large battleships, I hate games that do that). My ships question was just mere curiosity to see if those other designs were of any interest to use at all. Nevertheless, if any of this will cause a lot of headaches or is already being implemented disregard it, the Last thing I want to do is mess up the current vibe the mod has.

And don't worry about the stagnation, I understand both schoLastic duties or just plain burnouts from overworking the mod very well (I'm there myself with my own mods), take whatever time you need for R&R and resume work at your own pace.

I know I'm currently not much useful to modding the game itself, but whatever I can be of help with is at your disposal.

PS. I really look forward to seeing your AI kick my butt as soon as the game arrives also!

[pathfinder]

Geryon: Hehe, The Shadows (and to a lesser extent the Vorlons) can be a nitemare since their weapons outclass most other races weapons (though late stage Abbai & Minbari can probably hold their own).

Oh and remember, the AI lmitations are out the window in human vs human in play by web There, if RP is agreed to, the game could be rather, uhm, "interesting"...

[ April 18, 2003, 23:13: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

[Geryon]

Pathfinder: Lol, yeah those Vorlons and Shadows are nightmares in every damn mod I stumble onto them.

As for Online gaming, after a while of playing perhaps I'll be able to present a reasonable challenge...then again I might be the equivalent of a Raider fighter against the Walkers of Sigma 957. We'll see about that once the damn game gets here Oh and also provided that you play with the Gold edition which is the one I'm getting.

I wonder just how RPGish is this game against AIs, I hope I'll be able to set up things similar non-aggression pacts, mutual defense treaties to make allies against those pesky Shadows, trade routes instead of just one gigantic smackdown against every empire in the known universe, I have no Londo complex after all...