Babylon 5 Mod

[Geryon]

Ok, I'm done. I'll be sending the zip to your E-mail. It includes the Artemis Heavy Frigate, Tethys Cutter and Sagittarius Missile Cruiser and their minis, additionally I added a new Warlock I thought looked nice, in case you agreem, if not the current one is fine.

As far as weapons go, since I only partially grasp the concept of how they work in SE4, what I can tell you is that I prefer to maintain the canon weapons loadouts in ships. For example, I love the idea of upgrading the Hyperion's pulse weapons to as high as they eventually got (medium particle pulse in the main turret, heavy plasma in the single batteries throughout the rest of the ship) plus upgrading the side turrets from the plasma pulse cannons to the X-Ray laser beams (the refit done post-Minbari War) but I wouldn't like to see say the Hyperion fire lasers from all turrets (as I've seen in other game mods). But that's just my personal preference.

Also out of pure curiosity...I noticed that the Lorkan, Markab and Gaim (Complete shipsets) and the Llort and Yolu (only a few bmps) are in the regular mod but not in your Gold conVersion. Any plans of converting the Lorkan, Markab and Gaim (Or do they work in the Gold Version as they are)? And thinking of completing the Llort and Yolu maybe including the Ipsha?

I was also wondering, since you've separated the League races into their own governments why do you have a League race?

[ April 28, 2003, 06:15: Message edited by: Geryon ]

[pathfinder]

Got 'em. They look good!

[Geryon]

Great, for armaments and sizes which should help when creating the ship information.

Tethys, is mainly an anti-fighter ship designed to patrol trade routes and protect against Raiders. It's weapons should be composed of anti-fighter weapons (if that's possibe) they can also be used as an anti-fighter screen when in fleet combat. The Tethys is a Cutter, possibly around 400 meters long and is the smallest capital ship in the EA. As far as it's behavior, this ship would work best as a defense ship I believe, though it should only be able to target fighters (if that's possible).

Sagittarius, is one of the oldest designs in Earth Force predating the Dilgar War. It's mission is basically to fire ballistic artilley (missiles) at long ranges. Particularly good against immobile targets such as bases and turrets though it is also perfectly capable of firing its missiles at other ships (Though it can do this fairly well, it's no where near as accurate against other ships as the Warlock's missile arrays). The Saggy has 4 main missile racks but no pulse or laser batteries (It is stated that it does have anti-fighter particle beams though). It's size should be a little smaller than the Hyperion Heavy Cruiser, possibly somewhere between 1100-1300 meters in length. This ship will probably always attack at maximum range since it only fires long range missiles.

The Artemis was designed to use the full capacity of the Rail Guns. It fires 4 forward Rail Guns and 2 backwards, the turrets can turn of course. It additionally carries 2 anti-fighter particle beams which are at it's sides. The Artemis has the thickest armor per inch of any other EA ship, making it sustain huge amounts of damage and continue to operate. The only flaw in the Rail Guns is that they have to be reloaded (though I don't know if that might work ingame). The Artemis is a Heavy Frigate, a bit bigger than the Olympus Corvette, approx. 500 meters in length. This ship could be set to attack from either optimum firing position or close range, whichever you think best.

I hope those small descriptions help so you can make the appropriate ship files and get them working in game. If you need anything please let me know.

And any word if the Gaim, Lorkan, Markab, Llort and Yolu work in the current Gold Version?

I've been also looking at the weapons loadouts in the design creation text and to say they are a bit confusing is putting it mildly. I see some lines of main and secondary weapons and number values attached to them...I'm assuming the numbers somehow match the weapkn the ship is supposed to have? I also noticed several unused design types such as Heavy Destroyer, Frigate, Corvette, Heavy Cruiser, and several fighter types. Maybe these can be useful for the new ships?

[ April 29, 2003, 08:14: Message edited by: Geryon ]

[Fyron]

The B5 Mod PBW game could use a replacement for the Abbai.

[Pocus]

which site host the B5 mod?
Is it playable solo, with fair AI?

does PBW games are launched often, I'm not ready still

[Fyron]

Rambie's site hosts the mod. Skim back through the Last few pages to find a link to it in his sig.

[Geryon]

Well my game finally arrived today (oh thank God) and I've been studying the manual to learn how it works and what can be done with it.

Pathfinder, you've been MIA for a couple of days, I hope everything's all right and it's nothing worse than finals or schoolwork (though that sucks too I know). I hope the descriptions and info I gave on the 3 ships in my Last post serve of some use for getting them ingame. I look forward to seeing them in any update you can put them in.

Also if you're interested I think I might be able to find the Cotton Fleet Tender to play the role of repair ship, if you'd like let me know.

Also a buddy of mine just got the game also, he had some difficulty in the installation process and I believe I read a few pages back that you should install into a temp folder and pass everything manually? Could you clarify this a bit for me so I can tell him exactly how to get the game going because he told me that he could see a B5 title and events but none of the races worked, he added the EA separately and then it worked. So if you can help me through the installation process I'll guide him (and myself lol) through it. Thanks.

[ April 29, 2003, 21:44: Message edited by: Geryon ]

[pathfinder]

Geryon: One your question on the weapons & numbers---yes there are number codes for each weapon and that is how the AI decides what weapon(s) to place into each class of ship. Based on what has been researched and what is placed in the designcreation.txt file is what the AI ends up putting its ships. There are tonnage limits so after adding engines, reactors, ecm, sensors, armor and weapons space goes very fast. That is why canon ships will be a rarity (IMHO) in the AI ships and probably even in the human-designed ones until research has gone on for a while. The AI files can come close but not very close....

as for installation, hopefully someone else can clarify what I am about to butcher:

1: the MOD folder is placed as a sub-folder of the main SEIV folder. Critical here is the path file which is usually "naked" in the SEIV main folder has a statement in it "Using Mod Directory := None"; however, in order to use a mod one must say something like "Using MOD Directory :=B5". Or somefink like that. what I use is the SEIV launcher (it is included on the GOLD CD as the "Modlaunching" zip file in the extras folder).

I honestly can't remember the exact sequence but goes like this:

d/l the basic files from rambies site, then sequentially the patches then the gold update I did. hopefully this will get the files in the right place. when done the strructure should be :

Space Empires IV Gold/B5 (or B5 MOD or B5 MOD GOLD)/AI,DATA/Dsgnname, Empires, Facilities, Maps, Pictures, Readme, Sounds. In other words there is very nearly a complete new set of graphics, AI & facility & data files within the MOD. They follow the same general pattern as the un-modded game, at least in arrangement of folders and files. Hope I haven't confused you.....

Reason I install "out of game" is it is easier for ME to sort it out that way

and yes, me been pre-occupied: Father-in-law died and been getting stuff here & at work ready so I can attend funeral.

[ April 29, 2003, 23:43: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

[Geryon]

Thanks for the clarification. I am sorry to hear about your father-in-law you and your family have my deepest condolences and take as much time as you need to sort out your family business.

Thank you also on the clarification of the installing process, you didn't confuse me...at least too much I'll install to a clean folder and see how folders are set up then I'll go over this again and make sure everything matches to what you said.

On the weapons thing, I guess then all I have to do is match the number values to the weapons to see what numbers mean what weapons and also examine the weapons per class to find out what weapons you've got on the ships, and hopefully I can figure out how to add the Tethys, Artemis and Saggitarius ingame (I senserely doubt just renaming the bmps will get them ingame and with proper weapons). If I can figure out how to do it I'll give it a go to take some of the workload off you. I also am confident I can find the EA Repair ship. I'll see if I can work out the Repair ship, supply ship and maybe a Minaelayer/sweeper also for you. Though it might be a while and I might not figure it out and have to ask you to get all of these ships ingame once you can get to mod again

Take care.

[pathfinder]

Get them in game no problem...with canon weapons would be or at least perfectly canon...

Look at the regular game and see how the .bmp naming convention goes.

example: say you want the Tethys to represent the EarthAlliance escort class: the larger .bmp would be named EarthAlliance_Portrait_Escort.bmp and the mini would be named EarthAlliance_Mini_Escort.bmp. These two files would then be placed in the B5/Pictures/Races/EarthAlliance folder. They would replace whatever image currently represents that class for the EarthAlliance.

Also note one thing: If you want to establish particular .bmp for repair ships it CAN be done but a data file called vehiclesize.txt would need modifying to change the .bmp called from the regular transpot(s) to the "special" repair ship .bmp.

currently the .bmp maps used are:

Small repair tug = transportsmall
Medium repair tug = transportmedium
Large repair tug = transportlarge

[ April 30, 2003, 01:05: Message edited by: pathfinder ]