Modding SEV Thread Questions

[Puke]

bearclaw said:
Is there a master list of all abilities/restrictions for SEV like SEIV's Abilities.txt file?

I saw references to one in some of the data files, so its probably safe to say that one exists but is excluded from the demo.

[Kana]

Can there be more than 17 or 16 different ship/unit pictures in the Empire/Shipset Files?

First off I noticed a 1 image difference between the Ship Set, and Vehicle Main Textures bmp. What I wanted to know, are the sizes of the bmp's set in stone, what if we want to add more vehicle models to the shipset/empire? From viewing the Empire style example on MM, it doesnt appear so.

Ship Set--[Empire Name]_ShipSet.bmp--378x84(each picture is 42x42)

Vehicle Main Texture--[Empire Name]_Vehicle_Main_Texture.bmp--256x256 (each picture is 64x64)

Unit Combat Texture--[Empire Name]_Unit_Combat_Texture.bmp--256x256 (each picture is 128x128)

[Phoenix-D]

Yes, they can.

All those files seem to be able to be lengthed in a manner similar to components.txt in SE4. That is, you can make them longer, but not wider.

[Kana]

Can you target an incoming Beam or Bolt based weapon with an effect?

I was going through the data files, and I noticed that there was a listing of valid targets, like ship, or seeker for instance, but it also said beam and bolt.

What is the difference between Torpedo and Directed Torpedo?

From what I can tell it looks like Directed is seeking, and Torpedo is like direct fire.

Can Shields use supplies?

Do the Formations for the Fleets and Task Forces determine the max number of ships per fleet?

From looking at the formations data file, it shows one formation for fleet as a max of 40 ships, and one for task forces at 74. I was hoping that you could use this to possibly control the total size of any fleets being used.

With out Multiplex Tracking, Do all weapons that can fire from an individual ship fire at the target?

Wont this result in serious overkill of certain ships...?

[StarShadow]

Re: Multiplex Tracking

I'm kind of wondering that too. In SEIV all direct fire shots were instant hit and your weapons fired in sequence, if weapon 4 (out of, say 10) was a kill, weapons 5 - 10 would find a new target. In SEV since combat is real-time, and most direct fire weapons actually have travel-time (the beams aren't so bad, but it's quite noticable with projectile weapons)..it looks to me like ships just completely unload at one ship after another, resulting in some amazing over-kills, unless you micro-manage your combat (ie. tell your ship to fire weapons 1-4 at ship A and weapons 5-10 at ship B, etc).

[Puke]

i think its all configurable in the stratigies. like this:

Targeting Priority 2 := Total Targeted Damage < 150% of Structure

and like this:

Target Type 1 Damage Amount := 100%

and you can configure strategies to be specific to the type of object being engaged. so you might choose to engage a carrier at a diferent range than a sphereworld. and that iss pretty snazzy.

[Suicide Junkie]

Multiplex is basically infinite due to the real time nature.

You simply have to set your strategies to not fire overkill, so instead of 150%, ask for a much smaller percentage for targetting.

Your ships will still opportunity fire at non-priority stuff that comes into range.

[StarShadow]

Maybe I'm not understnding what you're saying (Suicide and Puke), but I think you're still going to get over-kill. For example, in my latest game I have a destroyer with unmounted lvl 100 meson blasters (5 of them) guarding a warp point. Those things do over 600 points of damage, one hit is all that's needed to kill any enemy ship, but if several ships come through the warp, my ship still fires all 5 at each ship, one after the other. That is VERY inefficient and (in theory) exposes my ship to much more harm than it should. I expect it works likes this:

.Target in range
.Weapon1 fires..projectile inbound
.Check target..no damage (projectile hasn't reached it yet)
.Weapon2 fires..projectile inbound
.Check target..no damage (projectile hasn't reached it yet)
.Repeat for weapon 3 to 5

I think the problem is the travel-time for projectiles. If they were instant hit it would be much better (in my opinion), because your ship could find a new target after each kill, instead of unloading all weapons at them, one at a time.

.Enemy ship in range..
.Weapon1 fires..enemy ship hit..enemy ship destroyed
.New target..enemy ship in range..
.Weapon2 fires...target hit..target destroyed
.And so on..

[Arralen]

Is there a way to reduce system size?

I already found in "settings.txt"
Code:

---

System Width In Hexes                                                 := 26

System Height In Hexes                                                := 20

---

Someone here suggested 20x15, but that crashes the demo. Even 24x18 looks oddly, as if some 'radius' or 'cropping range' is missing or too big - the systems start looking 'squared' at 24x18 again, the 'corners' too much filled up ..
Is it by chance "System Point Radius From Center := 410.0" .. dunno what to do with a point range here, though


Is there a way to reduce the chance for nebula sectors?


Thanks!

[Captain Kwok]

To use 20x15 hexes, you need to edit the SystemTypes.txt file so that no items are placed beyond ring 7 - that is what causes the crash.

When changing the system size, multiple the radius by the factor you change the size by. For example, 20/26 is ~ 75%, so the radius should be 315 etc.

You'd need to edit QuadrantTypes.txt to reduce the occurence of nebulas.