Babylon 5 Mod

[Timstone]

Quote Jamorobo:

Or are we going to start from scratch.

Yes! That is the thing I suggested a long time ago, but nobody wanted that, so I dropped it.
I have some books from AoG and that would be a perfect basis for the new stream of weapons.
I'm currently restructuring the whole mod for easy use and further component implementation. If we have some sort of rules available for use on weapons, we could steam ahead with incredible speed. What do you say people?! We start with this new project?

Sadly I'm off to Poland and the Czech Republic, so I'll be out of the picture for about 3 or 4 weeks. I hope I have some sort of acces to a internet connection. I'll upload all my stuff on my laptop, that way I can at least continue work while I'm there.

I hope this new wind will sweep new life into our mod. Hope you guys are willing to help.
Till soon!!

[jimbob]

Ok, sorry Timstone, I didn't want to give advice when I'm really not that useful for the construction of the files, etc. Nevertheless, your call for suggestions elicits this:

I think it would be nice if the special racial tech weapons wouldn't require several levels of the racial tech. As it stands now, a researcher would need to do say 4 levels of racial tech to get a race specific weapon... but they would get nothing at levels 1, 2 or 3. For a new player they're going to be confused and not persue it. Instead, I propose that the race specific weaponry would work like this:

Super-duper Raiders Laser
Requirement 1: laser weapons 8
Requirement 2: (general*) medium weapons 2
Requirement 3: raiders racial tech 1 **

versus the current system:

Super-duper Raiders Laser
Requirement 1: advanced laser weapons 1 ***
Requirement 2: raiders medium weapons 2 ****

* of course there would no longer be a "general" Category, and there would be no "racial" categories here. These are really confusing, and often do not provide any immediate component pay-off. Unless one wishes to delve into the text files, they take their life into their own hands gambling on an uncertain tech tree. What if we just up the price and reduce the number of empty technologies? As far as the general and racial specific categories go, just colapse this down to a general Category, and use the racial trait instead.
** this technology will of course never need to be "researched" by the player so is a "hidden". The result? The player has one less thing to worry about.
*** which requires lasers 7 (the addition of "advanced" lasers instead of lasers 8 is confusing to me anyway. The ambiance is nice, but the confusion is overwhelming = not worth the ambiance IMHO)
**** which requires raiders light weapons 2 + raiders medium weapons 1... neither of which results in any useable components.

This way it is still necessary for the racial tech to be present, but the system is a little less convoluted. Even if things become capturable by this method, it has the advantage of elegance/simplicity = good in my book!

[Geryon]

Ok,

Jamorobo: The EA Shadow-hybrid weaponry and armor (the Omega-X hybrid armor) are not in the mod yet to my knowledge. PF is working on the Light Molecular Slicer and the trans-phased plasma weapons (EA advanced plasma weapons).

Suicide Junkie: Firstly, fantastic job on the Pirates and Nomad mod. The concepts you created are perfect for Raiders and Soul Hunters. Again I have no idea how this could be implemented into the B5 mod should it be decided to do so. I have seen the Soul Hunters use something called B5 nomadic race traits, but I'm unsure if they are the same as what you created. If it is the same, then the Soul Hunters already have this style and all that would be needed is changing the Raiders from B5 standard race to B5 nomadic race.

Timestone: I like the idea of using authentic weapons system for the mod but considering how far Val's Version is right now I don't know if it would be the best to rewrite the weapons system all over, that would certainly push the mod back a long ways and take much more time to develop and balance. But after this mod is finished I can see great potential for an addon with the new weapons system, again just my opinion

PF: I already added the ship sizes that were in the yet to be added txt and I have a question. Since Breach Pods and Assault shuttles carry troops are they supposed to house some sort of cargo bay or do they automatically have the numbers of troops stated in the description? I ask because both of these fall under the fighters Category and I can't see any kind of cargo bay to add to them to hold the troops. Since they were wip I was wondering if I needed to add these cargo bays somehow...do you know? Thanks.

[pathfinder]

Geryon: Not sure on the Assult shuttles and breaching pods. Guess Val was trying to figure this out to.

I have the EA lt mol slicer and the new plasma weapon in-game (though not used in combat yet). All I would have to do to get the armor is add that research path. The armor IIRC is already in the components.txt file so doing the research statements is all that has to be done.

and on Nomads, me just clueless on HOW to write those statements up. Guess I need to study the Nomad trait(s) in the P & N MOD.

[ May 21, 2003, 00:19: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

[Geryon]

Ok thanks PF. I guess I'll just have to build some breach pods ingame and see if they successfully capture an enemy or derelict ship...I think I'll try it on some of those derelict Ancient ships and see if they get it. If it doesn't work, then that's probabaly the reason they hadn't been added yet.

Since Suicide Junkie added a ship capture system I can also have a look at this and see if something like it can be done...again, if it doesn't already work which I hope it does, I was more interested in playing this mod than modding it

Well as soon as you get those new weapons working, give me a holler...I'd love to give them a test run...if I can add them mid-game otherwise, it would be a while until I could reach them in a brand new game, being advanced weapons and all

[ May 21, 2003, 00:25: Message edited by: Geryon ]

[pathfinder]

Oh oh...The EAS Yorktown (heavy cruiser) (3 Light Molecular Slicers) just popped a Hurr Battlecruiser (9 squares, 152 damage ). Yes, they do work...so human players would have them available now. I need to add molecular research to the AI_research.txt file) and 1 ship(?) class to have the slicers in AI_designcreation.txt file...which one?

The EA will be required to research both Earth Alliance Ultra weapons and molecular weapons.

Also, just the light molecular slicer? or also add the pulsar and cutter?

[ May 21, 2003, 01:20: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

[AGoetz]

I've given in and ordered the Gold Version. When that comes I'll see if I can of any assistance with newer Versions than is currently in use in PBW.

Research in particular feeling much slower in PBW than in single player - guess that's the difference between 5 end turns and a week and a half ....

[Suicide Junkie]

Notes:

Units can not carry cargo or capture ships via boarding parties... Allegiance subverters would work, but are insanely powerful skip-all weapons that would stack the chance to convert (even at 1% chance, 100 fighters in a stack will get you 100% chance to convert. )

You will want a small ship with boarding parties instead. If you put the boarding party ability into the hull, the ship will never lose them, and can capture an infinite number of ships in combat.
A special mount that reduces the size or cost of boarding parties on the assault transport would be effective.

[pathfinder]

Hmmm...ability to the hull.....

Boarding attack ?

Looks like I need to drop the 25% cargo requirement (no cargo hold small enough currently in-game) and/or add a boarding attack ability. My vote is to drop the cargo requirement and add the ability.

[ May 21, 2003, 04:20: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

[Geryon]

Hmm, I haven't the slightest clue how to add the boarding ability to the hull (wish I did to get it working asap) but since PF seems to get it...phew!!!

I take it this means my breach pods do nothing at the current time...oh well.

You can add the molecular pulse weapons and cutter if you like, though I really don't know the difference between the slicer and cutter. The ship to naturally carry the Light Molecular Slicer would be the Omega-X or battleship in mod terms. Though I can assure you I'll be adding them also to the super-dreadnought variant of the Warlock.

Update: I checked the designcreation.txt in the Pirates and Nomads mod and compared it to the ones in the B5 Mod and the normal game. And the Assault Ship type has the boarding ship abilities so I suppose I can classify the Breach Pods as an Assault Ship and it should work fine. I have no idea what to do with assault shuttles since they are supposed to be used as combat dropships and troops are dropped into planets via normal transports, I also haven't a clue about regular shuttles for that matter since I can't find a use for them. So I guess we already have functioning breach pods, all we need now is those advanced EA weapons and we're set

[ May 21, 2003, 06:50: Message edited by: Geryon ]