Babylon 5 Mod

[Timstone]

Damn, I'm glad to login on the www! In my hotelroom (in Germany) for the night is a internet connection!! Jeeha!!! I just love those thorough Germans.

Thanks for the input Jimbob and Geryon. I'll see what I do with it. For now, I'll just clean up the mess the mod has developed in over the Last few Versions.
What about the armor section? What the heck do I do with the hazy concept of Primary, Additional and Alternate armor? I don't intend to let them stay all three. I would like to scrap one of them. The concept is hazy, even to me. A noob would know the difference or the usefulness of those three Versions. So, I plan to scrap the Alternate Version. Would make it a bit more clear. What do you guys think?

Damn typos! Grr...

[ May 21, 2003, 14:26: Message edited by: Timstone ]

[Suicide Junkie]

At tech level 1, you get Primary which is a big chunck that provides most of the special ability.

At tech level 2, you get Alternate, which allows you to add one more chunk of special ability armor.

At tech level 3, you get the Additional, which allows you to have as many of the extra special ability armor chunks as you like.

This keeps large ships from getting an overwhelmingly large advantage from those special abilities, and provides a tech progression to gradually improve the number of armor segments you can get to "work together" for use on the large ships.

I can provide a set of components with more detailed descriptions if you want.

[ May 21, 2003, 14:36: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Timstone]

Thanks for the quick reply SJ!
Aha, so that is how it works. Well, I still think the Alternate Version is a bit superfluous. It takes up research points and it delivers only a fraction of the help a Primary bit gives you, if you research some more, you get heaps and heaps of the same advantages (Additional) and to make it worse, you can only fit one of the Alternate one on your ship. I think it's a waste of space, research and filelength.

Quote SJ:
I can provide a set of components with more detailed descriptions if you want.

What do you mean?

[jimbob]

Timstone: Yah, well I hope the ideas are useful. I'd like to think of myself as a good SEIV players, but really, I'm a bit more of a newbie when it comes to the complex tech trees. Just think of me as your litmus newbie

I was also thinking, almost all the mods have self destruct devices at only the 3rd level of propulsion. Since playing pirates and nomads, where ship boarding is supposed to be important, I've come to believe that self destruct devices are introduced way to early in the tech tree. Could we bump them up on the tech tree? Maybe have a computer requirement too? This would be especially important (IMHO) if the B5 mod picked up some P&N-like races.

hope these ideas help,
jimbob

[Timstone]

Jimbob: That can be arranged. I'll give it a computer requirement besides the normal requirements. When it is done, I'll report it here.

Tjeez, I really like this German hotel, nice women behind the intake desk downstairs, a cool bar with my favorite Dutch beer, a fairly spaceous room, an internet connection at a low price and nice colleagues to travel with. It's a real pitty I leave here in two day's.

Could someone please tell me what the point is in having three types of ECM (Basic, Advanced and Elite) and also three types of Combat Sensors (Basic, Advanced and Elite)?! I couldn't make heads or tails from it when I played the mod, it's not very diffirent now. What should I do with it?

Edit: Jimbob: I've changed the requirements for the Self Destruct Device to Level 5 Propultion and Level 1 Computers. Is this more like it?

[ May 21, 2003, 18:48: Message edited by: Timstone ]

[Jamorobo]

well i've started a new B5mod game on gold, (3 planets start off, ai has medium bonus, with all the races that are emp files at the mo and randomly generated empires ticked which means 2 narn races! Oh well

It's turn 15 at the mo and i'm 6th but i havn't really started to try and expand (i've only colonised 3 other planets bringing my total to 6). Checking on the score screen the ai empires don't seem to be going fast at all even with the bonus i gave them they have the same or just below the amount of techs i have and some have less planets, IIRC in my se4 plain games the Centuri would grab any and every planet in site and the minbari were the same, in this gold Version they seem to be rather stale at the mo.
We really need to give the ai a kick in the arse to get them going.

Keep the Sensors and ECMs as they are, the idea is that instead of having one component which just increases your to hit chance to a stupidly high number or whatever you need several components wich each give a small advantage so to get a really good hit prob you need to use alot of your prescious space on your ship to get it.

With weapons, val used the B5 wars AoG stuff (not on everything offcourse eg. bLast cannons,) now if val was here he could tell use how he converted the weps for use in the mod, he might of used a scaling formula for different types of weapons/ race weapons. who knows what we do need regardless is ideas on weapons or weapon fixes which can be seen and agreed by all before final implimentation into the next Version of the mod.

[Suicide Junkie]

Aha, so that is how it works. Well, I still think the Alternate Version is a bit superfluous. It takes up research points and it delivers only a fraction of the help a Primary bit gives you, if you research some more, you get heaps and heaps of the same advantages (Additional) and to make it worse, you can only fit one of the Alternate one on your ship. I think it's a waste of space, research and filelength.

Whether it is a waste of space or not depends entirely on the situation...
If you are facing enemy guns that do 50 damage, and your primary armor blocks 30, an alternate that blocks only 10 will reduce the damage you take from 20 to 10, and your ship survives twice as long.
As for being a waste of research, that also depends on the situation... These armor techs are designed such that players CANNOT race down the entire tree. You will quickly reach a point where the additional research costs are too much for the value you'll get... However, after a few years, the other techs you work on will get to be the same way, and you'll come back to the armor tech again!

Filelength? Ha! Not a problem at all Have you seen my 7 meg components file upgrade for P&N? It still loads in a flash, and dosen't hurt SE4's speed in the least.

Quote SJ:
I can provide a set of components with more detailed descriptions if you want.

Well, seeing as I designed and wrote the armor components, I should be the one to update 'em

Could someone please tell me what the point is in having three types of ECM (Basic, Advanced and Elite) and also three types of Combat Sensors (Basic, Advanced and Elite)?! I couldn't make heads or tails from it when I played the mod, it's not very diffirent now. What should I do with it?

Keep the Sensors and ECMs as they are, the idea is that instead of having one component which just increases your to hit chance to a stupidly high number or whatever you need several components wich each give a small advantage so to get a really good hit prob you need to use alot of your prescious space on your ship to get it.

Pre-cisely! In addition, the tech requirements are also arranged so that in order to get really good ECM, you need to know some sensor techs... knowing how they work allows you to better understand how to defeat them

[ May 21, 2003, 20:28: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Starfishy]

Downloaded the mod, have tried it out a little, and wouldn't mind getting in on the game. I have applied for the open spot for the Vree, can I have it?

Thanks,
Starfishy

[Timstone]

Last post before I turn in for the precious night.

SJ, Jamorobo: Thanks for all the info. It's crystal clear now.
Sensors: Do they need work? If so, who's the best person to do it?
Armor: SJ designed them. So the questions are, do the need work and is SJ prepared to do it for the mod?

Tomorrow I'll be Online most of the day (good hotel, lots of free time... after some stupid meeting with uninteresting people). So please feel free to spew you ideas, suggestions and the like.
I had a little idea about how I get the mod going a bit sooner. When I have the time, I'll begin with the work on it. Yes, I foresee great things.
Yeeess... (Megatron stile)

[pathfinder]

StarFishy: One note: you need to have SEIV v 1.49 to use the B5 PBW... SEIV Gold will not work.