Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)

[Andrés]

Ok you have some starting files Online.
Now, all of you who were asking me over and over "When will this mod be finished?" go download it, and report your oppinions.
BTW I have no answer for that Q, I've been advancing at a very irregular speed but with more people involved and more feedback it will sure be sooner.

I know there are many vital techs that I'm forgetting to include.
For example I see that I had made pics for Cargo and Med bays but never included those techs.
Help me make a list of all techs that need to be added. Or even better submit your own portions of data files (be sure to make them looking at the rest of this mod and not to work with standard data files).

jimbob, what do you think of the astromech droids I made?
I don't like them replacing the bridge, and after making up the engines/eng.permove system for sw fighters I didn't think that additional engine abilities would help.

Starting to write AI is also another important part.
Will AI ever use emergency propulsion? All starwars movements are based on an emergency propulsion "hyperdrive" and a special repair tool (can only be repaired by space yards) "hyperdrive motivator".
I really like how it works, ships are slower than other races using only sub-ligh drives and faster when using hyperdrives. And capital ships being slow in combat increases dependence on fighters and give an overall "star wars" feeling in combat.
If AI races don't use it, they will move very slowly and will be barely able to expand.

[TerranC]

Just got the Scifi-Crossover; and I am impressed.

Incredible-godlike job

Unless you have some sort of schedule going on or you have too much free time

But If you need help with the scifi project; I'm good at typing

[Andrés]

<BUMP>

[Val]

Andrés, B5 Mod is getting much closer to finished What adjustments do we have to make to make it more compatable? Like for the ion weapons?

[ May 31, 2002, 16:22: Message edited by: Val ]

[Andrés]

No more comments?

TerranC:
It's not that I don't like the nice things you said, but I'd like some more useful comments.

I need Playtesters
Although they are not finished yet, Imperial and Rebel techs should be roughly playable by now. Give it a try and tell me your opinions.
My impression is that you start too slowly, and you'll be in trouble if you start too close to an aggressive enemy, but then you'll eventually catch up and have better techs in late game.
But I didn't playtest that much anyway. Can you confirm this? How do you suggest to fix it?
Is there a vital tech that you'd need and don't have? or just a sw tech that'd be cool to include?

I didn't even playtest The Force, that was included just as it was sent by Bearclaw. I know they were playtested on their own, but never in combination with other SW techs.

This has been proposed in the sw-map thread, as part of a scenario idea.
But how can we represent the virtually limitless resources and recruits of the Empire (at least before Endor) and the shortage of resources and personnel, and scattered secret bases of the Alliance. Without unbalancing the game too much of course.

I also need someone to help modding star systems. I have a list of a few funny systems I want to add to the appropriate files so they are included in random maps.
If there's any volunteer I'll post the list, I'm making while collecting data for the SW-map.
I also added B5 jump-gates and DS9-like wormholes as alternative warp point pictures. I wanted the random generator to mix the different types, but it seems to always use the first and ignore the others. Can anyone confirm? is there a workaround?

Val:
To make ion work we just need to add a boarding defense 1 ability to all bridges, shield regenerators and PDCs equivalents. That isn't too hard, and I could do it myself if necessary.

The most difficult part to merge B5 mod would be separating "Standard SE4 Tech" from "B5 Tech".
Players that select "Standard SE4 Tech" should get exactly the same that in the un-modded game.
B5 races should select "Bab 5 Tech" + their race specific racial trait.

Tech areas can be common to both (and all other races BTW), SE4 standard exclusive or B5 exclusive.

If it's going to be common, then it must keep Standard cost and max level.
Actual components/facilities/ect every one gets researching can be different by using a second tech req, but cost and max level cannot be changed.

More common tech areas were requested, to allow more tech capture.

I'm currently studying how to merge all ship construction into a shared standard.
Probably by adding a second tech area after highest ship construction, for those that have too many ship sizes, and leaving blank intermediate techs for those with too few (to be filled later?).

[Val]

I'll work on adding the ion stuff as I am working on the EM weapons for the mod now anyway

The tech areas are much more capturable now, with the exception of the pure racial tech at the base level. Ancient tech is (for the most part) not capturable unless you are another B5 ancient race. Also added a few new racial traits - B5 Nomadic Race and B5 Standard Race, so many components now require one of these stats or another racial stat (such as Narn Race), so many of the components should be unavailable to a trek/star wars race until they capture/trade the tech.

Also working on adding a few more shipsets - Vree and Drazi are in the works.

Later!

[jimbob]

Andrés:

I really like the droids you made. I agree that the movement boosting is problematic, as you can only add one "afterburner-like" device per fighter (well actually you can have as many as you want, but only the best one functions)

Four questions for you

1) The addition of one extra sheild is good, but what if the fighter doesn't have any sheilds normally? (that is, what if the rebel player makes fighters that are unsheilded... will the game still give them sheild points from the R-unit?)

2) I notice that the ratios of "Tonnage Space Taken" (TST) to "Tonnage Structure" (TS) is a linear relationship (R-1 1:3, R-2 1:4, etc.). But the R-1 actually has an "absolute" TST value of 2: TS 6. Because you can only put one Droid on a fighter the R-1 could still be better than the R-2 in some cases. Could the values be changed to TST=1 and TS=3?

3) What if the Empire, or a non-SW race wants to use droids on some of their fighters? It seems that many races could use droids, but simply choose not to. This is especially true of the Empire, who employ droids in other capacities, but simply do not choose to put them on their fighters... I would like to see this be a research & design choice on the part of the player if possible.

4) (assuming that you introduce a fully automated technology tree) For the trade federation and cylons... will there be fully automated droid/robot fighter systems? If so, will they be a general or specialized research branch?

The Force:
The Sith crew and force crew components... very cool. I like this a lot.

Dark Storm, could you make the weapon skip sheilds and armor? It seems to me that armor should confer no protection either (and it says so in the description). There is a "skip everything" weapon in SEIV, isn't there? Can you use it's ability type?

Dark Force Pilot, has a combat bonus. I don't think that this bonus is layerable with afterburners and the like. What if this was a straight movement bonus?

I only read over the component and other data files today, but the mod looks great! I'm really looking forward to the Sci-Fi X-over mod. Thanks for all your hard work Andrés.

[ June 01, 2002, 23:52: Message edited by: jimbob ]

[Andrés]

I found a mistake in TechArea.txt:
Droids' racial area should be 24 not 6 they were never available to anyone.

That shows that I didn't attempt to test them in the game until now

Your questions
1)Shield regenerators should be useless without shields, but shouldn't hurt either. Now I doubt that they work in fighters at all.

2)R1s were supposed so large that they could be used in very few fighters. But I see your point. Maybe make them even larger or decrease their tonnage structure to 4.

3) My idea was to eventually add more stuff under the Droids research (listening ideas). That is why (once racial area is fixed) the tech are should be available to all SW races, but fighter R2s only to Rebels (Old/New Republic?)

4)Trade Federation should have many things under droids. Bettledroids, droid tanks, Droid fighters, (droid chairs? walking holoprojectors?) ect.
Cylons, if Battlestar Galactica races are ever added, should not have droids, that is a SW exclusive tech and I can't make them share a tech unless it's shared with everybody else, standard SE4, ST, B5.

5?)
The Force

You're right, Dark Storm and Force Lightning are described to skip shields and armor like standard Null-Space Projectors.
Perhaps they were "balanced" by "reducing" their damage type, and the description wasn't updated accoedingly. I'd have to ask Nick (Bearclaw)
I feel storms should be more "super-weapon" like, much more damage, and a virtually indestructible seeker, but of course larger and with longer reload time.

BTW there is no other weapon that uses the Skips All Shields damage type.

[Phoenix-D]

How are the mods progressing? I think I'll be doing a Honor Harringon mod, but I need information on the other mods so I can keep the numbers sane.

Phoenix-D

[Phoenix-D]

All riiiight, no comments.. then again the Trek mod and B5 mod threads are there so I'll just check those.