Babylon 5 Mod

[Suicide Junkie]

Originally posted by grumbler:
And before I get too far into my weapons system analysis, I want to get a feel for how many people really want the EA to be "uniquely interesting" by having so many weapons choices.

Right now, I guess about half of the unique weapons are EA-specific. Since the canon revolves around the EA, I guess this is natural as a starting point.

However, I personally find the choices bewildering and the optimal mix hard to calculate. If we are not to end up with unmanageable file sizes, I think we need to rethink having such things as anti-missile-missiles and anti-fighter missiles that do much the same job (let alone all the array of PD weapons) so we can free slots for things like advanced Minbari weapons ('cause right now about half the Minbari weapons research programs are dead ends).

Thoughts?

Why on earth would you need to "free slots" ??
The components.txt will be loaded quickly and correctly even if it is upwards of 7 megs in size!
(I made such a file as a P&N extension using my tech gridder - it works great!)

[Fyron]

Originally posted by pathfinder:
Lost my cookies yesterday and it appears I have lost my @hotmail e-mail address. SOOOooooo, looks like my PBW need to go to harryb1@comcast.net instead.

Then you need to change that on the PBW site. The turn emails are automatically generated by the PBW server; I have nothing to do with them.

Grumbler, having more separate anti-fighter and anti-missile missiles is a good thing because it means that there are more choices to have to make; do you want to be strongly anti-fighter or strongly anti-missile, or a more balanced approach? That, and file size hardly matters at all except for downloads, but those are not very often, so a few extra KBs of d/l aren't much of a problem.

[ June 28, 2003, 17:08: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Lowering the big ship's engines per move has the same effect, and eliminates the need for a special component (which violates the QNP principles equally to the lowering of engines per move anyways).

But if you lower the engines per move of the Planet Killer, how can you justify not lowering it for the rest of the ships? QNP hold that mass is the key, and if you say the mass of the Planet Killer is unique, how do you justify that?

The special component would weigh the same for "effective thrust" as the engines it replaces. It is just a way of getting around the 255 engines limit. In wieght cost per effective thrust it is a push.

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Grumbler, having more separate anti-fighter and anti-missile missiles is a good thing because it means that there are more choices to have to make; do you want to be strongly anti-fighter or strongly anti-missile, or a more balanced approach? That, and file size hardly matters at all except for downloads, but those are not very often, so a few extra KBs of d/l aren't much of a problem.

Well, I guess that is my question: do people want to have all of these "choices"? Personally, I find them far too bewildering for the minimal gain received.

The anti-fighter missile shoots down Ftr\Sat\Seekers\Drone, and the AMM does not shoot down anything but seekers. The AMM is a PD weapons and the AFM a seeker, but they have the same range and damage per hull space taken. Personally, I don't think the decision which to use is very much "fun."

It is true that there is no special size limit on the components file per se, but incrasing the size of it makes it more difficult to work through it and figure out what you are supposed to be building towards.

However, if people are happy with the current system, I can always just make the recommended changes to Tim for his Version 2.0, and the components guru can take what he wants from that for the 1.x Version currently underway.

[Fyron]

Well I have not looked at all of the weapons specifically. If that is the case, then the weapons need to be changed to have a choice. An anti-fighter missile should target only fighters. Either eliminated generic PDC-type weapons or making them weaker than specialized ones is a good idea in principle, it just appears to have been botched in this case.

[pathfinder]

IF: I don't remember what that password/userid is....

[grumbler]

I have finished testing my engines mod (less the mega-component idea I am still working on) and the results can be found at 1057417986.zip

The readme explains the changes. No changes yet to ancient engines (since the AI seems to use them just fine) or fighter engines.

Is anyone interested in a QNP mod for fighters? I have one that still is in testing, but can finish it if there is interest.

[grumbler]

The new AI facilities construction file is at 1057419090.zip.

The readme explains the changes. This seems to work, but Pathfinder is better at finding the flaws than I am, and he hasn't seen or "blessed" these changes.

[Suicide Junkie]

Why the bonus movement for AM and grav drives?
You've already got more thrust coming out of them, so adding bonus movement dosen't help with the movement limits and disrupts the QNP physics.

I would also argue that the reactor cost balance could be pushed even farther. 25% minerals and 75% rads, say.

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Why the bonus movement for AM and grav drives?
You've already got more thrust coming out of them, so adding bonus movement dosen't help with the movement limits and disrupts the QNP physics.

The idea I had was to balance out the drives so that the "fleet speed" of a human player using 40% of the ship's tonnage on engines was as follows:
Fission: 4
Fusin: 6
A-M: 9
Grav: 12

I.e. roughly a 50% boost with each power tech. In order to do that without getting into the 254 limit for the bigger ships, I had to use some bonus MP. Right now the 254 limit is reached at Fission and fusion only at the 5000kt shop level, at 2000kt (slight impact only) for AM, and 1500kt for Grav.

In other words, it was a balancing game. It actually helps the AI a bit, as the AI tends to design slower ships, and thus the high tech engines with bonus movement allows them to pack more weapons. Didn't want to upset the balance with the ancients, though, so I left them alone.

I would also argue that the reactor cost balance could be pushed even farther. 25% minerals and 75% rads, say.

I agree, but didn't want to push TOO far!