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

[Fyron]

Don't worry too much about making sure that every little detail is portrayed exactly as it is in the movies. That doesn't really matter very much. What matters is that you get the Star Wars flavor.

[jimbob]

I agree with IF about the flavour vs. the exact replication of fighter schematics from the actual SW references.

That said:

All of the fighters (Rebel and Imperial) can be recreated as they appear in the movies with the current hull sizes, except for the X-Wings. Cockpit + life support + 4 engines + 2 launchers (2 kt each) + 4 lasers + shields (5 kt) + R2 unit = 20 kt (current X-Wing fuselage size is 19 kt)

Could you increase the Reb. fighter size to 20 kT without imbalancing things too much? Or perhaps the R2 size could come down a notch (I actually haven't looked up an R2 size, is it greater than 1 kT?)

Anyway, just some thoughts. Keep up the great work.

[Andrés]

R2s are 1kt and X-Wings can be made as they’re supposed to be, only primitive R1s are 2kt.

Changing structure resistance of fighters would make them very vulnerable against PDC fire. PDC also influences effectiveness of fighter missiles and must be considered when balancing their damage.

I’m rebalancing fighter movements, to increase contrast in speed between capital ships and fighters, I wanted to make 10 HTML = 1 combat mov, no a strategic one.
Most fighters can travel between planets in the same system, even if most times that involves a micro-jump. But having twice their combat movs would make faster ones have near 30 movements and I agree that is too much. I’m playing with values en an excel spreadsheet and going to a mixed system with different eng per mov + builtin combat movs in hulls.

I have made a tech list for the rebels, I’ll post it ASAP in the site.

I want to make Interdictors somekind of stellar manipulator ships, specially some kind of warp point manipulators, since those are important in SE4. Do you have any ideas of how to implement them?

[Erax]

You can only build the 'movie' X-Wings if you increase their size from 19 to 20 kt. Unless you consider that one launcher component represents the fighter's twin launchers (I hadn't thought of that).

I realise that changing fighter structure will lead to all kinds of issues with AFLs, PDCs and so on; but you won't get the 'one shot from another fighter and you're dead' effect the way things are right now. What if you increase fighter LC V damage from 3 to 4 points ? That could also work.

On the movement scale, I was aiming for 10 MGLT = 1 strategic move. I think your scale is better, on my scale fighters would be too slow in combat when compared to SW capital ships.

I think I've read about interdictors in this thread, IIRC at the time the best solution seemed to be to make them warp point closers.

[Fyron]

Just give the fighters low strategic move, and bonus combat movement, and all is well.

[Andrés]

Fyron, I was just going to do that.

Erax, I think that was it, X-wings were supposed have 1 torp, 1 R2 and a tar comp in the remaining space.
Enlarging the hull to 20kt is not big deal anyway, but I agree with Fyron and jimbob, we don't need (and probably can't) replicate everything exactly as in the movies, in SE4 you have freedom to make different designs and research technologies in different order, so you'd probably only design them that way for roleplaying reasons.

The same applies to lasers against TIEs, I guess we can boost lasers a little, but then pehaps they will get too powerful against capital ships.
Besides IIRC in the simulators you needed at least a two-cannons-linked (and fully charged) impact to destroy a T/F in one shot. In SE4 cannons are allways linked (of the entire fighter group!), and you need a double or triple impact to destroy a TIE so we're not that far.

Yes wp closers fit the interdictors role, but we can't just close wp we'll also need somekind of wp opener and I was thinking that it sould also go in a variation of interdictors.

What about this:
Interdictor hull has negative combat bonuses (although it can carry some weapons and fighters) + a built-in QR or very high supply storage
"Gravity-Wave Generator" component consumes a massive amount of supplies to close or open WPs (opening and closing ones would be separated ones).

Other larger ships such as the Eclipse and Sovereign should be able to carry enough reactors to feed their GWGs.

Rebel's Modified Strike Cruisers should only be large enough to carry only an opener or a closer but not both.

I was also considering to test if the "Stop Open Warp Point" ability (and perhaps some other SM prevention) works for components, but even if it does you wouldn't be able to turn it on and off without either refitting the ship or getting rid of it.

[Erax]

Tar comp ? Wazzat ?

Regarding X-Wings : I agree, but the whole point of the thing is to roleplay (to me, anyway).

Regarding TIEs : Yes, we're not that far, structures are only 30-35% more resistant vs. fighter lasers than they 'should' be. It's no big deal really, if you say there will be balance issues then I believe you.

On the Interdictors : The big problem, as I see it, is you can only use SM outside combat. The Interdictors were designed to 'drop' passing ships into realspace (unnecessary in SE IV, since everyone is in realspace already) and to prevent enemy ships from leaving combat (also unnecessary, because you can't escape from SE IV combat once it starts, you can only try to run away using your standard drives). In fact, it's as if there were Interdictors present at every battle already !

If you give them WP openers and closers, they will be used to project attack fleets into the enemy's rear area, and that is not their role at all.

[Andrés]

Anyway WP manipulation will be importnt in an SE4 game and we'll need some Version of that.
Interdictors have a role that is related with SM.

Targeting Compurters or perhaps some armor.

[ November 02, 2002, 19:42: Message edited by: Andr&eacutes Lescano ]

[jimbob]

Well, make sure to head on over to " POLL->things we'd really like in Next Patch (Platinum II) " and submit your vote(s) for multiple Warp Point Types then (plug plug plug), and we can maybe get Aaron to introduce different types of warp points - letting us produce different types of FTL travel by SciFi Genre. Maybe then we can have more specific uses of the Interdictors.

Just some thoughts (plug plug plug)

jimbob

[Erax]

I've been thinking about Warp Points... you could make events more frequent in the Settings file (say, 100%), then make the Unstable Warp Point event common and create lots Unstable Warp Point events in the Events file (and I mean LOTS; there would have to be 3+ times as many of them as 'regular' events).

The effect would be to create a galaxy in which at least one warp point would be closing per turn. That's not enough to enable us to use the Hyperdrive as a warp point opener component, but as close as we can get.