Modder brainstorming session

[Nitram Draw]

Yes, I would like to see phased shield skipping weapons. Weapons that skipped specific armor would be neat also. That way you would have an even harder time building a killer ship. You could have specialized attack ships that work great against certain weapons but are vunerable to the wrong ones.
Don't guess wrong

[Suicide Junkie]

That sounds like something that was kicked around a while ago...

-Give the weapons arbitrary damage types, from a damagetype.txt file.
-Give the defences arbitrary defence types too, from defencetypes.txt file.
-Every entry in damage types goes like the following:
Name := fire
Defence name 1 := normal shield
Defence effect 1 := block
Defence amount 1 := 100%
Defence name 2 := asbestos armor
defence effect 2 := changedamage
defence amount 2 := 50% (reduces damage by half before it hits this or any other components)
defence name 3 := flammable internals
defence effect 3 := block
defence amount 3 := 500% (hurts component 5x normal)
...etc...

you could make up as many defence types as you like, and have each one block, changedamage, be skipped, by each damage type individually!

----------------------------------
For the "solar sails without ship engines" thing, I've just made two different Sails. one normal, and one with "built in steering thrusters".

The steering thruster Version will cost a little more (50/0/50), and will provide one standard movement, and have one less bonus movement to compensate.
IE. SS3, thruster Version has: 1 standard, 2 bonus.

BTW, this has been tested and WORKS!!!
Just use the standard sail for engine ships, cause the solo Version uses up an engine slot.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 17 May 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

How about in addition to normal engines, tactical engines that give extra combat moves but less strategic moves and vice versa.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Use the afterburner ability! yes! and perhaps we could give an engine a "-1" afterburner, so it gives 2 movement in strategic, but gives a total of zero in tactical!

---

Reality attack. -ve afterburner stuff dosen't reduce combat speed.
Just remembered I may have forgotten a small detail... will update this after I check...
Crap. Its true. -ve afterburners change to zero effect.

Anybody have ideas on how to fake our way around this?

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 18 May 2001).]

[Nitram Draw]

You would definately have to make choices. Since the bonus moves on the standard engines require you to use all of the same type of engines the choices could get hard.
I think it will need a lot of tuning though or else we could have ships with 15 tactical moves or 25 strategic moves.
Now if MM would only expand on the AI ship building routine to allow specific types of ships to be built and add the Fleet composition file someone suggested we could have a really deadly AI!

[dogscoff]

Space is big,
Space is dark,
It's hard to find,
A place to park.

While the above statement is undeniably true,
The universe currently simulated by Space Empires is very small and crowded. Within a few dozen turns, most systems have been colonised and explored, and all the empires are sitting in each others' laps.

How about a mod which creates a more "empty" universe? A universe where meeting another empire does not mean you will be squabbling over one another's home systems within a year. I'm thinking more Alien than Star Wars, more Red Dwarf than Trek, more Dark Star than Bab5.

Here's an idea of how to go about it:

First, the map generator files would have to be modded to make colonisable planets/ systems rarer and farther apart. This would increase their value and force players to look beyond their home systems.
Huge maps with fewer empires would also help.

Now, make colony ships and components far bigger and more expensive. I'm thinking maybe 800-1000 kt, with a 700-900 kt colony component and harsh combat modifiers.

Cargo components for smaller ships should be of limited use, forcing players to use large ships for any serious cargo movment. Adjust supply usage/ storage so that long range travel is really expensive for large ships. Different engines for different ship sizes maybe. (This could fit in nicely with that combat/game movement suggestion a few Posts down.)

Setting up a new colony would now be a *major* investment (and hence a *major* risk)- especially in another system.

New colonies would also be much more vulnerable. This is good, after all it's a long way home. Facilities should take longer to build, so that a new colony does not establish itself and become independent of external defence/ support too quickly.
Each player might only have a few dozen colonies throughout the entire game.

The supply restrictions on bigger ships and cargo restrictions on smaller ones would limit the expansion of infrastructure, so
military domination would then revolve around the strategic placement of fleets, mines, sats, space stations and colonies rather than simply racing to develop the bigger production base and throw ships at the enemy.

Fleets of small ships would be able to roam from system to system and rule over frontier space. However they would be more or less powerless against the defences of established systems. Attacking an enemy system would be an enormous projct.


Remote mining would play a greater role, as would moons, storms and nebulae. Physical warfare would become the Last resort when diplomacy and intel fail, although having good defences around your home systems would be more important than ever.

Some of S_J's mods (ie hardened bulkheads, cheap/ quality mounts) would make good additions since they make ships more individual. Phoenix-D's primitives (still in development, I believe) would also be good here, since their isolation would give them more bargaining power and more effective defences.

It would make for a much slower and more deliberate game, since ships and planets would no longer be "throwaway" items. Combat would be rarer but when it happened it would be truly epic, with loads of allied empires in gigantic battles.

I don't know how the AI would cope with all this but it would be cool for human players - a whole new game with a whole new feel.

Thoughts?

------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

[Marty Ward]

Couldn't you create a tactical engine that had no strategic move? You could mix them with the ion engines for your defense fleets.
How about just making another Version of the top two levels of engines? The alternative models would give one standard and one combat move and one standard and two combat moves.
Is there a maximum on the number of combat moves? 9 is the most I have seen and that was on a fighter.

[This message has been edited by Marty Ward (edited 18 May 2001).]

[Aussie Gamer]

I have used thrusters from fighters afterburners to give my bases limited movement during combat only.

No reason that you could not remove totally all startegic movement from fighters and just have them only be able to operate in that sector they are dropped. Thus making them more reliant on carriers.

[Marty Ward]

Do the afterburners work on bases? I tried giving a movement ability to the base vehicle and that didn't work.
How did you modify the component or did you give the ability to another component?
I agree with you about the fighters, no strategic moves really makes you use fighters as intended, local defense.
I think I may give modding a try and do some work on the fighters, they are already screwed up with the to hit plus and minus bonuses that I guess I can't hurt them.

[dumbluck]

I know, but he wanted Ideas, so I thru one out. Here's another:

If you feel (as I do) that fighters shouldn't be able to just sit indefinately on a WP (how would you like sitting in a cramped cockpit for months on end!), just make the fighter lifesupport use supplies! I am also toying with the idea of making ALL life support use supplies, although not much.

And just out of curiosity (although changing this would affect game balance to much IMO), why is it that a Light carrier @ 800kt (AND lots of pilots to support) needs only 1 Lifesupport/crewquarters, while a Large Transport (consisting of mostly unmanned storage space) @ 900kt needs _3_ lifesupport/crew quarters?

WOW!!! can you say "run-on sentance"?

[Nitram Draw]

Understand.
Will the lifesupport use supplies every turn? If so that is a good alternative to modifying the fighter engines, although I know someone will find a work around, we're such devious buggers .