Babylon 5 Mod

[grumbler]

Suicide Junkie,

I tried out your idea of having satellites be bases. It seems to iron out a lot of wrinkles, but then it seems impossible to make the AI build them, as the AI wants to build honking big bases when it builds bases. Also, the numbers of bases around the planet become a management issue unless you allow bases to join fleets (in which case you just make a "Satellite Fleet" at each planet and tuck 'em out of sight)... but then I don't know if the AI won't make its fleets immobile by sticking bases in them.

Also, when I experimentally limit AI bases sizes to force them to build these little satellite bases, they just build every satellite base around their honeworld (and the AI not spreading out bases is an issue that needs to be tackled if possible anyway).

Sigh.. any thoughts, anyone? I sure wish satellites orbited planets in the basic game.

[Fyron]

AIs don't add bases to fleets.

[Nomor]

Question: I know we can create troops that are transportable as cargo , that can be stored on planets and in ships cargo bays. Is it possible to have a troop that is assigned an ability such as increase research or increases intelligence. If certain structures have cargo capacities and these are then stocked with these Intel/Research troops it gives a bonus to the production of these type of facilities. These troops in effect become scientists and spies.

Re: Home Hub Vorlon : The presence of such, should give a boost to the reproduction of Vorlon population say 50%, as these are very low for this race. It should perhaps be system wide and not empire wide . I'm assuming that Vorlons can colonise for this ability, either through Colony ships or by conquest.

I've always thought the Vorlon troop should be worth 20 of the lesser race troops due to their encounter suits. Shadow troops worth 5 to 10 of lesser races due to a personal cloak that could only be negated by telepaths or high level scanning facilities. Shadow reproduction should be higher than Vorlon

Whether or not it is possible to have troops with telepathic abilities is again unknown by me, it would be nice to be able to trade such troops to the Narns.

The Minbari HH or Unification Plaza could have the effect of minimising rebellion or the chance for Minbari ships to be lost by joining another races cause.


[ May 22, 2004, 18:46: Message edited by: Nomor ]

[grumbler]

We are not at the point of adding Ancients to the mod yet, but the idea that they cannot colonize in the B5 timeline has been retained. If there is an Ancients mod later on, then obviously this will have to be relaxed.

It is a pity that races cannot have different "tons per pop" factor, as this would simply allow us to make the Vorlon and Shadow pops too big to move, and only their minion races would be able to move pops.

The "ground forces" of both the Shadows and Vorlons will represent minion race troops, not actual Shadows and Vorlons. Both were nearly immortal and so would not risk themselves in such combat (and in fact the Shadows didn't even risk themselves in ship combat, though it appears the Vorlons did man their ships).

[grumbler]

It is certainly possible to make ground units able to use the Combat Telepath component. I cannot think of any example other than Lyta's presence on Mars, but that doesn't mean anything as we certainly didn't see many of the actions of the Shadow War.

[Nomor]

PF & Grum: Re Vorlon colonisation. That's actually better that Vorlon's colonise through conquest. We know that Vorlons can fight because Kosh fought the Shadows on B5 and the security when Mk II was evicted. We also had the Shadows being zapped on Centauri Prime when Morden was terminated.

They certainally showed the stomach for it at the final battle but if that's they you want to go for now that's fine.

Re: the Atmospheric Modification Plant ; rather than " make them so expensive that they will use resources for years before completing the conVersion" why not instill the following abitity:

Resource Gen Modifier System - (Radioactives Organics and Minerals)*
Value1 = Percentage change of resource generation for entire system (+/- percentage).
Value2 = -10

* need not be the same value for each resouce!

Ideally if this was Empire Wide it would make more sense, the cost of modifying a planet would be like a tax on the Empire, until such time as the planet was converted.


The other thing I've always wanted was for Planet's with Ancient ruins/technologies to also have the following:

Planet Point Generation Modifier - Research
Value1 = Percentage change of point generation for entire planet (+/- percentage).
Value2 = 20

Planet Point Generation Modifier - Intelligence
Value1 = Percentage change of point generation for entire planet (+/- percentage).
Value2 = 5

So that any Facility placed on a planet that had the Ancient tag would provide an increase to any research or Intel facility placed on it.
This would also preserve the Ancient planets identity which always went once the colony ship colonised it.

Why not also have an increased chance of plague hitting the colonising race due to some microb they dug up.


[ May 22, 2004, 17:42: Message edited by: Nomor ]

[Suicide Junkie]

The problem with that idea for the atmo modders is that only the best value is used.

A zero or positive value modifier anywhere else in the system will negate all of its effects.

Instead, why not just use a big negative for "point generation" (which is independent of planet value)
Only good for Gold, but for Classic, the solar resource generation would be an acceptable substitute in most cases...

[Ragnarok-X]

do you mean you can give components and facilitys a negative point generation value ?! i never thought of that. Imho that has much potential for modding in general !

[Nomor]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
The problem with that idea for the atmo modders is that only the best value is used.

A zero or positive value modifier anywhere else in the system will negate all of its effects.

Instead, why not just use a big negative for "point generation" (which is independent of planet value)
Only good for Gold, but for Classic, the solar resource generation would be an acceptable substitute in most cases...

grumbler: Like what he says... (SJ that is)...do that instead..

[ May 22, 2004, 23:30: Message edited by: Nomor ]

[pathfinder]

Nomor: do not know how Timstone and Grumbler are handling the Vorlons (all ancients for that matter) but the concensus Last year by most players was that the Ancients would NOT have ANY colonization capability. They would only be able to get colonies through gifts or conquering. So that is the way the MOD I just "finished" is set up.