Babylon 5 Mod

[Timstone]

Well, it's a little more complicate dfor me. I have collected all the seasons in the Dutch edition. The American edition is different from the Dutch one. I really must have the whole serie in the same style.
Fortunately there is a bright side to this wating. Now I have enough money to buy all the Dutch Versions of Stargate in one go (that is untill season 7)! Woohoo!

[Timstone]

Bumpski!
I just wanted to post my 1200th post in this thread. Call me emotional, but this is my favorite thread.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Congratulations.

[Timstone]

Thanks Narf!
You da mouse!

[Timstone]

Alrighty then! With the arrival of the 500th crew to make the next incarnation of the B5 Mod, I would like to open this thread again! WEEEEEE!!!!

*Croud goes wild!*

Someone give me a brewski!

Long live Babylon 5!

[Ragnarok-X]

Well simple as it is, i was a fan of babylon 5 since i first watched it. I was visiting these forums regulary about 4 years ago, eagerly awaiting a good release of the b5 mod, that was back when Val was here.
Now I followed the progress since years, and lately month. Latest achievements were the enhancments done by Timstone, Grumbler and Pathfinder (...).

Then we started a pbw game and i hate to say, but that game is barely any fun at all. Players are simply overwhelmed by the mod, there is too much to do or to consider. There is no development at all, even if there were, there are still to many things that need to be...repaired.

The mod will be totally revised. I have already adjusted most facilites cost/effect, as mentioned in my posted email. Population effect has been decreased/adjusted, but there is a lot of work still to do. One of the things that will be reworked IS the armor system. I have done a few testgames, and the game seems to have better "flow" now, everything seems to work just okay, at least from what i have seen.

I just took another more focused look at the files, and the armor system is just way to complicated.

There are about a DOUZEN tech areas.

Inert Armor Physics
Inert Armor Engineering
Inert Armor Manufacturing
Scattering Engineering
Scattering Manufacturing
Refractive Engineering
Refractive Manufacturing
Channeling Armor Engineering
Channeling Armor Manufactoring
Conductive Armor Engineering
Conductive Armor Manufactoring
Emmisive Armor Engineering
Emmisive Armor Manufactoring

This alone is already too much, but to make it worse, take a look at the armor component family. Offered are like a douzen different armors, all having "weird" names and classifications, names consisting of numbers, letters and additional thingies like primary, additional or whatever.
To make it even worse each armor needs SEVERAL tech requirements which can be far too EASILY be mixed up.
Imagine you have 3 tech areas and want to get a good armor...how are supposed to know WHAT exactly you need to research how far until you get that armor you want ?

There is definitly no point in going with the current system in the long way. No offense SJ, but if you want to do a realistic mod then the armor system is okay. Unfortunally i dont want to make the b5 mod even more realistic, i want to make if FUN.

The expansion/development pace will reworked as well, dont worry. I just dont really get the point in argueing with people who most probably not invested as much time as i did into the mod. I know SJ and Fyron are good members of the community, but i have a goal to achieve, and reworking the armor system is a part of it.

After all it is Timstone and i who will do the work / have done the work, and im positive things will be far superior once we are done.

Tell me Fyron, if you think the armor system is so great, why didnt you implented it into your adamant mod as well ? Maybe because its to difficult to get a good use by the players ?

I really like the "cheap" armor system of adamant mod. Research and you get components which offer more damage resistance. Thats fine. Have components with 10kT and 1kT size, everything will be alright. Just a small note, i dont get the point in using 0kT armor components at all. I could use pack my ship with those components until my shipyard need another turn to construct it. So lets say i have like 30 of those 0kT armors on my ship, but its the point ? Once out of combat i need to repair the vessel, how am i supposed to repair 30+ components ?

I may even consider adding my own armor system, which is acompnent with a size of 0 kT and a basic damage resistance of 50kT, and has a scale mount for every shipsize, so it will take lets say 250% damage on cruisers and 125% damage when scaleused on frigates, in addition to convential armor layeringg

The size of most tech areas is okay, its the way research points are accumulated which is FU. If research-facilites are build faster, everything will be alright, at least partly. Since population has less effect on production things are more faster than ever.





Timstone: Please send my the file/s you mentioned in your Last post in the other thread, about facilites.
You should have email adress, else pm me.

[Suicide Junkie]

You really have only 2 types of armor.

Basic "Inert" armor, and the advanced armors (plus the racial-based super armors.

The inert armor has 3 variants. Light, medium and heavy. Light is for cannon fodder ships. Heavy is for ships you want to Last and be easy to repair. Medium is in the middle.

Physics and manufacturing do NOT get you new components, they merely upgrade your existing ones to have another hitpoint or two each, or be a few bucks cheaper.

---

The advanced armors; each name change brings more damage reduction.
The other two techs simply provide cheaper/more hp as above.

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Look at it from the research POV, not the component POV.

You NEVER need a Heavy Armor IIIC.
You just need Heavy Armor. Period.

Once you have the base component, you're set. The manufacturing bonuses are completely optional, though handy if you're building a lot of that type of armor and/or have some research points to burn.

-----
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To summarize:
There are only 5 armor components, in two categories.
Inert armor
Structural supports: Admittedly not very useful. Bottom of the barrel tech.
Light Armor: Hard to repair, very leaky, lots of hitpoints.
Medium armor: Average
Heavy armor: Easier to repair, less leaky, less hitpoints.

advanced/passive armor
Pretty much one Category under different names for B5 flavour.
Each name change is +5 ability or so.

Primary: You can only install one.
Secondary: You can only install one, but it stacks with the primary.
Additional: You can add as many as you like, stacking with each other and the primary. (obsoletes the secondary component)

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I'd be happy to go through and set the tech descriptions to be more technical if you like.

I can also edit the names of the armors to simple roman numerals if the Roman-alpha scheme is confusing. That will mean that your Heavy armor VI may have different stats from the enemy's Heavy armor VI, but to both players it will be the 6th level researched (although likely in different tech areas).

[grumbler]

Good to see that there is still some interest in this mod. Ragnarok, a coupla easy things you can do to improve game development speed are:

1. Make Colony modules able to carry 50 pop rather than four or five. This will speed up development a lot. I did this by reducing pop mass back to 5.

2. Cap the Production "loss" based on population for large populations. While this sounds like a good idea (resources become more difficult to extract as population increases beyond 2 billion), it breaks the game because research and intel go down as population increases as well.

Personally, I like the armor system as a "research sink" to pour RPs not needed elsewhere as the other branches of the tech tree are maxed out. I would rather the resulting systems be more "First Ones-like" than they are, but that is because in my Version of the mod the possibility exists for the Younger Races to reach the Tech levels represented by First Ones tech (yeah, not realistic, but fun!)

[Ragnarok-X]

Hey Grumbler, nice to see you here. There is another thread, and both things you suggested have already been implented. Check the other thread (should be 3-4 threads above this one) if you like to !

[Fyron]

Save the SJ Armor from extinction!