Devnullmod

[Devnullicus]

quote:

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Originally posted by Marty Ward:
Having a great time with this mod, a real challenge and loads of fun!
My mistake on the heavy shield/low weapon ship, it was the Cue Cappa attack repair ship. Thought it was a normal attack ship.
The HE mount range modifier in the ComponentEnhancement file is -4 and the description reads -1. I assume the modifier should be -1.
You may want to check out the Super dreadnaught boarding ships, all races. They have about 20 boarding parties on them. Is that how they are supposed to be?
I still don't understand how the AI is putting two spaceyard components on their ships. I would love to be able to figure that one out.

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Glad you're having fun! So am I. I'm hard at work fixing all the balance problems though, especially with fighters =) The next mod should be out in a day or two and has totally reworked small weapons and how they interact with large ships. Fighters are now useful but not godlike..as they should be.

This next Version will mainly be a maintenance/bugfix Version intended to fix bugs and balance things. There's a few new things (new mounts), but mainly things are the same, just less buggy =)

BTW, the High Energy Focus Mount description is wrong. It should be -4 range. and 1250kT (not 1500 as the description says). oops.

I haven't seen any Superdreadnought boarding ships with 20 boarding parties. Sounds scary =) But it also sounds like a good challenge that the AI should be doing. Think about it this way. As a human player building a boarding ship, woulnd't YOU build a ship that had as many boarding parties as would fit? I would =) Efficient.

There is a definite bug in SE4, I've noticed where AI designs ignore the "One Per Vehicle" restriction. This is why AI ark ships still have 2 colony components (*SIGH*). Nonetheless, I forgot to put that restriction on shipyards in DevnullMod 1.3. This is fixed in Devnullmod 1.4. However, the AI will still ignore it until SE4 is fixed.

[This message has been edited by Devnullicus (edited 16 May 2001).]

[Nitram Draw]

If you leave the HE modifier at -4 then some weapons will do no damage with the HE mount, their normal range is less than 4, Temporal Shifter for example. Some AI's use the HE Version of this as their main weapon, leaving the ship very under gunned.
Also I don't think a human player could even create a ship with two yard components on it, somehow you have overcome this restriction. I think that is great, just wish I knew how it happened!

[This message has been edited by Nitram Draw (edited 16 May 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Nitram Draw (edited 16 May 2001).]

[Devnullicus]

quote:

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Originally posted by Bluecher:
Ok, I checked it again . In the design screen my fast courier has eight Q1 engines and one solarsail 2. Should move 13 , moves in reality 7 .

Ive attached the savegame, if you want to look into this. ( sno02.gam )

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Geeez, that's REALLY bizarre. Looking at your save game, you're totally correct -- they only move 7. They have 8 engines (quant I) and a solar sail II. The design says it moves 13, but when built, it only moves 7.

I've looked at the data in the files (Components.txt) and it looks fine. I tried building this same design in my own game and it works fine (move 13). [Edit: ok, I put crew quarters on -- I'm used to that =) ]. I'm completely stumped. =( Looks like an se4 bug, maybe?? No idea.



[This message has been edited by Devnullicus (edited 16 May 2001).]

[Devnullicus]

Ah, ok, problem solved. Sort of.

Apparently, the problem is the lack of crew quarters. Not sure why, but without crew quarters, the movement seems to be limited in fast couriers. I am looking into ways around this, but if I can't fix this, I guess I'll just have to require them to have crew quarters like all the other ships. Ah well. A good idea that SE4 shot down.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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I haven't seen any Superdreadnought boarding ships with 20 boarding parties. Sounds scary =) But it also sounds like a good challenge that the AI should be doing. Think about it this way. As a human player building a boarding ship, woulnd't YOU build a ship that had as many boarding parties as would fit? I would =) Efficient.

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That's not efficient, thats a waste of space.
ALL your boarding parties die after one attack, so you just have more components to repair later.
A much better idea would be to replace half of those BPs with shield regenerators.

Then, you can capture a ship, and your shields jump back up before you can get hurt, then you escape.

The only reason to have that many BPs is if some enemy ship had an equivalent number of security stations, but you can always blow up security stations with your main guns.

[Devnullicus]

Ah, ok. Interesting. Having never used or been attacked by boarding parties, not sure how they work. I Will obviously have to playtest this. If this is a bad design, then expect to see it fixed at some point. If anyone has ideas on how to fix it, feel free to post them here.

[Devnullicus]

quote:

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Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
If you leave the HE modifier at -4 then some weapons will do no damage with the HE mount, their normal range is less than 4, Temporal Shifter for example. Some AI's use the HE Version of this as their main weapon, leaving the ship very under gunned.

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Hmm, that is a definite problem. I think the way to solve that one is to change the design for races that use that weapon to have a special design for SD's that don't use that as their main weapon. I'll cogitate on that one for a bit and come up with a reasonable solution. I definitely like the short-range/high damage mount, though and want to keep it in the game.

quote:

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Also I don't think a human player could even create a ship with two yard components on it, somehow you have overcome this restriction. I think that is great, just wish I knew how it happened!

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I did not do anything different that I know of in this area than in the regular SE4 files. I suspect that regular SE4 games have this same problem (bases with more than 1 shipyard), I just haven't tested it. The "One Per Vehicle" restriction definitely DOES work for humans and so we cannot design such ships. The AI designs, however, ignore this restriction, so far as I can tell =(

[Devnullicus]

Version 1.31 is here!

Note: There's some pretty significant changes to components this Version, but I do not have time to update the AI
to use these changes. I will be updating the AI for these changes in Version 1.4 (as well as all the planned
new changes =) ). This Version is mainly intended for human vs. human play. Nonetheless, except for some
missile changes, the AI >SHOULD< need very little tweaking to do ok. Use these changes with the AI's at
your own risk, but the risk should be small. (How's that for slippery? =) )

Mods By Devnullicus:
-Reworked Small Weapons to do more reasonable damage. Fighters should not overwhelm ships in 1 hit any more.
Zeno42's Component Modder with the new feature of range/size/damage ration is an invaluable tool! Thanks Zeno!
-Reworked small weapons to be more equivalent to their large counterparts in number of weapons and tech levels
required.
-Decreased mini-point defense cannon damage to be more balanced with other PD weapons
-Put all missile types (external mount/heavy/sprint in their own weapon families so that AI could differentiate
between them and make better designs)
-Reorganized Components.txt a little more (I missed some weapons at the end Last time)
-Took off top two levels of armor/ablative armor. Too powerful.
-Changed cost of Pulsed mount to only be 150% instead of 200%
-Added some new mounts to Satellites, bases, and Weapon Platforms (ER, Pulsed, and High Energy Focus)
-BUGFIX: fixed description for High Energy Focus mount
-BUGFIX: Fixed description for Pulsed mount
-BUGFIX: Fixed descriptions for light mounts on satellites, weapon platforms, and bases so that they don't talk
about being only allowed on escorts or larger =)
-BUGFIX: Removed Armor "ability" from Mini Point-Defense Cannons as it was causing AI to make screwy designs
with way too much PD.
-BUGFIX: Ablative armor should only be available for larger ships (ship/sat/base)
-BUGFIX: Fixed Space Yards Components (Base and Ship) to have the restriction "One Per Vehicle". The AI
ignores this in it's designs (due to a bug in SE4, I think), but nonetheless, the restriction should
be there for when the bug gets fixed.
-BUGFIX: Fast Courier movement was limited if there were no crew quarters, so I made crew quarters a required component
of the vehicle. Raised the hull size to 210 kT to compensate.
-BUGFIX: Made Temporal Shipyards the Same Facility Family as Regular Shipyards and gave them higher roman numerals
so now space yards upgrade correctly when you research temporal shipyards.
-BUGFIX: CueCappa DesignCreation file was putting armor and shields on mines (?!)

[Suicide Junkie]

May I ask why you see the ablative armor as too powerful?

It is quite tough in terms of hitpoints, up to 60% stronger than shields per KT, but they cost a lot, and take ages to repair.

Eg. Take a 4 shield BB/DN (160kt defence). gives 1400 shields. 1400 hp. of ablative armor takes up 100kT.
Looks good, BUT:
-armor can't regenerate during battle
-1400 hp armor takes 13 turns to repair with a repair bay III!
-armor dosen't come back between fights during the same turn!
-Costs 4x the price per KT!
-shields cost 0.47 minerals per hitpoint, while ablative armor V costs 5.7 minerals per hitpoint (12x the price of shields)

Also, the Ablative III's have roughly the same costs as the V's, but the provide fewer hitpoints.

The ablative armor is "one-shot survivability, at a price."

Ships with only ablative armor will not survive a second battle.
Ships with only shields might not survive the first battle.

[end rant]

[Devnullicus]

quote:

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Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
May I ask why you see the ablative armor as too powerful?

It is quite tough in terms of hitpoints, up to 60% stronger than shields per KT, but they cost a lot, and take ages to repair.

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Actually, I vaguely remember changing the costs of the armor in my mod. I don't remember if I made it cheaper, but doing my own analysis (which I admit is basically off the top of my head and is mostly an intuitive grokking of the entire component list working together as a whole), the Ablative Armor seemed slightly too powerful at the upper levels. Besides which, it was the only armor that had 5 levels instead of 3.

quote:

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Eg. Take a 4 shield BB/DN (160kt defence). gives 1400 shields. 1400 hp. of ablative armor takes up 100kT.
Looks good, BUT:
-armor can't regenerate during battle
-1400 hp armor takes 13 turns to repair with a repair bay III!
-armor dosen't come back between fights during the same turn!
-Costs 4x the price per KT!
-shields cost 0.47 minerals per hitpoint, while ablative armor V costs 5.7 minerals per hitpoint (12x the price of shields)

Also, the Ablative III's have roughly the same costs as the V's, but the provide fewer hitpoints.

The ablative armor is "one-shot survivability, at a price."

Ships with only ablative armor will not survive a second battle.
Ships with only shields might not survive the first battle.

[end rant]

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All of what you say I agree with. However, I still stand by my assessment that levels 4 and 5 were tougher than I wanted to put into my mod. *shrug* I'm sorry you don't like the change. It really isn't a personal attack on you so there's no reason to "rant" on me =) IMO, it's a very minor change.

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How's my Programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL


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