Babylon 5 Mod

[Suicide Junkie]

Nobody gets shields.
At least shields as SE4 sees shields.
Only the thirdspace aliens had shields, and they're not here.

However, the SE4 shield effects will be a very common occurance during combat. Shipsets should make a shields.bmp that looks like a non-damaging hit to armor.
Electric sparks, or shadow-style energy dissipation, or something similar.

The ancient races can get powerful crystalline and organic armor effects, though.
I think the shadows should maybe get some 100% absorbing armor plates, either limited in number per ship, or having reduced hp/kt. They would be OA regenerated each combat turn.

That way they can withstand single hits without a problem, but combined fire from many ships during a single combat round can punch through.

[ June 20, 2002, 01:39: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[pathfinder]

ah, so organic engineering is needed, in order for those dastardly Shadows can get organic armor..?

BTW: Since testing this I have noticed (never seen before) fighter vs fighter combat. maybe I missed it before but....I normally use tactical set on auto/resolve combat

[ June 20, 2002, 01:52: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

[Suicide Junkie]

The armor tech tree will begin with light/medium/heavy inert armors fully researched.

The ancient races will also have some passive armor tech by default.

Depending on how we want to balance the whole thing, they may start with most or all the passive techs finished.

There will be a three or more-dimensional grid tech for active armor, with dimensions of:

• Hitpoints/Kt
• Cost/Hitpoint
• Number of components allowed per ship.
• (Maybe) Speed of Regeneration (if it dosen't conflict with in-combat repairs)

Active armors would be self-healing. If we are not using the in-combat-repairs thing, then this can be standard OA type stuff.
At the top of the tree, an armor component with the armor ability could provide guaranteed protection, instead of the iffy armor.
The self-healing will keep the armor absorbtion% from falling as fast as normal armor, and the ability armor will get 100% all the time.
Basically, organic engineering is implied by the ancient race racial trait.
The techs you'd actually research would be "Active Armor Manufacturing", "Active Armor Physics", "Active Armor Engineering", etc.
The Last one is the most similar to Organic engineering, but it could easily be fluid metals or something.

[ June 20, 2002, 02:55: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[pathfinder]

ah, thanks SJ.

Yoiks...23 levels of propulsion!!???

Me doing the regular stuff first then the weapons trees....this gonna be the beast that ate pathy!

bTW IMHO, part of the armor tech tree at start...but not all...just a thought. 'Course that depends if I can get the molecular weapons early enough so they have a chance...

[ June 20, 2002, 03:29: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

[Lighthorse]

Val,

The ai empires that counter attacked me were the Centauri Republic Republic(could you remove the second republic from the Centauri name please) and the Drazi Freeholds. They both were using general weapons(particle cannons and plamsa point defence), ecm, combat sensors, elite ground units and fighters-particle gun II with excort carriers. Normally the AI would only used matter gun and other pea shooters. Plus by increasing the speed of they fighters from 1 to 3 have increase the fighters effective.
You should also have the ai build large amounts of ship yards at their homeworld, thus increase their ship building capicity. Allot a quarter of yards to planet defense/fighter/mines, another quarter to colony ship/transports ships and the Last half for warships.

[Val]

Lighthorse:
Consider the CRR just the CR Surprised I hadn't heard that one before!
I like the shipyard idea as well, I will implement when I get back to working on AI.

Pathfinder:
I don't think the Ancients need all 23 levels for their engines, only like the first 12-16 IIRC.

You shouldn't need organic tech for any of the armors, they will be taken care of by the racial techs and any other techs SJ comes up with.

SJ:
I'm for whatever you put together, I like the current armors you've put out and expect the others will balance well enough

There actually are a few other races that have real shields other than 3rd space. The Abbai and Vorlons are the prime examples. The WhiteStars also had a weak shield. I also think the Brakiri might have had shields on some of their ships, IIRC. But none of the other race's shields compared to the 3rd space aliens! The Shadows had an energy absorbtion and emition ability, but no shields of any kind.

[pathfinder]

Val: Engines-whew...I got 12 in there atm for the Shadows

Oh and the Raiders come out in game as Raiders Raiders

okies. no organics research then.

SJ: Active armor is coming? It isn't in the techarea.txt file atm.

One note: Unless someone objects me gonna have anything that says advanced not start until the Last third or so in research. and if a weapon, only be available (in designcreation) in the Last couple of ship types/sizes (dreadnought/baseship).

[ June 20, 2002, 11:00: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

[pathfinder]

arghhhhhh....whine.......whimper.....

me thinks me gonna go blind doing the Shadow AI

BTW what tech would the Shadows use for PD? only shadow tech that I recall coming up as a PD tech was multiphased cutter (pulse + molecular tech)

[ June 21, 2002, 02:43: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

[Suicide Junkie]

There actually are a few other races that have real shields other than 3rd space. The Abbai and Vorlons are the prime examples.

Hmmm... I do recall a forcefield on the encounter suits, when the humans were trying to blow someone to bits once...

Is there a good episode with ship to ship combat involving vorlons?

Now, could this be a 50% damage from any weapon thing? Any shield component is going to make for a mighty balance issue.

[pathfinder]

Don't know exactly SJ but there was a battle with the Ancients (Vorlobns & Shadows) allied against the LNAW+EA+Minbari (or something like that) where an Ancient helped Sinclair convince the Vorlons & Shadows to go join the other ancients wherever the heck they had gone to...

BTW: Got most of the research.txt and designcreation done, now to test the Shadows.

hehe, hope I don't have any mis-spelled words

[ June 21, 2002, 02:50: Message edited by: pathfinder ]