My ideas for modding...

[Arc.Smiloid]

I couldn't resist, it was too strong. I am now embarking upon my own mod for the game. From scratch, I hope this mod will have a flavour that is totally different from vanilla SEIV.

The general plan for my mod is to create a sort of balance in all things. My current focus is on ships and combat.

Starting with basic ships (Escort through Dreadnought) I have split them into three different ship classes: Superiority, Siege, and Capitol. Each will have their specific niche on the battlefield with two or three design variants to suit your taste.

Superiority ships are typically fast and maneuverable. Siege are average speed and are specifically designed to accomodate the new siege-class weaponry. Capitol are the biggest ships with armor and big guns (though smaller than siege-class).

(Mind you, I have taken steps to make siege ships more prefferable to mount siege-weaponry than others. But your still free to play around.)

The idea is that Capitol will defeat Superiority with thick armor and heavy weapons. But the Capitol ships will fall victim to the long-ranged high-damage attacks of siege-weaponry. Superiority ships are fast, cheap and pack enough firepower to get close and destroy the weaker siege ships. A real rock-paper-scissors scenario.

(Its gonna be an art to balance it all when mixed fleets are involved.. )

This is only scratching the surface of my mod thus far. What do you think?

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[lucretius]

I too have been hit by the modding bug. So far I've been tinkering around with a few of the existing mods. My two Favorites (to both play and tinker with) so far have to be the Pirates and Nomads Mod and the Ultimate Mod.

I like P&N b/c of the quasi-Newtonian engine mechanics (the bigger the ship the more engines required to move it) and b/c of the various grades of componenet quality in his CompEnhancements.txt file. The like the ultimate mod b/c of the sheer scale and also b/c of the cool Malfadorian techs.

I like your idea of creating three classes of ship hulls each with their own strengths and weaknesses. I can think of five variables that can be balanced in ship hulls: cost (in resources), speed, defense (to hit bonuses or penalties), offense (availability of larger weapon mounts), and size (which influences either or both offense and defense by allowing more room for weapons or shielding). In your embryonic mod the superiority ships seem to be like the escorts, frigates and destroyers of unmodded SE4 in that they surpass the other ships in terms of cost and defense (and at least surpass BB on up in speed). The capitol ships seem to be like the cruisers (lt, regular and heavy) in SEIV in that they surpass the superiority ships in size and offense. The seige ships seem to be like the BB, dreadnaught and base ships in that they surpass all in terms of offense (massive mounts) and size but at a hefty pricew in resources and sacrificed speed. How do you forsee making the three classes of ships even more distinct than already exists in SE4? Have you gotten to playing around with any numbers that you could share yet?

Here's an idea I've been kicking about which may be of interest to you as you go about modding. Balance the three resource types against each other by creating three different race types: an organics race, an energy (radioactives race), and a minerals race. Each race would have its own tech tree which by and large would be the same (althought the organics would still have organic armor, et al.; the mineral race would still have access to crystaline tech; etc.) however, the main difference between the three races would be that most of what the organics race produced would require organics. Hence when building space ships their hulls would require more (or exclusively) organics. The hulls of energy races would require more (or exclusively) radioactives etc. As it is in SE4 every race is by default a minerals race b/c virtually everything is made of minerals. Consequently the harvesting of organics or radioactives becomes fairly unimportant and the economy becomes essentially a function of one variable (minerals). If implemented right, I think this idea could make the economics of SE4 more complex and much more interesting. The only problem is that doing it right seems to require alot of time that I don't have.

Best of luck with your mod and I hope my ramblings were of some help to you.

[Phoenix-D]

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/For...ML/003500.html is my mod take, though I've concentrated more on moving stuff around in the tech tree and adding improved ship sizes.

Quick AI note: you'll have to re-write EVERY AI that you want to use this mod. Worse, if you want the AI to use mixed fleets, you'll have to do quite a bit of gymnastics with the files, and even then there isn't a lot you can do to make the AI build the right number of each kind.

Phoenix-D

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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As it is in SE4 every race is by default a minerals race b/c virtually everything is made of minerals. Consequently the harvesting of organics or radioactives becomes fairly unimportant and the economy becomes essentially a function of one variable (minerals).

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In P&N v2, especially at higher tech levels, radioactives are as important (or more) as minerals. This makes monoliths useful, and Organic tech/Living ship races spread the costs to organics as well, giving them a bigger advantage with monoliths.

[Arc.Smiloid]

Its a good thing I'm good at math and mental gymnastics.

Lucretius, you have the basic idea but siege class ships replace LC and C. Capitol ships are BC, BB, DN.

Siege chasis are cheap, easy to hit, terrible offense*,and their siege weapons occupy most of their available tonnage with little structure. Siege ships will be slightly weaker than superiority ships even though they are bigger. Thus, giving a ship orders to attack the weakest ships will make them target the siege ships over the superiority ships.

*Because of the innate area-effect of siege weaponry, they always hit. Thus negating the siege-class' useless offense. All other weapons except missiles are useless.

Things are balancing out pretty well so far. I've even implemented a quasi-newtonian propulsion system.

Aside from planning all this, I'm trying to figure out what to name this mod.

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[Arc.Smiloid]

Why does the AI consider a mere 8 range to be maximum weapons range when the ship is carrying a gun with 10+ range?

The dumb siege ships are sitting, stupid ducks for even capitol class ships!

Hmmmm....

Although Capitol Ships are slightly faster in combat, the siege ships aren't keeping safe distance and get ripped to shreds.

Gotta play around with some stuff.

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[capnq]

quote:

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Why does the AI consider a mere 8 range to be maximum weapons range when the ship is carrying a gun with 10+ range?

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Does the ship have other weapons besides the 10+ range? For example, a 10+ with reload 3 plus an 8 with reload 1? It might be thinking "maximum range of weapons ready to fire".

My modding attempts are less ambitious. I'm currently playtesting a new quadrant type. I'm slowly progressing on an AI or three as well.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[This message has been edited by capnq (edited 08 September 2001).]

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Arc.Smiloid:
Why does the AI consider a mere 8 range to be maximum weapons range when the ship is carrying a gun with 10+ range?

The dumb siege ships are sitting, stupid ducks for even capitol class ships!

Hmmmm....

Although Capitol Ships are slightly faster in combat, the siege ships aren't keeping safe distance and get ripped to shreds.

Gotta play around with some stuff.

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There was a problem with mounts several patches ago where the AI would not recognize the extended range granted by a mount. It would think that the 'default' range was the only range that the weapon had and not fire until the target got within the default range of the weapon. I had thought that was fixed, but you never know when some odd change might re-create an old bug.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 08 September 2001).]

[Arc.Smiloid]

Only gun, 10+ default range.

I even tried giving it a minimum range of 8. But they always go to range 8 and end up not being able to attack at all.

Hopefully its a simple fix and MM can take care of it for the upcoming patch. Seems like a major bug to me.

I'll be carrying on with the tech trees meanwhile.

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[Phoenix-D]

What's the secondary stratagy? For maximum range, that is by default point blank, which is in my opinion rather stupid.

Phoenix-D