Deathstalker's Gold-D-2 Mod Uploaded to PBW

[Deathstalker]

Yes, finally in a form acceptable to me

!!!Note before we start, this mod is meant to be played on the MED tech start all the time, with this all players start with ALL colony options (gas/ice/rock) and play is much more interesting this way....!!!

Here is the nuts and bolts of how to get this mod to work (a little tricky, had to break it up into parts as just looking at the properties its over 100 megs.... ).

First create a folder within seIV gold called 'Gold-D-2'.

Download Fyrons FQM Deluxe (from anywhere that has it) and copy the files within to the above folder.

Download the Image Mod Planet pack, copy the files into the above folder (yep, they can overwrite, no damage there.)

Now go to PBW and download part 1 of the Gold-D-2 mod and unzip it into your seIV gold dir, letting it totally overwrite the gold-d-2 folder you created.

there you go, one fun new mod (you can also download the supported shipsets from PBW or anywhere they may reside for additional fun with the mod. The {current} additionally supported shipsets are the Crugarians, the Y'Gathians, the EDF, the Cepahalopeians, the Gamilions, the UCP, the Pandorans and the Red Gauntlets Merc Unit.

The Base of this mod was the old Gold D mod with extra flavour from the Devnullmod, Image mod, FQM and other ideas that were just plain fun.

Spoiler stuff (breakdown of new stuff added into the mod)

The BORG (AI only), includes shipset. Based on Rollo's monsters these guys were great fun to modd. Nasty as heck and watch out for their planet size ships. Best when placed into a map in a cut off system of their own, you have approx 50-70 turns in a low ai bonus game before they break out with warp point creators and cause havok.

Massive re-work/adddition of new ship sizes and types, added Pleasure/Gambling ships (that actually generate resources, sort of) and system ships that have massively reduced maintenance cost but only have ONE engine slot. New carrier sizes, sat sizes, fighter sizes (50kt ), Prospector ships (with robominer mounts). Tonnes more.

Huge weapons added with specific mounts (ie, no more gatling wave motion guns ). Missiles massively changed and new additions, new decoy missiles, fighter mounted PDC and missiles.

AI 'helpers' in the form of new cultures and AI specific mounts that they auto-use (cultures must be manually selected, mounts are auto).

I will be adding much more to this mod in the future, new AI only races such as Pirates and the 'Benevolent Empire'. New supported shipsets as I come up with new combos for weapons (most of the current supported ones concentrate on new missile mixes, that and I fully intend to tweak the Krill for a better opponent as well, great ships but seems to loose steam late in the game.)

Thanks to all who supported/needled/helped/begged/emailed/etc, this mod couldn't have been done without you.

Questions/comments/etc can be posted here or emailed directly to me.

I will also be uploading some pre-made maps and scenarios later as well (ie, the exiled borg map was made for this, will upload a savegame etc within the coming week or so.......)

[geoschmo]

Hmmm, not sure, but I think your mod process could be simplified significantly.

The ida of the image mod pack is that you can download that once and put it in your stock folders so that any mod can use them by simply changing the text files in the data folder.

I am pretty sure all of the images in the FQM mod are included in the image mod pack stuff. So you could simply incorporate the FQM data files into your mod and not worry about getting all the images.

The result would be your mod would only need to to have the data files calling for whatever images it wants. Much simpeler. unzip the mod folder and tell the user they have to have the image pack pics for the mod to work. They'll figure it out pretty quick anyway.

Unless you have special images that aren't in the image mod pack. In which case you should get them added.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong about any of this.

[Fyron]

FQM Deluxe has a whole bunch of new system images that are not in the Image Mod (as it does not cover system images). Those should probably be moved to the stock folders, rather than having 2 copies of them on your HD. Also, if you ever get Adamant Mod, it also uses these system images, so that saves on 3 copies of each.

[gregebowman]

Before I d/l this, is this intented for PBW only, or can solo players use it also?

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
FQM Deluxe has a whole bunch of new system images that are not in the Image Mod (as it does not cover system images).

Suprising. I wonder why there are no system images in the image pack? Is it because they are too large?

[Fyron]

Each system image requires a 49 kB file, a 705 kB file and a 1,277 kB file. 2,031 kB total for each system. There is a reason why the latest Version of FQM Deluxe is 31.1 MBs, and that is with best RAR compression, not the innefficient ZIP compression. It has 35 custom system images. Now, try making an Image Mod pack with tons of systems... several hundred megabytes easily.

[Deathstalker]

"Before I d/l this, is this intented for PBW only, or can solo players use it also?"


It can be used for both, I'm quite happy with how it does solo play as thats my main mode of play as well. The Borg are a challenge as is the regular AI's (the Red Gauntlets, Drushocka, Norak and Cephalopeian are quite nasty and the EDF are great later on, very much Wave Motion gun happy ).

I will be adding more AI's later, intend to include an updated Krill, Cardassian, Star Wars Empire, Comet Empire and another AI only race the Pirates.

[Nodachi]

I played about 20 turns (so far ) and I like what you've done with it. It looks like it would be a very fast paced game. If you decide to run a PBW game for testing I'd love to be in it.

[Deathstalker]

I've tried to 'correct' some of the things I found that held the AI back. Mainly the supply 'thing' (ministers sending the fleets back for re-supply waaayy to much) and AI's colonizing planets halfway accross the galaxy when there is a good one right next door. Engine mounts greatly reduce the 'refuel' time of the AI's and the Colonize all makes things rather interesting off the bat. One of the most valuable things I've found are sattellites, throw 200 on a warp point and nothing is getting thru except a fleet of dreadnoughts with barrier mounted shields.

Missiles are great, I love the Short Range Missiles and the X-ternal racks that can mean all the difference in a battle.

Further down the line I'm going to add mines that do varied damage types (engine only etc) and AI's that use them exclusively as well as an AI that uses drones as 'missile pods' (take a drone , add 1 or 2 engines and pack it full of missile launchers or a drone with tonnes of XT missile racks and a nice heavy warhead for ramming )

[Spoo]

Originally posted by Nodachi:
If you decide to run a PBW game for testing I'd love to be in it.

I'd join that game as well!