Honor Harrington Mod Discussion

[Phoenix-D]

All right, I'm going to take this one on, ideally to be combined into the SF Crossover. GOLD only however, as it needs elements of the next gold patch, namely the mount changes.

Now, I can do the data files. I can do passable AIs. What I probably can't do is race styles, and I *certainly* can't do race portraits!

Also, if anyone has any input I've love to hear it. I have all the books, and will be using them as referenes (esp. the tech bible section at the end of some!) but any ideas/opinions on exactly how to impliment would be great.

Thus far, concept stage:
-I'll be sticking true to the sizes. In other words, send a BB against a DN, expect the DN to die. Send FOUR BCs against a DN, expect the BCs to die. Quickly. Balanced by the fact that capital ships are much, much harder to build.

-Most missiles will be drones with short ranged one-shot weapons or ramming warheads. Ghost Rider missiles will have *one* strategic movement point, simulating their longer range. All drones with have a very small supply storage; use em or loose em.

-LACs replace fighters. This means LACs can't fire laser-head missiles. Ideas on how to get around this?

-Mounts will be useable on ANY ship- but ideally the larger mounts will have drawbacks that make them prefered in capital ships (large supply usage)

-supply system: reactors will simply be supply storage. This is a reactor+it's fuel supply, so it's assumed that if the reactor goes so does the fuel. Energy weapons and engines will use quite a bit of supply, so the player will have to be careful about budgeting it. Nothing else will store supply, so the ships will always need at least one reactor.

-Propulsion system: right now it looks like this: There are two Impeller Rings, Alpha and Beta. These give standard movement points and are limited to one per ship. The mount system will be used to vary the power levels and restrict access to various nodes (you can't put a SD node in a DD, the thing would tear itself to bits).

-the wedge: I'm out of ideas here..SE4 doesn't seem to allow this. May just have to give the nodes a certain amount of shield generation or ECM.

Inertial Compensators will probably give extra combat movement points. No sails, since there is no hyper in SE4. Alternatively they may be WP openers/closers, but I don't care for this one.

Phoenix-D

[Marvin Kosh]

Well, um, you could get the feel of hyperspace by distributing an edited map with a number of nebulae sectors which render shields useless.

Also, might be nice to stick in the grav lance and the energy torps as in 'The Short Victorious War' (or was it one of the other ones?) So you have a massive shield depleter or something that takes hideous amounts of time to reload, and then torps that do a lot of damage but only to unshielded targets. And make sure everyone has shield tech so they can't complain

It would be really cool if you could replicate the effects of the nodes in combat, because in tactical combat at least you would then have to really manoeuvre for ideal firing position. But there aren't any shield arcs in the game

I would suggest that you mark out the speed difference between the classes for combat, because while the bigger ships survive by sticking to a wall formation and drenching the opposition in missiles, the smaller ships depend on their manoeuverability to survive. Maybe gently nudge their defensive bonus?

I like the idea of the mount system for the propulsion system.... you can buy more speed but it'll cost you space and bucks But you might want to give them a heck of a damage resistance because otherwise it will be real easy to cripple ships.

One other thing I like the idea of is adding a Damage Control Parties component to the ship. Sort of a scaled-down Version of a Repair Bay.

That's all the idea I have at the moment....

[EDIT] spelling

[ June 19, 2002, 03:16: Message edited by: Marvin Kosh ]

[Phoenix-D]

The hyperspace map thing is too limited, really, and still doesn't quite fit.

There is no "can't hurt shields" damage type in SE4. So the energy torps (from On Basilk Station BTW) would have to be toned down in power.

I suppose I could make all weapons EXCEPT the torps do 4x to shields, then have the torps skip armor..

re: the nodes: I'm probably going to make them provide high amounts of ECM, simulating the fact that you can't hit a third of the ship. And after all, in the HH universe if you lose the wedge in combat.. you're screwed. Loosing a lot of ECM would hurt pretty badly too.

The smaller ships do tend to manuver more, probably because the *can* manuver more, where the others tend to close in for massed PD fire. So the smaller ships will have higher inherent ECM, and the larger ships will want to use the Wall formation (or varients) for the extra missile defense.

The nodes will be pretty big; I'm representing the entire system in two parts, so those parts will be bulky. Engine destroyers don't really fit HH tech anyway, so they'll probably be out.

Phoenix-D

[ June 19, 2002, 03:22: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[RWittman]

First of all, great news that you are taking on this diffcult task. I can't wait to try it out. I would be glad to help, but I have no SE4 mod experince. I could beta test or anything else to help. I love the books and have read it twice through. One question, I thought a DN was bigger then a BB (only the Peep's used BB, and they were for system garrision. Only massed for space combat as an idea to give the Peep's some fodder.) But in your example you said DN vs BB, DN dies ?

[Dead Meat]

-LACs replace fighters. This means LACs can't fire laser-head missiles. Ideas on how to get around this?

I don't think that you would be able to get around this with missles being drones, sense units can't launch stuff (though i could be wrong). What you might have to do instead is just have a normal missle for fighters (rocket pods), lower the amount of damage and lower the to hit % so ships could still doge. Remember that LACs wheren't realy use effectivly till the Manties came up with the fore and aft side walls and the LAC carrier. Not to mention the stealth techology so they could get in close to be effective. Till then, they where mostly Last ditch, system defence ships.

I like the Missle = Drones idea. Don't forget that each ship class has a diffrent size missle (not to mention how much ammo they hold) which relates to the damage the missles do. Example would be that a DDs missle is way smaller than a DNs. But where a DN would laugh if a DDs missle hit it, the DD would more or less just disapair if hit by a DNs cap missle. I know one of the books (hard cover?) shows the relations of ship to each other and the size relation of missle for the diffrent ship sizes.

In other words, send a BB against a DN, expect the DN to die. Send FOUR BCs against a DN, expect the BCs to die. Quickly. Balanced by the fact that capital ships are much, much harder to build.

RWittman, right. the BB would lose to a DN. BBs are smaller than DN, but bigger than BCs. You are right about the 4 BC vs a DN. I love that account where Edward Pierre and his 2 BC division got wiped out by that lone DN (see: The Short Victorious War).

[Phoenix-D]

"But in your example you said DN vs BB, DN dies ? "

Uh.. TYPO! Yeah, you're correct.

"Remember that LACs wheren't realy use effectivly till the Manties came up with the fore and aft side walls and the LAC carrier. Not to mention the stealth techology so they could get in close to be effective. Till then, they where mostly Last ditch, system defence ships."

Right, but it's those LACs that relied more on the missile launchers. Eggshells with sledgehammers.

"I know one of the books (hard cover?) shows the relations of ship to each other and the size relation of missle for the diffrent ship sizes."

Got it, using it. They'll be different sized drones, with different sized warheads, ECM mounts, armor/shield (probably shield) etc. Nothing will stop a DD from using a SD's missiles, but it won't be able to carry many of them.

"I love that account where Edward Pierre and his 2 BC division got wiped out by that lone DN (see: The Short Victorious War)."

In one salvo no less..oopsie on their part.

[Phoenix-D]

OK, mounts cannot effect engine speed.. time to think up another propulsion system.

EDIT: got it. This system won't be able to stop a DD from using an SD's nodes.. but I can probably just make the SD's nodes HUGE, so the DD can't really use them.

The 'one per vehicle' restriction works by component family, and it works even if the components are seperated by unrelated components.

So it'll look like:
Small Impeller Drive I-V
Small Beta Node Ring I-V
Impeller Drive I-V
Beta Node Ring I-V
Large Impeller Drive I-V
Large Beta Node Ring I-V
Capital Impeller Drive I-V
Captial Beta Node Ring I-V

The larger the system, the more speed you get, and the worse the supply usage is. And you won't be able to mount more than one Impeller Drive or Beta Node Ring, because they're all the same family. This will confuse the living hell out of the AI, but oh well.

Suggestions on names?

Phoenix-D

[ June 19, 2002, 21:18: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[Dead Meat]

Um I think I'm lost. I'm think that the Impeller Ring and Nodes (the drive) are 2 diffrent things. The Ring holds the Nodes right?

What about doing it this way.

Have you concidered using SJ Propulsion system (forget the name. Bigger ship = more engines needed for same movment). IMO this would work well concidering that, while all ships in HH are suppose to reach the same top speed, smaller ships are able to accelrate faster than bigger ships (its in the tech bible).

So propulsion would works like this.

Each ship has to have an Alpha and Beta Impeller Ring (required) that gives you a standard +1 movment point. The size could very depending on the size of the ship or not. I think thats what your getting at with the Small Impeller Node Ring, Imperller Node Ring and Larg Impeller Node Ring, right? If so you could simply name them; DD Impeller Rings, BC Impeller Rings, DN Impeller Rings and so on. While I don't know how to stop someone from using a DD ring on a DN you can make a minaiml size requirement so it can not fit on a smalle ship (which might be a good reason to just have them all the same size, but where the fun in that ). You could also think about having a Impeller Drive reasurch field which is seperate from the normal propulsion field.

Next the Nodes, which if I understand it right, will be like (and work like) normal SE4 engines, just change the name. You could either keep the same size for all the node regardless of the ship size or not. But I don't remember their being any diffrent sizes for DD nodes or DN nodes. I could be wrong, but if i remember correctly how fast a ship was able to accelrate related to not how big its nodes where but how they where placed on the Impeller Ring (you could only space them so close together, but you only had so much hull space to work with). Any of that make sense? My guess is that you would want Alpha and Beta Nodes in which case you might be able to have a requirment of equal number of Alpha and Beta Nodes on the ship. (But the only thing diffrent between Alpha and Beta Nodes is the name)

Thier would have to balance with price/size and how fast you want the ships to move. But I think it could work.

[Phoenix-D]

"Um I think I'm lost. I'm think that the Impeller Ring and Nodes (the drive) are 2 diffrent things. The Ring holds the Nodes right?"

Yes, but right now they're combined into one unit for the sake of simplicity.

"Have you concidered using SJ Propulsion system (forget the name. Bigger ship = more engines needed for same movment). IMO this would work well concidering that, while all ships in HH are suppose to reach the same top speed, smaller ships are able to accelrate faster than bigger ships (its in the tech bible)."

This results in higher top speeds with more engines; I'm not sure you can just slap more nodes in the HH system..you can make them more powerful but add more?

"ship has to have an Alpha and Beta Impeller Ring (required) that gives you a standard +1 movment point. The size could very depending on the size of the ship or not."

Can be varied depending on the NODE size, but not the ship size. SE4 doesn't go there.

"I think thats what your getting at with the Small Impeller Node Ring, Imperller Node Ring and Larg Impeller Node Ring, right? If so you could simply name them; DD Impeller Rings, BC Impeller Rings, DN Impeller Rings and so on. While I don't know how to stop someone from using a DD ring on a DN you can make a minaiml size requirement so it can not fit on a smalle ship (which might be a good reason to just have them all the same size, but where the fun in that )."

Can't restrict them based on ship sizes other than making them not fit; it's why I'm calling them small-Capital rather than DD-SD. It would look a little weird seeing a SD with a DD impeller drive..

"You could also think about having a Impeller Drive reasurch field which is seperate from the normal propulsion field."

The impeller drive field IS the propulsion field in this mod Well, I suppose there are reaction thrusters, but those are so limited I'm not going to bother moding them.

"Next the Nodes, which if I understand it right, will be like (and work like) normal SE4 engines, just change the name. You could either keep the same size for all the node regardless of the ship size or not. But I don't remember their being any diffrent sizes for DD nodes or DN nodes. I could be wrong, but if i remember correctly how fast a ship was able to accelrate related to not how big its nodes where but how they where placed on the Impeller Ring (you could only space them so close together, but you only had so much hull space to work with)."

It depends on the node's *power* IIRC; and I think you're right in that you can't just go slapping nodes wherever you want. Which is why the node ring idea; it doesn't feel right to me to just put in more impeller nodes for more speed. You could have a DN filled with nothing but alpha nodes that way.

"Any of that make sense? My guess is that you would want Alpha and Beta Nodes in which case you might be able to have a requirment of equal number of Alpha and Beta Nodes on the ship. (But the only thing diffrent between Alpha and Beta Nodes is the name)"

Can't be done- you can't require a ship to have anything other the Bridge, Life Support, Crew Quarters, Fighter Bays, Cargo Bays, or colony modules. The Alpha and Beta nodes are different according to Ashes of Victory's tech drawings- the betas are much smaller.

Not sure I follow your system though. If all the impeller drive unit did was provide one movement point.. why bother mounting it?

Phoenix-D

[RWittman]

I thought that the real limiting factor on acceleration was the inertial compensator. I'm thinking that most warships could push a much higher gee level, but the inertial compensator can only produce so much "compensation" else the crew turns to goo.

I remember that as nodes were damaged in combat, the ships speed would be reduced. I belive that you could lose a few nodes with no loss of acceleration, but after that it would have an impact.