Help! Me!

[President_Elect_Shang]

Hi, I'm a professional fool so please don't try this at home. I have a few Q but first a little background. I have been into SE since 97 when I found a copy of SE2 on the net. I have been hooked on it since. I am also a big fan of <gasp> StarFire 3rd Ed. So here I go as I can't seem to get MM to help me out maybe somewhere here can.

1) Has anyone seen or heard of a StarFire Mod?
2) Does anyone know a link for a good B5 and Star Trek Mod (just the data file would be great)
3) Can Fighters be, ummm "made" to pay maintence and score damage as ships do?
4) Finally: WHAT THE HECK IS A DRONE? I have been toying around with them forever and a day yet I can not seem to get one to work?
HAAAAAA, Ok all done now thanks for any help anyone can get me.

[Atrocities]

Hello,

1) I have not heard of a Starfire Mod. Sorry.
2) Play By Web Rambies B5 site And my site for star trek, link below. Data files are included with all ship sets. There is a TREK mod that can be downloaded from the PBW site.
3) Yes I believe so. Look in the VehicalSize Text file.
4)Drones were going to be added to the final game, but MM opted to not include them. Drone discussion was a hot topic for a while, but as it stands, drones are nothing.

[President_Elect_Shang]

Well no SF Mod? That means that I am working on the only one. If anyone is intrested thatn I would like to here from them, suggestions, etc.

I have already checked the vehicletype file and this is not were its at. I have even tried given the ability of changing maint with no luck. It appears that 1,000 baseships will break the bank but 100,000 fighters to destroy those baseships won't cost you a penny. I know this example is a little overboard but heck, thats me in general!
I checked on those links for the mods but I could only find the race styles (which I already have). Now I want to get a hold of the "vehiclesize.txt" "Techarea.txt" and "Components.txt" files. I will do the rest to blend them into another project I am working on. I call it the "Ultimate Universe Mod". Ha that will be ready by next decade if I can't even finish this StarFire Mod. Thanks for any more help I can get from anyone out there.

[dogscoff]

1) Not that I know of. That doesn't mean much though=-)
2) Check out the sci fi crossover mod thread.
3) No I don't think they can, unless you re-mod them as small ships. But then they can go through warp points, and they're not fighters any more, and you have problems with fighter components being available to capital ships. Oh, and your 100,000 fighters (or even 10,000 fighters) would violate the game's "maximum units in space" limit. And it would be a nightmare even in strategic combat. Plus, you do have to pay to build them, and you'll need carriers to move them, and the bottom line is that fighters just aren't as powerful as the equivalent tonnage / cost in ships. What I'm saying is that they don't seem to unbalance the game at all.

4) Drones are yet to be implemented, MM didn't have time before the game's first release. I think they are high on the priority list though. It seems the patches so far are concentrating on bug fixes and minor (ie easy to implement) new features, but once those are out of the way I have a feeling drones will be at the top of the list.

[President_Elect_Shang]

OK, I see about the Drone now. I was under the inpression that MM was finishing the SE series and about to move on to something new.

The example of the fighters vs the ships was just that, an example. I didn't really pull it out of the hat though. In StarFire thier is a tech line in wich the engines allow for fantastic speed but you need to dock with a special "carrier" that uses a slower engine in order to make jumps through warp points. That is the problem that has me stumped. I also don't think that building fighters should just be "free" of maintence. Lets face it, in realty an F-14 or M-1 Abrams cost to build and UPKEEP. What I was driving at was the fact that you can bankrupt (drain your resources) by building a fleet, but not by building fighters/satellites/troops/weapon platforms. Ummm. As a Last note I would like to point out that the Settings.txt allows you to push up the number of units, this can also be done in the game setup screen. Were should realty (or a close approxamation to it) and fiction have its line drawn when we can move it around with no penelty?

[Will]

Well, for StarFire... Aaron has said that StarFire is his inspiration for the entire Space Empires series. So technically, I guess the game standard techs are a StarFire mod. I haven't played it before though, so I have no idea.

[President_Elect_Shang]

I believe that Aaron is the one from MM that was helping me work on a few of the problems I am having now. If so THANK YOU Aaron. It may be the insperation but the techs are not the same. The concept is though.

[Derek]

If you are still looking for a Starfire mod, well, there is something similar to one. Many of the things I included in my mod, such as external mount missiles, heavy bombardment missiles, etc... were inspired by the David Weber books based on Starfire (Insurrection, Crusade, In Death Ground). My mod was called variously DavesMod, and Dereksmod. My mod was then taken and expanded upon by Devnullicus into what became called the Devnull Mod. Geoschmo is now updating that mod to be compatible with Version 1.49 of SE4; the current Version will work, but the AI strategies are not perfect. To get the current Version, look in the mod section of the board.

Derek

[disabled]

I did not know that, I'll download right away I think.

[ June 16, 2003, 05:03: Message edited by: General Talashar ]

[President_Elect_Shang]

Derek:
I tried to do a search for your mod (I am very interested in the XO racks you came up with) but (sadly) I can not find it. i hate to sound like a fool (maybe I am one) but can you e-mail it to me or point the link out to it?