New mod, looking for ideas

[ZeroAdunn]

Ok, I know everyone and their grandmother is working on a new mod, but I seriously got a good one I'm working on.

I am rewriting the entire Data Files... That's right, the entire data files.

The major changes I am working on are as follows:

Ships and fighters now use pretty much all the same components, in my mod fighters will be short range combat ships, smaller guns shorter range, incredible maneuvarability, whereas ships will be long range combat platforms, bigger guns longer range slower less maneuvarable.

Ships and fighters will use the same weapons, ships will get mounts that increase the range size and damage, fighters will get mounts that decrease the range size and damage.

Fighters: 50-100 kt
Ships: 200-2000 (normal ships, carriers will be done away with, their pictures will be used for something else)

Fighters will have no shields, shields will be massive components generating somewhere around 1000 shields. There will be no phased shields, only phased weapons. Since if you add a phased shield ability comp to a ship, there will be a component under AI "Shield Adapter" which will add phased ability. There will be missiles and torps called siheld fraggers that will take out 1000 shield points per hit.

Engines have ben devided into two comps, engines (standard movement, higher levels less feul, no feul storage) and drive systems (bonus movement like solar sail higher levels more feul storage greater speed)

Feul storage decreased in size.

I will also be reworking the facilities to give less resources so fighters will be even more important. ships will be very expensive and thus very very valuable.

Combat sensors: Lidar
Ecm: stays ecm

There will be various other tracking devises.

Cloaking will stay, but as stealth armor and what not.

Facilities will take longer to build, thus planetary raids will be more important.

I am also looking for more ideas and advice.

[Lemmy]

drones?

[dogscoff]

Apparently, system-wide abilities will work if modded into components.

How about having only 10 or 20 shield points directly generated by each shield generator component. For a ship to have more shields than that, it must be supported by a ship with a "Shield transmitter" component, which uses the "Energy Transmission Lens" ability to add shield points to every friendly ship in the system.

Your mod is also starting to sound a little like my "Space is Big" suggstion. Zip down to the long post I made on http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/For.../002664-4.html


Can't wait to play it...

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SE4 Code:
L GdY $ Fr- C- Sd T!+ Sf-- Tcp-- A% M>M+ MpD! RV Pw Fq+ Nd- Rp+ G-
/SE4 Code
Go to my meagre SEIV pages to generate your own code.

[ZeroAdunn]

Ok, new info:

As stated fighters will have no shields whatsoever. Shields will be a ship defense thing (going along with the whole ships are mainly intersteller transports/heavy guns platforms)

shields will still generate aroud 1000 (maybe lower once I actually finish shielding) shield points (one per ship) then there will be shield enhancer comp (very very large) will be available. This will beef up shields big time (shield dusrupters will still be in) There will be no shield regenerators, regen disrupts the whole view of shields in the mod. Armor will play a major role.

Ships will have a lot less importance in space combat (you could make a massive battleship, but in the end it would probably lose out to a carrier) Fighters will have really good offense/defense bonus so it will be really hard to hit fighters with anything but other fighters and flak cannons (pretty week)

Armor will be a lot more prevelant. A lot. Probably going with three types of armor:
10 space 20 hp
1 space 15 hp
5 space 18 hp

[Puke]

quote:

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Originally posted by ZeroAdunn:
10 space 20 hp
1 space 15 hp
5 space 18 hp

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holy rusted metal, batman! what are the resoure costs on those things?

edit: im guessing repair is a big part of the mod as well. if shield generators give 1000 points each, what does the booster give? 5K? what are the mainstray of weapons, and can their resource consumption Last them thru more than one battle?

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[This message has been edited by Puke (edited 24 September 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Puke (edited 24 September 2001).]

[ZeroAdunn]

It depends, haven't decided yet. Probably cheep, maybe equall to the hit points. Why?

[Puke]

it just seems that at those numbers, no one would take the 10KT armor, and if they had very good repair ships traveling with the fleet, they might not even take the 5. If you are sticking with those numbers, i would consider makeing the resource cost porportional to a power or multiple of the protection value, to ballance out the less efficient armors a bit more.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[Puke]

i like that idea, but it would need some tuneing. if you make shield generators minimal, and put the majority of the power on the transmitters, then all your ships will have the same shields. frigates will have the same shield rating as a baseship.

of course, larger ships could make up the difference with regenerators or armor or something. but would this not also make for some hella-strong fighters? maybe you could take away shields for fighters, but that might spoil the spirit of the original mod.

------------------
"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[mac5732]

Planet WP's should have larger shields, more and heavier armor and gun mounts with farther distance then ships.
Since they are planet bound, they wouldn't have the space limitations of ships. I know one of the other mods, (can't remember off hand who's) increase range of planet bound WP's so seekers couldn't just sit off and glaze a planet. This is one area that should be patched in SE4, planets should make you pay to take them out. Don't make your anti ftr PD's to weak or your ftrs will be to strong and take away from the game. Maybe look into anti-ftr seekers, short range, Ships costly ok, but it sounds like your making it into a ftr vs ftr mod. If you can't afford large ships, then your ftrs have no one to fight except other then ftrs the majority of the time. You need the ships, what you might want to do is keep cost down on say up to BC's, BB's, DN's, BS',
cost more long time to build but butt kickers. this way your fleets would have Task forces built around a few of the heavies

just some ideas mac


[This message has been edited by mac5732 (edited 25 September 2001).]

[ZeroAdunn]

I see your point about the armor. I will go in reverse hitpoints order. the easiest to repair will cost 10, the next 13, the next 16. (trust me it adds up)

Secondly I am making repair yards a little larger. Possibly more expensive too.