Space Empires IV Game... of Doom! (Adamant Mod)

[Covenant]

DOGA seems really well designed for making ships. I really like how my Vree came out, but man, it was a lot more work.



Bah. These Reji are okay, but man, I wanna use one of mine! Maybe I should swap out the Reji for the Zerg shipsets. If Brian wants to fight the Beast, he'll get it!

The Vree are done I think, I forget. I never finished rendering them out into the little thumbnails, but they were a lot of fun. Took me a few days to make 'em, I wanted the textures to be all smooth and pretty. If possible I'll transition them into SEV, something my poor Zerg can't do.

I'd make another shipset--I was working on the Tholians for a little bit--but right now we're pretty deadlocked in this game. Maybe I should swap in my Zerg? I think it'd help things, frankly. There's too many people with colors that are too similar. I find it so hard to even find where the hell MY units are. Is there any way for me to redo the actual race? I'd love to remove the Reji and drop in my own race. I'm really unhappy with it's current setup.

[brianeyci]

How did you get that glow effect?

You could do what I am doing Covenant. Rename to whatever shipset that's there for now... I renamed over two hundred files to "Addisian" instead of Somtaaw and it works. Then eveybody can download it and extract.

Brian

[Covenant]

That's not DOGA, that's MAYA. If you like the glow effects you'd love to see the fancy animations I can make with it. ;D

I set it to glow, and then set the glow to reference an exponential ramp map and had it go from full white to black real fast past a certain distance, giving it a near-to-body halo of color without having it actually illuminate more than just it's immediete area.



Also, the glowing is internal. I could have set just certain faces to glow, but I have a two-part cannon there. The exterior is a slotted spoon wrapped around (essentially some lazer muzzle breakz or something) a glowing interior core. That helps give the nice appearence of the glow bleeding out across the mundane, nonreflective metallic slots.

It's also how I got the ground-dump heatsinks to look 'hot'. Same thing for the Vree saucer 'buzzsaw' which looks like some sort of radial heatsink to me.



You can really see it there.

[brianeyci]

That's not DOGA, that's MAYA. If you like the glow effects you'd love to see the fancy animations I can make with it. ;D

I set it to glow, and then set the glow to reference an exponential ramp map and had it go from full white to black real fast past a certain distance, giving it a near-to-body halo of color without having it actually illuminate more than just it's immediete area.

Also, the glowing is internal. I could have set just certain faces to glow, but I have a two-part cannon there. The exterior is a slotted spoon wrapped around (essentially some lazer muzzle breakz or something) a glowing interior core. That helps give the nice appearence of the glow bleeding out across the mundane, nonreflective metallic slots.

I'll never be rich enough to afford Maya lol. School might have it, I'll check when I'm there next. I'm sure there's a digital studio there I could book though.

If you don't like the Reijj shipset it's easy... renaming "Vree_portrait_troopsmall" to whatever name Reijj used and overwriting it... worked for my ships.

Well not simple. I had to rename over two hundred pictures. I'm gonna take it nice and slow this time, work on the models over a few weeks instead of trying to rush it and putting out garbage lol.

Brian

[Covenant]

Icky. But since there's an RP thread, shouldn't I try to avoid just going "Yoink! We're Vree!"

I could more easily say "ZERG RUSH KEKEKE" and replace all his ships with Zerg, which is what I think I'll do. I'd like to do some RP posts but I really have no idea how to RP these guys. I wish he was actually pirates or something, it just seems like a standard tech race with no bells and whistles! D:

But I take it there's no way to 'remove' an empire and then 'add' a new one, is there?

[brianeyci]

Icky. But since there's an RP thread, shouldn't I try to avoid just going "Yoink! We're Vree!"

I could more easily say "ZERG RUSH KEKEKE" and replace all his ships with Zerg, which is what I think I'll do. I'd like to do some RP posts but I really have no idea how to RP these guys. I wish he was actually pirates or something, it just seems like a standard tech race with no bells and whistles! D:

But I take it there's no way to 'remove' an empire and then 'add' a new one, is there?

Hacking the file? No I'm guessing not. I'm pretty sure there isn't too because nobody ever figured out how to increase the maximum number of ships after the game started. The worst thing is being limited to 100 ships and 1000 units, and two months into the game finding out you can't build anymore ships and therefore the galaxy's in a perpetual stalemate. If they can't change one variable in an SE:IV saved game changing an empire's probably not possible.

If you really want to rename everything. You can do it in a minute. There's a nice freeware editor called IrfanView and it has a "batch processing/renaming" option. You could rename all your Zerg pictures to whatever Reijj's is in two seconds.

Of course I found this option only after I spent two hours manually keying in all the picture names. Bleh .

Brian

[Covenant]

I just redid it between posts. Copied EDF into my clipboard, just right click-pasted it ontop of everything that said Zerg.



Now I just need Neph to host it for everyone. Oh, and I need some good screencaps from Starcraft so I can explain how they got wtfpwned.

[brianeyci]

I need screencaps of HW:C too. Lost my cdkey awhile ago but still have the CD. Plus my laptop's ultra slim and doesn't have an optical drive.

If you want space I can host it for you if you e-mail it to me.

Brian

[Covenant]

I need screencaps of HW:C too. Lost my cdkey awhile ago but still have the CD. Plus my laptop's ultra slim and doesn't have an optical drive.

If you want space I can host it for you if you e-mail it to me.

Brian

That sucks. How about the Demo? They had a free demo out a lot and that had all the Somataaw ships in it. You just couldn't play as the beast.

I'll zip the file and send it off to you. You'll want to rename your old EDF folder so you don't lose it.

Where do I mail it? SD.N can't handle files, can it?

[brianeyci]

That sucks. How about the Demo? They had a free demo out a lot and that had all the Somataaw ships in it. You just couldn't play as the beast.

Good idea I'll look for the demo.

My spatial sense was fucked up yesterday... I kept trying to make a Deacon and ended up making something that didn't look anything like that even though a Deacon's just a flying box lol.

How do you transition from polygons to curves like the tentacles in your Vree? Can you do it with DOGA? I'd like to make tentacles, rounded edges and string-like things.

I'll pm you my e-mail or you could just look it up in SE:IV's website heh.

Brian

[Covenant]

The easiest way is to make some sort of joint for it. The free Tripods have little 'feet' and the Vree Master Chief and his Spartans all have box armor with smooth nurbs limbs. Nurbs being non uniform b-splines.

So, if you look carefully, there's actually no transitition! The arms just stick into the body. And you can't see where the legs hook into the top of the Tripod.

And where you do see it there's a small joint of some sort. For the Vree Spartans it's a black area I made with a black polygon just stuck through him. With the Tripods and discs it's just a sphere that the limb is lodged into and left half exposed. Afterall, we're not modelling for accuracy here, but for effect. If it LOOKS right in the one or two shots they'll ever see it in-game then it IS right, regardless of what other broken-ness the models have.

As for Doga... they need to have SOME kind of curve function, don't they? if not, go ye olde articulated joint style and have a 'tentacle' made out of chain-linked smaller bits.

[brianeyci]

As for Doga... they need to have SOME kind of curve function, don't they? if not, go ye olde articulated joint style and have a 'tentacle' made out of chain-linked smaller bits.

That's what I thought I needed to do heh heh.

You can't draw curves with DOGA, you only add parts and manipulate them. I suck at manipulating them right now though lol, but I'll get better.

Anyway when I redo my shipset I'm still keeping the same general idea. Multibeams for everything up to heavy frigate, Hives as destroyers, Deacons as cruisers and Archangels from battleship up to Juggernaut. A heavy destroyer would just have more doodads than a light destroyer but definitely a destroyer would be easily distinguished from a frigate or cruiser or battleship, just not other destroyers.

Brian

[brianeyci]

Okay peeps you can get Covenant's shipset here.

Brian

[Covenant]

Okay peeps you can get Covenant's shipset here <= there.

Brian

Just in time! I made my RP post. maek poast!

[brianeyci]

Hm I got the multibeam done I think. One thing I'm starting to do is make a "skeleton" of sorts... just a rough blocky outline of what the ship's supposed to look like. Then I add parts. I thought it'd waste a lot of time but it actually helps me visualize it.



I can't seem to think of the right shapes or orientation for the dreadnaught though. Part of me thinks it'd be easier to just rip the models from the game itself, but where's the fun in that. My Somtaaw will obviously be a reimagined version, with missile bays instead of energy weapons and not as colorful or cheery.



The left looks sort of like the right, right? Kind of. Only the shape.

I found a still cutscene of Somtaaw soldiers and they look pretty fearsome lol.

If I can ever find my Starcraft CD's and a working CD key (not to mention somehow transfer to my laptop that doesn't have an optical drive) I wouldn't mind playing you Covenant lol. Six pool for teh win .

Brian

[Kojiro]

Damn you for showing me such a simple 3d tool. Damn you to hell.

[brianeyci]

Damn you for showing me such a simple 3d tool. Damn you to hell.

Excellent. What were you using before?

I downloaded the HW:C demo. I might just remake my shipset from scratch to be as canonical as possible just to prove myself I can do it. Right now though my brown shipset's a huge improvement over the screenshot rips. I feel like just sitting there and looking at the bitmaps all day lol. It may be shit, but it's my shit .

Brian

[Kojiro]

I wasn't using anything, though I dabbled with Blender and Max some time ago. If you think the above are all I did you're joking. I have fighters. Light and heavy.

That said if anyone here knows how to use blender I'd be most appreciative for any hints. I'd love to be proficient enough to make models for Dawn of War.

[brianeyci]

If you think the above are all I did you're joking. I have fighters. Light and heavy.

Oh lol so you spent the whole day making 'em? Excellent, my master plan's working.

Fighters in Adamant are pretty fucking annoying. I can't figure a way to reliably slaughter them and if I attack a planet there could be thousands.

I wasn't using anything, though I dabbled with Blender and Max some time ago.

Oh I thought I heard Gups say that you manually made all your transformers models.

Brian

[Covenant]

Fighters are pretty brutal, but there's a lot of good ways to take them out if you look past the really popular weapons. A lot of the secondarily good weapons also can hit fighters, and that makes them super awesome. Generally, I feel that adamant encourages fleet mixing more than most, especially when it comes to fighters. Without fighters being as potent, you could just win with masses of cappies. So now if you want to win with heavyships you need to also make a buncha little dorky screening vessels to wipe out the fighters.

You'll want a lot of screening ships so that the fighters can't overwhelm them, and then just hammer them with a bunch of guns that can also hit fighters. Screener guns are good, but too specialized, usually. I like using the heavier guns that hit "all but seeker" and just throwing a bunch out there. That seemed the best way to counter the fighter menace without going to the hassle of making your own. They're generally deployed defensively, in most games, so treat 'em like mines. Bring sweepers. Lots of sweepers.

[brianeyci]

Lots of sweepers.

Hulls are damn small. I've been constantly researching hulls to keep up (hell I have so little research it's the only way I can keep up) and I still can't make minesweepers cheaper than warships. And making them huge or large transports is just asking for trouble... Nephtys killed four 15k 600 kT supply tankers, either by fluke or ordering her ships to target transports first (my transports had one weapon on them so it couldn't have been a simple target "has no weapons").

So if you're playing human players, smart ones at least, the only way to keep your minesweepers alive through battles especiallly since there's so much range with Adamant missiles is use the same hull as the majority of your warships and if possible armor and shield them just as heavily so "target weakest" doesn't work.

I like Adamant's ship classes though. I like being forced to make important decisions in warship design... it makes me feel as if every single decision to put in a component's important since there's no room to waste. And I have propulsion experts AND transdimensional, so for all the rest of you it has to be A LOT worse lol.

The small ship sizes are what makes me so fucking afraid of Nova. He's got three times the research of most people and five times mine. I bet he's got ships twice as big as mine by now, or maybe even stellar manipulation. I wouldn't be surprised if while everybody's busy killing each other Nova stays quiet and when the dust settles he brings in his cloaked unbotanium juggernauts to slaughter everyone still standing heh heh.

Brian

[Kojiro]

Oh I thought I heard Gups say that you manually made all your transformers models.

That was pixel by pixel in with Paint Shop Pro.

[brianeyci]

Oh I thought I heard Gups say that you manually made all your transformers models.

That was pixel by pixel in with Paint Shop Pro.

Glad I'm not the only computer unsavvy person around here lol (Covenant managed to do what took me three hours in three minutes renaming all the files and cutting and pasting lol).

So now if you want to win with heavyships you need to also make a buncha little dorky screening vessels to wipe out the fighters.

I am not so sure I believe you, at least not yet. Nephtys had a few hundred fighters and my ships came out relatively unscathed. A few died but it definitely was not worth arming a zillion puny ships. In stock bigger is always better and even with QNP bigger should always be better because it takes an investment of research and resources to get bigger hulls. If bigger wasn't better you'd have a silly situation like in B5 where massive reactors cost more per supply than a bunch of smaller ones and there's no point researching beyond a certain level in reactors.

I read a thread with Imperator Fyron responding to a newbie's question about hull sizes saying there was an optimal hull size and you shouldn't research beyond a certain size. I think Fyron's response was to take the same amount of resources and run sims and found bigger always won.

And it should. I went small in Star Trek and you know what happened lol.

Brian

[Covenant]

You were talking about thousands of fighters being deployed by system defenses! ;p 100 fighters is nothing! Hardly even a full carrier!

Against a single fighter group you should be able to just churn right through it. Worst case, it runs out of supply in 3 shots and stops hurting you. Best case, it races ahead and runs into a wall of cannons that get lucky and plink it a few times, obliterating 10 with each hit.

The reason to use small hulls versus fighters is that they are fast, they are cheap, and they fuck up fighter stacks. If a stack of fighters fires on a corvette, it can't shoot anything else that turn, and all you lose is a corvette. But if a stack of fighters fires on a dread, it might gut it, depending on the fighter loadout, and that sucks ass. Lots of little ships require fighters to be deployed in lots of little groups, which makes them less powerful overall and therefore it's a victory for you. That's all.

Otherwise, against hundreds of fighters, you're going to be fielding relatively expensive vessels to be torn apart easily when you're better off making a wall of decoys to draw fire while your bigger ships move in a turn or so behind, avoiding most of the damage, and blowing away the little bastards that were causing the problem in the first place.

Bigger ships fight better, yeah. They carry more gizmos. But if you're not even sure that they'll survive to fire a volley at all, you're better off making a big screening net to go ahead of you, do some damage, and soak the fire while those bigger ships come up.

[brianeyci]

The problem is fighters at most launch in groups of 50. If you launch fighters over a number of turns with a planet or carriers on defense, you can get huge wings. But fighters are always teh lose going on offense with 50 stacks since eventually ships get so big 50 fighters is a pinprick. And controlling fighter stacks is something most people don't do. Most people just set their planets and carriers to launch and don't pay attention putting all their eggs in one basket. 1000 fighters in one wing can still only kill one ship a turn. But 50 fighters might not be enough. Even worse some people don't bother to change strategies and launch in groups of 10 bleh. So fighters are not a big problem except against a seasoned opponent and even then I have my doubts.

Point defense always shoots first. That's a huge advantage and I imagine if you know your opponent's going heavy on fighters, having a fleet of huge juggernauts with a big loadout of point defense would always win.

What I think Adamant changes is not the strength of fighters, but actually forces you to pay attention. No more putting on two PD guns killing anything. More like if they've got thousands of fighters your ships need 40% PD guns but if they've got no fighters you don't use any. If you don't pay attention and you make your ships heavy on PD when they're not going fighter, you lose. If you do pay attention and make the right kind of ships you'll win.

Oh and did Neph really think losing 50 ships was nothing? Playing with Nephtys is always so much fun. When she loses it always appears as if she planned to lose (she's never unhappy) and when she wins she's never a sore winner lol.

<edit>Hard to see fighters winning economically. I just made a juggernaut for around 35k/15k/60k and a heavy bomber for 500 minerals. Can 70 fighters beat a juggernaut? Not when the juggernaut has 20 point defense guns that do 60 damage each and shoots first no matter what.</edit>

Brian