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I'll be getting Internet in my house again next Tuesday, leaving open the possibility to start a new SE V game. I'm working full time now, so I would probably only be interested in one game at a time. I'm thinking we should try a mod, since stock pretty much sucks. The Balance Mod is the old standby, of course, but I also wanted to try the Gritty Galaxy mod at some point. We were talking about making our own B5 mod before, but it's probably better to start a game and work on the B5 mod in the meantime than to wait for a mod that may or may not pan out to be completed before we start.

Anyway, what type of game does everyone want to see, and who wants to be in it?

If it's PBEM, I'll sign up. I have to jump through a few hoops to do so but I can manage.

I'm in. Don't care about which mod we use really.

I'm up for it.

As for B5 if anybody's wondering, got sidetracked by a totally different game, and waited an entire month until after my killer math midterm. It's not happening anytime soon so don't hold your breath.

I'd give it a go.

So Gritty Galaxy mod OK, then?

Link for it?

OK, everyone who's interested get patched up to v1.25 and grab the latest version of Gritty Galaxy, 1.25 (B). Game name is "SDN SE5 Gritty Galaxy".

Game description wrote:SE5 game with Gritty Galaxy mod. For SDN players, although others may join if we don't have enough.

Starting resources: 100000
Starting planets: 3
Home planet value: Good
Score display: all
Technology level: Low
Racial points: 2000
Quadrant type: Diamond
Quadrant size: Large
Event frequency: Low
Event severity: Catastrophic
Technology cost: Medium
Victory conditions: Destroy All Homeworlds
Computer players: None

No Intel

Asymmetric tech trading only - Can only give tech to a much less advanced empire. Analyzing captured ships is OK, but giving ships for the purpose of analysis or forming tech sharing treaties to get around the rule is cheating.

No Genocide - A surrendered player still gets to play, but must fight on the side of the victorious player, and may not betray him / her.

Pretty standard fare for SDN games, although the tech trading rule is a bit different. Feel free to come up with better rules. Of course, there are unspoken rules that basically boil down to "don't cheat, explot, or generally be a dick". I don't think we need to go into those.

One important thing to mention is that those with the Steam version should disable automatic updating and / or make a backup of the current version. If you update and can't go back, and the new version breaks the game, we'll simply kick you out and move on.

Let's shoot for getting the first turn out one week from today on the 23rd, so try to get me empire files soon, and bring up any ideas for changing the game's rules as soon as possible.

Not that many combinations as far as racial abilities go.

Quick question about this mod, how... 'effective' is the planetary militia? I know in SEIV it was amazingly good, but in vanialla SEV its non-existent. How does it work here?

No clue, IB. One of the beauties of this mod is that none of us (to my knowledge) are already familiar with it. I know I'm not.

By the way, when I say "get me the empire files", I mean join the game on PBW and upload the files. Just so there's no confusion.

I'm using Atrocities' Klingon shipset found here, and the Klingon flag found in the latest patch to MkSheppard's Flagtastic 1.4 pack. Everyone should download both for things to display correctly.

Alright, I'll have to drop out of this one. I've been so obsessed with HoI2 lately I don't have time for other games.

Further reading shows I can't join anyway since the computer I play on doesn't have direct internet access. Maybe another time.

Drop out? You never even said you were in. You can't drop out without being in. Anyway, no worries. I understand. I'm just wondering where the regulars are and why they haven't posted, yet. You can't exactly have an SE V game with 2 players.

I'm using a standard shipset and flag, but I've got the race portrait from the Empire of Man. No, I'm not playing as a 40K race. I was just too lazy to create a Strong Bad portrait and figured that the God Emperor is pretty close to how Strong Bad probably sees himself.

Anyway, it's in Shep's pack that Tux linked to above. Just make sure you've got it, and prepare to submit to the wrath of MASA.

Are you going to burninate the countryside?

I gota say, the techs in this mod are really... boring. We're all going to be VERY similar, and I don't even see some of the more interesting techs.


Also a question:

What are the yellow ship slots for? I can't put armor in them...

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:Are you going to burninate the countryside?

Hells yes!

InnocentBystander wrote:I gota say, the techs in this mod are really... boring. We're all going to be VERY similar, and I don't even see some of the more interesting techs.


Also a question:

What are the yellow ship slots for? I can't put armor in them...

I think the point of differentiation is not in tech, but in ship design. Anyway, I don't know what goes in the yellow slots. Maybe something that hasn't been implemented yet.

The lack of tech really removes all the flavor from the game. I'd rather a mod that takes the regular tech tree and balances/expands on it. I like being able to build all ship sizes from the start, but I also like the idea of it taking crazy amounts of time to build huge battleships early in the game, and late in the game being able to field massive fleets of super dreadnaughts.

Oh and infantry use the yellow slots for armor.

May I suggest a change for your mod?

Settings.txt

Empire Starting Ship Percent Maint Cost := 4
Empire Starting Unit Percent Maint Cost := 1
Empire Starting Facility Percent Maint Cost := 4

I always found 25% to be fucking ridiculous: it only costs the USN $20 million to operate a Arleigh Burke DDG each year, compared to a $750 million build cost; that's a 2% operating cost...but I boosted it up to 4% to actually make maintenance reduction goodies actually worth something...

InnocentBystander wrote:I like being able to build all ship sizes from the start

Why, so do I! that's in my ShepMod...

InnocentBystander wrote:The lack of tech really removes all the flavor from the game. I'd rather a mod that takes the regular tech tree and balances/expands on it. I like being able to build all ship sizes from the start, but I also like the idea of it taking crazy amounts of time to build huge battleships early in the game, and late in the game being able to field massive fleets of super dreadnaughts.

Oh and infantry use the yellow slots for armor.

Well, IB, there aren't really a lot of choices yet for SE V mods. The Balance Mod is basically just spruced up stock, and I'd rather go for something a little more different than that. The other mods are incomplete and completely unbalanced, so it's really either Balance or GG.

MKSheppard wrote:May I suggest a change for your mod?

Settings.txt

Empire Starting Ship Percent Maint Cost := 4
Empire Starting Unit Percent Maint Cost := 1
Empire Starting Facility Percent Maint Cost := 4

I always found 25% to be fucking ridiculous: it only costs the USN $20 million to operate a Arleigh Burke DDG each year, compared to a $750 million build cost; that's a 2% operating cost...but I boosted it up to 4% to actually make maintenance reduction goodies actually worth something...

I like it, but we'd have to run it with manual turn execution since it would differ from the standard version of the mod that PBW has. By the way, you want to get in on this game?

Blah, got any flags you'd like done for Flagtastic 1.5?