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

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-02-27 11:18pm

That idea sounds interesting, but what about the Adamant mod? I've been itching to try it out multi. I tried doing it single player for a while, but I've been spoiled on multi and can't bring myself back to single.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-02-27 11:20pm

Yeah single blows.

We could set up an Adamant Mod game as soon as the ST Mod game winds down for whoever's interested. Pure gameplay, no RP. Custom races.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-02-27 11:21pm

That's what I'm interested in.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-02-27 11:22pm

SEIV - I Can't Get Enough.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-02-27 11:23pm

*giggles*

Well. We can definately do 2 games each. 3 perhaps. I'd be up for some.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-02-27 11:26pm

Well. Someone else can create the game and administer it, I'm lazy and Tux is busy lol.

The only real thing to worry about is setting the units and ships to 20,000. If you set the ships to only 100, we'll go 100 turns in and find out there's no way to change it

. I played one game like that and it wasn't fun. Imagine if our ST game was limited to one hundred ships. Oh the calamity.

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-02-27 11:55pm

brianeyci wrote:Well. Someone else can create the game and administer it, I'm lazy and Tux is busy lol.

The only real thing to worry about is setting the units and ships to 20,000. If you set the ships to only 100, we'll go 100 turns in and find out there's no way to change it . I played one game like that and it wasn't fun. Imagine if our ST game was limited to one hundred ships. Oh the calamity.

Brian

Alright. Should I slap on an Adamant mod game now?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-02-28 12:01am

I'll join your game

.

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-02-28 12:04am

brianeyci wrote:I'll join your game .

Brian

Alright, so once we figure out details, we may make a new thread for those who want to join. This game's kinda free-for-all, so em. Make any empire you like, right? Let's talk rules.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-02-28 12:09am

Ten good homeworlds, huge paradise galaxy, many neutral empires, no AI controlled empires, low tech cost, high resource start, low technology cost, low technology start, warp points anywhere in the system, just off the top of my head suggestions.

Or the total opposite. One bad homeworld, very small galaxy, high technology cost, low technology start, low resource start... brutal fast game

. But then it'd depend on who took all the combat racial traits.

I don't know about the rest of you but I'm going to tinker with my race until I figure out how to build a colony ship in 1 turn with emergency build hehe.

Brian

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-02-28 12:09am

No dump stats, for one. I don't want to see gaseous lifeforms that can't fight in ground combat but are capable of astoundingly fast research and live in gas giants

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-02-28 12:15am

Ever play stock and the Eee?

For dump stats... it's either we customize or don't customize, it'll be too complicated to restrict it to dumping or no dumping. What only 3 stats on superior, or 2 stats? Or no combat stats? Or no this or that?

If everybody dumps there shouldn't be a problem, everybody knows what's important and what's not... repair not so important, radioactives and organics not as important as minerals, ground combat worthless, construction rate and combat vital, etc etc. Since this isn't an RP game it shouldn't be a problem.

Adamant is so varied it will be really hard to dump anyway. They fixed the maintainence so dumping 25% into it doesn't mean 50% more ships, combat can only be increased 5% I think, etc etc.

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-02-28 12:24am

No RP, huh? Probably better that way, what with exams coming up.

I've been playing Adamant in single player a bit, so here's Trog's list of info and tips:

--Normal races, Organic races, and Magic races use minerals, organics, and mana (radioactives) as their primary resources respectively. Unless you're playing as a normal race, make sure to not put as much emphasis on mining as you would in an SEIV game without this mod.

--The website wasn't kidding when it said that planetary invasions are much harder to pull off in this mod. I invaded an enemy world of about 2B with over 1000 of the biggest tanks possible. It took several turns for my forces to finally claim victory, and a signficant chunk of my army was destroyed. Unless you're trying to get breathers of a certain atmosphere, it's probably easier just to wipe out enemy populations and recolonize the planets.

--Stellar manipulation tech in this game functions largely the same as in stock, with a few important exceptions. The tech tree for it is different, instead of just researching stellar manipulation, you research seperate tech fields (e.g. star manipulation, storm manipulation, etc.). The components to create planets from asteroid fields can only create tiny planets, so such planets won't be the cash cows that they are in stock and other mods. Also, ringworlds come in small, medium, and large. Small and medium are relatively cheap to create.

--The quantum reactor is in this mod, but it's so damned expensive that it's impractical. I tried building one ship with one and sending it along with a fleet in hopes of it keeping all the ships supplied, but the fleet's supply was slowly depleted like it wasn't even there.

--As far as I can tell, the shipyard expansions do not work.

--Non-leaky shields do exist; the tech can be found by colonizing planets with ruins, but they're not very good.

--Organic races get this nifty facility that causes the populations of planets to increase by, IIRC, 25M every turn, in addition to the normal increase. (This is for the most advanced version of this facility). Normal races get a similar facility that causes an increase of 5M per turn. Magical races, AFAIK, do not get any such structure.

--Maintaince on the bigger ships can be killer. The biggest ships have maintaince penalties of 24% or around there. You'll probably need to have only a small number of big ships to serve as fleet flagships, while smaller workhorse vessels will make up the bulk of your forces.

--Non-combat ships should probably use solar sails instead of normal engines, especially if they're long range scouts, as solar sails generate movement points without using supply. However, such ships will still have 1 movement if you don't provide a component that has supplies.

--Random events happen a lot, even when they're set to low. Especially plagues. Unless we turn off random events, you'll want to make sure to research medical tech and probably have a few med ships on hand at all times.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-02-28 12:38am

Capturing planets is probably difficult because they expect a veteran player...

...capturing planets most efficiently, you need to have three types of troops. A shield troop, a weapon troop, and a commander. You load the shields first, then the weapons, then the commander. The shield troops should have as much armor or shields as possible. Weapons... you guessed it. Commander should have ECM and Combat Sensors.

The Shield troops will soak the damage giving the other kinds as much survival time as possible.

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-02-28 12:42am

I'll give that a try (eventually, I have a lot of work to do this week) and report back on how it worked.

No ECM or combat sensors for troops. Instead, there are a number of componets which provide different bonuses and in some cases penalities. Said components also double as cockpits, so you can only put in one.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-02-28 12:51am

brianeyci wrote:Ten good homeworlds, huge paradise galaxy, many neutral empires, no AI controlled empires, low tech cost, high resource start, low technology cost, low technology start, warp points anywhere in the system, just off the top of my head suggestions.
Brian

Sounds pretty good, although I tend to prefer normal galaxies to paradise ones, and medium tech cost to low.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-02-28 12:54am

Alright gang. I'll get one set up. Can someone link me the current recent version of this mod? There's so many.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-02-28 12:57am

Okay I tried my hand at creating troops. This mod is beautiful by the way.

The siege fortification gives it away--the largest beast is 30 size and they obviously don't expect you to drop in beasts with no weapons. The bonuses are huge--40% and 20%, but if you put them on a huge beast they'll be no room for weapons. So create 4 different kinds of beasts.

Load the Defense Beasts first in your troop transports. Look at the hit points--1500! Then load in the Attack Beasts. Then the Beastmasters. You only need 1 of each kind of Beastmaster for the bonus to work for all your troops in the stack, just like satellites.

When they fight, the Defense Beasts will get hit first, and the 2 Beastmasters, your generals are going to be in the back... cool!

It's a welcome change from 1000 of the same kind of troop at least.

<edit>Assault Command gives a 40/-40, Combat Apocathery gives a 30/-30, and Field Commisar gives 15/0, so if you put all three in and have enough defense beasts to soak up the damage, it'll be 2x the number of troops! Coool. And there's also a -40/40 Command...

Latest version is at http://adamant.spaceempires.net/download/ I think </edit>

Brian

Post by **Dalton** » 2006-02-28 05:30am

I think I'll join in.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-02-28 09:19am

I've signed up (whee, my ships get to move first). Nice name for the game, Nephtys. It's right up there with "The Repair Mobile!"

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-02-28 10:58am

I'll pass on this one.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-02-28 12:06pm

A few questions, Neph.

1. What settings did you end up choosing?

2. Are we using the roleplay settings trait (not sure what it does, but it says that it's cheating to take it if no one else does)?

3. Why does it say Adamant version 0.14.12 on the game's page? The newest version is 0.15.04.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-02-28 02:46pm

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:A few questions, Neph.

1. What settings did you end up choosing?

2. Are we using the roleplay settings trait (not sure what it does, but it says that it's cheating to take it if no one else does)?

3. Why does it say Adamant version 0.14.12 on the game's page? The newest version is 0.15.04.

I think I'll choose 5 homeworlds, med costs. No roleplay settings (all that adds are some extra parts, like instead of life support, you'd get 'waste reclamation', and 'oxygen cycling' etc.

Lets' all use vers 0.15.04.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-02-28 03:21pm

A few bits of info I forgot last night (I'll probably regret spilling all this later, but Brian's been telling all he knows so I guess it's only fair that I do likewise).

--Missiles are much more potent in this mod than in usual SEIV. Anti-seeker PD guns have a range of only 1 (various beam weapons can still, of course, shoot missiles down, though). Besides, nobody's going to want to put too many PD guns on a ship, considering how much room needed components like engines and supply containers take up. Also, there's a small, weak decoy missle that may be useful in this area (I have yet to test it myself, but the potential's definetly there).

--The Malfadorian structure techs are useless. They cannot be researched past the level 1 you get for finding them on a planet and yield nothing. Either they'll have some use in a later version of the mod, or as I suspect, are just there for gamers to RP about when they find them.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-02-28 04:04pm

Lesse. Proposed setting.
5 Homeworlds, best type.
2000 pts Racials, customized races.
Med normal galaxy. Or perhaps even 'classic cluster', to seperate the game into a dozen five system sectors...
Low events, high severity (We don't want stars to explode)

Usual victory conditions.