Modding Space Empire IV Gold

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-15 03:24pm

In that case, perhaps medium starting tech? I have no problem with having to transport population to new colonies, but I'm not fond of games that take too long to get interesting.

Or maybe a different mod, Carrier Battles, for instance.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-15 04:29pm

We could play the mother of all mods, Adamant Mod. If we're looking for a truly unique modification then we can play this. Best of all because there is so much balance, rather than have everybody forced to play pre-generated empires, you can actually design and create your empire. Even if you put 125% into aggressive and defensive, there is no guarantee you will be a combat prowress because of the sheer number of technologies and counters, plus going to 125% takes nearly all of your points. Pirates and Nomads, five different totally unique tech trees, and such a huge tech tree means nobody will be bored and we'll be able to create our own races and RP them however we want.

<edit>I read the site and I was wrong... adamant mod isn't the mother of all mods, it's the emperor of all mods. They have made a lot of progress it seems since I left, now machine and energy races are fully fleshed out. I am willing to do another RP game, but what's attractive is with this mod I'll be able to create a race I really want to RP rather than pick something unoriginal.

</edit>

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-15 07:12pm

If you guys haven't started by the 19th (the day I finish with finals), I'd be more than happy to join you. I don't want to hold up this game, but damnit that mod looks cool.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-15 07:18pm

Trogdor wrote:If you guys haven't started by the 19th (the day I finish with finals), I'd be more than happy to join you. I don't want to hold up this game, but damnit that mod looks cool.

I finish tomorrow nyah nyah!

I'm not the master emperor ruler (that's reserved for Dalton) and we might end up playing B5 mod or any other mod but yeah Adamant mod looks sooo cool, I've only played it a little and it's totally different from stock. Plus the RP will be original rather than based on an already established SF universe. But who knows maybe Adamant is too intimidating.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-15 07:18pm

I'll second the Adamant mod suggestion. I played a little bit of it single player a while back. It's not only excellent, but very pretty. Changes the entire look of the game.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-12-15 07:45pm

IMO, B5's greatest fun is how they make the tactical more diverse with varying weapon options. But Adamant seems so... NEAT! I'm installing it now. Mmm.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2005-12-15 08:00pm

brianeyci wrote:What about guppyshark's 2 PBEM players and Straha. I don't see the advantage to PBEM at all to be frank. There's no timer and that means one person can wait for two weeks to submit a turn slowing everybody down. I'm hesitant to start a PBEM game with people I don't know. http://seiv.pbw.cc is really easy, registering is really easy it only takes 5 minutes.

Erm. WTF?

Of course I was talking about http://seiv.pbw.cc!

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2005-12-15 08:06pm

EDIT: Hurray for double post!

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-15 08:11pm

GuppyShark wrote:
brianeyci wrote:What about guppyshark's 2 PBEM players and Straha. I don't see the advantage to PBEM at all to be frank. There's no timer and that means one person can wait for two weeks to submit a turn slowing everybody down. I'm hesitant to start a PBEM game with people I don't know. http://seiv.pbw.cc is really easy, registering is really easy it only takes 5 minutes.
Erm. WTF?

Of course I was talking about http://seiv.pbw.cc!

Oh, I thought you meant play-by-e-mail (PBEM) hehe.

Anyway I just tested a magical race in Adamant Mod and I like it. You can even get smaller shipyards and orbital spaceyards build much faster than normal spaceyards. The new font, graphics and nomads (1% maintainence whee) seals it for me.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-15 11:37pm

Nomads get the nice maintenance, but what about Pirates? I haven't yet been able to figure out what they're good for. They're boarding units don't seem to be any better than anyone else's.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-15 11:48pm

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:Nomads get the nice maintenance, but what about Pirates? I haven't yet been able to figure out what they're good for. They're boarding units don't seem to be any better than anyone else's.

Perfect cloak.

There's more, of course

.

Pirates and Nomads are heavily disadvantaged though in that they can't colonize worlds... expert players only need apply according to the readme.

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-12-16 03:28am

Huh. I'm trying the mod and there's no computer AI supplied... or maybe I'm installing it wrong. But lesse. First.. how does civilian ship 'stealth' work anyway?

Second. The amount of mounts are STAGGERING. And with RP components turned on, what exactly is the point of multiple life support objects with different names?

Edit: Third. Are Mechanoid/Energy races done?

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2005-12-16 06:49am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:
Straha wrote:Argh! I love the game but I'm too lazy/cheap to actually register for it...

Register? What do you mean? As long as you have SEIV, you're good to go.

*Buy, not register.

I've got the Demo so I can only play 100 turns.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-16 07:55am

Not sure I'll try to answer.

Nephtys wrote:Huh. I'm trying the mod and there's no computer AI supplied... or maybe I'm installing it wrong.

No, there's no AI, I think they're working on a version 1.9. And I think there are neutral AI's. I think, there should be functional AI if you use generate random computer players. There is a more recent update here.

But lesse. First.. how does civilian ship 'stealth' work anyway?

Built-in level 15 cloak go to the top right after you build one hit the cloak button. Sensors only detect up to level 10.

Second. The amount of mounts are STAGGERING.

I think each mount has an advantage and a disadvantage.

And with RP components turned on, what exactly is the point of multiple life support objects with different names?

Nothing, flavour text.

Edit: Third. Are Mechanoid/Energy races done?

Looks like no for the base 15.00 version but 15.04 might have them, on the website there sure are a lot more components than are in the game.

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-16 06:32pm

I installed the patch. 15.04 doesn't have mechanoid or energy races, either. It's just physical/organic/magical for now.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2005-12-17 12:51am

I did a lot of modding back in the day; I have my own custom mod; but it horribuly unbalanced the game.

I liked making it so you could build truly gargantugan spacedocks which would crank out ships; while planetary based shipyards were slower.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-17 01:29am

Straha wrote:
Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:
Straha wrote:Argh! I love the game but I'm too lazy/cheap to actually register for it...

Register? What do you mean? As long as you have SEIV, you're good to go.
*Buy, not register.

I've got the Demo so I can only play 100 turns.

Get the new Deluxe version. Cheaper than dirt. Then again, with SEV coming out in 2006, you might want to hold off.

@Nephtys: The different life supports vary with tonnage and cost, but the cheaper ones give combat penalties. At least for the version I'm running. And the AI worked fine for me.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-17 10:30am

Anyway, someone should set the game up so we can start downloading the mod and submitting empires, etc. Maybe with a password to join so that not just anybody can jump in. We're trying to launch in two days, right?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-17 03:27pm

Okay I set it up. The game is called "SD.net Adamant", you need version 15.04 and Gold 1.91 (we can change it to deluxe if anybody joins that doesn't have gold).

Rules

5000 point empire
You are allowed to pick the RP elements trait
Because the traits list is cut off when you right click a race in the game, under the "biological description" part of description you must list all your traits that you've picked. With this many points you'll probably have 10 traits.
Make sure your empire works. That is start the game with your empire and see if you can build ships, have the right technology. If you didn't pick a homeworld or colony type and you're a normal race for example your race will be worthless.

Other than that anything goes. With 5000 points there should be less room to make mistakes picking worthless traits but that means it's a min/maxer's wet dream. Hopefully everybody knows by now what is useful... maintainence, resources and agg/def important, happiness not so important because you can use troops, etc.

Also I can't password the game, when somebody joins an e-mail is sent to me so I have to approve them anyway so random people won't join.\

<edit>Nephtys, if you want to set up a B5 modification game I'll join it too, or if you want to run this game... if anybody wants to run this game, it is no big deal mostly hassle. That'll make 3 games and I was playing 4 games two years ago comfortably with 15 minutes a game, most people don't like rushing their turns though but I'm very methodical and can play 4 turns in 1 hour so I don't mind joining another game. Warning though to be thorough most people take up to 1 hour a turn later on (I am playing the ST mod game liek this right now but I could go much faster if I didn't gawk so much)</edit>

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-12-17 04:38pm

Nawh, 2 games is good enough for me. Hrm. Let's go then.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-17 05:24pm

What's the RP trait do, anyway? Are we going to have another RP thread here?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-17 05:26pm

Nephtys wrote:Nawh, 2 games is good enough for me. Hrm. Let's go then.

Ok *thumbs up*. 200 turns for B5 mod is not my idea of fun anyway, by then we'll all be playing SE:VI lol.

I figured out a kickass combination for Pirates. I'm going to play Pirates and pick the mobile industrialists and zero-gravity engineers traits, and I can fit a space yard into a civilian freighter because space yards count as cargo! The only way to smoke out the invincible base is to use star destroying weapons hahaha.

I think we should have another RP thread. Not sure though, it is another big time commitment. RP Trait just gives you extra components like a waste processing instead of a life support.

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-18 08:18pm

Oh shit, I spelled my empire's name wrong! I must've been so bleary-eyed when I made it the other night that I misread the spelling of "symbiotic" in the dictionary (god damned finals). Is it possible to re-upload my empire file without withdrawing from the game and going back in? I don't mind if the spelling's off on the website, but I'd like it to be right in the game.

And by the way, what does selecting the default for the shipsets get you?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-18 08:22pm

Trogdor wrote:Oh shit, I spelled my empire's name wrong! I must've been so bleary-eyed when I made it the other night that I misread the spelling of "symbiotic" in the dictionary (god damned finals). Is it possible to re-upload my empire file without withdrawing from the game and going back in? I don't mind if the spelling's off on the website, but I'd like it to be right in the game.

And by the way, what does selecting the default for the shipsets get you?

You can withdraw and I'll let you back in no big deal.

Default gets you S. 8472? (first shipset in the list?) If you chose one of the default shipsets no problem. If you chose another I think it defaults to 8472. When the game starts everybody needs to download all the shipsets and extract them to the seiv/adamant 15.00/pictures/races folder.

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-18 08:35pm

Thanks, Brian.

I only asked about the shipsets because the one I'd picked to go with my empire wasn't on the list of shipsets on the site. No big deal.