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

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-03 01:16am

In my experience, anything over 100 systems is way too many. I used to be one of those people that modified the config file to generate 255 systems, too, until I found out how friggin' long it makes a game take.

Anyway, I just built a stock standard physical race with no religion, psionics, or anything. Wanted to see how the bog standard tech stacks up.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-03 01:45am

Trogdor wrote:Yeah, that's the only thing you get from taking the inherent regeneration trait. I don't get your invinciship idea, though. It's a crew quarters that doubles as a repair component. It doesn't repair stuff during combat or anything.

And yes, the Talisman of Zeal is brutal. I strongly considered going deeply religious for that and the Talisman of Fate, which adds a defense bonus that stacks with the ECM. I think you only need the life ethos to get that, but I could be wrong.

Still not as insane as the stock 'always hit' talisman. Just stand back with a spacial imploder, and watch enemy fleets MELT.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-03-03 01:45am

You're not missing out on that much. IIRC, psionic tech's not that great. There are some psionic weapons that are pretty good, but nothing mindblowing. Religious tech, as Brian pointed out, allows for some beastly attack and defense bonuses on ships. Other than that it's mostly just a bunch of structures that gives bonuses to various things, depending upon what mythos they come from. But those structures' bonuses usually don't stack with the the structures you get in the default tech trees and perform the same functions.

The mechanoid tech tree grants you a component that gives ships a bonus to attack and defense which stacks with the combat sensor and ECM. Other than that, it's not that great. Hell, the structure which supposedly prevents plagues doesn't even fully work.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-04 11:50am

So when are the other players going to join so we can get started?

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-03-04 11:54am

Sorry for the delay guys. I'm building my shipset which means I've got to draw all the images myself. Another good afternoon of work and I should be done. I have no idea of Tobor's level of readiness.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-04 11:32pm

Well here's to The Beast and Taiidan and Soomtaw supremacy.

My race is here, the Assidians. I noticed downloading the race from the PBW Service doesn't put the race pictures in the right folder, and there's some cool race sets here so here you are.

<edit>One thing I noticed is the game crashes if the "Generate Random AI Controlled Empires" is checked. Maybe this is because I put in invalid AI files. What happens when you play the computer Trogdor, are they intelligent?

Also we are starting with good homeworlds right? This mod's "medium" technology start seems to work well and not give you technology you're not supposed to have like B5 mod

. And medium technology cost too?
</edit>

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-04 11:40pm

brianeyci wrote:Well here's to The Beast and Taiidan and Soomtaw supremacy.

My race is here, the Assidians. I noticed downloading the race from the PBW Service doesn't put the race pictures in the right folder, and there's some cool race sets here so here you are.

Brian

You're playing Beast?

Lemme guess. Organic Tech race with Pirate setting?

Edit: Vasudan Race Pictures? An Uziel, Mad Cat, and Awesome battlemech as troops sizes? Woow.

Everyone, submit your empires ASAP please!

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-03-04 11:43pm

Wait, what tech setting are we using? I was assuming Low.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-04 11:47pm

Wanted to, but I kept twinking and twinking and found a way to be really competitive with physical race. And my strategy doesn't work with pirates or nomads, and I want to be competitive this game and strut my stuff since it's not an RP. If it was RP I would have went pirates and organic, but oh well.

Low tech cost or low tech start? I was thinking medium tech cost and medium tech start.

<edit>I was thinking high resource start too, so we get the extra research points in the beginning. Maybe even 10 homeworlds, but I guess that's too much for some people

</edit>

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-05 12:01am

brianeyci wrote:Wanted to, but I kept twinking and twinking and found a way to be really competitive with physical race. And my strategy doesn't work with pirates or nomads, and I want to be competitive this game and strut my stuff since it's not an RP. If it was RP I would have went pirates and organic, but oh well.

Low tech cost or low tech start? I was thinking medium tech cost and medium tech start.

<edit>I was thinking high resource start too, so we get the extra research points in the beginning. Maybe even 10 homeworlds, but I guess that's too much for some people </edit>

Brian

I think Medium Tech Start and Tech Cost work with 5 planets. We start well, but progressing past that is harder. At medium tech, we start with double speed engines, so we should be able to make relatively fast colonizers from the start (speed 4).

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-05 12:24am

Hmm cool, just made a few more tweaks. Doesn't really make sense to call myself beast if I'm not pirate and organic, plus the models don't look infected anyway.

I think we should have a high resource start. The storage maxes out early on anyway and it'll just let us open up a couple more theoretical areas with 100k bonus research points the first turn.

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-05 12:59am

Tweaked my empire a tad too. But uh.

Ouch. I checked medium starting tech. It's a very extensive package. We'll start low tech, with low cost.

Medium tech gives about half of the 'basic' tech trees. So that's like level 6 in improved lasers too.. a bit too much.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-05 01:09am

As long as we get the high resource start and good planets I'm happy with whatever other settings there are. Low-tech is good too.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-05 01:51am

With 5 homeworlds, do we really need low tech cost? Keep in mind that it doesn't divide the cost of each tech, it actually divides the rate of cost progression for each additional level, thus seriously screwing up the balance of techs. It can mean the difference of millions of research points for a given tech tree. With techs like ship constructions, for instance, we'll have the biggest ships way too quickly. We saw this happen with the Star Trek game, and I'd like to avoid it here.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-03-05 01:52am

Good, I don't need to redo my entire strategy.

(Frakkin' head... aiiee).

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-05 01:54am

You have a strategy? I never make strategies. I just play by ear, and change my mind every few turns.

Trogdor can attest to that.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-03-05 02:22am

I tried that in the ST game and got Borged for it. Time for something new! Planning!

Oh, yeah, my shipset is now available.

All your worlds will be given in tribute to your leader, General Zod.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-05 02:30am

Hrm. I suppose we could go med tech cost/low start. Lemme run a game to see how that goes. I know if we do that though, it'll take a while longer than the Trek game. Maybe twice or thrice as long. Too many homeworlds is bad in this mod, since those things are fracking invincible. You need a planet-cracker to actually take one out.

Edit: Woah. With 5 Homeworlds, you get around 20-25k research per turn, and the average tech costs at least 40k to research one level. For propulsion especially, this'll suck hard if we do it that way.

I think low cost is the way to go. Remember, we had the PBEM 5x research trait on during the ST game!

Edit2: Playing a bit.. at turn 7, I have a speed 3 colony ship, and basic weapons and mines. I think that pace is going to be just fine, considering all the detail this game has.

Research facilities in this mod only give about 300 points too, instead of 600. So I think we'll be fine.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-03-05 10:13am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:You have a strategy? I never make strategies. I just play by ear, and change my mind every few turns. Trogdor can attest to that.

This is true. The plans grand offensive in the ST game changed numerous times

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-05 11:03am

Playing a bit.. at turn 7, I have a speed 3 colony ship

Five colony ships and ten scouts by turn five, all four speed. Turns six ten colony ships and ten scouts. Turn sixteen 50 colony ships, 25 of them speed 8

.

<edit>I could have speed six colony ships by turn five, but then they'd only be able to travel two systems worth. All my designs can travel at least four systems worth, even my speed eight. Yes, this is with low tech start and low tech cost, but I'm using both propulsion expert traits. Might hurt me in hte long run (had to divert points from everywhere to afford it) but I hope to seize enough territory to make up for my resource and research shortfalls. Gogogo zerg rush!</edit>

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-03-05 12:06pm

Scout ships need to use solar sails to be good, though, otherwise they crap out pretty quickly.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-05 12:14pm

Too much of an investment, early on I think. Dozens of crucial technologies like weapons, shields, mines, ship hulls, sensors, armor. Astrophysics I costs 50K and each level of Stellar Harnessing costs 15k, and we only start out with 15k research with 5 planets...

...by the time turn 20 comes along and you have research points to spare, your borders should be well defined.

It's almost a no-brainer what two theoretical areas you need to choose the first turn--physics for sensors and shields, and construction for mines and fighters. Astrophysics would set you back one of these, or four turns worth of research if you choose later. Four levels worth of weapons, shields, hull sizes, propulsion...

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-05 12:18pm

Well, then I suppose low tech cost is the way to go. I just don't like the way it changes the cost relationships between techs and the way that you see maxxed out ship construction, shields, etc. before you start to see anyone with the min. levels of more expensive techs.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-03-05 12:28pm

True. I was still thinking of a medium tech start game, where you can have solar sail I after your first turn.

The short range of any scout without solar sails makes them rather useless, however. So the only solution is to hold off on building scouts until you have some extra research points. Until then, just focus on colonization, I guess.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-05 12:30pm

Nobody in their right mind would collect a fleet together before at least a 400 kT hull. There just isn't enough room for weapons, sensors, shields and everything else until you get to around destroyer.

Now, since this is quasi-Newtonian movement, maybe I'm wrong. But I can't fit more than a handful of weapons into anything less than 300 kT. Not to mention you need enough ships to overcome satellites, weapons platforms and mines.

So I think medium cost would just drag on the game until everybody reaches this threshold (and if you attack earlier you'll fail because of mines, weapons platforms, warp point defense, satellites, orbital fighters that you can build right from the start, defense bases that can be built in two turns, and so on).

<edit>One thing I noticed in this mod is supply is a real pain in the ass. At most you can move four or five star systems before your supplies run out, and then your ship will be lean as hell. And capturing colonies is difficult so island hopping from one colony to the next is going to be hard. And if you use bigger ships you'll need more engines that use up more supply, and you'll need more reactors. Building tanker ships might solve it, but I doubt it since the more engines = more supplies and if you rip out all the weapons and put reactors instead you'll have one fat sitting duck.

It should make wars interesting.
</edit>

Brian