Modding Space Empire IV Gold

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-20 10:19pm

Emergency build?

The galaxy'll be aflame before then ha ha the xenos are killing each other and I can just sit back and watch, fun fun!

Brian

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-03-20 10:23pm

And lesse. Guppy, editing this mod would be fairly interesting and much more extensive. A lot of races need modified race files (ex, Narn for some reason are 'minmaxed' with low ground combat, while others (ex, Centauri) are not. You'd think Narns would be good at soldiering with their athleticism, wouldn't you?

I chalk that up to their tactical mastery that rivals that of the Klingons.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:The problem with this mod isn't putting stuff in, it's balancing what's already there. A truly monumental task, especially since the author doesn't appear to have written up a set of guidelines beforehand that would apply to the tech for all different races, but rather did things willy-nilly, creating massive inconsistencies. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that it's a lot harder than you probably think.

The B5 Mod is largely an attempt to match the B5 Wars system as faithfully as possible. It's all intuitive to me, but that's because I have a few games of B5 Wars under my belt.

That should give a good starting point for balance, if we were to take this idea to the conclusion.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-20 10:56pm

GuppyShark wrote:
And lesse. Guppy, editing this mod would be fairly interesting and much more extensive. A lot of races need modified race files (ex, Narn for some reason are 'minmaxed' with low ground combat, while others (ex, Centauri) are not. You'd think Narns would be good at soldiering with their athleticism, wouldn't you?
I chalk that up to their tactical mastery that rivals that of the Klingons.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:The problem with this mod isn't putting stuff in, it's balancing what's already there. A truly monumental task, especially since the author doesn't appear to have written up a set of guidelines beforehand that would apply to the tech for all different races, but rather did things willy-nilly, creating massive inconsistencies. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that it's a lot harder than you probably think.
The B5 Mod is largely an attempt to match the B5 Wars system as faithfully as possible. It's all intuitive to me, but that's because I have a few games of B5 Wars under my belt.

That should give a good starting point for balance, if we were to take this idea to the conclusion.

Please tell me then.. what's the diff between Fusion Beam, Molecular Pulsar and Antimatter gun? They all round out the exact same. ;P

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-20 11:15pm

Adamant Mod's already got everything right for multiplayer I think. quasi-Newtonian propulsion, leaky shields and enough strategy to make your head spin.

If anything B5 should be made more for co-op somehow. Not sure how this would work, at all.

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-20 11:50pm

brianeyci wrote:Adamant Mod's already got everything right for multiplayer I think. quasi-Newtonian propulsion, leaky shields and enough strategy to make your head spin.

If anything B5 should be made more for co-op somehow. Not sure how this would work, at all.

Brian

B5's made for RP play, which is what we started as, and should remain. I don't want to just crush someone because 'game wise', I should. It also gives power to people who don't want to have RPed limitations and other motivations...

I figured Gup and Koj would figure out what to do. Like set some rules on what they could and couldn't do with/to younger races. Once glassings got around though...

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-20 11:55pm

Well then the solution's obvious... make it really really difficult to conquer and glass planets, even colony worlds. Maybe a facility that gives one million shield points or something, then a weapon that can shoot through that called "mass driver" very high up the technology tree...

...would take a lot of modding to make it work though.

When I say co-op I mean RP

. Maybe game mechanics wise... make trade vital somehow. Vital as in, if you don't have trade with two or three other homeworlds, you can't support a substantial fleet. Maybe take the cap off of trade so it goes beyond 100% or something.

<edit>I've also noticed when I create a maximum technology game, I get technology from all races, not just raider race. So the technology's not linked to racial traits, and Tuxedo's right the components are not in alphabetical order and scattered around randomly.</edit>

Brian

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-03-21 10:20pm

Trogdor and Brian, I just wanted to say the RP you guys are up to at the moment is great. Kinda makes me regret being the Vorlons. Keep it up.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-03-21 11:23pm

Thank you.

I was afraid I'd gone a bit too far with Londo toasting his hope for the land grabbing he wants with Vir, but apparently I did not.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-03-25 02:50pm

How the hell did you get shields, Brian? Did you actually get them by taking apart a Shadow ship or something?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-25 02:53pm

Passive Armor Physics, need level 1 chemistry, armor and physics to open it up then you can research it higher all the way up to emissive armors. The passive armors all have a small shield generation.

The shadow thing was just something I thought up

.

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-03-25 03:00pm

Oh, okay, good. I thought you'd captured a Shadow warship and had gotten some kind of uber shields from it. I was considering going out and trying to bag a Shadow ship myself.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-25 03:26pm

I've had some for many turns now. Shh. Secret weapon.

It's In-game, a representation of advanced armor types, like Vorlon/shadow armors, or the White Star/Victory's armor.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-25 03:56pm

It's not very well done, mostly because additional levels on the same armor tree just give you cheaper armor. It's a lot smarter to go straight from passive armor physics 0 all the way to six and research emissives than research the lower inferior ones for no reason.

The support/light/medium/heavy armor suffers from the same problem. I also ran extensive simulations of mixes of armor versus pure heavy armor, and the pure heavy armor won out every single time with this saved game.

Anyway I might rewrite my RP to say Shadow armor. Shields don't really fit in this universe.

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-25 04:00pm

brianeyci wrote:It's not very well done, mostly because additional levels on the same armor tree just give you cheaper armor. It's a lot smarter to go straight from passive armor physics 0 all the way to six and research emissives than research the lower inferior ones for no reason.

The support/light/medium/heavy armor suffers from the same problem. I also ran extensive simulations of mixes of armor versus pure heavy armor, and the pure heavy armor won out every single time with this saved game.

Anyway I might rewrite my RP to say Shadow armor. Shields don't really fit in this universe.

Brian

They're not really shields, nor do they work like such. They're emissive armor that deflects a portion of each shot. Which is incidentally, how they function in game too.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-25 04:14pm

Or sometimes, all of each shot

. No, they're not shields in-universe, though the ability is exactly the same as the ST mod and Adamant Mod

. But I was thinking of this when I wrote it...

Wrong universe I know but it's too cool!

Anyway I'm gonna need a new ship graphic for my stellar manipulation ship. The way it looks now is pretty stupid and I don't want to build a warship that looks like a double decker bus

.

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-03-25 04:26pm

You plan to make a warship from a stellar manipulator barge hull? If you're planning on making something that huge, why not just use the planet killer hull instead?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-25 04:30pm

You need 20 life supports and 20 crew quarters for a planet killer, and a planet killer only has 3 move points maximum (SE:IV goes all the way up to 255 but with the QNP it goes all the way down to 1 or 2 with a 5000 kT hull and agile ship!)

At least a stellar manipulation barge moves 5. And it doesn't need 20 life supports or crew quarters or more engines just for 20% bigger hull. And my research points are busy

.

<edit>Plus think, "planet killer" can't really sell that lol.</edit>

<edit>Actually just checked I was wrong, it gives six move points. I might just use planet killer.</edit>

Brian

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-03-25 09:46pm

You can actually make a planet killer go up to 8. Trust me.

And perhaps yours aren't shields in universe... filthy Dilgar and their boarding tactics.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-25 10:23pm

Well with the best engines research can buy, I get seven move points.

If I try going over it wraps around back to 3

I'm not even close to these kind of engines yet

. Still on fusion, moving to ultraefficient fusions.

Brian

Post by **Dalton** » 2006-03-26 02:40am

Luke Starkiller · Post by **Luke Starkiller** » 2006-03-26 09:31am

Advanced Advanced Gravimetric Engines

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-03-26 08:37pm

Should we be sending ships to Cooke? I've been saving a scout for just this reason.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-03-26 09:36pm

Yes, I think sending ships to the Cooke system would be a good idea.

I would, however, strongly recommend that your ships do not enter the same sector of space as the station itself; this way, if someone breaks a treaty and forgets to move their ship out of the sector, we don't have combat randomly erupting.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-28 04:25pm

You scrapped 150 ships Uraniun?

Should have sold them to the Narns or the Dilgar lol, that's what I'm doing with my older ships.

<edit>Or the Centauri. Lol.</edit>

Brian

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-03-28 07:05pm

Dude, the maintenance on all those ships is killing me.