Space Empires Gold B5 Game (The Second)

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-13 12:30am

That could be a problem. He is out on an oil rig for work and won't be back for two weeks.

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-08-13 02:24am

If Guppy is up for it he and I can try and crunch it.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-08-13 02:45am

Please do, try and figure out what's causing the problem. Since it will probably throw the error every time until you do.

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-08-13 02:53am

Guppy informs me he has no desire to crunch the turn, and I admit I was kind or counting on his help. I'll still give it a try but it may take a while.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-13 03:13am

Not what I said. I said "can't". I didn't even think you'd heard me since you'd already left the house.

Crunching the turn entails redoing Tobor's turn for him & purposefully leaving bits out, right?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-13 04:15am

Yes, to figure out what's wrong.

I suggest the following. First "end turn" with Tobor's turn and try and process with everybody else's .plr files and a blank turn of Tobor's. You will require the .plr files from Tuxedo for every other player.

If that's possible. Do one thing at a time with Tobor until the error pops up. Maybe you need to obsolete ship designs, or don't do diplomacy that turn, or something else. Who knows.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-08-13 10:29am

Get the turn file with everyone's turns here. The site seems to be down right now, but it should come back soon.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-13 10:46am

K, I'll look ino it after work.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-14 06:27am

Crap, man.

I tried with his existing turn file - Divide by zero. I tried with a blank turn file - Worked perfectly.

Tried manually executing the turn - Divide by zero.

This might take a while...

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-14 09:42am

GuppyShark wrote:Crap, man.

I tried with his existing turn file - Divide by zero. I tried with a blank turn file - Worked perfectly.

Tried manually executing the turn - Divide by zero.

This might take a while...

No rush. It's already been two weeks plus the delays earlier. And after this Nephtys is away for nine days. It looks like we won't have a game up for a good half a month

.

Just as well since SE:V's coming out.

Brian

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-14 12:06pm

I'll try again after work tomorrow. I'll figure out what needs to be done in the turn, break it down into chunks, do half of it, see if that works, repeat.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-15 12:53am

I think it will be time for another patch, since the game seems stalled anyway.

1. Minbari should get Improved Neutron Laser
2. I think the maximum percentage of trade should be set to 200%. That way trade continues forever, representing completely intertwined economies. That'd make jump gate destructions devestating to economies (unless you have a planet to maintain contact but I digress) but more importantly it makes one empire who's been allied with another more and more dependent on the other empire. Also if we set it to something like 200%, that'd mean that the whole's greater than the sum of the parts, and I really like that idea.
3. Homeworlds can get Adamant style shields. You just need to add a phased shielding ability to homeworld hubs, let's say five hundred million phased shields. Also alter the hitpoints, firepower and number of militia per population to Adamant values and all of a sudden it becomes difficult as hell to take a planet.

It'd make the game a lot more interesting and IMO sustainable.

Brian

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-08-15 01:01am

Should add functioning jump gates to that list.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-15 01:23am

I am in the process of changing it now, should be out in 30 minutes. After that we can debate the changes, but now that everybody's got the game master password everybody can run the turn and see the changes I made.

I made militia have five times more hit points than Adamant militia and just as powerful and numerous. Taking over a homeworld should involve many many turns, with properly designed defender/attacker troops, kind of like Adamant (for those not aware me and Nephtys fought over one heavily shielded planet for fucking ages, and we were shuttling/building reinforcements to the ground troops).

Improved Neutron Laser fixed.

Added 5 million phased shielding to homeworld hubs to make planetary bombardment something for hundreds and hundreds of ships (or Vorlon/Shadow planet crackers). The shields are not really shields but represent hardened structures and interceptor technology making effective bombardment of a planet impossible except for the largest most heavily armed fleets (and even then I think it'd take two thousand ships to bring a homeworld to its knees).

As for jump gates that would change the strategic significance of the game considerably. If we do add jump gates, homeworld hubs will get a system gravitational shield ability so someone can't open a jump gate right to a person's home system.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-08-15 01:50am

I'm actually not real wild about these ideas. Why make drastic changes to a game that we're 130+ turns into?

I can see the neutron laser, but I don't know about the rest.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-15 01:54am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:I'm actually not real wild about these ideas. Why make drastic changes to a game that we're 130+ turns into?

I can see the neutron laser, but I don't know about the rest.

Planetary shields and militia are to make homeworlds more durable. Mostly for Dalton since he's had so many homeworlds glassed, but for everybody too.

Trade up to 200 or 500 is just so the game keeps getting larger and larger the longer we keep playing and alliances become harder to break as time goes by. If the game goes for another 100 turns I'll have 140% trade with the Centauri and Minbari, that's all.

Jump gates... I don't think so. Too big of a change.

<edit>
It's up. I just changed INL's, made militia more common and stronger, raised maximum trade to 500% and gave homeworld hubs five million phased shields. I think it's good, but if not oh well only cost me 15 minutes.
</edit>

Brian

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-15 05:23am

I'm opposed. If ANL are available, then I should be able to hand out Shadow Based Weapons (note: not the same potency as the Shadow Weapons I use myself. They're in the mod for this purpose but they don't work)

Having heavily shielded planets would further advantage the Ancient races, since we're the only ones with access to Planet Crackers/Death Clouds. It would also remove the "Oh Shit!" factor of seeing hostile ships in your space.

I'm also morally opposed to a greater emphasis on ground combat (since ground combat is invisible).

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-15 08:19am

What kind of Shadow based weapons are there and what races have them? The EA and Centauri?

Not heavily shielded planets. Heavily shielded homeworlds, since it takes forever to make a homeworld hub.

It is possible to simulate ground combat. Use tactical in the simulator. Design a troop transport, load it with troops and the right strategy, and you see the combat happening. I'm not so big on micromanagement... if done right, what should happen is troops land, and take tons of turns to take the planet over. The only problem is choosing the right values, since it seems troops in this mod are far more powerful than in Adamant with ship-style weapons. You have less tactical control but more strategic plotting since it would take tens of turns to subjugate a homeworld. Meanwhile an allied fleet can land troops to the rescue or you can pull your troops out if they're dying too quickly.

The "oh shit" factor is still there. It just makes it more difficult than one month to pull off subjugating an entire planet and a job for tens of thousands of troops. Also I don't mind if the Vorlons and Shadows are the only ones who can bomb homeworlds easily, since I think that should be their inherent advantage. YR can still do it... but it'd take the entire Minbari fleet, or several other YR combined with thousands of ships.

Anyway if my changes are too radical... that's fine too. But to be honest my changes don't really matter. If it gets to a point when a fleet's in orbit of your homeworld, you're fucked since it's blockaded. Then the person can go onto M5 and plead for intervention, since it'd take several tens of turns to subjugate a whole planet

. INL's don't really matter since they're not that much more powerful. More trade doesn't matter since it just increases by 1% every turn. More miltia doesn't matter since building very very large numbers of troops is pretty easy with hundreds of shipyards in orbit (though a pain in the ass) and troops are 0 maintainence so it's easy to build up tens of thousands. It'd just take more effort and an army would be something to protect rather than piss away.

Brian

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-08-15 08:41am

brianeyci wrote:What kind of Shadow based weapons are there and what races have them? The EA and Centauri?

IF we follow the history then obviously the EA (though the Centauri acquire the AI pilots).

B5 Wars gives us:

Light Molecular Slicer Beam: Nothing less than a lesser slicer beam, incorporating the all important armour negation.

Light Multiphase Cutter: Primarily a defense weapon with a high rate of fire, though the regular version (Shadow only) is well capable of destroying enemy ships (though for them, it's a PDF gun again).

Phasing Pulse Cannon: These are the augmented main guns of the Shadow Earth Omegas. They come in several sizes. Unlike other Shadow (and Vorlon for that matter) they are not immure to defensive fire, energy webs, particle impeders, plasma webs or any young race shield.

Regular Shadow weapons basically unstoppable, except by other Ancients shields and special armour. Vorlons aren't so nasty, as they allow you your armour, but are just as immune to younger defenses.

Speaking of shields, any chance the vorlon shields mentioned in the mod can somehow be inserted? Not that I'm biased

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-15 08:59am

I was more thinking of what weapons were already in the mod but had a broken tech tree, like Improved Neutron Laser, rather than adding brand new wholesale weapons.

For the Vorlon shields I'm not sure. Do the Ancients get any kind of armor at all? If they do they get emissive armor. Vorlon shields would likely just be a slightly better kind of emissive armor, but phased instead of regular shields.

Brian

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-08-15 09:30am

Under the description of some of the Shadow weapons it mentions they ignore armour and shields, excluding 'special vorlon shields'. I'm not sure exactly what that means, besides something is clearly lacking.

Yeah my ships in the current mod are all emissived up. It's really not right but there's no way I can be competitive without it.

If we're to be true to the universe, shields should be redone entirely. Only the Brakiri, Whitestars and Vorlons should get shields. Shadow Diffusers should be in there too, though they're functionally similar. There's a whole list of ancient special rules that are lacking at th moment, depends really on how much you want to rewrite.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-08-15 11:40am

This is what I don't like about these changes:

500% trade limit is incredibly drastic. It will lead to a ballooning of the amount of ships available, and it will mean that whichever side has the most trading partners wins. It's also untested, since I've never seen more than 40% in a mod, so there's the Murphy's Law factor.

5 million phased shield points is a crapload. I have one planet with almost 15 homeworld facilities on it, so that's 75 million shields. Nothing can get through that, and it also goes against canon, as planetary shields have never been demonstrated in the show. Not even Epsilon IV with the Great Machine had one. If planets had shields, then the bombardments of Narn and Centauri Prime in the show couldn't have happened.

As for the troops, it's already biased toward homeworlds, as you can stack so many troops on a homeworld using the orbital shipyards that a bunch of fully loaded PK transports would be needed. And if someone is bringing PK transports up to your planet, you're screwed already.

The Improved Neutron Lasers I can see because the EA and Drakh can get Light Molecular Slicers, and INL's are barely any better than regular NL's. Still, if it's such a minor change, should we even bother?

If there's one change we shoud have made before people had designed and built them, it's that the younger races should most certainly not get PK's, or even base ships, and Vorlon and Shadow PK's should have been limited to a planet-cracking weapon and some minor defenses. If you ask me, nobody should get base ships, heavy base ships, or stellar manip barges (whose purpose I still can't figure out). It should go straight from SD's to PK's for Ancients and stop at SD's for YR's. That would be much closer to what we see in the show.

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-08-16 12:06am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:Vorlon and Shadow PK's should have been limited to a planet-cracking weapon and some minor defenses.

I have a PK mining ship that will, when it reaches it's destination, be pulling in over 100K per turn

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-16 12:35am

15 homeworld facilities? That's crazy. You're saying you have 15 homeworld hubs on a planet? They take 99 years to make!

I just have a couple. I never paid attention to facilities and just recently got the fleet training ones.

As for the ballooning, that sounds bad, and so does the troops, now that I think of it. Orbital bombardment makes ground combat obsolete anyway, and there doesn't seem to be a way to prevent that except by giving planets shields. If five million is too much, maybe 500k, or less. The shields wouldn't really be shields, but representation of fortifications and point defense. Anyway there are already shields... advanced military outpost gives 17500 shields.

If you want a major change... I want fucking 1200 damage Kirishiac gravimetric warheads

. Can I have them?

Another major change... how about giving everybody super heavy fighters and massive fighters, that are right now only Drazi racials.

Brian

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-16 12:38am

Naah, I want a reason to play Drazi in the next game!