Space Empires Gold B5 Game (The Second)

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-08-21 05:32pm

The leaky armor theory applies to a mod that's been properly designed, such as Adamant, but not so much to the B5 mod, where the costs and resistances favor all heavy armor. Besides, standard armor may not be skipped by armor skippers, but neither is advanced armor, so that's not a point in the standard armor's favor. Meanwhile, the advanced armor is absorbing hundreds of damage per shot, so it's still better even if standard has higher total resistance.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-08-21 08:24pm

"Divide by zero", omitting Dilgar turn fixes it. Something's borked again.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-21 10:59pm

Whack that file up and I'll fix again.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-08-22 12:00am

Done. Same URL.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-22 12:25am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:The leaky armor theory applies to a mod that's been properly designed, such as Adamant, but not so much to the B5 mod, where the costs and resistances favor all heavy armor. Besides, standard armor may not be skipped by armor skippers, but neither is advanced armor, so that's not a point in the standard armor's favor. Meanwhile, the advanced armor is absorbing hundreds of damage per shot, so it's still better even if standard has higher total resistance.

Depends whether you bring enough repair ships with you to repair all the broken components. A combination should keep ships alive longer and make it less likely damage leaks through. Imagine if the Dilgar's one engine on the US ship hadn't been damaged... Centauri Prime and the Centauri homeworlds would be glass now.

Cost is not so important in this mod, because of the obscene maintainence reduction.

You're right that it hasn't been properly implemented. Anybody building a unit, if you want them tougher rather than cheaper, should go with light armor. Leaky armor should not be available to units since it doesn't work. And there's a 20k limit on units in space, so even though a fighter might be twice as expensive, it's probably worth it going with light armor on a fighter instead of heavy.

Brian

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-22 06:24am

Would you believe that it was not in fact the Dilgar who were responsible for this Divide by Zero error?

I was able to determine that ground combat was the inciting error (not Cargo Transfer and ground combat in the same turn as I had previously thought).

The Narn fleet protecting the Cascan system was recently destroyed and this left the system wide-open to Dilgar invasion.

Ground combat operations have not been a problem so far except for Centauri worlds.

I believe I have discovered why:

Trogs built infantry with no guns for the happiness bonus. This would be fine and dandy but they seem to cause a divide by zero when the game tries to use them to fight!

The Dilgar Empire has no intention whatsoever of letting these filthy pacifists defend their planets with the power of zero! I demand everyone with such 'garrison forces' jettison them into space!

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-22 08:30am

I vote yes. I suggest that police troops from now on must have a weapon in addition to their cockpit and by next turn everybody gets rid of police troops without weapons.

Any future mod with troops should make the cockpit a 1 damage weapon as well to avoid this conundrum.

Just as well, because it's bloody annoying. Anyway, that's what the Garrison mount is for, or the Militia mount, to make the troops cheaper, if anybody's desperate for really cheap police troops.

Brian

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-22 08:38am

Thanks Brian, but I want to make this absolutely clear.

People using these troops need to get rid of them this turn or commit to handing any world with a Dilgar transport next to it over to them.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-22 08:44am

GuppyShark wrote:Thanks Brian, but I want to make this absolutely clear.

People using these troops need to get rid of them this turn or commit to handing any world with a Dilgar transport next to it over to them.

I wanted to take all of EA's worlds in one turn in the beginning of the game. Make 60 move couriers, drop troops on every EA world, Narn World, Centauri world and whatever world I could get my hands on. I decided not to since if it worked it'd be game over and if it didn't it'd be game over for me. Then I got afraid someone would do it to me so I built mines over all my planets

.

Anyway, only Tuxedo can make a decree like that since it'll affect everybody whose happiness is held together by police troops. I think it's up to him whether to order people to hand over planets to the Dilgar or jettison troops. More likely, it should be like this--for this turn only, the Dilgar identify planets they're taking and the Centauri and whoever jettison police troops this turn, and for everybody else so they don't have to redo their turns they can jettison next turn, or keep them until an invasion's imminent. And not build any new ones.

Of course there's a certain elegance to "Everybody, jettison police troops now or give your planets over to Tobor" that can't be matched, so who knows.

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-08-22 10:34am

Crap, I have those police troops on every planet I possess. How about we all just agree not to try and conquer Centauri planets? Eh? Eh?

No, huh?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-22 12:55pm

Trogdor wrote:Crap, I have those police troops on every planet I possess. How about we all just agree not to try and conquer Centauri planets? Eh? Eh?

No, huh?

Well if you want more dead Centauri Mollari, no problem

.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-08-22 06:25pm

Okay, anybody using no-gun police troops should jettison them.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-08-22 07:04pm

All right, I guess it's only fair. Shall I redo the current turn or wait until the next one?

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-22 08:18pm

Current, please.

Also, Dalton will need to do the same as he's got one of your former worlds, and anyone else you've gifted these troops to or who has built similar troops them themselves.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-08-22 09:38pm

That's a bit of a problem, seeing as how he's dropped out (although I assume he gifted his worlds to Trogdor). If he has, Tobor can just hold off on annexing his worlds until next turn.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-08-22 11:14pm

All right, I've redone my turn. And to make it fair, I've only ordered my shitty, one gun troops to replace the no gun, fear the power of zero troops. Oi, the Centauri taxpayers won't like this.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-23 12:07am

If he has, Tobor can just hold off on annexing his worlds until next turn.

Why don't any of my worlds get annexed? Especially when I had 300 heavy baseships!

I keep wanting some xeno scum to try and glass or capture a human world so Marxis can lure U235 in a war. It's getting so I might have to manufacture something.

I put a bullseye on my chest when I sold and gave away my entire fleet and still nobody came after me. I guess Marxis is playing all sides well, but nobody has to feel indebted to me just because I didn't trounce the map on turn 20 with my 300 light cruisers. If anybody wants to attack the Corporate Sector for IC reasons, go ahead. I'm waiting

.

Brian

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-23 12:24am

Maybe it's because Marxis hasn't declared war on the Dilgar.

Declaring war on the Dilgar appears to be something of a bad move...

Thanks for doing that Trogs. I'll redo the Dilgar turn when I get home from work and refrain from seizing Narn worlds this turn on the understanding that they will be handed over in diplomacy next turn.

An alternative would be for Arthur to do the Narn turn and jettison those zero gun troops. Then the original Dilgar turn should still work.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-23 12:27am

The Dilgar rake in too much cash money. Trade's business and as much as Marxis wants a pax humania, money's more important.

Well, except when I give two hundred super dreadnaughts to the Hurr.

The only thing about the Dilgar is, they only exist at the whim of the more humane superpowers. I can't imagine Dilgar ship designs stopping Trogdor's Maximus or Kraken, so he must be holding back. Now if Tobor was somehow defeating Trogdor's fleets in combat, I'd be very impressed. What the hell is going on there? I expected Trogdor's super fleet to waltz right in orbit of Dilgar Prime and glass it after the five billion Centauri

.

The Brakiri are sitting with 100 baseships at Tobor's doorstep. If I was him I'd start sucking Kullenbrach's cock and begging at Mollari. The Dilgar can't expect the galactic community to turn a blind eye forever... eventually someone is just gonna get too pissed off and kill them off, or enslave them.

Brian

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-23 02:24am

That's what I thought seventy turns ago. The Dilgar have just pounded the Narn into submission and won major gains against the Centauri. They even had the Vorlons giving it a go a while back.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-23 04:41am

So is it possible you can do the Narn turn Arthur? It would be a lot better that way IMO.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-08-23 08:47am

I just tried simming some armor and a ship with 800 structural supports (the 0 kT 5 damage resistance armor). It crashed the game.

Shadow Living CPU I is better than SLC X, since X is more money and the same damage resistance.

Also, because of this line,

Code: Select all

Combat To Hit Modifier Per Square Distance                            := 2

Anything that shoots at long range has an immense advantage. Firing at 20 range only lowers your chance to hit by 40%, easily overcome by the three different kinds of combat sensors. Hence the Minbari, Vorlon and Shadow dominance of space.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-08-23 06:47pm

I pointed that out a long time ago, and nobody believed me.

Anyway, being the host doesn't give me access to peoples' passwords, so I can't do the Narn turn.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-08-23 06:56pm

Shouldn't the PBW website have it or else how is someone else supposed to take it over?

EDIT: Turn uploaded.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-08-23 11:44pm

brianeyci wrote:The only thing about the Dilgar is, they only exist at the whim of the more humane superpowers. I can't imagine Dilgar ship designs stopping Trogdor's Maximus or Kraken, so he must be holding back. Now if Tobor was somehow defeating Trogdor's fleets in combat, I'd be very impressed. What the hell is going on there? I expected Trogdor's super fleet to waltz right in orbit of Dilgar Prime and glass it after the five billion Centauri .

More of my unfortunate McClellen tendancies, I suppose. Also, the Dilgar's US fleet did a decent amount of damage to the Centauri 1st Expeditionary Force. It also doesn't help that I wasn't ready to fight a war of conquest when this started and Tux gave the needed support ships to Dalton rather than me.

Fear not, though. I tend to take my sweet time with preparing for invasions but when I finally get going I move with unstoppable force. Londo enjoys having the moral high ground, but I'm not going to try and figure out how exactly the alien hardware works, if you catch my drift.

Oh, and you want to wait until the next turn before you start going on about how I've occupied the Narn Remnant? For all I know, Dalton may've just pulled out and didn't give me shit.