Hi everybody,
i finally managed to "complete" my mod and so i decided to create a new thread to announce (okay, a bit late) this mod, and to create a place where players can talk about it.
(i have to admit i hope this mod to get famous and give a new gameplay to everyone)
This mod is called "Impact". In fact when i first started modding i called this mod "UltiMOD" but i recently discovered this may sound a bit selfish
and arrogant.
So i thought up a new name, and now its just "Impact".
Its called Impact just because i like the word and because i hope the mod will have a certain impact on players that will hopefully play it
Now about the mod gameplay itself:
The mod is centered about a science-fiction theme, so its no total conVersion like Fantasy Empires, its mainly basics of Space Empires 4 with almost EVERY aspect majorly enhanced or redone in the way i like it.
A small word about AI-capability. This mod comes in TWO Versions. The only difference between the 2 Versions is one file, its about the vehiclesize file.
I have created 4 AIs which work very well and should give you a good time. Unfortunally the AIs only work with the "basic" vehiclesize file.
I will explain the difference later, but for now here comes the feature list:
- Mod can be played SP and MP (though made for MP)
- A -fully- remade techtree, almost no old techs (see later)
- A new system for hulls which will in detail be explained later.
- Propulsion system is a mix between SE 4 Standart and QNP. Bigger hulls need more engine power than smaller hulls, and enhanced hulls need less engine power than new hulls (think prototype is not as power efficient as an enhanced design)
- The game features new ressource system, somehow similar to the one in the SJ mod, will be explained later in this post.
- New graphics (well at least new icons to present research, metal, workers and energy)
- A new system for weapons. For details look down.
- A not-so-new system for shields.
- A new system for armor, which im very proud off. For details look down.
- Introduction of primary and secondary weapons (think shock weapons)
- Enhanced system for construction facilities / planetbased construction
- New facilites based on the proportions mod (settlement, cities and stuff)
Okay, now you know about the stuff in this mod. If you are still interested and look for details, please read on
1 - AI / Computer players and shipsizes (IMPORTANT)
The mod comes in two Versions, one which can be played against the computer, one which is made for multiplayer.
The only difference is the fact that the vehiclesize file.
Basic vehiclesize file (SP): Features "conventional" ship classes. This means you research normal hulls, like scout, escort, corvette etc.
This works just as in normal SE 4 or most other mods. This is the only way i was able to setup the AI to play effective.
Enhanced vehiclesize file (MP): Features greatly enhanced ship classes. You research certain hulls and can decide on weither you want to enhance/improve the hull or go on for a bigger hull.
Example: Tech Shipconstruction 1 makes "Prototype Scout" Hull available AND will led to Tech "Shipconstruction 2" AND Tech "Scout Hull enhancement".
You can decide on weither you want to research Scout Hull enhancement, which will make a "normal" and one level later "enhanced" scout hull ready, or you can decide to directly research shipconstruction 2 in order to get access to "Prototype Escort" hull. The list goes on, each shipsize has 3 hulls, Prototype, Normal and Enhanced.
Essentially this leads to an enhanced gameplay. Think about it, do you want Enhanced Heavy Cruisers or Prototype Light Battlecruisers ?
To make this even deeper, the difference between the 3 hulltypes per shiptype is quite big. Prototype ships cost more maintaince, have penalty
to defense and offense (though minor) and require more engine power for movement while having less tonnage.
Enhanced hulls give a maintaince reduction, need less engine power, give offense and defense boni AND have more tonnage but cost research points.
While small ships (scout escort and stuff) can easily be enhanced (only few research points) but bigger hulls like Cruisers will cost a lot
of research to be enhanced, so it may be more efficient to skip them and head directly for battlecruisers or whatever you like.
It took me a lot of time to balance this...In my opinion this will have a major influence on gameplay and tech descision.
As mentioned this change goes only for the multiplayer Version.
Unfortunally it is not possible to create an AI for the enhanced file, due to big problems with the many hulls and different engines per move setting.
In addition my respect goes out to every AI modder. Its friggin hard and it took me ages to get it right.
2 - Tech tree
This is quite short to explain. The Tech tree has almost entirely been revamped. Only a few minor techs are the same as stock SE 4.
3 - Shipsizes
This in an important one, but i must ask you to refer to section 1 (AI) because the shipsizes and stuff have been explained there. thanks
4 - Propulsion system
The propulsion system is a mix between stock and QNP.
It goes like this: Small ships have a small engines per move setting, but a maximum, too, so you cant fit as many as you want.
Better engines create more power, so the same number of low level engines will create less power / less movement than the same amount of higher tier engines.
Each new tech level for increases the value of engines, the first level gives + 1 power, the second + 1 combat movement, third will increase the power by an additional 1, the fourth give an additional + 1 combat movement.
In addition each level needs more fuel (supplies) per move, but also store a little bit more supplies, Lastly each engine creates a small amount of power each turn per star (approx 10% of the power needed to move ONE sector).
Each level gives a +3% attack and offense bonus to show enhanced mobility
Lastly, as mentioned above, each shipsize has 3 classes, prototype, normal, and enhanced.
Prototype needs more enginepower to get the same movement than normal, and normal needs more power for movement than enhanced.
I am hoping to create a very deep system.
5 - Ressource system
Changes are made here as well. The idea comes from the SJ mod (thanks a bunch dude)
Minerals are metal, radioactives are energy and the most important thing: Organics have been turned into workers.
Almost each facility need a lot of workers (organics) to be build -AND- a small amount of workers to be maintained.
This is simulated by giving facilites an ability which will cause them to DECREASE the amount of workers (organics) (negative ability for ressource generation - organics).
While one facility dont need much workers for maintaince, the sheer amount of facilites
a player will have will cause a significant "loss" of workers.
This means that organics/workers are much more important now, as they are harder to come by and are needed for almost everything.
Tech centers (research) create a small amount of intel, intel centers create a small amount of research.
I was feeling intel was underused and there was no need to build intel centers, now they at least create a bit of research as well.
Thats mainly all about it, but i think the changes are already big enough.
6 - New graphics
Well this is a minor one. Based around the good SJ mod i created new symbols to represent research, workers and ressources.
7 - The weapon system (and in addition the shield system)
Okay, this is a MAJOR change once again.
To date "only" 8 weapon systems have been added. While this sounds like not-a-lot, it is enough, at least for now.
Usually each player chooses one weapon system which he will research throughout the game.
These weapons are branched, there is a tree for sonic, gauss, laser, plasma, gauss ETC.
The weapons are not the same, though they are balanced and feel different.
The difference is mainly about the cost (think laser costs more energy than gauss) or about damage and range (think sonic more range less damage)
Each weapontree offers "conventional" weapons as well as point defense.
The deepth in this new system comes now: Each weapontree features 3 "sub" weapons. Explaination:
Gauss Weapons has 12 levels.
Level 1-12 offer the Gauss Turret I-XII
Level 4/6/8 offer the Gauss Particle Acclerator I-III
Level 7/9/11 offer the Gausscompressor Cannon I-III
The clue behind this is that the turret is a small, fast firing weapon, while the compressor cannon offer the firepower of about a douzen turrets, but the size of 6 turrets.
I was thinking about babylon 5 when i was making this (thinking a destroyer has 6 or 8 small turrets and only 2 or 3 "real" weapons)
In fact the the small turrets are quite weak, but at the beginning it is okay to use them.
Once shields come into play, it becomes more important get weapons which offer more firepower.
Shields in this mod are NOT leaky, but they have "shield generation from damage" ability. This means that a small weapon (gauss tower) which only does 30 damage at mid-tier will lose a lot of power when fighting against low-tier shields (because lets say a lvl 3 shield will soak up 10 points, here 33% of the damage, so only 66% will actually doing damage)
Given you had a gausscompressor cannon with like 250 damage, then the low-tier shield would STILL soak up 10 points, but this time it would only be 4%).
Shields come in different techs as well, those are just eye-candy though.
You research shield tech -> get magnetism shielding -> get antimatter shielding and so on.
I just added different names to make the game more interesting, hope u like it. Better shields offer more shieldpoints, more shield regeneration AND a small bonus to the create-shieldpower-from-damage ability.
Conclusion: Shields soak up damage, so use weapons with a big bang against shield, or else you will most propably do no damage at all.
I cant go any deeper, but you will understand what i mean once you play my mod. Just a small note: Bigger weapons cost ALOT.
It is not unnormal to pay 2000 ressources for a mid-tier weapons
8 - Armor/Hull strengh
Okay, here you go. This is TOTALLY new system for armor, and im very proud of it. I hope you like it as much as i like it
I have to say it again, i really LOVE my armor system
Armor has been revamped into "hull". Each shipsize/classification offers a mount for the researched armor/hull.
Example: You research hull tech level 2. This will give you a new COMPONENT called "Nudron Hull II".
This component can only be used once in each ship, it has a size of 0 and in this example a damage resistance of 13.
(more hull research offers better hull with more damage resistance).
Now our Nudron Hull II component has an scale mount for EACH ship which will increase cost and dmg resistance.
This means that our Nudron Hull II WITH mount (important!) will have dmg resistance of 40 when used in a prototype scout, 60 when used in an
advanced scout and 200 when used in a normal destroyer. Each new level in hull research offers a new hull with increase the dmg resist by 30%.
I hope you get the idea, anyways I LOVE this. I really like the idea of having a hull which acts as armor (just like in real life)
Later on your ships will get pretty strong, given the right hull on a big ship. I remember putting a lvl 10 hull on a dreadstar (biggest "ship")
which offered a dmg resist of like 1400
nice one.
Keep in mind that the hulls are "leaky", that means they dont get hit first (dont have "armor" ability)
9 - Combat enhancement, primary and secondary weapons.
Ok, weapons again. I refer to primary weapons as conventional weapons (gauss, plasma and so on)
Secondary weapons are torpedos and missiles. They can only be used once each battle and have unlimited fuel at range 20.
They do only small damage (a little less than low tier weapons), BUT they have a very important advantage.
But while conventional weapons loss of lot of
strengh once shields appear (they are still strong, but less efficient), missiles SKIP shields. This means you can fire a volley of missiles at your enemy just before the real combat begins and maybe your douzen nitrogen missiles will destroyed or damagede have a few weapons or engines. This was mainly added for coolness reasons.
I love this, imagine a big battle and volleys of missiles explosing right before the capitol ships open beam fire. cool.
In order to balance this (so no, not adding only missiles), missiles can only be used once each battle, require a lot of supplies and do less damage than low-tier weapons, and they need a lot of workers to be build (compared to conventional weapons)
10 - Construction Faciliies / Planet-based Construction
So here is the deal. As usual: more pop gives a construction modifier.
So in fact there are two ways to increase the output of a planet, either getmore pop on the planet or construct a construction facility.
A new addition are Construction Facility add-ons. Those are not new and i have seen them in
one or two other mods. Basicly you build a construction addon facility which will do nothing except that this facility can be upgrades into a "real" addon which increase the build rate.
The idea behind this is to first build a normal construction yard and afterwards "upgrade" it with addon parts (for metal production, worker output or energy generation).
Later on ships can become pretty expensive so its almost a need to get construction yard addons in order to increase workrate.
11 - Civilization Facilities
Now about new facilities. These are based on the proportions mod. In addition to conventional facilities you can construct new ones like
"Development Zones".
Those present the stage of development on the planet, and, while costing quite a lot, will offer several advantages.
They create ressources, as well as research and intel, they also increase the cargospace and store ressources.
In addition they will add a small amount of shieldpoints (more at better development).
While the low-tier development facilities may seem "weak" or "overcosty" they are needed to upgrade them into better development zones.
Once you research the right tech, you can upgrade small village into settlements, cities and eventually even megacomplexes.
Upgrading them holds different boni, the ressource output is TRIPLED at every stage, in additation a VERY important new ability will become
available. Villages and bigger development zones will act as "construction yards", they give a small bonus to the buildrate of the planet.
While one settlement may not offer much of a boni, several of them or maybe even several megacomplexes will turn a planet a mighty base of both
construction and ressourcing.
While it may sound unbalanced at first, this is balanced by the cost. Due to the immense cost it is not efficient to directly construct bigger development zones,
the only way to pay a "good" price is to upgrade small ones into big ones. Of course players can decide on weither to or not to build these facilites.
I once a huge planet with home atmosphere, with approx 8 megacomplexes. While the planet had a rather weak ressource value it was creating thousands of
research and intel points as well a a production rate of 6000 per turn. Unfortunally it took very look to get planet, then again it was almost
invulnerable to normal attacks due to the shield points each megacomplex was offering.
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A word about the roots of this mod. There are no direct roots from other mods, but sometimes i was inspired by other mods, then again some ideas are all made up in my own brain.
Proper credits will be given once the mod is released.
Thanks for reading all the stuff, the mod will be uploaded this weekend i hope everybody downloads it. Unfortunally the mod needs the FULL imagepack to be played,
but that should be ok since every serious se4 player should have it anyway.
If you have any questions or comments or cristism or whatever, please dont hold your breath
I hope you like the changes i made, (at least now that you have read all the stuff)
Just one more thing, it took be approx 4 month to create this mod, i think i must have invested approximatly ~ 30 in creating this mod, mainly because i
changed most things more than one time or had to edit entire families (at one point i had to rework (damage) the ENTIRE weapon system which had like 8x15 components.
Later i found the tonnage of certain tier 1/2/3 weapons unbalanced....
p.s. if one of the following shipset creators read this, please tell me if it is okay if i use your shipset for an AI
-Nloam
-Cuckleheed
Edit: fixed some typos, grammer and stuff like that!
[ July 21, 2004, 17:25: Message edited by: Ragnarok-X ]
- Input needed ! New mod "Impact" almost ready !
Anyways, i like a lot of the changes you have implemented, looks like it'll be a lot of fun to play.
Asteroids Champion!
Hybrid Mode
