Dark Horse Mod v0.81b

[mvstang]

Dark Horse.zip

Hopefully the link will work through the weekend and there wont be any bandwidth limits. Unzip the file in your SEIV directory and everything should unzip into the correct place. I started with the TDM mod files when working on the mod, so anything that's unchanged came from that mod.

This is the mod that I've been working on over the past two weeks or so. Some of the discussion on it has already taken place in my "How soon to post a mod" thread on these Boards.

This is still a beta Version of the mod. For full details of all that has been change (and changed back and changed back again), see the attached Version history.txt file. The overall premise is for a game in which construction times are a little more realistic for a civilization just beginning it's exploration of the galaxy. You won't be able to pump out a ship every turn at the start of the game, in fact it'll probably take you a year or so to get that first ship, be it an escort or a colony ship. If you want have a giant armada and huge pitched battles by year 10, you probably wont enjoy the changes I made to the mod.

Ship construction, especially towards the mid-end game, is designed to be done in space. There are 9 level of space based ship yard components, and now 9 space base sizes to accomodate the various orbital ship yards.

The movement/engine system has received a large overhaul. In general, the smaller ships use ion engines, the middle ships C-T and JP engines and the largest ships use quantum engines. Take note that the size (tonnage) of the engines has been changed drastically, as has the max. engines and engines per move of every ship in the game.

I've also designed the mod to be more carrier/fighter dependent, but haven't gotten far enough in a game to test that aspect yet.

Issues that I'll be working on towards the v1.0 release:

- Balancing ship costs and abilities.

- Make sure facilities costs are reasonable (Everything I've seen so far seems okay other than ship yards, space ports and resupply depots may still be too expensive)

- Heavy testing and modification of fighter/carrier abilities to make them the core asset of an empire

- Computer AI to handle the changes. As of this release, I've only included the stock set of races standard with SEIV to keep the size of the download low, and to not assume people have certain races. At this point the testing I'm doing is more on how the mod is for the players and not how well the AI handles the changes. Feel free to add on your favorite races and see if the AI can handle the mods. After I get the game balanced, I'll work on getting some AI files and more races.

After I get a good v1.0 released, towards v2.0 I plan on expanding the tech trees, weapon types, extra components, more races, etc, but that's a ways off for now.

I'd recommend playing with high tech costs and a low starting tech level. I've been playing with a large galaxy, medium # of computer players at medium difficulty with no bonus, but the computer factor isn't as necessary to play around with yet.

I'll be washing clothes and packing for my vacation all night, plane leaves in about 9 hours, so if anyone has any questions, I should be around until then. After that, I won't be able to respond to anything until next Monday, but feel free to leave any questions/comments/suggestions/complaints you have about the mod.

Enjoy!

[ December 06, 2003, 09:26: Message edited by: mvstang ]

[Fyron]

I will place a copy on SE.net tomorrow for you, so bandwidth will not be an issue.

[Atrocities]

This looks like a nice mod. I am looking forward to playing it.

[Fyron]

I have uploaded the mod to SpaceEmpires.net: Dark Horse

[mvstang]

Latest changes put in, current Version is 0.81b.

Dark Horse v0.81b

For 0.8b I entered in the major fighter changes I had off the top of my head. First tonnages are 20,30,40 instead of 15,20,25. I added 3 missle types, and 2 torpedo types which only fighters can carry. The 3 missle types (Dumb Fire, Heat Seeking, Image Recognition) can only target Ftr/Satel/Seeker/Drone, and are mostly useful as anti-fighter weapons (turning a fighter into an interceptor). The two torpedo types are also carried by fighters and used againt capital ships. The first generation will skip regular shields, the second generation will skill all shields (ie phased). Damage is extremely high (400 up to 1000 pts for the highest end Torp), but they're also extremely expensive and will only fit on the largest fighters (turning the fighter into a bomber). Hopefully giving fighters the ability to demolish capital ships and each other will put a heavier reliance on them. Not that the AI knows what it's doing at this point

The two minor changes for 0.81 were cheaper space ports, resupply depots and shipyards, and an increase in production rates for the early and mid game. I began to find it too tedious in the early game. Way too much sitting around waiting for the one or two ships you have queued up to be built. Hopefully these changes will increase the fun of the early game without changing the length of time it'll take to churn out the big ships towards the mid-end game.

I'm also debating putting a mod of my own mod out with all the changes I've put in except the changes to build times, so the rest of the features could still be put in and enjoyed in a multiplayer fashion at vanilla speed instead of the slowed down Version. That'll probably happen around v1.0.

Enjoy!