Pirates And Nomads
See:
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...&f=23&t=001696
As the title hints at, this mod introduces two new economic models to the game, The Pirate, and The Nomadic.
Both of the new models do not include planet colonization tech, and are focused on space-based infrastructure. They are given tiny spaceyards which can fit on escort sized ships, and boarding parties as starting technologies.
- Pirate races are geared towards stealth and ship capture. Able to hide in plain sight as Civilians, they can move through your lines undetected to strike any lightly defended targets.
Income is gained by the use or scrapping of captured ships, facilities and bases, plus the occasional slave labour camp.
Another reccommended source of income is to negotiate a trade alliance with a regular race, and do some privateering for them in exchange for the resources.
- Nomadic races are given maintenance reducing components and two bonus levels in fighter tech, so that they are capable of supporting hundreds of ships on a budget of only a few thousand resources per turn.
Reccommended sources of income are piracy, merchandising, and alliances.
There are additional, minor features to explore on your own.
The other major features of this mod were designed to increase the flexibility and variation of designs.
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QNP
Quasi-Newtonian Propulsion first appeared in P&N, and allows players to add as many engines to their designs as they see fit. Larger hulls need more engines, since Speed = Thrust / Mass (True newtonian would be Acceleration = Thrust / Mass, but QNP is closer than standard SE4's Speed = Thrust system)
Adding more engines means you sacrifice weapons, defenses and auxiliary abilities. Thus, at some point, unique to the design's job, the player's tech level and mood, and possibly the enemy's designs will all factor into the final speed of the ship.
For example, scouts can be given close to 30 speed, while military interceptors get 10, and siege warships move only 5.
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Supplies as a resource
Supplies are a rare commodity in this PBW Version of P&N. Resupply Depots and Quantum reactors have been removed from the game, so the construction and maintenance of Solar Power Stations will be critical to your success. Bases have been modified, and now have finite supplies as well they will either need to have a solar panel and a star, or timely visits by a supply ship. Laying siege to a base is possible, now, and a fleet with specialized orders could potentially induce the base to expend all of its munitions over the course of a few feints, thus leaving it defenseless for the final assault.
Supplies in this case are modelled as physical supplies. Energy supplies are modelled as radioactives cost instead. Thus, lasers and other pure-energy weapons will be very expensive to maintain, but can be fired continuously without consequences. Shells, Torpedoes, and Missiles are all super-heavy supply point sappers. Nuclear Bombardment missiles can cost you up to 400 supplies per shot. This is balanced by the fact that very little energy is required, and thus they are dirt cheap to add and maintain. Gunboats can be expected in much greater numbers than Beamers, but will be forced to stay close to their resupply points.
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Defenses
Defense balancing and widening. Shields and Armor now have their own unique advantages and disadvantages, and which is best depends on the situation at hand. Armor wins out for Hitpoints per KT, and build cost in an isolated slugging match, but comes in a distant second for maintenance and during campaigns. This can be seen in the fact that the best armor comes in 1kt components, and thus can consume horrific amounts of time and money in the repair yard afterwards as repair bays struggle with hundreds of components worth of damage. Shields, on the other hand, recover instantly after battle, and the ships can continue to press an advantage.
In addition, phased shields are mixed in with the regular shields instead of being researched completely afterwards. Phased shields are slightly weaker that normal shields per research point spent, but phased weapons have been altered accordingly.
Options are widened with specialty defenses for everything from ion cannons to null space. Includes armored engines, Buckytube Gel, and Tachyon Dampers.
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Weapons
Weapons have been prodded and tweaked to improve the range of useful types. APBs are slightly weaker, Torpedoes are given a homing ability to make up for their lack of raw firepower (+15% to +25% accuracy), and Graviton Hellbores skip armor. Phased Polaron Beams have been completely reworked, and Phased weapon research now gives you alternate Versions of the beams, torpedoes and missiles already researched with shield skipping ability and reduced damage.
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Units
Units no longer have specialized weapons and shields available for them. Instead, they use "small" through "micro" mounted ship weapons. More abilities are opened up to units, and tech availability is smoother. Researching smaller weapons and troop weapons will provide the mounts, rather than the weapons.
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Racial Traits and Techs
A sixth major racial trait has been added; Gravitic Manipulation, which gives more powerful engines, faster missile upgrades, and various other components.
A number of minor racial traits have been added as well; Tiny Race, Expanded Automation, Living Ships, PackRats, and Gun Nuts.
All of the Major racial techs also have crossover advantages. Things such as BioCrystal Armor, Temporal Cloning Vats, Spirit Crew Quarters, and more.
There are a few racial disadvantages available as well; naturalists reduces the facility space available on your planets, and endemic wastefulness increases the supply use of all ships.
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Settings.txt
The classic 700kb of Population Modifiers have been brought back to P&N for this PBW Version. With it, all population modifiers are smooth, and rates change in 1% increments as population grows. Planets start with 10% of their normal production rate, and add 1% for every 25M people on the planet.
Resource production follows a sine curve from 1% to 225%, rapidly rising to the maximum value as population approaches about 500M people. It then slowly falls off to 100% as the population rises to 2 billion.
Ground combat is reduced to 1 round per turn, allowing large, entrenched forces grind away for potentially years on homeworld class worlds, while reinforcements have time to arrive from both sides of the conflict, for troop-vs-troop action!
Militia will be seen in much greater numbers, and although their attack power is greatly reduced, they are tough to finish off due to their numbers and defensive tactics.
A number of changes to characteristics costs have been made; those most commonly used traits are increased in cost, while the unpopular ones are reduced. Maintenance reduction has been corrected, so that purchasing "+20% maintenance reduction" means you pay 20% less, for 80% of normal, rather than subtracting 20 from the base maintenance of 25, giving a total cost per turn of only 20% normal.
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Other Changes
For this PBW Version, the mine system has been reworked. There is no longer any such thing as a minesweeper component. The only way to clear mines is to grit your teeth and take the hits.
Mine damage and per-sector limits have been reduced accordingly, although with tech, the damage can be dramatically increased for an even more dramatic increase in cost.
Training Facilities have also been removed. Instead there are training components, so that you must pay maintenance on them each turn.
Costs rise faster than the training amount Squared, so planning ahead and budgeting for training is important. Players are expected to use retroseries in order to build training facilities within a reasonable amount of time.
[ January 23, 2003, 04:50: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]
Mod List
Asteroids Champion!
Linear Mode
