weapon platforms, weight ratios and modding questions

[orev_saara]

I'm in the process of creating my own personal mod, and a thought struck me Last night: Why weapon platforms? They really make no sense. For projectile guns and missile launchers, you have all of that gravity to overcome. Launching a missile out of orbit uses tremendous amounts of fuel. As for energy weapons, you have atmosphere to get through, which would degrade just about anything, espacially those projectile guns. A depleted uranium cannon firing from ground, through atmosphere, and escaping orbit? Ludicrous. Not really impossible, but far costlier than putting a similar launcher in orbit beforehand. The whole concept of planetary weapon platforms is somewhat fanciful, but they can have a huge impact on SE games, especially if you allow any WP range extending mounts. If anything, there should be WP range-decreasing mounts. Maybe someone else already said all of this.

The reason that I thought of all of this is mostly that I was trying to reason out how much cargo Earth could reasonably carry without any gigantic "cargo storage" cities. I figured that even if we go with Earth being large, 8000 kt is awfully light. And then I started wondering about fighters too. 20 kt for a fighter? Not sure about that, and probably nothing I can do about it. I'm sure someone has noticed that before.

Those are just comments, I know my options there, but what I wanted to know was where I could find some tutorials about data files, especially AI files. Some of that stuff makes NO sense to me. I just downloaded the available image MOD stuff, I think that's a great idea, but the AI construction queue (that word doesn't look right) files are complete Greek to me.

The mod itself has no specific focus, just trying to create more options in the game. I don't even have a title. I'm mostly expanding the tech tree, creating new components, new facilities, new mounts, kind of at random. A few tweaks. I doubt I'll ever make it public, as I've stolen from about a dozen other mods done by others and I wouldn't know where to begin with credits. I do have some shame.

Oh, yeah, and does anybody know where I can find more pictures of ships and such for existing races? Thanks.

[Wanderer]

I agree - the thing I'm working on is going to greatly reduce the amount of damage you can do to a planet with bog-standard ship weapons too.

A good compromise would be to add smaller base sizes that can be used as cheap orbital weapon platforms (give them a big maintenance reduction too), but you can't stick them in a freighter and reinforce a new colony (not necessarily a 'bad thing') as you can with planetary-based platforms.

Also, if you remove weapon platforms you might get more troop v troop (plus militia) ground combats, which I'm all for.

Here's a link to Fyron's modding 101, which I found very useful.

The cargo storage figures are best treated as being arbitrary. There's nothing stopping you from changing them radically. I think in Proportions your homeworld can store a huge amount of kit.

[Arkcon]

orev_saara, interesting points raised. In SE3, when you advanced in troop technology sufficiently, you gained the ability to have a group of them fire from the planet surface as if they were an anti proton beam. From this hokey beginning, planetary defence in the form of weapon platforms was born.

Personally I'd rather defend my planet with orbital facilities, but starbases are expensive. And you need a shipyard. I tried modding in a smaller hull, but I didn't do it right and then I lost interest.

I always wonder about this, take Star Trek Next Gen, the borg arrive and are met with a half a dozen fighter craft. In star wars, the death star arrives at Alderan, pauses, destroys the planet.

Hello, home world, some defensive ships please. The population should be glad its there and defer some of the maintenance cost.

[ January 23, 2003, 23:15: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[Suicide Junkie]

One thing you should quickly realize is that KT really means nothing, and is the default unit of measure for everything in the game.

Don't read it as anything more than that and you'll do OK The numbers are all relative anyways.

[Pax]

Originally posted by orev_saara:
I'm in the process of creating my own personal mod, and a thought struck me Last night: Why weapon platforms? They really make no sense. For projectile guns and missile launchers, you have all of that gravity to overcome. Launching a missile out of orbit uses tremendous amounts of fuel. As for energy weapons, you have atmosphere to get through, which would degrade just about anything, espacially those projectile guns. A depleted uranium cannon firing from ground, through atmosphere, and escaping orbit? Ludicrous. Not really impossible, but far costlier than putting a similar launcher in orbit beforehand. The whole concept of planetary weapon platforms is somewhat fanciful, but they can have a huge impact on SE games, especially if you allow any WP range extending mounts. If anything, there should be WP range-decreasing mounts. Maybe someone else already said all of this.

P&N v3.x -- Gravitic Manipulation racial trechnology ... Graviton Flux Cannons.

Weapon-platform only, uses theplanet's own gravitational field as a weapon. Very odd damage-at-range table (lots of damage in a bell-curve pattern ... with a "myopic zone" where no damage is done at all); one normal-mount and one "biggest" mount GFC on a Large WPlat makes for DEAD ships, at extreme ranges.

And then I started wondering about fighters too. 20 kt for a fighter? Not sure about that, and probably nothing I can do about it. I'm sure someone has noticed that before.

Remember those are SPACE fighters. 20,000 ton displacement, and probably a crew of twenty to fifty.

"Escorts" are (AFAIK) roughly the size of a modern nuclear aircraft carrier; you MIGHT manage to get an Escort to hold one Fighter bay and one cargo bay, to handle four fighters. Tops.

Modern aircraft carriers handle and launch/recover scores of "fightercraft" as we, today, know them.

[Phoenix-D]

""Escorts" are (AFAIK) roughly the size of a modern nuclear aircraft carrier; you MIGHT manage to get an Escort to hold one Fighter bay and one cargo bay, to handle four fighters. Tops."

Actually the -fighters- are bigger than most current carriers.

EDIT: or some, rather. Displacement on the Nimitz class of carrier (US nuclear, biggie) is 97,000 tons.

Phoenix-D

[ January 24, 2003, 00:09: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[Wanderer]

Mmmmm. A 150kT escort is about the same mass as two supercarriers. Quite large for the first 'proper' ships a race launches into space, if you take the figures literally. It's best not to.

On the other hand, here's a rough comparison:
note: I was looking at making the fighters smaller over Christmas, (by making everything else 10 times larger ) so I did some checking of figures.

SE4 Large carrier 1,200kT
SE4 Large fighter 25kT

American supercarrier 60-80kT
F14 fighter jet 0.03kT (33 tons fully loaded I think)

Current HMS Ark Royal 20kT
Sea Harrier (small fighter?) 0.006kT (unloaded - probably about 10t with fuel and weapons)

The SE4 carrier is 15-20 times bigger than a modern supercarrier, but the SE4 fighter is almost a thousand times bigger than the modern equivalent. This is mostly due to SE4's tardis-like cargo handling.

Again, they're just numbers. If you don't like 'em (I'm more concerned about being able to fire heavy ship weapons at fighters at the moment), change 'em.

The other thing I've discovered is that British tons and tonnes are almost exactly the same mass, but American tons are slightly different.

[Fyron]

The other thing I've discovered is that British tons and tonnes are almost exactly the same mass, but American tons are slightly different.

Tons, like pounds, are a measure of Force, not Mass. The Slug is the british system (which only the US uses anymore) unit for Mass.

[orev_saara]

Thank you one and all. I think I'll go and look for the wish list for the next patch/SEV now.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by orev_saara:
[QB]I'm in the process of creating my own personal mod, and a thought struck me Last night: Why weapon platforms?

Because it's easier to build a reactor and weapons system on the ground than in space.

They really make no sense. For projectile guns and missile launchers, you have all of that gravity to overcome. Launching a missile out of orbit uses tremendous amounts of fuel.

SE4 starts at a technology level at the very least a few centuries removed from us. Planetary launches are a non-issue for every species, and their ships routinely travel at speeds far faster than anything we can manage today. Missiles would have no problems leaving the atmosphere on as much fuel as can drive a ship from Earth to Mercury in a week.

As for energy weapons, you have atmosphere to get through, which would degrade just about anything, espacially those projectile guns.

Once again you've misjudged the technology level. Your basic energy weapon in SE4 is capable of killing every single person on Earth today in a single combat. That cannot be more than five days by the timing system used in the game. That's a massive amount of energy, and such a weapon would not be affected a great deal by atmospheres.

[quote]A depleted uranium cannon firing from ground, through atmosphere, and escaping orbit? Ludicrous. Not really impossible, but far costlier than putting a similar launcher in orbit beforehand.

The whole concept of planetary weapon platforms is somewhat fanciful, but they can have a huge impact on SE games, especially if you allow any WP range extending mounts. If anything, there should be WP range-decreasing mounts. Maybe someone else already said all of this.

It's a science fiction game with warp points, usable organic based ships, and faster than light travel. I think that weapons mounted on planets are the least fanciful part of the game. Weapon platforms have increased ranges because theyare useless otherwise. Further, planetary weapons have a basis in science fiction, just watch The Empire Strikes Back.