Technological arms races

[Marty Ward]

Not only increasing the number of techs but also the possible combinations of cloaking/sensors. If you had a cloaking device for each type of sensor you would have what, 5X5 combos? Now any level 1 sensor reveals level 1 cloak.
I like more combinations. That way I have to ask myself did I research the right thing?

[mottlee]

Cool Ideas..a lot like life My hat's off to those of you that can and do hack into this it makes it a lot more enjoyable!
Mott

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[email protected]

[Aussie Gamer]

It's not hard to alter the game, as most of it is in a text file.

The game tells you if you stuffed a file up as it is loading, so it is pretty easy to change components, facilities and data like that.

[Q]

quote:

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Originally posted by Marty Ward:
Not only increasing the number of techs but also the possible combinations of cloaking/sensors. If you had a cloaking device for each type of sensor you would have what, 5X5 combos? Now any level 1 sensor reveals level 1 cloak.
I like more combinations. That way I have to ask myself did I research the right thing?

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I thought about this to. But as far as I understand how cloaking works it might be difficult: If you have any sensor that has the level equal or above of a cloaking device in that technological area you will see the ship. So it's no use to have cloaking level 5 (cannot be detected) in let's say aktive EM alone. Any level 1 detector in any others scanning technology will reveal the ship.
However what you could do is to create cloaking device that are completely invisible (Level 5) for all but 1 or 2 scanners. Then to be sure to see all ships you had to combine differents scanners.
But again there might be two problems. First you would have to teach the AI to handle this: lot of work! Second what happens if you combine two of these cloaking component on one ship so that all scanners are blinded? You probably would get a really invisible ship without possible counter measure, what would imbalance the game.
The solution I would prefer (but this needs change in the hard coded area) are scanners with different range: Low sensitivity scanners that cover the whole system (as now in the game for all scanners), but they would miss the higher cloaking levels, and low range scanners with high performance, that would defeat even the best cloaking.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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I like the idea of a cloaking device that only stops, for example active.
Its abilities would prevent the maximum level of sensors of all types except 1, it is always a vulnerable to one type of sensor.

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Wha?
Do you want cloaks that block only 1 sensor, or
do you want cloaks that can be seen by only one sensor?

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Say we have 5 tech area threads, one for each sensor/cloak, and have 15 levels in each. Also, any cloak area will give you a general, all-encompassing cloak three levels less:

Then, there will be:
15*5 single-sensor-method cloaks
12*5 all-method cloaks (see note)
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75 single
60 300 omni-cloaks
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135 cloak components

but only
15*5 = 75 sensor components

for a total of (135+75 - 6*5(cloak) + 60 (sensor)= 210 - 30 +60 = 240) more components in the file.

I could write a program to generate those components on the weekend.

Also, mines will have to have their cloaking boosted to 6,11,16 for higher tech mines, so they're still hard to detect, (and lvl 3 mines are impossible).

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Note: # of omni-cloaks is 12*5 because:
we have 12 levels. Multiply by 5, since each cloak area must give the cloak independently.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 29 March 2001).]

[Nitram Draw]

I was thinking of one cloak that blocks all but one sensor, per level. I guess that you could make an unlimited amout of combinations but just with the 5 types of sensor levels now you can get a lot of combos.

[Puke]

i wish research was open ended so you could have cloak level n and sensor level n where every level gives you n+1 at a research cost of 1.5x the Last level or something.

I guess I can file that away with the 'i wish we had miniturization' dream.

comon SEV! miniturization! open ended tech advancement! I can hope!

[Q]

quote:

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Originally posted by Puke:
i wish research was open ended so you could have cloak level n and sensor level n where every level gives you n+1 at a research cost of 1.5x the Last level or something.

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That is not too difficult to do: Just increase the maximum tech levels in that area (o.K. it's not unlimited but you may be satisfied with 20 levels), copy the components and increase the specified ability level and necessary tech level. The increase of research costs from level to level depends on your choice at the game setup.

[Puke]

quote:

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Originally posted by Q:
That is not too difficult to do: Just increase the maximum tech levels in that area (o.K. it's not unlimited but you may be satisfied with 20 levels), copy the components and increase the specified ability level and necessary tech level. The increase of research costs from level to level depends on your choice at the game setup.

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true, true. but the idea of the exercise is to have that same logic applied to every tech area so that one race might heavily persue weapons tech while another might go gonzo on shields, and have them never hit a limit where one can be deemed superior to the other by breaking them down on a spreadsheet, just who ever is winning the race. which is why we have the arms race afterall. sort of.

and THEN you could apply GEOMETRIC FUNCTIONS to the research / performance tables! armor would start to peak out at a certain point and you would get diminishing returns! you could have specialized research facilities that GENERATE POINTS AT A BETTER RATIO for SPECIFIC TECH AREAS! so you could have a missile research facilty and a total micromanagement NIGHTMARE! wow that would be great. dispite my micromanagement sarcasm and my excessive use of CAPS, i think this would be ideal.

man that would be awesome, im getting goosebumps thinking about it.

[Aussie Gamer]

What is with some of you guys and mines?

Every thing else in the game needs components to do something, yet you are willing to give mines the top end cloaking (undetectable!) without have a component in it to do it!

It would make far more sense to load the mine with a cloaking component to allow it the same abilites as very thing else in the game.

Also why not have a small cloaking device for fighters, and why not all the armours as well.

Just my 1 cent worth, I am in Australia so your 2 cents are only worth that much! ;-)