Basic Tech Mod Info

[Krsqk]

"Make armor piercing weapons, we have armor piercing weapons now."

From my perspective, the problem with AP weaps is balance, there being nothing that will stop them. It's a bit like Null-Space weaps in the std game.

I agree anti-engine missiles are legit; what about anti-engine mines, though?

Can weaps fire 2+ times per round? Reload .5? (from Torp suggestion)

My current thinking on missiles/torps is leave torps alone (as direct fire); missiles will be set up in a research grid similar to armor. Launcher tech will develop launchers (fire rate/weapon size); warhead tech will develop yield (damage); Missile tech will develop delivery vehicles (speed, seeker resistance). Individual sub-tech areas will develop additional areas such as Sprint Missiles, Engine Destroying, High Yield, etc.

Something similar will probably (possibly? depends on time) be done with the slug throwers, with less differentiation, just to give a different feel. PD will probably adapt the P&N style, with name changes (don't know if we have any lasers capable of bLasting nukes), i.e. "short-range" and "mid-range."

Keep the comments coming!

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"The Unpronounceable" Krsqk
Basic Tech Mod

[This message has been edited by Krsqk (edited 23 July 2001).]

[Phoenix-D]

"I understand (at least now) how to implement the Damage Control comps; I'm just wondering what excuse I can give for them. What systems do we have today/in the near future that would approximate this effect?"

Well, you could call it a specialized control center that directs crews which quickly jery-rigs damage as it happens, reducing the overall effect on the ship. Loosing the control center takes away the cordination of quick repairs, and thus the damage reduction.

EDIT:

quote:

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RE: the Limited Unlimited Supply Generator, I don't know of any way to generate supplies without requiring either 1) component use, or 2) solar generation. Am I missing something? I think a limited Quantum Reactor comp would be good, but these are the only solutions I can think of.

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That one's easy, if you don't mind fudging it.

Take this:

quote:

---

Name := Emergency Resupply Pod III
Description := Pod which will be sacrificed to gain extra supplies for the ship. Only one component allowed per vehicle.
Pic Num := 35
Tonnage Space Taken := 10
Tonnage Structure := 10
Cost Minerals := 400
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 0
Vehicle Type := Ship\Base
Supply Amount Used := 0
Restrictions := One Per Vehicle
General Group := Supply
Family := 24
Roman Numeral := 3
Custom Group := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Resupply
Tech Level Req 1 := 4
Number of Abilities := 2
Ability 1 Type := Emergency Resupply
Ability 1 Descr := Generates 6000 supply when used.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 6000
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Ability 2 Type := Component Destroyed On Use
Ability 2 Descr := Component is destroyed after use.
Ability 2 Val 1 := 0
Ability 2 Val 2 := 0
Weapon Type := None

---

Remove the second ability, rename it and change the decription, maybe limit it to one per ship and/or make it expensive, and you've got yourself a re-useable, if manually triggered, resupply component. (speaking of which, will ships use these things if they run out of supplies? Will the AI? The resupply minister?)

Phoenix-D

[This message has been edited by Phoenix-D (edited 18 July 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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RE: Solar Sails, I don't think they should be included due to conflict/abuse with P&N style propulsion. Giving bonus/extra movement doesn't work in this situation, and giving standard movement can be abused (ships with 40 Solar Sail III--much greater range, minimal supply usage than with best engines in P&N). I may include one level, but it would probably not add much movement; today's solar sails are quite large and would take a great amount of time to generate significant speed. They're probably better off not included, just to keep with the thrust of the mod.

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Look at how I did it in P&N. The Solar Sails are slower than engines, but use no fuel.

So if you want no fuel usage, you'll have to skimp on weapons/defenses or go slower.
You could also go with a mix of both.
The best sail gives you only the equivalent speed of CT engines; you could go 50% faster on Quantums.

quote:

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Ablative Armor ratios reworked. Researching a higher tech gives, on average, a 1.25x better S/T ratio (was 1.125x). Increased starting ratio of A.A. I (1) to 4.75 (was 3.75). S/T ranges are now:

A.A. I (1): 19/4 (4.75); A.A. V (1): 27/4 (7.75)
A.A. I (2): 17/3 (5.67); A.A. V (2): 25/3 (8.33)
A.A. I (3): 14/2 (7.00); A.A. V (3): 21/2 (10.5)

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IMO, this means that the AA x (1) is better than an AA x (3).
See, in this case, the 3's take twice a slong to repair, since they're smaller.

I suggest keeping the same numbers, but swap the sizes, so the armor gets easier to repair as time goes by.

quote:

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"4) damage-reducing components? I think 4)"
OK, how this works again:

Take a shield. Remove all the shield graphics from the races. Call it Damage Control. Now, give it a shield strength of about 10 and a regen of the same. Poof, it reduces damage by that number per turn.

Phoenix-D

"I understand (at least now) how to implement the Damage Control comps; I'm just wondering what excuse I can give for them. What systems do we have today/in the near future that would approximate this effect?"
Well, you could call it a specialized control center that directs crews which quickly jery-rigs damage as it happens, reducing the overall effect on the ship. Loosing the control center takes away the cordination of quick repairs, and thus the damage reduction.

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I would call this Emissive armor! It absorbs the first 30 points of damage and the rest spills over onto other parts of your hull. The armor would "cool down" every round as the regeneration kicks in.
Multiple segments of armor would dissipate the energy better, as well as having a higher absorption limit before they fail.
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[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 18 July 2001).]

[Krsqk]

Tonight's update: some progress, but slow going. I'm into the weapons section of Components.txt, which is currently 2/3 of the way through the file. Be sure to check the current changes list to see what I've done with Repair Bays/Space Yards, Mine Layers/Fighter/Sat Bays, and PDC.

Brief (yeah, right) explanation of Repair Bays. I started with a 50kt module which repairs 2 components. The repair rate goes up 1 each level; the size goes up 25kt every 2 levels (except the Last one). This results in a fluctuating, but rising repair/kt ratio. I.e., Bay I has an R/T of 25; Bay 2 has 16.67; Bay III has 15.75; Bay IV has 15; and so on. Repair bays are linked to repair tech and ship construction tech. The rationale here is that since repair bays get bigger, they won't be as practical for smaller ships anyway.

Just to make life more interesting, and maybe force a new strategy or two, I threw in 3 levels of Base Repair Docks. These are 450kt (just like the new space yards), and they repair 40, 55, and 70 components each. They're linked to base construction as well as ship construction and repair; I figured it would give another reason to research Base Construction 3. (Besides the 1 pt. of combat mvt. for bases.)

Any feedback on that?


RE: Ablative Armor. SJ, I see your point about sizes; do you think I should keep the better ratios for the better (smaller) armor; or should I have small armor/good ratio and big armor/not-as-good ratio, making people decide if protection or easy repair is more important to them? (That would mean Only Latest Components wouldn't always give the "best" choice.)

RE: Damage Control. Of course! Emissive Armor (without the Emissive Armor ability, at least). Guess that's a temporary workaround for that glitch, anyway. I'll get right on it--after all the other things I have to get right on, at least. It does have the potential to be greatly abused, though; any suggestions for reasonable limits (with 5 or 10 levels)?

RE: Limited Unlimited Supply Generators

quote:

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Remove the second ability, rename it and change the decription, maybe limit it to one per ship and/or make it expensive, and you've got yourself a re-useable, if manually triggered, resupply component. (speaking of which, will ships use these things if they run out of supplies? Will the AI? The resupply minister?)

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I don't know if the ministers/AI will use them; I've never used them myself, so my ministers never got a chance (if I even let them touch my ships). I would prefer not to have it manually triggered, but then I'd like a raise, too. I'll put it in and test it (if I ever get to the testing stage).

Please give feedback, esp. on the repair bays/space yards and the unit launch bays.

Out for now!

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"The Unpronounceable" Krsqk
Basic Tech Mod

[This message has been edited by Krsqk (edited 23 July 2001).]

[geoschmo]

quote:

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I figured it would give another reason to research Base Construction 3. (Besides the 1 pt. of combat mvt. for bases.)

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You can do this? This is another idea I remember being kicked around a while back, but I thought noone could get it working.

I really have to do a better job reading these forums. I do several times a day, but I don't read every post from begining to end. (I bet these are all in SJ's pirate thread aren't they. )

I am guessing you are doing it by some sort of ability similer to what afterburners have? If this can be done for bases can it be, and is anyone doing it for sats?

Geo

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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These are 450kt (just like the new space yards), and they repair 40, 55, and 70 components each. They're linked to base construction as well as ship construction and repair; I figured it would give another reason to research Base Construction 3. (Besides the 1 pt. of combat mvt. for bases.)

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You can't be serious! 70 components/turn would be insane even on a 2000kT repair component (starbases only).

quote:

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RE: Ablative Armor. SJ, I see your point about sizes; do you think I should keep the better ratios for the better (smaller) armor; or should I have small armor/good ratio and big armor/not-as-good ratio, making people decide if protection or easy repair is more important to them? (That would mean Only Latest Components wouldn't always give the "best" choice.)

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I believe that choosing the ablative armor means that the player is choosing protection over repair time anyways.
If they wanted fast repair, they would have used the standard armors.

quote:

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RE: Damage Control. Of course! Emissive Armor (without the Emissive Armor ability, at least). Guess that's a temporary workaround for that glitch, anyway. I'll get right on it--after all the other things I have to get right on, at least. It does have the potential to be greatly abused, though; any suggestions for reasonable limits (with 5 or 10 levels)?

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Given an adequately expensive tech area, I could see a large baseship having 1000 EA points. If the armor emisses 30% per turn, that's reasonable.

How about 30kT armor, generating 150 & regenerating 30 per turn?
Damage resistance of (5 + 1/turn) per KT.
For 1000 pts of defense, that's 210KT, 20% of a Dreadnaught. After adding P&N v2 style engines, that armor would take up 33% of your usable space on a Dreadnaught.

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[Krsqk]

quote:

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You can't be serious! 70 components/turn would be insane even on a 2000kT repair component (starbases only).

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Well, 55 and 70 are somewhat arbitrary figures, but 40 isn't. Well, okay, it is, but not as much. A space station filled (450kt) with Repair Bay IIs (50kt; rate 3)would have a repair rate of 27. With RB IV (75kt/5), the rate would be 30. With maximum tech (RB IX--125kt/10+RB IV), the rate is 35. Granted, only the first two examples are likely, since they would have long since upgraded to Repair Dock II or III, but I wanted a comp that would give a reason to use it instead of 9 RBs.

I thought about making the lvl. 2 and 3 comps battle station- and starbase-sized, but then it would be far easier to put in 15 or 30 or 50 RBs (and it probably still is, since the Docks are One Per Vehicle). The goal was to create a component that would serve as a forward repair station in systems that have been recently conquered and have not yet established a colony presence. It would also create another strategic target in the game, along with fleets and important planets. As it is, I feel bases are pretty much useless (except for Pirate and Nomad races ). Would it be better to have only a single mid-/high-tech Dock component? I'm also planning a planetary drydock facility; should massive repairs be left to this? Or should I just have one big battle-station or starbase component, and make it cheaper or something than the equivalent-sized (but much more powerful) number of repair bays?

Also, the repair bays were resized to account for the exclusion of shields. Without some serious repair capability, then the fleet that held a couple of ships in reserve will probably win the day. I know, it's all strategy; but then, so is this, just a different type. Should the rates be reduced?

[EDIT]
FWIW, a battle station with max tech can repair 110 comps/turn, and a starbase can repair 187 comps/turn. Should I make repair bays Ships Only?
[/EDIT]

quote:

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I believe that choosing the ablative armor means that the player is choosing protection over repair time anyways.
If they wanted fast repair, they would have used the standard armors.

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That's why I have the armor decrease in size as ablative tech levels go up. Better protection, yes, but you have to pay for it. Not in cost/(S/T), but in repair time.

quote:

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You can do this? This is another idea I remember being kicked around a while back, but I thought noone could get it working.

...(I bet these are all in SJ's pirate thread aren't they. )

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Actually, the base combat movement is in Devnullmod. At least, that's where I got it. (read: highlight - Ctrl+C - Ctrl-V) And, yes, it uses the same ability as Afterburners. AFAIK, it works; however, MM has it hardcoded that sats can't move, so that doesn't work. (There is a similar component for sats in Devnullmod, though.)

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"The Unpronounceable" Krsqk
Basic Tech Mod

[This message has been edited by Krsqk (edited 23 July 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

FWIW
Say what?

quote:

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I believe that choosing the ablative armor means that the player is choosing protection over repair time anyways.
If they wanted fast repair, they would have used the standard armors.

---

quote:

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That's why I have the armor decrease in size as ablative tech levels go up. Better protection, yes, but you have to pay for it. Not in cost/(S/T), but in repair time.

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I was looking at it the other way; with an expensive tech area (75k?) to increase the size and reduce the repair time. You could leave the damage ratios the same as your tech goes up here, but by the end of the tech tree, your AA repairs twice as fast.

Looking at your stats, it would be worth the slower repair time, but that kinda seems like a step backwards.

I was thinking of one tech area to improve the HP/KT, and the other to boost the repair rate.

PS: If we're making major changes all over anyways, why don't we multiply all sizes by ten?
Then we could have finer control over things like this; it would be like measuring by 0.1 KT.


RE: Repair Bays
It looks like you are automatically assuming everyone is going to use ablative armor exclusively, and need that vast repair capacity.
Ships with other armor techs are only going to have 30 components at most. Do you really want one base to fix 6 per month?
I don't want the Ablative armor to be used on every ship, just the ones that HAVE to survive one battle (like a plagueship), or a flagship (for RPing), or possibly a "special forces" fleet, that fights very tough foes, only occasionally, spending the rest of the time mothballed.

quote:

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As it is, I feel bases are pretty much useless

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I suggest reducing the repair ability of ship-board components to something like 3 repair/100KT. That's enough to get the ship moving again, but leaves the heavy repairs (eg. 100KT of AA)for a starbase, which would have the huge spacedock components.

quote:

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I thought about making the lvl. 2 and 3 comps battle station- and starbase-sized, but then it would be far easier to put in 15 or 30 or 50 RBs (and it probably still is, since the Docks are One Per Vehicle).

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How so? If the Spacedock is more effective that the RBs, they would be used. At the very least, a player would use a BS SpaceDock on a Starbase, so they have more room for armor & defense weapons.
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The latest info onPirates & Nomads (forum thread).
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-<Download V1.6>-
-<Download compatible EMPs for P&N v1.6>-
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Visit My Homepage

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 19 July 2001).]

[Krsqk]

quote:

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FWIW
What?

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For What It's Worth.

quote:

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It looks like you are automatically assuming everyone is going to use ablative armor exclusively, and need that vast repair capacity.
Ships with other armor techs are only going to have 30 components at most. Do you really want one base to fix 6 per month?

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No, the figures in the hundreds were with Repair Bays, not Base Repair Docks. One base would fix, say, only two ships per month @ 70 comps. My dilemma was trying to balance the Docks with the number of Bays potentially in a Space Station (I didn't want to mess with the larger bases). I think that I'll:
1) Restrict Bays to ships only. That will take away some of the competition.
2) Double most Bay sizes. Currently, the best Bay repairs 8/100kt; the worst is 4/100kt. This will cut it to 4/100kt at best.
3) Lower Dock rates to 20, 30, and 40, keeping them restricted to bases and one per vehicle, and increasing the sizes of the Last two levels to fit BS/SB. I do think that large scale repairs will be needed, even without ablative armor, but I think 40 comps/turn/per fleet is reasonable, considering it's like a base of operations. I regularly reach 25-30 comps/turn repair in my standard games with medium/large fleets, due to multiple repair ships.

quote:

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Looking at your stats, it would be worth the slower repair time, but that kinda seems like a step backwards.

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I agree, at least now. I'll see how it comes out.

quote:

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PS: If we're making major changes all over anyways, why don't we multiply all sizes by ten?

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ARRRRRGH!!!! *brain fuses blow, ricocheting off the walls*
Okay, I agree, finer control. (Hrrrmph.) I'll see. Don't count on it for v1.0. I only have 37.283 hours in a day (at least in this solar system).

Krsqk out.

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"The Unpronounceable" Krsqk
Basic Tech Mod

[This message has been edited by Krsqk (edited 23 July 2001).]

[Krsqk]

It's finally here! Well, sort of.

Beta Version .75 is officially released. Currently known restrictions include:

• Due to major tech tree changes/reductions, the AI currently does not work with this mod. If anyone is interested in modifying stock AIs for this mod, please contact me via e-mail or ICQ.
  
• This is a beta Version. I have attempted to squash all bugs, but that does not mean I have been successful.
  
• This is still a beta Version. Not everything is balanced, and it is possible I have overlooked a severe imbalance. Should you find a problem or if you have any suggestions, please contact me.[/list]Current features include, but are not limited to:
  
  
  
  • Drastically reworked tech tree, including several research "grids," allowing for near-infinite variety in research paths (okay, not quite near-infinite)
    
  • Several tech branches with multiple requirements, forcing multi-layered research
    
  • P&N v2.0 style propulsion, extended for fighters
    
  • Reworked satellite sizes, including two new Stealth Satellite sizes
    
  • Reworked mines, including detectable mines, two Stealth Mine sizes, and Seeker Mine Warheads
    
  • Several different "flavors" of most weapon types, including extended range, heavy duty, high accuracy, etc.[/list]
    Again, feedback is requested. Download and enjoy!
    
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    "The Unpronounceable" Krsqk
    Basic Tech Mod
    --Basic Tech Mod v.75
    --Changes list
    
    [This message has been edited by Krsqk (edited 23 July 2001).]