New Scenario Available!

Suicide Junkie · #1 August 2nd, 2001, 05:09 AM

Based loosely on Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.

You are the captain of a single ship, trapped near a black hole for 300 turns, while the galactic civilization crumbled around you.
Having just escaped, you begin a quest to reunite the galaxy and rebuild the commonwealth.
All you have is a single ship from the golden years of the commonwealth, the scavenger ship that rescued you, and a few stealth sensor probes.
With your meager belongings, you must venture forth amongst the dark-age remnants of civilization and restore peace.

Technical stuff:
The SE4 winning conditions are 0.2 Years of Peace.

I kept getting a RCE when I tried to run this under P&N, so it is a very slightly modded Version.
You'll have to make a new modfolder, and extract the ZIP into it. When you run the mod, open the save game and try to save the galaxy from itself.

------------------
The latest info on Pirates & Nomads (forum thread).
-<Download V2.1>- (Now with extra scenario support!)
-<Download V1.7>- (With default AIs patched)
-<Download compatible EMPs for P&N v1.2 through v1.7>-
-<Download SJs latest AI Patcher>-
Visit My Homepage

Other Links:
-<Play By Web>-
-<Schlock Mercenary>- (great space-based webcartoon)
-<8-bit Theater>- (fun comic with the pixellated FF1 characters)

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 02 August 2001).]

Puke · #2 August 4th, 2001, 01:11 AM

very hard. i suppose you could go on a destructive rampage at the start of the scenario, and take out most of the races. I tried to force a neutral race into surrender so that i would have a spaceyard at my disposal, after which i would have retrofitted my ship with boarding parties, a space yard, organic controll components, etc.

but when blocaded and down to 4million population on one world, the neutral race still had 7.7K points to my 57K points, and i could not force them to surrender. this was a non xenophobe neutral too, which i had to travel far to find. maybe lower the surrender threshhold to 8x instead of 10x.

I suppose that I could have tried trading for colony ships, but i bet I would have to give up just about all of my tech, or that starting planet, to get one.

not bad all and all, but I would have cheated to make the starting ship instead of giving it a custom hull size. that would stop the player from being able to make more later.

two Last nitpicks, why did you not use the scenario directory and opening description thingy? its just a couple text files. Also, it would be nice if the zip file contained a parent directory like ANDROMEDA for all the files (sort of monkey-proofing) to preclude the possibility of someone overwriting their real data directories and such.

Its fun though, i will have to give it another play with a more peacefull strategy in mind. at least until i get that darned colony ship. maybe i will play it with a more 'kill them all before they grow bigger' plan in mind too.

------------------
"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Suicide Junkie · #3 August 4th, 2001, 01:38 AM

quote:
not bad all and all, but I would have cheated to make the starting ship instead of giving it a custom hull size. that would stop the player from being able to make more later.

Yeah, I tried, but I kept getting an error when I went to disable the shipsize.

quote:
maybe lower the surrender threshhold to 8x instead of 10x

But, you aren't supposed to be able to get them to surrender! You've gotta make them get along with the other races

quote:
two Last nitpicks, why did you not use the scenario directory and opening description thingy? its just a couple text files. Also, it would be nice if the zip file contained a parent directory like ANDROMEDA for all the files (sort of monkey-proofing) to preclude the possibility of someone overwriting their real data directories and such.

I never thought of it.

I'll have to go through and repackage my mods, I suppose.

------------------
The latest info on Pirates & Nomads (forum thread).
-<Download V2.1>- (Now with extra scenario support!)
-<Download V1.7>- (With default AIs patched)
-<Download compatible EMPs for P&N v1.2 through v1.7>-
-<Download SJs latest AI Patcher>-
Visit My Homepage

Other Links:
-<Play By Web>-
-<Schlock Mercenary>- (great space-based webcartoon) -<First Strip>-
-<8-bit Theater>- (fun comic with the pixellated FF1 characters)

geoschmo · #4 August 4th, 2001, 03:54 AM

quote:
not bad all and all, but I would have cheated to make the starting ship instead of giving it a custom hull size. that would stop the player from being able to make more later.

Yeah, I tried, but I kept getting an error when I went to disable the shipsize.

I ran into the same problem working on my upcoming Voyager scenario. (Coming soon to a forum near you.

) I think it would work if you made a vehicle size that has a racial tech as a requirement. Then you could gift it to the race the player will be playing and they won't be able to build one or retrofit it. I decided it wasn't worth the hassle for what I was attempting.

quote:
...why did you not use the scenario directory and opening description thingy? its just a couple text files.

This is cool and very easy to do. I highly recomend it for your future scenarios. I did it with my Space 1999 mod. IMHO it adds that little something to the scenario.

Geo

Puke · #5 August 5th, 2001, 02:23 AM

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
But, you aren't supposed to be able to get them to surrender! You've gotta make them get along with the other races

I think we just have differing oppinions on what 'cooperation' entails. I think my method would have been an excelent way to get everyone to play nice. Iron fist, velvet glove. well, maybe not the velvet glove bit, but the idea is roughly the same.

I tried again, and I was able to wrangle a colonizer out of a friendly alien race. everything should be swanky from there. It would be neat if there were little carry over things from the show (sure i didnt watch it much, but i saw a couple) like the fighters that could destroy suns. I bet you could get that nebula creator re-packaged for a fighter, leave some docked on an old starbase belonging to a neutral empire or something. it would be challenging to figure out how to get them.

------------------
"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Puke · #6 August 5th, 2001, 06:59 AM

well, after trading the starting planet for a colony ship, i lost all contact with other races. this forced me to guard the colony ship as i moved it across the quadrant to a safe system, while every system i passed through sent raiders after me.

once i established a colony, i was able to construct a shipyard and retrofit the starting ship with premium components and massive mounts, and replace the machine shops with the organic healing/life support thing, and a spaceyard to boot. while the ship repaired its self, i constructed resource facilites on my new planet, and once at a sufficient level, forced the capitulation of the herd-animal neutrals.

that being done, i expanded my base in that system, and moved out to re-establish contact with everyone. treaty making was slow going, so I retrofitted some boarding parties onto the andromeda, and went out capturing ships for a blocade effort. soon the Xlati had their backs to the wall, and turned over their planets as well.

Most races I was able to convince to make peace at this point, and this is about the time that the first sistership of the upgraded Andromeda was rolling off the production line. There are still some border wars going on, but I think they can be solved with the removal of only one or two races.

I just noticed something though, and I am VERY curious. Is the special ability on your starting planet just a cute description, or does it do something?

------------------
"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Suicide Junkie · #7 August 5th, 2001, 02:50 PM

quote:
I just noticed something though, and I am VERY curious. Is the special ability on your starting planet just a cute description, or does it do something?

Well, the planet does keep you in contact with the other races (as you found out), and I gave it a "planetary shield" ability of 50k or so.
I'm not sure if that actually works, though. The main protection for the planet is the black hole.

------------------
The latest info on Pirates & Nomads (forum thread).
-<Download V2.1>- (Now with extra scenario support!)
-<Download V1.7>- (With default AIs patched)
-<Download compatible EMPs for P&N v1.2 through v1.7>-
-<Download SJs latest AI Patcher>-
Visit My Homepage

Other Links:
-<Play By Web>-
-<Schlock Mercenary>- (great space-based webcartoon) -<First Strip>-
-<8-bit Theater>- (fun comic with the pixellated FF1 characters)

Phoenix-D · #8 August 5th, 2001, 07:13 PM

quote:

I'm not sure if that actually works, though. The main protection for the planet is the black hole.
[/b]

..which has a "no shields work in this system" ability..

Phoenix-D

Suicide Junkie · #9 August 5th, 2001, 08:00 PM

Actually, that blackhole shield-sapping ability is usually set to drain 5k shields, IIRC.

You planet would end up with 45K, and all the enemy ships would have none.

Still, when I tried giving a planet the shield ability in v1.25 or so, it didn't work at all.

------------------
The latest info on Pirates & Nomads (forum thread).
-<Download V2.1>- (Now with extra scenario support!)
-<Download V1.7>- (With default AIs patched)
-<Download compatible EMPs for P&N v1.2 through v1.7>-
-<Download SJs latest AI Patcher>-
Visit My Homepage

Other Links:
-<Play By Web>-
-<Schlock Mercenary>- (great space-based webcartoon) -<First Strip>-
-<8-bit Theater>- (fun comic with the pixellated FF1 characters)