OT: Fiction for my Mod:

[Xrati]

Pic's for your story. Sometime a pic or two goes a long way to opening a door to ones imagination!

[President_Elect_Shang]

Ok so pics to set the flavor? I�ve never been very good at those things and the story evolves out of play testing my mod. What kind of pics could I use for that?

[Kana]

Combat Screens...System Screens...Close ups of ships...Pics of the PE...

[President_Elect_Shang]

OH! Man had it been a snake�
Maybe when I get a little further along I can toss in a few pics of the ships that take part in combat. System and quadrant screens, umm sure once the empires flesh out a little more. This really is the start of the game and most empires haven�t gone beyond one or two jumps. Combat maybe but I wouldn�t hold my breath. How do I take the pictures anyway? Ctrl+Print Screen then past and save as a�?

[Suicide Junkie]

JPG gets you the best compression ratio for a given quality of SE5 screenshots.

PNGs would be better for SE4 screenshots.

[President_Elect_Shang]

2401.7: The Tal-Re Republic (hence forth simple the Republic) continues its exploration into the stars. Growth on the Republics first extra solar colony continues and they complete their first organics facility; which means they can finally feed themselves. PE Shang summons several of his Chairmen and charges them to develop an �Other Man� scenario and to include the designs for the Republics� first warship. The design presented to him; the Enterprise Class (see attachment) is based on a DD hull (300kt) which is the largest warship hull the Republic can currently build. It features: 30kt of Armor, 2 Small Crew Quarters, a Small Cargo Hold, a Small and full sized Magazine providing 280 rounds for the 3 Missile Launchers. The Missile Launcher fires an endurance (more commonly known as a non-sprint) type missile which trades high speeds for greater range. Our scientists tell us that it may be possible to design and construct a weapon capable of providing a �point defense� to stop non-sprint missiles. This however; is more speculation than theory at our current tech level. The design presented has the Enterprise Class being powered by 7 Commercial Engines. Currently this is the only inter-system engine; however, researchers are working on a replacement which they have dubbed the Military Engine. It should be finalized within the next 6 months. It will provide the same thrust but only require half the space (10HS as opposed to 20). After much consideration and more than a few heated arguments the Chairman for Construction aggress to ask funding from the Senate for construction of the Enterprise Class but only after the Military Engine is developed and the designs updated.

New Item: Small Crew Quarters combine the function of both Crew Quarters and Life Support into one unit. This single unit comes with a higher price and can only service half the crew of a full Crew Quarters.

The Commercial Engine is a transplanted technology. That is it was transplanted from one tech level to another. The reason for moving it was that (1) without adding tons of restrictions and general fruitiness I can�t model the Commercial and Military Engine correctly. So I made my own versions! Also (2) I want this mod to be backward compatible. In other words if someone says �Hay I like this mod but instead of starting at Industrial 2 I would like to start at Industrial 1. If that should ever happen when said person looks under the hood to add in the new components (or whatever) they will see this mod is ready to be digressed, or even progressed if High Tech level 16 isn�t enough.

[Suicide Junkie]

There is definitely a lack of context in the pic. Too bad we can't right click on screenshots

When combat starts to become important, it would be good to post a weapon comparison chart, and the design stats screen.
(From the top level of the design screen, selecting a ship should show a handy stats box at the top and a components list in the middle, IIRC)

[President_Elect_Shang]

I did think about including the info box for the Missile Launcher as well as the two other weapons at this tech level. However, I decided against it in favor of keeping some element of mystery. If Aaron doesn�t fix the generational components problem than I will never be able to finish the mod. In such an unfortunate case I will post a weapons comparison while holding out hope for SE6.

[Xrati]

Keep working at it. It is the only to get better and your doing a great job. Keep telling your story and maybe you'll inspire someone reading it to come up with some pictures through reading it!

[President_Elect_Shang]

2404: With the development of the Military Engine the President, Sky Marshal, and Chairman for Construction go before the Senate to present the �Other Man� scenario. In this scenario another intelligent species is encountered with roughly the same technological level. Utilizing the revised designs for the Enterprise Class DD Sky Marshal Kana outlines how the Republic would be quickly conquered. The only option is to create two combat ready fleets. One fleet would be dedicated to the defense of the Republic and the other would be created specifically for offensive operations. Initially most of the Senate balks at the notion that any intelligent species would want to make war, or even think about it. Pushing the Sky Marshal aside PE-Shang takes the podium and asks �Since we have just thought of such a thing does that mean we are no longer �intelligent�?� Approval for the funding of two fleets is quickly passed.

I won�t include the designs of the improved Enterprise Class DD yet. To keep this thread down in size and number of posts I would rather not attach screen shots of every redesign. This redesign is significant because the change over to the Military Engine freed up 70HS. However, there is new tech on the horizon�