Need help with moding Space Empries 4 Deluxe

[Magnum357]

First of all, it has been a couple of years since I have posted on this message board. I haven't been keeping up with the progress of Malfador that much, but I did get and installed Space Empires 4 Deluxe edition which I think is the latest (and I guess last) patch for SE4.

I'm working on a personal mode of mine for Space Empires 4, but I have run into a few problems. The main problems I'm having right now is building troops, Hiding Warp Points, and give Astroids the ability to hide Ships and Units in a Solar System. The first problem is not a big deal, but I have a Unit type (basically, an Empire can create a Division of Troops on a planet) that I want to take several months to do, but the game can make any colony produce Troops within a matter of a Month. I have tried techniques that make Troops cost a lot in Organics, but this has little effect because most Colonies can produce thousands of Organic recsources per turn. Is there anyway to maybe decrease the ammount of Organics a Colony can produce? Even a Colony with no Organic Farm Facilities has some Organic Resource production capbility and that is what is making me able to produce troops extremely easily.

Second problem I'm having is not really a major problem, but would be nice to make my mode a bit different then other modes for SE4. What I was thinking about doing is make looking for Warp Points rather difficult as this would make scout ships a nessessity, and keep an Empire limited to expansion. I was thinking of simply putting a Cloak ability to Warp points, but if so, can a race that doesn't have anti-cloak technology still be able to locate a "Cloaked" Warp point and transverse through it? Or is this just not possible to mode into the game?

That last one I can't seem to find any way to do it effectively. I would like to give Astroids the ability to Hide ships/Units so that they are more then just resource extraction sites. I can easily put a cloak ability to the Rocks, but I have not idea if a ship retains this ability aswell if it is located in a Astroid Sector. Also, if you give Rocks Cloak ability, and you don't have anti-cloak technology, you can't see the Astroids, which doesn't make a lot of sense if you ask me. So basically, I would like to have the ability to still see an Astroid Sector, but have the ability to hide ships in the sector aswell. Is there any way this can be done?

Any info on this questions would be most appreciated.

[Suicide Junkie]

Warppoints are always visible, otherwise cyan and red storms would be inescapable deathtraps

Make it a sector cloak on the asteroids; that will hide everything except warppoints (even planets)

In settings.txt:
Code:

---

Empire Base Planet Mineral Usage Rate                                 := 2000

Empire Base Planet Organic Usage Rate                                 := 2000 

Empire Base Planet Radioactive Usage Rate                             := 2000

---

Adjust your spaceyard ability amounts to match, of course.

[Leternel]

If you depreciate the space yards and ship yards organic capability, and if you reduce farms production rate, your troops will take long enough too build.

[Atrocities]

Leternel said:
If you depreciate the space yards and ship yards organic capability, and if you reduce farms production rate, your troops will take long enough too build.

In theory, but not in practice. Its the number of components and their cost that really affect the time it takes to build troops.

[Suicide Junkie]

That's the point, though, Atrocities.

Make your troop stuff cost organics!
Or alternatively, make the hull cost organics "for the soldiers who are operating them"

If you're not willing to adjust prices, you're not gonna win this one

[Magnum357]

Thanks for the info about the settings.txt file for adjusting the base Organics values for all planets. That should help make building troops take some time, even on small, less populated planets.

I have already tried Suicide Junkies suggestion on making Astroids use "Sector Cloaking" to hide units, but not only does it hide the ships/units occupying the sector, but it also makes the Astroid Sectro invisible aswell. I would like to have the Astroids visible to see, but still hide/"cloak" a ship/unit if they occupy the Astroid sector.

And as for Warppoints, couldn't you just use the "Sector Cloaking" ability aswell? I was thinking about doing that, but can a ship without anti-cloak technology still be able to locate and transverse through the "Cloaked" Warppoint? This would limit expansion as an empire would really have to rely on scouts to look for these warppoints.

[Suicide Junkie]

Suicide Junkie said:
Warppoints are always visible, otherwise cyan and red storms would be inescapable deathtraps

That is hardcoded.


Storms will show up despite cloaking the sector as well.
You could make storms with an asteroids picture if you wanted, and all you would lose is the remote mining.

If you edit the systemtypes.txt, you could add real asteroids under the storm, which would give you the mining back.

[capnq]

Is "Division of Troops" a separate unit size? If it is, you could make that unit chassis cost a huge amount of whatever resource you want to limit it by. You want it to cost more than a typical construction queue's build rate, not a typical resource facility's production.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Hmm...That could be an interesting addition to a mod. Ships cost minerals and radioactives, troops cost organics.

[Magnum357]

Suicide Junkie, thanks for the suggestion about Astroids. How exactly would I edit the "SystemTypes.txt" file in order to do this? Do I need to make a whole new "Astroid" type in the "StellerAbility.txt" file? I think I understand what you mean, but I'm not sure on how to do it exactly. I guess I could just easily change the Storm Pictures and make them Astroids, but I would like to keep both in the mode, and would still like to have Astroids keep ther mining capabilities.

capnq, I decided to totally restructure "Troops" in the mode. Instead of having 3 basic types of Troops, there is only one type, which is called a "Combat Unit". Combat Unites are still made up of components like Stock Troop Units, but each component will represent a segment of Ground forces. For example, you could simply add an "Infantry" component to a combat unit that is suppose to represent a Regiment of Troops. A Combat unit is capable of holding up to 12 Regiment Troops (which make a Division of Infantry or +10,000 men). You could also add other types of Components that represent other types of Ground combat units such as "Aeriol Squadrons" (basically Planet based Fighter craft) or Military Special Forces (highly trained Infantry). Organics would make up the bulk of the cost with "Combat Units" to represent all the Troops/support personel you need to train, feed, and equip with.