The Star Trek Mod - v1.9.7.5 (Oct 07)

[mottlee]

Crap!....now I have to restart again sasafras *%*^(#(%^#

[Atrocities]

mottlee said:
Crap!....now I have to restart again sasafras *%*^(#(%^#

I have started so many new games that it has to be a record. But it is all worth it. If by play testing and having to start over and over and over again helps yeild a better, more complete, and balanced mod then the repetative task would have been well worth it.

My question now is should I go ahead and release the mod in its current Version 1.8.9.0, without the improvements Captain Kwok has put forth, or should I wait a month and then put out the mod?

Note I have not finished updating many of the ship sets, but have completed all eight primary races and have upgraded the four Federation races.

For the record the MARKER components were put there as an aid for new players. I was planning on including tech tree information in them for the areas that they cover. But really the Marker components can be set up to include all kinds of information. From ship design ideas, to expert player notes. They are really a very helpful tool to have in the game.

[Atrocities]

There are major supply issues as tech increases. First of all, the warp core should not eat up supplies, as of now it eats 80 supplies for each move point! Ships at max tech use all their supply on the first turn. You're looking at about 400 points of supply per turn for nacelle movement, so the warp core should supply about 4000 at max tech, with two bussard ramscoops recovering about half of what nacelles use, i.e. 100 each per star.

This is intentional to some degree. I do not, will not, add back the Q-reactor or any component like it. I want ships to run out of supplies, especially larger ships. However I do not want them to run out on the first turn or by turn four.

Balancing the use of supplies usage and supply generation has proven itself to be a slight achilles heal for this mod. I have tried multiple forumlas and the only one that I has shown any remote success over the entire range of the mod is the current system. However, that being said, I am by no means qualified or skilled enough in this area to claim that this model is the one we should use. Therefore I am open to suggestions and any help I can get in establishing a new supply/supply generation model.

Restructuring the system is a huge undertaking and one that should not be done half assed. So if it is to be done, it has to be done right and right the first time as I do not want to keep releasing update after update after update.

[mottlee]

Hey do not get me wrong....I do not mind the restart as you said makes for a better gam, I had however just restarted and had to again, (was doing good too )

[Atrocities]

Star Trek Mod v1.9.0.0 - CURRENTLY UNDER DEVELOPMENT - NOT YET RELEASED

1. Changed Lowered Scattering Armor I - III ECM ability. (4,6,8%) to match ECM.

Do you think this may help reduce the frequency that the AI will add more than one of these components? I think the problem lies in the design creation folder as you have already specified.

What I would like to do is simplify the Design Creation file so that one file can be used for all races with some minor modifications for special weapons.

I would like to set up the pirate race and the borg race to use mainly capture technology while the federation uses more non leathal weapons. The rest would use standard weapon load outs shared for the most part by all races.

The only differance being in the Borg and Pirate races with the addition of capture tech.

I was thinking on five ship designs:

Scout
Attack Small
Attack Medium
Attack Large
Attack Heavy

Scout 100kt to 200kt
Attack Small 100kt to 200kt
Attack Medium 201kt to 500kt
Attack Large 501kt to 800kt
Attack Heavy 801kt to 1200kt.

Thoughts?

[Captain Kwok]

The offense/defense bonuses are still too small especially when considering weapon ranges and the -10/square range modifier.

Like I suggested before, increasing the number of tech levels reduces the bonus step for each level, which in turn eliminates most cheesiness (i.e. due to tech disparity) associated with combat bonuses.

Possible Values:
Combat Sensors I-V: 6-12-18-24-30%
ECM I-V: 5-10-15-20-25%

In combination with changing the default modifier for distance, say to -5%, you can make really good use of the leaky armor/shield system.

I don't have the data files on hand for your mod so I can't recall what types of bonuses/penalties you have set for ship sizes.

Also note shields that combine regular shield points and phased shield points behave as regular shields and will not block shield skipping weapons.

[mottlee]

Did a restart, Neutral AI building "0" movement ships, starting to look into the other AI's

Vulcans "0" movement ships

[Captain Kwok]

Regarding AI design files. Basically to make the best AI you want to have entries that are customized for each ship size and race. At first this sounds like a lot of work to do, but it really isn't.

The trick as I've mentioned below is to use "component lineages" that share a common AI tag but utilize different abilities. This way you can have the AI design ships that seem to "evolve" throughout the game.

Lineages that would be appropriate to the Star Trek mod would be Armor and shields. Do not bother using the shield and armor "spaces per one" entries, but rather call them using AI tags. This is especially important in regards to armor since the mod uses a leaky armor system, which by design usually avoids labelling armor as "armor" in data file terms.

Expanded Examples:

AI Tag X: Basic Armor - Advanced Armor - Racial Armor

At the start, ships will use the basic armor until mid-game when advanced armor becomes available. By end game, they've researched their racial armor, which may be a completely different ability from the previous armor their ship employed, but they'll having no problems changing over to it.

AI Tag Y: Hull Plating - Shields - Phased Shields

More or the less the same as above. Hull plating is really a true armor in SE4 terms although we are using it as "pre-shields" in the mod, and had you been calling for shields or armor from the "Shield Spaces" or "Armor Spaces" you'd get all sorts of unintended design craziness.

For each race, make an optimized "cruiser" size design. Copy and paste that design for each race's ship sizes, making the appropriate changes. All multi-purpose ships (as opposed to mine sweepers, etc) have the same characterisitics and relatively the same percentage of space dedicated to each of the major ship systems, so you'll just need to adjust the spaces amount to be in line with the ship size.

[Atrocities]

mottlee said:
Hey do not get me wrong....I do not mind the restart as you said makes for a better gam, I had however just restarted and had to again, (was doing good too )

I just ran a low tech start with Vulcans. I let AI design ship. I had both Vulcan and Vulcan nuetral. Both AI's designed ships with movement. So I do not know why your having problems.

[Atrocities]

Captain Kwok. All races are set up to use ships within their KT range. That is there are designs for all KT size ships.

I kinda understand what you saying, but do not know if I can pull it off the way you have described. I would have to revamp many components, no big deal, then remake each races design creation file. Again no big deal. However without having a clear understanding of what to do, again this just might be do to my tiredness at the moment, I fear that I will only make things worse.

However I will use your model and your comments to do the best that I can.

It should be interesting now that we are getting into improving the AI. I hope these up coming changes make the mod more formiddable.