Separate strategic and combat movement

[dmm]

I think it would be awesome if there were two separate classes of engines/movement, the first for strategic movement (hyperspace) and the second for combat movement (impulse). Would deepen the game immensely.

Just a few "for instances": you could prevent fighters from having hyperspace engines (or make it costly in weight or research); you could prevent freighters and colonizers from having more than 1 impulse engine; you could let dreadnoughts have fast hyperspace but slow impulse; space stations could be allowed one combat movement but no strategic movement; etc., etc., etc.

You'd have to decide if you wanted to research hyperspace to get strategic speed or impulse to get combat speed. You could make ships that were truly defensive ships by leaving out the hyperspace engines and stocking up on weapons instead. Minefield clearers might have no impulse engines and extra armor or minesweeping.

Has anyone suggested this before? It is NOT moddable at present, is it?

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, yes and no.

You can use the fighter's afterburner ability for the combat/tactical drives, and normal engines for the long-haul/strategic drives.
You are still left with the minimum of half your strategic speed in combat.

[dmm]

Can you mod afterburners to allow you to put them on ships and bases? And can you make "negative afterburners" that are required for movement? (You would rename them "structural integrity field" or "inertial dampers" or some such.)

[PvK]

Yes you can put Combat Movement on ship components.

As for putting negative Combat Movement values, I don't know if that works (I'd guess not, but that's just a guess), but if it does work, you could include it on the long-range engines... although you might need to let the LR engines give 2 standard movment points so the minimum -1 combat movement would balance out.

PvK

[dmm]

You wouldn't want to put the negative combat movement on the warp engines because then every time one got destroyed in combat your combat MP would increase by one. LOL!

Which brings up another question: do engine-destroying weapons target afterburners?

[Phoenix-D]

Remember that combat movement doesn't stack before you get too ambitious

Putting two afterburners on a fighter doesn't make it go any faster than one. Works the same for ships.

Phoenix-D

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by dmm:
Can you mod afterburners to allow you to put them on ships and bases? And can you make "negative afterburners" that are required for movement? (You would rename them "structural integrity field" or "inertial dampers" or some such.)

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I've used the same graphic and called them 'Combat Thrusters'. The fighter Version is now called 'Small Combat Thrusters'.

[dmm]

They don't stack? grrrr, that's a pain. You'd have to have a whole set of them for different ships and tech levels.
But the most impt question is: do negative afterburners work? (Do they decrease your combat MP?)
If neg ABs don't work, then this idea isn't moddable at all, not even in a kludgey way.

Baron, can you do a quick check with your "Combat Thrusters?" Just put a negative sign in your modded file, and see if it has the intended effect.

[ 26 April 2002: Message edited by: dmm ]