*** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***

[Captain Kwok]

So, looking around...aren't Romulans supposed to have pointy ears? Honorable schemers, I wonder how that would work...We are planting a bomb on your starship...HONORABLY!

I do have an improved Version where the ears are more pointed, I'll upload it later today. The 'honorable' is from official descriptions of Romulans.

The Cardassian description seems to... borrow... a bit from the Federation

That would be a leftover error from a cut and paste job.

Are the Tholians, Breen, and 8472 going to have some sort of penalty to offset the advantages of liking planets that other races don't? (At least the Tholians and 8472 since oxygen ice planets can still be desired by other races once they get ice colony tech)

Well, oxygen rock planets are more common than any other planet type, so that should help with balance issues.

A research/intel/cargo/etc. facility II is TWICE as good as a level I facility? Isn't that a bit much??? Or do the costs increase appropriately?

The costs are appropriate for the increase.

The Ferengi still get a combat bonus from captainless ships...

What do you mean? The Ferengi do not have dedicated combat captains like other races...their only sources of bonuses will be in the form of sensors etc.

A warehouse PRODUCES resources???

Woops, that would be another error. It should read 30K-40K-50K MINs; ORGs; RADs storage, which it does now since I fixed it.

Planning on using all the fancy Nx damage to shields damage types?

The polarized hull plating is armor, not shields, and is simply basic emissive armor.

[Ed Kolis]

OK, I guess that makes sense now

[Captain Kwok]

For those who may not be aware, the Star Trek mod has an 'official' forum hosted by Fyron:

Star Trek Mod Forum

There's lots of good stuff there!

[ March 29, 2003, 16:12: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

[Captain Kwok]

I'm not sure if I mentioned in this thread, but the new target date for beta testing is the Last week of April. I have two weeks off between school and full time work, so I will use them most wisely.

Below is a topic that I'm brought up in the Star Trek mod's other forum (That would be here):

After discussing with Fyron about his implementation of leaky armor and shields into his Adamant Mod...I realized that some adjustments had to be made in the Star Trek mod. Before I discuss those changes, I though I would explain what are leaky armor and leaky shields in terms of the Star Trek mod.

Leaky armor is armor without the �damaged first� ability. In this case, a hit that strikes the ship�s components does not necessarily hit the armor first and may damage other components like the bridge or engines. However, by increasing the hitpoints per kT of armor and decreasing the hitpoints per kT of other internals, you can increase the probability that damage will hit the armor first but not always. Specifically in the mod, most internal components have about 1 hitpoint per 10kT of structure. Armor can have anywhere from 20 to 50 hitpoints per 10kT and in a typical design represents about 75-85% of the total hitpoints. In essence, this number represents the probability that a hit that strikes the hull will hit the armor first. About 15-25% of the time, another component will be hit. In the Star Trek mod, most internal components have only 1 or 2 hitpoints while weapons can do between 15-100+ hitpoints of damage. However, the likelihood of several internal components being destroyed at one time (as you might think due to their low hitpoints) is not that bad. In fact, during testing today when most armor is intact, only the odd hit ever took out more than one internal. The adjustments I made were to tweak the hitpoint per kT ratio for all armors to have them in the 75-85% range in most designs. One point though, when your shields and armor are toast, better launch those escape pods!

Leaky shields are regular shields with the �shields from damage� or commonly known as the �crystalline armor� ability from the component that uses it in standard SE4. This ability takes the prescribed amount of damage (the shields from damage amount) from the weapon and channels it back into the shields when any component takes damage. This creates �leaky� shields when they are low enough to let damage pass through. For example, shields are at 50 with a total of 75 in crystalline ability before taking 100 damage points. The shields would drop to 0, 50 damage points would be done to the hull, and then the shields would charge back to 50 points. Of course, damage that squeaks by the shields might end up leaking through the armor and damaging other components in which Suicide Junkie refers to as the �exploding panel� effect. I adjusted some of the values for the shields at lower levels to make them worthwhile, as their shield point levels were too low. I think more testing is going to be needed to determine the best crystalline armor amounts for balance.

Overall, these two items combine to create far more interesting ship battles. A few lucky strikes can really cause chaos or turn the tables on any force. It should get more interesting once the mod is ready for real testing.

[ March 31, 2003, 12:54: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

[Atrocities]

Thank you for posting this information. I had wondered how you were going to modify them for use in the ST mod.

[Suicide Junkie]

For example, shields are at 50 with a total of 75 in crystalline ability before taking 100 damage points. The shields would drop to 0, 50 damage points would be done to the hull, and then the shields would charge back to 75 points.

That Last number should be 50, since the shields get boosted only by the 50 that hits the hull, not the maximum potential (75) of the generator.

[jimbob]

Hey Kapitan Kwok:

I'm posting here because I had a hard time logging in over at STAR TREK FORUM (sorry, can't change fonts here so the caps looked like ST letters )

Anyhoo, just wondering about the description of construction yards.

i) there are 5 levels, but the description states that they can repair 10 components per turn. First, isn't 10 components/turn a little much? (I don't know, cause I haven't seen the size of armor etc in a game yet, so maybe it isn't excessive). And is that 10 repairs per turn for all levels (level I and V are equal) or does that ramp up with increasing levels?

ii) why is there a discrepancy between how much minerals can be built per turn vs organics and radioactives? I assume it's for play balance, but again, just sitting here wondering

Cheers, great work,
jimbob

[Captain Kwok]

All levels of Space Yards can repair 10 comps per turn. It's mostly the result of smaller armor and shield components, plus their leaky effects, which lead to a lot more damaged components. There are also a number of other repair options from engineering to repair bays to replicators. I was also going to add a repair component for vehicles only, so you could make repair pods (treated as fighters) but I'm not sure if that works since I haven't tested it and I can't remember the results of the thread concerning this kind of thing a few months back.

The building rates are designed to proportionally reflect the costs of a typical ship. So basically, all three resources are being used to build the ship throughout its build time. You may also noticed that radioactives extraction rates are also much lower. That is to reflect their nature as 'exotic' elements. I mentioned a few of these items under features at the website, I think.

Sometimes Fyron's forums are slow to load or not working, but oh well. I prefer using them simply because we can create individual topics, so things don't get lost as easily as they do in this thread.

[Fyron]

The high numbers of damaged comps should take a while to repair. That is the other half of using leaky armor and shields. Having the SYs and Repair Bays repairing a lot more comps removes the space junk aspect of leakiness.

I was also going to add a repair component for vehicles only, so you could make repair pods (treated as fighters) but I'm not sure if that works since I haven't tested it and I can't remember the results of the thread concerning this kind of thing a few months back.

It definitely works. The units can use repair components just fine, and they repair ships just like a repair bay does.

[ April 07, 2003, 06:02: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Suicide Junkie]

I agree with Fyron; even scotty can't replace the hull plating of half the saucer that fast!

Taking serious damage should really require a trip back to a starbase or shipyard for speedy repairs.

Out in space, it should take a turn or three to finish repairs on moderately damaged internals, never mind the armor!
Ships can cross a system in hours, do you really don't have too much time for repairs each game turn.

[ April 07, 2003, 20:47: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]