SEV Proportions Mod |
I recently emailed PvK and he agreed that I named my mod "Proportions" as he doesnt plan any mod for SEV.
I was thinking: What do you think is a "must have" for a proportions version for SEV?
I included the following:
- Population growth modifier
- Population bonus and penalties to Production and SY rates.
- Increased population and cargo capacity on planets.
- The Homeworld Cultural Center to make the homeworld much more powerful than any other colony can ever be.
- Other cultural facilities to improve the colonial production over time.
- Much increased cost for colony modules and colony hulls.
- Expanded the tech three basically in the same manner IRM mod did.
- Separated engines/supply and weapons/ordnance.
- QNP propulsion
- Trying to make the ground combat more detailed and interesting (having a hard time on that)
- More variety on low tech weapons (Tired of DUCs)
- Every empire now starts with literally NO tech level. The only tech levels are level 1 on research and level 1 on Min/org/Rad extracting. This makes for more custimization at the start of the game. I just dont like the way every empire is exactly the same in the beginning. We will need to give some tech points at empire creation though, else people will need to get a couple years IG just to develop viable spaceflight.
- Added some more components and new technologies, aside from most of the SEIV Proportions techs and components.
- Removes tech racial traits. Every technology, including organic, crystalline and temporal can be researched given enough time.
- Efficient and High Performance version of all engines.
- Major tweakings to almost every aspect of the game.
- I'm seriously thinking of including Isopsyco's FTL drive using warp point manipulation. I think
I want to keep the spirit of the original Proportions without having to be restricted to just copying it.
I am still thinking about some other features from the original proportions and I would be very grateful to hear what you all think about it. What do you think of the features Ive already implemented? What other feature do you think could be included?
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
Well the old proportions mod did not play very well with the AI. It certainly improved as the mod evolved. How about including AI scrits to make the AI better manage this mod as this would be a very nice addition to the mod pool.
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
hmm, why do you change the starting tech so not every empire is the same, but on the other hand you make tech-racial-traits available for every race so there is no specific bonus for any race.
that makes every race the same in the end.
wouldn´t it be cooler to see more diversity for the races?
the idea of having more starting weapons is nice, it´s realy boring to see every race using duc in the beginning.
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
"hmm, why do you change the starting tech so not every empire is the same, but on the other hand you make tech-racial-traits available for every race so there is no specific bonus for any race.
that makes every race the same in the end."
Well, I actually changed the whole tech tree, so old racial technologies can be researched but they are very research point consuming. Besides, the techs are different. All organic components and hulls regenerate and all crystalline components and hulls have the doubled structure points. Costs arent the only difference. A lot of people think it should still be racial trait based so I'm still unsure about it.
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
A playable version of the mod is ready. Ive uploaded it to PBW mods section. Im still playtesting it and adjusting the data files but feedback is very much appreciated.
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
Intriguing mod... need multiplayer playtesters? 
~~~
The power of the ancients is now yours to command. You are truly the Master... of the obvious 
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
Im planning to run a test game soon. Interested players are welcome.
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
Cool, keep me informed 
~~~
The power of the ancients is now yours to command. You are truly the Master... of the obvious
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
Some features from the current version of the mod:
- Low populated colonies are heavily penalized in production/construction. Densely populated worlds receive high bonus.
- Colonization tech areas are very expensive and will only produce a useable component after some 10 levels of research. Colonization is not important in the early game as colony ships are very big, expensive and take some time to build.
- New colonies are more of a burden as they wont even produce enough to pay maintenance. Construction of Cultural facilities is needed to make a planet useful in terms of production/research.
- Space Yards do stack but they are now a lot bigger and much more expensive to compensate.
- The homeworld produces a very large surplus and can maintain a reasonable fleet on its own.
- Remote mining is a quick and cheap way of producing more resources.
- Fighters are useful but move very slowly on the system map. Carriers are the only way to get them to where they are needed.
- Infra-structure development is a painstakingly process. Glassing and recolonizing enemy planets is not a viable strategy. Ground invasion have much more importance.
- Sensor component is bigger and more expensive. Installing one in each ship is not feasible. Dedicated sensor ships will be needed.
- Spaceports have many more abilities like small bonus to production and some sensor range.
- Developing the homeworld is much more important in the early game than colonizing every little moon in the homesystem. Resource production/Research can be raised more easily by high level facilities than by a higher number of small level facilities. Quality is usually more important than quantity.
- Initial tech level is quite low so using a low or medium research points bonus on empire creation can speed the game a lot.
- There are no racial tech traits anymore. The former racial techs are in the main tech tree and can be research by any empire.
- Quasi-Newtonian-Propulsion added. There is no limit to the number of engines in each ship. Engines produce a modest bonus to combat and ships without them will be easier to hit.
- Combat bonus to smaller ships and penalties to bigger ones.
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
I've tested your mod a bit. Obviously the AI has no clue what to do, so I can not say much about balance...
As my improvement proposal list may seem a bit long I want you to know, that I realy like the idea of the mod and what you have done so far.
However, a few things came to my mind.
First of all, we realy need a big life support component. As it is now, designing a colony ship is very much clicking... You also should consider makeing big crew quarter and engine components, as equiping a mothership or something as big as, will be a real pain.
You also should add some ship discription, which tells how much movement points are needed to propel a ship 1 square. (I realy thought your movement system had to be broken, when I first tried to design a colony ship with the first level of the chemical drive.(After adding all those life support components. ))
Furthermore some parts of the tech tree seem to be a little odd. Researching ships until lvl 10 costs much RP, but brings only +9% defence modification for smaller ships and almost nothing (the added structure points aren't worth much on a high level dreadnought) for bigger ships. Therefore the higher levels are more or less senseless. I guess you want to evade the stock situation, where lvl 10 frigates are so big, that almost no-one ever uses something bigger, but you should still give the levels some meaning. You could probably do this by increasing the tonnage +10 per level, or making the first levels of the hull type very expensive and decreasing the cost with each level. (After all, when you research something for years, you will find a way to build it cheaper - and faster, by the way.) If it is possible, you could also lower the movement points the ship needs to trevel with increasing levels.
On the other hand, some basic technologies (like physics) are very cheap. This will probably lead to players never bothering with the first 2-3 types of engines...
Also, by altering the tech tree this heavy, it was sometimes hard for me to know what I should research to get something. I don't know exactly what can be done to make this better, but it would probably help a bit, if you could make a better describtion of what the tech gives you.
Furthermore the Baseship between Dreadnought and Heavy Dreadnought (please, please name it Super Dreadnought ) seems a bit odd to me. I think its role is more or less filled by the Mothership. (If not, it probably should be bigger then the SD.)
For haveing some realy big ships, too, you should also consider makeing some high end, bigger weapon platforms and sattelites, or it will be realy hard to defend a planet in end game...
You also have a few typos in it.
...Oh, and I realy like what you have done. 
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
Thanks a lot for your help.
- I was thinking of including bigger version of those components you mentioned but I was mindful of clogging the component listing. Anyway, I think I will include them for practicity's sake.
- Im going to include a more detailed component/ship size descriptions. Thats the problem with playtesting the mod yourself. You will never notice those little lacks of information because you already knows how it works. Thanks for noticing them.
- I liked your idea of reducing the cost for higher level hulls. I think I will also decrease the RP cost. Decreasing the movement cost is something to think of.
- The physics tech cost is a problem. I could increase the number of levels between each engine type or make the tech area a lot more expensive. Im yet unsure what to do.
- I will probably take the Mothership out and increase the tonnage of the Super Dreadnought. Planetary defense wouldnt be a problem in my opinion. Ive increased a lot the structure of all facilities and population. There is a lot more space for cargo too. It should be quite hard for any ship to glass a planet without bombardment weapons. Even a colony.
- The AI is obviously dead. Im writing this mod with PBW in my mind. My major worry is about the weapon balance. I think I will have to set a test game to sort them out. Another soft spot is the cultural facilities. Im unsure about how much they should cost.
Thanks for your help. Please keep your ideas coming.
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
I defenitly will. But first I will go on holiday for 2 weeks.
Only just one thing I did forget to add. At the start of the game, racial tech, government system, society form... the things which give you +% in research points seem to be a bit overpowered. For you will have much research points one your homeworld, the player who chooses a few of them will get a hugh advantage. The same goes with research facility research cost. If you give reserach points right from the start (which you will) than most players will spend most of them for higher levels of research facilities. This would lead to every player haveing the same starting empire again. Maybe you should higher the research cost for it. You also should make other society forms... a bit better, so they will be choosen.
Oh, and I wasn't exact about weapon platforms. You can defend a planet in your mod with them good, but at the end of a game you will have many, many wp on a big planet... This will make it difficult to get a good overlook of what you have on the planet. And in ground combat this would probably also be problamatic, for you will have dozens of them there. Therefore I thought you should do one bigger as a late game tech, so players can build a good, big fortress.
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
any update on this mod or are you having TOO much fun playing it
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
- I was thinking of including bigger version of those components you mentioned but I was mindful of clogging the component listing. Anyway, I think I will include them for practicity's sake.
- Im going to include a more detailed component/ship size descriptions. Thats the problem with playtesting the mod yourself. You will never notice those little lacks of information because you already knows how it works. Thanks for noticing them.
- I liked your idea of reducing the cost for higher level hulls. I think I will also decrease the RP cost. Decreasing the movement cost is something to think of.
- The physics tech cost is a problem. I could increase the number of levels between each engine type or make the tech area a lot more expensive. Im yet unsure what to do.
- I will probably take the Mothership out and increase the tonnage of the Super Dreadnought. Planetary defense wouldnt be a problem in my opinion. Ive increased a lot the structure of all facilities and population. There is a lot more space for cargo too. It should be quite hard for any ship to glass a planet without bombardment weapons. Even a colony.
- The AI is obviously dead. Im writing this mod with PBW in my mind. My major worry is about the weapon balance. I think I will have to set a test game to sort them out. Another soft spot is the cultural facilities. Im unsure about how much they should cost.
Thanks for your help. Please keep your ideas coming.
some good ideas there I like the AI to at least build def so i have something to work for when I find other players systems
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
As Heber pointed out... there is currently no AI.
Re: SEV Proportions Mod
Sounds sweet, especially starting out with pretty much zero tech and the increased cost of colonising.
Can't wait till this is done.