Missile Battle Mod |
Here are just a few "random thoughts" that I strung together into a mod. I know its just theorycraft, but is anyone interested in playing it (and more importantly, helping me get the AI together!)
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Increase all sources of resource generation (mineral/organics/Rad) by 100; balance by increasing facility cost (and only facility!) by 100. Result should be much more unit/ship/base construction possible out of same resource base.
REMOVE all planetary space yards. Result: Planets can no longer build ships directly, allowing me to vastly up their base construction rate for units. No problem because I've created a new unit type "scaffolding" (working name!) which allows for space-born construction, though direct que access is impossible (must use the little wrench icon at the top to access it) due to coding mistake at malfador. Adjust space-based spaceyards to adjust to changed dynamic (i. e. start at level 1).
Increase all supply/ordinance storage and production by a factor of 100; further increase planet-based storage and production by another factor of 100; give bases a large default storage and production for both.
Increase planetary cargo storage by a factor of 100 (increases the defensive capacity, which is nice but secondary -- primary goal is with weapons storage, read ahead).
REMOVE fighters; drones: they aren't the focus I want in this mod. I may mod fighters back in at a later date.
In place of drones, mod in "missiles". Missiles will come in several forms; standard seekers will act as "counter-missiles", basic Captial Missiles will be a drone with basic warhead, engine, and control combination and will be the "base" on which all other missiles advance from; Multi-Drive missiles will have multiple drivers for faster flight times (and if possible) ranges; multi-warhead missiles will allow for more damage, and differen't damage types; advanced missiles will have an extra slot for something "extra", current ideas are a PD system (a regular "direct fire" based PD cluster), shields/armor, or possibly a secondary weapon (I. E. a beam weapon they blast out with before impact).
Due to the huge range of drones, combat will revolve around keeping your ships stocked with them. However, beam weapons will also have a place as I will jack their damage up SIGNIFIGANTLY, and unlike missiles they can't be "shot down" short of target. As a result, you will have long battering matches or short, swift knockouts depending on the range of fight.
As a personal peeve, I will make ramming a MUCH nastier tactic than it is now, probably by making all engines act as warheads so they blow up on impact. For balance, I'll remove the "only weapons" damage type (which I don't like much anyway) from most beam weapons, except I will include it in a point-blank last-ditch defense weapon, which will probably also have engine-killing powers (if the system works the way I think it does, I can make it not kill regular weapons by requiring the damage type to hit something with both engine and weapon abilities, and it will skip regular weapons, so I can leave the damage type in).
Other general balance changes include making defenses much more powerful than they are now (will be easier to do when regenerators work right, and I can make shields rebuild fast). Ideally, in a one-on-one duel and equal tonnage of defenses should defeat an equal tonnage of weapons, resulting in fleet combats which force you to focus fire on individual targets. I intend to intensify this effect as best as possible on capitol ships, so the larger a ship is the less suited it will be to one-on-one duel type scenarios, while smaller ships will duel eachother more often.
I also intend to change the racial techs to mean something, with each one having a lot of its current stuff ripped out and replaced with the following "philosophy".
Organics: Highly efficient use of supply/ordinance, maintenence reduction on ships; improved defensive armors via natural-regeneration and hulls that rebuild themselves (all ships have self-repair).
Crystalurgy: Improved maintenence, and the damage-into-shield ability. Improved efficiency via the ability to "steal" enemy supplies and ordinance (if engine allows ordinance). Higher focus on "special weapon" types, like engine and weapon only.
Psychics: Improved defensive/offencive ECM/ECCM due to "precognition". Doubly improved system defense through "predictive facilities". Also allows for improved training facilities, and vastly improved spy network stuff (ve know when you are lying to us...)
Temporal: Can build stuff much faster through temporal manipulation. Has access to supply-hog tech that lets shields be stronger/regenerate faster. Will probably also get temporal-based "improved resource generation" too.
Religion: I'll probably remove it, unless osmeone can come up with something.
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One of the nice things, IMO, is that this makes resupply a much bigger deal -- you can top of the ships fuel reserve, sure, but you also have to get its missiles out to it, as well as basic ordinance. This should make the strategic situation MUCH more interesting.
I also like improving planetary defenses, as these are always WAY to weak in stock IMO. The additional boost makes me happy-happy, and will probably apply to bases too (which will be made more powerful, but more expensive).
I also like making the racial techs mean more than just more goodies, they also change the basic implications of how you play -- psychich is very heavily defensive spymaster, whereas crystalurgy/organics improve your offense more than defense. Temporal will be able to do anything, but probably not as strong as the others (more focused on research wins than intelligence, I think).
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BTW, anyone know if theres any way to make in-combat space movement use up supplies?
Also, is there any way to make a weapon NOT target something (e. g. damagetypes can let you damage only engines, can I make it damage anything BUT engines).
