Recruiting a mod team

I'm more than willling to help, but I have no experience or knowledge involving scripting, modeling, sound effects... Basic data file modding is where I"m at. That any use?

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Yours in gaming,
~ElucidusI usually just work on a mod, those who like it or like where it is going will usually ask to help out as you go.

Hey, count me in, but on 'delayd' status...

I have some serious ramp up time, a) to learn the basic game play, then b) figure out what I'd be able to do for the team.

with no profesional experiance, I've dabbled in the mod communitiy in several games... made a few .pud 's for WarCraft II (but was mostly famouse for hosting them,) Same for the .scm 's of StarCraft. dabbled a bit in NWN, Made a Dungeon for Oblivion that's still fairly popular. (over 1500 downloads anyway.)

but ya, basic stuff.

however, if you don't mind a novice, (wich your intro. seemed to indicate,) then I'd like to be a part of your project. just let me know, and it's totaly cool if you'd rather I 'skill' up a bit. I completly understand.

zWolf -out.

I'm working on the lasers conversion at the moment, and I'm going NUTS because they don't cahnge damage on a linear basis.

Rank 1 UV laser: 30 10 5
Rank 8 UV laser: 50 45 30 25 10 5

That isn't something that can be readily reduced into a linear equation. I just figured out that an equation based off of 1/[range] should work, but I'm not sure exactly how to manipulate it to get the right result as weapon levels shift. ATM, I'm looking at:

IFF(range<=((30+([level]-1)*4.5)),((30+(([level]-1)*2.9))/(range/10),0)

Problem is, my testing shows that fractional division seems to have bizare behavoiur at times (though I'm wondering if part of the problem was the fact that I was working with PD during the tests).

Also, thats not a 100% perfect match for the results, as it comes out to (about):

30 15 10 (at level 1)
50 25 16 12 10 8 (at level 8 weapon)

So the other problem is, is that equation's behaviour close enough to the desired result? I can't figure out how to tweak it the the "proper" result.

My only other choice is to have it attenuate linearly, and that doesn't really match up very well either.

Anyone see an equation form/adjustment I'm missing, or I'm I just SoL?

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Can you be more specific on your needs? If you put the damage numbers that you want on it would be easier for someone to answer your question.

I've got a couple of template formulas that might help you however I don't know which one to post because I don't know the numbers you're after.

Your lord and master (below Foamy) LordHavoc

I'm trying to port the SEIV values from the original mod into SEV formulas.

I actually thought of something while I was at work (well, several somethings). First, I should putt the entire divisor into an IFF statement so it can never go below .1 or so (division by 0 = not fun). Second, maybe I should try moving zero point to the left by adding to the divisor, then increase the top so it still comes out right for base range damage -- that should let me play around with the exponent on the bottom, if I can figure out how to do partial exponents with the SEV equations (since I doubt X^Y formats will work).

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Note you can enter explicit damage ranges a la SE:IV using these fields:

Weapon Space Min Damage At Range := 30 25 20 15...
Weapon Space Max Damage At Range := 40 35 30 25...
Weapon Space To Hit Modifier At Range := 90 80 70 60...

But I don't think you can use formulas here...

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Space Empires Depot | Space Food Empires!

How would that be scaled to levels?

edit: Btw, seriously, does anyone know how to do powers/roots with the SEV equations? Does it accept the ^ symbol, or use something else?

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

For exponents it's ^ .

You'd have to have an entry for each level of weapon (like SE:IV) and probably use some statements in the tech requirements to have the old level vanish. However this would prevent auto-upgrades etc. You can try and see if you can use the [%Level%] variable with each value...

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Space Empires Depot | Space Food Empires!

You can get some nice weapon curves using formulas with Level and Range.

In this one, as the weapon's Level goes up from 1 to 10, both max range and max damage go up (of course), but also the curve changes. In front (Level-1), it's a steep, short-ranged drop. At the back (Level-10) it's a gradual, long-range curve.

This weapon has great short-range punch, but in the beginning it's power falls off quickly. As the tech improves, the weapon gets much better range, losing less of it's strength over distance. It also gains just a little more damage per shot.

P.S. Tried downloading Invasion! mod for SEIV, but the link doesn't seem to work.

i'm still new to it, but i made some models and skins for them in a program that should work for this (3dmax) for age of mythology. they were animated and so forth, so this should be easier. we'll have to see. But i'm willing to learn and make it happen if you want me.

You forgot to give us the equation! Don't forget to convert any < and &rt; to their HTML equivilants: &lt and &rt with an ; on the end.

Also, it just occured to me that a cubic root formula may suit my needs better, just have to figure out how to manipulate it to have the right values.

edit:

BTW, is the program you used to produce that graph freeware? I'd love to have something OTHER than my graphing calculator to plug values into. (A. Slow, B. doesn't handle multiple variables very well, or at least I dont' know how to teach it to)

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

The equation I used for the above:

Max( 0, 100 level /(1.25 range + level) + 2 level - 25 )

Weapon Space Min Damage Modifier Formula :=
Max( 0, ((100 * [%Level%]) / ((1.25 * [%Range%]) + [%Level%])) + (2 * [%Level%]) - 25)

For Max Damage Modifier Formula, getting a spread to scale well with the level, could change the (2 * level) component to maybe (5 * level).
That should give a spread of 3 * weapon level.

EDIT:
The software is student edition of Mathematica v5.2, not officially free...They might have a demo type thing for download at www.wolfram.com

You can do graphs like that in plain old Microsoft Excel, and perform ranges of calculations.

Edit: Woah, that pictures a bit big

Edit2: I got rid of the humongous picture because it was too big and I needed to free up some space for something more valuable.

Your lord and master (below Foamy) LordHavoc

Excel has a secret copy-picture-to-clipboard: Shift-click the edit menu, and "Copy Picture" will appear on the menu. Then paste into MSPaint and the whole thing is resizable.

Here's an exponent formula, where the weapon maintains more of its' power through range, then drops off toward the end:

Rank 8 UV laser: 50 45 30 25 10 5

I notice that this is 2 sets of alternating linear equations:
1st set starting with
               50
50 - 20 = 30
30 - 20 = 10
2nd set, starting with
               45
45 - 20 = 15
25 - 20 = 5

I hope this helps

The game is telling me that the following equation is wrong:

iif([%Range%] <= (30 + ([%Level%] - 1) * 4.5),(((30 + ([%level%] - 1) * 2.9 ) * 2 )/ IIF(.1 <= ([%range%] ^ (1 / [%Level%] +1 ) + 1 ),([%range%] ^ (1 / [%Level%] + 1) + 1), 0.1),0)

I can't figure out whats wrong, and the games error message is illegible because it pulls this formula up twice, causing half the text to overlap and be unreadable. All I can make out is "cannot parse this formula" and something about "weapon min damage".

Any ideas?

Also, I don't have excel on my comnputer, just openoffice, can't find the graph function

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

I figured that out... eventually

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Ok, your main problem is spaces. You need a space after every , and around every math function.

EDIT: ok, this board is even more annoying than I thought. It ate the forumla and the rest of my post. EDIT2 haha. And editing a post moves it to the bottom of the tree. Cute.

iif([%Range%]