Babylon 5 Space Empires V mod?

Bummer. I used to play a ton of Babylon 5 Wars...it would be cool to have some Babylon 5 ship sets. Just four basic sets would be cool: Earthforce, Narn, Centauri, and Minbari.

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Jumping up and down for joy. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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Hi Blackswan,

Is the Interstellar_Alliance.rar the same files as IAv2.rar

Just wondering because I downloaded the IAv2.rar files and now can no longer locate that post. Also wondering if you will be doing a BM small flag set for this shipset? I'm trying to get these models on PBW but need a good link to send to their admins...just want to make sure they get the most recent files. Someone has already put the shadows in the approved list of ships but the IA has still not made it in.

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The IA is now a part of the PBW scene.

Loyalty above all else except honor.

I don't know how I missed this post. I will look forward to seeing this when it is done. Sounds cool.

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Babylon 5 Wars was never meant to be balanced as far as weaponry/races go. That is what made it fun. Trying to get past a Minbari Jammer while its weapons are punching holes through your ship like a hot knife through butter was the tactical challenge. B5W balanced this via ship cost.

A B5W version of SEV could be balanced out by making the "Ancient" races ship components cost a lot more...thus to build & maintain a larger fleet would cost the player more in minerals/organics/radioactives. This in itself should balance the game if the correct formula could be made. The Vorlons and Shadows had smaller fleets and utilized younger races to carry out their wars because the "Ancient" races did not breed as fast. The only way I can think of to limit one player's fleet size in SEV and not other players is by making the better technology incredibly expensive...thus you have balance. It may take Earthforce 20 Cruisers to destroy a Vorlon or Shadow cruiser but the cost for one Vorlon cruiser should be the same/similar to the 20 Earthforce vessels to be built.

Also, the game would have to be constructed more on the political elements versus the purly war elements. e.g. A Vorlon vs. Earthforce war would be pointless if the max ship limit was set to 2000 and there were only two players in the game. However, if you get a game with 10 players, a ship limit of 200, then the political situation would work to eliminate the more powerful races. If you had one player playing Shadows and another playing Vorlons natural teams would form around those two power races to ensure the younger races victory. Especially if the ship components were kept similar to B5W. i.e. only Vorlons and Shadows would have access to planet destroying weapons.

It is just a different way of viewing the game. It worked well for B5W. It would carry over well in an SEV mod as well.

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Reducing the amount of ships in play does not "dumb down" gameplay. It simply changes the gameplay. Trust me, get into a game with 10 playes, a 200 ship limit, and then tell me that play has been "dumbed down". If anything it opens up a new world of game play and actually forces players to interact and form political alliances. That is not "dumbed down" that is a much better game...and coincidentally opens up all the potential of SEV, not just the combat aspects.

If you are playing a 1 vs 1 matchup then set the numbers high. The more players you add to a game I suggest you limit fleet size to make the game more challenging. Really, if you think about it, there is little difference in using 2000 or 200 ships outside of clumping mass forces...which slows down the game processing. So in a 2000 ship game you can clump 200 ships in an attack force and in a 200 ship game you can only clump 20 (without opening another border up to assault)...the other player has the same restriction...so mathmatically the only thing your 2000 force fleet is doing is slowing down the game, not making play better. Any fortification requiring a greater fleet to smash through should require political maneuvering with other players, in a multi-person game, to be successful anyway, in my opinion. America did not win WWII without using allies...what makes you think you can tackle the Bugbladder fleet of Mentocka 12 without allies?

As far as B5W races go, I have all the information from Babylon 5 Wars for each and every playable race, to include those carrion eating Pak'ma'ra. Maybe I will set my mind to learning how to make a mod. The "rules" part looks like it can be learned easily enough...the ship building part appears much harder. I do believe a good Mod could be created that allowed for both Ancient, Dead, and Young races to be played effectively. The real key is converting the B5W ship costs into SEV component costs for each race. Time would be my only enemy in trying to learn and build this mod...it always comes down to time. If Babylon 5 shipsets were already floating around the community it would make building a B5W mod all the easier. (Thanks to BlackSwan for the ones currently in place...sweet shipsets.)

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Hi Fyron,

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I have been an avid strategy game fan all my life and have played more strategy game types then I can count. Most "grand scale" games handle stacking or clumping of forces with a single marker that represents many items and has a combined force rating. That does not "dumb down" the game it simply eliminates micro-management of numerous pieces. This does not carry over well in SEV unless you think of resource costs associated with building & maintaining a unit/fleet. This is easily represented by having a single task force with several size vessels. A large force would consist of perhaps a Baseship/Dreadnought/or Battleship, a Carrier, several cruisers, and many small support and escort crafts. The rear forces should consist of outdated/retrofit models with smaller patrol craft. And the mod should be set up to ensure vessels such as a Baseship have astronomical costs to maintain them to prevent a person from building 200 of them. That is how you reach your "clumping" balance without limiting the tactical or strategic nature of the game.

The only thing playing with a large force count proves in SEV is a person's patience in waiting for computer processing and their ability to micromanage many items. It in no way represents a person's level of strategic or tactical thinking. In every war room, in every nation, no table top strategic map represents each and every troop or vehicle. When a marker is moved it represents many things. That does not mean those generals have "dumbed down" the war. It simply means they are not trying to micromanage every component in the grand strategy. Since in an SEV simultaneous turn game you cannot micromanage the tactical level combat in a battle then, in my opinion, it is pointless to want to play with 2000 ships since you are really only able to command the strategic level of the SEV game. So whether you choose to play with 2000 or 200 it is the same level of strategy. The individual tactical pieces are meaningless since this combat is all done via the computer processor and predesigned scripts. Thus, all you are doing is slowing down the processor and having no real effect on the strategic outcome. If you could actually go into the tactical battle, move and direct your 2000 individual pieces, then I might agree with you that the larger count adds more to the game. But you can't do that...so it doesn't. The battle will strategically end up the same...2000 count or 200 count.

I am not saying don't play the game how you want. If you like a slow processing turn and tons of ships then play the game using that style. But just because you choose to play the game in that fashion does not mean that those who don't are "dumbing down" the game experience. One of the best turn based strategy games around is Dai Senryaku (they are now up to version 7 the last I checked and it is an amazing game to play). It has many realistic units and a max unit count of 50. Some of the best tacticians and strategists play this game to challenge the mind...they do it with 50 pieces...not 500. Each piece represents a force of 1 to 10. The computer processer never locks up when dealing with four players running 50 pieces each. Neither is the game "dumbed down."
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SuicideJunkie,

I assume the pictures of your mod are from SEIV? Never played that version of SE...I only found SEV recently. As I look through the available modding information on the net for SEV (this game really needs a modding handbook) I do not see anything that would allow for a grid style hyperspace movement in SEV. I did see someone post a script a while back (maybe you) that had found a way to make a warp point open and then close after a ship moved through it. That would simulate a B5W warp point opening if it worked in simutaneous turn mode...which I don't know if it does. (Right now I am really only interested in making an all human version of this mod as the AI is so stupid...and programming a smart AI could take a team of programmers years to pull off appropriately.)

On Fyron's website I found some code that allowed components to be counted by adding a tag. This feature would come in handy to do things like build a Slicer beam, lightening gun, or anti-matter weapons from B5W if you could count up a component piece placed on the ship as part of the damage/range formula for the weapon. I have some ideas on how to pull that off but some pieces may need two or more tags...if that is possible. e.g. You would need a tag to count just Slicer Beams to prevent more than one being placed on anything smaller than a Battleship. You would then need to limit Slicer Beams to two on the larger vessels. So you would need a tag to represent Slicer Beams in addition to a tag to represent the beam as the category of weapon (for other count/rule scenarios). You could then create a component that acted as an energy well/armor with the count of those pieces adding to the damage/range formula of the Slicer Beam. Outside of the Devnull modding tool does anyone know if there is a complete list of SEV known commands on the net? Or are we left to find them all within the existing templates? I imagine this game would have more modders if it did not take a year to learn how to do it on your own. Trial and error learning blows, is frustrating, and wastes a ton of valuable time. A reference manual of any kind would be a big help (the SEV wiki is nice...but VERY incomplete).

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Thank you. I will check out the document. Once I have a grasp of all the commands that can be used in a function/formula then the modding will make more sense.

The idea to use other systems as hyperspace is a cool idea. I probably would not use it though as the existing warp points act like Babylon 5 gates as it is. What would be nice is the ability for a ship to open and close warp points at will, move a fleet through them, and then have the warp point close behind.
This way a fleet would need at least one large vessel to be able to open and maintain a warp point for the rest of the fleet to travel through. I think I will search for that warp/FTL code someone posted before because that is probably right on track with what I would want to happen. Actually traveling in hyperspace is not as important for me as the use of warp points. It would also be cool to mod the existing warp points to be units of some kind, with hit points, so if you wanted you could destroy them...this would of course send your population into an anger tizzy since that is not a politically correct thing to do. But it would be cool if it could be done.

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Thanks Fyron,

The pdf is nice to have...now I just have to print off 55 pages. I can't believe this was right under my nose...if it was a snake it would have bit me.

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I found the forum thread where the FTL drive was discussed. It was actually created by IsoPsyco for a Battle Star Galactica mod. Does anyone know if this mod was completed?

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Thank you. I found it. This is an amazing mod with the FTL component. That is just what I need to figure out for the B5W mod. I will need to see if I can leave all Existing warp points open and then just have the FTL code work like a Jump Engine. That way Empires can use the existing "ancient" warp point lanes, or if they have a jump drive capable ship, they can make their own interstellar highway and close the door behind them.

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Yea, in a 200 ship game you have to make a few tough choices. But then if you consider how many resources it would take to keep a space station in operation, above every planet in a game, that seems very unrealistic. We currently only operate a single, flimsy, space station over Earth and it takes the combined resources of several nations to keep it going...and it is nothing like a space station in SEV. So a 200 ship limit actually causes you to use those space stations for front line/system defense and home planet defense. Instead of spreading them around the galaxy like candy. I simply do not see an economy being able to support that many stations...but then the game does not need to be realistic by any means.

In my opinion, it takes much more strategy/tactics to set down and defend an area using limited resources than being able to build all you want. It makes those strategic decisions all that more important. In the game I am playing now I only have four space stations. All of them shipyards above my home planet. I have plans in the works to build two more space stations as gate-keepers to my territories. Outside of that I have no other long range plans for space stations. My empire can pump out warships as needed to support my battles and combat loses. Losing a space station would be a big detriment to my defenses...as it should be. I should not be thinking about space stations in the "oh well, I will just build another to put alongside the 1000 others I have" mindset.

In this game two players have been crushed by in game political unions, and back door politics, with minimal military might utilized. It is that political intrigue that makes the RPG style game so much more fun. The remaining 7 players have now formed strong alliances...in effect forming two interstellar governments. And these governments rely on each member to survive and defend their territories. Now that is fun. Teamwork is needed to win, the Rambo mentality will get an empire quickly eliminated.

As for the B5W Mod, I am making great progress. I hope to have a beta out within a month or two. This is a massive undertaking...this mod will present the player with tons more options (and coincidentally should require good RPG playing to win...especially if a couple players play with an Ancient race...the game would simply be horrifying if a player could build unlimited Shadow cruisers against unlimited younger race vessels...good luck winning that one Younger races.). It will only be multiplayer capable unless others in the community choose to do AI scripts. I can tell you I won't have the energy for that once the skeleton of the mod has been created. This has been a lot of work so far. I post updates in the general forums. I have completed the programming on every race up to the Kirishiac so far...going in alphabetical order...so I am about half done with the available playable races.

Loyalty above all else except honor.