BattleStar Galactica Mod Available

Does this mean you have worked out a way to make ships (or better yet fleets) move interstellar without warp points, except that a bug in the tools MM has provided causes it not to work?

Would it work with fleets, or only individual ships?

Is there any control over from where in the system you can warp out or where in the target system you appear (if possible, I'd want it to only work from/to the outer ring of hexes)?

It it takes a special component but that isn't particularly big or expensive, all ships will include it anyway. Seems like there would be a couple of interesting ways to handle that. One would be to just give the ability to all ship engines, so pretty much any ship that can still move can warp out. The other would be to make a special component that was really big and/or used a huge wad of supplies so that it works like in Traveller - jump capable ships are significantly less powerful than non-jump ships of the same size. The supply thing would make it quite like Traveller - in which starships use a significant percentage of their hull volume for fuel and pretty much every ship has to refuel after every jump. To make that work in SEV you'd need a way to make supplies available from gas giants, though. Otherwise, offensive jumps would be do-or-die to conquer a planet in the target system. Or maybe not, if you build tankers (but the AI would have to be taught to build and use them properly).

But this is a Battlestar Galactica Mod. That doesn't really sound appropriate. In the first episode of the new series, the ragtag fleet performs something like 240 FTL jumps and STILL continues to run for some time before supply becomes a big issue.

Altering the FTL drive to be more costly sounds fair tho - otherwise why would anyone have built non-FTL ships? And like you say, the difference in power/kt between FTL and non-FTL ships would become interesting that way. It would make a nice system of checks and balances. It's not a situation that occurred in the Battlestar Galactica shows - the only things that couldn't do FTL were clunky civilian ships (I don't recall ever seeing a non-FTL military vessel) - but there's no reason that it couldn't have happened in that universe.

The "all engines have FTL capability" idea sounds ok too - although also, not quite in the spirit of Battlestar Galactica, where it is made clear that FTL drives and engines are two different things. Does make for a simpler mod tho.

This setup sounds like it would be hell for the AI.

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That is really interesting. Let's hope MM fix this feature soon.

Imagine exploring the galaxy with no warp points... The enemy can come from anywhere. Maybe you can guess where the WPs will be opened and lay some mines, but I think it would be more interesting to protect your planets well and pretend you don't know where the enemy will come from.

Does the AI create their own warp points properly?

If the FTL (SE5 warp creator) consumes the component then it needs to be a seperate component. Otherwise, it will affect the ships system movement after doing a jump assuming there is no repair ship with the fleet.

You need to come up with a set amount of supplies used in a jump. I know in the show they jump often and use fuel to do so, BUT remember they had a refinery ship with them making fuel the whole way. I think they were consuming a large amount of supplies, but had the benefit of the refinery ship. Without that ship they could have not jumped anywhere near the number of times they did.

Idea for determining supply usage per FTL jump: Think of it like what is required in supplies per hex moved now based on ship size. Take that per hex number and multiple it by ten to derrive the amount of supplies used per FTL jump. You can come up with a base number of whatever to extrapolate how much supply is used, but it must be factored by ship size. ie...Frigate uses 50 supply per hex. 50 X 10 equals 500 supply to execute a FTL jump. Assuming the ship had 3000 supply it just used 17%. If the ship was not at full supply it will really limit the ships ability to function after a FTL jump. That would be somewhat of a balancing factor.

You will need a rather large component that can act as a fuel refinery for creating a Refinery Ship. There are several mods that use different version of reactors (gritty galaxy mod) you can draw from to get the bases for a refinery component. Small ships can still utilize solar panels, but rename them as Ramscoops or something of sort.

FTL jumps - If possible there needs to be a few restrictions on jumping. ie....you can't jump within so many hexs of a large astral body due to mass issues. That way you can't jump right next to a colony, etc. This will create safe jump locations in itself as there will be typically several masses in a system, so if you can't jump within say 8 hexs of a mass it creates jump points within said system. These points will be areas that can be mined, defended by bases, fighters stationed there, etc. Heavily populated systems will have VERY narrow and easily defended jump points while sparse systems will be wide open for FTL jumps.

SE5 Files hosted on Filefront (Patches, Mods, Races, etc)

Sadly, there are no constraints on WP creation other than the range to target system limit (of the component) and the 10 per system limit (hard-coded).

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

Some where in SEV there is a script or function that checks to see if a Wp is in the outer part of the system.... Now if only we could get a custom script to call that function or script ..

We know its there because when the systems are created we can chose if a warp points are only in outer system or any where, in the game options.

Now if we can beg plead or bribe MM to fix the warp point functions for both the players and AI then we can see if he will open up that code for modders to call on

For some reason when i'm using fighters the model for it shows the 4 fighter types flying next to eachother as one unit. This seems to be bugged?

I've never even seen an episode of the new series, and the original was pretty casual about FTL. I wasn't really thinking about it that narrowly (i.e. specific simulation of BSG, old or new), but rather for an alternative way to play SEV in general. For gameplay, you need some sort of constraint to keep players from just leaping across the galaxy from turn 1. I was exploring possible solutions to that issue.

Am i missing something or the file does not exist on that download website?

So you have to put a repair bay on a starship?

Do you think you can teach the AI to use it?

You know, this almost sounds more like a B5 FTL system.

B5 was awesome..back in its day

- United we stand, divided we fall...but dam it you touch my cheez its and not even god will be able to save you!

Is this mod 1.63 compatible ?

I installed it in the gametypes folder, just like any other mod.
When trying to start a game with this mod, several critical errors pop up:

gametypes\bsgmod\data\settings.txt:

Could not find fields

"Maximum number of ships/units 1-8"
"Planet base repair rate ships/units/facilities"
"Treaty element maximum trade percentage 1-6"
"Treaty element tariff percentage 1-8"
"Alliance rule percentage of votes to pass 1-6"
"Alliance rule maximum trade percentage 1-6"
"Alliance rule turns to add player 1-2"

in record 1

Thats fine.

Thanks for the info.

I 'm sitting here infront of my pc so frustrated and ready to give up on the hole mod thing and just play the original game till I'm bored with it and move along to other games. And that is sad cause you guys are putting a lot of effort into these mods and it makes the game enjoyeble for much longer but I just can't get the stuff to work... I've downloaded your mod and are realy exited to play it. It takes dam long to download cause here South Africa their still busy upgrading all the lines for faster bandwith. Ok now I have the files... I extract the file to the dir I presume to be correct as there is't any place telling me to put it Gametype dir right?... Ok so I go into the game and I find the mod when I say new game. Click on it and it gives me errors about number of ships or something. Now what!!!? did I extract it to the wrong dir... Do I need to downlowd other shipsets...What!!? there is'nt any readme s or info on how to do it and if this was only the first time. I tried getting farons quadrent mod and also had problems with not having the right bmp files. After him telling me where i can go get them wich i didn't know either I got them... Now What!!!? Where do I put all the diffrent files... Sorry for the long complaint of a post but as they say if one guy says it you can be sure there is 8 other that that felt the same but didn't speak up...

What is the 3d max file on your filefront?

SE5 Files hosted on Filefront (Patches, Mods, Races, etc)

Nice to have music from the series.

The FTL drives are quite expensive, what is reallistic. Even colony ships for the same system need them, so it will take a lot of time to colonize. I´m not complaining, it is a different beggining for the game and it seems really interesting!

But the most interesting caracteristic of the mod is the warp points closing at the end of each turn. You can create them anywhere. Can´t wait until the enemy empires start coming out of nowhere.

Not yet. I started another game because in the first one I chose the Tauri shipset. Now I wanna play with the colonial. The slots for components are the same for both shipsets and looks strange for the Tauri. Good idea to show inner/outer sections with different colors.

I haven't tried the mod yet. Does the AI actually use FTL travel? I haven't seen the AI use any stellar manipulation in games I've played so far, so this could be interesting.

Isopsyco, I just watched the Razor DVD last night, and finding your mod just made my day. I was a big fan of the original series reruns when I was growing up, and like the re-imagined series even better. I just can't stand the practical year long breaks between seasons.

The DVD added some nice things that werent on TV, too. I'd recommend it.

I think all the mods are great, but anything BSG I will naturally be biased in favor of. Isopsyco is a hero. So say we all!

Is it possible for you to post file patches, so the FULL 200+ megs doesn't have been downloaded repeatedly to bring the game to v3.86?

SE5 Files hosted on Filefront (Patches, Mods, Races, etc)

Thanks! Those are very nice fixes for the mod.

Isopsyco, how exactly the research component works? What are the specific areas you mention in the readme.

"Version 3.86
Implemented Intel and Research capable components for ships (it does accumalate points but will not show directly one the resource number display becasue the points go into specific areas, for Intel points thay currently all go into defense points)"

I just noticed that. I was receiving points for stellar manipulation, but I couldn´t see this area in the research screen.
This kind of research will generate random techs.
"Sir, we just created a new kind of weapon, although that was not the idea of our project!"

I imagine there is a lot of work to be done! When I made some changes in SE IV, adding a few technologies or facilities, sometimes it didn´t work as I intended and I had to check it all over again. You add an extra line between two components and the game will not see what is below that line! Nothing so serious, but SE V must be much more complicated, especially the AI.

Nice job so far!

Isopsyco,

Great Mod. Big fan of BSG here and when I saw you had built a BSG Mod I was looking forward to its release.

Great work so far, you were looking for some feedback on your Beta release, so I have some random thoughts of what I've observed so far. Been playing the mod for about four or five days, so there's your reference point on how much time I've spent checking it out.

First of all, I had v1.63 of the game when I uploaded the Mod. I patched up after I loaded your Mod, so I'm not sure if the issues I'm seeing are because of the patch being posted after I uploaded your Mod.

1. You mentioned AI isn't moving outside of its baseline systems except for colonization. In my experience so far, that holds true though I haven't seen any of the AI using FTL in any form yet.

2. You can spin up the FTL on a single ship and jump it, but can't jump a fleet of FTL capable ships simultaneously. The workaround is jump one ship and then have the fleet trail behind using the first ship's warp point.

3. I keep getting a file not found error for the colonial_dreadnought.bmp. It's the skin for the battlestars I think because there's a jpg skin but not a bmp skin for the dreadnoughts. Nice touch putting 'Pegasus' on the flight pods.

4. Modeling of all the other ships I've built so far is outstanding ... I've just gotten to the point where I've got access to all the heavies, but everything from the Mk. 1 Viper to Mk. 7, the Raptor, Colonial One, freighters, transports all look great.

5. During ground combat I've noticed that I can see my forces but the enemy forces are only showing up on the HUD ... they're invisible on the main ground combat screen. Same applies on the few occasions I've come up against an enemy ship in space combat. The ship shows up in the HUD but not on the main view screen. Fighter-class ships show up fine however in both the HUD and space combat view screen.

6. Due to the lack of constant warp points contact is lost with an empire once you're outside of DRADIS range. I know this has been discussed, just confirming.

7. The AI is pretty defensive right now and falls into the same pattern ... you jump into an enemy-occupied system and they bulk up on mines, fighters and ground forces but pretty much stay to themselves until you enter the same hex. Same as #6 ... I know the AI is rudimentary at this point, just wanted to give feedback.

8. I keep getting random research generation saying things to the effect of 'Research station XXX generated 1000 points towards' something that's not on the research tree yet.

9. There are a lot more random elements to this Mod than in the baseline game ... the ship models and the soundtrack alone were well worth the wait and your effort.

Hope the feedback helps. It's a great Mod and if you want more feedback let me know, especially if you need input on specific elements.

I just checked Filefront and saw you uploaded a new Colonial file on January 14th with the missing bmp file for the Colonial dreadnought class, went into a saved game and I'm no longer getting the missing image error message for the dreadnought skin so that solved that. Nice job on the battlestar model.

For ground combat (#5) I was up against two different empires, one of them was the Leonis Society and their race image was a picture of Jack O'Neill from SG-1. The other one I don't remember the race name offhand but their race image was a picture of Kara Thrace from BSG.

I saw there was an updated Cylon shipset on Filefront that had been posted this month ... is that newer than the shipset in your 3.86 Mod?

As I see more stuff I'll post it here.

wow hey I just want to say Dude thats sweet I cant wait till the bugs are worked out and I have some free time to play it =D

is there a update soon or are you still testing

i may be missing something here but the research components for ships dont seem to do anything...
placed several ships with theoretical reserach thingys and get message at start of each turn saying they have produced 1000 or so points towards a particulat field but when i chek the field has no research done in it?
what am i missing?

I found that by putting at least 1% in the tech fields that the ship research components are researching works fairly well, and the levels go up and roll over to the next tech level without micromanaging. Tradeoff is less research available for the tech you want to actually research concurrently.

I was just thinking and the way the warp points dont close but at the end of the turn they close its kinda like it gives the enemy a way to follow you...problem I see with that is you could have one ship create a warp point, have the rest of the ships use it, and then jump again

This of course doesn't matter if you have it set somehow so when you go through a warp point you didn't make you still damage your ftl system. This would also be great when a enemy follows you through a warp point if they are chasing you

I did only partly read the comments that have already been made. Is there any scenario planned that is like the movie battlestar galactica, where you have only a fleet and no planets. (Or don't you have planets anyway?). And can the ai uuse this mod, I mean can I play this mod in singeplayer?

gee this is getting to be a LONG page does it ever get to turn to another page????

and unless you build a base of some sort, it will be hard to do
a background for the scenario(because you need resources don't you)

hey hey found some maybe bugs...
the high level warp openers are less usefull than lower level ones. i.e shorter range.
the sizes on either the ecm's or dradis(cant remember which) were changing strangley with higher levels, i.e 5 5 10 5 10 in space taken so i fixed that myself.

there tech areas availble to research that give you nothing... shields and energy wepons being the most anoying. should be removed from being researchable altogether if no gains from it.

i dont kniw if its there but how about a map to go along with the mod? Also how about no stanard shields. just the ones that mitigate, but dont block all damage ex. the ice shield from gritty galaxy? Also, weak and cheap fighters with an ai emphasis on carriers? So most other ships would be support or bombardment or battleship with cariers being:
all unit carrier,dronmes, fighters troops etc.
battleships
space yard ships
stellar manipulation ships
supply ships?

The shuttles are tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo small compared to everythimg else. I cant see them in combat or use them.

YAY

another teeeny bug, the small armor componets increase in SIZE with each level not structure, so as u get higher levels u can use less armor no greater protection, i just swaped them round in my components file. was also on small emisive.

hehe well im actualy playing a PBEM game of this with a friend and fixing it as i go and sending him patches... figured may as well tell u wat i find as well.

any reason the interceptors were so darn slow? they cant keep up with frigates... also why do engines start at lvl 5 when u only have one level researched? and warp openers at lvl10 to start with... seemed odd.

I've been playing the bsg mod a bit lately. Installed a second copy of the game with the version 1.66 patch instead of the newest to do it too. I love the game. Its going to affect the way I play SEV dramaticly. Can't just defend wp's heavily and leave everything else unguarded now. of course now I get to just bounce around the universe too. I was creating a new ship earlier today though, and as I was adding flight decks and the like to it I noticed that in fact fighter bays which are still available to me are on average better than adding flight deck and flight pods and launch tubes. One recieves more storage in a single fighter bay than on a whole flight deck and weight is 1/3 of a flight pod. Also repair abilities within fighter bays are higher than flight decks or flight pods. Is the intent to use fighter bays on carriers, and the others as stop gap measures or retrofit sort of tools to allow battleships and the like to carry fighters? I like the launch tubes the way they can only launch fighters and not recover them, and it got me thinking. It might be sort of fun to create a fighter support structure which encourages individuals to use some of each of the fighter support bays.

I was thinking something along the lines of a flight deck which was just a cargo compartment with repair capabilities. I noticed that on bsg while the flight deck is indeed connected to launch tubes and flight pods, it is not actually able to launch and recover fighters. It is a place to store and repair fighters.

Launch tubes are excellent the way they are. Like I said it was their design which started me thinking, but if you largely removed the storage component, and repair facilites from flight pods, it would encourage designs which didn't exclude flight decks.

Another think I considered, but remain undecided on is the name for ordinance supply. In the show, they call these storage areas on Galactica "weapons lockers" or "weapons storage lockers" (not sure which cause I was kinda playing the mod while watching bsg when they referred to them and was a little distracted), but it might look funny to have a weapon locker on a fighter too.

One final note. I don't see a sensor which can detect stealthed vessels at any level. Why have stealth capabilities increase? Note too, however, that I have only used colonial tech. It might be in one of the other race tech trees. Didn't play any of them. That would be sacralige in a bsg mod.
Just want to stress though that I do really enjoy playing your mod. I can't wait to see the mods next progression.

Hope everyone finds these ideas interesting, but do whatever you want with them.

Iso

Is the FTL now working? I saw another post (http://www.spaceempires5.com/en-US/node/300) in which SJ suggested an alternative way to create hyperspace movement. See the second last message in the thread. Would this be helpful to you?

Cheers
Jim

cant wait, my mods at stand still cause of school as well, though i got a ton of progress i cant test it cause of no simulator and im afraid of proceeding...

Can't wait for the AI to be programed

I for one can hardly wait

did ya ever think back in se4 that we could have a FTL mod???