[Pegasus V]

I've created an interesting new MOD. I've modified all non-Shivan fighters (any ships with shields) so that they have a power output of 0. Next a modified all the non-Shivan primary weapons so that they have a power consumption of 0 (except for some weapons that do have a slight power drain, something like 0.001). I also doubled the shields strength. What does this do?

I've always had a problem with the fact that your ship's subsystems regenerate so quickly as do your shields. Taking away the power factor, takes away regeneration. So now your subsystems have an effect on gameplay, which is what I thought was missing. I had to modify the primary weapons as well because you'll run out of gun power pretty quick.

A couple of reviews I was reading earlier said that the only problem with FreeSpace2 was the fact that there wasn't much difference between ships. I mean there were certain qualities that made some better and some worse, but there wasn't any big differences. So what I've done is I've just made this modification to Terran and Vasudan ships/weapons. So there's a notable difference between non-Shivan and Shivan ships at least. Plus that makes them seem more advanced having regenerative shielding and subsystems, doesn't it?

By the way, if you think that flying around with 20% damage to weapons is bad, don't fear, the support ship will still be able to fix it all. And so far it seems as though it regenerates your shields too, but I'll have to experiment a bit further on that issue.

The reason why I doubled the shields is that the fighter battles that I was having seemed to last very short amounts of time. I assumed this was because of the lack or regenerative shielding. Now that it's doubled, the time duration is decent.

Does this mod sound any good?

[Black Wolf]

Could be used in a prequel, combined with GEs port. Something about the research and development of shields, fending off rival groups who want them, the Shivans, trying to keep them out of the hands of the HOL while still tweaking the design to get these bugs out etc. That'd be cool.

[Pegasus V]

Originally posted by Black Wolf
Could be used in a prequel, combined with GEs port. Something about the research and development of shields, fending off rival groups who want them, the Shivans, trying to keep them out of the hands of the HOL while still tweaking the design to get these bugs out etc. That'd be cool.

That would be cool. However, I never intended to release these mods (coz they involve a completely different story/universe that I've created). All the ships/weapons names are different, etc. And I have a heap of other people's mods in there with it. So you'd have to make the modifications on your own. But if you need any help, just give me a yell. Or whoever's doing GEs.

By the way, my story is as follows:

In the mid 23rd century, the Earth's atmosphere is starting to become a bit crap. Several terrestrial worlds have long ago been discovered using powerful orbital telescopes. Finally a decent engine capable of reaching 35% of the speed of light is available and the major factions of Earth begin a 'race' to be the first to make it there. The major factions are the coalition forces of the Brittania Federation (England and partners), the new reformed United Nations (USA, Russia, Australia and partners), the enhanced European Union (various European nations) and the united Asian Empire (China, Japan, etc), plus the Ilum Believers, not to mention the smaller separtist group from the Asian Empire called the Nung Supporters. Sortly after the BritFed, UN, AE, EU send their cryoshops, a furious battle begins between the Ilum Believers and the AE/UN Alliance. During this war, a mining accident occurs on a transport taking deuterium supplies from Jupiter Station to Earth and a form of subspace is discovered. Actually I'm not going to bore you any further, I'm still developing the story anyway. If you want to know more, just ask...

I was wondering is someone could help me. I wanted to make each of the factions unique. For example, the Brittania Federation is ruled by a monarchy, but their civilisation is based upon trade and commerce, so they're like the capitalists of this story. The United Nations is similar to the United States of today, but with more government control (as in Big Brother seeing everything sorta thing). The Asian Empire is ruled by an emporer, but everyone is divided into clans in the empire and in many cases in large communities on very large ships. Oh, and they base everything they do under honour and integrity (like the Klingons, but without the brutalness). The Ilum Believers believe in a religion called Ilum, which is a merging of popular middle eastern religions (a guy came to Earth pretending he was a god, preaching this religion, blah de blah, he has believers). The Ilum Believers are ruled by an 'elder' council, which use religion and fear as a means to control their people (whether the religion is right or wrong is your opinion). The Nung Supporters are unique in their pursuits, using technology to enhance their bodies and abilities, but I'm not going to go much into that. Now I've struck the problem. I don't know how to make the European Union unique. I'm sure there are a few German, Spanish, Italian, Greek people out there that could help (I'm not including Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, France in this group because they're a part of another faction). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[TheCelestialOne]

Originally posted by Pegasus V

In the mid 23rd century, the Earth's atmosphere is starting to become a bit crap.  

Have you ever looked out your window?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Pegasus V
Now I've struck the problem. I don't know how to make the European Union unique. I'm sure there are a few German, Spanish, Italian, Greek people out there that could help (I'm not including Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, France in this group because they're a part of another faction). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Well you could make them a bunch of mad fools who believe that cucumbers can`t be curved and that the carrot is a fruit. Um... no.. Wait... that's the current EU. I was getting confused.

 Still it could have possibilities. Make them an overachieving beurocracy where you need to fill in a short form every time you start working and every time you finish, Where you need to have a visa just to walk down the street to the corner shop. Unlike your american group there's no malice here. Not big brother just big bother

[TheCelestialOne]

Germany is certainly a Labor oriented society.

[Redfang]

Hmm, I don't know if I like the idea. Weapons have now unlimited amount of power, don't they? And shields should regenerate, in your MOD they're like hull. And what's the point in using the ETS now, and if a few weapons use a little of power, then you'd soon notice that you run out of it.
 

Originally posted by karajorma


Well you could make them a bunch of mad fools who believe that cucumbers can`t be curved and that the carrot is a fruit. Um... no.. Wait... that's the current EU. I was getting confused.

 


Oh wait, I don't like EU too much.

[Zarax]

Hey, don't mess with EU, wich is much healtier than US, not to talk about the rest of the world...

[Pegasus V]

Originally posted by karajorma

Make them an overachieving beurocracy where you need to fill in a short form every time you start working and every time you finish, Where you need to have a visa just to walk down the street to the corner shop. Unlike your american group there's no malice here. Not big brother just big bother

I like the sound of this. Thanks very much. I will integrate this into my story. I'm still open for more ideas...

Plus that German=Focused on labour thing sounds good too.

Originally posted by Redfang
Hmm, I don't know if I like the idea. Weapons have now unlimited amount of power, don't they? And shields should regenerate, in your MOD they're like hull. And what's the point in using the ETS now, and if a few weapons use a little of power, then you'd soon notice that you run out of it.

Weapons already had unlimited power basically anyway. The power use didn't have too much effect on gameplay. Why should the shields regenerate? That's a special feature. Plus it's not just like hull, it makes it more stratigic, coz you have to focus all of your fore shields or rear shields, etc... The ETS doesn't serve any purpose now. (that reminds me, your power levels are completely at zero in the mod, which also means that your afterburner power doesn't regenerate, but if you put your engine power to full on the ETS, it goes back up. And just incase you're wondering, no, it doesn't regenerate your shields or gun power.) Only the stratigic weapons use small amounts of power, so that you don't overuse them... Which makes it more stratigic.

[Redfang]

Sorry for the long quote, but I didn't want to make many small ones.
 

Originally posted by Pegasus V
Weapons already had unlimited power basically anyway. The power use didn't have too much effect on gameplay. Why should the shields regenerate? That's a special feature. Plus it's not just like hull, it makes it more stratigic, coz you have to focus all of your fore shields or rear shields, etc... The ETS doesn't serve any purpose now. (that reminds me, your power levels are completely at zero in the mod, which also means that your afterburner power doesn't regenerate, but if you put your engine power to full on the ETS, it goes back up. And just incase you're wondering, no, it doesn't regenerate your shields or gun power.) Only the stratigic weapons use small amounts of power, so that you don't overuse them... Which makes it more stratigic.

No, weapons didn't have unlimited power. They did regenerate, which I find much better way than unlimited amount of power. With this MOD, you could just shoot with those kaysers as much as you want. Maybe they had almost unlimited power on very easy, but have you played on hard or insane?
 
And shield should regenerate, they're energy, and they regenerate in all other games too. I don't mean that everything has to be like in other games, but I don't like the idea that shields don't regenerate. And guess does that make long missions almost impossible? Or even short but hard.
 
The ship has a reactor, and it's there because of power. And why afterburners don't regenerate, but then regenerate at full engine power? Of course I'd but engine power at full in that case, as others have no effect.
 
Sorry, but I like the way [V] made it better.

[StarGunner]

I agree this mod would make the game so unballiced that it would get old fast, and how good are you in FS2? you must suck bigtime even on easy, and your sheilds are vary slow at reachageing too.

Don't make somethimg like this if you don't know what your talking about.

[karajorma]

What you could do is make the shields regenerate very slowly. Much slower than they do in the current game. Suppose it takes 5 minutes to go from no shields to full shields. That makes it important to conserve shields conserving your strategic element but doesn`t make them into movable armour.
  Redfang makes a good point about weapon energy though. Why wouldn`t everyone just use kaysers and keep the trigger putton pushed down? The only reason for not arming every ship with kaysers is that they draw a huge amount of power and will quickly run out if you don`t conserve energy.

[Pegasus V]

Originally posted by Redfang

No, weapons didn't have unlimited power. They did regenerate, which I find much better way than unlimited amount of power. With this MOD, you could just shoot with those kaysers as much as you want. Maybe they had almost unlimited power on very easy, but have you played on hard or insane?

 
I didn't want this to change, it just had to for the mod. If you could modify the source code then I would make this stay the same.

Originally posted by Redfang
And shield should regenerate, they're energy, and they regenerate in all other games too. I don't mean that everything has to be like in other games, but I don't like the idea that shields don't regenerate.

 
A: There's nothing for you to base an example on in real life that says that they should or should not regenerate.
B: It doesn't happen in every other game... In WC:Privateer you needed to buy a shield regenerator to make them regenerate while in game.
C: A matter of personal opinion. I like it better this way, but I never intended to release this mod, so I only did it for me. I'm sure some people would like and and a lot of people would not.

Originally posted by Redfang
The ship has a reactor, and it's there because of power. And why afterburners don't regenerate, but then regenerate at full engine power? Of course I'd but engine power at full in that case, as others have no effect.

Another source code thing I would change...
 

Originally posted by Redfang
Sorry, but I like the way [V] made it better.

That's ok. I like positive comments and negative criticism in topics like this. Varied opinion and individuality is what makes us Terrans.

Originally posted by karajorma
What you could do is make the shields regenerate very slowly. Much slower than they do in the current game. Suppose it takes 5 minutes to go from no shields to full shields. That makes it important to conserve shields conserving your strategic element but doesn`t make them into movable armour.

Another source code edit. But there is a way to completely regenerate them to extend your life... Support Ships.

[Anaz]

ya know what, I have a perfectly logical reason for the shields not regenerating, ya wanna hear it?

Shields draw such a massive amount of power that they run on massive batteries. They take very little power to maintain, but a helluva lotta power to regenerate them.

-or-

The reactor is putting out power enough to keep the shields up. If it used more power than it would regenerate, but as-is, they don't regenerate with balanced ETS, the same story could be used for after burners

[Pegasus V]

Originally posted by Analazon
ya know what, I have a perfectly logical reason for the shields not regenerating, ya wanna hear it?

Shields draw such a massive amount of power that they run on massive batteries. They take very little power to maintain, but a helluva lotta power to regenerate them.

-or-

The reactor is putting out power enough to keep the shields up. If it used more power than it would regenerate, but as-is, they don't regenerate with balanced ETS, the same story could be used for after burners

Thanks Analazon. See RedFang, there's no definite reason that shields should or should not regenerate. I just don't think they should regerate as fast as they do in FS. StarFleet's shields from Star Trek take quite a while to regenerate.

Besides, the best thing about this mod (which is the main reason why I made it) is that when the subsystems get banged up they stay banged up (until a support ship comes along), so that your subsystem damage has an effect upon gameplay. It's actually pretty cool when it happens. Like it relates how damaged your ship really is. Say you've taken some heavy forward fire, your hull integrity reaches 18% and into the red and your sensors are at 30% and start flickering, and while your dogfighting with an enemy vessel your target lock gets nocked off. It makes it more realistic and more stratigic. You might target your enemy's engines instead of destroying them and then go after the others, or something similar. I don't know. Just think about it...

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Pegasus V
You might target your enemy's engines instead of destroying them and then go after the others, or something similar. I don't know. Just think about it...

Not worth it. Believe me I`ve tried it. It takes twice as long to disable an enemy fighter as it takes to destroy it. Even if you do succeed the game lets them sit there for about 30 seconds and then self-destructs the ship and gives you the kill.

[Redfang]

Oh, you're not going to release it. Well, then you don't have to care about my opinion, not that you should even if you would release it...
 
But maybe you're right about shield regenerating, I just like it better the way it is now.
 
But I like the idea that subsystems don't self-repair, so at least I like something in your MOD. If that just would be the only thing your MOD affects.

[Pegasus V]

Originally posted by Redfang
But I like the idea that subsystems don't self-repair, so at least I like something in your MOD. If that just would be the only thing your MOD affects.

I wish it were...

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by karajorma


Not worth it. Believe me I`ve tried it. It takes twice as long to disable an enemy fighter as it takes to destroy it. Even if you do succeed the game lets them sit there for about 30 seconds and then self-destructs the ship and gives you the kill.

Not really.  I've been playing missions against Vasudan fighters whilst armed with a pari of Akheton SDGs & a couple of Prom R's.... and I quite often find that enemy ships are disabled whilst theya re at above 60% hull (often leading to collission)

[karajorma]

Hmm. I guess we have different styles of play. I find it far easier to kill than disable fighters. Still with this mod you would need to do something about the fighters exploding or it would start to become noticable.