Master of Orion 2 Mod

[Moe]

Since the idea got so many enthusiastic responses, I decided to give it a try.

This mod will try to port the 1997 (?) space strategy game Master of Orion 2 to HW2.

We are still in the concept phase. There will probably be capturable planets (for resources) and configurable ships, maybe race-specific boni and other features from the original game.

We need coders, modellers and above all ideas, so feel free to comment or join us at any time.

Temp pages - actually, just a few tables for now but they will get better during the christmas break, I promise! can be found here:
www.moomod.tk

[Unicron]

You want an exact MoO2 game for HW2 or the MoO2 gameplay ? My suggestion would be to simply mix it.

We could expand HW2.

As I said before, I don't know MoO2, only played MoO3. If MoO2 was at least similar to MoO3 then you would need totally new designed ships/stations and whatever. Therefore, we could simply use Hiigarans and Vaygr allready, when I completed the Progenitors and T-Mat, plus pips his Bentusi we would have 5 races.

If that is not enough for you and the MoO2 hardcore fans, the MoO races still can be added.

Also, the MoO2-mod would need a persistant gamemode. Remember my post with the Conquer the Galaxy gamemode. I was working on such a gameplay but stopped a while ago after I started my first mod.

[Unicron]

[Addition]

I'am interested in the gameplay itself rather than the MoO universe. When you take a look here you'll see that I planned actually the same thing as you now. Thats why I find this idea interesting.

However, the suggestion is to expand HW2, modificate the scripts to implement the whole MoO2 gameplay and to use Hiigarans & Vaygr for now.

As mentioned above, this mod with Hiigarans, Vaygr, Progenitors, Bentusi and T-Mat would be absolutly the #1 mod in the HW2 community. After we have the three core races implemented we can start implementing the MoO races.

IMO we could construct a giant universe with alot of species. No Star Trek or Star Wars crap though. :devil:

If you're going for that...I'am in.

[Moe]

Well MOO2 relied heavily on outfitting your battleships. and the whole thing was less controlled by AI.
Essentially all races could invent the same tech, same as in MOO3. They each had different boni. So sure, we could use the Hiigarans and the Vaygr as templates, but why use the old models? We could at least modify them.
Since in Moo2 you spent a lot of time controlling and administrate your planets. Obviously, HW2 focusses on the combat part of things, so we would shift the focus towards combat, with only minor administrative tasks.

[Unicron]

Of course modifying the current ships, thats what I mean't. I mean't using the HW2 universe where all those races are present and expanding upon that.

Adding new ships, stations etc.

A planetary gamemode would be possible too, including underwater combat etc.

[Moe]

Well yes, the gameplay would be a really important part. The Antarans for example could be added later.
Do you have an idea how to do this planetary resource concept sam mentioned?

[Unicron]

I don't know how to do it script-wise but I know how to do it generally.

The planet would be a special object, a giant resource sphere so to speak. You could send a colonization pod (modified resource collector) onto it and let it dissapear.

Disable its harvesting abilities and let it add a given amount of RU's to your account from time to time.

[Moe]

That sounds doable.. since sam is a scripter, maybe he'll know how.

[komninosm]

Yeah I'm in too
Shall we post on this thread from now on?

Anyway I think planets should be ships not resources so they can easily be captured and build things like samon and I suggested (stealing another guy's idea from another thread)

Well at first let's concentrate with using the model's available and tweak weapons, speed, armor and stuff. Did you like the idea about frigates I had in the other thread?

[thesamonthemoon]

Hey! I didn't steal the idea... My idea just hapened to be the same...

And yes I do know how to implement it (more or less so anyway).

Here is the semi-technical description:

Say there are three planet sizes and three suitability levels. This means 9 planet types. Each planet is in it's own SobGroup (I think thats what you call 'em).

The game mode script gives you a certain amount of rescources at some time interval, multiplyed by some number (based on how many "ships" (planets) you had in all the of the planets SobGroups).

The multipliers for each planet would then be multiplied based on a timer which would start counting when the planet is captured (to simultate population growth).

If that last bit isn't possible, than I could try making the planet have an internal (and innate) subsystem which automaticaly builds more subsystems infinately, and it could be these subsystems that represent population (the subsystems would be in a "population" SobGroup which the rescouce income would be multipled by).

[komninosm]

Sorry I stole it then
Samon had it on his own. Well actually so did I but I read the thread and got an inkling on how it could be done. We should just make sure to make planets/moons/asteroids (whatever we decide them to be, I prefer asteroids for realism but planets for MoOism, I'm worthless I know) be build ships so we don't have that other guys problem. His resource giving stations were destroyed when a player lost. Well MoO planets will not be destroyed because they will count as build ships. Smart no?

Very nice refining ideas samon. We could also allow planet to build building (subsystems) like MoO2 and naturally you will have to cap population not infinite but I know you knew that

[Moe]

OK, I think you're right, it would prolly be best to bring in the new weapon systems and concentrate on that planet res model first before starting to worry about ship models.
How big should the planets be? Obviously this type of game would take longer to play than your standard HW2 match, and we prolly need the biggest map size available if we dont want planets sitting right next to each other.

OK I uploaded all the tables I have so far. Check it out at
www.moomod.tk

[Slamoid]

I can do the planets. And the maps. Do you want 'em randomly generated? Random maps are my specialty. What do you want as far as planets? How big? 5x size of hig SY? 10x? Want em for resourcing or for ships docking? Want buildable space stations?

Or you can do em yourself.:Pimp:

[komninosm]

Ok I was in that place that great ideas come from (no not the brain, the toilet) and I had so many good thoughts.

As I said we should make planets build capable ships so we don't have problems with player deaths.
Also we should also give them lots of subsystme hardpoints for building weapons (missile/beam defense even stellar converters and maybe shields) and other buildings (factories, research etc).
We could also easily give them planetkiller armor so that only stellar converters can hurt planets but their modules are easily damaged by all weapons.

Fun idea: An end game tech could be planet engines (or even hyperspace). Imagine building a planetary stellar converter and not only using it for defense but going on a rampage. Fear the planet killer planet

Other than that I thought of lots and lots of moo2 stuff that we could use and a few that we couldn't.
So will we use moo2 stats or make a balance of our own? Cause if I remember correctly level 2 armor was 3 times level 1 armor. Same with shields (if we ever use them).

About planet size (if we use planets and not habitable asteroids) we can never be realistic. Cause a cruiser is about a few km long and a planet is about 10000km in diameter. So any scale we use will be artificial. I favour a scale that shows planets are very big (sometimes you could even hide behind them or run around) but not too big so they lower framerate.
Anyway about a planets shape it will be a shpere right? So will it be made of triangles too? I guess so. Lets try to keep their number reasonable and hide imperfections with texture. I know you can do it
Because I certainly can't. I'm artistically challenged. You don't want to see my drawings.

About planetary modules. How many do you think a planet should have? Do you think we should seperate slots for weapons and special systems and general buildings? Or lump them all together (while in different folders though to avoid confusion) to make the player decide on strategy.
Also should we make planets rotate slowly? What would that do to beam defenses (missile should be fine)? Maybe rotation would be slow enough to not cause targeting problems. Or we could make the north/south poles of a planet stationary and infact use them (and a line that connects them) to rotate the rest of the planet. Then we could place a turret in each pole to simulate beam defenses.

Upgrades will be a beach to figure out though. How to build the new module without retiring the old. Oh well maybe that would add to strategy too, moments of vulnerability and all.

PS: I can't see the look on the faces of the community when the first stellar converter is used! Oh we should definetely tone down the HW2 flashes which are a bit annoying. Every ship does them and it would make the big explosions that much more noticable and more important.

That's my 2 euros and 35 cents

[komninosm]

One more thing. In MoO2 planets build frigates, destroyers and cruisers. Then you need a star base to allow them to build bigger ships. And smaller ships are built from carriers.

I was thinking about star bases and if we want (do we?) to limit them one per planet we have to make them a special module with a hardpoint offset from the planet.
Other than that we could probably simulate the MoO2 maintenance cost with resource removing (like the resource adding) script for thing built on planets. We could even simulate the fleet size limitations and extra costs.
We should however make script timing/checks large enough so we don't overburden the game engine.
One problem still is there can be no negative RU count (can there?) and we can't really force a player to scrap some buildings or ships. Or can we?

I hope I am not boring you btw. Damn I think I'm gonna go play MoO2 now LOL

[Moe]

I have an idea concerning space on ships. As you prolly know, the stellar converter for example takes up 400 units of space, so you couldnt build ten of those on a ship. To simulate this, when a stellar converter is built, it takes up 1 module slot for itself plus a number of other slots, which could be filled with power generators or whatever. That way nobody can build the 10-stellar-converter-super-über-cruiser...

Kominosm: some good ideas on the planets there.

Slamoid: Planets should be big, but not too big so the game engine starts smoking. Random maps would be wonderful. And yes please, I appreciate any help you can give us!

And yeah, i thought it would be cool to model weapons on the MOO2 weps. Shouldnt be a problem, they have missiles, torps, beams and kinetics as well as bombs (for planetary attacks, dont know if we need those) and special weps.

[komninosm]

OK, I started making weapon files. Here's the Laser, light, normal and heavy mounts:

StartWeaponConfig(NewWeaponType,"AnimatedTurret
","InstantHit","VgrBeam","Normal Only",0,2000,0,0.2,0,0,2,0,0,1,0,0,1,0,180,180,0.1,"Normal",0,0,10);
AddWeaponResult(NewWeaponType,"Hit","DamageHealth","Target",5,20,"");
setPenetration(NewWeaponType,5,1,{PlanetKillerArmour=0});
setAccuracy(NewWeaponType,1,{Fighter=0.5},{Corvette=0.7},(Frigate=0.9),{munition=0.4});
setAngles(NewWeaponType,10,45,-45,45,-45);
setMiscValues(NewWeaponType,0,0.4);

StartWeaponConfig(NewWeaponType,"AnimatedTurret
","InstantHit","VgrBeam","Normal Only",0,4000,0,0.4,0,0,3,0,0,2,0,0,1,0,90,90,0.1,"Normal",0,0,50);
AddWeaponResult(NewWeaponType,"Hit","DamageHealth","Target",10,40,"");
setPenetration(NewWeaponType,10,1,{PlanetKillerArmour=0});
setAccuracy(NewWeaponType,1,{Fighter=0.1},{Corvette=0.3},(Frigate=0.6),{munition=0.1});
setAngles(NewWeaponType,10,45,-45,45,-45);
setMiscValues(NewWeaponType,0,0.5);

StartWeaponConfig(NewWeaponType,"AnimatedTurret
","InstantHit","VgrBeam","Normal Only",0,6000,0,0.6,0,0,4,0,0,4,0,0,1,0,45,45,0.1,"Normal",0,0,100);
AddWeaponResult(NewWeaponType,"Hit","DamageHealth","Target",15,60,"");
setPenetration(NewWeaponType,20,1,{PlanetKillerArmour=0});
setAccuracy(NewWeaponType,1,{Fighter=0},{Corvette=0},(Frigate=0.6),{munition=0});
setAngles(NewWeaponType,10,45,-45,45,-45);
setMiscValues(NewWeaponType,0,0.8);

Tell me if you like them so I can start making more.
Notice that I used 10x the damage values to give us more to play around with. We could do the same with armour.
Instead of making them weight different amounts I played around with the firetimes. Now these are ready to go on forward turrets.
Do you want a spinal mount too?
At least these will serve as templates for future work.

Comments?

[Slamoid]

If somone wants to make a planet model, I can scale-up and do dockpathing/hardpoints. Somone else should do atmospheric animations if they so wish, as I can't do animations.

May I reccomend making this mod for a new gametype ONLY, as adding large objects as starting units doesn't work well. (I had to cut the starbase as a starting unit from my mod.)

Actually we could actually make the Stellar Converter be a *real* planetkiller in this mod!! Just make a new armor type for planets that is only effected by the Stellar Converter. Then we could have a true Planetkiller weapon. :2cents:

[thesamonthemoon]

That would be cool. We could make some really crazy explosion effects for planets.

Lots of good ideas here. I like [CODE ] tags.

Planet Question: Ok, I'm working on the game script, and I need to know the relative values for different planets. This is my sugestion:

-------Hostile--X4---Average--X2---Good-----
--------------------------------------------
Small |   1     |       4     |      8     |
+n------------------------------------------
Med   |   2     |       8     |      16    |
+n------------------------------------------
Large |   3     |       12    |      24    |
--------------------------------------------

These aren't values from the game (MOO2) itslelf, I just made them up. If you have stats directly from the game, post them, and I'll use them instead.

I also suggest that these be the only criteria for planets (I don't think we should model differant atmoshpheres. There is more conflict when all the sides are competing for the "good" planets, and when the "good" planets are the same for all the players, more conflict).

Hmm... I wanna play MOO now...

Edit - Oh, and also, what rescource "scale" are we using?

i.e. how much is a little, how much is alot?

Oh yea, are Microprose and Atari going to sue us if we make this mod?

[komninosm]

About planet population it should be a subsystem that slowly regenerates up to maxhealth which is max population. Clever? It is also destroyable though we should make it tough, nad buildable to, meaning colony ships or maybe not

Slamoid I forgot to write my similar idea about that. We can simply give planetkiller armor to planets. All weapons except Sajuuk's are already useless against them. And then give pk penetration to stellar converter weapon. Nice to see we are on the same wave-ength.
Another cool idea is to use, like Torpedo Frigate special/normal weapons combo, two types of weapon files for stellar converters. One is for firing against ships and subsystems and one for planets. The one for planets would have a very long charge time, which can be done real easy, and cause massive damage to the planet.

Also planets will have so many subsystems that unlike what Moe said even bomb type weapons will be very useful if we adjust subsystem damage very carefully. In MoO2 planets were quite resilient except against bombs and missiles.
I can only imagine how a fully built planet will look. Especially if we make orbiting subsystems lke starbase, starport, etc.

Slamoid I trust your experience (I have none at that bit) and agree with the gametype recomendation. Does anyone have any objections?
I think we will need special maps though. For neutral planets and stuff. We don't want to make this like that awful cartoon with moving planets that fought each other or the bad guys.

thesamonthemoon I like your idea about planet size and suitability. However I would like to add that I think we should use size to determine how many surface (as opposed to orbiting) subsystems it can build and how big the population module will be. We could tie suitability to this too. Then we could add planet richness to affect RU production. Population and special buildings/modules should also produce some RU. And population and buildings should affect build speed too. All this can be done, I think I can code it for the mod. Except for the actual models and HODs ofcourse. I did mention I'm artistically challenged didn't I

It would be fun if we added different suitability for races because good planets will have more than one stat to be judged by
About resource scale I don't really know, can you add a temporary value and teak it as we go? I think 100 RU/10 sec is fine as a base value? There are many modifiers to consider after that. I think we'll see just like we'll see how many planet objects we need to add to a 1vs1vs1vs1 free for all game for example
I think the values you list are a bit excessive though. 24 to 1 seems a big difference. We don't want a megalith sized ship that noone really wants in our maps do we? Here's my proposal:

Planet max population:
-------Hostile-------Average-------Good-----
---------------------------------------------
Small |   5       |        7    |     10     |
+n------------------------------------------
Med   |   7       |      10    |     15     |
+n------------------------------------------
Large |   10     |     14     |     20    |
---------------------------------------------

Planet richness RU production multiplier:
poor: 0.7
average:1
rich:1.5

If something can't be done nevermind
I hope I satisfied your obsessions with code tags j/k

About Microprose and Atari I really don't know. Has this been an issue with mods before?
Maybe we should rename our mod from the start to hide our tracks
Any ideas/info on this anyone?
Are Babylon 5 and ST or SW mods having any problems with copyright? As long as we don't make any money I think we're safe. And I don't see anyone planning to quit their day job here

PS: You didn't tell me if you like the weapon files. Should I continue making them? We can also tweak them later on. Just making basic templates.

[Moe]

Good work on the weapons, although I think 2000 is a little much - after all, the laser is the weakest weapon in the arsenal in MOO2, and the strongest one has like 100 times the firepower. So maybe less dmg for the laser?

The planet idea sounds good, although it should be really hard to destroy a planet. Because we dont want all planets destroyed 5 minutes into the game...

Starting units: everyone starts with 1 planet and one module ("starbase" on that planet, plus maybe a few light ships? Would that be possible?

Lawsuit: Well we gotta think about that once the mod is complete. I mean, so far we arent doing anything. Once the mod is complete I'll ask them for permission to use their name, otherwise we need to come up with some other name for the mod. But since this game is more or less obsolete (couldnt even find an official website) I dont think they'll care. I'll ask them later to be on the safe side, but as long as we dont use their name and their code theres little they can do.

kominosm: about the weapons: In Moo2 almost any weapon could be modified to work as point defense vs missiles and fighters. Should we do that to?
As for the dmg tables, they are uploaded to the official and ATM very crappy page www.moomod.tk.

Good work so far, I like a lot of the ideas.
Oh, about the planet models, how do you guys want the subsystems to look? I mean normally you wouldnt see a missile base from space...
And is it possible to have an orbiting subsystem? Like a starbase? Oh, another prob there: Moo2 was 2-dim, so the starbase could pretty much defend the planet alone, but here you could just attack from the other side, with the planet blocking the starbases fire... How are we gonna get around that?

[komninosm]

Erm 2000 is range. 4000 for normal and 6000 for heavy just like MoO2 had similar ranges.
Damage is 10-40(normal) listed below it, 10x times normal for all weapons and armors or something like that so we can play with it better.

First of all I don't see how anyone is going to get stellar converters 5 minutes into the game. Research path alone should take an hour or so
Only planet subsystems would be vulnerable like in MoO2 and I think we should make them hardy enough (except maybe planetary defenses) so that destroying the orbiting defense fleet is always favoured before laying the siege on the planet. Also only missiles and bombs (which could be very short range missiles may make them to only target planets too) would do much damage to planetary subsystems (maybe we should make planetary subsystem armor different family than ship subsystem) otherwise be prepared for long sieges, unless you bring marine frigates (troop transports) and take over the planet.

Starting units is easy I think. Even I could do that
About point defense I think there are too many problems with munition targeting. If anyone knows of an effective way to do it we should go ahead with dedicated anti-munitions weapons.
If we don't we'll really have to find a way to balance missiles a bit differently than MoO2. But it's doable, let's face that problem when we get there.
I have the game (MoO2) installed and the editor COrion2 too but I am already using the stats for weapons from your convinient site

About subsystems I think they should be as large as usual subsystems, visible but still quite small compared to the planet surface and spread around (ok so it's not realistic but it's a game, planet size isn't realistic either you know). Maybe we should include several population modules so it isn't easy to target them all at once.
If we make the planet ships rotate (except for their poles) we should place missile bases along the equator (smaller escape velocity hehe) and beam defense turrets at the poles for reasons mentioned in earlier posts.

I think orbiting subsystems are possible if we cheat a little. We could make the planet a sphere but with little (invisible) arms (lines?) outstretched from the center of rotation and add hardpoints to them. That would solve the problem of the other side attacks, though they'd still have some tactical advantages as well as timing your attacks till the enemy starbase is leaving the horizon (oh the coolness). If we don't make rotations we could add 2 or more orbital defense platforms (starbases, etc) in 180 angles or 120 or 90 as appropriate. 2 would be enough I think, one on each side. If we don't add rotation

PS: I will make more weapons now. So who are in the MoO2 dev team now? Moe? thesamonthemoon? Unicron? Slamoid? komninosm? Oh that's me... yes I'm definetely in. My other mod can just wait and suc it up

[Moe]

Of course, you are right! *Hits head against the wall* Its range, not dmg.. my bad.

The arms of the planet would have to be really thin to avoid strange effects when weps hit them... so they should present a very small target to make it unlikely that they ever get hit.

Point defense is good against fighters as well, we can leave munition targeting out for now I think. But it was possible in HW1, remember those defense fighters that shot at bullets with their lasers?

Whos in this? Well I'm not quite sure.... the ppl you mentioned, I guess, and Pip posted "count me in", but that was the last I heard from him. Maybe he has some ideas about orbiting stations....

Visible modules: Population modules can be visible, no prob - well just call them cities! Texture them with aerial shots of large cities.
For missile bases.. you couldnt see them in MOO2 on that combat screen, the planet just looked the same as always, only it shot missiles at you all of a sudden... they did show up on sensor scans, though. But maybe we can work something out that doesnt look to artificial.
We could also include in the story something about small sperical asteroids with a super-dense core (to allow for normal grav despite their size) that contain some sort of ultra-important resource everybody is fighting about... that would explain the small sizes of the "planets"

What else.. Sam (how did your finals go, BTW?) you said you can do FX, do you think you could "port" the MOO2 fx to HW2? (That is, create new effects for HW2 that look similar to the MOO2 fx?)

Oh and komninosm, if you want to you can send your weps or their stats to me, I'll host them on the mod page for everyone to see.
(moo2_mod at gmx dot net)

[komninosm]

My first pass through the beam weapons is finished. Where do I send the file so you can all check it out Moe? What's your email so you can put it up at your site?


I meant the arms would be a simple line nice and invisible just in case we couldn't set/locate hardpoints in space. But I see no reason we can't give a hardpoint any position we want relative to root of the planet so we probably won't even need them lines

About point defense and strikecraft take a closer look at accuracy of light, normal and heavy its already there. In HW2 there's some problems with munition targeting but if someone knowshow to make it work all the better. I've read that only corvette class could target munitions, then I read they must have the minelaying ability, then... oh I just got more confused. I prefer to leave it to others to do it

Nice idea about cities, LOL sometimes the easiest solution escapes me
Missile bases need to be targetable in our mod, they were in moo2 too. So we need to make them visible along with other defenses, since planets will have planetkiller armor and only harmed by stellar converters. I don't think it will look too bad hopefully. That's the reason we have to make other planet modules visible so they can be targeted. We can give them adequate maxhealth and use the bombs and planetsubsytem armor trick. Remember how the beam weapons were almost useless against planets in moo2 compared to bombs and missiles?

PS: Oh I see your email now I think
I used some of the existing effects for the weapons, whatever reminded me of moo2 best. But we could use new fx for sure. Oh and I couldn't decide about some of the special weapon abilities like 2x range penalties and stuff. Just take a look and see if you like them.

[Moe]

moo2_mod at gmx dot net

[thesamonthemoon]

Well, I was thinking that rather than a subsystem, population could be given as a counter (that starts counting once you build the planet).

But I really like the idea of the cities now, so if that works, we can use it.

Yea, I can port an aproximation of MOO FX, but I still need to find it (no easy feat considering the mess that is my garage).

The weapons look good komninosm.

My finals wen very well indeed. I may have gotten 100%+ on Calc, and, although my litarature final (in essay form), was illegible, what I had to say was very insightful I think. Others went very well too.

Oh, BTW, these were my recomendations for RU richness multiplier, not for population

-------Hostile--X4---Average--X2---Good-----
--------------------------------------------
Small |   1     |       4     |      8     |
+n------------------------------------------
Med   |   2     |       8     |      16    |
+n------------------------------------------
Large |   3     |       12    |      24    |
--------------------------------------------

Explenation:

--------Hostile----X4-----Average------X2-------Good---------
-------------------------------------------------------------
Small |   N        |       4 * N       |     2* (4 * N)     |
+n-----------------------------------------------------------
Med   |  N+N       |       4 * N+N     |     2* (4 * N+N)   |
+n-----------------------------------------------------------
Large | N+N+N      |       4 * N+N+N   |     2*(4 * N+N+N ) |
-------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, and komninosm, how do you make multipliers based on the state of repair of a subsystem (which would be the case with population)?

[Unicron]

MoO2 tables available here weapons table available here.

MoO2 tech tables available here and here.

[Moe]

My website hosting server appears to be down or otherwise screwed up, so please use unicrons links for the time being.

Sam: great job there, how the hell did you manage 100% in calc?!?! (i assume by calc u mean calculus?)

The modifiers look pretty good so far.

I tried taking screenshots from Moo2, but the colors came out all wrong, lotsa purple and stuff... anyone know how to fix that?

The advantage of city subsystems is that they can be damaged (i.e. reduced in population) by bombardment, I dont see how that could be done with a counter.

I noticed that sajuuks main cannon fx looks pretty much like the stellar converter, maybe only a few tweaks here and there...

What about shields? Is it possible to have em? Can you imagine how great planetary shields would look?

[thesamonthemoon]

Sure, shields are possible. I picture planetary shields looking kind of like the planetary isolation shields that the Ur-Quan use.

I agree that cities would be very cool.

Also, if worst comes to worst, and we can't have citys auto-build, we would have an excuse to make them a normal subsystem (you have to devote the time to actually building the cities).

And that's 100% on the final (there was some extra credit on the final), not on the course. Before the final I had a 96% (yes, I do mean calculus).

[Moe]

Erm.. what exactly are the Ur-Quan, and do you happen to have a pic of those isolation shields?
This sounds better by the minute.
A question about gameplay: is it possible to build hangar modules that can only dock and repair fighters, but not build them? And can they come "filled", that is with a full complement of fighters?

[thesamonthemoon]

Ur-Quan - Big Green Caturpillurs (that's definately spelled wrong). They are from a game even older than MOO2, called Star Control (and Star Control II). It's a good game.

Anyway, their shield looks pretty much how one might expect a planetary shield to look (except theirs is red. I kind of imagine it being blue).

"A question about gameplay: is it possible to build hangar modules that can only dock and repair fighters, but not build them?"

Although I've never tried it, I would say, yes.

"And can they come "filled", that is with a full complement of fighters?"

That, I'm not so sure about. I'll do some testing.

[komninosm]

Good job on your exams there samon!
I think I was just like you back in highschool (right?). All science and disliked literature stuff.

With cities can we make the subsystem start damaged? Probably we could start all planets on the map with city modules bult but at very low percent health like 10% and they start growing unless you attack them. If we fool around with armor families we could make cities a family of its own and use weapons like death spores and such!
OH! Idea. If we make cities damageable and not destroyable we wouldn't have to worry about someone building them and getting instant 100% cities. Provided we can make planets start with already damaged innate cities. Can we make a ship or subsytem start damaged?

Also about multipliers all you have to do is make them linear and give a max and min value for 100% and 0 current health like engines and stuff.

Moe check your email. I did use the sajuuk FX for the stellar converter, hehe we think alike
Still these weapons are mostly templates and for individual ship designs we have to tweak the turret angles at least. I tried to cannonise them at 10 tons weight with adjusting firetimes based on the original stats. Only the stellar converter is a bit wrong I think.

I made SC enveloping 4x damage, but not so for plama cannon because it would make it too uber and I didn't know how to simulate 2x range dissipation penalties (or normal dissipation for that matter).
SC also had unlimited range so I gave it 10000m, and perfect accuracy so I gave it 100% except 0 for strikecraft (but I should add a damage=1 there too).
Shield piercing got a 100 shield penetration rating, good only if we use defense fields for planetary shields, which is the easiest, I have already made the DF subsystems for my other mod.
Graviton beam's extra structural damage got a hasty 2x for default penetration which is easily adjustable I think.
Ion pulse cannon got an EMP disable damage too.
Marine killers I don't know what to give them.
Also notice that I didn't add lineofsight checks but maybe I should have on second thought.

Are you planning on uploading the missile and other types of weapons values too or should I search for them on my moo2?
Also base ship hull armor values and for fighters too.
And hull space would be nice.
Computer research could improve accuracy though I still don't know how to facto range into HW2 engine's accuracy, oh well, it doesn't matter that much.
About research we could either make everything its own research or bundle them together. For example you research Ion tech and you get Ion drive (speed multiplier) and Ion pulse cannons (and shield capacitors if we find a use for them).

That reminds me. I asked the ST modders and they said they didn't use shields. The SW modder said he used the subsystem trick and was waiting for effective HODing tools to get them to work properly. That's the info on the shield front if we use them which isn't absolutely necessary I think. Let's concentrate on what can be done.

Who ar the Ur-Quan?
Also I think, like I said, we shouldn't make planets 24 times better than others. But we should use size for richness modifier too like you do. I forgot to take it into consideration. All in all I think the best planet should be no more than 2x times better than the average and the worst 1/2xaverage at least.
That's on population size alone. Similar balance should exist for richness.
Population should give some RU and build speed.
Richness should give RU only, but more importan quantities than population.
Then ofcourse there are buildings/subsystems
Hmm how our we going to handle research times? Cost is easy but for research time I think the only multiplier is some exponential function mentioned in the tuning.lua?

About armor do you think the moo2 values are a bit off-scale? 200% boost each time is a bit excessive for the HW2 RTS style don't you think? Maybe we should make up our own values, since research is automatic and no refits will be needed. Unless you know of a way to do refits?

Wow, I'm addicted
Have a nice day!

PS: I'll let you digest these before I post more drivel

[komninosm]

<<A question about gameplay: is it possible to build hangar modules that can only dock and repair fighters, but not build them? And can they come "filled", that is with a full complement of fighters?>>

I think some one is doing something like that. If I find it I will inform you. Don't cross your fingers though.

[komninosm]

Hmm maybe a ship that builds fighters could work if we make special fighters.
Say a new squadron take some tme to make. The old squadron gets only 4 shots. This can be done with a subsystem that is damaged with each shot as I saw in other threads. Then as the mod explodes the fighters die from collateral damage (set easily in subs files). When the new squadron is built it is lauched and replaces the old. No need to dock for replacements and problems with destroyed squadrons. We need one subsystem/dockbay for each squadron like in moo2.
But no wait how can we tiethe unitcap of fighter squadrons to the number of subsytems? That would make my above idea obsolete since it can' b used without this and with it it's worthless. So this is our porblem. Altering unitcaps to work based on each dockbay module.

In retrospect nevermind. Ignore this post. Let's just go with the HW2 way of handling fighters.

[thesamonthemoon]

I made SC enveloping 4x damage, but not so for plama cannon because it would make it too uber and I didn't know how to simulate 2x range dissipation penalties (or normal dissipation for that matter).

Disapation isn't a problem. Witness hgn_torpedolauncher.

Plasma weapon launches, in a few seconds it dies, and creates Plasma weapon 2 (which does less damage), and then Plasma weapon 3, and so on.

[Magus]

But then the plasma cannon would have to be a missile, not immpossible, just a pain.
As for fighters, since obviously interstellar distances won't be used, how can we force fighters to stay with the planet or a carrier?
An idea i had would be the carrier would generate a movement multiplier, and if the fighters went outside it, they would be really slow.
Another problem I just thought of is how do we make capturing other ships and capturing planets different?

[thesamonthemoon]

Well, capturing planets takes ALOT longer, and you would need more transports to do it.


WARNING: OFF TOPIC.

The Ur-Quan Kzer Za *excirpted from www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol*
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Physically, the Ur-Quan resemble the predatory caterpillar native to Earth's Hawaiian Islands, only grown to over ten meters in length. The Ur-Quan equivalent of a face is rich in sensory organs, and its expressions are varied and horrific. Aboard ship, these creatures cling to webbed ceilings with their back legs, dangling down over their controls and their slave-crew like hungry spiders. Ur-Quan are extremely territorial and aggressive, having evolved as non-social, hunter-killers. Their territorial instincts are so strong
that only one Ur-Quan is present on each Dreadnought. When Ur-Quan meet, they keep several meters between themselves, lest their instincts drive them to engage in an unarmed battle to the death. A simple, linear dominance structure dictates power within the Ur-Quan species. Each member of the species has a number, indicating its relative power and authority. Ur-Quan Master #1 is the ultimate lord of the entire Hierarchy. The Ur-Quan are unwilling to communicate directly with other species because to do so would be demeaning. Therefore, when giving orders or interrogating enemies, the Ur-Quan use "Talking Pets", large-brained, frog-like creatures which are non-sentient, but possess the telepathic/empathic ability to translate all languages.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An Ur-Quan Kzer Za Dreadnaught.

Note that their are two sub-species of Ur-Quan, the Kzer Za, and the Korh-Ah.

Long story short, the Kzer Za and Korh-Ah hate eachother. The Kzer Za want to conquer the galaxy, and go about this by sending dreadnaughts to the inhabited worlds and offering the ocupents of said worlds to either join the Ur-Quan hierarchy, or have their planet placed under a shield (from which the ocupants can't escape). The Korh-Ah don't like other races either, but aren't quite as nice: they think all non-Korh-Ah should be exterminated. There is alot more, but this is off topic as it is...

Incedentaly, one of the races in the Ur-Quan heirarchy also has a disapating plasma weapon.

Anyway, I plan to do a Star Control II mod at some point.

Oh, and since I'm off topic, since when did they start teaching Calculus in high school?

[komninosm]

Samon that would create more problems than it's worth I think. IF it works we'd have to make 3 times the weapon files and I already predict 10 times more weapon files than HW2. Maybe I'm just pessimistic
Maybe we could make a compromise like reduced range or damage or both but less of a reduction. Or just leave it be for now.

How could we make the carrier speed multiplier fighter specific? We can't.
New Idea. Use fuel for fighters (to restrict them) and make maps big enough. There is already a fuel script mod, we could use that

Capturing times are easily adjusted I think some attributes are in the tuning.lua, or ship files.
Samon do you have an idea about how to make planets require more than one transport?
Also in MoO2 transports were for planets only. Ships used boarding and shuttles and transporters. We could add some of this. Maybe we could include a crew innate subsystem I saw in another thread. That would help with marine killer weapons too

PS: Erm forgive my Greek ignorance but I don't know the specifics of your educational systems. How old are you? What is the school level for calculus? What calculus is taught? I think I was confused with arithmentics or something. Is calculus diferential equations or what exactly? What do you study at University if you go there?
I'm a mechanical engineer (trying to finish)

[Magus]

I'll be taking Calc 1 next year, and right now I'm a sophomore in High School
but back on topic
Is it possible to make a sub to decrease building time? That way we can have small backwater planets be able to build a fighter squadron in about 3 min, while core worlds can churn out Heavy Cruisers in that time. Then you wouldn't aim for the production facilities themselves, but the infrastructure
Also, fuel wouldn't be sufficent, because if you want to stop them from traveling interstellarly, it would need to be a small fuel range(unless the maps are ridiculously huge), but then they cant fight effectively.

[komninosm]

Yes there are build speed multipliers as I mention in one of my earlier posts about buildings.

Fuel was just an idea and yes it would have to be small amount, and our maps are going to be large I think to make the mod work right with planets.

We should make Hyperspace semi free too in keeping with moo2 logic
In fact that would make more sense fighter wise.
Also warp interdictors have hyperspace inhibitors writen all over them.

PS: So what does Calc 1 contain exactly?

[thesamonthemoon]

Why do we need fuel anyway?

And yes, we can make it so that cities have a build speed modifier (so heavily populated planets build faster), as komninosm said.

Transports v.s. other capturing ships: Planets are really hard to capture, so it will be imposible for non-transports to do the job. Transports won't be able to capture non-planets (I'm sure there's some way to do this).

Also, for transports, there is a "Capture" modifier. Perhaps we can have transports be able to "build" troops. I.e., make it so that they can build an invisible subsystem with a capture multiplier. You could also have research enabled troop subsystems like mechanized infantry, tanks, and mechs.

Sure, disapation will add to the number of .wepn files we need, but the disapation weapon files would be practicaly the same as the original (as would the disapating FX) : in the disapating weapons, only two things would need to be changed: the damage, and the color (in the FX). There will be alot of files, but they will be very similair.

Calculus is college level math. It does have differential equations, but not in Calculus 1. In Calculus 1 we mainly learned limits, and the derivative. We also learned smaller things, like local linear approximation among others.

Edit - I've added us to this thread. Please check to make sure I got everything right.

[Magus]

Fuel: Because in MoO 2 Fighters can't travel interstellarly. Assuming we're saying that each planet/group of planets is a star system, we dont want fighters to travel between them.
However, I just had an idea: Give planets a universal movement multiplier of about 100x. This would represent in system movement. To move between planets/stars, you would have to hyperspace, and fighters would have to be carried. It might also be good to give the planets a limited gravwell, but one with a smaller radius than the movement multi.

Edit: Also, can you change Armor Family with research?

[Moe]

I found those tables on the web. Feel free to send me any more tables you find... as you pointed out, the missile stats are missing etc...
My crappy host is still down, I hope they get that fixed soon. If not i'll try to get some webspace from my university.

About the research and armor multipliers: A major point in MOO2 was research. I've run some tests, and even a whole screen full of battleships with low-tech weapons got owned by my two death stars equipped with state of the art weapons and defensive systems. Thats not really true in HW2, the bombers are relatively low tech and can kill a BC quite efficiently. My point is, we are changing the gameplay, so big modifiers wouldnt be such a bad idea, would they?
Also, should research cost RU or how are we gonna handle that? RU is not too far-fetched, you gotta choose how you allocate your resources between building ships or doing research, in HW those would be RUs, in MOO2 whether you had a lot of scientists or a lot of workers....

There were planetary shields in MOO2, they just looked like the regular shield effects (that light-blue shield that showed when it got hit) only way bigger of course.

[komninosm]

"Edit: Also, can you change Armor Family with research?"
Why? If you want two ships belonging to the same armor family get diferent research the only thing I can think of is to make them into two subgroups of the armor family and add a 0cost follow up research for where you want both, and none where you want one. And add stuff in the weapon files. But why? What did you have in mind?

100x move has some problems. First if a ship gets out of radius it will have problems getting back. Unless we make many different radius at the edge for more smooth decrease of speed.
Also in my plats that pack/unpack mod I noticed that the maxspeed multiplier causes movement to appear bad/jerky. Also it affects rotationmax speed and I couldn't find a way to keep rot stable even with my true 3D movement mod upgrade.

Hmm maybe we could add a slight damage effect (clouds/nebula) to regions outside of planets and cause the need to hyperspace. Maybe add research like Transdimentional Trillarians to pass the void without hyperspace
The gravwell aka warp interdictor radius would have to be smaller than the nebula radius yes.
The jump gates/star gates research would make gates close to a planet right?

Armor multipliers let's just choose original for now and we can always change them later. We just need to make new families for planetary subsystems (as opposed to ship subsystems) and some other stuff to add in the weapon files.
I made some planet subs like mine, factory and city and will send them to you to take a look.
The RU increase is commented because it won't work like that. I'm waiting till we make the RUinjection code

I found some stuff in the tuning file too.

[thesamonthemoon]

I am making the RU injection code.

It's already mostly done.

I used thought's ru injection script as a template (thanks thought!).

[komninosm]

In the tuning.lua there's a modifier for research modules affecting research speed.

ResearchData= {
	-- Power to which the number of research sub systems should be raised.
	ResearchShipExponent = 0.5,

I think we should change this to 1 for MoO2 simulation.
Also since we only have RU and not BilionCredits or ResearchBulbs and ProductionHammers or Food we have to make research cost RU as well as time. Not a bad thing really since it is already this way.

I'll sent you the new files when I finish.

OT: I was thinking about my true 3D movement mod and I found these in the tuning.lua too. Can you comment please?

ShipController = {
	GoalInfluence					= 0.6,				-- factor that determines the amount of influence the speed of the goal has on the speed of the ship (between 0 and 1)
	zRotationAccelerationMultiplier = 2.0,				-- the Z rotation acceleration is higher than the other accelerations in ships. We don't want an extra shiptuning variable for this. All ships have a higher z rotation acceleration
	flightManeuverRotationBoost		= 2.0,				-- in flightmaneuvers the ships get a higher rotation agility. The maximum rotation is not changed, instead, the way they steer is 'snappier'..
	accelerationPow					= 2.0,				-- Used in the acceleration arc. The amount of forward trust = factor * maxamount. And factor = pow(factor[0 - 1], accelerationPow)
	glancingBounceFactor				= 0.6,			-- Glancing bounce of the ships
}

I think we should make z axis(which is that btw?) normal again and I don't understand the pow formulae.

Also

	battleTimeOutTime				= 10.0,				-- Don't tweak this if you don't know what you are doing. takes 10 seconds to say that you're not in a battle anymore, while you are in battle you can't be cloaked, you are also visible always to the player you are firing at

What if I set this to 0? Or if I set it to 3600?

[komninosm]

Samon have you thought of a way to tie the script to a planets population?
If we can't use regenerating damaged subsytems for cities maybe we could use numbers of cities instead.
And what about RU producing mines?
Ok I'll shut up now.

/edit: btw the MoO2 widows theme is about 1Mb if anyone want's me to send it.
It has sounds from the game, a bit of music and nice looking pointers and stuff (women seem to like the pointer shaking its tail around). The wallpaper and logos and screensaver we could use for the main menu/page of HW2 and stuff.

[Moe]

Great, I've been looking for screenshots for the webpage. Please send it to me.

Why do you want to edit the battletimeouttime?

This nebula thing.. I'm not so sure about that, it would mean you need to jump every time you wanna attack a planet.. of course you could make it a subsystem to simulate the artemis mine belt research.

The fuel script should be best, because it would force fighters to return home after a few attack runs. Also it would keep them from going interplanetary.

[thesamonthemoon]

Well, I can tie rescource income to number of subsystems, but I haven't figured out how to tie it to total subsystem health yet.

Mines would be easy to add.

[komninosm]

OK I am sending the theme now. I am also sending a zip with all the stuff I have done so far

battletimeouttime and the other stuff were a bit off topic as I said (OT). I was thinking of my older mod. I was trying to simulate battle movement for all movement. I jst notcied these stuff in the tuning.lua and thought I'd ask here
Do you understand accelerationPow?

Well if you remember in moo2 you had to jump to go to another starsystem
Also this would solve the fighter problem. You have to dock them. But Hyperspace then should be free. And we can maybe add hyperspace speed research.
But fuel is nice. And can we add a hyperspace beast too? Or crystals and space dragons and stuff to guard neutral planets?
However with fuel script we will have to use squadronsize 1 or has he fixed it? I mean the bug if the first ship in a squad dies the timer is reset.

thesamonthemoon hmm like I thought. In that case we will have to make cities and stuff many times over. Like city1, city2, city3, etc, because I think the game doesn't build a second of the same subsystem on the same ship... or planet
Can we use loadsharedmodel in subsystems?

See you all later. Tell me what you think of the zip files