Suggested mod ideas

[Shark7]

Just having some thoughts on what mods would people like to see and get other peoples thoughts on the matters:

1. Hyperspace speed: My thoughts on this that would help slow the game, make defending planets with local defenses important, and generally slow the pace of all aspects of the game. The best way to do this would be to modify the hyperspace componants (expecially the first 2-3 tech levels) so that moving between systems is slowed considerably.

A. Initial tech level hyperdrives should be slowed to 1000 or 2500.
B. Tech level 2 slowed to 5000.
C. Tech level 3 slowed to 10,000.
D. Tech level 4 to 20,000 and from this point forward follow the default scalings.
E. Research for hyperdrive needs to be increased as well...tripled or qudrupled.

The idea behind this is making ship movement very slow between systems making developing your home system first vastly important and making it hard to grab up half the map in the first 30 minutes of the game.

2. Expansion speed: Colonizing tech should be more expensive and have more requirements.

A. The cost to build a colony ship should have a modifier to make it 4-5 times more expensive than it currently is.
B. Colony ships should require passenger compartments to actually transport the people they carry.

If we get the ability to mod the tech, at least some of these should be doable.

Comments?

[Igard]

I pretty much agree with everything there, Shark7. I think hyperspace speeds all depend on what sort of mod you're making, but generally speaking I would say around 2000 speed for starting techs. I'd have to test this to be absolutely sure about it of course.

The colony ship can be made more expensive simply by increasing the cost of the colony module. I'm thinking around 50,000 cost for a colony ship. That should really slow down the expansion of empires. Hopefully the AI should cope with this, I think it should but again it must be tested to be sure.

Adding passenger compartments is a good idea. The more you have, the more colonists can be planted, but it would require a change to the code.

[WoodMan]

Also it depends on your game settings, with the settings I use 5000 is a lot for a colonyship, especially in the first 20 years or so.  I had to retire all my troops except 1 on my homeplanet, my entire military except one destroyer also just to save for a colonyship.  Unfortunately pirates attacked and were guarding the colony (the only colony I had found due to only being able to afford a single Explorer) so I had to build another Destroyer with the only funds I had left, it then took about 20 mins of guerilla style warfare for my 2 Destroyers to kill the pirates before I could retire one of them and then wait for the money to go up so I could afford the colonyship.  Now, if it cost 50,000 my Empire stops right there [:D]

[lordxorn]

These are great ideas, because I do not think the AI will be stumped by. Adjusting the cost might throw off the balance, however we don't know because the AI scripting is not moddable.

I am also curious to where these settings are stored, because looking at the install directory I don't see any protected files unless they are hidden in the redist folder.

[tjhkkr]

I am also curious to where these settings are stored.

Alot of this will depend on how much they have hardcoded certain values. If they were thinking about modability, then there is a chance they coded it in such a way as to be read for us to mod stuff.
If they intend to let us mod those sorts of things, I would bet that they would bestored into a flat file you create and then loaded into some kind of indexed file... same would be true with weapons ranges and deterioration of range.

But I am betting once the modding stuff is out there door, there will be a policy similar to the Matrix/AGSI game Harpoon 3... if you mod it and the code dumps all over itself, they may not look into it.

[Shark7]

Idea #3: Specialty componants

This will expand as I think of things or others come up with stuff.

1. Resort Base Improvements. The purpose of these is to make resort bases more and more efficient as the game progresses. And one way to make more money on a cruise ship (which is essentially what a resort base is) is to add some fancy nick-nacks to the room along with a wetbar and call it a 'Stateroom'. BONUSES DO NOT STACK.

-Staterooms: Increase Resort Base income by 10% Low tech
-Luxury Staterooms: Increase resort base income by 20% Mid tech
-Grand Staterooms: Increase resort base income by 35% High tech
-Opulent Staterooms: Increase resort base income by 50% Very High Tech

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr

I am also curious to where these settings are stored.

Alot of this will depend on how much they have hardcoded certain values. If they were thinking about modability, then there is a chance they coded it in such a way as to be read for us to mod stuff.
If they intend to let us mod those sorts of things, I would bet that they would bestored into a flat file you create and then loaded into some kind of indexed file... same would be true with weapons ranges and deterioration of range.

But I am betting once the modding stuff is out there door, there will be a policy similar to the Matrix/AGSI game Harpoon 3... if you mod it and the code dumps all over itself, they may not look into it.

This is a pipe dream list, it will all depend on whether elliotg opens up the moddability for us. I believe that is going to happen, as it is one of the most requested things in the wishlists...open the game up, we can make tons of mod improvements on our own. [;)]

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: lordxorn

These are great ideas, because I do not think the AI will be stumped by. Adjusting the cost might throw off the balance, however we don't know because the AI scripting is not moddable.

I am also curious to where these settings are stored, because looking at the install directory I don't see any protected files unless they are hidden in the redist folder.

I may be mistaken, but I believe that the "redist" folder just contains the DirectX C and Net 3.0 Framework files. Correct me if I'm wrong though Erik.