okay, i see where you are going...

you know... i think we would be better off just making boarding party SC and repair SC as abilities, rather than actual Strike Craft.

reason for this is that repair SC and BP SC could be shot down (being SC) and therefore halting the ability. for instance, colonise ability has ships that fly down to the planet, but you cant acutally shoot them and stop the colonisation effort (though... that wouldnt be a bad idea...)

considering you said boarding party squadrons only have one ship in a squadron, it could easily be destroyed by an anti-sc ability/ship/fighter squdron... though one idea could be to have a squadron of fighters 'escort' it to the target. that way whichever ship survives to reach the target becomes the boarding craft, and any remaining escort fighters return to a carrier for reinforcements?

on that note... instead of a new SC, why not make it an ability for fighters on Carrier Caps (...or even Destroyers?) to launch a normal Fighter Squadron, but have it act like your BPSC in the fashion outlined above?

as for repair SC for TEC... we already have a relatively easy to spam ship that repairs (Hosiko) however the only thing that recharges TEC shields or AM is a Dunov Battlecruiser... so... if anything... maybe an SC or ability that recharges shields (emergency batteries?) or transferres AM (Fleet Resource Sharing?). For the same reason, im hesitant to make it an actual SC, because it can be shot down.

i mean, in reality, it would be awesome. a transport ship that tranfers AM between caps getting shot down half way and detonating in a spectacular explosion... mmm... juicy... but alas, it wouldnt work due to performance requirements. also, the fact remains that with most abilities, you want to be able to press a button and get a definite result.

as for the Troop Transport ship... i think it is too heavily armed... not in terms of weapons class (light, heavy etc) but in terms of the fact that it has a rocket launcher at the back, lasers on the sides and autocannons on the front... up until our mod (i think, im not including Total Conversion Mods) very few ships could fire behind them or even to the front and both sides at once, including cap ships...
now, im usually the first one to jump up and yell MORE WEAPONS YAY!! but in this case... its essentially a Utility Cruiser (btw, i think a new Utility Cruiser is a great idea) which historically (and understandably), has fewer weapons for more abilities. However... i think arming them with some forward firing lasers plus some 360 degree flak weapons would be a better idea... that way the flak 'shields' the BPSC (if we are sticking with SC instead of an ability) as it launches, and afterward its on its own... while the Troop Transport itself acts as a sort of Flak Cruiser (which i know a fair few people have been asking for)

something i just thought of... will these BPSC be able to disable ship abilities? like an Argonev Big Red Button or Marza Missile Barrage? it would be good... but we have to be very careful because if it became abusable, TEC would lose two of its most potent abilities...

as for the Bomber ability (hull masher torpedos) sounds good to me. along with the EWS bomber squadron from DiSt and potential new Fighter abilities, we definitly have something here

i think that was all... im still a bit hesitant about too many SC types...

on a seperate note, i had the idea of new researchable ability for Trade Ports, where it assigns some light SC protection to Trade and Refnery ships when a pirate raid is about to begin... of course, it wouldnt be able to stop an entire pirate fleet... but an idea i had was that pirates could try to capture the trade ship (new ship/ability?) but in order to do that, they would have to deploy something that is very suceptible to SC.

so, if the pirates destroy the trade ship, you lose X amount of credits. but, if the pirates capture the trade ship, they get X credits x5 or 10, so its in your interests to stop them from capturing the trade ship.

just something that popped into my head

Fair enough... i didnt really look at the numbers but you are right, 1200 damage (stackable) guaranteed would be pretty insane... however im still a little cautious from both a defending point of view and an attacking one... when defending you wont be able to see one more SC (squadron or single) in amongst a large group of other SC or even larger ships... its like the MB (even with the graphics enhancement) you press the button and all of a sudden things start going pop... i honestly cant think of a way to make a single SC appear noticeable at a fleet level zoom... and, as i understand it, there is no way to stop the DoT effect once it has started so your only remedy is to destroy it before it reaches its target, or just slug it out... idn, could we somehow make repair abilities reduce the effectiveness of the boarding party until the effect is neutralised? at the very least we need some sort of graphic to affect the target ship so the owner knows what is happening to his ship.

from an attack point of view, like i said, a single SC could be very easily destroyed if you happen to run into a fighter/interceptor squadron or a flak frig's firing arc, then you are FUBAR'd. i know i am sort of contradicting myself, on one hand, its too powerful but on the other hand its too easily destroyed... im sorry about that, but i just want to thrash it out to make sure we have the perfect balance, because anything less than perfect will result in it being too powerful or useless...

yeah, i wasnt talking about Hosiko's damage capability, i was talking about the Repair SC, i was thinking instead of Hull repair, shield/AM restoring would be more beneficial as it fulfills a role that is rather obscure for the TEC (i know TEC shields arent that great in the first place, but if you had a hull repair ship/ability for the Advent, wouldnt you jump at it?)

however, upon reading what you said about Repair SC's can negate the effects of BPSC for 75% of the duration of their attack, i am certainly changing my mind... so long as every race gets something comparable... otherwise, like i said, how would defenders negate BP attacks.

As for Advent and Vasari BPSC... i dont see a need to alter the principal too much... its a lightly armed SC that runs into a ship and causes DoT... just armament, speed, damage values etc, and, of course, appearance. however, RSC are a different matter...

For Advent, their hulls are much weaker, relying on shields, so while 1200 hull damage for Vasari or TEC isnt a big deal, for Advent it is... so, while logically Advent RSC would replenish shields, they would in fact have to repair the hull because a shield without a hull is useless... so perhaps Advent RSC repair much better than counterparts... or the Advent have a research tech that dimishes the damage done by BPSCs... perhaps re-routing power from external shields to internal shields... dropping both hull and shields, but by half the rate at which a BPSC would attack the hull of a TEC ship, for instance. Advent BPSC, with more ships per squadron, could land at more places on the ship so damage/disruption is inflicted faster...

For Vasari... they have more armor, but im uncertain about hull points... Vas RSC wouldnt have a problem with repairing hulls... or at least boosting armor somehow to mitigate the damage done... and their BPSC with Phase Mini(...) tech would definitly make them much more effective at penetrating enemy shields/hull...

you are right, my bad, i glanced over it and read BPSC weapons as the Arlow Weapons, still, i think maybe some flak weapons wouldnt be a bad idea?
however now i am confused, will these weapons work on SC, larger ships or both? because rocket tubes, lasers and autocannons... just for SC which will probably fly circles around the BPSC anyway... however if its for larger ships as well (though i cant see it being all that useful in any case...) then i sort of understand... though i didnt think larger ships could attack SC unless they had a certain weapons attribute applied? in which case, that would allow all ships to fire on all SC...

in any case, i think just the 2 AC's or Lasers in front, plus some light flak weapons around the back and sides would be more than enough to defend itself against attacking SC... although... (sorry to be a pain about this) once again... how much do we want it to be able to defend itself? im thinking it would be more realistic to give it maybe just the 1-2 light Flak cannons with a 360 degree firing arc, and alot of Countermeasures/Flares (ala your ability idea for Fighters) to make it last maybe 10-20 more seconds in a firefight? thats all we want really, survivability, not superiority...

what cant we spam? the Arlow or the BPSC? if you build enough Arlows and just rack 'em with BPSC squadrons, you could potentially cripple and destroy a great many Cap Ships and Value Targets, and cause significant irritation to SB's and SotL's in such a way that is largely uncounterable (as in, you need Repair SC or equivalent to negate the effect, and if you dont have a RSC squadron for every BPSC squadron...). i know you said its all micro, but thats why God invented the Tab& Click, where you select your ships, zoom to the target, target the ability, press tab, rinse and repeat. Just imagine 15 Arlows with 30 BPSC. lets say 15 BPSC get through to attack a SB. As a defender, you would have to send at least 15, maybe 20 to negate the effect of the BPSC...

although... that pretty much mimics the current Status Quo with normal SC today... so... i guess its not such a bad thing...

i also just thought... what do Arlows and BPSC do when you havent given them a target? they arent like normal Light Carriers where they need to constantly maintain their Squadrons... with the Arlow its effectively like using a Fire and Forget missile... the SC launch and you move on to the next target... so would you need to target each ship individually or what? and... back to the topic of spamming... would an Arlow automatically rebuild its squadrons after they've been used? would it keep sending BPSC's to the same target? in which case spamming becomes a problem... also, if RSC kept repairing the same target, while next door there is a cap almost destroyed, we have a problem...

Once again, sorry if i sound like i am bashing your idea around too much. i do like it in theory, but like i said above, it has to be perfect or else it will be problemmatic.

one thing i was thinking... TEC tactics generally involve very little micro... this new ship/SC creates the need for micro with TEC, at least on a small scale. Conversely, Advent and especially Vasari require much more micro, so perhaps to maybe give a more general balance (in terms of feel and the demands of each races particular management style, not in fairness) BPSC and RSC equivalents for these races would do less damage, but be more automated... perhaps have the Vasari squadron launch, and attack two targets at once, without you needing to target it individually... because if you have alot of micro to do already, you arent going to want more...

as for Fighter abilities, i like it... but perhaps its a little too 'token' for a Fighter... but no, i do like it, leave it as is.

i had an idea for fighters to perhaps some sort of Signal Enhancer or "Cry Baby" (you've seen Serenity so you will appreciate this) that distracts nearby ships and either stops them from firing, stops them from firing and lures them to investigate the area where the "Cry Baby" was dropped or makes them fire in the general direction of the Cry Baby, rather than firing at real ships (and potentially damaging friendly ships under the influence of effect two?). i know the Cry Baby was used differently in Serenity, but i like the name.

the above could be an ability for Fighters, or even a secondary ability for EWS bombers (if we are going to use them) i can see that causing real havoc in a battle (evil glee).

As for Interceptors, yeah, i like the idea of a powerful missile with like 90% chance to hit with a one-time high damage output (perhaps also an extremely small AoE secondary effect like damage or EMP blast or both?). Also, just for the visual, why not give interceptors some lasers as their primary rather than the standard AutoCannons? it makes no difference, just a suggestion to make it easier to differentiate the two.

you are right... you would think though than an Interstellar Empire would have some sort of Police or Paramilitary Force or 'National Guard' equivalent to protect (at least to a small degree) against pirate attacks... but oh well... Cap Ship Trade Ships anybody? =P

Excellent, cant wait!

Hmm... i think a pre-emptive sound effect would be more effective... or maybe even two sounds? one for launch and one for landing... because as we said, one major threat to BPSC is the fact they are SC... if you dont have time or dont know to scramble fighters/interceptors to defend against BPSC, then it might as well be a guaranteed ability. as for upon arrival, thats worthwhile, becuase then the defender can target RSC to negate BPSC effects

instead of reducing effectiveness, why not just give it a counteracting effect. so, x damage is done over y time, but the defending marine squad would 'repair' (in terms of game mechanics), effectively reducing the effeciency of BPSC main abilities. however... thats pretty much what the RSC does... if you mean making BP's take longer or even being unable to disable abilities... then i have no idea... there is no precedent in the game (as in there are no other abilities that i know of that directly affect another ability... stacking not included) if you can program it in, great but if not we need a new way to counter or mitigate BPSC

okay, but does each Race's BPSC do damage in the same way? as in, will they all do hull damage as a primary effect and disable abilities/ship functions like engines etc as a secondary? because if RSC are going to be the primary post-infection counter to BPSC, then each race's RSC needs to do something to counter the effects of BPSC

so would it also do very little against Flak Frigs and Anti-SC abilities? i thought the idea was to increase fighter survivability?

fair enough... still, with certain mods that increase fleet sizes, spamming would beome feasible. Just to point out, the Stargate Races mod page provides a standalone Fleet Sizes mod designed for integration with the standard game and any other mods.

on a seperate note, how many fleet supply points do we intend to make Lancers, Destroyers and SotLs cost? Also, should SotLs cost the usual 1 or should we make them cost 2 or more Cap Ship Crews?

so, after you launch and target a BPSC, what does the Arlow do? does it recharge AM, build a new one, at which point you need to target the new squadron? hmm... idn, it seems like that is flawed somehow.... way too much micro, even for Vasari players... i think it might be more beneficial to have BPSC do something else in the meantime until you target their Boarding Party ability... at least RSC can be built and left on autocast more or less... maybe have BPSC fulfill some sort of combat role? i realise its not a fantastic solution, but perhaps giving BPSC a 'preferred target' line in the code so as they target Caps, SotLs, SBs, Orbital Defenses and other TT's, and having the ability to set BP on autocast. To balance, Autocast cooldown would be longer than the actual time needed to build and deploy a BPSC if you were micro-ing it.

idn... i have to honestly say though... im not convinced... i personally prefer to control my fleet, FF-ing on some important targets, applying certain abilities where required... but generally let the ships fight by themselves. The need to manually build and target single SC squadrons over what could potentially be dozens of ships all over your fleet/battlespace... the way Sins works (at least to my understanding) doesnt really facilitate a system like this...

lets keep working on it, though. its a good idea, but i want it to be right.

if its going to be Colonisation as we know it now, where you destroy infrastructure and population and colonise from the beginning, then no, i dont like it. We now have 3 ships that colonise: Colony Frigs, Colony Caps and TTs. Honestly, its not needed... however... i know there is demand for a new way to seize and colonise planets, and one of these was sending troops down to a planet to kill population while seizing infrastructure, making colonisation take longer, but be cheaper if successful. this would be better. while Colony Caps and Colony Frigates use the traditional style, TTs could use this style. i dont know if its even possible to program in. if not, then forget it.

the way i see TTs are like specialised Light Carriers... a ULC if you will. atm, TTs have some weapons, as other Utility Cruisers do, but otherwise acts very much like a carrier... im wondering... do we just want to merge the two? give the LC some flak weapons, a few more SC types (BPSC, RSC etc) maybe some sort of ability? either passive, active, offensive or defensive... just to simplify things as much as possible...

another thing, is to just create a new type of Utility Cruiser, a mix between offensive and defensive abilties... the TEC version could have different types of chaneled abilities (ECM/EWS etc etc) ones that act like the BPSC and RSC respectively. Being channeled, they can be interrupted, or even mitigated (perhaps give LC's or Flak Frigs some sort of passive ability to mitigate these types of attacks by shortening the duration of the ability?). AM and cooldown will be appropriately high to immitate the functionality of your original idea with SC. the only problem i see with this idea is that its very similar to current Defensive Utility Cruisers (except agressive abilities only disable ships, not damage them).

the way to get around it is simply drop the repair ability, give the cruiser a simple weapons loadout, and make the BPSC style ability the main purpose of the cruiser. lore would be: experimentation in Uni-Directional Radiation Bombardment has lead to a new DoT attack that disables and cripples the targetted ship. the nature of the attack means shields are bypassed with all but minimal interrferrence (like, 1-5 shield points per second?) while the brunt of the attack is absorbed primarily by the hull, causing physical damage, and, as a surprising secondary effect, causing a chaotic, atypical, cascading systems failure on-board the affected ship, meaning that up to 2-3 ships systems (engines, weapons, abilities, Phase Drives etc) will be disrupted at a time. Power requirements are great, so the weapon cannot be fired often. It also means that too much interferrence, or too much damage sustained by the ship, will cause the weapon to stop firing.

thats just a basic outline... i think it makes life heaps easier, because the SC idea is just way too complicated atm...

also... could i ask something... please post quotes like i do and respond to those... sometimes i find it hard to correlate your responses to what i said and where.

sounds like the Fleet Diversification Mod is expanding past its original purpose to be more inclusive. I also like the Invasion idea. You should play the Battlefleet Gothic Mod, as the Imperial Navy's Troop Transports are pretty much 1-stop-shops for colonization/neutral extractor capturing/planet assault. They have an Invade Ability that is pretty much modified from the Marza's Raze Planet. Not sure if it could be rigged to auto-colonize though.

Could you possibly pass on that code you've figured out? PM it too me, it'll be something that only Volt_Cruelerz's and Whiskey144's mods will have, eh?

The reason I'd like it is because in my 'The Legions' mod, which is back up!, the Taun have a cap ship called the 'Manta Missile Destroyer', which can launch Skate Dropships that assault the planet and then would, if you share the code, then take control of the planet. Neat, I have to say.

I'll explain the weapon mounts now... (since they don't exist yet...)

Fore: The Beam cannons will be on the fronts of the wings with the plasma cannon on the center cone.

Port/Starboard: one battery will be nestled inside the "dent" in the wings while the other will be in the trench near the engines.

Aft: These will be mounted on the platform behind the bridge.

Oh, and I added in some backstory about the origins of the Eyron.

Hey, the forum is working, so I'll edit in blue...

Does that have to do with your hatred towards the Advent in general?  Or is that just because you like the others more?

Try pressing down on the scroll wheel...  Drag up to zoom in, drag down to zoom out...  If you know how to use GIMP, then that is fine with me... I can teach the technicalities to anyone...  The last mod I worked on, with Soviet, we wrote the guide on skinning...  I know how, its just without a pad, I can't do anything...  I am great at drawing, but without that all-important drawing pad (or skills with drawing with a mouse), I can't do anything...

Uhh.. For completion?  Well, the Nolane hasn't even been started yet, but the Rashnak has the general shape done, but there is still a lot to be desired...  I'll probably work (and finish) it next.

Its not funny... Its stupid, and I loathe (above hatred, but not quite to the point of abhorition...) the fact that people intentionally break the balance in this game so they can get their way.  I want to add to the game to improve it.  I see niches that could be filled while others see imbalance in perfect balance.  They seek to make the game easier for them.  I seek to make the game better for everyone.  

And no, it didn't get destroyed by the orky...  The Orky got slaughtered.  Movement is an advantage.  The Argo is good enough as is and movement made it unstoppable...

No problem...  It took me forever to figure that one out...  Actually, the way I did was my hand twitched (when someone poked my "funny" bone) and I accidentally pressed down the scroll wheel and shoved the mouse up.  I realized that I had zoomed in so I could REALLY see the details on my ship...  Needless to say, I started using that and now I'm good at modeling.  I must say though..  Use Ctrl+D.  It duplicates polygons and works kinda like an extrude function...

You never know, you might be good with mouse-art.

In the later stages, yes we will likely take some things from other mods.  Ideally, Distant Stars, Legions, and Mad Scientist would be very much incorporated.  MS doesn't really have anything aside from research, but it would also give a nice boost to this one.  Its concept makes sense.  Alien ships are advanced.  As such, one of them can destroy 1000 tanks before going down.  The same thing makes sense here.

Oh, and you do realize that if you want ur mod merged with this one, I am going to go nerf everything.  You may not care about balance, but I most certainly do.  As such, it looks like many of your ships are going to need a nerf of 50% of their damage.

Something I'd also like to do is go through and buff some of the Vasari ships.  The Kortul needs to be fixed and have a slight DPS upgrade...  The marauder needs to be buffed really badly because it is NEVER used.  I also need to increase the power of the GRG because it does not even come close to DAM or PS (and requires more AM).

No it wasn't.  It was just overall superiority.  The Orky gets a better time in battle because of its movement.  The Argo is better in just about every other way.

I've seen ur mod...  I've responded to it...

Guass Rail Gun

SPS is bugged..  It only works half the time...

Yeah, and in a previous mod, I discovered that having any ship destroy anything in one fell swoop is too much.  It becomes a battle of who has the most of that ship...  And you do realize how much people would hate u if u used that on their level 10 cap?  They would spend the rest of their lives hunting you down.

That is more often than the superweapons which only fire once every 6 min...  Try something more like once every 12 and cut its power in half and I might call it balanced...

Simply put, your mod is not balanced...

Wild guess, but the Eyron and Gartel would punch straight through the thing...  Eyron's are darn near invincible and have the highest shields of anything in the game.  Gartels have broadside...

Like I said...  If we combine our mods, I'm balancing yours...  Its gonna be a pain, but Legions will submit to my will...

Besides, I was talking about what would happen once its balanced...  The Eyron is darn near invulnerable to anything that doesn't have phase missiles...  Think Radiance, only with the shield/hull ration of a Guardian...  When facing the TEC (or one of your races), the existence of an Eyron can make a big difference.  It has the least power of any destroyer, but the most health.  Every single ability it has has to do with shielding...