Mod Idea - Solar systems instead of planets and realistic missiles

from Sins Forums

I had a couple ideas for what, I think, would be good mods for sins. I'm not 100% sure they could be done, or if done that they would be good/fun, but I wanted to throw them out there to see what the community thought.

 

1:) Star Systems as the focus instead of Planetary Systems

First, I've never really liked sins' odd maps, the way it focuses on the gravity wells of planets instead of full solar systems. I was wondering about ways sins could be modded so each gravity well was a solar system instead. At the center would be a star and instead of asteroids, it would be planets. The concern I would have about this is, it would be odd to "colonize" a star, and to have the main means of attacking an enemy solar system to be attacking the star itself. 

One way to get around this would be to make the stars 'uncolonizable', but have the planets be colonizable or capture-able, like neutral asteroids, but if we stuck with the system currently in place, it means anyone could come along and grab your planets with ease. Like neutral asteroids lol. Now, I'm not sure if it'd be possible with Sins engine, but I think it would work if anyone could come along to an unclaimed asteroid/planet and "claim it", then once claimed, no one could seize it without destroying/bombing it. Again, not sure how this would work in Sins' engine.

Also, I'm not sure if you could then allow a planet to be up-gradable once you claimed it. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to give it the standard upgrade options for planets, but could you perhaps classify it as a starbase so it could be built up in 'some' respects? And ships wouldn't be able to do the same 'bombardment' method they have in the normal game as well, and I figure this is something that's hard coded, so it'd just about remove the need for bombardment altogether.

Also, this would of course have an effect on the tactical and logistic slot system currently in place and... well on structure construction in general. Again, I'm not sure how hard-coded this is into Sins, but might it be possible, assuming the changed colonization system were to work, to have each "neutral-asteroid-planet" be able to build its own structures, and have its own structure count?

I'd like to hear some other peoples opinions and ideas on how this could be implemented, assuming it could be. I'm sure people more experienced with modding than I could offer more insight into this concept.

 

2:) Missiles being treated as more important; more powerful, can be shot down by point defense, not just normal weapon type.

This one however, I think is far more practical. After reading some honorverse novels, I think missiles and point defense would be a cool thing to implement in sins. Missiles, rather than just a typical weapon type, would be launched from a ship, either as "strike craft", or mines or a deploy-able structure like the missile turret on the Sova. Missile launches would either be tied into an ability or just directly into the anti-matter of the ship. Now, they'd do ALOT more damage than normal weapons, not as much as mines of course. The trade off is, unlike normal weapons, there is a limit to how much each ship could fire them (again, using up antimatter or having them on a cooldown), AND they can be shot down by flak.

For those reasons I think, if this was made into a mod, using 'strike craft' as a basis for the missiles would work better, because they already have special targeting parameters hard coded in to where, not every ship/weapon-type can hit them. I think this would also open up possibilities for modders, because you could have 'missile boats' that are heavy on missiles but lower on other weapons so they might end up doing a lot of damage in the right situation, but when that ship runs out of antimatter, or if the enemy has a lot of flak, you'd be screwed haha.

This idea, again, could probably be improved upon by people with more experience than me, again assuming I'm not the only one who thinks it would be a good idea lol.

modding
8,439 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Not sure about 1 but 2 sounds do able. You could make a squadron that is a missile (or barrage of missiles) and give the missiles an ability that destroys them and applies damage in a radius around them. Working out the autocast may be difficult but I imagine it's doable.

Additionally, you could make the missile boat have some amount of antimatter but a very small regen so that the missile boat needs to load up on missiles before fights and then it's useless unless you have something feeding it antimatter in the fight (of course a long squadron build time could help in this regard as well).

An interesting idea that's for sure.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Also, for capital ships, if the missiles were a strike craft, by adding a second squadron you could effectively double the missile firing rate. Lots of possibilities with it, I think.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

You want Sword of the Stars 2.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

I was trying to stay inside of Sins haha. I know there are a lot of other RTS's out there but few of them are as user-friendly as Sins, and Sword of the Stars got blasted by reviewers.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting VV13601, reply 4
Sword of the Stars got blasted by reviewers.
End of VV13601's quote

Its had massive improvements since then. The developers are still taking care of it.

What you are looking for would require a complete rewrite of the code. Something us modders couldn't quite do though some have made attempts at the second.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

So, there wouldn't be a way to "capture" a "neutral asteroid", then treat it like a starbase instead, so we could upgrade it and stop it from being capturable until the "starbase" is destroyed? I mean, I understand not actually being able to treat something like that like a planet, but if we treated each structure as a Starbase, we could approximate the whole 'upgradeable' planet thing, and then give the starbase population and trade port/shipyard options, which already exist. Or, is sins not even flexible enough to allow something like that?

I hope I'm explaining this right :S

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Hmmm...

Extremely complex but it might be doable.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Aha! Now if only I was more of a modder :D

Lol, if this concept is interesting to anyone else, I'd be more than glad to help.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

^That was me, I didn't realize I had two account until I logged into a different computer <_<

But I am actually really interested in trying these ideas out... if I could get a wee bit of support haha

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Now for the solar system mod, , my idea of it would greatly hinge on manipulating the current capture-neutral-extractor-system, if I was to use the neutral asteroids as the base for the planets. Would it even be possible to:

1)Remove the "Invulnerable" and "Can be Captured" buffs to a 'planet' once it has been claimed?

2)Make it so "destroying" or "scuttling" the planet doesn't actually remove it from the game, but just reverts it to the 'unclaimed [insert planet type here] that it was before?

3)Make the "claimed extractors/planets" considered to be starbases so they can be upgraded. If this can be done, I feel the rest of it (giving the new planets population, shipyards, culture, etc) would be easy because the starbases are already very versatile.

 

As for the missiles, which is probably the easier of the two, I had some other cool ideas. In the Honorverse books, some missiles are tipped with beam heads, so rather than colliding and exploding like conventional missiles, they shoot a beam once in range. This would make them harder to shoot down because they don't need to get as close. Also, missile/beam "mines" that either shoot a beam at an enemy ship in range or deploy missiles (like the ones described in this topic, not typical sins-weapons) would be a cool addition.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

1. Yes, you merely need to use the condition that the clears those when they are captured. Its done with the ship graveyards on Distant Stars.

2. Merely have an ability that only reacts when the item is destroyed it is replace.

3. This one can get trick but it would require that the items be star bases from the beginning. I suppose you could make it so that as soon as you captured it, it would spawn a star base constructor that immediately built a star base (or took some time to build aka conquer) but it would be easier to spawn them out as star bases. Of course they start out as star base construtors and immediately upon start up build into a "star base" like entity. Again, this is something we do on Distant Stars. Nacey and I worked forever it seemed to get it right but once we did we were able to build a lot of fun items. Capturable trade ports, pirate star bases, etc.

Missiles - This would require an ability that makes an entity that flies towards the target, fires off its own ability and then explodes. Or create a particle (what makes the weapons effects) that forms a missile that then reaches a certain distant from the target and then fire a beam if that is possible. Particles unforunately are not my forte'. Not even sure making the "reach x distant then action" is even possible.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Alrighty, and I have distant stars on this comp so I'll take a good hard look at what you have there :)

For the 'beam-head' missiles, yeah, I was picturing it more as an ability. That way, you could 'destroy' the missile so it's a MISSILE and not a re-usable strike craft haha. And I think all you'd need to do with the beam missiles and their "fire" ability is to have it set to autocast on the nearest target, or a target the player selects.

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

So I DID look through the distant stars mod. Let me make sure I understand what you said up there correctly;

You said you spawn constructors first, then have those immediately become starbases? Does sins not like it when we try to make starbases appear without constructors? Also, call me blind, but I was having a difficult time finding the part of the Ship graveyard planet object/ability/buff that showed where the neutral constructor was being spawned. But in order to do what I was looking for, I'd need to: Remove the explosion effect for Starbases, make an ability (passive?) that always casts when the starbase dies so an identical one shows up in its place (by spawning a constructor at its exact coordinates)?

A couple other things also came to mind. I know that the Vasari can have population on their starbase but I don't play as them much, so I'm not sure; does that population start out at zero, or is it instantly there when you buy that upgrade? Can its population go down when its being damaged?

Also, how does culture affect starbases? I assume Starbases can't be given allegiance which means they couldn't be taken over by enemy culture, nor have their economy enhanced/weakened by it. That would leave it's only purpose to enhance your starships. Now, is their a way to make it so enemy ships actually get nerfed while they're in your culture? Or one to make your starbase-planets be nerfed?

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting VV13601, reply 13
You said you spawn constructors first, then have those immediately become starbases? Does sins not like it when we try to make starbases appear without constructors?
End of VV13601's quote

Yes, though that was with Diplomacy and I am finding the Rebellion allows a lot more maneuvering with mods.

Quoting VV13601, reply 13
Also, call me blind, but I was having a difficult time finding the part of the Ship graveyard planet object/ability/buff that showed where the neutral constructor was being spawned.
End of VV13601's quote

Is actually found in the GalaxyScenarioDef file. Careful there, its very sensitive.

Quoting VV13601, reply 13
But in order to do what I was looking for, I'd need to: Remove the explosion effect for Starbases,
End of VV13601's quote

Not hard to do. Just find the spot in the Star Base entity file that defines the explosions and set to Invalid

Quoting VV13601, reply 13
make an ability (passive?) that always casts when the starbase dies so an identical one shows up in its place (by spawning a constructor at its exact coordinates)?
End of VV13601's quote

Yep Passive is the way to go. With conditions set up so that it remains quiet when you want it to be quiet and active when you want it to be active.

Quoting VV13601, reply 13
I know that the Vasari can have population on their starbase but I don't play as them much, so I'm not sure; does that population start out at zero, or is it instantly there when you buy that upgrade? Can its population go down when its being damaged?
End of VV13601's quote

Can't recall if it starts out as 0 and goes up (though I am sure it does) but it cannot be damaged and go down.

Quoting VV13601, reply 13
Also, how does culture affect starbases?
End of VV13601's quote

They can make culture but that is it. Advent star base.

Quoting VV13601, reply 13
Now, is their a way to make it so enemy ships actually get nerfed while they're in your culture?
End of VV13601's quote

I don't know.

Quoting VV13601, reply 13
Or one to make your starbase-planets be nerfed?
End of VV13601's quote

Not specific to a specific entity no but you can do negative effects (see what the devs did to the Advent with their culture).

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

In 7DS we are implementing some interesting capturable starbases for certain planet types.  That said, during development of said starbases, I found that it likely impossible to spawn a starbase without the use of some sort of spawning frigate (or similar entity) while in game.  I have tried using a starbase to spawn another starbase (like a remote/adjacent structure), which the game doesn't like...so your pretty much forced to spawn a constructor frigate which then can spawn the starbase via ability.

 

For missiles, you could try using a cannonshell for the missile "projectile" I am not 100% sure, but you may be able to make it (the cannonshell) targetable since it is its own entity type.  The missile weapon would have to be an ability which spawns the shell and it would travel towards the target.  I can't recall how the cannonshell abilities are coded, but you could try copying that, setting the targets to everything (except planets and fighters) and replacing the cannonshell mesh/particle with a missile mesh?  Just something to consider!