[quote author=Death_Merchant What if the Captain orders the entire crew to jump up at the same time?
Then their feet aren't touching the deck-> instant lighter ship!
or get McCoy to enforce a diet for Kirk -> no paunch? That's 20 lbs right there!
Sorry, couldn't help it.
Arguing about the physics and "performance" of pretend starships is silly^7
They bank cuz' it kewl. They go "whoosh" cuz' otherwise in space "no one can hear you yawn"
Having spouted that additional silliness, I'm not sure how useful slower ship speeds in SFC3 are:
1) SFC3 ships are much more combat effective right until destruction than SFC2 ships. Slow maneuvering to get that extra photon into an open shield -> yields little impact in SFC3
2) As pointed out earlier: In SFC3 there is "less to do"
Personally, I like the more methodically paced game. If SFC3 ships took power damage like SFC2, a slower speed game would be interesting.
I changed it so CA's and Dn's are completely useless once there down to 25% hull str. Often they have no weapons intact. DD,s however and FF,s tend to still have that trait of being in fairly good shape system wise and then blowing up. I suspect I could make them as I did the DN,s where there useless near the end, but think that would involve an entire rework so not worth it. Rather spend time polishing what I have so far.
Regarding there is less to do in SFC3. I am fixing that somewhat.
As I get further along, it I getting a better idea of what I am trying ti accomplish. If that makes any sense
The mods purpose is 3 fold really, make combat slower and last longer-more like what I got accustomed to in SFC2.
The other purpose is to highlight the DD and CL class. This classes should shine in this mod. The slower speeds allow easier targeting for ships for dropping mines.
Finally it is meant to showcase minor SFB races. Part of this is reassigning the cloak ad no races I am putting in use it. So I am giving 1 cloaked ship to each race. Making it less common so perhaps more of a surprise when a ship does uncloak. Maybe I mentioned that before.
Actually I slowed down the DD's a bit now as well. Slowing down turn rates and ship speeds affects games in more ways then I first thought. I listed them below.
1: Its far easier to control and view the battle from the F2 view instead of using overhead. I don't like using overhead view as the battle looks less personal and compelling.
2. Shield recharge as you know can't be changed. But slower turn rates in effect give your downed shield more time to recover. Now if you played the game at speed 10. The ships would appear normal speed but would still have this shield benefit
3. It will be easier to drop mines in front of ships. I miss T-bombs from SFC2. Trying to highlight mines again. This ties in to the destroyers role. At stock game speeds it is near impossible to hit a ff or DD with a mine. Now it can be done perhaps 50% or more of the time.
4. Slower turn rates/speeds = less of an impact from angular velocity.
As far as what to do? There will be much positioning to drop anti matter mines or avoiding them. Mines will be a big part of the mod. Ships will carry 50% more mines
Shuttles will have and be dropping mines. The Lyrans will have a corvette/PF instead of shuttles. Basically a ship half the strength of an FF.
What I have done to help the DD class play a bigger role
1. Slower CA's and DN's make excellent targets for mines. Related to mines. The Lyrans have the mytronic beam that stuns weapons giving them the best defense for ships that try to time a mine drop in there forward path.
2. There will be specialty DD ships that have stronger rear shields. 14 mines, rear facing heavy weapon arcs. Facilitating my favorite tactic. Speed past drop mine, fire weapons and speed away, either veer off to side to stay out of arcs and then criss cross in front or circle back.
3. What about getting tractored by a DN and then pummeled at close range into tiny space Debri? Well, ever notice how a smaller class is always able to defaet a tractor even on a Borg DN? Course its cause its written into the script. But Voyager defeated a borg Tractor in 1 show by sending some carrier wave thru its deflector dish. So I feel any class should be able to defeat a tractor, makes it more interesting and extends the life of a DD class. What I did is all ships have Tractor4.
All ships have enough power to run level 4 on the tractor. Though the FF has just barely enough. So if its warp takes slight damage, it would only be able to run level 3. So there will still be cases of ships being held until if your not careful. 1 more reason not to skimp on warp power.
This allows a DD to drop its mines in front of a DN (as long as your rear shields are reinforced) without the fear of getting tractored and pummeled. As long as you set your tracs to lev 4 repel and your warp is still up to snuff. Now the down side of keeping level 4 repel to your tractors is there is less power for your shields.
So its a trade off. If you watch close you may be able to tell if the DN has power to his tractors by the str of his shields. If he doesn't, you wouldn't need level 4 in repel then.
Another thing to do is keep adjusting your power managemet. It would be nice if there were 2 or 3 preset hotkeys to go between max power to shields and max power to weapons. The slower turn rates give you more time to adjust your power based on where the enemy ship is and how long before your weapons will be in position to fire. You may prefer not to use your weapons at all when you drop mines but put all power to shields until you run out.
I have decided though just to mod it how I want, otherwise I won't play my own mod LOL. Chances are some will like it while others will hate it, thats the nature of mods. Also I found out I was getting burned out on this, been working on it for 3-4 months. I was about ready to release it I thought, but after testing it by playing about 30 missions, I felt it needed more fine tuning. Simple stuff like making the AI marauder and pirates, a threat weapon wise. As they usually never even drop my shields. Decided to give Lyrans a PF instead of shuttle for variety. Adding in rear facing weapons for DD ships. Adding in the USS Raven for the Feds. Perhaps giving the Feds either extra arcs are 1 or 2 wider arcs. Found that it may be too easy for a DD to just shadow a CA from behind for example. So may add a 180 rear arc primary for example just to keep things honest.
I play on a 800 mhz computer so the mod is tailored to that . One of the things I have problems with on my system is it takes 1-2 minutes for the game to process all the map movements, news and officer updates I am reducing the number of officers available at bases and limited the max didplayed to 6. This seams to sspeedup the game while in the map area quite a bit. I also have found it best to limit mission fllet sizes to 4 vs 5 for game play smoothness.
Intending to rreleasethis in a polished state as I don't see myself updating after release for quite awhile.
Oh another thing I just changed is made the wweaponshave a greater chance to hit. As you work harder to get a good shot, this seamed nnecessary otherwise it gets too frustrating when you miss with plasmas and have to wait to recharge.
Author
Logged
