Superweapons

[Jawa'sRevenge]

Star wars loves superweapons:

For a start I made a starter list:
(in no particular order)

Centerpoint Station=can move planets, can create massive gravity wells(slow ship movement a lot)
Star Forge=if under control of a dark side civ can produce 1 random unit per turn
Mass Shadow Generator=destroys all units and citys on the planet
Dark Reaper=you click a square it has a change of killing some of the enemy units there (only living things)
Death Stars=destroy planets
World Devastator=eats planet square by square and can produce units (think mongol camp from warlords)
Sun Crusher=makes a small supernova destroys all units and planets within a given radius
Galaxy Gun=Can destroy any planet it wants 1 per turn
Darksaber=a very weak death star like weapon for the hutts (has a chance of not working?)
the tarkin=can destroy a planet

Any other ideas?
Or how they could be put in game?

 

[TC01]

Some have already been implemented. We've had this discussion before in several threads and decided that the Death Star and it's accessories (other Death Stars) will be projects that provide units.

I think the easiest way to do all of these would be to create a series of Superweapon Projects. On the completion of the project, a unit is created that has a special nuke ability. It's "Nuke" does different things depending on the unit. All of that would be doable in Python. If we brainstorm a list of superweapons we want, then the powers those superweapons should give, I can program all of the python relatively quickly. Then all some XML person has to do is make the projects and units, and allow the units to nuke.

However, some, like Sun Crusher, won't work only because there's no Suns in this mod, and adding them in would be too complicated- if you wanted suns, I'd tell you to go back to Final Frontier.

 

[Jawa'sRevenge]

Added descriptions

 

[civ editor11]

You could use the sun crusher to kill all living things in a certain radius I think. Tarkin Project? The darksaber was a complete failure. If I remember right it blew up when Durga tried to use it.

 

[TC01]

I've got the three Death Stars, Galaxy Gun, World Devastator, and Mass Shadow Generator set up so far.

One thing, though, what types of units should the World Devastator be able to make? The way it works right now is that after destroying a planet plot, the unit gets "PROMOTION_PROCESSING". Then, on the beginning of your next turn, all units with Processing create either 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 units and loose that promotion. So I need to define what types of units should be creatable.

Other things:

1. The Death Stars and Galaxy Gun work exactly the same. However, you can make the Galaxy Gun have an infinite nuke range in the XML where the Death Stars have more limited ones.

2. You can allow more then one of each project to be created. So you can let the player build two World Devastators, for instance, but only one Death Star.

I'm still working on the other superweapons.

 

[Jawa'sRevenge]

You could use the sun crusher to kill all living things in a certain radius I think. Tarkin Project? The darksaber was a complete failure. If I remember right it blew up when Durga tried to use it.

Darksaber was a complete failure, but civ is a game of "what ifs" it could have worked

Sun crusher could use the super nova animation from the final frontier

The Tarkin

One thing, though, what types of units should the World Devastator be able to make? The way it works right now is that after destroying a planet plot, the unit gets "PROMOTION_PROCESSING". Then, on the beginning of your next turn, all units with Processing create either 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 units and loose that promotion. So I need to define what types of units should be creatable.

Wookieepedia says:

The deconstruction of the planet and its resources would then be used for both fuel for the Devastator and for its massive foundries which churned out starships, starfighters, and droids which would be sent into battle straight from the assembly line. The internal factories could create anything from a starfighter or speeder to a medium-sized cruiser, given enough resources.[1]

So everything from small star fighters, to ships about the size of a dreadnought

 

[TC01]

I need specific names of units. I.e, UNIT_TIE_FIGHTER, UNIT_MEDIUM_CRUISER, whatever. So you'd have to give me a list of all units (and by list I mean the names of the units as they are in the XML) they can make.

Alternatively, if you give me unitcombats, like UNITCOMBAT_FIGHTER or UNITCOMBAT_CRUISER, I can loop through all units and get any with those unitcombats.

Actually, the unitcombats would be easier for me, whereas just giving me a list of units would be harder for me, and more annoying to write in code.

 

[Kissamies]

Early and mid 90's Star Wars especially loves superweapons. It was toned down a bit after that, thank God.

Centerpoint Station=can move planets, can create massive gravity wells(slow ship movement a lot)

It can also make stars go nova by crushing their cores. That's how it was used when first introduced in Corellian Trilogy back in 1995. I don't think that should be a kind of thing anyone could build tho. It's more like Precursor tech.

Another thing that destroys stars: That sith crystal thing aboard the Corsair:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Corsair
That Supernova (Sith magic)

Oh, they though big in 80's Marvel Comics too sometimes:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shawken_Device

 

[Jawa'sRevenge]

Early and mid 90's Star Wars especially loves superweapons. It was toned down a bit after that, thank God.

Oh, they though big in 80's Marvel Comics too sometimes:

That was stupid

I need specific names of units. I.e, UNIT_TIE_FIGHTER, UNIT_MEDIUM_CRUISER, whatever. So you'd have to give me a list of all units (and by list I mean the names of the units as they are in the XML) they can make.

Ok(I'm guessing on some of these):

(units added)

Tie Fighter
Tie bomber
Tie defender
At-At
At-St

(units not added)

Dreadnoughts
Interdictor cruisers

 

[civ editor11]

Take the star destroyer off the list and it'll work.
The Shawken Device could be used for a victory condition (New Big Bang?). Could this work? does anyone agree with this?

 

[Jawa'sRevenge]

Take the star destroyer off the list and it'll work.
The Shawken Device could be used for a victory condition (New Big Bang?). Could this work? does anyone agree with this?

Star Destroyer off the list...done

The Shawken Device was only featured in Star Wars 87: Still Active After All These Years a Marvel Star Wars comic from 84. Not so reputable.

Even in the comic there was speculation of whether it would work or not so no I doubt it would work or even if it can fit in the modern canon

Also I don't think it would be all that fun of a victory; a wonder that can only be build on 1 planet and when activated they automatically win! You could be fighting an enjoyable war or whatever and then POOF no more universe better luck next time. Is that any fun?

 

[Kissamies]

I don't know. That could be a bit like the space race in the regular game. Maybe with similar means for other players to stop it. You are right about the whole canonicity thing, however. EU didn't really exist before Thrawn trilogy, or the WEG RPG at the earliest. Any earlier stuff that's retroactively included is usually done so with very broad strokes and with a lot of retcon. This is especially so with the comics.

This was a pretty amusing article linked on that wiki page:
http://www.starwars.com/eu/lit/ref/f20080104/index.html?page=1

 

[Jawa'sRevenge]

Yup I just double checked the Comics are S Canon

I guess it could be an optional victory condition (just for fun, or as a joke) or part of a mod mod

Ship Names coming soon!

 

[TC01]

Some more questions:

-Centerpoint Station isn't going to be easy to get to work properly. Moving a planet would be a nightmare because of 3-plot planets. I could do it without too much work if I didn't have to take into account you'd be moving planets in a specific direction. It took a lot of code to make the Force Push ability work at all, and that was just one unit. I'd have to store terrain type, feature type, bonus type, improvement type, lists for all units on the plot, if the plot is a city all buildings, all script data on objects on the plot, etc...

So I suggest we dump this for now- maybe forever, maybe not.

However, the gravity well works slightly better. I can make a recolor of the Black Hole to represent the Gravity Well (or just use the original Black Hole, whatever would be better) and then shrink it slightly to act as a feature created when it nukes something. It could then slow units nearby.

-Rather then make Star Forge do nothing for non-Dark Side units, I can limit the project from being built by civilizations who aren't Dark Side. (This is determined by Religion, correct?) Okay?

-And finally:

Death Stars=destroy planets
---
Sun Crusher=makes a small supernova destroys all units and planets within a given radius
Galaxy Gun=Can destroy any planet it wants 1 per turn
Darksaber=a very weak death star like weapon for the hutts (has a chance of not working?)
the tarkin=can destroy a planet

We really don't need 50 different "Destroys planets". Thus far, I've implemented three Death Stars with this ability and a Galaxy Gun with this ability (the only difference is that via XML you should make the GG have no limited range). The World Devastator can destroy a planet in several turns. The Sun Crusher can destroy a planet by making it a Supernova (the others make it an asteroid field). I strongly suggest dumping the Tarkin and Darksaber, as to me they seem uselessly repetetive. We already have quite a lot of planet destroyers... and there are a limited number of planets.

 

[civ editor11]

Darksaber: definately take out
Tarkin: maybe, it really just is a more advanced version of darksber that can work.
there has to be a way to destroy superweapons all we've talked about so far is how to make them destroy other things. How about this you have a special promotion some units can get that allows them to have a small chance to perform a mission to destroy a nearby superweapon. This should also be a promotion all spies have.

 

[Jawa'sRevenge]

Darksaber: definately take out
Tarkin: maybe, it really just is a more advanced version of darksber that can work.
there has to be a way to destroy superweapons all we've talked about so far is how to make them destroy other things. How about this you have a special promotion some units can get that allows them to have a small chance to perform a mission to destroy a nearby superweapon. This should also be a promotion all spies have.

Yes, take darksaber out, probably the tarkin too

-Centerpoint Station isn't going to be easy to get to work properly. Moving a planet would be a nightmare because of 3-plot planets. I could do it without too much work if I didn't have to take into account you'd be moving planets in a specific direction. It took a lot of code to make the Force Push ability work at all, and that was just one unit. I'd have to store terrain type, feature type, bonus type, improvement type, lists for all units on the plot, if the plot is a city all buildings, all script data on objects on the plot, etc...

So I suggest we dump this for now- maybe forever, maybe not.

However, the gravity well works slightly better. I can make a recolor of the Black Hole to represent the Gravity Well (or just use the original Black Hole, whatever would be better) and then shrink it slightly to act as a feature created when it nukes something. It could then slow units nearby.

-Rather then make Star Forge do nothing for non-Dark Side units, I can limit the project from being built by civilizations who aren't Dark Side. (This is determined by Religion, correct?) Okay?

Centerpoint station: sounds good (I don't think anyone used the feature anyway apart from the creation of the Corillian system) (It would probably confuse the AI like you wouldn't believe)

Also the gravity well ability would be nice to have for Interdictor Cruiser (Immobilizers)

I thought star forge was a unit (no attack no defense) (pre palaced) sitting in space and every once in a while if a Dark Side civ or a rogue Sith got hold of it he could raise a huge army/Navy to threaten the galaxy

 

[civ editor11]

would this work
We make two or more different kinds of goody huts one is the regular, but the other ones require you to have a certain religion or be a special civ. so that you get special effects from those special goody huts while still having the original one. We should also put them into space with different graphics for each kind along with different rewards.

 

[TC01]

I have no idea how the Star Forge was supposed to work. However, you listed it here as a superweapon, and I said that all superweapons would be implemented as projects that created units, and no one said, "Not the Star Forge! That's supposed to be pre-set on the map!"

It would be a lot simpler to implement the Star Forge as an improvement, randomly placed (I can handle that) and if it is controlled (by building a starbase near it seems the best way*- speaking starbases I need to add them as well) it has a random chance of producing a unit per turn. (I can handle that too).

*Other ways could be an ability "Seize Star Forge" which makes the unit who cast it immobile on the Star Forge until it is destroyed, when which the Star Forge becomes "seizable" again.

would this work
We make two or more different kinds of goody huts one is the regular, but the other ones require you to have a certain religion or be a special civ. so that you get special effects from those special goody huts while still having the original one. We should also put them into space with different graphics for each kind along with different rewards.

What does this have to do with anything? I agree, but isn't it a little (way) off topic?

there has to be a way to destroy superweapons all we've talked about so far is how to make them destroy other things. How about this you have a special promotion some units can get that allows them to have a small chance to perform a mission to destroy a nearby superweapon. This should also be a promotion all spies have.

The easiest way to do this would be to make a Superweapon have UNITCOMBAT_SUPERWEAPON and create a promotion that gives a bonus against it.

To add a mission, you have to edit the SDK, and what you are describing would be annoying to add. The reason I use python action buttons instead of missions is because I'm not an SDK coder. So I don't think this is a good idea.

 

[civ editor11]

The way it looks now almost all of these units are completely invincible. I thought that it would be a good idea to add something that gives units a chance to destroy superweapons, but if they fail they die. Sorry if you thought it was off-topic.

 

[TC01]

Yes, I agree that the superweapons should be non-invincible. And- they aren't invincible. All I'm doing is defined what happens when they nuke something. You could make their strength 1 if you wanted...

I was referring to your comment about Goody Huts as being off topic, not your comment about weakening the Superweapons.