[A11b] Enhanced Defence - 0.19.1 - 07/07/2015 (New Poll)

[Jaxxa]

Wow.... a crazy but obvious idea for a "cross-over" just entered my head...
Can a undestructable & fixed star gate be a starting fixture to your colony and the jaffa faction (from another mod) use it to 'visit' your colony?

That would be sweet, should be possible, but would take a bit of work in sections that I have not touched on much, mainly map generation, events and the AI.

I like the shields in this mod, I just wish you could set them to ignore friendly fire, so I can shoot through them.  When I use a line of shields to defend a very large wall, I can't shoot through it because shields are overlapping.  When I use two shields together to compensate for one going down and giving the other time to recover, I can't shoot through it, if I make it so I can, I get shot, like not having a shield at all.  A single shot and my colonist's liver was shot out, so I can't even take them down for a long enough time to shoot a few rounds first.

Can you post an image of what you mean?
You should be able to fire out from anywhere inside the shield.

[Mr.Cross]

Stargate
Adds a Stargate System, Allows for the Transport of Personnel and Supplies between Colonies.

Does this mean the world map, as in you are able to visit other colonies(friendly/enemy factions)?
Or just between your saves/Home map?

The same question is for the Drop pod mod as well.

[Jaxxa]

Stargate
Adds a Stargate System, Allows for the Transport of Personnel and Supplies between Colonies.

Does this mean the world map, as in you are able to visit other colonies(friendly/enemy factions)?
Or just between your saves/Home map?

The same question is for the Drop pod mod as well.

The Stargate is between different Saves / Home maps.
I would like to be able to visit friendly/enemy factions, but that wound need to be able to generate full working colonies and populate them.
I may add the ability to send colonist away to those places on missons, but you would be staying at your colony.

The Droppods are just on the one local map, but quickly gets to any point.

[Mr.Cross]

Ah, Ok thank you for clearing that up.

[Vas]

Can you post an image of what you mean?
You should be able to fire out from anywhere inside the shield.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=477276943
I turned off my green shield graphics (fortress) but yea, it's pretty bad, I can't even shoot hostiles when they are inside another shield while I'm standing 3 feet away in another shield.  The SIF shield is the only one I like using because it doesn't block gunfire, but it also doesn't protect my colonists, so I have to rely on 100% turret defenses or disposable colonists or droids that can't shoot worth a damn.  You can see that I overlap a lot of shields to protect a large area rather than making a pillbox with a single shield.

[1000101]

It's not a problem with the shields, it's a problem with where you set them up.

I make sure that only the end of of killbox has a shield extending just past the fortified end so my guys can shoot out but have cover from incoming shots.

[Yas]

Hello Jaxxa.

Votes for "keep it as it is" cause its easier for me to find those of ur mods I like if they are together. And since its modular I can do cerry picking. So, everything fine to me .

Maybe u want to rethink the mods name thought since not everything is enhanced defence anymore? Sth more general like "Jaxas awesome mods" (u may quote me here, so its not like u show off with it ).

Just my 2 cent.

[Jaxxa]

Yeah, I have been thinking of renaming it for a while. Just trying to decide on a name that I am happy with.
I am currently leaning towards "Enhanced Phoenix Edition", with the acronym EPE.

Since this started as updating a dead mod to work on a newer version, hence the Phoenix imagery.

[Vas]

You forgot to make your SIF and Fortress shields cost any resources.  I've also made an addon.    Though I'm still having some trouble with it.
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=14192.msg147795#msg147795
None of the art or anything was included, just a simple XML is all so it still requires your mod completely.  I made it cause it gets real laggy having 50 SIF shields and such.

There was a few thoughts I had on idle power usage as well.  Making the power usage go down further like to 20% of the power usage of charging.  E.G. if it takes 1000 to charge, 200 to keep it up, based on the fact that once it's stable, it's not hard to maintain a field unless something hits it.  But for now, I kept it all the same ratios as yours, except maybe the largest one which might be off a bit.

Lemme know what you think Jaxxa. 
Quick question, does your mod only work with your embrasures or embrasures from other mods as well?  Like the other embrasure mod which I seem to feel is more official, but decided not to use it because I wanted shields around them.

[Jaxxa]

Hey Vas.

I were you looking in game or in the code to see that the shields don't cost resources? In the xml I have a cost set for ShieldBase so as far as I know that should be inherited for all shields if I don't specifically set one.

Interesting idea about reducing the idle power to about %20, I will looking that next time I play and see how it goes.

It is intended that SIF shields should work for the other embrasure embrasure. It matches based on the name and if it does not find it you can customize the list of names in the .xml file. Let me know if you cant get that working.

[Vas]

I were you looking in game or in the code to see that the shields don't cost resources? In the xml I have a cost set for ShieldBase so as far as I know that should be inherited for all shields if I don't specifically set one.

Well, the reason I stated the no cost of those two is because they are very large objects and should cost more than that standard amount.  Take a look at the costs I used for mine, might give you an idea.  I used gold for the larger heavier duty things because gold is a better conductor and could make it easier to store large amounts of energy for a better shield.

Also, I think that the shields shouldn't go down after the power is cut.  I believe that the shield number should steadily drop over time as it loses power instead of instant off.  It's very annoying because, I can't make certain modifications to my network, or  if an explosion happens that cuts off the power to the shield, or some misc other thing happens that takes out power even for a second.

Instead of making them store battery power which could work as a disadvantage to those who don't use the conduit explosion nullifier mod I made, you can use the shield value as the storage and just drop it steadily over time at the same rate it charges at.

Also tried to make a shield that would have a radius of 75, but the game said the radius max is 56.40036.

[Jaxxa]

Ok, so it is not that it does not cost any resources, it is that it's cost is too low, I agree with that and will look at increasing it for the next release.

Interesting idea with the power and something I have been thinking about recently, I am intending to overhaul the mechanics of how shields are working so it may happen when that does.

There are some limitations to the functions that I am using in the engine, looks like you found one of them. I could look at a different way of doing it to get around that limitation, but I think 56 it probably an ok maximum for now.

[Lonely Rogue]

I believe the embrasures need balancing, currently they cost the same as the regular wall, and this doesn't fit right, for one, it should take less material because there is a giant hole in the wall! Second, it should take more work to balance the boon of being able to shoot through it.

Also, can turrets shoot out of them?

[Jaxxa]

Turrets can shoot out, but I don't know if they get a defence bonus.
I like the idea about making them take longer, but not to use less resources.

[Zapp Brannigan]

I can't seem to place the auto loader. I have used it in the past with A10 and A9 with out issue. I have a number of mods installed but none of them effect the mortars. I have attached a screen shot.

[attachment deleted due to age]