Hello all,
I’m completely new to this modding lark, and was wondering if someone could help me with something please? Having played around a bit, I’ve managed to modify an existing cruiser class fairly quickly, but I want to designate it as a distinct ship class. Is this possible in a more-or-less straightforward way? If so, what files do I need to modify/make?
Thanks!
P.
thats not possible, sorry.
the ship classes (fighter, frigate and cruiser) are hard coded into the game engine.
Ah well, nevermind then - thanks for the speedy reply though!
This probably isn’t an original thought, but I was thinking of adding the classes:
Bomber (Slow, big fighter basically, but with more slots and needing an extra pilot)
Capital ships (Bigger cruisers e.g. battleship, fighter/bomber support ship)
I was also thinking of adding a load of civilan ships (no weapons, minimal defence) as just something to defend basically, with the idea that (somehow)I’d make a scenario where losing a certain number would trigger a loss (do you know if that is possible, or has been done?)
Cheers!
Dreadnoughts are kinda possible: you make them cruisers, gave them a lot of standard slots, and make sure uber weapons need a LOT of power.
Well you have fighters, frigates and cruisers:
Manipulate the bonuses and hull data and do something based on this:
With the fighters:
Rise speed, make it smaller and powerless and u have a Drone
Lower the speed, Rise the HP (without reach the frigate hull ammount), add more slots and make it around three times bigger than a fighter and you have a Corbette
With frigates:
Rise speed, make it more vulnerable, remove almost any harpoint, and just some std module slots and you have a Explorer type ship.
Make it hard to destroy (without reach cruiser lvl) , add several hardpoints but do not add more than one or two std module slots and you have a Destroyer.
With cruisers:
Rise hull, make it “compact” but a little faster than a cruiser, add various std module slots and remove various hardpoints and you have a Support Ship.
Make it a bit bigger than a cruiser, add lots of hardpoints but not so much std modules, rise speed, make it with low hp for a cruiser and you have a Assault Cruiser.
Make it huge, add a insane amount of module slots for weapons and anything else, make it slow and expensive and you have a Dreadnought.
So now we have (in size comparision)
Drone->Fighter->Corbette->Explorer->Frigate->Destroyer->Support Ship->Cruiser->Assault Cruiser->Dreadnought
In damage per sec/size comparision:
Drone->Fighter->Explorer->Corbette->Support Ship->Frigate->Destroyer->Cruiser->Assault Cruiser->Dreadnought
Before 3 Types >>>> After 10 Types = WIN
I will implement this data on Praetorian Industries IF it becomes a race ;D
U can modify the ship classes but not to make new ones.
Destroyers -> like warships, battleships, battle cruisers, light destroyers, battle destroyers, assault cruisers, attack cruisers, etc have the size “cruiser”.
Destroyers doesnt mean to be bigger than a regular cruiser, but for example, they should carry more weapon slots than standard ones. And thats all, the power output should bit a little bit higher, but not too much. More power, and 1 or 2 more standar slots, u get the battle destroyer.
Assault cruisers, they should have a bit more speed, and almost equal number of standard slots and weapon slots.
Attack cruisers, like a regular cruiser but with more weapon slots.
Escort / Support cruisers -> more standard slots, a bit armour bonus.
Flagships (or capital ships) -> more output power, more number of slots (standard and wepon), a bit armour and integrity bonus.
Motherships -> a lot of standard slots and not to many weapons slots (but standard slots + weapon slots = the higher number of slots in any ship), integrity bonus.
Space Stations -> The same number of slots than a mothership, but a bit more weapon slots and more integrity and armour bonuses.
And ETC Maybe we should include only the battle destroyers, battleships, warships and motherships in the dreadnought class. And watch out, cuz some carriers are bigger than a battle destroyer. So they should be included in the dreadnought class too.
The “Dreadnought” word is applied to the ship size, not the ship configuration. U can get a dreadnought like a planet in size but with less weapon slots than a destroyer. Dreadnought doesnt mean “i am the supreme power of the galaxy with my 40 weapons slots”.
As u see, u can “create” a lot of cruiser clases, just keep in mind sometimes the size doesnt matter with a ship class, people forget that “Destroyer” is a ship configuration, not a ship class. For example , a battle cruiser is equal in size than a warship, or a destroyer. A Battle Destroyer should be a little bigger only cuz it is supossed to carry on more output power and in consecuence more powered weapons. I already made a list in EXCEL “inventing xD” more than 10 ship configurations for the cruiser class and the same for frigates and fighters.
P.D.: A Exploration ship it is supossed to be just a frigate with the exploration configuration. It is not smaller than a regular frigate. In fact sometimes its even bigger. So u get fighters, corvettes, frigates. U can make a exploration corvette, but it will be still a corvette.
Hello, PaulHalks, and welcome to the Modding Forum!
There’s a lot of opinionated participation in this thread concerning what things “should” be called and how they “should” function. Too much of that, methinks…I say to ignore it. Do what feels right to you.
“Advice” pulled out of the context of various military-sci-fi films, tv shows and games often fits poorly when shoe-horned and twisted into the context of GSB. As all of it is pure fiction, none of it is any more or less legitimate than any other; i.e., they’re all equally dubious and prone to flaws. Call your ship classes what you like, give them the capabilities you desire, play them as you please, and ignore the purists.
If you want ship hulls of various sizes to have the same class names and capabilities as standard NATO naval units of the Cold War-era, go right ahead. If you want to mimic the ships & nomenclature of the sci-fi franchise of your choice, be my guest. But don’t adopt any given family of hull-name, equipment or mission-profile conventions just because any of us insist on it. We’re not the final arbiters on anything.
Before anyone else’s desires or demands, you should put your own modding desires and demands first. Kindly appreciate the immense irony of me grabbing you by your shoulders while I tell you, “Don’t listen to me or anyone else.” 
He is asking for advises and something to work into, i dont think giving him those advises will be wrong, he can do watever he wants, nobody is going to force him xD. But of course, even in every show / film there are too many differents visions of the ship classes, we are talking about the most common used ships configurations we seen in the tv. U can see a lot of types of destroyers in star wars, u can see motherships, heavy cruisers, and alot of classes in stargate shows, and so on. Only in star trek, u will only see sometimes a ship named Battleship or Destroyer, cuz they are just named with its denomination (uss entreprise, klingon bird of pray, romulan war bird, etc). But as i said u will always hear the words “destroyer” “batleship” and some more in the common science fiction shows. So we are not saying anything new. He asked for the common ship classes that he can create, and those “common” ship clases are the ones showed up in the previous posts.