Alternate original seven faction mod

[JarlWolf]

I'm with the philosophy that shields, not only being a pain in the arse to work with, are also unrealistic: Having a wall emplacement like that around a settlement, (and while walls are helpful: but only to a point) is impractical except for keeping out the weakest of foes/mindworms, especially energy based ones. It would cost loads of power and with that same amount of power you could operate a hyper advanced turret system/automatic defence system, which would be far superior, and helpful in the case of an attack. Especially if an opponent is attacking from multiple fronts: Land, sea or air.

Walls and fortifications mind, while I am not saying do not have their uses, throughout history and even in the modern era, and the future, they will always be nice strong focal points and holds on an area. And I can tell you from experience even the simplest of fortified positions can hold off many opponents, provided you can lock it down and secure it all. But the way they are depicted on settlements is not practical, it looks like a perimeter Jurassic park fence and such an expensive endeavour on such an extended front is hardly efficient or manageable to defend.


Edit: Also, under that line of thinking, I abandoned the worry of "spilling out of my fence area" and it's allowed me in my custom factions to be more liberal with the bases, and I think it turned out for the better on that account. This is your project and your free to do as you will, but I think if you want to make it truly "alternative" maybe make a new, better set of walls or use a better set of defences. Instead of painstakingly trying to fit YOUR structures to another design that's limiting you.

Edit 2: And on a side note, even if people don't permanently switch over or use your alternatives (I'm definitely trying them out mind,) if there is a custom wall set that's more flexible/better then some of the existing ones custom faction modders like myself will eternally praise you on that.

Edit 3: And on the account of personal experience, I can tell you gun emplacements with layers of cover is far superior over a simple wall. Walls can be bypassed, blown through, knocked down. If you have multiple sources of cover, and multiple emplacements of weaponry or sources of weapons you can muster, you can hold off an advancing enemy. I've been in cases where me and my fellows had been driven back and nearly cornered, but because we had strong points of control within the area we managed to cut and mow down our attackers, and I am here today due to those tactics.

[Dio]

Base shields size 4 and 3.

[Buster's Uncle]

Those are the same size but different angles - you need to stay pretty close to the angle of the squares on the map, or it will mess up the perspective and look wrong.

[ariete]

Edit: Also, under that line of thinking, I abandoned the worry of "spilling out of my fence area" and it's allowed me in my custom factions to be more liberal with the bases, and I think it turned out for the better on that account. This is your project and your free to do as you will, but I think if you want to make it truly "alternative" maybe make a new, better set of walls or use a better set of defences. Instead of painstakingly trying to fit YOUR structures to another design that's limiting you.

considering the appearance of your bases Dio, too different than firaxis graphics, jarl suggest seems very suitable.

however if you want to still insist to use classic fileds, open a firaxis pcx, take size of the bases at the different stages, resize your base as size detected, and then, put the fields, resizing them to be able to stay around the base. then you can broke it in 2 part, one back, on which you put the base, and one in front, which cover the base inserted. look firaxis pcx for better understanding of the dimensions and distances between the elements.

[Dio]

Perhaps I should, for example, make a square solid wall for around the believer bases?

[Dio]

I am not exactly sure what to do about the tachyon fields. Do you perhaps want me to layer it on top of the custom perimeter defenses?

[Dio]

Also, in regards to bases spilling out past there defenses I think is very unrealistic because that section of the base is then undefended and could be used as an access point to the rest of it without having to go through the defenses.

[ariete]

Perhaps I should, for example, make a square solid wall for around the believer bases?

could be cool, be careful to do it thin enough to not be too flashy, i'd made them thinner of the trunks used for clasical defences perimetre.

I am not exactly sure what to do about the tachyon fields. Do you perhaps want me to layer it on top of the custom perimeter defenses?

if you use this idea of perimetre you can simply change the colour of the square solid wall, or make it a bit more high, but always change color to get more visible the difference

[Dio]

How about something like this? Barring the bright red of course.

[Dio]

For the labyrinth perimeter defense, I was thinking of doing a line of interconnected bunkers with low profiles around the bases. For the gaians, I was thinking of a wall made out of vegetation like vines, trees, etc. For the University, I thinking like a smooth, modern looking wall that is semi transparent. For the morgans, I was thinking of a wall that has domes on top of it that are shiny. For the spartans, I would probably do a simple wall that reflects there militaristic background. The keepers might have a wall with small towers on it. So what do you think of my ideas so far?

[Dio]

Update. What do you people think?

[Dio]

I think I will do a close fitting tachyon field for all bases. My reason for this is because of the blurb for the tachyon field:
The klaxon began to wail, but we felt the reassuring tingle of
the Tachyon Field crackling to life around us, encasing the
entire base in its impenetrable glow.
^
^        -- Spartan Kel,
^           "The Fall of Sparta"

en·case
/enˈkās/
verb
gerund or present participle: encasing
1. enclose or cover in a case or close-fitting surround.

[Buster's Uncle]

I've done shields before in the form of just bluing and then golding the bases...  It always comes back to whether you have an in-story justification for different tech, or just don't care that it doesn't match the originals...

[Dio]

I've done shields before in the form of just bluing and then golding the bases...  It always comes back to whether you have an in-story justification for different tech, or just don't care that it doesn't match the originals...

I do not know. I know why they had a standard perimeter defense for each faction. It is because they had a limited amount of time to make them. However, I figure that they, like on earth, will make walls that tend to match there society's culture to some degree. However, tachyon fields being a sci-fi creation at the moment are more difficult to define.

[Dio]

New and semi-improved version. What do you think?