Modding Space Empire IV Gold

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-07-06 01:54pm

Tuxedo's administering, not Nephtys. Though I understand why you might be confused, both are powerful empires bent on your destruction lol.

As for the full three days. I agree it sucks. Which is why the next game we have might be 48 hours, with a rule that the last guy to upload can't be the last guy to upload the next time. 15 turns a month is too little IMO, it should be 20 turns a month so maybe even 36 hours. 10 turns a month is way too little, the game won't be over until Christmas and to be honest I'd rather wrap this up before September lol. If it ever gets wrapped up or we just end it because we're bored. I have a feeling B5's going to go on for 1000 turns while every other game starts, finishes and ends. I don't mind lol.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-07-06 02:40pm

I already did the engine thing, as I didn't see any good reason not to. What is your reason for objection, Tobor?

As far as the 72 hour turns go, it's because we have 3 games. Seeing as I'm temporarily unemployed, I too would like to have the turns go faster, but that wouldn't be considerate to people who have full time jobs and are in all 3 games.

Tobor · Post by **Tobor** » 2006-07-06 04:36pm

making the grav and anti matter engines dirt cheap takes away any choice of not using them. If they are expensive then it really becomes an issue of whether you pump ships out faster or have faster ships. If you make the engines ALL cheap then you may as well just remove everything before grav, because noone will use them in the mid/end game.

I realise that arthur is running the game but neph didnt even do her last turn it just auto executed and she was last to upload the turn before that. I don't really buy into the full time job thing either since Guppy who is in 4 games at least, manages just fine. Not to mention he was doing some of brians turns for a while.
I just think that if you're going to be last then you should upload first after the turn executes. I mean its not like the turn takes more than half an hour anyway unless you like having distinct names or something. FUnctionally most of my turns are pretty simple. I can knock adamant ones out in about ten minutes anyway. But then i'm not so involved in it as other people might be.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-07-06 04:52pm

It costs a lot of research to get gravimetric engines, so they should be better. I really don't understand this. Are you going to complain that no one uses channeling armor once emissive is available?

In any case, it's not a matter of faster vs. more expensive, because grav engines aren't faster. The 1 point bonus movement doesn't do squat except for on truly tiny ships, and the 1 point of combat movement works just as well with 1 gravimetric and the rest fusion. Since we decided that was gamey, there's no reason to use gravimetric. This way the more advanced technology is actually better (only slightly, though) instead of being much worse.

Tobor · Post by **Tobor** » 2006-07-07 01:22am

Hmm, ok. I didn't realise that you get the full bonus by only having a single grav engine on your ship. As for the armour i'm not sure of the jump in cost.

Either way IF one had to go purely with a single type of engine, or for that matter any type of componant. A large cost disparity would actually make people choose whether they wanted higher quality ships or more ships now. I suppose, nw that everyone has researched it. Also because you can get the bonuses by having a single grav engine there really is no point not to change it then.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-07-08 09:45am

I don't think cost should be the factor. Increases in technology should decrease cost or have a modest increase in cost for an advantage that outweighs the cost... or what's the point in research?

The good thing about the hot-patch working is the game won't ever be stalled. If someone accidently or purposefully closes a jump gate to seal himself off, the game could be modded to increase jump gate range. Plus if we find any other bugs or serious problems we could hot patch them right away.

An idea I had was that people should be rewarded in the game for putting in time in the RP posts. I am thinking for each post you get one point, and then you could request small changes to your weapons or armor. Of course it'd be limited to 1 post a week so there aren't any spammers. Maybe like a 10 damage increase in weapons for every post and Tux could put out a patch per month for every person who makes the minimum of 4 posts a month in the RP thread. That'd be a nice reward for putting in time for posting and make the game dynamic.

EDIT :

Some major grips out there could be solved with hot patch, although it might be work.

Minbari could get Neutron lasers.
Earthforce weapons could shoot fighters with their main guns.
The jump gate could work, but not the 300 LY one... maybe just the 50 LY one.
All facilities could cost ten times cheaper.
Or, main guns could not be able to shoot fighters. This would change the balance of the game dramatically so I don't know whether it should be done. Uraniun would like it.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-07-08 12:21pm

You mean Improved Neutron Lasers for the Minbari? In any case, most races' heavy guns can't shoot fighers, either. Only the Brakiri and the Ancient races, to my knowledge, and the Brakiri pay for it by having weapons that are much weaker at much shorter ranges than those fielded by the Centauri, Narn, EA, etc. Besides, it's not like the EA is screwed against fighters. Particle beam cannons are long range, hard-hitting anti-fighter weapons and anyone can research those.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-07-08 07:11pm

Hm maybe you're right.

<edit>I just checked, only Drazi and Raiders have good particle cannons. Earth Alliance only gets particle cannons up to level 4. Their racials can't hit fighters.</edit>

Anyway maybe wait on more modifications. Definitely I think the game needs something to make it more dynamic.

The Radiers are going to start colonizing. As of now I have 80 heavy baseships for sale, United States design. I'm sure everybody has it in their list already.

I also have 200 ships of this design coming out. 100 are already sold. 100 more are on the market, price 100k minerals for 50 turns.

If you want Mk. II, price 150k minerals for 50 turns for 100.

PM me if interested. I'll also custom build ships for you if you don't like my designs.

My ships are half as cheap to maintain than everybody else's.

Brian

Tobor · Post by **Tobor** » 2006-07-08 11:12pm

Ok, so after much annoyance i go to sleep last night confident that the B5 turn HAS to be up in the morning. I mean that would be three and a half days, so you can imagine my complete shock when i log on 4 hours after the supposed deadline to encounter the turn not only hasn't executed but that people haven't even submitted their turns yet.
I mean seriously! It isn't that hard to submit your turn especially on a weekend....

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-07-08 11:19pm

Tuxedo has to manually execute because of his patch.

If the turn's over I think you shouldn't worry about executing Tux. If people set their empire options to "AI should not make changes during a simultaneous game" it'll be fine.

Get your roomate to do his Adamant turn Tobor

.

Brian

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-07-09 12:38am

brianeyci wrote:An idea I had was that people should be rewarded in the game for putting in time in the RP posts. I am thinking for each post you get one point, and then you could request small changes to your weapons or armor. Of course it'd be limited to 1 post a week so there aren't any spammers. Maybe like a 10 damage increase in weapons for every post and Tux could put out a patch per month for every person who makes the minimum of 4 posts a month in the RP thread. That'd be a nice reward for putting in time for posting and make the game dynamic.

I don't like that idea, at least I certainly don't like it as vorlons. Vorlons are irritating to RP as is (it's easy to be prophetic and cryptic when you're writing all the races and their responses and know everything). That said I already feel the game rewards people's time quite sufficiently. The amount of time some people spend going over files, running sims and the like gives them an advantage already over those of us that, frankly, don't care enough to do it.

brianeyci wrote:

Or, main guns could not be able to shoot fighters. This would change the balance of the game dramatically so I don't know whether it should be done. Uraniun would like it.

I think that any weapon on a larger mount than it's supposed to sould lose it's fighter targeting ability too.

That said, to be accurate vorlons main guns are supposed to have modes specifically for smaller targets and shadow slicers are more than capable of taking out fighers. How you want to work those guns and their special abilities is beyond me.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-07-09 12:49am

Well I guess you're right. I don't watch movement logs nor do I run sims often and it's part of the reason I'm sucking in Adamant (another being that my race blows in the resource department heh heh). So if someone wants to they could spend a lot of time for a big advantage (Tuxedo, Nephtys I'm looking at both of you lol at least you're the only ones I know who run a lot of sims).

I like the mount idea. But I just looked at the data file and don't see an option to change the weapon's targeting type with a mount. A pity. Also we're modeling for balance not accuracy so even if the Vorlons kick arse with their main guns it's mostly for U235's 5 zillion fighters.

Brian

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-07-09 01:14am

That's a shame. I kind of dislike mounts in general, I'd rather simply see small, medium, large (or whatever, spinal could be a class) versions of weapons rather than fooling around with mounts to find optimum fits.

The other problem with balance as a goal is that it just doesn't work with the ancients. They're not balanced, that's kinda the defining characteristic of them. If we change them it should make them truly as they should be but make them horribly restricted to play.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-07-09 01:25am

This is a hot patch not a total rewrite. Obviously Tux isn't fooling around with your obscene research, production and resource rates any time soon.

If it was just changing three mounts it'd be easy but rewriting every weapon to avoid fighters would be a pain in the ass so I don't think it can be done.

Right now the only other mod I think might be useful would be Improved Neutron Laser and maybe letting one of EA's capital ship guns target fighters.

Or we could make this game incredibly interesting by changing this one line,

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Empire Starting Percent Maint Cost                                    := 25

To something obscene like 5. Then everybody would be fielding thousands of ships in no time heh heh. Or it could be in reverse... make it 80 and we'd see a hundred ships max zooming around.

I also think this,

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Maximum Trade Percentage                                              := 40

could be increased to 999 or something.

Brian

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-07-09 02:24am

Kojiro wrote:That's a shame. I kind of dislike mounts in general, I'd rather simply see small, medium, large (or whatever, spinal could be a class) versions of weapons rather than fooling around with mounts to find optimum fits.

The other problem with balance as a goal is that it just doesn't work with the ancients. They're not balanced, that's kinda the defining characteristic of them. If we change them it should make them truly as they should be but make them horribly restricted to play.

Aww, but mounts are such an effective and simple way to deal with a number of weapon thingies! Plus, they're very easy to restrict to certain hull sizes, making it excellent for giving certain types of ships bonuses.

But I am certainly in agreement that it's way overdone. Why do we need tons of mounts? I think it'd probably be better to add a heavy weapon if you need a heavy weapon than just make a heavy weapon mount--then you have problems with small guns doing big damage, but accurately and to fighters or something. I prefer to limit the amount of guns, period, to a rather small number and have as few mounts as necessicary.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-07-09 03:04am

brianeyci wrote:Tuxedo has to manually execute because of his patch.

If the turn's over I think you shouldn't worry about executing Tux. If people set their empire options to "AI should not make changes during a simultaneous game" it'll be fine.

Get your roomate to do his Adamant turn Tobor .

Brian

I know this may shock you, but I don't actually spend 100% of my waking hours at my computer.

Turn has been churned and uploaded. Remember to get the new components.txt file located in the hot patch zip file on my site here.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-07-09 05:08am

What's the default maintaince cost?

Seems like Adamant has all the maintaince costs set pretty low to compensate for the weak economy of their empires. I'm trying to figure out what 'base' is for my mod. I have them all currently set to default, but haven't fired up the game yet, and would rather fix it now than copy all the files around and realize I need to go in and add a maintaince reduction ability for every unit in the game just to keep it at a reasonable level. ;D

And if I can set the deault maintaince level for the game as a whole somewhere, that'd be better. I'd rather set the entire game to a 10 percent of total maintaince cost for ships than mess with each one individually. Adamant's numbers don't make much sense as-is so I was hoping to redo them rather than just copy.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-07-09 10:30am

Covenant wrote:What's the default maintaince cost?

Seems like Adamant has all the maintaince costs set pretty low to compensate for the weak economy of their empires. I'm trying to figure out what 'base' is for my mod. I have them all currently set to default, but haven't fired up the game yet, and would rather fix it now than copy all the files around and realize I need to go in and add a maintaince reduction ability for every unit in the game just to keep it at a reasonable level. ;D

And if I can set the deault maintaince level for the game as a whole somewhere, that'd be better. I'd rather set the entire game to a 10 percent of total maintaince cost for ships than mess with each one individually. Adamant's numbers don't make much sense as-is so I was hoping to redo them rather than just copy.

Multiply the total ship cost by 25% and you got the default. It changes it for the whole game...

Settings.txt

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Empire Starting Percent Maint Cost                                    := 100

Which is strange... Adamant's ships cost as much to maintain as it does to build if I'm reading that right. Somehow they did something to fix the maintainence... ah yes I found it, he makes all the hull sizes different depending on the hull type...

VehicleSize.txt

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]
Ability 2 Type                := Modified Maintenance Cost
Ability 2 Descr               := Large size provides a 12% maintenance penalty.
Ability 2 Val 1               := -72

I think this is done so that high levels of maintainence in character generation actually lowers by x percent (if you have god-like maybe lowering it by 30%) instead of 25 percent minus x percent... something like that, in stock if you have obscene maintainence power for your empire you pay nearly nothing and you have to get 120% maintainence max-minning your empire to stay competitive.

Brian

EDIT : Yes, from the max/min guide,

Maintenance Aptitude: This affects the base maintenance rate of your ships. The default is 25%. Each point in Maint. Apt. lowers that by 1%. So, 110 Maint. Apt. costs 500 points and makes the base maintenance rate of your ships 15%. That is a 40% reduction in maintenance paid, for very few points. Each point in Maint. Apt. costs 200 points after 110. It is still useful to raise it, but not nearly as good as getting it to 110, and points could be better spent elsewhere (such as 8 points in Minerals Aptitude).

So yes, if you lower the "Empire Starting Maintainence Percent Cost" in settings.txt it'll break character generation. 125% maintainence basically means free ships in stock heh heh. So Adamant solved it with 100% maintainence and all hull sizes "subtracting" the maintainence so if you get say 125% maintainence it really lowers the total cost by 25% instead of lowering it to zero.

So it seems like the only way is giving every unit a maintainence reduction ability unless you want empire generaton to be stupid heh heh.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-07-09 11:38am

If you have 126% maintenance apt in stock, do ships have negative maintenance?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-07-09 11:55am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:If you have 126% maintenance apt in stock, do ships have negative maintenance?

No, I don't think so. Usually people get merchants for the 5% boost and run it to 120%. Merchants is one of the best stock cultures, second only to Bezerkers.

Bezerkers really's the only culture, +10% to offense and defense's killer in stock. For bigger games, maybe merchants and save 5 points off of maintainence.

Brian

Graeme Dice · Post by **Graeme Dice** » 2006-07-09 01:17pm

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:If you have 126% maintenance apt in stock, do ships have negative maintenance?

Yep. The various space monsters mods set it up so that ships generate resources for example.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-07-09 03:04pm

Yeah, I ran into that issue with my Nomad Worldships. Without the reduction they'd cost their full price each turn, which was bad. With the recycler node they would occasionally break the system and it would GENERATE resources. I was rather confused.

Also, there's a way to lock maximum racial shifts, I believe. In my badly installed version of Neph's mod I was unable to drop my ground combat thing to below 95, and that's the way it is with some other stuff. I'm gonna poke until I find it--I can force people to keep 100 maintaince rate, and thereby avoid them dicking it up.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-07-09 03:08pm

Graeme Dice wrote:
Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:If you have 126% maintenance apt in stock, do ships have negative maintenance?
Yep. The various space monsters mods set it up so that ships generate resources for example.

I stand corrected

.

Join our games Graeme. Dalton is looking for a replacement in Adamant!

Brian

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-07-09 03:17pm

I'm having trouble finding where, if anywhere, the "max characteristics +/-" values are. Hrm. That leads me to the unfortunate conclusion I may indeed need to do what adamant does and set it up goofily.

Isn't there any place for me to control how much plus or minus you can do in the un-advanced traits? I'd like to stop people from minmaxing too much.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-07-09 03:21pm

Covenant wrote:I'm having trouble finding where, if anywhere, the "max characteristics +/-" values are. Hrm. That leads me to the unfortunate conclusion I may indeed need to do what adamant does and set it up goofily.

Isn't there any place for me to control how much plus or minus you can do in the un-advanced traits? I'd like to stop people from minmaxing too much.

Yeah it's called 0 points on game setup lol.

The only way to make min-maxing less viable is other things I think... like if ground troops were really expensive 150% ground combat might be worth it. Or if 25% to attack and defense didn't really mean anything because ECM and Combat Sensors are cheap shit (honestly telescopes and computers should make for perfect targeting anyway).

Maybe you could set empire starting maintainence up to 200% or something and ships would be damn expensive.

Brian