Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

Two things about the slots:

a) I didn't actually look at them
b) I should have waited until I made a save game breaking patch before updating

I also prefer to have a set of central slots.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

ok we forgive you :p

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

for now anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

here's annother little niggle kwok - the PD animation is about 2x too big.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

WHOOHAW! I'm playing again after the 1.25 patch and the game is pretty solid with the mod. Tanka Kwok.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

Too big?

I think all the animations are far too puny.
What's the point of 3D realtime combat if you're gonna leave out the Hearty Thoom and Sparkly Pzorch?

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the PD is bigger than the DUC, bigger than the fighters themselfs.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

Well, ok, I guess that could use a little adjustment then. Mostly increasing the size of the other weapons. No harm in a PDC shot being similar in size to a fighter, as long as it is a powerful PD shot.


PS:
Sorry, wrong button, I meant to hit reply.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

However anoying it is, you've got to admit it would be worse for the fighter pilots http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Looks good so far, and the AI are being much more resistant since they stoped blowing up their team mates. They keep leaving fighters on the planets giving my troops a hard time.

I think another big improvement could be for the AI to scrap non-breathing population if there are breathers present. They seem to have a lot of domed colonies where they need not be. For all I know, there could have been pop transports on the way to fix this however.

Edit: Also, the religious tech goes to lvl2, but I don't think the 2nd level is used.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

Unfortunately there isn't a way to discriminate breathers through the scripts yet, so I can't make functions that selectively transport population.

Looks like I had fixed Religious Studies to 1 level on my Balance Mod spreadsheet, but neglected to actually change in TechAreas.txt - so oops.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

How about removing 'Fighter' from 'can target' for the main weapons? As it is they're getting shredded long before they can even reach a frigate+ class ship. Making them targetable by point-defense weapons only would make them a far more viable strategy.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

I'd say it would be better to reduce the chance to hit when using main guns against fighters. Still usable when desperate or out of other targets, but not terribly effective.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

That'd be a better idea, but is it actually possible?

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

Sure it is. It's already like that with Fighters having defensive bonuses on their hulls. Maybe they need a slight adjustment upwards? They've seemed ok to me in the past, where per kT of vehicle it seemed fairly even.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

I used the fighters in my last game to take a couple of systems, and they seemed ok.

Is there any way to make the AI more aggressive?
None of the nine teamed computer players had attacked or retalliated by turn 34, which should have been plenty of time to build a few ships since everyone started with 3 planets.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

Since AI aggression is mentioned, I'll throw in my experiences.

I have a game in progress with SEV 1.25 and Balance Mod 1.02, playing full AI difficulty and medium bonus. I started one or two systems away from the Jraenar race, who from about turn 5 took a strong dislike to me and have been totally aggressive. They've been sending groups of frigates through regularly, shelled a colony of mine to dust and nearly wiped me out! Only a handful of weapon platforms saved me while I built some more ships.

This fighting has continued for the last 30 turns or so: the Sithrak have joined the war against them, and my home system has been raging with fights between the three of us for ages now! I've seen the Sithrak send many groups of frigates to attack the Jraenar, I saw a 20 ship attack force (frigates, a carrier and a freighter) wreaking havoc against the Jraenar too! Once the Jraenar was beaten back the Sithrak followed them through the warp point and the fight continued.

It's been an excellent game so far! For the first ever time I have actually felt fear at the AIs attacks! Also I've seen some good proof of the AIs abilities:

* Definitely aggressive!

* Good attack ship designs. The Jraenar were using armour and DUCs at first (it was early as I said) but as the fights continued he started to mix in Anti-Proton Beams and improved his engines and armour. Very sensible here!

* Good attack fleet composition - while the AI doesn't seem to specifically create fleets, it does seem to organise its ships into groups well. There are always occasional stray ships, but groups of 5, 10, 20 were common and it's still within the first 50 turns. Often these fleets have consisted of main attack ships with direct fire weapons, and secondary designs with Missiles too, which keeps me on my toes.

So in conclusion I am having a blast! SEV has always been fun in terms of organising your empire, designing ships etc, but now that the AI can put up a fight it's so much better than it used to be since every turn matters!

So I guess yet more thanks go to CK for the Balance Mod! Between the BM and the main SEV patches I really think the game has turned a corner in terms of being fun to play - it's been stable for me for a long time and playing just the single player mode has me hooked!

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

That's a bit different, though, since raising their defensive bonus makes them harder to hit for all weapons, not just the larger ones.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

are you talking about 1.25 here?

1.20 had a bug where weapons would hit fighters way way way more often than they should have.
this has been fixed in 1.25, play a bit more before changing anything (tbh, I'm wondering if fighters might not be a little too powerfull now)

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

Now you tell me with your warp point protected by 300+ fighters plus support ships. ;-)

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

Hmm, I'm not encountering any aggresive AIs.

By not-aggresive I mean empires that have been at war with me for dozens of turns without actually doing a single attack on me( other than drive a stray ship into one of my guarded WPs ). And this is even with the 'All players see all systems' option on, so it couldn't be because of fog of war. This isn't even in a very big galaxy.

I'll just try go to war with all of them and hope that changes things.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

There was code added in v1.03 from the latest SE:V patch that marked defended Warp Points and I can't recall what if any provisions exist to pass through it despite the fortifications.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

Hmm, that would explain some of the behaviour I've been seeing, since none of my defended warp points have ever been attacked by a real fleet, that I can remember.

It doesn't help the AI too much if the warp points only get marked as 'defended', though. The game should return some sort of defending-force-strength-estimate thing to be effective, so the AI would have a clue how much is needed to get through. I can see how that might be hard to implement, though.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

I have started a new game with 1.03 and the AIs don't seem to be building weapon platforms to defend their planets. Instead, planets are full of fighters that don't get launched. And occasionally some troops. Maybe there is a little glitch in a script somewhere that chooses the wrong thing to build? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

It's more likely due to the higher demand that fighters and troops were given in v1.03, they're just being built them first. They will build WPs. Eventually I'll need to separate the unit queue from the ship queue so I can implement a more SE:IV like system where you prescribe a desired amount of units to build for each colony rather than the randomness that it is now.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

Kwok,

Have you made any changes to Ionic Dispersers in your mod? From what I have been reading, they sound useless.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

Ionic Dispersers / Missiles are blocked by shields, but pass through Armor.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

excellent, thanks!

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

Just some news about v1.04 - I've been working on implementing a few new items, which includes increasing the size variety of AI ships. As a bonus, I was able to streamline a small chunk of the design creation routine, which has actually made the compiled scripts about 40kb smaller. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Since I was in the area I scripted a new ship purchasing routine, but it isn't so hot right now as the AI is only building Attack and Colony ships.

Some of the other items on the to-do list for v1.04 including making fighter groups attack trespassing ships and a few tweaks for empire diplomacy.

v1.05 is going to be a good update, you'll note all sorts my new built-in functions I requested got added in SE:V v1.27 - so hopefully I can get the AI to start maxing out their colonies. Other items slated for v1.05 will be better AI strategies for their ships and much needed updates to Alliance diplomacy.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

The biggest thing you could do for the AI is teach it to use more ships. In my current game it's back to the same old 'stream of single ships' mode that makes stock so frustrating. Every few turns another (colonizer|scout) comes through the warp point and gets instantly slagged by my waiting defense fleet. Even a non-omniscient observer should be able to figure out that it requires more force than a single ship to get through that warp point after a while. The only time I've yet seen the AI mass a fleet together and attack is when I colonized a planet right under its nose -- in its home system.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

That's a problem with fog of war and the AI's lack of memory, Munchausen. Think that's something Aaron himself will have to do something about.

Basically the AI forgets about your colonies and ships as soon as they're out of his sensor range.

If you play with 'all players see all systems' set to on then you'll avoid those scenarios.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

I am a little concerned to discover after playing a bit more balance mod that Depleted Uranium cannons have a distinct range advantage over other more "advanced" weaponry. This seems to detract from wanting to research other weapons.

Re: Balance Mod Update...
 

That's a very interesting thought. So the AI needs to be able to remember that its last attempt to go through a warp point ended with a bang? That's what the new scripting functions are supposed to enable. Whatever functions there are to check combat results need to be used and something needs to be done to make a note/record that tells the AI to send more ships next time. But simply accompanying colonizers with an warship escort would be a major improvement.

Re: Balance Mod...
 

The AI does remember these locations sort of. They mark all their defensive locations, which include warp points that lead to enemy systems, each turn. There is a function in the orders script that does mark these as no go sectors, but I think it only nullifies orders if the ship's destination is the same. This wouldn't help ships that were ordered to colonize a planet in the enemy's system, nor an explorer ship sent to one of the unknown warp points etc. I perhaps could modify this check to the system itself, rather than just the sector.

---

The DUC is a good early to mid-game weapon and even though it has decent range to some of the later non-seeker weapons, it's damage ratios are much less. It's possible to keep the DUC as your primary weapon, while rush researching a specialized weapon in the hopes you'll get that weapon before your enemy might get a counter in place.

Re: Balance Mod...
 

But how, exactly, does the AI know if a system is an enemy system, if it can't remember any colonies when they're out of sensor range? In SEV, isn't it who has colonies in the system that decides the 'system owner'?

And let's say that the above mentioned function does work, then isn't that actually a bad thing too? If a sector/system is marked as a 'no-go', then that'd mean that the AI isn't going to send any attack fleets through it either, or am I off track?

Re: Balance Mod...
 

Well, that would make the AI start thinking more like a human. Isn't it possible for enemy ships to MOVE when they see your fat, helpless colonizer all alone? Sure, change the AI to consider whether the system is enemy occupied rather than the sector. That should result in a major improvement in AI strategy. Giving colonizers an armed escort whenever they are sent to a system with known enemy would be a huge improvement.

The DUC has some major disadvantages, though. The requirement for ordnance is one. No other 'beam' requires ordnance, as far as I recall. Only missiles and torpedoes. For the sake of realism, it really ought to have an accuracy disadvantage, too. Slugs of metal (uranium or otherwise) are not going to travel as fast as particle beams or pure energy and so will be increasingly prone to miss at long ranges. I gave it this disavantage in my own minimal modding attempts. Instead I see it's about as good as the meson blaster in the Balance Mod. Since I'm not very good with math formulae "0 - ([%Range%] + ([%Range%] / 10))" is the best I can do for an 'asymptotic' curve. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Anyone got a better formula?

Re: Balance Mod...
 

I think it uses the system list to check if it's owned by an enemy player when it compiles this data. I'll trace the script execution tonight so I can see exactly it proceeds.

Fleet orders don't have the no-go condition in their order script. The problem here is that they're probably not getting a chance to see the attack locations in the enemy systems. I see a lot more aggression in the AI-only games when more of the empires are intermingled than with a human player, who usually carves up a chunk of solely owned space.

Re: Balance Mod...
 

Alright. Shouldn't all "Attack Ships" skip the 'no-go' condition, though? Not just fleets I mean, since there are times when the AI uses a bunch of single ships instead of grouping them in a fleet.

And it would be interesting to know how it managed systems owned by more than one empire.

Think it'd be too hard for us mere mortals to add a function that stored which planets are colonized, by which player it's colonized, and perhaps even the colony's defence, based on the last sensor contact?

Re: Balance Mod...
 

Non-fleeted stacks of attack ships are actually the result of an error really. What happens is multiple attack ships are giving the same order because their within a certain distance of a target... they all arrive together in the same sector and then proceed to be issued the same orders afterwards (usually) - which has also resulted in a decrease in attack ships available for fleets. This behaviour in v1.04 will be reduced by checking if another ship has the same orders first before issuing them.

Re: Balance Mod...
 

To be honest, the DUC has horrible accuracy as is in BM. It misses more than it hits for me, until I get combat sensors decent enough to offset it's accuracy, or lack of.

Re: Balance Mod...
 

I wouldn't count that as a fault as a good tech level in sensors is pretty much required.

Re: Balance Mod...
 

Guess what? I played a few more turns of that game yesterday and got a surprise... six ships came through one of my border warp points at once. Right when I had refitted some of the defending fleet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif The refitted ships had their new weapons at 100 percent damage and had to run for it while the others tried to contain the breach. It was hairy for a while.

Using a cheat code to look at the rest of the map, I see another AI is moving a stack of nine ships towards an entry warp point to my systems. It's taken them a while, this game is up to turn 300, but they are beginning to act a little more determined. I hope you can tweak them to be a bit more organized/aggressive a bit earlier. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Balance Mod...
 

Ok, the Xiati are getting quite nasty with me now. They gather 8-10 ships and throw them at me every few turns. About time! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

As I've continued my research to stay ahead of the AI enemies, I've been looking at various weapons attributes. I find some oddities in the seekers category.

The Capital Ship Missile has less range than the Plasma Missile? Why? Isn't the Plasma Missile inherently short-ranged due to consuming its 'charge' for propulsion?
And if the Alloy Burner Missile is not really a missile, but an energy torpedo, why does it have a seeker turn rate? Exactly what inside a bolt of energy is tracking a target and adjusting course?

The Anti - Matter Torpedo does not have a seeker turn rate, but the Quantum Torpedo does (and is a 'directed torpedo' like the missiles), and then the Gamma Pulse Torpedo does not again. ??? So are 'torpedos' actually seekers or not? And why does the Gamma Pulse Torpedo have shorter range than the Quantum Torpedo? I realize this is the way it is in stock, but I thought your mod was supposed to make something logical out of stock? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Balance Mod...
 

The Plasma Missile has a lot of charge. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

The Alloy Burner Missile entry had a few errors but has been since corrected for v1.04. Same goes for the Quantum Torpedo, which shouldn't be a directed torpedo as you mentioned.

The Gamma Pulse Torpedo has a generally better damage ratio and enhanced PD evasion (speed, defense bonus) than the Quantum Torpedo - but for the RP investment it would probably be better if it was 40kT.

Re: Balance Mod...
 

That's another thought... maybe the anti - matter torpedo should be smaller? 35 kt or even 30 kt? That would make it still possibly useful on smaller ships even when you've got the more advanced torpedos and vastly larger ships.

I am also wondering if it is justifiable to have the Graviton Hellbore and the Null-space Projector use ordnance. Aren't these weapons 'effects' rather than devices?

BTW, there is a typo in the Null-space projector.
Ability 1 Description := NUll-Space Projectors store [%Amount1%] units of ordnance.

Re: Balance Mod...
 

I've never used torpedoes; do they actually ever hit anything?

That reminds me, though. Do you think it would be possible to get Aaron to add an area damage weapon type, Kwok? I.e. missiles/projectiles/energy weapons that would explode when in the vicinity of enemy vessels, doing a specific damage type to all ships/units within a specific range. That would be a really great addition, I think.

Re: Balance Mod...
 

Raapys,

Area effect weapons have long been asked for... but they haven't been added yet. Torpedoes are seekers so they will hit anything they're fired at with respect to range and PD.

Baron,

I actually boosted up the damage amount for AM Torpedoes in v1.04, since they were comparably underpowered for their RP cost.

Re: Balance Mod...
 

Another possibility is to let if fire a little bit more quickly than later torpedos. 3500 or 3000 ms might be good.

Re: Balance Mod...
 

Captain Kwok, I hope that this is not an annoying question, but following this thread it looks like you are making many additions and changes to BM 1.04. Would you by any chance be able to post an update on your changes for 1.04 Just curious mostly on what can be expected.

Trying to decide wheter to start another game or to wait for 1.04. Next one sounds like it is going to be a good one.

Thanks

Re: Balance Mod...
 

There hasn't been that many data file changes, although there are some mount issues to work on. Besides that, most of my time has been changing how the AI chooses hulls for design types, as well as some optimization for the design scripts themselves. I've also put in a new ship purchase scheme, sort of a mix between what SE:V and SE:IV each had. It's not working too great at the moment though... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img]

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Current Version 1.04 Changes
----------------------------

1. Fixed - Error in number of tech levels for Crystalline Dreadnought
2. Fixed - Inconsistency in cost for Crystalline Small Fighter
3. Fixed - Bases with Quantum Reactors were not adding Supply Storage components
4. Fixed - Organic vehicle hulls were not receiving their regeneration bonus amounts
5. Fixed - Error in Baseship defense penalty
6. Fixed - Miscellaneous seeker weapon errors
7. Changed - Increased damage amount for Anti-Matter Torpedo
8. Changed - Decrease planet defense modifier
9. Changed - Increase damage factor for weapons and facilities to be functional
XX. Changed - Mounts (Pending)
XX. Changed - Updated AI design purchase scheme (Pending)
XX. Changed - AI will now use a mixed variety of ship sizes
XX. Added - Patrol and Scout Ship AI design types
XX. Added - AI will scrap obsolete ships
</pre><hr />

Re: Balance Mod...
 

Thank you.