Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

PvK, could you please assign some bogus ability to minor cultural facilities, like megapolies. I want to make AI gradually build colonies by building and upgrading cultural facilities but can not call them in sonstuction.txt file, AI likes to build cultural centers (for obvious reason) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

Yes. I'm adding:

Component Destroyed On Use means Best Cultural facility besides Cultural Center

for 2.3. You can go ahead and add it in for testing, and it'll be the same in 2.3.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

A group that has been playing Proportions multi-player LAN games on weekends has suggested removing the ability to put shipyards on medium (or larger) transport hulls, because it with the ~30% maintenance reduction, it makes a really powerful and economical mine/satellite layer in Proportions.

I also noticed that it is kind of irritating to build units on orbital shipyards, and have them appear on the base and have to be manually transferred down to the planet.

I was thinking what I would do, to respond to this without breaking existing games, would be to increase the cost and/or maintenance cost of shipyards with cargo capacity, and add a new shipyard type which will simply be like the old one, with no cargo and thus unable to be loaded on transport hulls. This will mainly have the effect of increasing the cost of transport-hull spaceyard ships so they are nearly as expensive as maintaining a cruiser-hull spaceyard ship.

The main side-effect for existing games would be that existing spaceyard components would become more expensive and ones not on transport hulls would want to be upgraded to non-cargo Versions.

I want to know if anyone will be miffed or sees any problems with this, particularly anyone currently playing in my Proportions game on PBW.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

I used to have both base space yards and space yard ships in the AI design files include cargo. But the AI was too stupid to remove the units it built from either type of vehicle so it ended up with wasted units that were never used clogging the base space yards and space yard ships. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif Have you noticed the AI in Proportions do this? If it's smart enough to actually find the units in the cargo of space yard bases and ships now then I'd keep the cargo space. It's very useful to include the space to hold units you have contructed in the same vehicle.

And I don't think it's unbalancing in itself to have a ship or base able to build and launch units. A BSY with mine/satellite laying bays is an excellent thing to put on a warp point. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

PvK, can you assign some bogus ability to battle scanners ? The reason is once AI discovers Fire controls, it tries to put it on all Weapon Platforms. Due to excessive size of Fire control, WP end up without any "to hit plus" components.

Thank's for cultural facilities bogus ability, in Last game my experimental Pequeninos AI build up colony with 10 minor cities end then upgraded them ! It took more than 100 turns (no AI bonus, it was my race on autopilot) , but I was still impressed.

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

The Proportions AI is currently occasionally storing a few units on BSY's. It only happens when a BSY itself builds units, which only happens when it builds from the construction_vehicles file, which usually uses BSY's to build ships and bases rather than units. It happens sometimes, and is OK for storing units for example for satellite carriers to pick up, since they can't be launched from the BSY. However the AI already seems to keep enough sats and mines sitting on planets somewhere for a layer/launcher to come get.

In general though since they can't launch, and since non-domed planets have huge unit capacities in Proportions, I think it's best the AI not do this. Also, if such a design is wanted, you can just add cargo compartments.

I saw an interesting thing with the Phong ships - in one game, several of them were carrying a few infantry units each in the 1 kT space given to their supply bays! It might be possible to get an AI to frequently capture small colonies this way... at least, ungarissoned ones. Though, they might equally often just get themselves sawed in half by weapon platforms.

The reported inbalance was coming from Proportions' ~30% maintenance reduction for transports, and the availability of medium transports two tech levels before cruisers, so relatively early, human players were making SY ships on med transport hulls as minelayers, able to build 5 mines per turn. The typical low-tech design that I came up with has speed 4, range 23 one-way, costs around 6500 resources, but only about base 900 to maintain, and is an easy target. I don't see a similar warship-hull design until battlecruiser hulls, at least that can both build and lay mines in one ship (though you could do the same thing with a little more speed using a cruiser and an escort, but it would be more expensive).

Compared to conventional minelayer designs, let's see, a "fast-laying" low-tech med transport which stores and lays 30 mines per turn, range 34 one-way, costs about 4200 resources, 580 to maintain, but of course can't build anything (neither does it need to stay in the target sector for .6 years to lay 30 mines, though.

I think the main observation was that it allows construction far away from the homeworld (combined with resupply ships and supply outPosts). In Proportions, the homeworld tends to be where most of the unit construction goes on, and economical long-range transports are slow, so although the conventional minelayer looks better in the above case, the SYS looks better the farther away you are from a construction center.

Actually though, having looked at those examples, it's not seeming bad to me. Mainly I think they were worried that the AI won't do this, but the AI has always been at a disadvantage with minelaying (and lots of other areas).

I think though that mines in general may be a little more annoying/powerful than in the unmodded game, because the mid-game stage tends to have a more limited budget and efficient minesweepers are slow and cost a fair amount.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

Cool, Oleg - glad it's working. I have been finding that the AI can develop some reasonable colonies if you tweak their files enough and give them 100 turns or so <g>.

Yes, good suggestion about base and platform scanners. Yesterday I also added a bogus ability to certain ECM levels, so the AI will use efficient ones and can finally stop trying to use engines instead of ECM (if you set your design file to use "Planet - Change Ground Defense" instead of "Combat To Hit Defense Plus" (just do a global search and replace in AI_DesignCreation.txt).

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

see above comments

[ May 21, 2002, 20:50: Message edited by: NAV ]

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

[quote]Originally posted by PvK:
[QB]A group that has been playing Proportions multi-player LAN games on weekends has suggested removing the ability to put shipyards on medium (or larger) transport hulls, because it with the ~30% maintenance reduction, it makes a really powerful and economical mine/satellite layer in Proportions.

~ Regarding Space Yards on cheap transports, in itself is fine, even though the AI does not make good/same use as Humans do.

But us crafty human players put a sat or mine Launching bay on it and bring it to our warp point, in 2 turns we build enough mines to stop any Incursion probe, in 3 more turns we have enough built and launched to probably stop the AIs entire Incursion. 5 more turns-we have enough mines from that Mine Fabricator built and launched, to stop the AIs Attack State sending it Back to infrastructure State to rebuild and try again. In all that (if) the AI_Settings file is on (Ships don't move through minefields := false) he will never be able to re attack because those replacement ships will be piecemealed through our craftfuly built mine field, until/If the AI completes the tree to Mine tech to get Sweepers... And in the mean time we are building our strike force to purge the AI before he gets those now valued mine sweepers... and the AI is foolishly wasting his ships, if the settings were not right; go ahead check your race_AI_Settings.

Also the Mine/Sat Ship yard fabricator launcher can go to far away systems and stop atop a warp point and build 100 mines in 20 turns and for (Low tech Sats)in less then 34 turns it will build you 100 sats.
Now with 20000 units, gee why, wonder why the AI is totaly stupid and cant compete.

Normally if it was just a Mine or Sat layer it would have to go back to a planet to refill, for example: A medium transport that carries 30 mines or 12 Sats with a speed of 4 and traveled 3 systems away it would take about 8.5 turns from the planet to the warp point then 8.5 turns back for a refill that's about 17 turns for one round trip so for a standard Launcher, it would take more then 50 turns to get that 100 mines and 141 turns to place 100 sats. Also considering that a planet now is tied up making 100 sats or mines, that's a lot of planet production even for a Human Player. A tanker also has to accompany the launcher and how about that long term escort commitment ????????? I doubt this would get done casually, however a ship yard launcher with a cargo hold on a cheap transport can do this in multiple locations with only a few, with devestating results. This is fine for an all Human and Neutral game, but the AI Player can't compete with this. I suggest removeing cargo capacity from yards for the above reasons. Not to say you can't do this with a large capital ship, but this gets expensive.

I like the way Proportions now has AI Sat and Mine Layers on transport hulls as well as a host of other hull designs that modders are designing to Benifit the AI.

[ May 21, 2002, 21:07: Message edited by: NAV ]

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

Pvk,
I noticed weird design minister behaivor:
In my design file, Fighters have small meson bLaster as #1 choice and small DUC as a second option. Now, if I know sDUC but no sMB, AI designs fighter without _any_ weapon but with small shield, which is not in the design at all !
(shield per kt=0). I suspect this is because sMB weapon family number 102 is duplicated by light missile system weapon family number.

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

That's weird. I'm really swamped at present - if you have time and inclination to test it, please try changing the sMB weapon family number to something else in components.txt, and see if this changes the design.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thks PvK, indeed I didn't know - I play a PBW Proportion 2.1 game but never dived into 2.2 ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Anyway my idea was to generally reduce costs of Liners even without any high tech just to see faster colony development, and those low maint/combat unable comps looked right, and simpler than the "module" system. But I have to experience it more before talking again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, it is an overlap in weapon family numbers that drives AI crazy.

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

PvK,

Add "Ancient Ruins" and "Planet - Change Ground Defense" to small scaners and ECM, AI makes fighters with extra engines.

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

PvK - and Derek too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
I've found that developing Research and Intel is real sloooow in your mods (more than production): the Research and Intel Centers are indeed very weak, at 100 Research/200 Intel ea.
In addition lvl II and III just add a paltry 20% each... Who wants level III research center at 140 RPs ?? Ridiculous...

So we have either to waste precious facility space with that junk, or go for "general" facilities (cities...) that just produce a few Research and Intel too !

Why not boost the Centers by at least x2 or x5 (or make small/medium/large ones), adjusting costs accordingly ?
Waddaya think ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Facilities are a

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

Been thinking about that, as I have also noticed research is incedibly slow. Probably will be changed in next release, but not drastically so.

Derek

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Oh ya I remember that now - will do, thanks.

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thanks Oleg - will fix!

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

PDF, Proportions is designed to try to be realistically slow, and to make research and colony development take so long that they require long-term strategic thinking.

For research speed, I am also trying to address what I see as two major issues with the standard set:

1) Research is way too fast in the standard set, which tends to reduce the usefulness of a large part of the tech tree. Low and intermediate tech levels are often not used by humans because it only takes a very short time to max out a tech, and so on. In Proportions, for most of the techs, you aren't even really expected to reach the highest level of very many of them in the course of an entire game. That way, in theory and hopefully in practive, research remains interesting and varied throughout the game.

2) The basic system where research labs ADD progress directly, and where an empire can focus ALL of its research on any project from month to month, is not at all accurate. Also, adding some research facilities on colony worlds just isn't going to multiply the rate of a civilization's tech progress. It may give it an important advantage, but it's not going to multiply it. This is why Proportions research facilities only produce small amounts of additive speed (per turn) compared to the entire homeworld.

While I think the pace is pretty close to realistic, it does also make the game advance pretty slowly, and there are some ways to change the pace of play without breaking the desired effects.

More powerful and expensive research facilities are probably in order. Foundations mod had those, but I took them out for simplicity and because they had interesting new tech requirements which weren't completely developed enough to add for Proportions. I'll look at adding something back in.

For faster-progressing games without breaking the basic Proportions model, I recommend:

1) Go to settings.txt and multiple the planet and homeworld value lines by up to 2.5 (the max that currently works for Homeworlds). i.e.:

Planet Value High Percent := 250
...
Plr Planet Value Low := 150
Plr Planet Value Medium Percent := 200
Plr Planet Value High Percent := 250

(this will only affect newly-started quadrants)

2) Set research cost to Low in game settings.

Those are a couple of easy ways. You can also of course also do multiple-homeworld starts, which directly multiplies the production and research rate, of course, but is also kind of weird having so many homeworlds.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

PVK,
You could ask MM to add an EVENT Type or Types such as: "Research - Complete project" or "Research - Add Points" or "Research - Multiply(labs) by n" ,then scatter a few of these around the Events file with different values. That might well simulate sudden unexpected breakthroughs and such.

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

PvK, drones need some balancing.

As it is now, large drone is completely and utterly useless ! With max. speed 7 it can not catch up with same tech level cruiser !!!

Why not make 2,3 and 4 engines for small, medium and large drones ? They will have the same speed.
In normal SE IV, drones are fastest space ships and I do not see any reason why it should be different in Proportions. If you think it is way too much, add at least one engine to large drone. Right now I can see no reasons whatsoever to build even medium drones.

-----------------------------------------

Regarding to research, I think the best way is to add one or two levels to research facilities. And may be increas a little the output of RC-2 and RC-3. But not too much of course, or it will spoil the whole idea of Proportions mod.

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

PvK,
In fact I have two issues :
* While slow progress is perhaps more realistic it is also just plain boring ... 100 turns ahead research progress some 20%, while research costs rise fourfold, so tech goes slower and slower. I just NEED something to go faster
* But the main point is "facility space usage" in Proportions. My colonies often have only 5 to 10 spaces, my HW are full of CC since start, so what can I do ? I just cannot specialize any planet in anything : either I put "general purpose" settlements/cities etc that produce a little of everything, and the specialized ones are pure crap, even 10 of them doesn't produce much !

Additionnaly the facilities limit comes weird : I can put only 5 small research labs, but (supposing I can produce them) 5 Col CC on the same world will take the same space !

So I really think that bigger specialized facilities, for colonies as well as HW. These should be on an "upgradable" path to the smaller ones to speed up the process (and let AI handle them).
/rant http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

One idea :I'm thinking of using "multiplier" facilities for "cultural" simulation (CCs): what about some expensive facilities that would set production, research or Intel to 200-500% instead of producing a (big) flat resource output ? That would give a comparable result (HW will produce much more than colonies for long) but be simpler to handle for AI (no need of bogus abilitie !), and closer to original SEIV design as well.

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

PvK, another problem with drones:

Drone launcher cargo capacity is broken.
It is completely wrong to have 3(!!!) drone launchers to accomodate 1 drone.

Even if you think that default drone launchers
are most efficient cargo bays in the game, take into account its research cost:
DL-1 cost 10K and only marginaly better than CB-2 (6K). Yes, DL-3 is the best cargo bay available, but it is rather late discovery.
May be it is nesseccary to increase DL size to 40K, but please restore capacity to 100,140 and 180 for small, medium and large DL.

Right now (take into account the broken speed of drones) Proportions is completely drone free
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

POOR PVK!
NEVER-THE-Less, Nice work!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

PVK: Don't ya just hate it when people drone on and on and on..?

(Oleg: I'm totally joking... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You can ask them - malfador@malfador.com - although I agree this would be a neat thing to add, and it has been mentioned before in the context of the "derelict" picture in the events folder, I don't think I'd put it very high up the list of other suggestions in terms of ease of implementation for MM and urgency compared to other features.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I feel your pain. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif But seriously, I know what you mean. Use Low research cost, and/or mod the research facility abilities. I think I will add some more facs though.

Quote:

* But the main point is "facility space usage" in Proportions. My colonies often have only 5 to 10 spaces, my HW are full of CC since start, so what can I do ? I just cannot specialize any planet in anything : either I put "general purpose" settlements/cities etc that produce a little of everything, and the specialized ones are pure crap, even 10 of them doesn't produce much !

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, the specialized ones don't produce much compared to entire freaking continental space age civilizations, not surprisingly, to me anyway. I would submit that the proportion there is about right, give or take. However compared to the standard game, the total amount of production for a mid-to-late game empire is a lot smaller. That, though, can be changed by editing settings.txt planet values, and you can change the relative values of homeworlds compared to colony worlds there too. Malfador means to change the 250% limit on homeworld values, too.

I am thinking though that the production facilities should probably all be jacked up so that building a facility provides more that you can do with it. I would increase the cultural center amounts by essentially the same factor, though.

Quote:

Additionnaly the facilities limit comes weird : I can put only 5 small research labs, but (supposing I can produce them) 5 Col CC on the same world will take the same space !

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well the SE4 model of facility space isn't something I can change. However notice that a cultural facility is generally the equivalent of several ordinary facilities at once - it's not that it "takes the same space" - it's that space is NOT the limiting factor. Planetary development, and the limits of what can be done with just building labs on a planet without any infrastructure, are the limiting factors. Don't take the facility "space" literally.

Quote:

So I really think that bigger specialized facilities, for colonies as well as HW. These should be on an "upgradable" path to the smaller ones to speed up the process (and let AI handle them). /rant http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ya, I'll look into adding something like that.

Quote:

One idea :I'm thinking of using "multiplier" facilities for "cultural" simulation (CCs): what about some expensive facilities that would set production, research or Intel to 200-500% instead of producing a (big) flat resource output ? That would give a comparable result (HW will produce much more than colonies for long) but be simpler to handle for AI (no need of bogus abilitie !), and closer to original SEIV design as well.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes I've been thinking of trying this again too, but it will take some thought and work to do right. I believe that only the highest planetary production multiplier applies, so it becomes a problem trying to do something like this to a meaningful degree without also making all of the high-tech facilities that do this obsolete or pointless.

Of course, what you can do is use a homeworld slot for something that multiplies production of a particular kind.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">These are exaggerations. A large drone can inflict 4200 points of damage to ships, or 7000 points of damage to planets, so it's not useless. A speed 7 cruiser is maxed out for speed and will be expensive and either very short-ranged or require space for supply storage (point being, not all cruisers go as fast as they can be designed for). Exaggeration aside, it's a good observation.

Quote:

Why not make 2,3 and 4 engines for small, medium and large drones ? They will have the same speed. In normal SE IV, drones are fastest space ships and I do not see any reason why it should be different in Proportions. If you think it is way too much, add at least one engine to large drone. Right now I can see no reasons whatsoever to build even medium drones.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Good suggestion to increase the engines to 2,3,4... I think I had intended to do that originally, but forgot. The thing I don't like about standard drones is they get a "materials" speed increase that makes no sense to me and makes the smaller ones truly obsolete.

So, good suggestion/catch and I will put it in. I disagree though that there is no reason to use larger drones with 2 engines compared to smaller ones. Speed is not everything, and the extra 80kT allows things that are impossible on a small drone, such as dumping Stealth/Scattering armor and ECM on, to make them very hard to shoot down - a slow but very-hard-to-kill drone is better than a fast but easily-shot-down drone, in many cases.

Quote:

----------------------------------------- Regarding to research, I think the best way is to add one or two levels to research facilities. And may be increas a little the output of RC-2 and RC-3. But not too much of course, or it will spoil the whole idea of Proportions mod.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I will look into it.

In my 2000-pt one-planet Low research cost test game, though, I was pretty happy with the AI's progress by turn 120-130. It seemed to still have good techs it could get in a few turns, and had good mid-game type techs (cruisers, fighters, CT engines, shields + regenerators, EW III, CSM V, etc).

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Why does a drone launcher have to be able to also store a whole drone? Just add a cargo bay. Well, I guess I can add the equivalent amount of size to provide cargo to carry one drone per launcher - that would make sense, but it won't take into account current cargo tech levels unless I made a whole heap of variants - this may tend to penalize empires that research advanced cargo tech. I guess I could do two types of drone launcher - one that is just the launcher, and one that includes enough space to hold a drone of the corresponding tech level, but is the appropriate size. I don't want to make the drone launcher the best cargo/size ratio component or there will be weenies using them to haul population around, and so on.

Quote:

Right now (take into account the broken speed of drones) Proportions is completely drone free http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Aw come on. Your suggestions are good but you're exaggerating. As I said before, even a slow large drone can be more effective than a faster smaller one. The cargo change to launchers isn't going to make much practical difference because you can already use cargo on drone launchers, and after the change it will probably still be a good idea. And finally, drones can be very decisive in Proportions as is, because they have no maintenance cost, and maintenance is much more important in this mod. Consider the cargo capacity of an undomed colony in Proportions (rather large). Consider that an enemy's fleet is seriously limited by maintenance costs. Hmm... there is some potential there.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

PvK,

I am convinced that restoring original DL cargo but raising its size to 40K is the best solution. It will make DL-3 roughly equivalent to CB-3.
Yes, it is possible to make drone carriers by combining DL/CB, but did you try it ? It is just a different and unnessary layer of micromanagement. Besides, it is _very_ difficult to instruct AI to make any sort of usefull drone carrier now. I personally gave up. 40K size will not unbalance cargo and should decrease micromanagemnt considerably.

Drones are a tricky subject and MM obviously spend a lot of time balancing them. They do the same incrediable amount of damage in normal SE IV, but cost a lot of resources and are destroyed in battle. In strategic combat even lowly scout can trigger launch of hunderds of drones for immense lost of resources. I do not consider restoring the speed of large drones as unbalancing. You argue that larger drones make small one obsolete, but, hey, that is the whole point of investing thousands and thousands points into research ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Drones do not have extra defence bonus as in standard SE IV. Besides, proportions ECM jammers go up to 31K in size, compared to flat 10K in unmoded game.

[ May 25, 2002, 04:47: Message edited by: oleg ]

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

Speaking about cargo:

Please assign "star - unstable" to higher levels of Cargo bays. I remember what you told about optimising AI conservation of resources, but population transports are not the only ones using cargo bays. Mine layers, satelite layers, carriers, troop transports, etc all use cargo bays. It is practically impossible to make AI designs using "cargo" ability because of the variable size of starline modules. If AI will underutilize space on transports with CB 2/3 - so be it, no big deal.

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes I've made drone carriers using cargo, even with the AI. I don't consider it essential for carriers or drone carriers to be able to launch all of their drones in one combat turn, though, or to get an exact multiple so as not to have slightly too much space, so it's not hard for me at all. Just put Star-Unstable as a misc ability with a low setting. It's not very difficult, IMO. I don't know what difficulty you're experiencing.

I don't know that I agree though that drone launchers should be 40kT with 100-180kT of storage. 40kT for 100 storage is the same ratio as a cargo bay, plus the ability to launch drones. 2 x Cargo III would match the capacity of one Drone Launcher II, and Drone Launcher III would now be a more efficient spacewise cargo component than the current best cargo bay, which currently costs four times the original cost of a drone launcher, per space. Drones and Cargo tech not being linked, this provides a weenie way to get a better cargo ratio than is possible with Cargo tech, without even researching cargo tech. Players would start abusing drone launchers to cram more people on population transports.

My current Versions are pro-rated based on Cargo Bay I with a very slight advantage per tech level. Mainly, these are for convenience - drone tech is drone tech, not cargo tech:

DL I - 160 mins, size 54kT, storage 100 kT.
DL II - 195 mins, size 68kT, storage 140 kT.
DL III - 230 mins, size 82kT, storage 180 kT.

Quote:

Drones are a tricky subject and MM obviously spend a lot of time balancing them. They do the same incrediable amount of damage in normal SE IV, but cost a lot of resources and are destroyed in battle. In strategic combat even lowly scout can trigger launch of hunderds of drones for immense lost of resources. I do not consider restoring the speed of large drones as unbalancing. You argue that larger drones make small one obsolete, but, hey, that is the whole point of investing thousands and thousands points into research ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I find the speed bonus from large drone hulls not so much unbalancing as inexplicable (from "advanced materials" - huh?) and uninteresting (techs that make other techs obsolete are less interesting than techs that offer advantages but leave some trade-offs for consideration). I would much rather have research add the possibility of components which could boost drone speed.

Quote:

Drones do not have extra defence bonus as in standard SE IV. Besides, proportions ECM jammers go up to 31K in size, compared to flat 10K in unmoded game.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Unmodded drones are all -50 to hit, while Proportions drones have different to-hit bonuses per size. I don't really follow why you mentioned this, though. The increase in size of larger sensors/ECM in Proportions is another advantage to larger drones.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'll have to think about it. In general, the AI's hard coding isn't good enough to actually load any cargo-using ship (except pop transports) to the brim anyway, as far as I've seen. Since Proportions has an important trade-off of cargo bays between cost and capacity, and the gain isn't all that much for the more expensive ones, it's really best for human design artists - I think the AI would mostly (or entirely) waste its resources on it. Also, since cargo tech includes supply storage, and high-tech supply storage is something the AI can really use, it can't be fairly limited by having AI's choose through research.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

I had the following dificulty making AI drone carriers: When drone increases in size, I need more cargo bays per drone launcher, when I progress in cargo, I need less cargo bays per launcher. Thus it is impossible to make AI design drone carrier which will utilize space effectively. But it is a moot point now after you made 1 drone per 1 launcher http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

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I was thinking mostly about drone carriers when I suggested "star unstable" throught. However, effective troop transport should use cargo bays instead of starline modules because of much higher damage resistance and lack of defence bonus. Extra space of cargo bays 3 will come very handy for troop transports !

"Sorry Sir, we can not load any more tanks, Ministry of Defence contracted to use cheap cargo bays only"

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I mentioned size of ECM because its higher size takes over the space of two engines, thus making Proportions' drone less effective than standard.

If I am not mistaking, you are going to make max. drone engines 2,3 and 4, as it was intended, right ? Drones are fun to play with ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, the arbitrary bonus just for 'materials' is odd. I've created special drone engines and changed the 'engines (movement points) per move' rating to give drones a speed advantage without using 'bonus' movement. They are smaller than ships, after all and could logically be faster for the same engine power. I've considered giving the larger drones some 'inherent' supply capacity as well so they would have longer range. That would certainly make sense for a larger vehicle.

I'd like to know if anyone has tried 'special damage' warheads of any sort. Especially plague or neutron (population only) against planets, but also engine damaging or anything else against ships. SE4 combat doesn't seem to use spcial damage types when the warhead is a seperate component inside a vehicle. It seems it has to be a weapon that makes contact with the target outside the vehicle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

[ May 25, 2002, 19:22: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That sort of thing is said almost all the time in the actual military. The army with the fanciest uniforms usually loses. Going cheap also tends to win wars (see Sherman tank, etc.).

I understand the theory but in practice I don't think it applies, because the AI is not good at loading up troops or fighters (or I assume, drones). So in practice, it is better for the AI to waste 20 resources on a 50kT empty cargo bay, than to waste 200 resources on an empty 70kT cargo bay. Even if it would use the extra space sometimes, it's not really worth spending 10 times as much for cargo storage unless you are a smart human player who is really going to take advantage of it.

I could add a different tag though for "high-tech cargo storage".

Quote:

I mentioned size of ECM because its higher size takes over the space of two engines, thus making Proportions' drone less effective than standard.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Oh, I see. That's true in theory, but that's only for mega-high-tech components, which are expensive as well as large and hard to research. I have put AI hints in 2.3 that allow it to choose efficient models in terms of size and price.

On the advantage side for Proportions drone effectiveness, having only 2-4 engines instead of 6 also makes them longer-ranged, especially smaller ones. You could also put efficient engines on them to get longer-ranged (but slower) and cheaper drones.

Quote:

If I am not mistaking, you are going to make max. drone engines 2,3 and 4, as it was intended, right ? Drones are fun to play with ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, that's correct.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yep, the QNP in Proportions has similar effects using the standard engines. The drone hull has a lower Engines Per Move rating based on mass, so they require fewer engines for the same speed, which means lower supply use as well.

PvK

[ May 26, 2002, 04:05: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

Well, I don't think it is neccessary to complicate your mod any farther. Extra flag for high-level cargo would be nice but not that important. It is just pitty that right now AI will _never_ever_ use cargo bays II and III, it is a completely lost tech for it.
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Unrelated issue: I think it is a typo in standard (and every other SE IV mod ! ) systemtypes.txt file, but tri-star system II, one that is without any planets, should have a flag "empires can start in " false instead of true. Otherwise it is quite odd to have a homeworld in supposedly planet-free system. It happened to me just right now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Proportions mod Version 2.2 released
 

Is it really a pity the AI won't build Cargo 2/3, if it isn't smart enough to do anything but lose resources by doing so?

This, though, is the sort of thing that makes me really want MM to make it possible to add an unlimited number of ability tags with whatever names the modder wants. It would be really nice to be able to put in the design file "Cost-efficient cargo" instead of "Star - Unstable", and to not worry about side-effects or running out of usable tags.

As for system tags, yes, I think there may be a couple of funky ones allowed for home systems - I should review that. Meanwhile, enjoy the novelty. Too bad you probably didn't take Crystalline tech.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK