Re: Balance Mod
 

Hmm, wonder what got censored, as I did not use any inappropriate language.

What were the results of the strategy talks? Large ships become just big targets as they cannot close the distance. Most of the space has to be taken up with PD. There are counter strategies I know, but they just seem to take a large segment of ships out of play.

Re: Balance Mod
 

the most effective counter stragegy I can think of, is to have a smaller but faster escort which can close the gap, and is kitted to at least damage the enemy ship enough so it doesnt pose a threat to your main ships

Re: Balance Mod
 

That is the tough part, as players who use the dual plasma frigates concentrate on plasma missiles and engines.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Fighters or Drones made a good counter versus the frigates. Another consideration was that larger ships have a greater % of space for weapons so they could a similar missile heavy tactic and be more effective since a dual missile frigate has very little in the way of defensive measures.

Re: Balance Mod
 

There is a problem in BM 1.12 with construction/scrapping:

If the net resources go into negative numbers the AI starts to scrap units like mad even if there are enough resources left in the storage. However the construction of new units continues which leeds to a endless loop that cripples the AI empire.

And mines still are not launched from colonies in attacked systems as far as I see.

Is there a way to see which locations the AI designs as defensive/attack locations? Perhaps the problem lays in the evaluation of the locations.

Re: Balance Mod
 

A little question :
Is this BM 1.12 specific, or is it a general problem with the new patch?

Re: Balance Mod
 

It depends on the planet size, I've set up smaller (or non-breathable) planets to have smaller mine fields so that larger planets (and breathables) can have much larger mine fields than the previous 100. Defense location planets launch up to 20 per turn if they have 20 or more in cargo, while "core" planets would launch in groups of 40 or more if there not at they max number of mines.

---

The scrap routine is not necessarily to save resources, but to re-new the old units in storage with new designs. It kicks in when maintenance costs are higher than 90% of revenues. I want to add in a few more conditions though to re-fine this point though.

Re: Balance Mod
 

I've posted the updated source scripts and tech chart.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Just how high is the limit on the number of mines in a sector now? Or has the limit been removed in SE V and I didn't notice? I can't find a reference to it in the settings.txt file anymore. But in my current 1.11 game (nope, haven't upgraded to 1.12 yet) I'm trying to get through a warp point with an insane number of mines on it. I built enough mine sweepers to remove nine hundred mines and they all died when they entered the sector. What would lead an AI to put so many mines on a single warp point anyway?

Re: Balance Mod
 

The limits are not being enforced, but it's supposed to be 100 in the mod according to the data files. The AI might heap a lot of mines at one warp point if it was really the only one designated for protection.

Re: Balance Mod
 

I've altered settings.txt to have a minimum of 6 computer players at the medium setting to a maximum of 10. I've started new games with as few as 5, and as many as 14 computer players with the medium setting. Any ideas?

Re: Balance Mod
 

There's been reports of weird numbers of AI generated opponents - no real idea on what might be causing this...

Re: Balance Mod
 

OK, Thanks Kwok. 'Preciate the work you do on the mod!

Guess this is just another bug that needs stomping.

Re: Balance Mod
 

I tried to transfer 5 groups of fighters(10-20) each from space into a planet and it crashed on me. It happens between the 3rd and 4th try. Buffer overrun, or something stupid like that?

Re: Balance Mod
 

Are you using the launch/recover order or the cargo transfer order? I don't think the transfer order is really intended to transfer units in space to a planet's cargo.

If it's repeatable, then you should let MM know. It doesn't have anything to do with the mod itself.

Re: Balance Mod
 

I did a few tests. It only happens when you have 5 separate groups of fighters and if you used the transfer to planet command.

After a few more tests, I don't think it has anything to do with the speed of the transfer, but I haven't figured anything out besides the fact that transferring fighters from space makes you lose their supplies while recovering fighters does not.

I guess I'll have to use the launch recover command more.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Like I mentioned previously, the transfer order probably shouldn't allow the player to retrieve launched units. I'd assume the fact it does allow you do this is not intentional, but something missed by MM. Either way, it's worthwhile to pass on.

Re: Balance Mod
 

I wasn't planning to, but alright, how do I contact him?

P.S. Why do ships go around stars? Roleplaying? Hidden damage I'm not noticing?

Re: Balance Mod
 

Because they are not supposed to be able to occupy sectors marked in red. There's a bug right now where they can though.

E-mail MM... se5 at malfador dot com.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Greetings!

The next version of the Balance Mod, v1.13, is available for download. It has a few data file fixes along with more AI improvements.

http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

Note there are two versions you can download. You should download the v1.13 data only archive if you already have v1.11 or v1.12 installed, otherwise download the full version.

I hope to have a v1.14 update shortly, which will focus on making major AI design improvements.

The change log...

Version 1.13 (29 January 2008)
------------------------------

1. Changed - Tweaked the number of movement points required to move 1 hex for Small and Medium Freighters
2. Added - Organic fighters and troops now have a small hull bonus for Organic Armor regeneration
3. Fixed - Time Distrotion Burst was 30kT instead of 20kT
4. Changed - Increased combat launch rates for fighters, drones, and satellites
5. Changed - Clarified the log text associated with some intelligence projects
6. Changed - Increased unit maintenance to 10%
7. Fixed - It was still possible to add multiple Space Yards to the queue
8. Fixed - Organic and Crystalline Mines did not have 50% maintenance reduction
9. Changed - Matched space combat and ground combat damage for point-defense weapons
10. Changed - Removed Random Personality Group values from Settings.txt
11. Fixed - Error in nearby enemy target selection for fleets
12. Changed - Small improvements to AI wanted design types
13. Changed - AI will build and scrap planet improvement facilities when appropriate
14. Changed - Improved the AI's criteria for scrapping obsolete units
15. Added - Planets will sometimes recover launched units to remove obsolete ones
16. Changed - Customized unit group sizes for each empire
17. Changed - Improvements to the AI's Population Transport minister
18. Added - Additional descriptive text to some AI requests
19. Fixed - Sometimes the AI thought it was in a disconnected state when it wasn't
20. Added - AI will sometimes follow up its demands for enemies to remove their ships or colonies
21. Added - Extra checks for the AI to determine if there is an enemy presence on the other side of warp points
22. Changed - Improved the filtering on the AI's colonizable planet's list
23. Added - Updated AI Scripts
24. Added - Updated Event and Intelligence scripts

Re: Balance Mod
 

Can't wait to try it out.

Re: Balance Mod
 

I'm working on improving the AI's ship designs for v1.14, including a new scheme for AI weapon selection which will be based on the specific vehicle type, rather than ships versus units. Feel free to post suggestions or designs that you find work well for you.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Another item for your consideration...

I'm working on v1.14 right now, which includes adding a vehicle size distribution component to the AI's design creation. For example, a race might design up to 3 sizes of Attack Ships if they have a wide range of hull sizes available. There is also race specific variables that determine the shape of the distribution, that is whether or not the race focuses on building more small ships or fewer large ships. Currently I have this set up for the following AI design types - Attack Ships, Defense Ships, Missile Ships, Carriers, and Weapon Platforms.

I'm wondering how often you guys use variable sizes of other design types, like repair ships, supply ships, or other freighter based ships. Do you typically use the largest hull for them and similar types?

Re: Balance Mod
 

Usually I just use the biggest available hull size with the exeption of specialized ships (e.g. stellar manipulation ships).
More important IMO is the different composition of specialized fleets: defense/attack/planetary invasion fleets.

Re: Balance Mod
 

What if you were to use small ships as the front line short-range strategy force, with fewer guns and heavy shields/armor?
That would complement their defense bonuses while the big warships provide the heavy firepower from long range.

Re: Balance Mod
 

I'm not so concerned about the size distribution for the combat ships, as that's more or less determined by the race's weapon choices. But I wasn't sure how to best utilize the revised system for non-combat ships... is it really necessary to have multiple sizes of repair ships for the AI? Does having more smaller mine sweepers help their distribution between fleets or is single ship sweeping capacity more useful - ie larger mine sweepers? Those are the kinds of things I'm not sure about.

Re: Balance Mod
 

How do 'economics of scale' affect ship designs in the Balance Mod now? If larger ships are still "more efficient" then you'd make the best AI by just having it always use the largest available hull of the appropriate type. In many other games it does make sense to have support ships such as escorts be a few sizes smaller than "capital" ships but there are underlying design elements of SE that seem to make larger ships always more efficient, even in mods.

Re: Balance Mod
 

I use the smallest size to get job done - if I can contruct a repair ship or medical ship as a " destroyer " class and save resourses and build time thats' what I do

Re: Balance Mod
 

minesweepers are different larger hulls more " sweeping components quicker and more efficiernt job get done - samw for mine laying , satilites , so forth

Re: Balance Mod
 

It looks like I'll have to add suffixes to the design types to accomplish the new ship size scheme. I had wanted to avoid doing that so that I didn't have to add all sorts of extra conditional statements for a variety of ship/design functions, but the built-in script functions for picking and choosing design types operate entirely on the concept of 1 active design per design type.

I'm going to use the format "Attack Ship - Small", "Attack Ship - Medium", and "Attack Ship - Large" etc. for the design types that are subject to the size distribution scheme.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Version v1.14 is now available for download:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

This version has a few fixes and tweaks, along with a bunch of AI improvements. You'll see the AI using a variety of ship sizes, some new designs, and even do some rudimentary enemy design analysis.

It's compatible with all v1.10+ savegames.

Next up is v1.15, which will be a save game breaker and probably the last update of the mod for now.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Version 1.14 (20 February 2008)
-------------------------------

1. Fixed - Error in description for Starbase's life support and crew quarter requirements
2. Changed - Minor change to tech level requirements for Small Organic Armor and Small Crystalline Armor
3. Changed - Increased structure for Small Organic Armor and Small Crystalline Armors
4. Changed - Small increase to supply depletion amount of Power Lampreys and Power Leech Beams
5. Fixed - Error in damage amount for Heavy Ship Mount
6. Added - Extra design types with size suffixes to match new AI design types
7. Changed - Increased the structure amounts for some seeker weapons
8. Changed - Small tweaks to cost and storage amounts of Ordnance Vat and Small Ordnance Vat
9. Fixed - Error in cost increase for Large Ship Mount
10. Changed - Individualized each AI's distribution of ship sizes in their empires
11. Changed - Revised AI purchase system for wanted design types
12. Changed - The AI's weapon choices are now individualized to specific vehicle types
13. Fixed - Error in Default Aggressive AI that caused them to build multiple Spaceports in a system
14. Added - The AI will perform a rudimentary analysis on known enemy designs
15. Added - AIs will make small adjustments based on what components their enemies might be using
16. Fixed - AI fleets were sometimes stacking attack orders in locations too far apart to manage effectively
17. Changed - Re-activated Minister - Cargo Transports to ferry Weapon Platforms to defense systems with Cargo Transports
18. Added - The AI will sometimes scrap non-resource facilities to build resource facilities if urgently needed
19. Fixed - Error that sometimes prevented the AI from building Weapon Platforms when they cost more than the queue's usage rate
20. Changed - Lots of little tweaks and improvements to the AI's designs
21. Fixed - Ships in fleets were not being added to the desired task force
22. Changed - Small improvements to the AI's distribution of minor colony types
23. Changed - Made some enhancements to how the AI determines its maximum maintenance amount
24. Fixed - AI was not always despersing Life Support and Crew Quarters between inner and outer slots
25. Fixed - Sometimes the AI would send treaty requests with no elements
26. Added - Updated AI Scripts
</pre><hr />

Re: Balance Mod
 

Any feedback on the AI's performance in v1.14?

Re: Balance Mod
 

Some fighter bombers early game don't have weapons.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Which race?

Re: Balance Mod
 

Phong, so far. And, sometimes the treaty states that you have trade up to 50% but the treaties are limited to 30%. Which one is it suppose to be?

Re: Balance Mod
 

It should be 30%, but every so often for some odd reason it exceeds that value. No idea why or how it happens.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Oddly enough, I've seen this too...

In GGmod, I have the trade limited to 2%, but it comes out as 22%.
It might be adding to the stock values.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Trade modifier ability?

Re: Balance Mod
 

No, the trade levels in settings.txt

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>Treaty Element Maximum Trade Percentage 1 := -10
Treaty Element Maximum Trade Percentage 2 := 2
Treaty Element Maximum Trade Percentage 3 := 4
Treaty Element Maximum Trade Percentage 4 := 6
Treaty Element Maximum Trade Percentage 5 := 8
Treaty Element Maximum Trade Percentage 6 := 10</pre><hr />

Re: Balance Mod
 

Mr Kwok , I am playing SE5 , version 1.66 ,Balance Mod 1.13 and just now reseaching Heavy Cruisers so if you have already done this please disregard question. Do you have any thoughts of incorporating a " Minator " class ship , massive , heavily armed , shielded and armored , and expensive but can only move at the most 4-6 spots at a time so you would have to think long and hard about including it in a fleet , yet as a stand alone still could be overwhelmed by a large enemy force ? Thank you for your thoughts and a great mod

Re: Balance Mod
 

What you describe is just a large ship with fewer engines and more combat oriented components. You can easily design such a ship now without the adding a new hull type.

The hull names in SE5 are really just descriptions to generally let the player know the approximately ship size and not necessarily its role.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Let's say I would like to make a ship larger than the Jaugernaut class { 2000 kt } , how would I go about doing that ?

Re: Balance Mod
 

The biggest ship in the Balance Mod is the Baseship, which tops out at 1800kT. It fits most of your conditions - it's big and slow. Rather than add a new entry though, you can just modify the size of that one. The entry is in VehicleSizes.txt found in the data folder. Perhaps start it at 2000 and let it increase at 200 per level as shown below. That's 2000 to 3000 over its 6 tech levels.

Example:
Tonnage Space Formula := 2000 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 200)
Tonnage Structure Formula := 2000 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 200)

Re: Balance Mod
 

Thank you

Re: Balance Mod
 

When do you think the save game breaker version will come out?. I have a BM game starting in a month or so. I thought I'd mention the next version if it was coming out around that time.

Re: Balance Mod
 

About a month or so.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Restarted with BM 1.14 recently and have got some amazing ferocity out of an AI opponent that I met early in the game (just reached 100 turns yesterday). The Sergetti. There is still a tendency to produce fighters without weapons. If not for this, they would be even more dangerous. Say, were the Sergetti a "crystalline tech" race in stock? I don't think so. But anyway, they are fighting with amazing focus for an AI. I've had a half-dozen fully assembled fleets thrown at me in about 20 turns. If not for micro-management of combat I'd have been clobbered because my own empire was really not prepared for the war. Eventually I hope my superior strategic planning skills will let me win, but I made the mistake of giving the AI a "low" bonus at setup. I'm only just barely #1 in the score rankings right now. We shall see...

Re: Balance Mod
 

That's good to hear. Is this an AI team game?

The Sergetti are crystalline in stock as well.

There's a couple of fighter bomber designs that are having trouble sticking Small Rocket Pods due to lack space, which is behind the weaponless fighters.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Cutting armor, 1 engine and a ordinance slot allows for a small rocket pod.

Re: Balance Mod
 

Nope, just a standard single-player game. I sure wish that the suggestion for the AI to give the reason for their anger had been implemented. I've got several allies and some of them are getting annoyed at me, but I can't figure out why.

The Sergetti have apparently been nasty all around, though, because they are in many wars. This has relieved the pressure on me and my empire is building strength as fast as I can figure out how to do it. Soon, I will go on the attack and probably take the Sergetti homeworld first because it's so close (victory condition for this game is 'destroy all homeworlds).