Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

It would seem that since I set up remote mining components to use crew quarters that after remote mining is researched the AI switches its preference to wanting to use the crew component ability used by remote mining components. Since those components are 100kt the AI wasn't able to add them to the designs.

Now how do I make regular crew quarter components more valuable to the AI than the remote mining one?

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

and why do remote miners NEED crew quarter components ?????

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

They needed them in order to prevent people from using the hulls, which they could get pretty quickly, from cheating. The Resource Ships had a requirement for 16 and 26 crew quarters but the crew quarter component could only be added 10 times to any design. Therefore I added it to the remote mining components thus forcing players to add at least 6 to 16 remote mining components to the two hull sizes (1005kt and 2305kt).

However I went ahead and revamped this system. I removed the crew quarter ability from remote mining components and made the Resource Ships (now called Remote Mining Ship I / II) worthless as far as weapons platforms go. I gave them a -500% to hit bonus and -500% to defense bonus. This makes them very easy targets that even though heavily armed cannot hit the broad side of a barn.

Problem solved, I hope.

I am still working on version 1.9.7, but here is what I have done so for. (STM)

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

looks good so far

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

See the answer I posted on SEnet:

http://www.spaceempires.net/home/ftopict-2692-.html

You can re-implement your system and get the AI to use normal CQ without much trouble at all. An important thing to consider is that the AI cannot use remote mining in any intelligent fashion, so there is no point in having them design such ships. The restriction is only relevant for human designers anyways. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Thank you Fyron. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Well I have the Klingon adding armor to their designs now. I had to give them their own special armor. Once they had that, they were hooked.

Now I am off to work on the AI Neutral fleet issues. I hope I can figure out what is going wrong there.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Just passed by this forum as I was looking for more info on that Lost Empire game Kolis mentioned. Looks interesting - a bit like a good old school MOO2-like game with funny races and all, with a good story which I have missed since MOO2 came out. Any of you guys know anything about the Lost Empire-game? I only know whats on the site - havent been able to find out anything else.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

what you see is what we know about it as well

it looks like a fun game and i hope it's not like Moo3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

My 200 turn test game went well. The AI is designing good ships, researching well, and expanding evenly. STM is certainly not a game one would play if one is expecting a 100 to 200 turn game. This mod is more along the lines of 1,000 to 2,000 turns per game.

Any who I noticed a few things that the AI doesn't research right off and I am going to put in some missing tech and re-order the research file a bit. I think the AI should be researching other colony types sooner in the game.

Research is a hit miss thing. You can put all the important stuff ahead of everything else but you soon discover there is no such thing as unimportant technology.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Bought that lost empire game now - installing now. They released it on www.gamersgate.com - will get back with feedback once I played it a bit:)

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Ya let us know how it plays out.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Definately looking forward to it....AT, how goes the AST 2.0 mod http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif?

GB

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Right now I am working on finishing up the STM update. Once that is completed I will be free to focus on getting AST 2.0 finished. Then hopefully onto the Star Wars mod I go.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Cool...my map continues as well...

GB

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Star Trek Mod
Version 1.9.7.1
UPDATE PATCH (Includes Minor AI fix as of 2:30am 6-22-07)

Please read the Install Info STM 197 document before installing.

Please report any bugs or other issues.

Thank you and enjoy.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Tech Tree for version 1.9.7 of the Star Trek Mod.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Maybe something went wrong when I patched 1.96 to 1.97, but now I'm getting the following errors upon starting a new game:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
pictures\races\vaadwaur\vaadwaur_ai_designcreation .txt
Could not find field "Misc Ability 9 Name" in record "Satellite Layer".
... "Misc Ability 9 Spaces Per One" in record "Satellite Layer".
... "Misc Ability 10 Name" in record "Satellite Layer".
... "Misc Ability 10 Spaces Per One" in record "Satellite Layer".

</pre><hr />

Same happens for
ktarians, tamarian, gorn, kazon, nausicaan, andorian, hirogen, orion

Don't have the time to re-install STM completely atm, will look into it this evening ..

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Hi,
Newbie on this site, playing for years, still have Stars! and was playing The Star Trek Mod when I looked if there was an update. Well there was. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Now I have the same problems after installing the new patch. It gives the same error as when you still have the Borgmonsters in the mod playing the last version.
Hope that helps btw copy/paste the races from 1.962 removes the problem.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Your DO NOT have to do a reinstall. This is just a minor script error in the design creation file. Its an easy fix.

This seems to be a problem with one of the AI scripts. I will look at it tonight. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Not a major issue. When the error occurs the AI simply switches from AI script for that race to the Default AI script. I will try and find the problem. Thanks for reporting it.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Could you please be more specific? I removed the racial trait "Borg Monsters" and removed all references to them in the component, facility, and tech area files. I will bet that you may not have completely follow the direction out lined in the "Install Info STM 197" document and delete the BorgMonster race folder.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Here is a fix for STM v1971 Neutral AI.

This will correct the AI_DesignCreation Satellite Layer error that has been reported.

I have also updated the full patch and re-uploaded it.

If you don't want to re-download the patch, then simply download this fix and install it.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

I have had comments about people wanting to know what is different about this current version as opposed to older version. The mod has a file in it called RevisionText and that file shows all the changes that I have made to the mod since version 1.0

Here is a link to view the Revision History of the Star Trek Mod.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

You overlooked to fix the Andorians (file still reports 2007-06-06 instead of 2007-06-21, and error still pops up).



Furthermore there might be some issue with species 8472
- They use the repair barges as satellite layers, attack and defense ships early on - not terribly cost effective.
- I'm pretty sure they used another (more organic looking) pic for their life support with 1.94, and I think they maybe even had another one for their crew quarters, but I'm not sure 'bout that. No, can't check with v1.94, I havn't backed up the folder...

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Thanks. To fix the Andorian file just open the Design Creation file and click edit, then find and type in Satellite Layer. When it finds the satellite layer scroll down to the Number of Abilities and change that from 10 to 8. Will update the download and the fix patch later.

As to 8472 AI issues. Not much I can do about what the AI likes to do. I will look into it though.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Both the Update and the Fix patch have been updated.

If you download the patch now you don't need to download the fix update. The patch is current with all fixes.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

I really appreciate the work you put in this mod ..
.. but I have to say it's fairly broken for SP gaming at this point:


Repair Barge Problem
This is not only a "8472" problem: Making the repair yards as big as a spaceyard resulted in monstrous repair barges - and the AI always uses the biggest hull available for combat ships.. and ends up with attack barges at "Repair 1".
Moving the repair up the research tree (or setting the AI to research "repair" very late) does not do any good: it does refit its ships, and often. With the minimal (downmodded) repair facilities of space yards this takes the ships out of service quite a large amount of time: Either repair has to be re-integrated into shipyards and other components, or at least the yards made considerably smaller - or is there any way to restrict the use of the repair barge hull?

Base Weapon Mount
- is available for Biokinetic Ray only, Pulsed Bk-Ray does not - intentional ?

Light (Base) vs Standard (Base) Shields
cost 20/80/40, size 10, dam res. 15, 35 p.s.p, 6 to sh., 5 regen (light)
cost 25/100/50, size 20, dam res 15, 52 p.s.p., 6 to sh., 5 regen (standard)
.. I would always go with 2x Light instead of 1x Standard Shield: 60% more ressource costs doesn't matter if I can get 35% more shielding from the same space used !!

Monsters
Is it intentional that they start with tech for 1 ship (Cube), but do not use it? They don't get borg tech to outfit it, but monster tech which would not fit. The first monster ship needs "monster tech 2", though, what they research first, needing &gt;100 turns ..
All they (can) do is building "Monster Bases: Base Space Yard" .. without any yard component or the ability to actually build ships!
Btw, "monster habitat" does not show any abilities, yet it seems to generate ressource points?!

Caspians use Federation Shipset and tech?

Orion Syndicate does not design Colony Ships
They don't have a hull big enough for a colony module! Obviously, this is because they have "Pirate Tech" .. but how is that supposed to work out? Maybe instead of going for standard "Ship Contruction" they should go for "Pirate Ship Construction", ship boarding and troops for invasions ?

Chalnoth cannot leave their system ! (??)
That's ok with their racial description - but their build/research list should be modified accordingly! Building heaps of Explorers, Colony Ships and Pop Transports does not make that much sense here ..

Sheliak are constantly scrapping their ships despite having heaps of ressources?! Haven't found out why, e.g. when I peeked into their turn a colonizer was scrapped .. while there where 4 "red" unsettled planets in their home system ..

If the tech tree got "straigthened out" to make it actually compatible with the AI (errors) and someone gives me a hint or two how the AI works, I would gladly help out with the AI scripts for some nations - just PM me!

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Thanks for the list. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

The Romulans are not using cloaking tech either. So there will be another update in a week or so to address some issues.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

No problem writing down everything that bugs me ;-)
If you make some fixes, PM or email (the files) to me and I'll try and do a quick test game to see if I can find some more things to quibble about http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Orion Syndicate
Figured out why they don't colonize:
The have
Race Opt 1 Adv Trait 1 := Pirate Race
yet not the (new?)
Pirate Colony Tech

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

"Gas World Natives" advanced trait should cost at least 500 points in STM.

There's no competition for gas giant planets, and gas giant are plentyful and (nearly) always medium size or bigger.
As there's seemingly no way to make them generally ressource poor, at least the races living on them should have inferior stats.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Pack Rats trait broken / too cheap

Seemingly not only halves the storage (ressources, units), but the general planet size (facilities, population). Yet it only gives 500 points. For 3x 150 points you could take 3x "Disorganized XY Storage" and get full number of pop and facilities for 50 points only.

edit: Considering the fact that +50% storage ("advanced miniaturization" or something like that) cost you 1500 pts., maybe you should get 1500pts. for halved planets as well

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

General Race Tech / Pirate Race / Pirate Colony Tech text is misleading

If you select "General Race" and "Pirate Race", you'll get double items .. yet the pirate buildings are not better then the general ones ?[/b]
e.g.
- Escort &amp; Raider hull, 200kt, 200/100/100 costs
- 2x Colony Ship, 500kt, 300/200/50 and 250/250/250 costs
- Space Port, Res.depot, Constr.yard 1, SysCapital ... AND .. Space Port, Res.Depot, Constr.Yard 1, Open Market
- Intelligence Center 1, Secred Service 1, Spy Center 1, Spy Network 1
- 2x Research Center
etc etc.

Interestingly enough, if "General Race Tech" is de-selected, you get ONLY slave ressource facilities as if you had chosen the slaver trait. What I did not only on the 3rd try, because there's no hint that both get you actually the same things. Yet, those are not vastly better than the standard ones as the text from the pirate trait selection screen suggests?!

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Arr, you can do it just fine. It'll show some other ship pictures instead of the other ones due to how the file is set up.


Knock yourself out, bro.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

The STM doesn't use any special ship images other than shuttles, which are also fighters, and most of the neo-standard images. Juggernaut is an extra image but should use baseship as a back up.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Thanks. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
It will take me some time to go through you lists but THANK YOU for them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Here's a cursor that I made for easy viewing

http://home.comcast.net/~anglewyrm/Selection.bmp


Sattelites
Sattelite weapons use supplies, but I don't see any supply storage modules available? Is this by design? Are sattelites only allowed around planets?

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

I can give satellites a storage ability.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Repair Barge Problem
Added new tech "Repair Ship." By not adding this tech to the AI research file the AI will not research this tech thus ending this problem.

Light (Base) vs Standard (Base) Shields
Adjusted shield percentage for Light, Standard, and Heavy ship and base mounts. Lowered the ship mount, increased the standard and heavy amounts for ships and bases.

Monsters
I will have to think about this one for a bit. I am thinking about having the Borg's have their own tech tree that they research that the other monsters do not. Perhaps this will solve the problem.

Caspians use Federation Shipset and tech?
Yes.

Orion Syndicate does not design Colony Ships
I haven't spend a lot of time with this race. It really is just an RPG race. I will look into them and see if I can fix this for SP games.

Chalnoth
I don't know what to say other than I can only adjust some minor AI files to try and lower this amount again. The problem is that there is NO WAY to specifically limit the AI from making ships that it doesn't need after a certain point. All one can do is try to limit them a bit.

Sheliak
I have no idea why they would do this other than to say that this might be a problem with ship sizes. They want to build larger ships but cannot, so they scrap the ones they don't need, try to build a larger ship, cannot, so they build a colony ship and start the cycle all over again. The AI is a real problem since it NEVER really does what you want or need it to do.

I don't know what to say to this other than there is only so much you can do. The order in which the AI researches is as close to the way a human would choose to research that I can make it. There are "hidden" tech from the AI on purpose to prevent the AI from accessing technology that it doesn't need to research because it doesn't need it.

"Gas World Natives" advanced trait should cost at least 500 points in STM.
Good point. I like this idea.

Pack Rats trait broken / too cheap
Good point. I will investigate your suggestion. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

General Race Tech / Pirate Race / Pirate Colony Tech text is misleading
Interesting observation. I don't recall if I have the Pirate Race set up to use both General Race and Pirate or not. Ideally they shouldn't be using both traits. But again I don't recall how I have this set up. I really didn't spend a lot of time on the Pirate Race trait. I should go back through this and address it in some detail.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Satellites have infinite supplies, like bases, troops and weapon platforms. Giving them storage components is a waste of time and resources.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Ok, thanks -- I'll redesign my transports to include a sattelite layer, and deploy some warp-point monitors.

Transports Population
I've set them to auto-do-their-thing, but...There's a pack of about half a dozen small transports that keep departing from Bre'el V en route to Taleed Beta system(see attached); they head through a warp point, then decide they are low on fuel and come back. Rinse and repeat.

Perhaps destinations should be checked against fuel supply before deciding to go there.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Light Ship vs. Normal Ship Shield mounts
Are either still unchanged (I thought you fixed them - for details look ~25 posts back in this thread) or back to the old, wrong values.
Basically they have the same problem as the Base Shield Mounts - light version is preferable to normal one, no matter what.


Large Reactor Mount (Base) range +2 or +5 ?
Text says +2, but info says +5 and it does +5 ...

Large Reactor Mount (Base) does not work on Pirate Weapons/Pirate Race Weapons
Sucks to be a pirate with everyone elses weapon outranging yours ..


Primary/Secondary (Ship) Weapon Mounts and Weapons types are mixed up
Obviously, the "continuous" beam weapons are more suited for firing at small, fast moving targets (+5% to hit), while the pulse variety is more suited to deliver massive damage to easier hit targets (~ +10% damage, -10% to hit).
Yet, beams are restricted to "Ships, Planets", while pulsed weapons can target "Ships\Fighters\Drones\Satellites".
Mounts follow this (IMHO wrong) sheme: Primary Mount works for beam, secondary mount works for pulse weapons .. as if someone would use the primary weapon on a ship to shoot at fighters and satellites and only the secondary to target planets.
The mounts boni should be re-considered as well ..

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

The thing is that this is how it is suppose to work. Your ships are designed correctly, and they have sufficient supplies, however those supplies are rapidly depleted when a ship uses its maximum movement each turn. The Bussard collectors replenish supplies over time, and having a resupply base in each system becomes very important to players. Also later on when you research replicators and get more advanced Bussard collectors and ram scoop's the supply issue becomes less of an issue. I alway like to add one or more supply components to my designs in order to increase their overall maximum range. But for the most part I just set transports to auto and let the AI worry about them. I try to put a resupply base on most of my planets, but its a pretty low priority at game start.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Thanks Arralen. I have adjusted the ship shield mounts as well to try and off set this. I know we discussed this many many months ago and I too thought we had resolved it.

Thanks for the other info too.

Primary/Secondary (Ship) Weapon Mounts and Weapons types are mixed up
You make a very good point. But to change this system now would require a significant amount of time and re-constructive effort. I will give it some thought and we will see if I am up to the challenge of changing things or not.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Here is what I have done so far.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Primary/Secondary (Ship) Weapon Mounts and Weapons types are mixed up

I have given due consideration to this issue and while I fully understand your point of view, and agree with it, have decided that it would require to much work and effort to change at this point in time.

I had to go back to my original notes from way way back and in those notes I found that I had chosen to use pulse weapons as secondary weapons because the intermittent beams were used by many sci-fi shows such as BSG, Buck Rogers, Star Wars, and such in an anti-fighter way. Also people wanted pulse weapons and I had to come up with a way to make them useful in the mod. Also sustained beams, in star trek and other shows, have been historically used as the POWER weapon. Since they only fired a single beam, they were not efficient enough to be used for targeting smaller objects.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Here is the latest work I have completed.

After this update is posted, in few days, I will finalize the AST 2.0 Mod and release it.

The AST 2.0 Mod is a considerably different kind of mod from STM. AST has a different racial trait system, some neutral AI's won't colonize, some will, has a more simplified tech tree, with each race having its own individual tech tree, limited number of major players, more neutral players, and a more BOTF feel than STM provides.

Once AST 2.0 is released, I hope to begin work on the Star Wars mod.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

I guess I was unclear: The AI transport minister is sending transports on impossible missions. The entire fleet of transports are stuck in a loop. Each ship gets low on gas, and is told to go home, which was supposed to be how it works.

But while the first ship is returning for gas, another ship is ordered to do the impossible mission. In this way, all the transports have accidentally gathered together to fail at doing the job. It's a hole the fleet falls into, like lemmings jumping off a cliff. Emergent behavior at it's worst.

This probably means that enemy ships are doing the same thing; being ordered to go places they cannot reach.

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

Still, this is WAD .. the problem is within the game logic, not in the mod. Instead of checking first if a ship can reach the destination, one minister sends it out, and the supply minister calls it back halfway through because its running out of supplies ... .

Sort of workaround would be to have ships with fuel gen by bussards nearly equal to the fuel usage at top speed ... .

Re: The Star Trek Mod - New Version Available
 

If the problem exists in stock, then it is not the mod. If the problem does not exist in stock, but does exist in the mod, then it is in the mod.