Re: Proportions 2.1 available
 

At fisrst I whnt to say what a great mod Proportions is, It s my absolut favorit at moment (even if I cange a vew things http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ).

Now a word of warning: Don't use the upgrade Facilitys Button if you bild a city as it would be instantly upgraded to the highest City Facility your race know!

Re: Proportions 2.1 available
 

Would a level higher than large fighter, say "shuttle", be unbalanced if one were able to load small boarding parties or landing troops on them?

Also, by adding this 2.1 patch to my newly started 2.0 game, can I expect minor or major problems, or would you just recomend waiting until 2.2.

Re: Proportions 2.1 available
 

I don't know if boarding parties work on fighters or not. If they did, they should get a reload time of 30 to prevent one fighter from capturing dozens of small ships. The boarding strength should probably be low enough that it could only capture a ship with one crew quarters and no defensive troops. Since boarding attacks can't combine, this would make for kind of a limited surprise design, although I guess it could be useful against a player or AI that liked to use lots of small ships without shields.

I suppose a REALLY large fighter could be made just to hold a really large boarding party weapon that would have enough men to overcome larger security forces, but it should be very expensive and have reload 30, and the fighter should be slow and not so hard to hit, if it's going to be at all balanced versus conventional ship-mounted boarding parties, because the fighter ones will not require repair after use, and will not have a maintenance cost, and will not require a ship to carry them and lower their own shields to use them, all of which are major advantages.

As for carrying troops, a fighter can't do that, because units can't carry other units. The landing shuttle would have to be a small ship, in which case it'd have to fly to a target by itself, because nothing can carry ships.

Proportions 2.1 can and should be used with existing 2.0 games, I would say. The only major change to existing stuff will be heavy ship mounts, which will suddenly require less space and cost more, meaning designs that use them can now be upgraded to include some more stuff.

There might be an issue with the new Gold patch and Proportions - I ran a test game in Gold 1.66 and the AI wasn't building colony ships, whereas it definitely was with the same Version of Proportions on Gold 1.60. I'll try to figure that out by this weekend sometime.

PvK

Re: Proportions 2.1 available
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by PvK:
There might be an issue with the new Gold patch and Proportions - I ran a test game in Gold 1.66 and the AI wasn't building colony ships, whereas it definitely was with the same Version of Proportions on Gold 1.60. I'll try to figure that out by this weekend sometime.

PvK<hr></blockquote>

If I take a look into the release notes, it looks like several issues regarding colonizers have been struggled with:

Version 1.61:
1. Changed - The Default_Ai_Construction_Vehicles.txt file will now allow for the design name or the design type. The term "Colonizer" is till hard-coded to be evaluated to the needed type of colonizer. When looking for the design to build, the game will look for the latest design which matches the design name. If no match is found, then the latest design which matches the design type will be located. If neither is found, this purchase item will be skipped.

Version 1.62:
1. Fixed - The AI was not purchasing colonizing ships.

But my guess is this one, due to the extraordinary costs of colonizers in proportions:

Version 1.66:
4. Fixed - Improved the AI's calculation of resources available for purchases of ships and units.

Re: Proportions 2.1 available
 

Re: Unit boarding parties

AFAIK, units aren't checked for ship capture. In the earliest Versions of P&N, pirate fighters had "Swashbuckler Pods"; but due to hard code issues, they didn't do anything (except take up space and look pretty http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ).

S_J would probably have the latest on this, though.

Re: Proportions 2.1 available
 

I'll probably hold off on the patch (when I find a way to download it since the .exe won't pass the firewall) since I prefer playing Proportions with the AI able to build colonizers...

Re: Proportions 2.1 available
 

Wr8th re: firewall.

Just get someone to zip it and email it to you, that'll work, won't it?

I'll do it if you like, mail me on dogscoff@altavista.co.uk

Re: Proportions 2.1 available
 

Thanks very much D. for your kind offer.

I'm gonna try a workaround and see if my wife can download it (they don't have the same firewall restriction where she works). I don't want to put anyone out if I can avoid it. If my idea doesn't work, I'll take you up on your offer.

Thanks again.

Re: Proportions 2.1 available
 

PvK,

What's the reason behind making the new tri-polar map the default. Does the AI work better with it vs. others?

Re: Proportions 2.1 available
 

The Tri-Polar quadrant is just my current favourite. I like the layout and variety of the quadrant shapes and connections it creates, and it's the Last one I tweaked. It is pretty good for the current AI because it has a relatively low number of planetless systems. The Sidereal type is pretty good for the AI, too. I'm hoping to steal some time to tweak the AI a bit for 2.2, and then that'll matter less.

I am thinking that Gold 1.67 does have an issue with the AI for Colony Ship design in Proportions, so I'll try to come up with a 2.2 to deal with it, as soon as my spare time allows (I'm not sure what I need to do to fix it, but I think/hope it might be simple.)

Oleg, thanks for the comment on the Temporal Shifter. Let's see... hmm, yes, I think you're right - I'll extend the highest tech level in about the same way as with the NSP.

PvK