Re: B5 MOD General
 

Oh yeah, and im STILL waiting for a PBW game using this mod. I posted a similar post several weeks ago btw.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

I was waiting for the go ahead to slap together a single (image mod less) download file of the latest version.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

If you are waiting for a go-ahead from me, by all means go ahead! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Can you point me to the latest working data and AI files then? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: B5 MOD General
 

How about I just repost them? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Sorry about not getting to this sooner. School has become rather hectic. Have you made any progress since a month ago?

Re: B5 MOD General
 

I've got sort of an issue playing the mod in single-player. The Ai seems pretty inactive, most notably a while into the game. Even races I'm at war with never really send any fleets to destroy me. I've got 5 ships in a Narn system, I'm Centauri, and we're at war. They've got 54 real combat ships, destroyers, etc., hovering over a planet nearby. But they never use the ships.
That seems to be the rule in all the games I've played with the mod. The Ai just let me do my thing, and I don't even notice we're at war, really.

I can basically research to the end of the research tree without building a single combat ship, then build a high-tech fleet to wipe everyone out, because the other races never interfer anyway, even if we're at war.

I always play in big galaxies, with many Ai players.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

The TDM mod (Found on pbw - seiv.pbw.cc) is an AI mod that has much better AI.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Yah, I've tried the TDM mod, but is there some way to use it with the B5 mod? Perhaps replace all the B5 Ai files except the Ai research & design files?

Re: B5 MOD General
 

I thought the AI files were straight out of the TDM modpack with the exception of research, speech, design, Planet Types and general. I will have to verify that, but the AI is definately too passive. I am not sure that it is based on the AI files, though.

Somebody might want to just try out the AI_anger files by copying the Default_AI_anger.txt to the AI folder and then pulling out the race AI_anger files into the pictures/races folder (so they all use the default AI_anger) and see if that makes a difference? You should not have to start a new game, just see if it changes the behavior in your existing game and let us know.

If there is anyone who actually knows much about the AI system, they might be able to advise us as well.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

I looked through some of the AI files, and I'd have to agree that there doesn't seem to be any way to make the AI more active, that I can see. I'm not sure to what extent the 'Anger' factor matters though. If a very angry AI actually makes more attacks/fleet movements than a not so angry AI, if they both are already at war.

I did find two settings that I'm not sure I really understand:
Percentage of Allied Planets to consider as Attack Locations for Anger := 20
Percentage of Enemy Planets to consider as Attack Locations for Anger := 10

It's in the AI_Settings file.

Other than that, at the top of the files it says:
B5 NarnRegime based on Mephistos Narn Regime Version 2.50 (TDM)

I presume the TDM means that the AI files are mostly from the TDM modpack, in which case the AI should be optimal, assuming the design files and such are well done.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

I recall some discussion of the fact that Proportions-type mods all had Ai aggressiveness issues. Anyone else recall discussions on that topic?

Re: B5 MOD General
 

One theory I have is that the Supply system in the B5 Mod might create unforeseen problems. I mean, if the core AI engine makes decisions based on ship supplies, and how the supply system works unmodded(meaning ships not continually getting resupplied by a reactor), that could pose a problem.

A possible solution, for testing purposes, and seeing if this is the actual reason, could be to decrease the supplies needed for engines & weapons to close to nothing, and observe if the AI would fly around & attack more.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Re: B5 MOD General
 

A great idea, and easily done given the engine mount system. Ya wanna give it a whirl, or wait until I can get to it in a week or so?

Re: B5 MOD General
 

No one was requesting changes, so I didn't make any pending some feedback. In the last coupla days some suggestions were made, but it is going to take some time to chanse them down, and if i were you I would just go ahead and create the mod download as any changes hereafter will likely be AI tweaks.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Okay, I decreased supplies needed for all the engines in the mod from 1000 to 5, then started up the same game with Centauri. Pressed 'next turn', and behold, 30 of the 50 ships were already on the move. Gonna play this game a little more to see how it affects the game, then try a new one.

There's an error in the Centauri_AI_DesignCreation file:
"um Misc Abilities" instead of "Num Misc Abilities", on both the Gas & Ice colony ship designs.

Also, although you probably know this, the Shadow tech tree is not working at all.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Great work, Raapys. Keep us posted.

This would also explain why, in my test game, the Vorlons were aggressive as hell - they had plenty o'supplies. Should be an easy fix if your testing proves that supplies are the issue.

And yes, the Shadows and Vorlons do nor research. They are not player races, and have what they have from the start. late game you can take them on, early on you buy them off.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Playing with Minbari this time, and everything is actually working great. Plenty of races in the game, all the main ones + some neutral, and ships are flying everywhere, patrolling, AI's dropping satelites at warp points, etc.
Just now the Narn's have over 10 different fleets with everything from 5 to 15 ships in them, and they're currently at war with the Earth Alliance, who's crusing around with 40~odd ships in their fleet.

Unfortunately, the AI got a little super-active with the warp point manipulation, so the Earth Alliance is completely cut off from everyone else atm.

I've not actually been attacked yet, though, but that's because everyone actually desired peace with me. Kinda minbarish, I guess.

What I meant with the Shadow tech tree, however, was that I get a message when starting a game with them in it, about something wrong with the reasearch file. Now, I'm pretty sure this has to do with me partly using the prior verison too, where the shadows could research, but I'm unsure how to fix it, since I've never really modded before, beyond changing the engine supply usage. Tried re-copying the newest data files over again, but that didn't actually change anything. Should I just clear out the entire Shadow ai research file thingy?

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Raapys,

Great stuff, and I will be so happy if the problem turns out to be this simple. I am modifying engine mounds (easier than modding the engines themselves) to accomodate.

Are you saying the AI is closing warp points? I have never seen the AI to any stellar mods and thought it was accepted that the AI never would. That is super if I am wrong.

The different fleet sizes seem an unexpected side twist, but actually a welcome one. I was thinking about playing around with the fleet size and number variables to differentiate between races, but don't think I actualy did anything in this version. Maybe I don't need to.

Well done. Keep us posted. This is the kind of feedback I have been seeking. I will look into the Shadow tech tree/research issue.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Raapys, delete the AI_research.txt for the Shadows. there is not one in the current mod, so they just do generic research (which for them will be nothing at all that they can use). I have modded the HH to delete research and made the Ancients Research center unavailable.

I have played around a bit with the lowered supply consumption for engines and find that the AI is much more active. This may be the fix that was needed, so if people can playtest to make sure, that would be great.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Working on the new mod file upload.

In Facilities.txt, there were 5 instances of ability descriptions consisting of "1". I have removed these.

In RacialTraits.txt, I added 3 section headers with help info on selecting traits in the same manner as Adamant and AIC. Hopefully you don't mind. Note that any existing empire files will be invalidated by this, but I think it is worth it...

House Ship component for Centauri is useless. It is only 35% maint. redux unlike 40% for Corporate Ship, and it comes with an increased combat penalty, 35% instead of 30%.

Due to being in the same family, I can stack Civilian and Corporate Ship to get 100% maintenance reduction... If you put them in the same family and move Corporate after Military, the exploit will vanish and both should appear with "hide obsolete" enabled. If the House Ship is made to be better than Corporate, it will hide the Corporate one. Worker Caste could be moved after Civilian, and Religious can be left appearing after House. They should all be in the same family to prevent exploits. Warrior Caste should as well, but we need another dummy comp to go between it and religious so that it shows up... I'll try fixing this and include it in the mod.

EDIT:
Ok, I put all of them in the same family, which prevents multiples from being used. Unfortunately, this causes them to be upgraded to Military Ship when you hit "upgrade." I think this is a tolerable tradeoff to prevent cheating for 0 maintenance ships...

Re: B5 MOD General
 

1-18-06 Is there an up-dated mod??



(Edit) I have 1.8

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Hey, feel free to include:
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/.../SJsFTLmap.MAP
in future releases.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

I think the mod makes changes to map data files, thus breaking compatibility...

So I am going to go ahead with the ship hull type schema, since noone has objected...

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Hi all,

After a long period of adsence I'm back!
The reason I was out of the picture for so long is quite... well... hard.
I was hit by a truck. It wasn't a pretty sight. Anyway, I won't go into detail here. Suffice to say I was more in pieces than whole... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Now I'm back and I still see the B5 Mod Thread still on top of the heap I'm quite happy.
Good work everyone!
Anything from Val yet?
And what about moving to a Strategy First forum? I got a small message which said something like that.
Can someone fill me in please?

Re: B5 MOD General
 

SE4 has been republished by Strategy First, and it was supposed to have gone to retail back in September... So far it is only available as a download. Hopefully they can get SE5 published in retail on time.

Shrapnel has announced that this forum will be sticking around, so there is no reason to move to S1st forums, which are a hassle to use anyways.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Hey Fyron!
Thanks for the info. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: B5 MOD General
 

The mod uses the old map files, so I think new ones might break.

The hull schema you have produced is good. i have never figured out the "right" one, and what you have is better than what I had.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Hey Grumbler!
Everything alright?
Good to see you're still active.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Would anybody like to try a PBW game of B5 themed CarrierBattles to help refresh your creative juices?

B5 or B5-like shipsets would be mandatory, and some RP would be encouraged.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Damn SJ, that really sounds very nice. Unfortunately I absolutely don't have the time for that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
Thanks for the offer though. Maybe a few others of this thread? Come on people, this is a good offer. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: B5 MOD General
 

SJ, sounds great but I really don't have time.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Not to be a complainer, but I just recently downloaded the B5 Mod from http://www.geocities.com/b5mod/B5ModHome.html and gave it a shot, and I have to say it "ain't ever gonna be high on my list", to quote an old D.I. of mine. It seemed clunky and disorganized, and even the basic operation sounds were ... annoying.

The only good parts were the efforts put into the various minor races' ship sets, and the weapon sounds.

Sorry, JMO....

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Understandable, but this is a very, very, very large and involving mod. Unless you're familiar with B5 most of the things won't make very much sense.

And to be a bit annoying myself, if you do not want to complain, why have you posted that message? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Well, I was hopin' that you'd see the reason beyond the complaint.

Guess not.

I am, and have been, a huge B5 fan. I am very familiar with the universe Michael Straczynski created. I've read and heard so much about this Mod, and am personally very interested in seeing a workable version come to fruition. I went so far as to try it myself, completely through, before expressing any thoughts or opinions. And once done, I decided to offer my words here with the intent of putting fresh words from an unrecognized name to what appears to be a bogged down subject with the hopes of adding a bit of motivation or clarity. And while there was more I'd considered saying, I hadn't planned to make this an attack, but merely an observation.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Well, I'm a huge B5 fan, and playing the latest version of this mod(1.91 or something) I find it very entertaining. Granted, I had problems that I mentioned a few posts up, but I managed to fix those, so the AI is now just as active as in the stock game.

One thing I did find confusing at first was the way the weapon researching system worked, but since I figured that out I don't have many complains about the mod at all. The complains I do have are more bound to the limits of the stock game then the mod itself, and more of a lack of things than anything else.

Although I haven't tried the version you're referring to(1.42 was it?) so I can't speak on behalf of that. I downloaded the full 1.8 package and then updated with the 1.9 Beta2 files found in this thread a few posts back.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

I haven't seen or heard of the versions you've mentioned. Could they be something different, or maybe I found an older, clunkier version ?

Where did you find the version and update you've mentioned ?

Re: B5 MOD General
 

http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/MM/SE4/Mods/B5mod/
This is for the 1.8 big version, then http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...?Number=392169
for the latest data/AI files.

Two things you should do, until a patch arrive, is to delete the Shadow_AI_Reasearch.txt for the Shadow race(SE4\b5mod\pictures\races\shadows), since they don't do any research, and change the supply usage for all the engines in the game to something low, like 5. You can find that in the components.txt file(SE4\b5mod\data), and just do a search for fission engine, then the rest of the engines will be just below it.

The number you're supposed to change is: "Supply Amount Used := X" to "Supply Amount Used := 5" on all engines.

Not really necessary if you don't wanna go through the work, but if you don't the AI will be very passive and barely move its ships at all.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Black Knyght:
In no way was my answer an attack. Just like your observation.
It's just such a complicated mod and it's been in production for soooo long it's hard to explain the gaps in The Mod. Also you have to get into the feel of The Mod.
I hope you will give it another chance, because the folks who have made this wonderful piece of SE IV programming really deserve it. And if the people don't deserve it, the mod itself sure as hell deserves it. So put on your happy hat and start enjoying. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif
Happy hunting with this mod.
Maybe when SE V comes along, we'll start building another B5 Mod.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

To Raapys :Thanx for the info. I've downloaded it and I'll give it another shot sometime this weekend. I'll give you my honest assessment after I've played it a bit. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif


To Timstone http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gifidn't think you were attacking me, just figured maybe I'd bent you're nose outta shape a bit. Just wanted to be up front and honest 'bout my thoughts on the Mod. Input, both positive AND negative, is usually a good tool. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: B5 MOD General
 

I am attaching a zip with the CompEnhancement.txt file that fixes the supply usage issue (that was easier than changing the components). Let me know if you still see any sluggish AI behavior (I haven't yet).

This should not adversely effect saved games.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Hi all,

Are we still alive in here?
It's been a long time since I've checked in. Good to know my profile still exsists. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif
I hope I'll have the time again to start visiting this wonderful forum every day. Just like in ye olde days.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Alive and Kickin'. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Forum still rocks too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Alrighty then!

Re: B5 MOD General
 

At long last, I have uploaded the complete Gold/Deluxe B5 Mod!

B5 Mod 1.94

I added a cheesy Startmenu.bmp for 1.95 compatibility. would be nice if someone with actual skills made a nicer one. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I went ahead with merging all the ship classes into one family and using separators idea I posted a while back. Hopefully it works out ok!

Re: B5 MOD General
 

wb, Timstone.

Re: B5 MOD General
 

I guess this mean Welcome Back?
If it does, thanks Narf! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif


Fyron:
Oh yeah, you made a nice complete pack. Great work!

Re: B5 MOD General
 

Welcome back http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: B5 MOD General
 

OK, thanks AT! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif