The Rage Collective 1.1
 

After receiving great feedback on the Rage 1.0, I have fixed a couple of bugs and improved both the AI and the ship set.

I posted the zip file in the Mod Forum. Let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

I must agree with you Tampa!
The Rage is a great race, in fact, is the only race that can fight with the race that I'm doing for the AI tournament! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif
Seriously, congrats Alpha and thanks!

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

Alpha - great race! I was just getting ready to give you my comments on playing it Last night against my upcoming Piundon mod and voila! you have a new Version already. I will see if you covered my comments already.

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

Alpha Kodiak I had a look at your new Version of the Rage and I would thank you very much for your great work. I love the Rage very much (no of course I hate them and want to destroy them http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif ).
Some feedback or suggestions:
I am not sure if the advanced storage technology is really that important for a very aggressive expanding race like the rage. I always see empty planets in reach that could be colonized and I play in a small quadrant with initially 16 empires, 10 planets each! Due to the heavy fighting colonies are destroyed, leaving room for new ones. And keep in mind, that the more colonies you have the more you can construct!The advanced storage technique IMO is more important for neutral empires, who do not expand beyond their system.
In the fighter design there is still the wrong "combat sensor" instead of "combat to hit offense plus". The combat sensors seems quite important to me for fighters.
In the design for the attack ships and bases you have supply storage and solar supply generation components. I agree that this may be helpful in the beginning, but as the designs are now they will still be included in the design when quantum reactors are used. I know it is difficult to avoid this completely, because until now we have no possibility to make a design obsolete when a certain technology becomes available. But it helps if you put the low technology items at the end of the component list of the design.
As for the mortal enemies: Think of a race with religious and organic technology together! Organic weapons, armor and religious talisman would be tremendous. If I had the time I would do this e.g. with the Earth Alliance and make them a rather peaceful empire, but it will be lot of work to create the research and design files!
Sorry for the long post and thank's again.

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

I have added Rage as a quick pick for the game and have added it as one of the random races. If anyone wants the modified file to add them as a quick pick let me know.

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

Thank you all for your kind words! I have thoroughly enjoyed the work I have done on the Rage so far. Since they seem to be working well, with no real glitches, I am going to let the 1.1 Version ride for a little while so people play with them. That will give me a chance to play around with some new attack designs I have been thinking of, possibly changing a racial trait, or anything else I can think of to make them even nastier.

Please continue to give feedback here as you play with the Rage. The points mentioned so far are excellent and many will be incorporated in one form or another in the 2.0 Version of the Rage (release date not set http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif ), or possibly as part of their arch-enemy, the <<REFERENCE DELETED FOR SECURITY PURPOSES>>.

Thanks!

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

Alpha Kodiak here I've got some more feedback for you:

In my game with full tech it's now about turn 110 and the Rage are doing fine after they had a hard time fighting against multiple stronger empires. For a while they ran out of resources but I play with no computer bonus. The resource problem was solved after I persuaded them into a Trade Alliance with me (United Federation of Planets). Now they are again constructing attack ships like mad!
In the combats I realized a major problem of the Rage: They use now as specified from you phased polaron beams as main weapon but you gave them maximum weapon range as strategy. This works not well. After I changed it to optimal weapon range they did much better. Maximum weapon range is good when you use missiles or if you have 100% hit chance by the religious talisman.
In another topic about minesweepers I proposed the inclusion of a minesweeper component in attack ships, because the AI (as the Rage) build minesweepers but they send them unprotected on mission so they got easily killed before the can sweep the minefields. I did this now for the Rage because many empires in my game use mines (including the Rage themselves) and the Rage lost many ships in the minefields. I seems to work very well!
One Last minor point: should a very aggressive race like the Rage not get angry about allied planets? Now they have "false" in the settings file.
Thank you again for your great work and I look forward to see more of it!

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

Well, i decided to take the plunge and add some of the mods out there. My question is if they will interfere with each other. so if i use the rage and, say, modpack 1.61, will they use the same files or anything like that, or do i not need to worry about this.

Also, any helpful hints for a newbie modder?

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dumbluck:
Well, i decided to take the plunge and add some of the mods out there. My question is if they will interfere with each other. so if i use the rage and, say, modpack 1.61, will they use the same files or anything like that, or do i not need to worry about this.

Also, any helpful hints for a newbie modder?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

To the first question, the Rage is compatible with the modpack, and should be compatible with most mods because it only adds AI files for the Rage race. It does not change any other data files.

As to getting started, what I did was figure out what I did when I played that seemed to be effective against the AI. Then I came up with a plan for making a race that would a) do as many of those things as possible, and b) as impervious as possible to those things. After that, it became a process of looking at the AI files for some of the stock races and comparing them to the files for the most effective mod races. See what you like and what you dislike from each and try to put together the best combination possible.

It's mostly trial and error, and it takes a lot of time, but it is a lot of fun.

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Q:
Alpha Kodiak here I've got some more feedback for you:

In my game with full tech it's now about turn 110 and the Rage are doing fine after they had a hard time fighting against multiple stronger empires. For a while they ran out of resources but I play with no computer bonus. The resource problem was solved after I persuaded them into a Trade Alliance with me (United Federation of Planets). Now they are again constructing attack ships like mad!
In the combats I realized a major problem of the Rage: They use now as specified from you phased polaron beams as main weapon but you gave them maximum weapon range as strategy. This works not well. After I changed it to optimal weapon range they did much better. Maximum weapon range is good when you use missiles or if you have 100% hit chance by the religious talisman.
In another topic about minesweepers I proposed the inclusion of a minesweeper component in attack ships, because the AI (as the Rage) build minesweepers but they send them unprotected on mission so they got easily killed before the can sweep the minefields. I did this now for the Rage because many empires in my game use mines (including the Rage themselves) and the Rage lost many ships in the minefields. I seems to work very well!
One Last minor point: should a very aggressive race like the Rage not get angry about allied planets? Now they have "false" in the settings file.
Thank you again for your great work and I look forward to see more of it! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The range issue presents an interesting problem. When I put together the plan for the Rage, I wanted them to be heavy missile Users to start, so if you start off with low tech, they use missiles for a long time. Until they get phased polaron beams, they don't currently use any direct fire weapons except for point defense. In that time frame, maximum weapons range works great.

I don't know how to change the strategy once they get direct fire weapons, and it seems like optimal weapons range leaves them more susceptible to the missile dance early on. I noticed that when I tested them in full-tech games they had a harder time than in low-tech-start games, and the range issue is a big part of the problem. I also noticed a drop off in performance in a low-tech game once most of the Rage ships were predominately direct fire.

If anyone knows how to shift the strategy with the new tech, I would love to hear how to do it.

Currently, the allied planet anger is close to a non-issue since they won't make treaties above non-aggression in v1.1 and not many of those. I set the anger setting to false early on because I hate it when I get an AI race to make a treaty, then they get mad because of the planets I own. I am thinking about letting the Rage do trade alliances again, so I'll have to decide what to do about the anger setting.

I do like the point about mine sweepers in attack ships. While I was testing the Rage, I was more confused than anything else, trying to figure out what it thought it was doing with mine sweepers. I saw it completely ignore a known mine field, even though it had sweepers available, then saw it send sweepers across enemy space trying to get to a minefield that didn't seem to be much in the way, at least to me. (The sweepers were killed in transit, so I never found out what the purpose was supposed to be.)

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

Alpha Kodiak wrote:
"If anyone knows how to shift the strategy with the new tech, I would love to hear how to do it."
I don't think you can do it at this moment as well as you can't make a ship design obsolete for the AI in the design file. I proposed to MM to include a line in the design-construction that would make the AI not to use this design any more if a specified technology is available. Remember the problem with supply components and solar collectors in a ship with a quantum reactor? Same situation!

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

The changes Q mentions are interesting, I may download the rage just for their AI when the next Version comes out, I wasn't impressed too much by the rage ships on universal shipyards but this AI sounds like a work of art. :0)

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

I've been playing around with some AI tweaks that address some of the issues mentioned here. I've switched the attack range to optimal firing range, and it seems to be working better. I'm trying to find a good balance point for mine sweepers on attack ships without weakening the attack ship to much, and a few other items.

I have a question on cloaks. For the Rage attack ships, is the cloaking device worth the space it takes? Does it make sense for the Rage to use the cloak at all, or should they just come in, guns blazing?

I'm still at least a few days out from releasing a new Version, but I like what I see so far. Thanks for the suggestions to this point, and please continue to give feedback. There is no way I could go through all the situations that this game throws at you by myself!

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

Alpha:
I have noted, that the Cloak device is a lot more weak than the Cloak in SE3, then, in my opinion the Cloak device itself is not very important, because is only good to attack systems without Recon Satellites.

BUT... in my opinion, the Stealth Armor is much better: is fast to research, gives protection to the ship, some defensive bonus, save 1 component space, and gives to you the first level of Cloak.

Also, if the other empire have Recon Satellites with sensors, usually is very easy to research the 3 levels of sensors, then, the stealth armor will be like the Cloak Device 3, in cloak terms...

Then, in the tech tree of the AI race that I'm doing, I put the Cloak Devices at the bottom, and the Cloak armor more early.

Sadly in games with all the tech tree from the start, it not work... because the AI always use the high level, and at this case, is the Cloak Device 3.

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

Alpha Kodiak I strongly recommend you not to use cloaking if you put minesweeping components on the attack ships. They will not work if the ship is cloaked (see separate topic on this forum)! I saw the Rage build quite a few cloaked minesweepers and some of them were lost in the minefields withour sweeping any mines and the others were killed by the enemy because they had sensors that made the cloaking ineffective.
Generally I find cloaking to easy to be countered by recon satellites and I therefore use it seldom, but this is really a matter of taste.

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

Well I like the Rage. It's a great idea.

They run out of resources fast though because of so many ships. Maybe allowing Trade Treaties could help here. Also, the weapons range (mention below) can be a problem. I wonder, can I change it mid-game? I mean set the Rage as a human player, change the setting and then set them back to computer play?

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

Belverus: you can change the combat strategy... but is not easy: you need to change the strategy of the current fleets, but also, modify the _Fleets.txt.

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dracus:
I have added Rage as a quick pick for the game and have added it as one of the random races. If anyone wants the modified file to add them as a quick pick let me know. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I just saw your post, somehow my eyes must have missed it before. (I hate getting old, though I guess it beats the alternative!)

Please post the modified file. I need to see what it is you do to make it a quick pick and to make it available as a random race. (I know the info has been posted on the forum before, but I haven't had time to go back and look.

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

Alpha Kodiak another feedback of the Rage in my game:

They have now an attack fleet of over 20 battleships with one mine sweeping component
in every attack ship. They cleared the enemy minefields without problem and wiped out one colony after the other of the Borg. I couldn't have done this better! The Borg are doomed.

[This message has been edited by Q (edited 30 March 2001).]

Re: The Rage Collective 1.1
 

I have made a lot of the changes that have been mentioned here and put it together in a 1.2 Version that should be ready to go by this weekend. It changes the combat strategy, adds minesweepers to attack ships, and adds medical bays to population transports - an idea mentioned in another thread. It also removes cloaks from most ship classes. There is also now a short ranged Defensive ship class with heavier firepower. I didn't wind up changing any racial traits, as I didn't want to upset the research tree. I feel that, other than needing a few tweaks that I've made, it is working pretty well.

Thanks again for the feedback! It is making the Rage better all the time.