Cultural Modifiers
 

I decided to test and see what Cultural Modifiers actually worked and created a culture with a 50% bonus in everything. Here's the result:

Production Does not work
Research Works
Intelligence Works
Trade Works
Space Combat Does not work
Ground Combat Works
Happines Works
Maintenance Works
SY Rate Works (both types)
Repair Works

A couple of things I learned while doing this:

The minimum 5% maintenance is definetly hardcoded.

Repair seems to be rounded down. In my test with I had a ship with 9 damaged components visit a planet with a space yard that had a repair rate of 5. It repaired 7 components in one turn. 5*1.5 = 7.5 which by mathematical rules would have been rounded up but the game rounded it down. Haven't done any extensive testing to verify this but I believe it is correct.

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

Bummer.

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

Yes, is sad. You tested the "cultural Modifiers." Basically, then, when designing an empire, one might as well set "ship def" as low as it will go, and use the points to improve other things, like happiness?

Is that correct?

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Yes, is sad. You tested the "cultural Modifiers." Basically, then, when designing an empire, one might as well set "ship def" as low as it will go, and use the points to improve other things, like happiness?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I love Ship defence. With a 25% bonus, on average, you can halve the beam weapon hits to your ships. Add in some shield regenerators and your ships become nearly undefeatable. I have a dreadnaught in one of my games that went to attack a solitary, mine-damaged phong DN. 9 others decloaked. My 18% bonus to defence reduced the enemy HEM beams to a 30% chance to hit, and with regenerators, I was able to survive all 25 rounds and kill 60% of the enemy force before running out of supplies and getting my shieldless, immobile *** kicked. The DN managed to survive till turn 30, when two of my BCs arrived to finish off the now-crippled enemy.

Ship defence rocks! And regenerators are awesome.

PS: It only took a year to get home and repair my DN, but it became quite legendary after that battle http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 25 June 2001).]

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

JenMax,
I think it only effects the cultural modifier. I've never seen any complaints that the characteristic modifiers don't work. I hope they do!

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The minimum 5% maintenance is definetly hardcoded.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Do you mean that even if you use +25% in maintenance reduction, you still have 5%? Or is the maintenance reduction just limited to +15% (in SETTINGS.TXT)?

And, also, if this screws up my Nomad's negative maintenance on resource ships, I will NOT be happy.

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

I wouldn't delete patch 1.35 just yet. The settings file hasn't changed so it may be a hardcode change.

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

JenMax, this is the cultural modifiers you get when selecting a culture under the culture tab when designing a race. Each culture has a set number of advantages/disadvantages. Not the characteristics you can change at will under the characteristics tab. As far as I know the characteristics all work just fine. They always have for me anyway.

suicide_junkie, I'm not really sure. All I know is that my race with a 50% cultural modifier to maintenance still payed 5% maintenance.

The only lines settings.txt that deal with maintenance are these:

Maintenance Cost Amt Per Dead := 20000
Empire Starting Percent Maint Cost := 25
Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Max Pct := 120
Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Min Pct := 80
Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Pct Cost := 50
Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Threshold := 10
Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Threshhold Pct Cost Pos := 200
Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Threshhold Pct Cost Neg := 5

Looks to me like it has to be hardcoded since I can't find a line in settings.txt that defines minimum maintainance. And since the maintenance reduction can still go to 20% and is not limited to +15% in settings.txt I'd say it's hardcoded. Looks like you're Nomads are up **** creek without a paddle.

Please don't shoot the messenger. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

Dammit WHY?!?

We could have just changed one value in settings.txt to fix the problem, if we wanted it fixed! Some of us like playing with no maintenance, and this just sucks.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

There's still hope for my Nomads, though... has anybody tried running P&N under the 1.41 patch?
Do I have to post a copy of the 1.35 patch with my mod?

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jubala:
I decided to test and see what Cultural Modifiers actually worked and created a culture with a 50% bonus in everything. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good work! Thanks for doing it! My Workers culture not getting the bonus bothered me, but not enough to do a mod. Now the REALLY BIG QUESTION is why the beta testers can not do simple things like this to check out functionality. I suspect that this has been very well known for some time but it has not been considered important enough to fix. Send your mod to MM and everybody lobby for a fix in the NEXT patch.
Something this game needs is a known bugs post by MM listing the priority assigned to bug fixes. Post it on the forum and read the reactions to see whether the priorities are ok.

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

Very good work Jubala, thank you.
I knew about the non-working production modifier but that the space combat modifier does not work was new to me.

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Dammit WHY?!?

We could have just changed one value in settings.txt to fix the problem, if we wanted it fixed! Some of us like playing with no maintenance, and this just sucks.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

There's still hope for my Nomads, though... has anybody tried running P&N under the 1.41 patch?
Do I have to post a copy of the 1.35 patch with my mod?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It definetely is hardcoded to 5% maintenance now, in another Thread (AI without maintenance) I have tried to vote for a button in game settings to disable this... http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

I'll mail my findings to MM as soon as my ISP's bloody mail servers decides to join the living again. Damn thing is down for the second time in a week now! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon8.gif

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

Yes, Jubala, I do understand the difference between CULTURAL modifiers, and other empire characteristices. I was concerned BECAUSE racial points, (shold more properly be called "empire points?"), etc. all feed into one another. Juggling them has become a mini game within a game. So perhaps, me thinks, the problem with cultural modifies MIGHT also overflow into the others. I am glad they do not. One less thing to fix...Thank you for all the work on ascertaining what works and what doesn't. I appreociate it.

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JenMax:

...racial points, (shold more properly be called "empire points?")...
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Finally someone who understands me.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jubala:

I decided to test and see what Cultural Modifiers actually worked and created a culture with a 50% bonus in everything.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Maybe some culture modifiers doesn't work properly if you increase the bonus too much (50% in this case would be "too much")?

I know some modifiers doesn't work if you put a negative value on them. Sometimes the game won't execute correctly if you play around with the cultures.txt the way I would to.

Has anyone confirmed Jubala's great effort? (I'm asking since I'm too lazy to try it myself)

------------------
"The best way to seek help is to help the best seek the way."
-Philter

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lucanos:


Has anyone confirmed Jubala's great effort? (I'm asking since I'm too lazy to try it myself)
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

LCC has, at least for production modifiers:
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/For...ML/003051.html

I'm going to change every culture to neutral, cause I'm too lazy to find a new balance... I think the cultural modifiers are sometimes not fairly distributed also (compare Schemers to Xenophobes, who would like to be Xeno ?). http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...s/confused.gif

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

I just made them all do nothing... seeing as how its a disadvantage to those who use the cultures with broken modifiers. Now I see them as more of a Role-Playing thing...

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

That the production modifier for cultures didn't work has been known for some time so I decided to see what else if anything didn't work. Space combat didn't.

And I just tested Space Combat again with a 10% modifier to see if Lucanos whas on to something. He was not since it still didn't work.

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

*sigh*...this STILL isnt working, eh? Is it something that is not correctibly or is something that is just consistantly 'missed' when patches are being done?

I think it added a good bit of 'flavor' to the races and different from the 'purchaseable' traits. It also allowed for some neat 'stacking' of bonuses (if they worked!)

Any clue on a timetable for this one? If it is something that is not going to be able to be fixed, how about just removing it? It is currently doing more harm than good.

Talenn

[This message has been edited by Talenn (edited 26 June 2001).]

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

Talenn, I don't think it's quite that bad. After all, 8 out of 10 of the cultural modifiers do work. Granted, it's two of the most interesting, but still.

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jubala:
Talenn, I don't think it's quite that bad. After all, 8 out of 10 of the cultural modifiers do work. Granted, it's two of the most interesting, but still.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Production modifiers in culture don't work also (have checked that again), and I guess that ground combat modifiers could be corrupted also...

So the only working cultures are: Traders, Artisans, Scientists, Schemers, Xenophobes.

That's less than 50%. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

Eeeep...and to think that I always picked Berserkers for the Space Combat bonus *sigh*

Since Space Combat bonus doesn't work does this also mean that the Space Combat penalty (like Merchants) which some cultures get also don't work?

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

Yes, that's less than 50%, but only two out of ten modifiers are broken so it would be possible to change the cultures so none of them use the broken ones, ie Space Combat and Production.

Ground Combat does work. I tested it several times to make sure. The only ones broken are Space Combat and Production.

Re: Cultural Modifiers
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Shoujo:
Since Space Combat bonus doesn't work does this also mean that the Space Combat penalty (like Merchants) which some cultures get also don't work?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes.