[Val]

Wow, very surprised to see so much activity after missing the weekend. Sorry guys!

PF - Didn't know we could add the Reactor := True bit, that is pretty cool! I had been getting them to add the reactor by requiring the generic AI to put supplies or solar generation on the ships (which only reactors and solar panels have). But, as SJ said this only gets the biggest reactor. The useless abil thing will need to be added as work on the AI progresses.


Some answers:

Web Site - Sent Spaceports an E*Mail about the site, once reactivated I am posting the mod in it's entirety as a single zip file. I will then post updates as the AI is fixed and new races are added.

Max # of Engines - the only places I put a max number of engines are on things like the Colony ship, Transports and Carriers. If you look closely on most of these ships the max number of engines IS the most engines you can put on the ship do to requirements in Colony/Cargo/FighterBay modules and in LifeSupport/Bridge/CrewQuarters. The AI was not building the ships until I changed this. It worked, so I left it as is.

External Cargo Pods v. Internal - In the show most ships seemed to use the external pods, so I stuck with that theame. You can change it around if you like.

Slow Move Early in the Game - The only reason everything is so slow at the beggining of the game is because of the fission engines, they are meant to be slow to make the begining of the game a slow expansion, which will pick up speed as you research better technology. If you want to make the game speed a bit faster, go into the TechArea.txt file and find "Fusion Utilization", change "Start Level :=" from 0 to 1. Then change "Tech Level Req 1 :=" from 3 to 1. This will start all races with Fusion Engines. Now you will need to do a FIND and REPLACE in the "Default_AI_Research.txt" file and replace Fission with Fusion to allow the AI's to research the higher levels as well.

Shag'Toth - They are (as BM said) are the SoulHunters. There should be a pic in their directory. The AI that is currently in the ShagToth folder looks for the Psychic tree, but this is for a game of standard SE IV. Instead of the Physic Racial ability they should be given "ShagToth Race" (Use caps as shown). This will give them access to their special racial techs (those that have been added as of yet.

AI - Weapon not "whatever" not found. This is because you still have AI in whichever race directory. Go into C:\Program Files\Shrapnel Games\Malfador Machinations\Space Empires IV\B5Mod(or whatever folder you put it in)\Pictures\Races\
Then go into each race folder and make sure the only "Race_AI_" files are the Anger, Fleets, General, Settings and Speech files. Then make sure you have the AI files I posted (further down this list) in an AI folder at the root of the B5Mod.

Individual races using their own weapons - Working on this now, I just wanted to focus on the generic AI first so it would be easier to convert at the end. I'll upload some specific racial AIs some time this week. If you want to do it yourselves, there are three main things you have to do:
1) Go to the Race_AI_General.txt file and change the "Race Opt # Num Advanced Traits :=" to one higher for each of the 3 (Race Opt 1, Opt 2, Opt 3). Then add a new Adv Trait line under each with the name of the race and the word race. So for the NarnRegime you would Up "Race Opt 1 Num Advanced Traits :=" from 2 to 3. Then go down 3 lines and add "Race Opt 1 Adv Trait 3 := Narn Race" then go down to "Race Opt 2 Num Advanced Traits :=" and raise it from 3 to 4. Go down 4 lines and add "Race Opt 2 Adv Trait 4 := Narn Race" then go down to "Race Opt 3 Num Advanced Traits :=" and raise it from 5 to 6, then go down 6 lines and add "Race Opt 3 Adv Trait 6 := Narn Race".

2)Now copy the "Default_AI_Research" file from the AI folder to the specific race folder and then do a find and replace for "General". So, far the NarnRegime, we would copy "Default_AI_Research" into the NarnRegime Race folder and rename it "Narn_AI_Research" then we would open it and do a FIND for General. Then replace the word general with the word "Narn", repeat this throughout the file. Now the AI will reserach Narn weapons. I would actually recommend copying the lines where they reserach the general weapons and pasting them right underneath and just change that to the "Narn" weapons, this way the race researches both types of weapons.

3) Now the hard part: Copy "Default_AI_DesignCreation" to the individual racial AI folder and edit the weapon types. Narn again - Copy file to the Narn folder and rename to "Narn_AI_DesignCreation". Go down to the various ships to the lines that say "Majority Weapon family Pick # :=" and change the numbers to Narn weapon numbers - this will require you to check the Components file and find out what Weapon Family each weapon belongs to. This can take a LOT of time.

No Weapons at start - This should not be the case if you are using the new Data and AI files. You should start with a few basic weapons.

Reactor Output - yeah, have to raise that!

Colony Mod issue - haven't seen the AI drop in 2 colony modueles, the colony ships were my first priority when I started to redo the AI, and if you are using the AI I posted (not the AI designs that came

Mass Drivers - These are pretty easy weapons to make and are pretty simply technology (occording to B5 tech material). The down side is they are Banned in most major treaties, so in a game between humans on a PBW it would be an atrocity, would love to have some major ANGER reaction in the game to when this weapon is used.

(Edit - Spelling)

[ 08 April 2002: Message edited by: Val ]