[grumbler]

Timstone,

I have not been posting for a while because I was involved in two truly excellent games using some ideas you and I batted around a while ago.

First, I followed up on your idea of having a "core facility" at each colony, followed by specialized facilities. I modded the colony hub aand homeworld hub to include spaceyard facilities and made it the first priority in every colony (I dumped all the other spaceyard facilities by making their tech levels impossible). It was then possible to make reasonable AI choices for all combinations of planets, and that worked out well. Its a bit more dull for the human player, as he really cannot do better than the AI, but that's a price I was willing to pay.

As part of this, I also boosted greatly the cost and build points of base shipyards, so that ships were built in space, but this is a pet project and not necessary for the success of the AI in colonizing.

I also made colony modules carry 50 pop and cost 3 times normal (lest the homeworlds become too depopulated). This also worked out very well.

In both games, I played non-"prime time" races (the Narn in one, the Centauri in the other). After 300 turns, I wasn't in the lead in either game. In fact, in the Centauri game I conquered the Gaim and the Minbari and still was in third place after 300 turns, with less than half the points of the leader, the EA!

The only thing I noticed as a problem was that Black Hole systems basically stymie the AI player. The AI just keeps sending in their colonizers and the colonizers don't have the speed to escape. In one game, the LNAW had a total population of under 2 billion, because they had another 2 billion or so on 40 colonizers caught in a black hole's grav well two systems away from homeworld. Maybe the whole Black Hole issue needs to be revisited with QNP.

In any case, the ideas you had for Version 2 seem to be solid. I haven't ever enjoyed a solo game of B5 as much as I have these two based on your ideas.

I also have QNP fighter stats if you are interested...