Oleg, I'm really glad you and others are enjoying Proportions so much! Thanks for writing in about it!
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Originally posted by oleg:
PvK, thank you very much for this mod !
I tried the mod first time yesterday and I am now totally enchanted by it !
This is indeed how SEIV should be made in the first place, IMHO.
The mod is so good and so revolutionary that I want to suggest to change the mod name to something more catchy, like "real universe mod", "SEIV as it should be", etc.
Other mods, like P&N or Devnulmod, have nice and inventive ship components and facilities but none comes even close to the fantastic change in game play provided by Proportions mod.
That's nice to hear. However I don't think everyone would prefer it to regular SE4 or other mods. Mainly if you're interested in more realistic and steady scale and proportions (in several senses), that's what it does. It makes for a slower game, though, in terms of how long it takes to develop colonies and technology. Personally, I like the slower game because there is much less micromanagement to do to colonies each turn, and because game situations are more stable (a planet is never going to be built up from a lifeless rock to fully developed in a year or two, the way it can be in the unmodded game). However, the unmodded game offers the ability to get results a lot faster.
The mod was called Proportions because it started as just the size and scale adjustments (and a few tweaks) from a larger mod called Foundations which I didn't manage to complete in time for the Gold disk (and which I hope to finish some time after I'm satisfied with Proportions). Foundations, if I ever do finish it, is like Proportions but it also revises and develops the tech tree a lot.
For some players, SE4 is already very strategic and the pace is right for them. I'm really glad to see there are quite a few players interested in playing at this different pace and scale.
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You mentioned in mod info that this mod is not good for single player because AI is not adapted to it. However, I think that with some AI tweaks it can be actually made much more chalenging than even TDM-Modpac.
Just consider what happens in "normal" SEIV when you play against, for example, medium-bonus AI.
At first, AI has an edge due to the 3X bonus to production, science and constraction. But soon enough, more efficient expansion and build up by human player eradicates this advantage. This is may not be true in "propotions". Home worlds are extremely important. Even after human player colonize dozens or so worlds, homeworld still provide you the major chunk of production and science. It means that even after many years and frantic build-up by human player, 3X AI bus applied to its homeworld, should still gives AI a big edge. I like it, I really, really like it.
Yes, you're right about that. That's one of the major points of the mod - to greatly reduce the tendency for the widest-expanding player to completely dominate the game very quickly. Even if an AI is a neutral or is stuck in a corner of the map behind black holes or something, it will at least have reasonable tech and a developed fleet even if players find them later in the game.
Important advantages can still be built by developing colonies, but it takes a lot of time and effort to do so.
The AI is getting better, and will improve more in later Versions. The original Version 1.3 wasn't very good because it would only try to build cultural centers on its colonies. The 1.5 AI is pretty good (especially Amon'krie) but has two main weaknesses - it rarely builds long-ranged ships, and in theory its planets could use more defense (although, it does tend to build some good powerful defenses, but not TONS of defenses, like a human can). The first problem is important in quadrants with very many planetless systems, because the AI will often not explore past them because its ships are too short-ranged.
I will work on improving these. I know how to fix the range problem, and I think the first Gold patch might let me fix the second problem too, but it is a fairly large amount of work so I just haven't gotten to it yet.
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The only problem is how to make AI to protect homeworld at all cost. There was a thread some time ago about planetary defence and how to beef it up. There were some very good ideas posted, as I remember.
There are some good weapon changes in this mod. I certainly welcome better torpedoes. However, it made some nice racial weapons next to useless. For exapmle, temporal canons and high-energy magnifiers are completely inferior to improved quantum torpedoes and WMG.
Overall, crystalline trait needs either decrease in cost or ehhanced weapons/facilities. The planetary development is now much more important and while organic (replicant center), temporal (temporal space yard) and religious (nature shrine) help you, crystalline gives you nothing in this respect. Psychic may need some adjustments too.
I will look at these and make some adjustments for 1.6.
(1.5 did increase the shard cannon damage and some other things, so it's at least good against organic armor. I'll take another look at the other weapons, though.)
PvK
[ 25 March 2002: Message edited by: PvK ]