FQM Reactions

Gandalph · #1 September 21st, 2003, 06:36 AM

Damaging warp points bug the piss out of me and screw up the AI. Other than that, great MOD.

Fyron · #2 September 21st, 2003, 06:58 AM

You can mod them out by setting the Chance line for the damaging abilities in StellarAbilityTypes.txt to 0 on the Unstable Warp Point...

QuarianRex · #3 September 21st, 2003, 08:12 AM

Overall it's a great mod. There's only two things that irk though. One is the multi-coloured (and damaging) warp points. It's a major annoyance having ten colonizers forget where they were going after sustaining a lttle warp damage. And I have to say that I hated the multi-colour scheme. I kept thinking that It was pride week in the galaxy, or that the supreme creator of the SE4 universe must really, really like the circus. I went through the system files and fixed it more to my liking.

The other thing that are somewhat irksome are the atmosphere-laden moons. Originally I liked the idea but then it seemed like there were no "normal" moons left. Instead of seeing a planet with moons all I saw were a cluster of planets. It made me miss seeing actual moons. And it kind-of took some of the fun out of terraforming. In short, I like atmosphere moons, but I just wish that they were more rare. So that finding one would be an interesting bonus instead of just part of the routine.

Oh, and tiny gas giants. Please get rid of tiny (and small) gas giants. They freak me out.

Fyron · #4 September 21st, 2003, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by QuarianRex:
[QB]Overall it's a great mod. There's only two things that irk though. One is the multi-coloured (and damaging) warp points. It's a major annoyance having ten colonizers forget where they were going after sustaining a lttle warp damage.

Yeah, that is annoying...

Quote:

And I have to say that I hated the multi-colour scheme. I kept thinking that It was pride week in the galaxy, or that the supreme creator of the SE4 universe must really, really like the circus. I went through the system files and fixed it more to my liking.

I found the blue ones boring.

I could probably include some alternate SectType files with different colors of WPs... would not help much with PBW games though.

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The other thing that are somewhat irksome are the atmosphere-laden moons...

Hmm... I do have some moons forced to be none... I suppose more could be done. It would help out the none atmosphere races, which kind of get screwed in FQM....

Quote:

Oh, and tiny gas giants. Please get rid of tiny (and small) gas giants. They freak me out.

Why do they freak you out?

Who is to say it is impossible to have "tiny" or "small" gas planets? Also, perhaps they are just really really dense.

Slynky · #5 September 21st, 2003, 03:05 PM

I'm in a game using your mod.

For the most part, I think it's a well-balanced mod...no advantages to certain atmospheres and planet types. However, in this game, I'm creating planets. What I don't know is if the FQM mod comes into play when a new planet is randomly generated. BUT, something seems wrong. I've created around 50 planets and only ONE has turned out being NONE atmosphere. Not what I would call random (or else I've had bad luck). The majority were rock (around 30). Gas was next followed by ice. Carbon dioxide was the clear winner in atmospheres.

So, I was just wondering if the mod had its effect placed on planet creation. If so, then something seems out of place with regards to generating random NONE atmospheres.

Otherwise, I like the mod. One sure does have to click to look at the moons, though (hehe). Yes, tend to agree with another poster about those "asteroid" systems where the entire thing is filled up with asteroids...but it doesn't occur that often (judging it from the occurances in the PBW tourney map).

One question, though: I don't think I've seen planets with percentages higher than 150. Is that right? Why not make it a bit more realistic (well, perhaps it's more realistic) by upping the resource percentages where planets occur with lots of high-resource asteroids. Seems a bit weird to see all those asteroid fields with numbers in the 200's and check out the planets to see them with wimpy resources. Just a thought. Perhaps the logic is too difficult to create (i.e., this logic: IF "lots of asteroids" then PLANET percentages range from 75 - 300 percent)

Keep up the good work. We appreciate it, Fyron!

QuarianRex · #6 September 21st, 2003, 07:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:
Originally posted by QuarianRex:
[QB]Oh, and tiny gas giants. Please get rid of tiny (and small) gas giants. They freak me out.

Why do they freak you out?

Who is to say it is impossible to have "tiny" or "small" gas planets? Also, perhaps they are just really really dense.

I always figured that a gas giant that small would break apart and essentially become a storm. And if they were really, really dense then they wouldn't be made of gas now would they?

Quote:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
I found the blue ones boring. I could probably include some alternate SectType files with different colors of WPs... would not help much with PBW games though.

Have you taken a look at Atrocities SWII mod? I don't know if nhe based his system files off of FQM or not but he has a few alternate WP pics that look quite nice (like the bajoran wormhole and such). One thing that is evil was that he made all asteroids damaging. I've seen this cripple the AI.

Quote:

Originally posted by Slynky:
One question, though: I don't think I've seen planets with percentages higher than 150. Is that right? Why not make it a bit more realistic (well, perhaps it's more realistic) by upping the resource percentages where planets occur with lots of high-resource asteroids. Seems a bit weird to see all those asteroid fields with numbers in the 200's and check out the planets to see them with wimpy resources. Just a thought. Perhaps the logic is too difficult to create (i.e., this logic: IF "lots of asteroids" then PLANET percentages range from 75 - 300 percent)

There's actually a pretty good reason for that. Most planets tend to be just as valuable as their asteroid neighbors, the problem is that during formation all of the heavy (ie. valuable) elements
gravitate to the core. They are there, we just can't get to them.

Asteroids, on the other hand, are all broken up with their riches available for anyone to snatch up. What about planet creation you ask? Why can you turn these rich asteroid fields into rich planets? Well, that's because the planet is formed in a month (or less) and the valuable stuff wasn't given the chance to sink to the core. This means that you might have entire mountain ranges primarily made of pure gold (or whatever). 300% minerals indeed.

Fyron · #7 September 21st, 2003, 07:28 PM

Quote:

So, I was just wondering if the mod had its effect placed on planet creation. If so, then something seems out of place with regards to generating random NONE atmospheres.

I have no idea what determines the creation of new planets. I hope it is random, based off of the SectType.txt file... try running some other test games to see if this happens all the time, or if that game is just a freak of nature.

PTF has noticed some really odd things with random events in some tests he has been doing, where some games will be overwhelmed with events, others are relatively barren. A computer's idea of "random" is not truly random, afterall.

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I always figured that a gas giant that small would break apart and essentially become a storm. And if they were really, really dense then they wouldn't be made of gas now would they?

If I could change the name, I would change "gas giant" simply to "gas planet". Use some imagination.

There are lots of ways one could explain small and tiny gas planets; I just like the added variety.

Also, keep in mind that the gas giants in Sol all have dense rocky cores. They are not entirely gas. I meant that the small and tiny gas planets could be really dense, for gas giants. They don't have to be dense enough to turn into liquids or solids.

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Have you taken a look at Atrocities SWII mod? I don't know if nhe based his system files off of FQM or not but he has a few alternate WP pics that look quite nice (like the bajoran wormhole and such).

I like the multi-colored asteroids.

I believe all of those WP pics are in the Image Mod... I just prefered the normal looking WPs.

Quote:

One thing that is evil was that he made all asteroids damaging. I've seen this cripple the AI.

It is Andres' mod, and yes, he based if off of FQM. The damaging asteroids were from FQM, actually, though a much older Version. I greatly reduced the number of them and replaced them with other abilities that do not cripple AIs. Now, unless you get extremely unlucky, ship paths get at most diverted by a sector or two. An AI only rarely gets crippled from asteroids. Andres probably needs to update the asteroid abilities.

About asteroid values, I actually lowered the maximum value of asteroids from 300 to 200 because there are so many of them.

And keep in mind that you can use the new quadrants in FQM 1.19/2.05 that have no asteroid rings in the standard systems, just 2 asteroid "fields" each (one is too boring

). They still have those big asteroid field systems, and a few sparse system types with asteroid rings though, but overall, 1000s of fewer asteroids.

[ September 21, 2003, 18:32: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]