New Mod: The Art of War Mod

[Pax]

Woo hoo!

[dumbluck]

A new Version! 0.81 is out, get it here: Aow v0.81.zip

This upgrade consists almost entirely of "guns or butter" decision work. You'll spend a lot more time in the early game researching infrastructure techs now. If you don't think you'll get rushed, that is...

Note: I haven't had much of a chance to playtest the changes to the resource/research/intel bonus facilies yet.

History:
v0.81
-Reduced the Robotoid Factory bonuss by 1/2.
-Move individual resourse bonus facilities to their own trees.
-Balanced facility costs for individual Resource bonus facilities (mineral scanner, etc.)
-Balance facilty costs for Resource Extractors.
-Balance Robotoid Factory facility costs.
-adjust Crew Areas maint. reduction.
-extend resource extractors down to 10 levels
-Balance component costs for Robo Miners.
-Extend RoboMiners down the 10 levels of resource extraction.
-Adjust Resource Extraction research costs.
-x-Re-adjust Resource Extraction research costs. (could still use some fine tuning)
-Expand research and intel facilities to 5 levels.
-Expand research and intel bonus facilities to 5 levels.
-Balance research and intel facility costs
-Balance research and intel bonus facility costs.
-Reduced the intel and research bonuss by 1/3.
-Reduce default build rate to 1000m/o/r per turn.
-Move intel and research bonus facilities each to their own research trees.
-?-Adjust Research and Intel research costs. (More playtesting required)
-Change space combat to 20 turns.
-Ground combat down to 3 turns.
-Add Eyecandy Systemnames, Events, Empire names, etc.

v0.80
-Added 9 levels of Space Yard(facility) and SY(component), researched thru Ship Construction and Space Yards(tech), along with Temporal counterparts.
-Added Armor Regeneration ability to all hull sizes. (excluding units)
-Cosmetic bug fix on abilities displays for hull sizes.

v0.71
-Ship Sizes changed in preparation for mQNP addition.
-NoAI mod files added.
-TDM Modpack formations.txt file added.
-Added Maint reducing components & ship specific mounts.
-Added P&Nv3.1b Maintenance settings.
-Adjusted ship hull costs to $1.2/kt.
-Rebalanced the number of Crew Quarters and Lifesupport with vessel size.

To Do list:
+++Maintenance+++
X-P&N maintenance settings.
X-Maint reducing components & ship specific mounts;
X-Adjust maint. reduction of Crew Areas.
X-Rebalanced # of Lifesupport and Crewquarters with shipsize.
---Adjust ship hull costs to 2.0$/kt.
---Add Base only crew areas, researched with base construction tech. (extra's like minor repair ability, etc.)
---Adjust Crew areas mounts so that instead of a fixed tonnage structure, CrA now take up x% of total hull tonnage structure.

+++Miscellaneous+++
X-Add no-AI mod files.
X-Add TDM Formations
---Add some P&N mounts.
---Balance the Cultural Modifiers.
X-Add Eyecandy Systemnames, Events, Empire names, etc.

+++Damage Allocation+++
---Small racial armors.
X-Add OA ability to all hull sizes. (excluding units)
---Various weapons balancing issues.

+++Ground Combat+++
X-Ground combat down to 3 turns.
---Increase "damage to kill 1m population" setting.
---Increase damage rating of the Neutron Bomb.

+++Space Combat+++
X-Change space combat to 20 turns.
---Rebalance the tohit%/ecm% (increase costs of characteristics, ala P&N)
---Add Manuevering thrusters.
---Ship/Fleet Training components (NOT facilities)ala P&N
--- ??? Change tohit size bonuses to 12% per 100kt.
---Correct tohit% size bonuses on non-standard hull sizes.


+++"Weapons or Butter"+++
X-9 levels of SY, researched thru ship construction, along with Temporal counterparts.
X-extend resource extractors down to 10 levels (9 researchable)
---Extend Repair tech down to 5(?) levels
---change monolith research to be dependant on resource extraction research. (ala P&N)
X-Reduce Robotoid Factory bonuses by 1/2.
X-Move individual resourse bonus facilities to their own trees.
X-Balanced facility costs for individual Resource bonus facilities (mineral scanner, etc.)
X-Balance facilty costs for Resource Extractors.
X-Balance component costs for Robo Miners.
X-Extend RoboMiners down the 10 levels of resource extraction.
X-Balance Robotoid Factory facility costs.
---Change population bonuses (ala proportions, P&N PBW
-x-Adjust Resource Extraction research costs.
---Change: increasing facility tech levels equate to increasing construction costs.
X-Reduce research and intel bonus %s by 1/3.
X-Expand research and intel facilities to 5 levels.
X-Expand research and intel bonus facilities to 5 levels.
X-Balance research and intel facility costs
X-Balance research and intel bonus facility costs.
---Reduce default build rate to 1000m/o/r per turn.
X-Move individual intel and research bonus facilities to their own trees.
-?-Adjust Research and Intel research costs.


+++Engines+++
---Supply usage decreases with engine tech level ala P&N, Exodus
---Double combat movement rates for fighters, missles.
-??Smaller vessels can mount more engines than
larger ones (ala dreadnaught and baseship).
OR
Add combat movement bonuses to smaller
hulls
OR
Make size-specific mounts for manuevering
thrusters; they add the combat movement
bonus.
---Extend tech tree (ala Exodus mod)
---Due to popular demand (relatively speaking), mQNP is back in.

[ December 26, 2002, 10:37: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[mlmbd]

dumbluck; You have been a buzy little beaver, I can see!

mlmbd

[Pax]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
A new Version! 0.81 is out, get it here: Aow v0.81.zip

***Oni No Snippage wanders through for a light snack***

---Due to popular demand (relatively speaking), mQNP is back in.

Excellent! I'll download this and do some testing for you right away! 8)

[dumbluck]

Pax: I'm not entirely certain anymore if I had modded the sizes for the non-Ships of the Line hulls. You might want to double check that.

Edit: Also, be aware that I intend to do a little more modding to the Engines/move of the various hulls (with the intended end result being that smaller hulls will have a higher max speed than bigger hulls).

2nd edit: Of coarse, it might be easier to just add some bonus movement to the hull, instead of trying to adjust the engines per move...

[ December 26, 2002, 22:08: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Pax]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
Pax: I'm not entirely certain anymore if I had modded the sizes for the non-Ships of the Line hulls. You might want to double check that.

Edit: Also, be aware that I intend to do a little more modding to the Engines/move of the various hulls (with the intended end result being that smaller hulls will have a higher max speed than bigger hulls).

2nd edit: Of coarse, it might be easier to just add some bonus movement to the hull, instead of trying to adjust the engines per move...

The best way to do this is, differing caps on how many engines each ship can HAVE. mQNP is baed ont eh premise that X kT of engine will move Y kT of ship at Z speed .... while 5X will move 5Y at 5Z ... in a fairly linear fashion.

Let light ships (escort, destroyer, frigate, maybe light cruiser) have, say, 6 engines; medium ships (cruisers, battlecruisers, battleships) have 5; and heavy ships (dreadnought and up) have 4.

You might toy with a higher EPM for "noncombat ships" -- transports and such -- but even there ...

mQNP doesn't use epm to directly fiddle with X-engine-gives-Y-speed rates.

I modified my local copy of P&N to use mQNP (SJ hasn't been able to check it out yet AFAIK), and I set EPM universally at three, without changing the movement points of the engines. That changes how the engine-tech improvements work, but a given engine, properly mounted, will move ANY hull at the same speed ... the engine simply gets bigger as the hull gets bigger.

I won't mind doing the actual writing-of-datafiles work for the ships, engines, and mounts; you have my email, and I'm often in #se4. Drop by, we can discuss what you want done vs what I can do, then I'll take the grunt work off your hands, and let you focus more on the butter-or-guns parts of AOWar.

[dumbluck]

Now, what's the fun of modding if I let you do it all? I still like my idea, and will prolly toy around with it for the fun of it, just to see if I can actually make it work. If you have serious objections to people tinkering with mQNP, I'll just release your stock Version. I have another idea simmering in the back of my mind that might accomplish what I'm trying to do.

Edit: I forget, did you extend mQNP down into the fighters and drones?

2nd edit: my keyboard can't spell!

[ December 28, 2002, 11:11: Message edited by: dumbluck ]