Devnull Mod Gold: updates and discussion

[Rollo]

Trajan, I have set the personality number in the monsters_AI_settings.txt file to -1 to make it very unlikely that the Monsters are selected as a random opponent. I wanted the monsters to be an option for the game setup and not a regular race. So if you want to play with them, it is best to select them manually.

If you like them to be added by random more frequently, you can change the personality number to 1, 2, 3, or 4 in the above mentioned file.

If you don't like to play with them at all and don't want them added by random in any case, you can simply remove the monsters folder in the pictures/races directory.

Hope that helps,
Rollo

[Rollo]

So did anybody (besides Trajan) check this out, yet?
Anybody got any errors or oddities?
Or does the 1.70 Version seem to be stable enough to be added to PBW?

Rollo

[ September 09, 2002, 01:14: Message edited by: Rollo ]

[TerranC]

Wow, those imagemod pictures give that sci fi feeling Good job.

but one thing: did you only program Extra Huge planets to use imagemod?

[Rollo]

Yes, only the new planets have the new pictures.

Rollo

[Trajan]

I agree with TerranC that the new image for the huge planets are fantastic. Also, the merging of the Fyron's Mod is a great add-on. The new (to me) maps are making for some very interesting problems vs. the AI.

Cheers!
Trajan

[Mylon]

Some suggestions for the mod, though some of them apply to Fyron's mod instead.

The main suggestion for Devnull mod is to reduce the maintenance of starbases. Units can be amassed like no tomorrow (woo fighters! I love how point defense weapons don't kill them anymore), which of course have no maintenance to worry about. Meanwhile bases can't move around to intercept baddies, shift uneven defenses, ect., and they have maintenance costs to boot.

Another suggestion would be to make fighters harder to hit (and likewise, increase the to-hit modifier of anti-fighter missiles). I see my ships charge into battle and easily wipe out a small contigent of fighters without batting an eye, and with huge mounted weapons no less. And they have 0 experience with only level 2 combat sensors, with my race having a +8 offensive characteristic.

I think the mounts should be re-ordered somewhat for the sake of the poor AI, with possibly more Versions thrown in (huge pulse mount weapons, for example). I'm also a little confused about some of the added ship types that act as "inbetween" ships yet are discovered at the same time as the larger ships. That is, they don't seem terribly useful unless perhaps they expanded the ship construction tree by making dreadnauts higher level.

For Fyron's Quadrant Mod:

Way too many planets in the standard midlife quadrant. I like the many moons and that makes things interesting (is it possible to have even more? ), but I'd like to see less planets. One difficulty with moons is that it's hard to see which ones have breathable atmospheres on the map.

There are also a large number of asteroids, too. I _think_ the single-cell units of asteroids are meant to represent a belt rather than just a simple stationary clump, but having a ship equipped with a matter condensor and an engineering bay can quickly turn an asteroid belt into another 15 planets.

[ September 13, 2002, 16:17: Message edited by: Mylon ]

[Mylon]

Is it possible to make maintenance reducing components? I was just considering the idea of a component that could make starbases more expensive to buid but cheaper to maintain. And it could be added as the second level of "engineering". I'd also like to see an Engineering Bay II that repairs 2 components per turn for those of us that take a penalty to repair.