Balance Mod Available for SE:V

[Raapys]

Interesting.

Not sure I entirely understand what he's saying, though. Perhaps someone with a broader understanding of english and computer programming could explain it in less technical terms?

And wouldn't this only matter for AI battles( or sim. mode battles ), since player battles all take place at a set time rate( for example 8x, 32x etc.)? Also, the setting defaults to '20'; wouldn't this in effect mean a 20 times as fast battle resolution compared to before this technique was taken into use?

[Captain Kwok]

I don't know what the previous technique was, but I'd imagine it's not a 20x difference. But I think if you were to set it to 40 now, you'd get twice the combat rate, assuming your computer can handle that. The accelerated time settings I imagine would affect actually combat events as they likely skip "combat pulses".

[Q]

Kwok, the game I play at the moment with BM v1.07 is the best SE V game I had until now!
The AI improvement is substantial, especially the scrapping of non-breathers on planets helps the AI a lot. The minesweepers I missed in an earlier report are now showing up, are within fleets and giving me a headache.
Congratulation for you excellent work!
One problem is the happiness. I think you are right and only the peaceful type is used. There you have a decrease of 5 (= 0.5%) for each enemy ship in the system. That is awful much. 40 ship will already give you the maximum happiness decrease in that system. Futhermore I have seen that ship losses decrease the happiness in the entire empire, not as said in the description only in the system. Again the value of 2 for each ship can create big problems (especially for the AI) in later games, when losses of 50 or more ships can occur.
Another problem the AI still has is resupply. Fleets run out of supplies and are almost paralized.
But again your game mod is really fun and I enjoy it very much.

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings!

Another update is available for the Balance Mod. Version 1.08 focused on improving weapon and racial trait balance, along with some more AI improvements and the usual fix or two.

I also changed the AI's demand for vehicle types to be based on the number of facility slots in the Empire, rather than just colonies. Keep an eye out for weird imbalances of certain design types in their fleets etc.

Note you might need to fiddle around with your saved empire files as the Organic and Crystalline traits were increased to 2000 cost.

Grab the update here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

Code:

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Version 1.08 (09 June 2007)

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1.  Changed - All weapons now have intervals for damage amounts

2.  Changed - Made lots of overall damage/range/cost changes to weapons

3.  Changed - Gamma Pulse Torpedoes damage type to Skips All Shields

4.  Fixed   - Seeker description for Power Lamprey was not being displayed

5.  Fixed   - Error in Plague Bomb description

6.  Changed - Increased cost of Crystalline and Organic racial traits to 2000 points

7.  Changed - Increased tech area cost for racial trait technologies

8.  Changed - Decreased Neural Combat Net to 10kT

9.  Changed - Increased cloak level of Stealth Totems

10. Changed - Reduced Holy War Totem to 5 levels and reduced size to 10kT

11. Changed - Reduced size of Vengeance Totem to 20kT

12. Changed - Increased tech area cost for Religious Technology

13. Changed  - Decreased cost of Psychic Scanner and added regular scanning ability to it

14. Changed - Updated Homeworld starting facilities for a max tech start

15. Fixed   - Alloy Burner Missile was not using ordnance

16. Changed - Reduced experience points required to achieve experience levels and receive attack and defense bonuses

17. Added   - New images for Small Supply Storage, Small Ordnance Storage, and Small Ordnance Vat

18. Changed - Slight increase to ruins tech area costs

19. Changed - Reduced experience rates for Psychic Fleet Training and Psychic Ship Training facilities

20. Changed - AI fleets when waiting for ships to join will occupy enemy  if they have enough ships to be active

21. Changed - AI will favor facility construction when maintenance costs are high

22. Changed - AI Carriers will leave fleets to re-load Fighters if they have none

23. Changed - Narrowed AI's choice of warp points to drop mines and satellites

24. Fixed   - AI would not always build a Spaceport right away if required

25. Updated - AI Scripts

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[GuyOfDoom]

Captain Kwok said:


Note you might need to fiddle around with your saved empire files as the Organic and Crystalline traits were increased to 2000 cost.

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If it might ask why? I've always considered the Racial techs underpowered considering you have to pay racial points and then research them. For 1,000 points Ancient Race gives you far too much information.

[Captain Kwok]

Resupply is tricky. I did modify the resupply routine to clear orders and go to resupply but I've noticed if a fleet gets caught with several combats in a row they tend to get trapped and can't escape to resupply.

I've asked MM what's up and what plans there might be with population happiness considering it's implementation. I'll see what the response is before making more changes.

[Captain Kwok]

GuyOfDoom said:
If it might ask why? I've always considered the Racial techs underpowered considering you have to pay racial points and then research them. For 1,000 points Ancient Race gives you far too much information.

It's mostly based on discussion contained here:
http://home.spaceempires.net/ftopict-2669.html

[se5a]

Kwok - I've had a neutral building fighters with no weapons in 1.07

[Q]

Will there be any AI problems continuing a BM v1.07 game with the new v1.08?

[Captain Kwok]

It should be ok.