Balance Mod Available for SE:V

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings!

You can now get v1.17 here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

It's compatible with v1.15/v1.16 games and both SE5 v1.74/v1.77. It also works fine for simultaneous games and SE5 v1.77.

It contains the usual mix of fixes, tweaks, and AI improvements. See the history blurb below for more details.

I also updated the tech chart to have an index.

Version 1.17 (13 January 2009)
------------------------------

1.  Fixed   - Some Fighters were not moving in ground combat
2.  Changed - Cooperative Intel split into Attack and Defense versions
3.  Fixed   - Sometimes cargo bombs would detonate on ships without cargo
4.  Fixed   - Disrupt comm messages intel project would sometimes report false successes
5.  Fixed   - Value Improvement Plants were not stacking correctly
6.  Changed - You must have enough life support for a ship's crew in a design
7.  Changed - Reduced population modifiers for populations less than 50M
8.  Changed - Increased structure per level for some components
9.  Changed - Small Rocket Pods can now target troops
10.  Fixed   - Could not start or continue a simultaneous game in SE5 v1.77
11. Fixed   - EEE were incorrectly designing low tech fighters
12. Fixed   - Xiati were not adding weapons to their Drones or Weapon Platforms
13. Fixed   - The Xi'Chung weren't using all their available ship sizes
14. Fixed   - Sometimes the AI wasn't using its intended fleet strategies
15. Fixed   - The AI would sometimes add a Shield Regenerator without a design having a Shield Generator
16. Fixed   - Crystalline races were often neglecting to add Shield Generators for their smaller ships
17. Changed - AI will check for when it last sent a treaty or change treaty request to avoid sending a request before a response is made
18. Changed - Improved relevance of AI warning and request messages
19. Changed - AI races will utilize more hull sizes in their designs
20. Added   - Individualized race anger responses for log events and diplomacy
21. Changed - AI will now cross-retrofit combat ships to alternate design types if no design is available with its current design type
22. Fixed   - Sometimes the AI wasn't able to scrap a facility it wanted to scrap
23. Fixed   - The AI was countering treaties when it was sometimes not desired
24. Changed - Made some improvements to the AI's understanding of trade/gift value
25. Changed - AI Mine/Satellite Layers will sometimes stack pickup and launch orders to maximize movement points
26. Changed - Improved the AI's fleet selection process for ships set to fleet usage
27. Changed - AI will make course corrections for its ships sent to join fleets
28. Updated - AI Scripts
29. Updated - AI Events/Intel Scripts

[Q]

As always thank you very much for your excellent and continuous work Kwok!

[Baron Munchausen]

Whoa! The zip version is 9.1 megabytes, but the rar version is only 3.9 megabytes? Is rar really that much better? Or did you accidentally leave something out of the rar version?

[Captain Kwok]

They are the same. The .rar I posted is a solid archive. It's much more efficient at packing, particularly with text-based files. The drawback to a solid archive is that one corrupt file can corrupt the entire archive. It also has to re-pack all its contents if you remove or add an item. In the past I had forgot to use this setting when packing the .rar download version, that's why the difference wasn't so much previously.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Zip really is that ineficient. Try out 7z - The difference is rather large, on average.

[Leternel]

rvrn if you use the 7z zip compression, you get an average of 25% more compression than with winzip.

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings.

I've started creating a few add-ons or extras for the Balance Mod. The first batch includes:

Random Research Events:
- Introduces variability in research by allowing for breakthroughs and setbacks
- See here for more specific details: http://www.spaceempires.net/ftopict-6105.html

Pollution Events:
- Introduces pollution from facilities that decrease a planet's conditions
- See here for more specific details: http://www.spaceempires.net/ftopict-6106.html

Small Systems Mod:
- Reduces the size of solar systems, but maintains the small visual space and scales movement/sensor ranges to the smaller system size. Increases turn times and general performance by reducing the total amount of ship movement that has to be done and reduces the number of objects in nebula and black hole systems.
- See here for more specific details: http://www.spaceempires.net/ftopict-6107.html

You can download any of them here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod-extras.php

Be sure to read the special notes because some of the extras may not work with your current save games etc.

[Captain Kwok]

Here's a sample image of the Small Systems Mod:

[Arkcon]

Small Systems Mod:
- Reduces the size of solar systems, but maintains the small visual space and scales movement/sensor ranges to the smaller system size. Increases turn times and general performance by reducing the total amount of ship movement that has to be done and reduces the number of objects in nebula and black hole systems.
- See here for more specific details: http://www.spaceempires.net/ftopict-6107.html

I'm not sure, but this mod may well have been what I've been looking for, to simplify SE5 enough for it to be enjoyable. You've done some real good work in the past Captain Kwok: so I will try this out very soon.

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings!

Just a small patch with a few fixes and adjustments. Should definitely help with the 'infinite' fire bug. Note #5 doesn't work - apparently SE5 doesn't evaluate these limits for unit designs. I had already packed and uploaded the patch when I found this out, so just ignore it for now.

The changelog:

Version 1.18 (3 February 2009)
------------------------------

1.  Fixed   - Some fighters were still not moving in ground combat
2.  Changed - Point-Defense weapons now use supplies
3.  Changed - Reduced the range of Small Rocket Pods in ground combat
4.  Changed - Small Rocket Pods can now target fighters
5.  Changed - Restricted Small Emissive Armor to one per vehicle (temporary restriction)
6.  Changed - Improved the AI's placement of Life Support and Crew Quarters on ships
7.  Changed - Made it more difficult to spam the AI with surrender requests to force their surrender
8.  Changed - Sometimes a weak AI might surrender to another empire to spite an empire requesting their surrender
9.  Changed - Improved the AI's use of Base Space Yards for unit construction
10. Fixed   - The AI would attempt to retrofit ship hulls that they did not have the racial trait for
11. Fixed   - Sometimes when an AI surrendered to another empire the game turn would not process
12. Changed - Made a few improvements to AI vehicle designs
13. Updated - AI Scripts

Grab it here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php