Balance Mod Available for SE:V

[Captain Kwok]

A few responses:

a) Those files are in the active queue for a change or two with the exception of AtmosphereTypes.txt

b) At this time I'm only adding colony types that can be understood and used by the AI. I do have plans to expand the list though.

c) It doesn't matter. They are alpha-sorted in the game anyways.

d) It's not an inconsistency. Engines provide 5 standard movement points and each ship has a different engines-per-move (ie how many engines does it take to generate the 5 movement points) value. So a destroyer can move 7eng*5mp/3epm or 11 movepoints (it's always truncated). Note that bigger ships do move slower as well - so a Dreadnought would do 16eng*5mp/10epm for 8 movement.

e) Colonization is an expensive tech that can led to the AI being outclassed by its enemies early on because they are lacking in ship tech like sensors or weapons. I have it set for "Age 3" of AI research where in theory the AI should have a good enough research points base to research colonization techs in a timely fashion.

The .csf files are compiled script files for the AI. The source files are found in the Utililies directory along with the script parser that converts the AI's .txt files into .csf files for use by the game.

[Moriarty]

Thanks for the responses.

b) Well having added "misc colony" to my list I can safely say it doesn't seem to have affected the AI's game at all.

e) That's about when I try to research the colonisers myself - when I have sufficient RP to do it in a "timely fashion". Problem is, I invariably get there many many turns before the AI.

I think I'll go look into those csf files, thanks.


Anyhow, I decided to conduct a little "scientific test".
Balance mod 0.92 vs' SEV Stock.

I used the same gamesetup (including map) for both.
Map: Large Galaxy edge. Player starting positions manually placed so as to have four warp points connecting each. All had at least 3 empty systems between them and the next one.

High difficulty, high AI bonus. No neutral players.

30 turns. I just sat back and kept hitting F12.

Results:



As you can see, they were both practically identical planet count wise. For some reason the AI in BM love troops, but it does have a few more ships to show for its efforts too.
Standard seems to have done better on Research points and population.

Tech lvls, resources and score cannot really be directly compared due to the changes.


Oh and a bug. - you may note that I have 129 tech levels in standard - no idea why, i didn't research a thing. It started the game like that. Yet I don't actually have anything to show for it. Weird.

[Raapys]

Those are different empires in the two tests. They've got different abilities and advantages, etc. Try creating 3 custom empires with different advantages and use those 3 in both the tests at the same starting position, instead of just randomly selected empires.

While research is not comparable between stock and Kwok, Population, units, ships( and resources?) should be, if you use the same empires at the same starting positions for both tests. I believe there is a few random factors in there, though.

[Raapys]

I have the AI sending hordes of colony ships into my warp point defense that are defending what used to be one of his systems. Isn't there any way to prevent the 'No memory at all about what happened the last time I did this'-bevaiour? I suppose 'no fog of war' might do the trick as then the computer would know about those ships I have at the warp point, but shouldn't this be taken up with Aaron?

I noticed the same issue with my own ships; they were trying to fly to a warp point, but as they got close enough for the sensors to find out there was an enemy ship there, they went back one grid so that the enemy ship was out of sensor range again: being AI, there now appeared to be no threat at that warp point, so they changed back to the original course, only to discover that *somehow* the enemy ship was still there! They did this until they were out of movement points: one forward, one back.

Perhaps he could make the AI assume that the ships he met the last time were still there, and act accordingly? Same with planet ownership etc. I.e., he wouldn't actually try going through that warp point again until he felt he had a fleet that could destroy the ships/units I had there the last time he attacked.

[Zereth]

Raapys said:
I have the AI sending hordes of colony ships into my warp point defense that are defending what used to be one of his systems.

If only boarding parties weren't horribly broken you could steal tons of colony ships this way!

[Raapys]

Looks like empires with the Organic Technology trait needs a fix. They appear only to be using a single Plasma Charge weapon on all their Attack Ships. Since that weapon has 1 range, none of their ships actually reach me with weapons intact. Only seen frigates so far, so not sure how they set up the larger ships with organic technology.. But still, Plasma Charge needs to be seriously un-nerfed or the AI need to stop using it. It has basically ruined any chance they might have had in killing me: They really had a ton of ships.

At turn 110, none of the 9 AI Empires have researched more than Level 1 of Medium sized ships, aka Destroyers. Do they start researching sizes again later? Should be about time though.

I noticed a rather big AI problem when I logged into one of the empires. See attachment. That battle has been going on for...ever? Basically units that are too fast to be caught, but can't otherwise move away from the sector, so they're stuck in an endless battle with the other empire's ships.

Rioting now appears to be very rare. I noticed about 1 planet in two out of 9 empires.

[tmcc]

Zereth said:
If only boarding parties weren't horribly broken you could steal tons of colony ships this way!

What about Allegiance Subverters?

[Captain Kwok]

Ack. There was a typo reducing the effecting range of the Plasma Charge to 10 range, it actually has 50-70 range depending on tech level.

It depends on tech level and cost for research rate, but I think I'll through light cruisers into the "2nd age" of AI development. I think I stuck them at the beginning of the "3rd age".

There was a setting introduced in the 1.08 patch and that you could have combat run to the full-time if enemies were still present. I think I'll through that back to false.

[Raapys]

There was a setting introduced in the 1.08 patch and that you could have combat run to the full-time if enemies were still present.

I probably didn't express it the best way: I was talking about turns. They go through 20 seconds of that fight every single turn, the fighters just fly further and further away for each 'session', for probably 10+++ turns in a row now. A bug/oversight with the code I'd say. The fighters can't leave that sector because there's no ship to transport them away( they were all killed). Messy situation.

I.e. possible solution: Have the game destroy all fighters(and drones?) at end of combat if there's no friendly carriers left.

[Captain Kwok]

Not a bad suggestion - but disabling the afforementioned setting will at least save time for processing while the 'bug' exists.