Mod Packers - Research File Issues - EA & Toron

[Jourin]

You have some good points. In the mod I am designing I added a new vehicle called space plane or basically a large fighter. Only 80 tons with a max of three engines or enough for bridge, crew quarters, life support and max three engines with supply for a scout, or two engines with DUC for defense. I then made a colony boat available with only 2 engines at 270 tons. I called this tech space travel. I then made industry a preq for construction, and construction a prq for ship construction. This made logical sense and I REALLY like the lower start because it feels more like the initial stages of space travel. With the slow colony boat, you settle the planets in your system first even if other ones are better in other systems. I also limited the range of the space plane by creating a new engine that burns more fuel available with tech Basic propulsion cost 2500 and made basic propulsion 6 a preq for propulsion (nuclear and fusion engins). The end result is that you colonize your system and some of the neighboring systems before you can even go deep and expand your empire. It does limit the intial research choices but it still gives me a choice between bigger ships or better engines. So far I really like the results.

[Nitram Draw]

Maybe there should be a low level troop and fighter available at start, for defense purposes. Like Jourin proposes. Make them small so they really would not be suited for offensive actions.

[Mephisto]

> 1) The Earth Alliance Construction_Vehicles file contains a Planet per Item value of 1 for Weapons Platforms in the Exploration Category (ie 10 WP's per planet!). As early on it is difficult to actually fit 10 WP's on each planet, the EA wastes a lot of time and resources trying to build WP's to satisfy the rule (frequent "No Storage Available" Messages).
> The other categories, however, have Planet per Item settings of only 5 (2 WP's per planet) which is ok. Hence, once the EA switches out of Exploration mode, it is no longer hampered.

Early on there are only small WPs and you need many to put up a good defence. After the AI makes contact it will rarely if ever fall back to exploration state.

> 2)What is the rationale for researching armour ahead of shields? In all playtesting I have done, it is abundantly clear that the AI does much better if it has shields early on.

Armor is quite good IMHO. It is cheap, easy to research and fills up the AI ships where a shield generator cannot. This is especially true for the smaller ships.

> 3) Shields has been placed 10 entries after Physics. Whats the story? Shields should either follow directly after Physics, or Physics should be lowered so that it is only four above Shields. This sort of research queuing really hampers the AI early on when it is up against a human opponent.

Physics is also required for energy weapons which the EA is researching after physics. If you research shields you should research them up to 5 or not at all as the “inferior” armor has a much better damage ratio then low level shields.

> 4) Troop Weapons has been placed 8 entries after Troops (and with the 500k Ice Colonisation tech in between).
> Again, Troop Weapons should either follow directly after Troops, or Troops should be lowed so that it is only four above Troop Weapons.

Who needs weapon on troops? No one. The Ai does not use troops but troops provide a morale boast, with and without troop weapons.

> 5)The Toron DesignCreation file requires that their ships be equipped with capital missiles, but, they only research missiles above level 1 at the end of their research queue. I suggest that if missiles are to be retained in their DesignCreation file, that the Toron Research file be adjusted to ensure that they progressively research missiles, rather than do it all at the end of the game.

The Torons are designed to use the capital ship missile until they research their weapons of choice. You need some weapons even in early ships so why should I don’t use missiles?
The Last lines for research are “catch all”s to prevent the player from making tech deals with the AI. Just that simple.

[God Emperor]

Mephisto,
Thanks for the reply. In response;

1) I really disagree on this issue. The EA in my games wastes heaps of points and production opportunity attempting to build the required number of WP's.

In my most recent game, it had two planets other than the home planet, each with 400kT cargo space. Because the homeplanet has a spaceyard, it was producing Colony ships and warships in accordance with the AI_Construction_Vehicles file (Weapons Platforms are at entry #14). That meant that the other two planets had to build the required 30 WP's between them, when they could only store 2 each!

If it was possible to ensure that once a planet was full, the AI would go on to building something else, then I would agree with you. Currently though, it is just wasting its time.

A question though, how quickly does the AI shift from Exploration mode to Attack or Defence etc? If the transition is relatively quick, a value of 3 or 5, rather 1 should not cause the AI too much grief.

2) I take your point on this one for small ships.
I would still recommend though that the AI research shields once it has got Destroyer tech - one shield + armour really does make a marked difference to the robustness of AI ships.

3) I see what you mean.

4) Agree with you. I must admit I dont research Troop Weapons myself. In another thread it was pointed out that if DUC's have been researched Troop Weapons become somewhat superfluous. What are you thoughts?

5) The problem I have seen though is that the Toron continues to deploy ships with Missile lvl 1, meaning that later in the game its ships are not fully utilising the higher techs that they research. Has anyone else encountered this?