The Star Trek Mod - v1.9.7.5 (Oct 07)

[Atrocities]

All weapons are lower powered so having uber shields is counter productive to the mod. The game has been tested over and over and over again and the shields work fine given the weaker range of the weapons. I will test the borg out, again, and try and fix any problems they might have. Thanks.

The problem with designs is that there is only so much you can put on a design before you have to manualy add AI tags to the design to get it to add additional weapons or components. In later games, after players have Shield Generator X, you MUST have shield destroying weapons on your designs or a huge fleet in order to take out one well defended ship. This is call technological progression where shield tech has out paced beam weapon ability to peneatrate it. So you change tacticts and start equiping your ships with shield penetrating advanced weapons, and or weapons that target shield generators.

I have gotten a lot of statements about the AI and the pace of the game.

For a long time I thought I was doing something wrong, that is until now, I was sent a save game for an older version and the player had over 500 turns. The AI in this game had huge, HUGE, fleets of ships of every size from scout to Dreadnought. Their planets were all colonized and full, they were creating new planets and moving about via new warp points. The AI was permorming brillantly.

So it occured to me that the problem is not really a problem at all. People expect to have engaging game play within a few turns of starting a game. They are fixated upon getting into the action as soon as possible. They often play a game of about 100 to 150 turns before calling it quites. In this time they expect the AI to have dreadnoughts by turn 20 and providing them a challenge as early as turn 10.

Well SEIV is not a 100 to 150 turn game, it is a long range game with turns as high as 1,000 and beyond.

When you start a game of SEIV one must realize that an average game is NOT 100 turns, as in the demo, but rather 500 to 1000 turns.

If players would be willing to play the mod to those numbers they would find that the AI is quite formiddable. However, most are just interested in getting right into the action. To them I will now say, start the game with High-tech levels and by turn 20 your should start to see dreadnoughts.

[Nodachi]

AI designs aside, the trick to the Borg is to use both their regenerators and regular shields. That combo makes their ships extremely tough.

[Atrocities]

Good point. In the next version I will add an AI Tag to the Borg SR component and add it to their designs.

[Onyx]

Atrocities said:
Good point. In the next version I will add an AI Tag to the Borg SR component and add it to their designs.

Atrocities. I in noway wish to presume to teach you anything because without your mod I would be nowhere with this stuff. What I'm saying is I played around with your design files and found an easy way for the AI to build normal shields and Borg regenerators.

Name:= A4 Cube
Design Type := Defense Ship
Vehicle Type := Ship
Default Strategy := Short Weapons Range
Size Minimum Tonnage := 600
Size Maximum Tonnage := 600
Num Must Have At Least 1 Ability := 1
Must Have Ability 1 := Weapon
Minimum Speed := 2
Desired Speed := 5
Majority Weapon Family Pick 1 := 3
Majority Weapon Family Pick 2 := 25
Majority Weapon Family Pick 3 := 8
Majority Weapon Family Pick 4 := 2
Majority Weapon Family Pick 5 := 10
Secondary Weapon Family Pick 1 := 4
Secondary Weapon Family Pick 2 := 151
Secondary Weapon Family Pick 3 := 8
Secondary Weapon Family Pick 4 := 22
Secondary Weapon Family Pick 5 := 5
Shields Spaces Per One := 200
Armor Spaces Per One := 600
Majority Comp Spaces Per One := 200
Majority Comp Ability := Weapon
Secondary Comp Spaces Per One := 200
Secondary Comp Ability := Weapon
Num Misc Abilities := 11
Misc Ability 1 Name := AI Tag 02
Misc Ability 1 Spaces Per One := 50
Misc Ability 2 Name := Extra Movement Generation
Misc Ability 2 Spaces Per One := 10000
Misc Ability 3 Name := Combat Movement
Misc Ability 3 Spaces Per One := 100
Misc Ability 4 Name := Solar Supply Generation
Misc Ability 4 Spaces Per One := 50
Misc Ability 5 Name := Armor Regeneration
Misc Ability 5 Spaces Per One := 200
Misc Ability 6 Name := Combat To Hit Defense Plus
Misc Ability 6 Spaces Per One := 10000
Misc Ability 7 Name := Combat To Hit Offense Plus
Misc Ability 7 Spaces Per One := 10000
Misc Ability 8 Name := Multiplex Tracking
Misc Ability 8 Spaces Per One := 600
Misc Ability 9 Name := Shield Regeneration
Misc Ability 9 Spaces Per One := 600
Misc Ability 10 Name := AI Tag 01
Misc Ability 10 Spaces Per One := 50
Misc Ability 11 Name := Generate Points Intelligence
Misc Ability 11 Spaces Per One := 600

Use the existing 'Shield spaces per one' to assign the normal shields and use 'Misc Ability' Shield Regeneration to build the borg shields.
I also found using the 'Generate Points Intelligence' ability enabled the AI to put Sensor Arrays on all designs. Just made them a little more competetive.
I am mainly playing with all research done so I can get into expanding and exterminating. Would this effect a game started on low tech?
Thanks again for your outstanding work.

[Atrocities]

Hey thanks for the info. I don't know if this will hurt the low tech start but I will experiment with it. Thanks again.

[Nodachi]

AT, in one of the other threads you mentioned changing Pirate Colony Tech. My suggestion is to make it cost some points since the Pirate Spacedock is so nice. For that matter why not drop Pirate Colony Tech and add something like Advanced Construction Techniques or some such to give better spaceyards to any who pay for it? Or maybe it would add SJ's spaceyard expansion projects? I could see the Borg converting an entire world over into a giant construction facility!

[XenoTheMorph]

AT since SE.net is down I'll post here for a little bug I've found -

'Small Shield Generators' upgrade to 'Personal Shield Generators'! This is especially strange on Fighters

[Atrocities]

Thanks guys.

Loosing all that data over at SE.net, well at least the recent bug reports, sucks.

[Fyron]

The data is not lost guys...

[Aiken]

Good to hear it.