Advanced Quadrants BETA

[Urendi Maleldil]

Advanced Quadrants BETA

This is the first component of the Space Empires IV Advanced mod. I've integrated FQM, Kwok's Galaxy Mod, and Krsqk's System Mod with some new planets and customized quadrants.

There are now a total of 421 system types and hundreds of new stellar objects. I've paired down the quadrant types to a total of 10, but each one should have its own distinct flavor and present its own strategic challenge.

Download here:
Advanced Quadrants

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The quadrant types are:

Standard - like the stock Mid-Life quadrant, this contains a healthy mix of all the system types.

Balanced - like FQM's Balanced quadrant, this has a higher percentage of systems geared toward races of a particular atmosphere type. Warp points are more distributed, reducing the number of choke points. Also contains no "bad" systems like nebulae or black holes. Ideal for tournament play.

Cluster - like the stock Cluster, systems here are arranged in clumps connected to each other by only a few warp points. This makes for a very defensive game, since each clump can be protected by defending only a small number of warp points.

Grid - just like the stock Grid, except with the Advanced system types. It offers more room to move ships around, since warp points are evenly distributed.

Network - similar to FQM's warp heavy quadrants. Extreme numbers of warp points here give tons of ways to attack a system. Reduces the utility of warp point openers because there are already the max number (10) of warp points open in each system.

Newborn - similar to the Standard quadrant, except it contains a much higher percentage of multi star systems and nebulae. The high number of stars gives a distinct range advantage to ships equipped with solar supply generators.

Labyrinth - similar to FQM's Maze quadrant. Because systems are only connected to each other by only a few warp points, there is often only one path to get from one system to another. During a war, this will lead to an easily definable 'front,' since most players will reach a point where they have to smash through enemy systems in order to continue expanding.

Ancient - large numbers of ruins here makes research go fairly quickly, and a high percentage of asteroid systems makes remote resource gathering highly effective. However there are fewer habitable planets available.

Chaotic - most systems here are exposed to rifts in the space time continuum, which makes getting from one place to another more difficult. (haven't yet fleshed out the abilities of Chaotic systems)

Desert - contains a higher percentage of empty and useless systems, requiring ships to carry more supplies with them, and making resource gathering, research, and other planet-based activities slower and more valuable.

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VOLUNTEERS WANTED

This is only a BETA release. Work to be done:

Add special abilities to Chaotic systems
Revamp graphics (which are based on the Image Mod's planet pack)
- make sure all images are masked in 0,0,0 black
- make sure all images are aligned
- make all .bmp images SE4 compatible
- replace sucky images (FQM Nebulae...ugh)
Add descriptions (some are missing)
Revamp Infested systems
Add Infested stellar ability type
Check spelling, style, and grammar
Create readme

I'll be occupied with the next components of Space Empires IV Advanced, but if you can help out with any of the above needs, please let me know.

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Report any bugs or problems on this forum or on the Space Empires Facebook group

[Black_Knyght]

If you still need a Volunteer, shoot me a PM and I'll give it a shot

[StarShadow]

I get a 'can't find c:..\quardranttypes.txt error and a couple access violations while exiting.

[Fyron]

You aren't planning on permanently including the Image Mod images in your mod, are you?

Also, there are some gigantic thumbs.db files in there.

What's a ._DS_Store? Files like ._Nebulae28.bmp?

I can't confirm Starshadow's error; it works ok for me.

[Urendi Maleldil]

Ok, I think I've cleaned them all out. Those "." files are Mac hidden files. I just didn't notice them when I created the zip archive.

I intend to include all the images in one package when the mod is finished. The file size may be larger, but it will be easier to install (just download and unzip). The included images are modified based on the Image Mod, but they are not the same. I may go back through later and eliminate a lot of the unused images to save on space, but that means I'll have to re-number most of the SectTypes.txt entries.

Unless someone is willing to help optimize the images now (or hack the .exe so it supports .jpg and .png files), I'd prefer to finish the rest of SE4 Advanced before I go back through and make those edits.

I can't reproduce StarShadow's error either. How did you install the mod? Are you using the latest version of SE4?

[StarShadow]

I unzipped it into my SE4 directory, I'm using 1.91 Gold, also using the mod picker to launch mods.

[Fyron]

You should probably patch to at least 1.94.

[Suicide Junkie]

1.91 is perfectly fine... I use it all the time.

It is good to have a copy patched to a higher number for when you need to process multiplayer turns involving combat with anti-missile missiles.

[Fyron]

There is valid reason for not liking 1.95 (the launch window), but 1.94 has no such issue. It's just bug fixes and file-based music. This is all getting beside the point though...

[StarShadow]

Looks I might have to go to 1.95 for this. One of the fixes in 1.95 fixes a crash that occurs if there are more than 300 system types.