Proportions Mod Version 1.4 fixes infantry problem

[PvK]

I made a quick fix Version 1.4 of Proportions, which can be used to upgrade existing games.

There is a problem with Proportions 1.3 running on SE IV Gold 1.6, in that the infantry defense modifiers can cause unintended stalemates in ground combat. These modifiers have been removed in Proportions 1.4, and are the only change, so existing games running 1.3 should be able to switch to 1.4 without causing any problems or balance issues.

I mean to release a Proportions 1.5 soon (this weekend, I hope), which will also change a number of other things, which are really changes to the balance and other aspects of the mod, rather than fixes. It may be possible to upgrade existing games from earlier Versions to 1.5, but it will change some abilities. Hence 1.4, to fix the problem without changing the game balance and abilities of some things.

Proportions 1.4 is available at PBW HERE.

PvK

[Gorgo]

PvK,
could you give us an overview on how the AI deals with this mod? Does it use all of the facilities? How does it adjust to ship design?

etc.

Gorgo

[PvK]

The AI does some things well, and has some problems, with Proportions. For a while, it can seem to do pretty well, deploying ships with its usual semi-competence. I modded all of the AI's very slightly to overcome some basic disasters. If you take an unmodded AI from outside into Proportions, it will have problems designing ships properly, for example, because unmodded AI's don't have good designs for the modded ship sizes. My slight AI mods at least do take care of this and some other problems. They will actually build ships of all sizes, and continue to do so throughout the game, which is neat. They will also put a proportion of armor on ships, which in Proportions is good.

The AI will also cheat slightly at the start, by putting an extra (illegal) engine on some of its ships, until it gets another component with a defensive bonus. This isn't a big deal, though.

The modded AI is about good enough to at least play the game for a while and get used to it via single-player, but its unlikely to be very competitive. In 1.3, the AI's main flaw is it will try to make homeworlds out of all its colonies, and doesn't know how to effectively ferry population to colonies, which means its colonies will be essentially useless for pretty much the whole game. This gets compounded by the supply issues in Proportions. Since the AI isn't building resupply depots, and isn't designing long-range ships, all it can do is buzz around the systems within a few jumps of its homeworld(s).

In 1.5, which I hope to release this weekend, I have tweaked the AI some more, so that it builds appropriate facilities on colonies, instead of trying to build cultural centers with a couple million colonists. This allows the AI to spread over the quadrant. I've also started developing some of the AI's so they are more effective on a one-by-one basis, to build longer-ranged ships and so on, but even so, it's still not going to be really skillful. Maybe with a lot more work it can get to be a semi-reasonable opponent by 1.6. The very cool new AI tweaking features MM is adding will make it easier to develop specialized ships for the AI, for instance. I think these might allow me to get the AI to build appropriately fearsome planetary defenses on homeworlds, too.

Sadly, there are a number of issues that will linger, I think. For instance, the AI doesn't know how to intentionally cure plagues, and even event-generated plagues can be devastating in Proportions, if they strike a homeworld. Since population is important and hard to move in Proportions, random events like plagues or unstable stars can be real disasters. This is actually pretty interesting, I think.

All told, I think Proportions will remain best suited to human-vs.-human play, although I have enjoyed playing around against AI players.

PvK

[PvK]

Ok, pardon the rapid patching and re-patching, but I just posted a patch to upgrade Proportions 1.3 or 1.4 to 1.4.2. This is a very small download.

The patch fixes more issues with infantry - they should be ok now.

The patch is on PBW - HERE

There should be a Version 1.5 shortly which will change quite a few things. 1.4.2 is available for those players with existing games from 1.3 or 1.4 who want to fix the troop problem without changing anything else in their games.

PvK

[PsychoTechFreak]

PvK, please check PM.