Balance Mod Available for SE:V

[Ed Kolis]

Speaking of quirks like that, I researched Warheads, Mines, and Weapon Destroying Weapons to level 1, and got Tachyon Warheads... but the warheads' requirements description say they require level 6 Warheads!

edit: oh, also, I noticed the Weapons Disruptor can target planets... while that's pretty cool, isn't that a bit overpowered - a single frigate can disarm an entire planet's worth of weapons platforms???

[Q]

Kwok, I found a small bug in your BM 1.11 AI politics script regarding the AI team mode:
The instruction to propose a treaty and not to break a treaty in the team mode are not at the end of the corresponding script section. Therefore it is possible that a script instruction that follows later still makes the AI to break a treaty in the team mode, which is exactly what I observed.
I moved your AI team mode instruction at the end of the section and after two turns all AI were united in treaties.

[Captain Kwok]

Thanks Q. I did catch this and a couple of other items when adding in the new alliance revisions. I've also made a few other changes that modify diplomacy based on a new "target priority" setting I've added. Each AI now assigns a priority to other empires or alliance, based on political status, proximity to each other, and relative empire strength. The typical result is that an AI will either target weaker players that are nearby or stronger players that is has poor relations with. Players of approximately equal strength and moderate relations are kept at the status quo. The general goal is to focus the AI's aggression against fewer empires at a time.

---

Baron, thanks for the catch. I've also put in the defense bonuses for seekers from the "Defense Systems" tech area for v1.12. I didn't tie in armor for damage resistance though, since not every race will go through the standard armor tech area.

[Baron Munchausen]

Captain Kwok said:

Baron, thanks for the catch. I've also put in the defense bonuses for seekers from the "Defense Systems" tech area for v1.12. I didn't tie in armor for damage resistance though, since not every race will go through the standard armor tech area.



Yeah, Organic Weapons need to be tied to Organic Technology because that is what increases the damage resistance of Organic Armor, and Crystalline Weapons (erm, the Crystalline Torpedo. Is there another seeker in that racial tech? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) need to be linked to Crystalline Technology because that is what increases Crystalline Armor.

Capital Ship Missile, Plasma Missile, Ionic Pulse Missile, and even the Alloy Burner Missile make perfect sense having seeker damage resistance linked to armor tech. The Anti-Matter, Quantum, and Gamma Pulse Torpedoes are normal techs and also make sense linked to armor.

[Captain Kwok]

Too late, I already caved and did more or less that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[narf poit chez BOOM]

But more or less that is not that. It is, by definition, something other than that, thus being other than that. And if it's other than that, then it's something else, that is what it is. And since it is that and not that, as you can clearly see, that does not equal that, that you see. So if that does not equal that, then that is this which does not equal that, so that equals this. And since this is equal to that, then that is equal to this and thus, this is equal to this, which is equal to that, so therefore this and that are the same, but that is a different matter entirely. But if this is always this and that is this, that is therefore also the that that is this, unless it is not that, in which case it may be this. So you see, it's all a matter of this and that.


(If I've written that right, it is, in fact, completely parseable http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif This was, after all, my intent, that it was. )

[Q]

Some more observations in BM 1.11:

The AI builds huge numbers of remote mining/farming/refining ships and sends them alone to enemy systems, which is suicidal.

[Captain Kwok]

I'd like to finish up v1.12 for next weekend, so post all your BM quirks, typos, bugs etc. you can recall!

[Q]

I have reported earlier that stellar manipulation is researched very early and to high levels. It might have been a consequence of the ancient racial trait: if the AI sees no more warp points to unknown systems, he believes he is disconnected and researches stellar manipulation with highest priority. It might also be a problem in later games using the AI team mode when all systems are seen by all AI players. I don't know, if you have a script call like "all systems seen" that would prevent this.

[Tim_Ward]

Dunno if you got this one: the AI actually builds fast numbers of freighter style ships fullstop. Not just remote miners - mine layers, repair ships, troop ships, supply ships. It is hardly uncommon to see a ship with, say, 6 freighters and two warships.

[Baron Munchausen]

Something I am noticing in a 1.11 game I am playing: The AI does not check if an 'attack fleet' has any ARMED SHIPS in it or not before using the fleet to attack. I keep getting attacked by groups of support ships with no combatants. As soon as combat starts it's a race to the retreat boundary between my ships and the fleeing unarmed support ships. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif Surely there is a way for the AI to verify that a fleet is armed before using it to attack? Else, how can it assess if a fleet is damaged and needs to be reinforced? Or even if a newly assembled fleet is ready to go attack someone?

[Captain Kwok]

I've added a condition where if the fleet doesn't have more than 50% combat ships, it won't be active.

[Q]

That is a important improvement.
Did you change anything about attack location evaluation and the orders for fleets to attack them? That is still number 1 weakness of the AI IMO. Especially if there is only one enemy (AI team mode) and the enemy systems are more distant, the AI is completely defensive.
Another point is the apparent inability of the AI to remember that a warp point is heavily defended: the AI will send one lonely scout/transport ship/colonizer after the other in a suicide mission.

[Captain Kwok]

I re-did all the fleet orders regarding attacking and defending. All attack locations are sorted by priority level of the enemy and proximity to the AI's empire. There's a cap on the number of systems to consider for attacking as well, mainly to keep the attack focused. I also removed any stipulations that required the AI to be in an attack state before launching attacks. The attack state designation is now really just used for skewing the types of vehicles the AI will construct.

AIs will also designate fleets as attack or defense fleets. The composition of each fleet will differ slightly, with attack fleets utilizing troop transports and supply ships etc, where defense fleets don't. All fleet types can be used for defending or attacking nearby enemies, but only attack fleets will venture out to attack targets outside the AI's colony systems. They are also set to randomly probe warp points to enemy systems from time to time. Activated defense fleets when not busy defending will either hold in designated defense systems or train. The ratio of attack to defense fleets will vary depending on the type of AI.

[DrewBlack]

Kwok

Thats an excellant enhancement, wots the ETA... soon i hope ;-)

Drew

[Suicide Junkie]

Hey, CK, have you made any updates to the supply/ordnance storage of planets since 1.09?

I'm sitting here in the Celeb game with one of my smaller fleets asking for 200k supplies, and an entire planet with a maximum capacity of 8k supplies.
I suggest having resupply depots increase the planet's supply and ordnance storage space by 50k or so. That way they should be able to store up at least a year's worth of supply production instead of just one or two turns.

[Captain Kwok]

I did boost it a bit to 5 supply/ordnance per kT of colony in v1.10, but I'm fairly certain I neglected to make that change in the v1.09 PBW patch based on the 8K value you mentioned. Oops.

It does seem quite low still, I think I'll kick it up to 25 supply/ordnance per kT and bump up the cargo facility to provide 25K base, and 50K maximum.

[Captain Kwok]

I decided that I'd match up the supply and ordnance storage capacity to the same ratio as it exists in storage components. That is 25:10 supplies to ordnance. I'll also match up production to this same rate.

Each Cargo Facility will provide a base of 25000 supply storage and 10000 ordnance storage, up to a max of 50000 supply and 20000 ordnance.

The new numbers for v1.12:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Breathable:

Pop Facil Cargo Supply Ord
Tiny 500 5000 5000 125000 50000
Small 1000 10000 10000 250000 100000
Medium 2500 15000 15000 375000 150000
Large 5000 20000 20000 500000 200000
Huge 10000 25000 25000 625000 250000
Ring 25000 100000 100000 2500000 1000000
Sphere 50000 200000 200000 5000000 2000000

Domed:
Pop Facil Cargo Supply Ord
Tiny 100 1000 1000 25000 10000
Small 200 2000 2000 50000 20000
Medium 500 3000 3000 75000 30000
Large 1000 4000 4000 100000 4000
Huge 2000 5000 5000 125000 50000
Ring 5000 20000 20000 500000 200000
Sphere 10000 40000 40000 1000000 400000
</pre><hr />

[Q]

Sounds really great Kwok.
I hope you will soon be able to release the new BM version.

[Suicide Junkie]

Hopefully that's just a typo in your post;
large domed seems to be missing a zero

[Captain Kwok]

Nope. I made it 4000 just to irk you.

---

I had hoped to post v1.12 for tomorrow, but that depends if I can fix it's problems before then. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Captain Kwok]

I'm still finalizing the AI scripts for v1.12 as I've observed some inconsistencies that I'd like to iron out and there's a couple of fixes I almost forgot for unit designs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Q]

One more observation in a later game (2430.0): The AI stops to explore unknown warp points even if they are adjacent to their systems. They miss systems with many empty planets they could colonize.
Scout ships are available but they have other survey orders for systems deep in enemy space!
My suggestion: make the priority order for scout ships to warp through unknown warp points. And don't give them suicide missions into known enemy systems.

[Captain Kwok]

Do you know if these enemy systems to be surveyed are provided via shared maps or from a scout ship? Are they "geographically" closer?

The scouting/explorer priority is survey/explore/patrol. Survey needs to be first because it uncovers new warp points to explore. The lists that store locations for surveying or exploration are sorted by proximity to the home system.

[Q]

The enemy systems are seen by shared maps from other AI empires and they are much more distant than the unexplored warp points.
It seems that the distance is less important than the survey order. And I am not sure if the survey priority over warp point exploration is good: as human player I frequently give warp point exploration first priority. I still can later survey the systems.
About these list: I do not understand at all how they work. If you could explain what for example this list instruction gives you priorities, I could try some little changes myself:

// Attack Location Priority - Nearest attack location
call Sys_Prepare_For_List_Sort()
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(1, lst_AI_Attack_Location_System)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(2, lst_AI_Attack_Location_Sector)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(3, lst_AI_Attack_Location_Strength)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(4, lst_AI_Attack_Location_Assigned_Strength)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(5, lst_AI_Attack_Location_Owner)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(6, lst_AI_Attack_Location_System_Distance)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(7, lst_AI_Attack_Location_Ship_ID)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(8, lst_AI_Attack_Location_Ship_Count)
call Sys_Add_List_Sort_Sort_Column(6, FALSE)
call Sys_Execute_List_Sort()

[Captain Kwok]

The problem is that if survey is not first, new warp points are not being discovered. However, I could probably switch how the orders are assigned, if there are no unexplored warp points, then survey first or something like that.

It's funny you would post that example from the v1.11 scripts. It actually has an error, as the sort condition should be set to true, which would sort the list by field 6 (distance to home system) in ascending order - ie closest first. False sorts it by descending order (oops!). Attack locations store info about enemy colonies in the AI's non-colony systems.

In v1.12, I did correct it to arrange the attack locations by closest to our home system. In the actual determination of targets though, that list is cross-referenced with the priority level of the target empire (a new variable in v1.12). So, the final targets for attack are highest priority enemies that are closest to our empire. I also changed how the AI interprets the strength of a planet, it was counting all the hitpoints of the population, which often gave colonies a high strength versus fleets - which made them not want to attack. So I adjusted the enemy strength estimation to more or less disregard hitpoints from population.

[Q]

Thank you for the reply Kwok.

"However, I could probably switch how the orders are assigned, if there are no unexplored warp points, then survey first or something like that"

Yes that is exactely what I meant.

As you say the list example I mentioned is sorted by the distance (field 6). So what are all the other parameters for?

[inigma]

yea, we need a good guide on AI development.

[Captain Kwok]

The other variables are there because they contain information that needs to remain associated with whatever "column" is chosen for the sort. Basically, it's like creating a new "list window" screen where you have all these columns and can sort by each one. In this case, we're just sorting by the distance column.

For example, the value stored in lst_AI_Attack_Location_Owner index 1 is associated with the value stored in lst_AI_Attack_Location_Distance index 1. When a sort is executed on the values in lst_AI_Attack_Location_Distance, the indexes are changed, so that index 1 might become index 5 etc. In conjunction, the index 1 value for lst_AI_Attack_Location_Owner needs to be switched to index 5 as well, to maintain the integrity of the data.

[Q]

Thank's again for the valuable information.
I eliminated the error in the attack location list you mentioned by changing the false to true and recompiled the script for an AI that had a fleet very close to my ships for quite a long time without moving at all. Now for the first time this fleet moves! I still have to see if they attack, but the change seems to do something important.

[Q]

One more question:

// Nearby Enemy Location Priority - Strongest enemy target in a nearby enemy location
call Sys_Prepare_For_List_Sort()
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(1, lst_AI_Nearby_Enemy_Location_System)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(2, lst_AI_Nearby_Enemy_Location_Sector)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(3, lst_AI_Nearby_Enemy_Location_Strength)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(4, lst_AI_Nearby_Enemy_Location_Assigned_Strength)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(5, lst_AI_Nearby_Enemy_Location_Owner)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(6, lst_AI_Nearby_Enemy_Location_System_Distance)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(7, lst_AI_Nearby_Enemy_Location_Ship_ID)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(8, lst_AI_Nearby_Enemy_Location_Ship_Count)
call Sys_Add_List_Sort_Sort_Column(3, FALSE)
call Sys_Execute_List_Sort()

If I understand this correctly the AI will attack the strongest enemy location. Is this wise? Why not the weakest?

[Captain Kwok]

Nearby enemy locations are enemy ships in non-colony systems. The strongest represents the most immediate threat, so you want those targets to be analyzed first (ie highest priority) in the attack routine. In the ship orders script, there are conditions to compare the strength of the ship or fleet to the target, and only then might an actually attack order be issued.

[Captain Kwok]

Ugh. I had hope to post the v1.12 yesterday, but then I had to go and get my Jubrup fleet pasted by a Sergetti fleet and noticed that their missile destroyers had too many weapons and not enough armor. Then I also remembered that I was suppose to fix crystalline designs so that they wouldn't use crystalline armor without shields etc. So I've made those changes but need to test them out.

More importantly, all the little bugs that were plaguing the revised fleet functions have been tracked down - well more or less. I'm sure there's a few lingering problems. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

There's a sneak preview of the changelog here: http://home.spaceempires.net/ftopicp-26188.html#26188

I will post it on Wednesday. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Q]

Take your time Kwok.

Did you improve something about exploring and attacking the far sides of warp points with full fleets?

[Captain Kwok]

On occasion, the AI will order their fleet to probe a warp point that leads to an enemy or unknown system.

[Baron Munchausen]

Um...

This one is a bit amazing. The "Small Anti-Proton beam" in 1.11 does NOT have troops or weapon platforms in its targeting field! Argh! So I had to sit and watch my troops RUN AWAY from the single defending militia of a planet I was invading. Hopefully this is fixable and doesn't require a new game, because if it does this game might be ruined.

[Captain Kwok]

Just change the target types for the Small APB to correct. I accidentally changed the Small APB rather than the Small AMT... that's what searching for partial strings (ie Small Anti) can do sometimes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Captain Kwok]

If you're interested in receiving a "beta" version of v1.12, send me a PM with your e-mail address and I'll send out a care package later tonight. I'd like to test this version a bit before posting since I'll be away for a few weeks and won't likely have a chance to fix bugs etc. if they pop up after I'm away.

[MasterChiToes]

Why does Stock skip Unique Tech 5 and BM skip Unique Tech 7?

[Captain Kwok]

The Balance Mod has unique techs labeled from 1-6. Stock looks like it missed 5, so it has an "extra" one labeled as 7.

[aegisx]

How goes the galaxy mod?

[Captain Kwok]

I've started working on the data files, but I wouldn't expect a beta to be put out before February.

[MasterChiToes]

What purposed does the small flag mod have now, when the flags are resizable in the Empire Options?

[Captain Kwok]

Flags have been resizable for a long time... the problem is that option scales the entire bitmap image, which means that you can't read the numbers for your ships/bases/units/etc.

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings!

I've posted v1.12 of the Balance Mod. It features the usual bug fixes, some changes to how seeker attributes are determined, plus AI improvements in terms of Alliance diplomacy and fleet activities.

http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

I'll be away for the next couple of weeks, so I'm hoping that this version will be rather stable. Keep an eye out for hung turns when converting v1.10/v1.11 save games - you shouldn't encounter any, but I might have missed something.

The source files and updated tech chart will pop up eventually.

Version 1.12 (21 December 2007)
-------------------------------

1. Fixed - Error in target listings for Small Anti-Proton Beam and Small Anti-Matter Torpedo
2. Changed - Skip Armor now has 100% penetration versus armor
3. Fixed - Some seeking weapons had incorrect descriptions
4. Changed - Seeker defense bonus now based on defense systems tech area
5. Changed - Seeker damage resistance now based on armor tech area (or racial trait tech area for racial trait seekers)
6. Changed - Adjusted the scale of ships in combat (Thanks MrWho)
7. Changed - Increased the number of levels of the Mine Sweeper component
8. Fixed - Sometimes Cue Cappa fighters had no weapons
9. Fixed - The AI was sometimes not adding combat sensors or ECM on fighters and troops
10. Fixed - Error in sort routine for choosing attack locations and nearby enemies
11. Fixed - Error in AI Medical Ship design
12. Fixed - Sometimes the AI's resource ships were attempting to remotely mine in an occupied sector
13. Changed - Some AI players were building too many remote resource ships
14. Fixed - Sometimes Ministers would not use or retrofit a player's design type correctly
15. Added - The AI will designate systems to avoid for non-combat ships
16. Fixed - The AI was not spreading its supply ships between fleets effectively
17. Changed - AI will designate some fleets for attack, others for defense
18. Fixed - The AI in team mode would sometimes break its treaties with others AIs
19. Added - Support for AI Alliance diplomacy
20. Added - The AI will assign a priority value against their opponents
21. Changed - AI fleets can now attack multiple targets in a turn
22. Changed - AI Colony Ships will attempt to load a Weapon Platform if colonizing a planet in a defensive or nearby enemy location
23. Changed - AI will launch mines more frequently and in greater numbers in their defensive locations
24. Fixed - Ships that rebel due to events or intelligence will join a known race or the race responsible for the intel attack
25. Changed - Only vehicles that have movement will have their orders changed through events or intel attacks
26. Updated - AI Scripts

[Kamog]

Thank you very much, Captain Kwok, I very much appreciate all your work on the Balance Mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Q]

Thank you again Kwok for your excellent work.

Whatever you changed since the last version you sent me, it makes a big differences in the game I sent to you: the Phong attack now the enemy ships.

I hope "eventually" will be soon, as I learn very much from your AI scripts.

[Captain Kwok]

I can post the scripts and updated tech chart when I get home later today.

[aegisx]

Balance proposal...

It seems to me fast plasma missile frigates are a bit out of balance. 2 Plasma Missiles and PD can be placed on a frigate, along with enough speed to keep it out of range. While this is a perfectly valid way of attacking, they can overwhelm capital ships while staying out of range. Perhaps only 1 Plasma Missile should fit on the frigates?

[Captain Kwok]

The dual missile frigate has been discussed a lot before, the general consensus was that it was more of a strategy issue than anything else.

[aegisx]

Captain Kwok said:
The dual missile frigate has been discussed a lot before, the general consensus was that it was more of a strategy issue than anything else.



Hmm, wonder what got censored, as I did not use any inappropriate language.

What were the results of the strategy talks? Large ships become just big targets as they cannot close the distance. Most of the space has to be taken up with PD. There are counter strategies I know, but they just seem to take a large segment of ships out of play.

[DeadZone]

the most effective counter stragegy I can think of, is to have a smaller but faster escort which can close the gap, and is kitted to at least damage the enemy ship enough so it doesnt pose a threat to your main ships

[aegisx]

DeadZone said:
the most effective counter stragegy I can think of, is to have a smaller but faster escort which can close the gap, and is kitted to at least damage the enemy ship enough so it doesnt pose a threat to your main ships



That is the tough part, as players who use the dual plasma frigates concentrate on plasma missiles and engines.

[Captain Kwok]

Fighters or Drones made a good counter versus the frigates. Another consideration was that larger ships have a greater % of space for weapons so they could a similar missile heavy tactic and be more effective since a dual missile frigate has very little in the way of defensive measures.

[Q]

There is a problem in BM 1.12 with construction/scrapping:

If the net resources go into negative numbers the AI starts to scrap units like mad even if there are enough resources left in the storage. However the construction of new units continues which leeds to a endless loop that cripples the AI empire.

And mines still are not launched from colonies in attacked systems as far as I see.

Is there a way to see which locations the AI designs as defensive/attack locations? Perhaps the problem lays in the evaluation of the locations.

[Lohr]

A little question :
Is this BM 1.12 specific, or is it a general problem with the new patch?

[Captain Kwok]

It depends on the planet size, I've set up smaller (or non-breathable) planets to have smaller mine fields so that larger planets (and breathables) can have much larger mine fields than the previous 100. Defense location planets launch up to 20 per turn if they have 20 or more in cargo, while "core" planets would launch in groups of 40 or more if there not at they max number of mines.

---

The scrap routine is not necessarily to save resources, but to re-new the old units in storage with new designs. It kicks in when maintenance costs are higher than 90% of revenues. I want to add in a few more conditions though to re-fine this point though.

[Captain Kwok]

I've posted the updated source scripts and tech chart.

[Baron Munchausen]

Just how high is the limit on the number of mines in a sector now? Or has the limit been removed in SE V and I didn't notice? I can't find a reference to it in the settings.txt file anymore. But in my current 1.11 game (nope, haven't upgraded to 1.12 yet) I'm trying to get through a warp point with an insane number of mines on it. I built enough mine sweepers to remove nine hundred mines and they all died when they entered the sector. What would lead an AI to put so many mines on a single warp point anyway?

[Captain Kwok]

The limits are not being enforced, but it's supposed to be 100 in the mod according to the data files. The AI might heap a lot of mines at one warp point if it was really the only one designated for protection.

[StarJack]

I've altered settings.txt to have a minimum of 6 computer players at the medium setting to a maximum of 10. I've started new games with as few as 5, and as many as 14 computer players with the medium setting. Any ideas?

[Captain Kwok]

There's been reports of weird numbers of AI generated opponents - no real idea on what might be causing this...

[StarJack]

OK, Thanks Kwok. 'Preciate the work you do on the mod!

Guess this is just another bug that needs stomping.

[Sardia]

I tried to transfer 5 groups of fighters(10-20) each from space into a planet and it crashed on me. It happens between the 3rd and 4th try. Buffer overrun, or something stupid like that?

[Captain Kwok]

Are you using the launch/recover order or the cargo transfer order? I don't think the transfer order is really intended to transfer units in space to a planet's cargo.

If it's repeatable, then you should let MM know. It doesn't have anything to do with the mod itself.

[Sardia]

I did a few tests. It only happens when you have 5 separate groups of fighters and if you used the transfer to planet command.

After a few more tests, I don't think it has anything to do with the speed of the transfer, but I haven't figured anything out besides the fact that transferring fighters from space makes you lose their supplies while recovering fighters does not.

I guess I'll have to use the launch recover command more.

[Captain Kwok]

Like I mentioned previously, the transfer order probably shouldn't allow the player to retrieve launched units. I'd assume the fact it does allow you do this is not intentional, but something missed by MM. Either way, it's worthwhile to pass on.

[Sardia]

I wasn't planning to, but alright, how do I contact him?

P.S. Why do ships go around stars? Roleplaying? Hidden damage I'm not noticing?

[Captain Kwok]

Because they are not supposed to be able to occupy sectors marked in red. There's a bug right now where they can though.

E-mail MM... se5 at malfador dot com.

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings!

The next version of the Balance Mod, v1.13, is available for download. It has a few data file fixes along with more AI improvements.

http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

Note there are two versions you can download. You should download the v1.13 data only archive if you already have v1.11 or v1.12 installed, otherwise download the full version.

I hope to have a v1.14 update shortly, which will focus on making major AI design improvements.

The change log...

Version 1.13 (29 January 2008)
------------------------------

1. Changed - Tweaked the number of movement points required to move 1 hex for Small and Medium Freighters
2. Added - Organic fighters and troops now have a small hull bonus for Organic Armor regeneration
3. Fixed - Time Distrotion Burst was 30kT instead of 20kT
4. Changed - Increased combat launch rates for fighters, drones, and satellites
5. Changed - Clarified the log text associated with some intelligence projects
6. Changed - Increased unit maintenance to 10%
7. Fixed - It was still possible to add multiple Space Yards to the queue
8. Fixed - Organic and Crystalline Mines did not have 50% maintenance reduction
9. Changed - Matched space combat and ground combat damage for point-defense weapons
10. Changed - Removed Random Personality Group values from Settings.txt
11. Fixed - Error in nearby enemy target selection for fleets
12. Changed - Small improvements to AI wanted design types
13. Changed - AI will build and scrap planet improvement facilities when appropriate
14. Changed - Improved the AI's criteria for scrapping obsolete units
15. Added - Planets will sometimes recover launched units to remove obsolete ones
16. Changed - Customized unit group sizes for each empire
17. Changed - Improvements to the AI's Population Transport minister
18. Added - Additional descriptive text to some AI requests
19. Fixed - Sometimes the AI thought it was in a disconnected state when it wasn't
20. Added - AI will sometimes follow up its demands for enemies to remove their ships or colonies
21. Added - Extra checks for the AI to determine if there is an enemy presence on the other side of warp points
22. Changed - Improved the filtering on the AI's colonizable planet's list
23. Added - Updated AI Scripts
24. Added - Updated Event and Intelligence scripts

[gregebowman]

Can't wait to try it out.

[Captain Kwok]

I'm working on improving the AI's ship designs for v1.14, including a new scheme for AI weapon selection which will be based on the specific vehicle type, rather than ships versus units. Feel free to post suggestions or designs that you find work well for you.

[Captain Kwok]

Another item for your consideration...

I'm working on v1.14 right now, which includes adding a vehicle size distribution component to the AI's design creation. For example, a race might design up to 3 sizes of Attack Ships if they have a wide range of hull sizes available. There is also race specific variables that determine the shape of the distribution, that is whether or not the race focuses on building more small ships or fewer large ships. Currently I have this set up for the following AI design types - Attack Ships, Defense Ships, Missile Ships, Carriers, and Weapon Platforms.

I'm wondering how often you guys use variable sizes of other design types, like repair ships, supply ships, or other freighter based ships. Do you typically use the largest hull for them and similar types?

[Q]

Usually I just use the biggest available hull size with the exeption of specialized ships (e.g. stellar manipulation ships).
More important IMO is the different composition of specialized fleets: defense/attack/planetary invasion fleets.

[Suicide Junkie]

What if you were to use small ships as the front line short-range strategy force, with fewer guns and heavy shields/armor?
That would complement their defense bonuses while the big warships provide the heavy firepower from long range.

[Captain Kwok]

I'm not so concerned about the size distribution for the combat ships, as that's more or less determined by the race's weapon choices. But I wasn't sure how to best utilize the revised system for non-combat ships... is it really necessary to have multiple sizes of repair ships for the AI? Does having more smaller mine sweepers help their distribution between fleets or is single ship sweeping capacity more useful - ie larger mine sweepers? Those are the kinds of things I'm not sure about.

[Baron Munchausen]

How do 'economics of scale' affect ship designs in the Balance Mod now? If larger ships are still "more efficient" then you'd make the best AI by just having it always use the largest available hull of the appropriate type. In many other games it does make sense to have support ships such as escorts be a few sizes smaller than "capital" ships but there are underlying design elements of SE that seem to make larger ships always more efficient, even in mods.

[mrscrogg]

I use the smallest size to get job done - if I can contruct a repair ship or medical ship as a " destroyer " class and save resourses and build time thats' what I do

[mrscrogg]

minesweepers are different larger hulls more " sweeping components quicker and more efficiernt job get done - samw for mine laying , satilites , so forth

[Captain Kwok]

It looks like I'll have to add suffixes to the design types to accomplish the new ship size scheme. I had wanted to avoid doing that so that I didn't have to add all sorts of extra conditional statements for a variety of ship/design functions, but the built-in script functions for picking and choosing design types operate entirely on the concept of 1 active design per design type.

I'm going to use the format "Attack Ship - Small", "Attack Ship - Medium", and "Attack Ship - Large" etc. for the design types that are subject to the size distribution scheme.

[Captain Kwok]

Version v1.14 is now available for download:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

This version has a few fixes and tweaks, along with a bunch of AI improvements. You'll see the AI using a variety of ship sizes, some new designs, and even do some rudimentary enemy design analysis.

It's compatible with all v1.10+ savegames.

Next up is v1.15, which will be a save game breaker and probably the last update of the mod for now.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Version 1.14 (20 February 2008)
-------------------------------

1. Fixed - Error in description for Starbase's life support and crew quarter requirements
2. Changed - Minor change to tech level requirements for Small Organic Armor and Small Crystalline Armor
3. Changed - Increased structure for Small Organic Armor and Small Crystalline Armors
4. Changed - Small increase to supply depletion amount of Power Lampreys and Power Leech Beams
5. Fixed - Error in damage amount for Heavy Ship Mount
6. Added - Extra design types with size suffixes to match new AI design types
7. Changed - Increased the structure amounts for some seeker weapons
8. Changed - Small tweaks to cost and storage amounts of Ordnance Vat and Small Ordnance Vat
9. Fixed - Error in cost increase for Large Ship Mount
10. Changed - Individualized each AI's distribution of ship sizes in their empires
11. Changed - Revised AI purchase system for wanted design types
12. Changed - The AI's weapon choices are now individualized to specific vehicle types
13. Fixed - Error in Default Aggressive AI that caused them to build multiple Spaceports in a system
14. Added - The AI will perform a rudimentary analysis on known enemy designs
15. Added - AIs will make small adjustments based on what components their enemies might be using
16. Fixed - AI fleets were sometimes stacking attack orders in locations too far apart to manage effectively
17. Changed - Re-activated Minister - Cargo Transports to ferry Weapon Platforms to defense systems with Cargo Transports
18. Added - The AI will sometimes scrap non-resource facilities to build resource facilities if urgently needed
19. Fixed - Error that sometimes prevented the AI from building Weapon Platforms when they cost more than the queue's usage rate
20. Changed - Lots of little tweaks and improvements to the AI's designs
21. Fixed - Ships in fleets were not being added to the desired task force
22. Changed - Small improvements to the AI's distribution of minor colony types
23. Changed - Made some enhancements to how the AI determines its maximum maintenance amount
24. Fixed - AI was not always despersing Life Support and Crew Quarters between inner and outer slots
25. Fixed - Sometimes the AI would send treaty requests with no elements
26. Added - Updated AI Scripts
</pre><hr />

[Captain Kwok]

Any feedback on the AI's performance in v1.14?

[Sardia]

Some fighter bombers early game don't have weapons.

[Captain Kwok]

Which race?

[Sardia]

Phong, so far. And, sometimes the treaty states that you have trade up to 50% but the treaties are limited to 30%. Which one is it suppose to be?

[Captain Kwok]

It should be 30%, but every so often for some odd reason it exceeds that value. No idea why or how it happens.

[Suicide Junkie]

Oddly enough, I've seen this too...

In GGmod, I have the trade limited to 2%, but it comes out as 22%.
It might be adding to the stock values.

[Ed Kolis]

Trade modifier ability?

[Suicide Junkie]

No, the trade levels in settings.txt

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>Treaty Element Maximum Trade Percentage 1 := -10
Treaty Element Maximum Trade Percentage 2 := 2
Treaty Element Maximum Trade Percentage 3 := 4
Treaty Element Maximum Trade Percentage 4 := 6
Treaty Element Maximum Trade Percentage 5 := 8
Treaty Element Maximum Trade Percentage 6 := 10</pre><hr />

[mrscrogg]

Mr Kwok , I am playing SE5 , version 1.66 ,Balance Mod 1.13 and just now reseaching Heavy Cruisers so if you have already done this please disregard question. Do you have any thoughts of incorporating a " Minator " class ship , massive , heavily armed , shielded and armored , and expensive but can only move at the most 4-6 spots at a time so you would have to think long and hard about including it in a fleet , yet as a stand alone still could be overwhelmed by a large enemy force ? Thank you for your thoughts and a great mod

[Captain Kwok]

What you describe is just a large ship with fewer engines and more combat oriented components. You can easily design such a ship now without the adding a new hull type.

The hull names in SE5 are really just descriptions to generally let the player know the approximately ship size and not necessarily its role.

[mrscrogg]

Let's say I would like to make a ship larger than the Jaugernaut class { 2000 kt } , how would I go about doing that ?

[Captain Kwok]

The biggest ship in the Balance Mod is the Baseship, which tops out at 1800kT. It fits most of your conditions - it's big and slow. Rather than add a new entry though, you can just modify the size of that one. The entry is in VehicleSizes.txt found in the data folder. Perhaps start it at 2000 and let it increase at 200 per level as shown below. That's 2000 to 3000 over its 6 tech levels.

Example:
Tonnage Space Formula := 2000 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 200)
Tonnage Structure Formula := 2000 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 200)

[mrscrogg]

Thank you

[Randallw]

When do you think the save game breaker version will come out?. I have a BM game starting in a month or so. I thought I'd mention the next version if it was coming out around that time.

[Captain Kwok]

About a month or so.

[Baron Munchausen]

Restarted with BM 1.14 recently and have got some amazing ferocity out of an AI opponent that I met early in the game (just reached 100 turns yesterday). The Sergetti. There is still a tendency to produce fighters without weapons. If not for this, they would be even more dangerous. Say, were the Sergetti a "crystalline tech" race in stock? I don't think so. But anyway, they are fighting with amazing focus for an AI. I've had a half-dozen fully assembled fleets thrown at me in about 20 turns. If not for micro-management of combat I'd have been clobbered because my own empire was really not prepared for the war. Eventually I hope my superior strategic planning skills will let me win, but I made the mistake of giving the AI a "low" bonus at setup. I'm only just barely #1 in the score rankings right now. We shall see...

[Captain Kwok]

That's good to hear. Is this an AI team game?

The Sergetti are crystalline in stock as well.

There's a couple of fighter bomber designs that are having trouble sticking Small Rocket Pods due to lack space, which is behind the weaponless fighters.

[Sardia]

Cutting armor, 1 engine and a ordinance slot allows for a small rocket pod.

[Baron Munchausen]

Nope, just a standard single-player game. I sure wish that the suggestion for the AI to give the reason for their anger had been implemented. I've got several allies and some of them are getting annoyed at me, but I can't figure out why.

The Sergetti have apparently been nasty all around, though, because they are in many wars. This has relieved the pressure on me and my empire is building strength as fast as I can figure out how to do it. Soon, I will go on the attack and probably take the Sergetti homeworld first because it's so close (victory condition for this game is 'destroy all homeworlds).

[Raapys]

Perhaps the AI could be scripted to send a message when you're angering them? Since there are several actions that increases their anger, each one could have a relevant message giving the player some idea of 'what he did wrong'. Some way to avoid spamming the player would have to be found, of course.

[Captain Kwok]

The AI already does this. It tells you to remove your colonies, ships, stop being allies with their enemies, stop military or intelligence attacks etc.

Do you have treaties with other races that are your allies' enemies or vice versa?

The Sergetti are xenophobic, so they tend to anger faster than others. Still working on how to prevent them from getting involved in too many conflicts at once - which is particularly a problem in crowded quadrants.

I'm re-doing the anger system for v1.15, so I'll be making a number of related changes that will help elucidate the reasons for their moods and anger.

[AstralWanderer]

Thanks for the update Kwok! I'd like to report on three oddities though: Hardy Industrialist trait description "Planetary Space yards produce at 20% of their normal rate" hardly sounds like an advantage! Fortunately it doesn't work as described...stock specifies +20%. Advanced Storage Techniques provides no increase in planetary facility capacity. Is this deliberate? (even a reduced percentage would be better than nerfing it completely, and increased cargo capacity on its own is hardly worth 1,000 racial points). Encountered a Cue-Cappa Colony ship with no weapons (fair enough) but with ordinance storage (plus armour and supply storage). Presumably this was just to make up the tonnage, but it is unnecessary expense nonetheless. Can't the AI "build short" in cases like this to get cheaper ships?

[Captain Kwok]

I'll fix up the hardy industrialists description.

Originally, stock didn't have the increased facility space either. It added it in after - I'm still not sure if I'm going to put it in. The AST trait does apply to all cargo abilities though, so carriers can carry more fighters or mine layers can carry more mines etc. Depending on your mode of play, it can be quite useful. However, If I do add the facility space modifier, the cost will probably jump up to 2000 points at the least. If I don't I might drop it down to 500 racial points.

Colony Ships add extra supply and ordnance intentionally. They get transfered to the colony when it's founded, which can provide some supplies or ordnance right away to nearby ships that are nearby and low on supplies/ordnance.

The armor is for two purposes: protection versus damaging warp points and to help a bit with ramming. Most of the AI races will kamikaze their colony ships if they are attacked.

[Baron Munchausen]

Yeah, that was a major surprise when I discovered that the AI races in this mod would try to RAM with their colony ships. But once you know it's going to happen, it simplifies the problem of chasing down colony ships... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

The Sergetti are now at war with every other race in the game, even the neutrals. They've suffered some losses but not very much yet. They are gonna be in very deep trouble in a few more turns when my shiny new light cruisers go charging into the adjacent lightly defended system, and that will put me right next to their home system. I am thinking about a 'strategic' strike directly into the home system and then going back for the small planets in the intervening system. If it works, it'd be a major gain for me and a major loss for them.

[AstralWanderer]

Captain Kwok said:
However, If I do add the facility space modifier, the cost will probably jump up to 2000 points at the least. If I don't I might drop it down to 500 racial points.

Stock adds 10% to planet facility capacity - that means just 2 more facilities on a homeworld (I do remember it being 20% in a previous version - or was that SE4?) so it shouldn't be a major advantage as-is.

Captain Kwok said:
Colony Ships add extra supply and ordnance intentionally. They get transfered to the colony when it's founded, which can provide some supplies or ordnance right away to nearby ships that are nearby and low on supplies/ordnance.

Would it not be better to skip this functionality on colony ships and leave it to freighters instead? It isn't needed in the early stages of the game and does slow down construction - I was able to build a minimal CS (with just 2 cargo holds plus colony module and essentials) in 0.1 years while adding armour, etc pushed it to 0.2 (with shipyard build bonuses - skipping the cargo holds and even dropping an engine should provide a 0.1 year build without). That makes a bigger difference at the start when colonising in-system.

An ordinance/supply freighter would not only do the job better but it can be reused. The issue then is giving the AI enough smarts to know when to use them (e.g. building a colony in a contested system, building a colony on a border system - or even for all colonies built after first contact). Currently AIs send colony ships unescorted even into hostile space.

Captain Kwok said:
The armor is for two purposes: protection versus damaging warp points and to help a bit with ramming. Most of the AI races will kamikaze their colony ships if they are attacked.

Warp points that can affect a 350Kt colony ship seem pretty rare and ramming doesn't work in practice (colony ships being slower than the average frigate). I'd suggest the tradeoff in longer build times is not a good one.

[Suicide Junkie]

What's the big deal with a slightly longer build time?

So you get 19 colony ships out in the first 20 turns instead of 21... but you give those colonies a jump start.
Most of the time is going to be spent in transit anyways.


That said, supplies and ordnance are not as useful as you might think.
The wandering ships won't get supplies while passing through the sector unless there is a resupply depot pushing supplies. Unless a load cargo (supplies) order is given, the ships won't get any.

Slapping an anti-planet weapon on them can help. When faced with the inevitable competition for worlds, glass the enemy colony and then land yourself.
Cargo for extra population is probably the best, and if you can squeeze on a couple fighters or a platform to defend the new colony, that's great.

[AstralWanderer]

Turning out colony ships quickly is important in the beginning stages for establishing in-system colonies and grabbing neighbouring systems. Even a 1-2 turn lead can become significant if it allows you to claim systems before the AI does - so having the AI do a similar thing levels the playing field.

As for supplies/ordinance, I believe the Captain was considering Weapons Platforms with seekers, which would require both to function. In this case, providing them to a colony makes sense but it is better done by freighter, which can carry the platforms also.

[Ed Kolis]

Platforms don't actually use supply or ordnance in space combat, and I believe the only platform-mountable weapons that can even target anything in ground combat AND use supplies or ordnance are the Bomblet Missiles, which are not exactly an early game tech!

[Captain Kwok]

A ship will take any supplies/ordnance that it needs from a planet regardless if a Resupply Depot is present, assuming it's in the sector during end turn processing.

As I mentioned earlier, the extra supply/ordnance is for resupplying the odd ship that needs it before a resupply depot is constructed. If you give the AI a low bonus, the few extra components make no difference in construction times.

AI colony ships do on occasion pick up Weapon Platforms, depending on their destination and if a WP is easily available.

Damaging warp points can do 100-200 damage to a ship. Without a few armor components, a colony ship could lose most of its components (particularly engines) quite easily, leaving it to limp along to its target.

Colony ships are not ordered to dangerous systems, but occasionally they end up in one because it's on the way to a non-hostile system. There's no way right now for the scripts to know what systems a ship has to go through to get to its destination, so you can't always stop a non-combat ship from entering a hostile system. I've requested a script function to provide a list of systems that a ship has to travel through, which will allow a check against hostile systems etc.

[Baron Munchausen]

We need a distinction between 'systems to avoid' -- meaning ALL ships stay out, and 'systems for unarmed ships to avoid' meaning hostilities are in progress. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif So, 'combat zone' systems? A two-tiered system of flags isn't very complicated. MM might be able to add it to the next beta.

With combat zone systems flagged, when the colonizer plots its course it could just re-route until it found a safe way to its destination. Meanwhile, warships would be able to go ahead and take a direct route to where-ever they were going, except for 'systems to avoid' which would still be totally off-limits.

[Suicide Junkie]

Captain Kwok said:
A ship will take any supplies/ordnance that it needs from a planet regardless if a Resupply Depot is present, assuming it's in the sector during end turn processing.


I recall having to manually load supplies from farming worlds (organics farms produce ~50 bonus supplies per turn) quite a few times when playing GGmod.

[Captain Kwok]

I tested it out before I posted to make sure. The ship will load supplies/ordnance from the planet as long as long as it's there during turn processing. There was no resupply depot in the system.

[se5a]

if you're just going past during the turn you have to order it to load though. does it use a movement point to do so?

[capnq]

Suicide Junkie said: Cargo for extra population is probably the best, and if you can squeeze on a couple fighters or a platform to defend the new colony, that's great.

Too much cargo space, though, leads to depopulated worlds.

[Sardia]

Not necessarily. Simply send the colonizers to the biggest planet in the system, and then proceed to load up.

[Suicide Junkie]

Why not edit the scripts to have colony ships load no more than 20% of the planet's population before heading out, rather than just using the load-all-and-colonize style order?

[Captain Kwok]

I'm not concerned about planets being depleted of population as it is very unlikely. There's a high population weight in the mod, so it's usually taking less than 15M population and small domed colonies do not often get orders to build colonizers.

[Suicide Junkie]

I suppose if you're building colony ships on breathable worlds it doesn't matter how many people you load, due to migration http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Baron Munchausen]

Suggestions:

Make Organic Armor generate at least a small amount of supplies by solar generation. Isn't it plausible that organic armor could have this capability? Photosynthesis and all that? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif It would be 'in character' for organic tech and would complement the Ordnance Vat very nicely.

Also, I've been thinking about damage types. Why do we have only these cleanly defined 'technical' damage types? Should a given weapon damage all types of shields or all types of armor in exactly the same degree? How about we have some 'natural' damage types?

I thought of this as I was contemplating the Acid Globule weapons. Acid would be a devastating weapon against plain metal armor, but probably less effective against other organic armored ships, and possibly ineffective against crystalline armor. Don't they store acid in glass containers? So, "Acid Damage" would be 2X against standard, emissive, and scattering armor, normal against organic armor, and 1/2 or perhaps none against crystalline armor.

Similarly, plain old 'Capital Ship Missiles' use a nuclear warhead. The huge flash / EMP from a nuclear warhead in space should do more damage to shields than a plain old particle beam. So maybe there should be 'nuclear explosive' damage that does 120 percent or 150 percent damage to shields and normal damage to armor/components? It also would be much more powerful in planetary bombardment than particle beams, so the population killed should also be ramped up for 'nuclear' damage types.

And there is my original request for a damage type, armor piercing for the 'DUC' because that's what Depleted Uranium is all about. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif This should also vary by the type or armor. Maybe 50 percent or more penetration for metal armors, organic is hard to say -- more or less? hmm.... -- but crystalline would probably be no penetration at all, just extra damage.

Just some thoughts. I haven't played SE in months and my imagination has started to work on the virtual universe again.

[Captain Kwok]

It's a bit beyond the scope for BM, but I was going to add new basic damage types for weapons in my Nova mod. For example, you'd have a projectile damage type, an energy damage type, etc.

[Captain Kwok]

Should I restrict Crystalline/Organic races to only have access to their racial hulls and not normal hulls? In this case, a Crystalline/Organic race would immediately have access to their ship hulls in this scheme.

There's a poll here if you're inclined to vote:
http://home.spaceempires.net/ftopict-4214.html

[Baron Munchausen]

That seems like a good idea, at least initially. If possible you ought to allow them to research standard hulls at some point.

[mrscrogg]

keep them with their racial hulls , a silicon creature would not research carbon ,only what it knows , also a creature with no eyes wouldn't develop television

[narf poit chez BOOM]

...We use silicon. Next?

[mrscrogg]

I was just trying to get a point across

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Sorry if I sounded rude; I didn't mean it that way.

[attack_condor]

Hello everyone,

A couple of questions and a bit of patience if they've been asked/answered:

First, when placing boarding troops onto a ship design, is their life support "built into" them, or do they share the life support for the ship?

Second, with respect to climate control facilities and their upgrade by x% per "year", is the "year" one year from the facility completion or at the tart of a calendar year?

Thanks ahead of time for any help.

[Ed Kolis]

Boarding parties do not require additional life support.

As for climate control facilities, I think it's any game turn with a zero after the decimal point.

[AstralWanderer]

One problem I'm seeing with BM is the AI building Fighter Bombers with no weapons - just lots of armour. Since they then run away from any combat, chasing them down becomes a bit of a hassle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

In terms of changes - how about a rethink on engines? There seems little point in having separate tech fields for the different types now since the main difference is movement point generation, so why not either (i) combine the tech areas (Ion, Contra-Terrene, Jacketed-Photon, etc) into a general Propulsion technology or (ii) vary the movement point generation so that later technologies improve at a faster rate?

With (ii) you could, for example, set the formulae so that new techs start off with fewer points but improve faster, making them more suitable for long term investment, e.g.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>Engine type______Current formula_______________Suggested replacement
Ion..............100 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 5)...100 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 5)
Contra-Terrene...115 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 5)...100 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 7)
Jacketed-Photon..130 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 5)...100 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 10)
Quantum..........145 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 5)...100 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 15)</pre><hr />

With this, Contra-Terrene engines would need to be developed to level 3 before outclassing existing (prerequisite level 3) Ion engines, making level 4 or 5 Ion research a practical option for empires needing faster ships urgently.

Similarly Jacketed-Photon would need level 3 and Quantum level 2 to equal or outclass their prerequisites. It may be worth adjusting the prerequisite levels to increase the lead-in time for new propulsion types, but the overall effect should be to provide distinct short-term/long-term research decisions.

[Captain Kwok]

It's not a bad suggestion, but the problem is that almost everyone will go with the Quantum engines right away because they know that they will be the best engines and easiest to manage from a ship design perspective.

The current system does capture a bit of the choice presented below. Often when a new engine tech becomes available, the older one has a few levels to improve to make it comparable to a mid-level next generation engine.

[Captain Kwok]

I've posted the v1.14a patch for the Balance Mod to be used with the new SE5 v1.71 patch released today.

It's savegame compatible with v1.10+ games. You need to have v1.14 installed before applying the v1.14a patch.

You can find the patch here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

Besides a couple of small script compatibility issues, I threw in a couple of items from the pending Balance Mod v1.15 as a bonus. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Here's the details:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Version 1.14a on 26-March-2008:

1. Fixed - Damage types Only Engines, Only Weapons, and Only Shield Generators were not set to skip armor properly
2. Changed - Increased shield points for Small Shield Generator
3. Changed - Damage amount for Shield Disrupter
4. Changed - Damage amounts for most warhead weapons and reduced their cost
5. Fixed - Error in the amount of crew Boarding Parties could overcome
6. Fixed - Some engine details were described incorrectly for Carriers
7. Changed - Reduced the number of engines on Carrier hulls to 15
8. Changed - Updated the maximum allowed unit settings in VehicleUnitTypes.txt
9. Changed - Reduced seeker supply usage
10. Changed - Increased seeker defense bonus from Defense Systems tech area
11. Changed - Increased range and effect amounts for Tractor, Repulser, and Wormhole Beams
12. Changed - Increased cost for Anti-Proton Beams
13. Changed - Removed to hit penalty form High-Energy Magnifier
14. Changed - Energy Refractor can only be placed in armor slots
15. Fixed - AI was unable to add Energy Refractor to their ship designs
16. Fixed - Some AIs were not adding weapons to Fighter Bomber design types
17. Fixed - Sometimes a player's design type did not have the correct internal design type and ministers wouldn't work properly
18. Changed - Updated event and intel scripts for planet conditions event/intel project
</pre><hr />

[Captain Kwok]

If you downloaded the v1.14a .RAR download between now and last night, you might want to download it again. The link was pointed at the wrong file!!!

[Arralen]

Did several testgames (SP/simu move/no tac combat// 1.71 and 114a) and encoutered several issues .. and as I don't know if they're from Kwoks or SE5, I'll start with posting them here (though I guess some might be well-known SE5 flaws ...) :

AI (attack) ships are running out of supplies regularly and become sitting ducks in enemy territory.
supply distribution to allies does not work. Depots themselves are sometimes recognized by the "resupply at nearest" order, but, oddly enough, of some ships in the the same and just beyond the WH to the neighbouring system one would target the allies colony, the other would chose to go all they way back to the next "own" depot .. on the very same turn, even! (Might be the code does not look for allied depots in neighbouring systems ?!)
had 4 colony ships mothballed by marking them all and choosing "mothball". Reversing the procedure didn't work for all of them. I couldn't even scrap the lowest number unless after I scrapped the other three and waited another turn.
AI pop minister tries repeatedly to drop pop on an already full colony. I even toggled the minister "off", canceled the ships orders, turned the minister "on" again, got the "ship without orders" end turn message - and on the next turn the ship was back trying to drop the pop again ... could be because it's actually the "Moon" of an asteroid field - and the only time when a "moon" and it parent object share the same map location. Possibly the code checks for pop numbers on the wrong object?
asteroids values/conditions are not listed on the "known planets" screen
crystalline armor shield generation stacks: getting hit 2x in a salvo on +6 shield armor gave me 12 shield points: Either the 2 armor slabs stacked or the shield generation from the 2 shot stacked and was applied after all damage calculation from the salvo.
crystal weapons should be rebalanced .. maybe "armor piercing" instead of "armor negating" (50% penetration or something). They're base tech for any race with that tech path yet utterly devastating unless everybody has shields ..
After getting ionic weapons 1, I was able to deploy ionic mine warheads - despite its description says I would need warhead level 6 (only had "1" in mines, warheads and ionics)
"general" tech fields and tech advances need rebalancing: it's easier to research the starting techs to rediculous highs than to open a new tech field. That's making for dumb tech races with human players .. and the AIs research "plans" are way off anyway ..

[Captain Kwok]

There is a current bug in SE5 that is effecting the selection of resupply locations using the "go to nearest resupply" function. It affects both the manual order and AI script function. I can make a workaround for the AI, but the order itself needs to be fixed by a SE5 patch.

Does that colony have the lowest population in your empire or close to it?

The Skip Armor damage type used to have only partial armor penetration, but doing so makes it trigger each and every armor's special effect (emissive etc.) as it passes through. This can seriously handicaps the skip armor type.

Yes, Crystalline Armor is intended to stack.

Many of the special warhead entries in Components.txt have an error in their requirements formula. Unfortunately I caught it after posting 1.14a.

Not sure what you mean exactly by the last item. Can you elaborate a bit?

[se5a]

does he mean that DUC is too cheep?

[Captain Kwok]

I figured he was talking about DUCs or CSMs etc., but while they are cheap enough to be enticing, ultimately they end up underpowered versus the second tier weapons.

[Arralen]

[2] supply distribution to allies does not work. Depots themselves are sometimes recognized by the "resupply at nearest" order, but, oddly enough, of some ships in the the same and just beyond the WH to the neighbouring system one would target the allies colony, the other would chose to go all they way back to the next "own" depot .. on the very same turn, even! (Might be the code does not look for allied depots in neighbouring systems ?!)


There is a current bug in SE5 that is effecting the selection of resupply locations using the "go to nearest resupply" function. It affects both the manual order and AI script function. I can make a workaround for the AI, but the order itself needs to be fixed by a SE5 patch.


Should have made 2 entries from this:
A) supplies are not distributed to allied ships in a system
B) "goto nearest resupply" - an AI fix/workaround would be great as it gets seriously crippled by this bug





[4] AI pop minister tries repeatedly to drop pop on an already full colony. I even toggled the minister "off", canceled the ships orders, turned the minister "on" again, got the "ship without orders" end turn message - and on the next turn the ship was back trying to drop the pop again ... could be because it's actually the "Moon" of an asteroid field - and the only time when a "moon" and it parent object share the same map location. Possibly the code checks for pop numbers on the wrong object?


Does that colony have the lowest population in your empire or close to it?


Nope, it was (IIRC) 100/100 while there where 25/1000 planets as well.





[6] crystalline armor shield generation stacks: getting hit 2x in a salvo on +6 shield armor gave me 12 shield points: Either the 2 armor slabs stacked or the shield generation from the 2 shot stacked and was applied after all damage calculation from the salvo.


Yes, Crystalline Armor is intended to stack.



Ouch. Sure?





[7] crystal weapons should be rebalanced .. maybe "armor piercing" instead of "armor negating" (50% penetration or something). They're base tech for any race with that tech path yet utterly devastating unless everybody has shields ..


The Skip Armor damage type used to have only partial armor penetration, but doing so makes it trigger each and every armor's special effect (emissive etc.) as it passes through. This can seriously handicaps the skip armor type.


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif
Maybe tone down their damage somewhat?





[9] "general" tech fields and tech advances need rebalancing: it's easier to research the starting techs to rediculous highs than to open a new tech field. That's making for dumb tech races with human players .. and the AIs research "plans" are way off anyway ..


Not sure what you mean exactly by the last item. Can you elaborate a bit?


Will come backt to that later .. no time now. Maybe do another test game and make some notes ..

[capnq]

How is supply distribution divided and prioritized? Maybe your own ships are using up the system's supply capacity and there's nothing left for your allies?

[Captain Kwok]

Allied ships are very low on the distribution list for supplies, so it's likely any remote resources are being used up the generating empire's ships/units.

Ships will resupply at allied worlds assuming their in orbit during end turn processing.

[Raapys]

Oh, so allied ships wont regenerate supplies by just being in the same system?

[Captain Kwok]

Allied ships will receive remotely distributed supplies, but a Resupply Depot can only distribute a couple thousand supplies per turn, so there's only so much to go around. The RD owner's ships have first priority, so outside of a stopping at an ally's planet, it's not very likely your ship will get anything.

[Sardia]

In the next version, will there be plans to improve migration?

[Fyron]

Short of writing a completely new script in the Events script file, the only thing one can mod about migration is the amount of the effect.

Race Starting Percent Migration := 5
Race Migration Added 1 Percent Per Population Amount := 1000

[Arralen]

- minor AI nations shouldn't offer intersettling treaties: as they do not leave their home system, they don't benefit from those

- AI is too eager to exchange colonization techs. Or the big nations simply demand them from the minor ones, I don't know.. . Or maybe this is ok - haven't seen the AI use remote mining ships/stations, so settling everywhere is somewhat ok to make it challenging to the human player. Problem with this: you can remote mine ressources, but you can't "remote mine" research/intel (research stations would be cool, but beyond the scope of a rebalance mod I guess)
There's a bug with colonization techs anyway. Starting with IceCol, I was offered Ice/Gas Col tech when dealing with a race which started with Rock Col and had aquired Gas Col tech. No way for an ice dweller to get Rock Col tech from other races.

- AI only uses PD 1, ever.

- planet types (values) need rebalancing (since SE3, I think ;-) ): ice worls are mostly small, gas giants are .. giants, mostly. What gives a huge penalty or boost, respectivly, to the races which have them as their home environment. As an equalizer, gas giants should be much lower on minerals/radioactives, but they're not, as it seems. And there's nothing in favour of ice worlds: maybe make them have generally ok or better conditions, so environmental resistance (or how it is called) isn't a factor for those races ?

[Captain Kwok]

The planet types are actually quite balanced. The Gas Giants appear larger but that's just a graphics thing, they are created in the same ratios as rock and ice planets

The AI does research and use point defense about level 1. If you're starting a game with 0 tech points, it might take them a bit longer to start researching more levels since they are researching more theoretical techs like physics etc.

[Arralen]

Captain Kwok said:
The AI does research and use point defense about level 1.


Started with 50k research points, and it's turn 148 now.
And all AI designs I know have PD 1 only - but weapons and engine tech 3-5 !

[Leternel]

as I was looking in the vehicule sizes file, I noticed a possible error in every carrier types:
While text is "30% must be filled with fighter bay or drone launcher" the formula is
Requirement 7 Formula := Get_Design_Ability_Percentage_Of_Hull_Space("Units - Launch", "Fighter") &gt;= 30 or Get_Design_Ability_Percentage_Of_Hull_Space("Units - Launch", "Drone")
instead of something like
Requirement 7 Formula := (Get_Design_Ability_Percentage_Of_Hull_Space("Units - Launch", "Fighter") + Get_Design_Ability_Percentage_Of_Hull_Space("Units - Launch", "Drone") ) &gt;= 30

[Captain Kwok]

I'll change that for the next update. It'd be good for if you want to mix and match fighter bays and drone launchers on a carrier.

[Sardia]

Does anybody know why terran ships have fewer armor slots than other races?

[Captain Kwok]

It's just the way the stock sets were made.

[Captain Kwok]

Here's the latest scoop on v1.15:

Added a new minister of ship naming. Players can use this guy to auto rename ships after retrofit. For example, if the ship "Tiger 0005" of the "Tiger" design is upgraded to a "Tiger II" design, it will be re-named "Tiger II 0005" etc.

Worked out a number of bugs in the new AI anger scheme. There's a SE5 bug with log dating that cuts off some combats in sequential turn games, so they are missed for anger items, but I'm hoping that will be fixed for the next SE5 patch.

I started to debug the AI's setup routine as I have suspected its had problems for some time. Uncovered a few issues! One of them was sometimes the AI would sometimes add a negative racial trait when they shouldn't have. Uncovered another SE5 bug where the starting tech levels of technologies were not being considered during the AI's starting tech selection, so they were wasting starting tech points on items they have by default. That needs a MM fix.

Still looking to tweak some racial trait costs as per recent discussions here. I did add back the extra facility space for "Advanced Storage Techniques" so you will gain 20% more facility space for 2000 racial trait points.

You can find out more v1.15 changes in this thread at SE.net:
http://home.spaceempires.net/ftopict-4254.html

Overall, there are a few big changes. The biggest one is that racial technology traits are available right from the start. A related change is that Organic and Crystalline only have their respective hull types available and not both their racial and normal hulls.

The new version should be posted with the next SE5 update.

[Captain Kwok]

Here's the current v1.15 changelog...

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Version 1.15 (xx June 2008)
---------------------------

xx. Changed - Slight revision to Small Shield Generator tech area requirements
xx. Changed - Decreased Organic Armor and Crystalline Armor to 10kT
xx. Changed - Reduced Organic Armor and Crystalline Armor to 16 tech levels
xx. Changed - Decreased Small Organic Armor and Small Crystalline Armor to 1kT
xx. Changed - Reduced Small Organic Armor and Small Crystalline Armor to 6 tech levels
xx. Changed - Reduced Energy Refractor to 5 tech levels
xx. Changed - Energy Refractor can only be placed in armor slots
xx. Changed - Adjusted tech level requirements for Ordnance Vat and Small Ordnance Vat components
xx. Changed - Adjusted tech level requirements for Genetic Recoding Lab facility
xx. Changed - Increased Wormhole Beam effect
xx. Removed - Anti-Ship Neutrino, Anti-Ship Ionic, and Anti-Ship Tachyon Warheads
xx. Changed - Only Shield Generators damage type skips armor and shields
xx. Changed - Adjusted damage amount of Shield Disrupter
xx. Changed - Increased the rate that population loyalty is gained and lost
xx. Changed - Adjusted happiness modifiers to make it a bit more challenging to obtain jubliant populations
xx. Changed - Modified engine requirements for Carrier and Dreadnought vehicle types
xx. Changed - Increased the size of Dreadnought hulls
xx. Changed - Small decrease to the size of Satellites
xx. Changed - Increased the bonus/penalty amounts for the Organics and Radioactives racial traits
xx. Changed - Increased the bonus/penalty amounts for boarding parties in the Brave and Cowardly racial traits
xx. Changed - Increased the cost of the Ancient Race Trait to 1500 points
xx. Added - The Advanced Storage Techniques racial trait will now provide 20% more facility space
xx. Changed - Increased the cost of Advanced Storage Techniques racial trait to 2000 points
xx. Changed - Players will now start with level 1 in their racial tech areas
xx. Changed - Organic and Crystalline races with only have access to their racial trait hulls
xx. Changed - Revised Crystalline weapons
xx. Changed - Revised Organic weapons
xx. Changed - Revised Psychic weapons
xx. Changed - Revised Temporal weapons
xx. Fixed - Error in displayed ranges for warhead components
xx. Changed - Clarified the bonuses from racial traits, government types, and society types
xx. Changed - Clarified the bonuses from the cultural tech areas
xx. Changed - Clarified the description for items that cured plagues
xx. Changed - Small increase to ship experience bonuses to attack and defense
xx. Changed - Reduced score calculation by a factor of 10
xx. Fixed - A number of errors in maximum tech levels

xx. Added - AI will consider a player's government and society type as a factor in relations
xx. Changed - Enhanced the AI's anger system
xx. Changed - The AI will examine treaty elements for their relevance
xx. Changed - The AI will be more aggressive in addressing a low resource condition
xx. Fixed - There will still instances where a player's design type wouldn't match the internal AI design type
xx. Added - AI will consider ordnance levels as part of its resupply criteria
xx. Added - The AI will evaluate each of its ship's orders to see if they are still valid
xx. Added - AI will use stellar manipulation technologies (In progress)
xx. Added - New minister, Ships (All) - Naming, to update ship names after retrofitting
xx. Fixed - The AI was sometimes choosing negative racial traits when it wasn't intended
xx. Fixed - The AI was spending starting tech points on tech area levels that are provided by default
</pre><hr />

[Q]

Sounds very promising Kwok!

[Captain Kwok]

The latest SE5 patch is up:
http://www.malfador.com/se5patch.html

I'm not sure if BM v1.14a will work correctly with the new patch, so I'll try and post a v1.14b this evening.

v1.15 is not quite ready yet. I've been working on a new scheme to give the AI some adaptability to their strategy choices.

[se5a]

that's unusual, he didn't give us any warning...

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Looks like a nice list of fixes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Captain Kwok]

I've posted the v1.14b batch for the Balance Mod for use with the new v1.74 SE5 patch. I threw in a number of AI additions from the forthcoming BM v1.15 update as a bonus.

You MUST have v1.14a installed prior to applying this patch!

Find it here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

The details:
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
1. Fixed - Error in the AI's starting tech selection
2. Changed - Improvements to the AI's retrofit and scrapping routine
3. Changed - Improve the AI's definition of low and high resource states
4. Added - The AI will evaluate each of its ship's orders to see if they are still valid
5. Changed - The AI will check if a colonization destination is valid based on its treaty status
6. Changed - AI will check ordnance levels as part of its resupply routine
7. Added - AI will use its resource converters
8. Fixed - Errors in the AI's scrap routine for replacing facilities with needed ones
9. Fixed - There will still instances where a player's design type wouldn't match the internal AI design type
10. Updated - AI Scripts
</pre><hr />

[Ed Kolis]

5. Changed - The AI will check if a colonization destination is valid based on its treaty status



Hmm, something like that might be handy for human players too... I suppose you couldn't do anything to actually warn players when they issue the order, but maybe a minister that checked all colonizers' orders every turn and warned the player with a log message if they're headed to restricted systems might be handy! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

And speaking of restricted systems, there isn't any way to get a list of marked "systems to avoid" via the script code, is there? If so, maybe said minister should check for colony ships headed there, too?

[Sardia]

I can still use the FQM mod with the 1.14b right?

[Captain Kwok]

Ed Kolis said:And speaking of restricted systems, there isn't any way to get a list of marked "systems to avoid" via the script code, is there? If so, maybe said minister should check for colony ships headed there, too?



Colony ships are never sent to a system that has a known enemy presence, regardless of whether or not it's marked as a system to avoid.

[Ed Kolis]

Sorry, I was talking about a minister for human players to use, not part of the AI...

[Arralen]

Did a test game after patching to 1.74 and 1.14b,
(large galaxy, full AIs, paradies quadrant, 3k races, 50k research points, medium research cost)
and this is what some spot tests showed:

@turn 10

- Drushoka (AI no.1) researched "org. engineering" @19% .. ~4.0 years at least
- Drushoka had 2 "research &amp; intel" colonies, but only build units there with all facility spaces open except 1 which was used for a space yard
- it didn't have a single pop transport

- Norak (AI no.4) researched "religious studies" @ 40% in 3.1 years (!)
- "research compound" (max 500pop/5fac): 1 space port and units build, no research centers, no intel (later one not researched)
- no pop transport either

- minor nation: no research centers on "research compound" colony either


@turn 20

- Drushoka was happily using the single pop transport I ordered them to build in turn 10/11, but hadn't any more build

- no research centers build by any race

conclusion
=&gt; AIs should start researching with cheaper techs and go for speicals (organics, religious etc) later when more research points are available. Past turn 20 maybe?

=&gt; AI should build research centers. (it did fine in 1.71/114a)

=&gt; AI should build 1-2 pop transports based on small freighter hull early: colony ship building cannot keep up with pop growth in the early turns, therefore pop growth is wasted. More pop on new colonies would help with construction/mining rate as well.

=&gt; colony ships not build on the homeworld should be routed there before been given colonizing orders - dunno if thats possible via scripting, though.

[Captain Kwok]

In the upcoming v1.15, empires with technology racial traits will actually start off with them right from the beginning, so the research issue is no longer.

Population growth on domed colonies is not such a big deal in the mod, considering there's not much benefit to production unless you're talking hundreds of millions. I used to have the AI pick up population at other planets, but changed that when the auto-colonization amount was re-introduced. It sometimes wasted movement picking up population which for domed planets wasn't significant.

There was no changes to facility preferences for construction. Usually they try and use a planet for what's its best at, which means you might not see an even distribution of facility types until it has 10-20 colonies. Also, once in a while, a research compound might end up with 0 research facilities if a spaceport or resupply depot gets built first.

[Arralen]

Let me rephrase (or simply repeat, partly):

On turn 20, the AIs had several planets designated as "research compound" which where producing units only, while there where:

- 0 research centers on them
- 0-1 facilities build, therefore 1-9 free facility spaces !

.. therefore I can savely concluded the AIs build units instead of research centers, what does not make any sense within the first 20 turns !
This might be an issue of 1.74 (and not your quite great mod) but, frankly, I was too lazy too test that ...

[Captain Kwok]

Facilities have higher priority than units, although sometimes if a planet has a Space Yard it might push vehicles ahead. Did you notice if there was a SY present?

[Arralen]

Captain Kwok said:
Facilities have higher priority than units, although sometimes if a planet has a Space Yard it might push vehicles ahead. Did you notice if there was a SY present?



Some have spaceyards, on others the AIs seems to build non-colonytype buildings out of desperation http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif , on other its only building tons of units.

I'll try to attach a savegame.
Master Password is "master", I only peeked into the Drushoka, Pong, Norak and xxxef (last one down the bottom) turns, but most likely the others don't behave any better ..

[Captain Kwok]

I looked at the save game and a number of the races you mentioned are in potential danger from nearby enemies, which is why they have started building more units. A couple of the other races are just getting started really and only have a few colonies, so their facility distribution tends be a bit skewed until they colonize more planets.

You sure got a crowded galaxy there!

[Arralen]

Bad news:

Started a quick test game (large quadrant, few AI, no events etc) .. after 20 turns, those 2 (!) AIs again have "research compounds" with 1 spaceyard build and 4 empty facility slots ... and even an empty build queue !

And now don't tell me they're both building scouts all day long because they're feeling so lonely in that large quadrant http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Savegame attached .. in case someones wants to have a look .. master-password is "master", again ..

[Captain Kwok]

I identified the problem. The AI has a desired research to intel ratio (typically 4:1 research to intel) that it would like to maintain. Sometimes to keep them in balance, it will add an intel facility on a research planet. This mostly exists for smaller empires that don't have a lot of colonies and may not have declared a planet specifically for intel purposes. What is happening here with research compounds is that the AI is wanted to add an Intelligence Center but hasn't yet researched intelligence services, so the planet gets stuck not building anything until Intelligence Centers become available.

I'll have to put a fix for this.

[Ironmanbc]

make the Intelligence Centers become available from the start that will fix the problem http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Captain Kwok]

I was leaning towards allowing them from the start already for v1.15, so that could be part of the fix. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Arralen]

I don't think the AI should build IC such early in the game - even before meeting any other player. Better build some RCs first and at least 1 pop transport ...

And is it possible to check for planet (pop) size when deciding if a space yard will be build? All those 500 pop planets will never get a decent build rate IMHO ..

[Sardia]

There is a bug where if you issue orders to colonize a planet, a colony ship will strip a planet dry of population. Is there anyway to set it so they take from the total population minus 1 million?

[Captain Kwok]

It's an SE5 bug that somehow got re-introduced in the latest versions. Not too much can be done about it, but I'll try and add a workaround for the AI in the next update. I've noticed they tend to deplete a few planets dry.

[Sardia]

http://home.spaceempires.net/ftopict-5074.html

"How does FQM break ruins?"
"I had re-numbered the unique areas to 1-6 instead of the 1-4, 6-7 used in stock (which needs to be fixed). Simply edit the entries for unique ruins to be 1-6 and you'll have no issues."

Can you give a more detailed explaination?

[Captain Kwok]

Edit the 6 "Empire - Grant Unique Discovery" entries for the Normal Planet record - which is the first one in the StellarAbilityTypes.txt data file.

[Fyron]

Why wouldn't you just post the question in the thread you linked to?

There are actually 12 in FQM (2 possible descriptions), and you only need to edit 2 of them... I added this bit of text to the FQM5 help page (http://fqm5.spaceempires.net/help.php#combining) a few days ago. Hopefully its clear enough. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Open Data\StellarAbilityTypes.txt in the new folder. Find Abilities 17 and 18 of the Normal Planet entry. Change the Amount 1 Formula values from 7 to 5.

[Sardia]

I don't have an account there, plain and simple.

And thanks for the detailed explanation.

[Captain Kwok]

The next version of the Balance Mod, v1.15, is in the very last stages of testing. There are many improvements to the AI and a number of data file changes that should shake up gameplay for the best.

The BM forum at SE.net has lots of info on it:
http://home.spaceempires.net/forum-73.html

[reverend]

Cool! Looking forward to it. Balance mod is the main reason I'm still playing SpaceEmpires. ;)

(Ok, combined with Fyrons, TampaBay sounds and the media package. :D)

[mrscrogg]

Capt. Kwok , great news ! Are you still including updated versions of Fryon's mod in Balance v1.15 ? Thanks

[Captain Kwok]

The Balance Mod retains its own version of FQM.

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings!

Balance Mod v1.15 is finally available! It's a significant update with lots of tweaks, changes, and AI upgrades.

Some of the bigger changes include the availability of racial trait technologies from the game's start, revised combat physics, and Robotoid Factories now modify building rates. There's also been a lot of tweaks and fixes based on feedback to improve general game play and usefulness of items.

The AI has been greatly improved over previous versions. They maintain much better economies, build and colonize faster, make better ship designs, and conduct more sensible diplomacy. The AI can also make use of stellar manipulation technologies, atmosphere and resource converters, and will try to adapt to its enemies. A lot of fixes and tweaks were also made to improve all facets of the AI's empire management.

Important:
Balance Mod v1.15 is not compatible with older versions of the mod, nor is it compatible with older Balance Mod maps, game setups, or empire files!

You can find v1.15 for download here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

Here's the most recent changelog:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemodhistory.php

[mrscrogg]

As Phil Rizzuto would have said , " Holy Cow ! " , now that's a big one !

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings.

I posted the v1.16 patch at my site:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

Note you need to have v1.15 already installed as the download for v1.16 is a patch only!

It's savegame compatible with current v1.15 games!


1. Changed - Remove Intelligence Centers as a starting facility
2. Fixed - Error in tech area requirement for Fusion Ground Thrusters, Small Incinerator Beam and Small Phased-Polaron Beam
3. Changed - Light Cruisers set to 60 movement points per sector from 61
4. Fixed - Error in requirement evaluation for System Robotoid Factory
5. Fixed - The AI would sometimes counter a treaty with the same elements as the original
6. Fixed - The minister for Warp Point Openers was not considering the maximum distance a ship could open a warp point to
7. Fixed - The minister for Planet Destroyers was not considering the target planet's size
8. Fixed - Some neutral players were inactive
9. Fixed - The AI was sometimes surrendering when it shouldn't have
10. Fixed - Some strategies placed Fighters too high in the target priority list
11. Updated - AI Scripts

[Arralen]

.. checks changelog for 1.16 .. hmmm ..

Is it only me or does someone else not get combat replays anymore with 1.15 in a hotseat, simultatious turn game (running with only 1 human player though)? In fact, SEV even doesn't seem to bother to write the combat replay files at all!?
Didn't have the time to do "proper" testing with(out) other/any mods, so it might be my installation that went bad. Though it worked fine with 1.14 ..

Ok, checked with vanilla 1.74 and combat replays are working ...

[Ed Kolis]

1.15? Hmm, when I was beta testing that version, I noted the same problem, and Kwok said that combat replays were disabled temporarily in Settings.txt, but that he'd turn them back on before releasing the mod. Perhaps he forgot to... :P

edit: oi, it's still set to false in 1.16! KWOK!!!!! :P

[Arralen]

Fixed that, and combat replays are o.k. .

Some more minor quibbles I found playing a max sized game up to turn 64 (atm):

- organic races shouldn't use Elec. Discharge on (early) scouts, as it cannot target missiles, so the scouts are sittings ducks vs. them. Furthermore the +50% damage against shields is wasted because no-one has shields at that point.

- higher levels of hull construction of the same type seem a tad expensive. (Try high research costs and you'll see that it is cheaper to research towards Light Cruiser than to improve the FF, what seems odd). This is especially true as the early hulls are severely limited in terms of size, therefore you have to improve them at least one notch.

- solar generator (Cryst.) are nerfed too much; in 1-sun systems, at least the early versions barely pay for themselves. Return-of-investment is 100 turns or something. Even in 3-sun systems (which are not that widespread and usually have few, if any, usuable planets), they just can "keep up" with standard facilities.

- AIs are far to eager to offer intersettling treaties. And minor AIs which cannot leave their home sysem shoudn't offer such treaties at all, or at least not on mutual terms. (Maybe if you pay them with your recent tech or something .. because of low planet count they're usually far behind in the tech race)

- AIs seems too eager to do tech transfers; e.g. the Terrans have access to Psychic, Religious, Temporal, Crystalline and Organic Tech in this game. As Terra is only ranked 6th, I doubt this is from spoils of war, intimidation or 3 dozend ruin worlds (can you get racial tech from ruins?). Maybe this is only the EmpireList Screen with its 50% uncertainty, but I have never seen any tech listed there that wasn't really accessible ..

[Captain Kwok]

The estimated technology screen is in error when it reports the racial trait technologies. SE5 is not correctly checking the requirements before displaying the estimates. The Terrans do not have access to the traits.

Solar Generators shouldn't be effective in single star systems. They'd be far too unbalancing. They're a supplemental facility that in certain situations (binary/trinary systems, low resource value planets) can provide a needed boost - particularly with the later upgrades.

The per-kT effectiveness you gain with a ship is what you're really paying for with the tech costs. Level 1 in Light Cruisers is cheaper than Level 3 in Frigates, but the level 3 Frigate is more effective than a level 1 Light Cruiser.

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings!

You can now get v1.17 here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

It's compatible with v1.15/v1.16 games and both SE5 v1.74/v1.77. It also works fine for simultaneous games and SE5 v1.77.

It contains the usual mix of fixes, tweaks, and AI improvements. See the history blurb below for more details.

I also updated the tech chart to have an index.


Version 1.17 (13 January 2009)
------------------------------

1. Fixed - Some Fighters were not moving in ground combat
2. Changed - Cooperative Intel split into Attack and Defense versions
3. Fixed - Sometimes cargo bombs would detonate on ships without cargo
4. Fixed - Disrupt comm messages intel project would sometimes report false successes
5. Fixed - Value Improvement Plants were not stacking correctly
6. Changed - You must have enough life support for a ship's crew in a design
7. Changed - Reduced population modifiers for populations less than 50M
8. Changed - Increased structure per level for some components
9. Changed - Small Rocket Pods can now target troops
10. Fixed - Could not start or continue a simultaneous game in SE5 v1.77
11. Fixed - EEE were incorrectly designing low tech fighters
12. Fixed - Xiati were not adding weapons to their Drones or Weapon Platforms
13. Fixed - The Xi'Chung weren't using all their available ship sizes
14. Fixed - Sometimes the AI wasn't using its intended fleet strategies
15. Fixed - The AI would sometimes add a Shield Regenerator without a design having a Shield Generator
16. Fixed - Crystalline races were often neglecting to add Shield Generators for their smaller ships
17. Changed - AI will check for when it last sent a treaty or change treaty request to avoid sending a request before a response is made
18. Changed - Improved relevance of AI warning and request messages
19. Changed - AI races will utilize more hull sizes in their designs
20. Added - Individualized race anger responses for log events and diplomacy
21. Changed - AI will now cross-retrofit combat ships to alternate design types if no design is available with its current design type
22. Fixed - Sometimes the AI wasn't able to scrap a facility it wanted to scrap
23. Fixed - The AI was countering treaties when it was sometimes not desired
24. Changed - Made some improvements to the AI's understanding of trade/gift value
25. Changed - AI Mine/Satellite Layers will sometimes stack pickup and launch orders to maximize movement points
26. Changed - Improved the AI's fleet selection process for ships set to fleet usage
27. Changed - AI will make course corrections for its ships sent to join fleets
28. Updated - AI Scripts
29. Updated - AI Events/Intel Scripts

[Q]

As always thank you very much for your excellent and continuous work Kwok!

[Baron Munchausen]

Whoa! The zip version is 9.1 megabytes, but the rar version is only 3.9 megabytes? Is rar really that much better? Or did you accidentally leave something out of the rar version?

[Captain Kwok]

They are the same. The .rar I posted is a solid archive. It's much more efficient at packing, particularly with text-based files. The drawback to a solid archive is that one corrupt file can corrupt the entire archive. It also has to re-pack all its contents if you remove or add an item. In the past I had forgot to use this setting when packing the .rar download version, that's why the difference wasn't so much previously.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Zip really is that ineficient. Try out 7z - The difference is rather large, on average.

[Leternel]

rvrn if you use the 7z zip compression, you get an average of 25% more compression than with winzip.

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings.

I've started creating a few add-ons or extras for the Balance Mod. The first batch includes:

Random Research Events:
- Introduces variability in research by allowing for breakthroughs and setbacks
- See here for more specific details: http://www.spaceempires.net/ftopict-6105.html

Pollution Events:
- Introduces pollution from facilities that decrease a planet's conditions
- See here for more specific details: http://www.spaceempires.net/ftopict-6106.html

Small Systems Mod:
- Reduces the size of solar systems, but maintains the small visual space and scales movement/sensor ranges to the smaller system size. Increases turn times and general performance by reducing the total amount of ship movement that has to be done and reduces the number of objects in nebula and black hole systems.
- See here for more specific details: http://www.spaceempires.net/ftopict-6107.html

You can download any of them here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod-extras.php

Be sure to read the special notes because some of the extras may not work with your current save games etc.

[Captain Kwok]

Here's a sample image of the Small Systems Mod:
http://files.spaceempires.net/user/9/SmallSystems.png

[Arkcon]

Small Systems Mod:
- Reduces the size of solar systems, but maintains the small visual space and scales movement/sensor ranges to the smaller system size. Increases turn times and general performance by reducing the total amount of ship movement that has to be done and reduces the number of objects in nebula and black hole systems.
- See here for more specific details: http://www.spaceempires.net/ftopict-6107.html

I'm not sure, but this mod may well have been what I've been looking for, to simplify SE5 enough for it to be enjoyable. You've done some real good work in the past Captain Kwok: so I will try this out very soon.

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings!

Just a small patch with a few fixes and adjustments. Should definitely help with the 'infinite' fire bug. Note #5 doesn't work - apparently SE5 doesn't evaluate these limits for unit designs. I had already packed and uploaded the patch when I found this out, so just ignore it for now.

The changelog:
Version 1.18 (3 February 2009)
------------------------------

1. Fixed - Some fighters were still not moving in ground combat
2. Changed - Point-Defense weapons now use supplies
3. Changed - Reduced the range of Small Rocket Pods in ground combat
4. Changed - Small Rocket Pods can now target fighters
5. Changed - Restricted Small Emissive Armor to one per vehicle (temporary restriction)
6. Changed - Improved the AI's placement of Life Support and Crew Quarters on ships
7. Changed - Made it more difficult to spam the AI with surrender requests to force their surrender
8. Changed - Sometimes a weak AI might surrender to another empire to spite an empire requesting their surrender
9. Changed - Improved the AI's use of Base Space Yards for unit construction
10. Fixed - The AI would attempt to retrofit ship hulls that they did not have the racial trait for
11. Fixed - Sometimes when an AI surrendered to another empire the game turn would not process
12. Changed - Made a few improvements to AI vehicle designs
13. Updated - AI Scripts


Grab it here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings.

I've posted an update for BM Small Systems here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod-extras.php

It speeds up ships in combat and adds in the v1.18 data file changes.

To upgrade a v1.17 game, apply the BM v1.18 patch and then the small systems update.

[Baron Munchausen]

I like the 'extras' but I really like the promised AIs. Can you do some others besides 'Trek' races? How about some Babylon 5 races? Even better would be if someone would do shipsets from some other games, like Star Control or Master of Orion, and we could then get AIs for those.

[Captain Kwok]

I'll probably do the Empire and Rebel Alliance next, then perhaps some of the nicer looking custom sets. I don't know much at all about Babylon 5 races though.

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings.

I've posted an updated for the Pollution and Random Research event scripts.

http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod-extras.php

There was a bug that resulted in an incorrect amount of research points being applied/subtracted from a project with the Random Research Script.

I added a small happiness penalty for pollution in the v1.01 of the Pollution Events script.

[Ed Kolis]

This bug in the random research script, was it present in the original scripts that SJ and I wrote, or is it something specific to your version of it? If the former, SJ and I might want to fix it too ;)

[Captain Kwok]

The error was restricted to this one.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

'Balance mod' seems to be slowly becoming an actual mod.

[Captain Kwok]

There was a bug with the AI sometimes surrendering to other races when it wasn't intended. It's been fixed with the v1.18 patch available at the website. You can go and re-download it if you want to avoid the bug. :P

[StarJack]

I can't seem to get to point defense weapons in 1.18, they don't come up after military science is researched? :confused:

[Captain Kwok]

You've likely started a game using a saved game setup that was made with a pre-v1.15 version of the mod.

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings.

I've posted v1.19 of the Balance Mod. Version 1.19 makes some significant improvements to the AI's starting technology selection, improves its handling of warp point defenses, plus the usual assortment of fixes and tweaks.

It's savegame compatible with any Balance Mod v1.15+ games.

You can download it here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

Version 1.19 (14 April 2009)
----------------------------

1. Changed - Increased damage amount for Alloy Burner Missile
2. Changed - Increased regeneration rate for Shield Regenerators
3. Changed - Decreased movement (damage) amount for Tractor Beam and Repulser Beam
4. Changed - Increased firing rate for Tractor Beam and Repulser Beam
5. Fixed - Error in cost for Psychic Technology tech area
6. Fixed - Energy Refractors were not working when used on armor slots, must now be placed on outer hull slots
7. Fixed - Sometimes when an AI surrendered it caused a turn to hang
8. Fixed - Corrected and revised racial trait and starting technology selections for AI
9. Added - Some AI functionality to escort ships
10. Changed - Adjusted the conditions for the AI to remain in its Explore & Expand state
11. Changed - Made improvements to the AI's ability to use the Ancient Race trait
12. Changed - The AI's Warp Point Openers would sometimes be vulnerable to attack after opening a new warp point
13. Fixed - Possible turn hang when an AI made a gift request
14. Fixed - The AI tended to clump warp point defenses in less useful locations
15. Fixed - Sometimes the AI would drop units in the wrong warp point location
16. Fixed - The AI was sometimes not adding a Shield Generator to a design when it should have been
17. Changed - AI players will respond more actively to add resource storage for surplus resources
18. Updated - AI Scripts

[Q]

As usual, thank you very much for your excellent work.

[Captain Kwok]

Thanks Q!

Just a quick note to Small Systems users, they'll be a quick update tomorrow to bring some of the component data changes in the mini mod up to v1.19. Nothing that will interfere with savegames etc., and you can continue using the current Small Systems v1.01 without problems with BM v1.19 until the v1.02 update is posted.

[Captain Kwok]

I've posted the v1.02 of the Small Systems mod. It includes the component updates from v1.19 of the Balance Mod.

Find it here:
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod-extras.php

[Arralen]

Besides the (usual) minor troubles with the AI behaviour (I'll get to that later, after more testing), I'm really having trouble with migration - did you change anything else in your mod than:
Race Starting Percent Reproduction := 8

Actually, the problem I'm having is that I have too few troubles, crazy as it sounds :rolleyes:
Migration movement outwards from the homeworlds is so strong that I don't need any pop transports in the first 10, maybe even 20 turns or more. I started with 3 evenly sized homeworlds, and only those with "good" conditions barely keep their pop level, the other is slightly draining away with only 3 additional colonies founded in the starting systems.(no racial reproduction modifiers, no med labs build, "+12" means coloniser send out on that turn):

unpleas./domed - - - - 14 (6%migr./6%gr.)

good 66 103 123 139 176 (4%/10%)
unpleasent 2477 2461+12 2457 2453 2449 (8%/ 6%)

mild 2483 2474+12 2477 2480 2483 (7%/ 8%)
domed/good 17 18 19 20 21 (4%/10%)

mild 70 85 118 155 171 (5%/ 8%)
good 2485 2484+12 2485 2485 2485 (6%/10%)


I have never noticed such a pronounced effect of migration in SE before. Maybe because I normally go for medical tech/centers very early, and the added +1% growth overcoming the problem? Anyhow, homeworlds depleting on their own ain't that great IMHO.

edit: PS - Thanks for this mod, keep up the good work !!

[Captain Kwok]

Migration to newly founded breathable colonies is strong at first and then they level off and start to rely on their own reproduction for further growth.

[NTJedi]

I've been playing two games... large maps and lots of AI opponents(17 and 18). It seems they show very little interest(almost zero) in building research facilities, which seems to be one of the most important buildings. As a result I have 4X their research each turn. I've only played two games... so maybe it's just bad luck.

[Captain Kwok]

Approximately how many systems are in your quadrants? Often a crowded galaxy stunts AI growth because there's a lot of early interaction between players and fewer colonies per player, which doesn't always allow for an AI to get a good distribution of their facility types.

[NTJedi]

It's a large randomly generated map with approximately 125 systems.

Half of the AI opponents have the same research as when the game started. Here are the settings I've used: The year is 2406.0 (60 turns?), everyone started with one planet with good equal conditions, medium AI difficulty, starting racial&technology&resource starting points were low, and balanced starting setting for planets.
I did include neutral opponents so perahps they are the ones not building research facilities??

[Captain Kwok]

Are you using any custom ship sets?

How many colonies do these races with stagnant resource totals have?

You can send the savegame to contact at captainkwok.net and I can take a look at it to see if there's any issues.

[NTJedi]

No custom ship sets.
The number of colonies range between 2 to as high as 24.

2 seem to be doing good researching levels
7 seem to be doing average researching levels
8 seem to be doing poor researching levels

I'll be sending the savegame soon... perhaps I just had bad luck.

[Arralen]

Here are the settings I've used: ..., medium AI difficulty, ....
I bet this is to blame.
I started at least 3 games with high difficulty/low bonus and paradise quadrants, and never noticed any "main nation" AI turtling in any deparment.

In fact, I had to go in settings.txt and reduce the AI bonus from 2.0 to 1.3 to make the game more sensible - AI was just "pouring all over the map", those with a good start developing an expansion speed that left me no choice but to restart (I'm playing with simultanious move, so there's no way to "manually" beat down fleets of 5 times mine's size ...).

As I'm always trying out new mods with master password enabled and all scores visible, it's easy to look into it if something really goes wrong. Yet, the AIs are doing quite well .. notice the Abbidons are completely out-researching me (again), despite having only 2 planets more then me !!!
Just in case somebody wonders - player 13-17 are obvisouly minor AIs which do not leave their home systems. Yet No17 seems to have gotten a lucky draw ... .
While looking at this - would it be possible to make shure that minors build intel centers?


Play Ress Reas Int Tech Sys Planets Pop
1 205659 27140 9888 74 12 35 14547
2 307655 33661 10190 85 17 39 14678
3 299299 23459 8430 85 13 31 12293
4 293068 45185 9240 96 13 37 14920
5 211536 30192 10335 80 7 19 11722
6 153791 23598 5995 77 8 25 12668
7 152219 23628 5670 87 6 19 13568
8 239393 20072 5280 74 12 32 13868
9 142391 26448 10015 81 11 24 11372
10 93741 20459 7820 79 7 15 10782
11 225398 12266 3210 70 15 36 12294
12 195353 12758 5400 73 6 19 10683
13 81347 3129 0 43 1 2 5443
14 39923 4165 2510 43 1 4 3200
15 26438 3149 1210 43 1 3 2680
16 24768 2952 0 43 1 1 2500
17 104384 3609 1405 45 1 4 4656

[Arralen]

Some notes from my "test" games:

- AI uses up to 10(!) light organic armor in FF
- AI uses 1 main gun on Troop Transport, but no PD (e.g. Ukra-Tal 1x Acid Globule)

- AI offers nonaggression in all systems with 5% ressource tariff upon first meeting, even if they're rated higher
- minor AIs still offer intersettling treaties, now even "bribe" to get them offering tariff or tech levels (which they normally don't have)
- in general, AIs are still much too eager to do intersettling treaties
- AI asks for military assistence for a mere trade alliance treaty (trade 15% / non agg. in all sys. / share maps / share minef. codes / share medical)


- would it be possible to edit the default TF/fleet formations? E.g. have TFs flee in formation to give them better PD coverage, or have ships abort attack at 5%-10% (internal) damage ?

[Captain Kwok]

There's no implementation of difficulty levels in SE5. I also haven't added any difficulty features yet either in the mod. :P

If an AI only has a handful of colonies, their colony type distribution might be skewed towards whatever the planets it has are best at.

[Arralen]

There's no implementation of difficulty levels in SE5. I also haven't added any difficulty features yet either in the mod. :P
Oh, really? I guess the following options are purely cosmetic, then?

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8102&d=1240929832

I'm not sure 'bout the AI difficulty level which was turning off ministers in SE4 and supposedly is in SE5 as well, but I'm pretty sure the "Computer Player Bonus .." lines in settings.txt do work, e.g. while the doubled research points do not show up in the comparison screen, they do show up on the research screen if you log into an AI position (but they're gone as soon as you hit "end turn", for obvious reasons)


//--------------------------------------
Computer Player Bonus Points Multiplier Low := 2.0
Computer Player Bonus Points Multiplier Medium := 3.0
Computer Player Bonus Points Multiplier High := 5.0
//--------------------------------------
Computer Player Bonus Queue Rate Multiplier Low := 1.5
Computer Player Bonus Queue Rate Multiplier Medium := 2.0
Computer Player Bonus Queue Rate Multiplier High := 3.0
//---------------------------------------

[NTJedi]

There's no implementation of difficulty levels in SE5. I also haven't added any difficulty features yet either in the mod. :P During new game setup, under empires there's a computer player difficulty level... which I setup as Medium.


If an AI only has a handful of colonies, their colony type distribution might be skewed towards whatever the planets it has are best at.

Based on my current game it seems the AI opponents need 8 or more planets before investing within research facilities.


I started at least 3 games with high difficulty/low bonus and paradise quadrants, and never noticed any "main nation" AI turtling in any deparment.

In fact, I had to go in settings.txt and reduce the AI bonus from 2.0 to 1.3 to make the game more sensible ... ...

I see... I was using medium difficulty with no bonus for the computers. Thanks for the suggestion, these first two games are mostly allowing me to learn the game since there's so much to learn. I'm expecting my next game to have increased difficulty settings.

[Captain Kwok]

There's no implementation of difficulty levels in SE5. I also haven't added any difficulty features yet either in the mod. :P During new game setup, under empires there's a computer player difficulty level... which I setup as Medium.

I know there are difficulty settings that exist in the game setup menu, but I'm saying they don't do anything.

[NTJedi]

There's no implementation of difficulty levels in SE5. I also haven't added any difficulty features yet either in the mod. :P During new game setup, under empires there's a computer player difficulty level... which I setup as Medium.

I know there are difficulty settings that exist in the game setup menu, but I'm saying they don't do anything.

Wow, I had no idea... thanks for the heads up. :)

[Makinus]

Kwok: in your page says that the Small Systems mod increases turn processing time... any idea by how much? if it´s less than 50% i´ll try SEV again with your balance mod and small systems mod...

[Captain Kwok]

On average, it cuts down the time of the movement phase by about 50%. Overall, I'd estimate you get about 25-30% savings depending on the frequency of combats.

[Makinus]

So your mod decreases turn processing time? Then you must change the description in your page, as it says there that the mod increases turn processing time...

I´ll definitely reinstall SEV this weekend and try your mod(s)! Thanks!

[Captain Kwok]

Oops!

The Small Systems mini-mod does decrease turn times and increases performance. :P

[Arralen]

Minister Oddity
Lately, I had 2 pop transport (small freighter hull) which simply sat there when turned to minister control: the pop transport minister simply didn't touch them.

When I switch the troop minister on, they started gathering troops!

And yes, I double-checked their type - said "population transport". I even did a new design with type "pop transport", and refitted one of them - no change.

Then it dawned to me - the 2 ships started out as troop transports, but where retrofitted to the pop transport class. Normally, I don't have any trouble with this, but the troop transport design got obsoleted and deleted from the designs list, and this may be causing the troubles.

I'm not sure if this only occures with the BM, guess this might happen with the vanilla game as well.
I wonder, though, if the AI (in BM, or in general) does this cross-retrofitting as well, making it's ship useless, and if something could be done 'bout it, if it does?

[Captain Kwok]

There's two design type designations attached to a ship. One is the external ('player') design type and the other is an internal ('AI') design type. Based on your observations, it appears when a ship is retrofit to another design type, it's internal design type doesn't get changed. Unfortunately I can't do anything about that for individual ships (only actual designs).

The AI occasionally cross-retofits, but only between the combat design types. For orders, those ships are lumped together so there wouldn't be any tangible effects as there would be specific design type orders like Troop Transports etc.

[Arralen]

Some more remarks from a 1.19/1.77 game:

AI Diplomacy

- AI asks for military help without having a corresponding treaty: 1st time it (can't remember which one) asked for ships in some system , while we had only 15% trade / non-aggr. in all systems/share mine codes / share medical; 2nd instance was the Xi'Chung, who had only a "neutrality pact" with non-aggr. in all systems - nevertheless they send "We immediatly request any and all military assistance ..."

- AI is (still) too eager to offer intersettling treaties, preferably as an update to an existing treaty after relations have become good.

- AI "updates" basic treaties (non-aggression etc.) without changing the treaty name. Having "non-interference treaties" which in fact are intersettling treaties is slightly confusing, IMHO.



AI shipbuilding
I checked several AI nations in my ongoing game (turn 142 with standard research), where everyone has shields, some emissive armor, ECM etc.:

- generally, the AI uses to few PD guns, sometimes even none at all, e.g. missile ships of the Sergetti (crys.), and therefore are easily killed with missiles on warppoints.

- mixing beam/missile weapons on attack ships generally doesn't really work out with "optimal range" in my experience: they either stay away too much, and never use the gun(s), or they get too close and fried by a bunch of fast-firing short range beam weapons. Yet the AI seems to be set up to do exactly that ... . So my suggestion: go with "shielded missile boats" based on FF/DD hulls, as those have too little tonnage anyway for armor/shielding, ECM, sensors etc., what you all would want for a beamer ship that goes toe-to-toe.

- AI is overly fond of armour, at the expense of PD, offensive weapons and -at least on smaller hulls- shields/rechargers. Having 1 gun, 1 PD, a single shield, but 3 heavy/ 2 light std. armours on a DD doesn't make much sense to me: 2 shields, 3 guns would win any time ?! Likewise, a medium transport mine-/satellite layer does not really need to carry 11(!) heavy armours, I guess.

- AI builds Kamikaze Ships with order "Optimal Range", what does not work. I saw such a ship wander right into a space station, but no ramming occured, and the warheads didn't go off. Results against ships wheren't any better.



component balance

- CSM damage seems to high, what is especially bad considering the low PD usage (suggestion: ~80%)

- Small Rocket Pods: are the ultimate fighter weapon; due to very high damage and long delay, the fighters swoop in to deliver tremendous damage, then retreat back to relativly safety at roughly max PD range. Fighters with "real guns" need not only more time to deliver the same amount of damage, but tend to stay in the PD envelope and get killed pretty fast. Compare to "Fighter Kamikaze Warhead" - it's the same size, similar damage, but the warhead fires only once, and the carrying fighter is destroyed as well. On ground troops, SRP are absolutly devastating too. My suggestion: damage down to 50-67%, and make them unable to target e.g. fighters.

- especially bad seems to be the "Small Ripper Beam", which is essentially useless, unless for some reason one manages to get his fighters un-hittable (maybe because the opponent does not use combat sensors), which is unlikely ..



Minister

- the "Renaming Minister" (or however you called him) does rename even ships after they've been given a "special name", without any retrofit involved. As not the complete name is overwritten, the result is somewhat ... remarkable, e.g. "SpecialTransportShip" turns into "Pop Trans IV 0009hip". Guess there ain't much what could be done 'bout this - or would it be possible to check if the first 3 letters of the ship name correspond with the type name, and only rename if that's true, so a "Pop Trans III 0009" would become a "Pop Trans IV 0009".
That would come in especially handy for Base Space Yards, which I tend to name after the planet they're orbiting ...


Happiness

- pop gets unhappy because of "ship losses" if you lose some troops conquering an enemy planet in the same system .. oh, wait, maybe that's realistic, must check the society settings ;)

[Arralen]

Add.: Kamikaze Ships

- it seems it's only a handful AIs which designs kamikaze ships at all (Sergetti, Xi'Chung, etc), and all seem to use the type "Kamikaze Attack Ships" with "optimal range" order, which does not work.

- I tested a kamikaze ship - with "kamikaze attack" order, it even was able to successfully ram a fighter !

- but for the player, there's only "Kamikaze Fighter" design type, not "Kamikaze Attack Ship" available.

[Captain Kwok]

It seems I've left out the 'Kamikaze Attack Ship' design type in DesignTypes.txt and also missed it for giving it a proper default setting in the AI's design creation file.

[Arralen]

The first issue I think I could fix myself (can I, or are there any pitfalls?),
but I'm at a loss with the 2nd one ... .
Any hints ?

edit: ... !! Found it myself:
www.captainkwok.net/files/BalanceModScriptsv119.zip (http://www.captainkwok.net/files/BalanceModScriptsv119.zip)

:cold: :envy: :( :mad:
... I added
"Kamikaze Attack Ship":
call Sys_Set_Vehicle_Design_Strategy(sys_long_Player_ID , design_id, "Kamikaze")
to the end of the "Set_Design_Type_Strategy" list, but Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt does not compile ... :

================================================== ==
Errors
================================================== ==
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #268): Invalid Variable Name - lst_AI_Design_Type_Name
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #268):
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #268): Bad Set Declaration
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #272): Invalid Variable Name - lst_AI_Design_Type_Name
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #272):
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #272): Bad Set Declaration
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #273): Invalid Variable Name - lst_AI_Design_Type_Vehicle_Size
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #273):
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #273): Bad Set Declaration
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #286): Invalid Variable Name - lst_AI_Design_Type_Name
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #286):
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #286): Bad Set Declaration
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #287): Invalid Variable Name - lst_AI_Design_Type_Vehicle_Size
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #287):
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #287): Bad Set Declaration
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #300): Could not find ENDIF
Could not parse Script_AI_DesignCreation.txt (line #130): Unmatched Forward Function for set_ai_design_type_for_design


Btw., I did thank you for your excellent mod, did I ?
:)

[Arralen]

Some more remarks:

- Why do you keep Kamikaze Ships from being resupplied and retrofitted? They are set to join fleets, therefore they would "drag down" all other ships if running low on supplies, and Kamikaze Ships with outdated engines will less likely be able to ram an enemy ship ...

- Is there a special cause for having beam guns on troop transports? This makes them close in with enemy ships if the fleet is attacked - something that is not really helpful ...

- likewise: recon sats have "don't get hurt", but they can't move .. "max / opt. range" ?

[Captain Kwok]

You should use the design type name 'Kamikaze Attack Ship' to match the AI's current usage.

You do not compile the file Script_AI_DesignCreation, please refer to the Wiki on which files actually get compiled and where they need to go:
http://wiki.spaceempires.net/index.php/AI_and_Script_Editing_(SEV)

(You may need to cut and paste link due to forum cutting off parenthesis)

In the end the one change you'll be making will only help out individual Kamikaze ships outside of fleets. The TF strategy will always overrule the design type strategy. For effective fleet usage of kamikaze ships, they need to be in a TF with the kamikaze strategy. I'll add this behavior in the next version of the mod.

AIs give Troop Transports a weapon to keep them together with the other warships when they are approaching a planet to capture it. It sometimes helps to avoid accidental glassings of the target or protect the troop transport.

[StarJack]

Can you remind me which file to edit to change the default maximum number of ships allowed when a game is started? :confused:

I started a game and played for hours and suddenly bumped into the 200 ship limit because I forgot to change it. :doh::(

[Captain Kwok]

I don't believe it's possible to change it once the game starts. You can try though, the values are set in Settings.txt.

[StarJack]

Thanks Kwok, found that and adjusted the minimum numbers. You're correct, changing it has no effect on an already started game.


Is there a text file that determines the Game Options settings (Max ships, units,etc) the game selects for "default" on a new game, or is that hard wired?

Appreciate your help and work on your mod!

[Captain Kwok]

The game always seems to stick with the default value (200) even if it's not an actual available option.

[NTJedi]

Besides all the good advice Arrlaen mentioned on the previous page I recommend increasing the Score Factor - Empire Research Points Available within the ScoreWeighting.txt file since research plays one of the biggest roles within the game. I believe late game comparisons with multiple players which own large pieces of the quadrant would also validate increasing this value from .1 .

Also I recall you mentioned the Mega Evil Empire percentage was 170%, but when viewing the settings.txt file within the BM mod it appears to be 200%.

AI Human Mega Evil Empire Score Percent := 200

[Arralen]

I really hate to say that - but BM is broken atm ... as the AI is all to eager to offer intersettling treaties.
Especially "bad" are the Abbidons, which in my current game offered 30%trade/intersettling/full tech exchange(!) upon meeting them on turn 25 (+/- some). Judging from the score graphs, at least 1 AI got the offer as well, and accecpted it - what keeps them from becoming the MEE very effectively, while "in reality" they are! :o

Any way to fix this?

[Captain Kwok]

What is the described mood of the Abbidon? In order for a treaty of that nature to be proposed, they\'d have to be brotherly etc. I\'m at a loss on how they could have an anger level that low on first contact...

Can you send the savegame to:
savegame at captainkwok dot net

Please let me know if you\'re using any custom shipsets (and which ones) in your mail.

[Arralen]

Sadly no savegame available from that turn, as I've played on a little bit ... .

IIRC, it was the very turn after I met them, and mood was "indifferent"

Sergetti behaved odd as well - we already had "Non-Agression" (non-agression in all systems), and they several times offered me a treaty change where they added "Sergetti give 5% tariff" but nothing more ?!

Not that odd, but annoying are the incessant requests of other AIs for intersettling treaties, which basically go "non-agression", then "we want some treaty change: 15%trade/colonisation in each others systems/share minefield codes" .. always way before they become "brotherly", but at least not that insane like the Abbiddon one ...

Only thing I changed from basic BM1.19 was
Max Warp Points per Sys := 6
Min Angle Between WP := 51
.. for Paradise Quadrants, as I feel this gives maps more like those in SE3/Se4 which I liked more.


Started a new game now with autosave enabled (was anyone able to use those autosaves up now, btw.? I always get some error message, and after that ALL saves from that game are unusuable..). Will 7-zip up the whole folder everytime something strange happens.

[Arralen]

Ok, here we go :

large quadrant (as before), high tech cost (instead of normal), high number of AI (as before), no neutral empires (changed that)

Abbiddon where the 3rd or 4th race I met - sadly, the very next turn I ran a scout over one of their colonies, accidently glassing the planet. Mood was "indifferent" the whole time, but maybe that kept them from offering another insane treaty proposal. (Somehow they must have gotten hold of rock colonizing tech around turn 27, thouhg. Either from a ruin or as a gift from someone else. They don't have a tech exchange treaty in turn 53, at least).

I offered them a gift (50k/20k/50k) ressources on turn 48, but relations didn't change ... ("indifferent")

Now, 5 turns later (turn 53), relations suddenly jump to "receptive", and I get a intersettling treaty suggestions ...

Note - relations in this game where much "cooler" up to that point than in the game before. Looking into the AIs turns, not many treaties have been signed up to now, while in the game before (where the Abbiddon made that insane suggestions) most nations which met had a treaty within several turns.

Does changing the tech costs or leaving out neutral empires make a difference here?


Everything is 7-zipped up and emailed to above adress.

[Captain Kwok]

I took a look at the game and it appears mostly on target with the exception of the 5% tariff offer to you. It really should be to the Abbidon, but that's a known outstanding bug.

Regarding the setting allowing colonization, that's intentional. It generally works out better for the friendlier AIs to get more planets.

I was more concerned about the 30% trade level, full tech trade, or migration elements being offered too 'early' in relations. If you have a situation like that again, be sure to send me the game.