Proportions mod Version 2.2 released

[PvK]

Download it from the Proportions mod web page. (http://g2.latibulum.com/pvk/proportions/)

I thought this was going to be a small release a week or more ago, but it turned out to be a lot more. The basics are more or less unchanged, and old 2.0-2.1 games should be upgradable without particular weirdness, but there are several extensions and additions in a number of areas (see below).

Players wanting acceleration to planetary development will I think find that a lot more speed is possible now with research into Cargo & new Starliner modules, and use of the new lower-level urban facilities.

The AI has been improved in a number of ways. John Sullivan has started helping me test and tweak the AI, and has been spending a lot of time figuring out how to get the AI to handle Proportions better. His Abbidon weren't quite ready for this release, but they are getting close and I expect they will be quite good in 2.3, which will appear as soon as they are ready.

Version 2.2:

---------
Gameplay:
---------
* Changed drone Anti-Ship Warheads to only be usable against ships and
bases (not fighters/satellites/planets/etc).
* Extended Temporal Shifters three tech levels with diminishing results,
to fall in with null space boost to adapt to Proportions armor. Note
that Temporal Shifters are easier to research and to build but shorter
ranged and somewhat less destructive than null space projectors.
* Control and life support components will no longer upgrade to more
expensive types when a design is upgraded.
* Adjusted speed of Light Missile System IV to originally intended speed.
* Increased research cost of Neural Computer Interface and added several
levels of development to it with different cost/size shifts and new
side-effects.
* Decreased research cost of Massive ancient techs, and increased their
maximums so they could actually be developed.
* Extended Massive Shield Depleting Weapons to tech level 6.
* Increased cargo & supply storage tech branch to level 5, and added
a new cargo component type, Starliner Module, that makes some larger
population transport capacities possible with advanced research, and
makes population transports a little easier to design and also to
maintain. Starliner modules require both Cargo and their own Starliner
tech area to be researched. This was done mainly to make it possible
to adjust the AI to build transport hulls without using Starliner
modules.
* Doubled organics costs of (racial tech) Organic Generation Facilities.
* Rearranged (racial tech) Solar Generator facilities. The more advanced
ones now cost more to build, and they now produce more rads, fewer
organics, and fewer still minerals.
* Added new non-racial-tech Solar Power Plant facilities. These are
inexpensive but produce only rads, not organics or minerals.
* Increased costs of higher-level Monolith facilities.
* Added four new cultural facilities below the previous "City" facility,
and re-named "City" to "Major City". See Major City, City, Minor City,
Colonial Community, and Settlement.
* Cultural facilities are now broken into four families to limit abuses
of the current SE4 facility upgrade mechanic: Settlement/Community,
Cities/Metro/Megalopoli, Arcology, and Cultural Centers. Upgrades are
allowed within but not between these Groups.
* Added Psychic Intelligence Centers.
* Increased size and cost of high-tech combat sensors and ECM, to make
smaller Versions a more viable alternative on larger ships.
* Added Ionic Shield Generators (provide protection against ionic
engine-destroying weapons.
---------
Cosmetic:
---------
* Expanded descriptions of cultural facilities to better explain what
these represent.
* Corrected cosmetic typo in "Spatial Rupture 2".
* Fixed cosmetic duplicate Rad Storage III.
* Removed some bogus warnings for system-wide ability duplication from
some urban facilities.
* Separated small combat sensors and ECM from large Versions when "only
latest" is selected, instead of only offering small ones.
---
AI:
---
* Added ability to have AI use efficient engines.
* Added ability to have AI choose between light and capital missiles.
* Added ability of AI to deploy Mental Flailers after Allegiance
Subverters have been developed.
* Implemented planned method for AI to build intel centers.
* Implemented planned method for AI to build system happiness facilities.
* Stopped AI loading some AFV weapons on fighters.
* Enhanced Amon'krie AI.
* Enhanced Neutral AI's.
* Modified Drushocka AI.
* Enhanced Terran AI.
* Enhanced some default AI files that will improve all AI's.

PvK

[PvK]

Oh, I forgot - the Norak AI got tweaked somewhat, as well.

[pathfinder]

I like http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ZeroAdunn]

Let me be the first to say:

Wahooooooooo!

[oleg]

PvK, please either move Organic generation into a separate group or at least put them below Organic farms in facility.txt.

I think 99.9% people play SE IV with "show only latest" on in constraction window. As it is now, organig generation facilities are invisible, being override by organic farms. To build them, I must to uncheck "latest only", put them in queue and swith "latest only" back. Extremely inconvinient. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Even worse, every time I research, for example, space yards II and press "upgrade facilities", SE IV tries to replace organig generation V with organic farms III http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

I still do not like the lack of research requirements for Major city. The fact that several cultural facilities are available from start gives me headache: I must to switch off and switch on "onlly latest" if I want to build cheap town and constantly monitor construction every time I hit "upgrade facilities".
Worst of all, it makes impossible to programm AI to build cheap cultural facilities first and upgrade them later (it always build th latest available). PVK, please assign some research requirements to low-level facilities. IMHO, it will make this mod even more flexible and interesting.

I am rather confused with "unresearcheable tech."
It is only to make older save games compatible with 2.2, right ? Can I delete all these dummy facilities if I want to start a new game ?

I think there is a type in "researcheable" Archology (one in the bottom of the list). It is assign to a wrong facility group than city-megapolice-metropolice facilities. I am pretty sure it is a type, but please check it.

[wr8th]

PvK,
As always, your effort in this endeavor is appreciated.
This is the only mod my wife and I play. Looking forward to the AI tweaks so that I can port them over to Atrocities' Star Trek races (another excellent magnum opus).

[ 07 May 2002: Message edited by: wr8th ]</p>

[PvK]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by oleg:
PvK, please either move Organic generation into a separate group or at least put them below Organic farms in facility.txt.

I think 99.9% people play SE IV with "show only latest" on in constraction window. As it is now, organig generation facilities are invisible, being override by organic farms. To build them, I must to uncheck "latest only", put them in queue and swith "latest only" back. Extremely inconvinient. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Even worse, every time I research, for example, space yards II and press "upgrade facilities", SE IV tries to replace organig generation V with organic farms III http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif
<hr></blockquote>

Heh, sorry about that. Yes, I'll make org generators a separate family. I never rely on the automatic "upgrade facilities" function, so I never noticed this.


<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>
I still do not like the lack of research requirements for Major city. The fact that several cultural facilities are available from start gives me headache: I must to switch off and switch on "onlly latest" if I want to build cheap town and constantly monitor construction every time I hit "upgrade facilities".
Worst of all, it makes impossible to programm AI to build cheap cultural facilities first and upgrade them later (it always build th latest available). PVK, please assign some research requirements to low-level facilities. IMHO, it will make this mod even more flexible and interesting.<hr></blockquote>

Ya, I see how that could help - I'll add an extremely cheap tech requirement so this can be controlled. Thanks for the suggestion.


<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>
I am rather confused with "unresearcheable tech."
It is only to make older save games compatible with 2.2, right ? Can I delete all these dummy facilities if I want to start a new game ?
<hr></blockquote>

Yes, that is an invisible and unattainable racial tech, that hides some items from selection without removing them, to allow older games to be upgraded to 2.2 without problems. It's only visible when browsing the data files or if you have "show all tech" on and are studying the tech tree database in Help. If you are starting a new game from scratch and playing by yourself, you can hack those out of the mod and it will work fine.


<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>
I think there is a type in "researcheable" Archology (one in the bottom of the list). It is assign to a wrong facility group than city-megapolice-metropolice facilities. I am pretty sure it is a type, but please check it.<hr></blockquote>

I think you mean "typo" and "facility family", rather than "type" and "facility group". Assuming you mean that the facility family is "62," while the cities before it are "61," that isn't a typo. As the readme says, there are four categories of cultural facilities, and they are in different families in order to prevent abusive upgrades. That is, you can't upgrade a city to an Arcology; you have to start from scratch. There are two reasons for this. The first is that SE4 has a lame way of calculating the cost in cases like this (I put in a request to change this), so it would be a cheat that would undermine the hierarchy. The other reason is that an Arcology is defined as a completely different kind of city, which wouldn't save construction time by having an old-style city to start from.

PvK

[oleg]

"I think you mean "typo" and "facility family", rather than "type" and "facility group". Assuming you mean that the facility family is "62," while the cities before it are "61," that isn't a typo."

Yes, it is me who makes typos ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Thanks for clarification. They have been in the same group before, that's why my question. I was also puzzled why the very first item in the facility family 62 has a roman numerical 8, just like an extention of the Last item in family 61, which has the roman numerical 7.

I want to make my own small modifications to facilities, but get lost with "unresearcheble tech." facilities. Deleting them would greatly help me, thanks a lot ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I also had a funny experience with Proportion' AI:
Xi'Chung started in next system to me and become extremely agitated from the very start. At the moment I founded the first colony, we have been already at war. Xi'chung send a fleet of 8 ships to attack my colony, which had only 1 weapon platform. I thought it was doomed, but during the battle Xi'chung ships (all with direct fire weapons) did not attack planet but run into corners ! Glory to the divine wind that protect our people http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif !!!

[Tenryu]

Thanks again, PVK.

[PvK]

Ya, the Roman numerals are left over from the original idea to be able to upgrade all of them, before I realized that it would create a cheat and make the middle levels nearly pointless.

The unresearchable urban facilities are all at the top of the facs file. The enabled ones are all together near the bottom of the facs file.

I'll have to investigate the Xi'Chung - I think the default AI is not actually not genocidal, unlike in the standard set. Since glassing and rebuilding a planet is a lot more wasteful than it is in the current game, and in general I think only genocidal races should exterminate millions of civillians, I changed the default for most races. Of course, the Xi'Chung should be an exception to this, according to their description. So, you have until 2.3 before they get mean... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

[RabidFan]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by PvK:


Heh, sorry about that. Yes, I'll make org generators a separate family. I never rely on the automatic "upgrade facilities" function, so I never noticed this.

PvK<hr></blockquote>

So riddle me this, Batman...how do you upgrade you facilities? How are you doing it? Is it possible for me to upgrade a Minor City to a City, I always only get the option to jump to Major City or Metropolis (depending on Tech Level).

[ 08 May 2002: Message edited by: RabidFan ]</p>

[PvK]

Well that can't currently be done (unless you hack the mod between turns), though I asked Malfador if he might consider doing it (his request list is still pretty huge at this point though).

The thing Oleg was talking about and I was responding to, was using the "Upgrade Facilities" command (not just the "Upgrade" button for a specific colony, which gives some [but not enough] choices), which automatically goes and gives all possible upgrade orders. The few times I tried to use that, it did all kinds of things I didn't want, even in the unmodded game, and I spent more time undoing upgrades I didn't want, than it could have saved me.

PvK

[RabidFan]

Rats, I was hoping there was some undocumented way to do this that you had discovered...

Is it on purpose that I cannot upgrade a Colony(GAS/ICE/ROCK) to a minor city?

[wr8th]

Re: Upgrading facilities

Although it involves micromanagement on the planetary scale, I rather do it by individual planet (typically starting with those farthest from the frontier and staggered during wartime (if I even do it at all at that point)).

I find that the global "upgrade facility" is more trouble than it's worth.

Does getting up at 5AM to play a couple rounds constitute addiction? Sounds of a 3-pack-a-day smoker and SEIV player: "I can kick this whenever I want!"

[PvK]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by RabidFan:
...
Is it on purpose that I cannot upgrade a Colony(GAS/ICE/ROCK) to a minor city?<hr></blockquote>

Yes. You can upgrade a settlement to a community, but then the next thing is to build a Minor City from scratch (actually, it's more efficient to first build a bunch of simple facilities quickly to take advantage of the unused space, and then [maybe a good construction yard and then] work on cities).

Originally they were going to be upgradable to cities, but currently there is a problem in the way upgrades work in SE4 that would mess this up (you could upgrade from a cheap settlement to a Megalopolis and end up essentially getting Megalopolis [or other city type] for half the cost).

PvK

[oleg]

Originally posted by PvK:
and in general I think only genocidal races should exterminate millions of civillians.
PvK<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Dresden, February 13th, 1945.

[TerranC]

Originally posted by oleg:Dresden, February 13th, 1945.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Huh?

[ 10 May 2002, 00:57: Message edited by: TerranC ]

[PvK]

Is that a suggestion that the Terrans should be categorized as genocidal?

[oleg]

Originally posted by PvK:
Is that a suggestion that the Terrans should be categorized as genocidal?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yes and No. If we could do it to ourselves, then most certainly we will do it to alliens. Since we are so far the only known sentient species in Universe, our bloodthirsty history is by default the galactic standard. Thus, given that human race is most certainly capable of aforementioned acts, it either does not classify us as genocidal race or genocidal behaviour is a trademark of advanced intellect. In either case, Proportion' *_AI_strategies.txt should be modified to include

Don't fire on planets := False http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[PvK]

I don't think I agree, although I suppose it's up for interpretation. You're of course free to mod out things you don't agree with, as always.

In this case, I suppose it is possible to interpret the destruction of planetary population by ship bombardment as "merely" the causing of so much damage that the civilized space age assets there are merely un-useful to their parent empire. That argument has some merit - it may be that "glassing" a planet is just making it effectively need to be rebuilt, rather than necessarily killing all of the millions or billions of defenseless civillians that may be there.

On the other hand, it is perhaps more easy, natural, and common, to interpret this game event literally - that it does represent wholesale extermination of civillians, perhaps even to the point of trying to kill them all or, to use the usual expression on this forum, "glassing" the planet.

The USAF's attacks that levelled German and Japanese cities in World War II were amazingly horrible and killed massive numbers of civillians, but they did not exterminate everyone. In SE4 terms, this could be seen as either literally destroying everything and everyone (what the AI does unless you set Target Planets to False), or as just destroying the facilities and leaving the population (which you could do manually in SE3, but I think in SE4 even a human player isn't shown how many facilities are left, so you couldn't really do that even if you wanted to in SE4, and certainly not in simultanous games where the AI leads the battles).

I don't think it's really possible to interpret the shooting off of all the population units on a planet as not involving massive numbers of massacreing civillians. The good ol' USA may have done this plenty in WW2, but a mere 60 years later, and long before real space expansion, I think the trend is definitely towards recognizing that there may be something just a wee tad evil/horrible/immoral/wrong about mass-slaughtering civillians to get a military advantage.

Anyway, I like to hold out hope that many otherworldly races, and even our depraved species, once they are so advanced that they spread into space, will have developed at least a modicum of morality in these terms.

Moreover, I generally leave Target Planets = True for the Capture Planet strategy, and if this strategy reaches a planet but forgot to bring troops, or other such accidents, the AI will go massacreing civillians anyway. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif For the most merciful races, I may even leave their "Capture Planet" strat set to not target planets, though then their AI will need to be tweaked so it has some chance of dropping troops without always getting annihilated by weapon platforms.

All of this brings up the other main reason why I set this to false in most cases, which is so that ground combat will be more a part of the game. If the AI would just show up and lay waste to planets from orbit, there would be much less ground combat. Given how long it takes (and how expensive it is) to develop a colony in Proportions, this is also, I would think, something of a practical advantage - if the AI conquers enemy colonies rather than bLasting them, it will gain a lot more. Even without transports, though, it may be useful for the AI to sit on enemy planets without attacking - blockading them without getting their ships creamed by the planetary defenses (maybe).

Of course, the AI is needing quite a few tweaks still, including getting more invasion transports out there.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

PvK

[oleg]

Optimal solution would be to have a special target priority "weapon platforms". It has been suggested several times before but, alas, MM did't implemented it.

It is possible to check during tactical combat how many facilities left on planet: right-click on planet than select "facilities".

It would be nice to transfer TDM Orks or Space Vikings AI. They like to capture planets ! Very nicely done races.

Another issue: AI does not put enough point defence. This is because point defence beams are Last in the list of poin-defence weapons and hence AI always select it. Point-defence beams are superior in acurace, but puny damage values makes current AI ships completely defenseless. I suggest to swap the order of point-defence cannons and point-defence beams in components.txt

[PvK]

Yep yep yep.

I whined for a long time to MM about adding "Planet - Unarmed" to don't fire on types, too.

You're probably right, I think, about the suggestion for order of PD weapons. The AI ship designs can be hugely improved - John Sullivan and I have been tweaking them a lot lately for 2.3.

PvK

[RabidFan]

PVK,

Originally posted by oleg:
Another issue: AI does not put enough point defence.....<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I will second this. Although home worlds are difficult to attack with direct fire weapons, building ships with just Capital Missles is the most effective way of preparing a Homeworld for ground assault. They can easily stay out of range of even Heavy/Massive Mounted weapons and wittle the planet's troops down (which absorb tons of Damage). If they could build a Weapons platform that had PD components on them it would be all the more difficult and costly to take.

Also this may exist and I don't see it, but what if there was a shield generating component that could be put on a weapon platform that added to the shields of the planet. Then non-homeworlds would not be so naked to these attacks as well....

two cents more...

[PvK]

Ok, there shall be more PD from the AI. I had some WP's with PD included, I thought, but I guess either they're using PD beams, or haven't researched PD by the time you attack them, or something. If I tag the self-defense cannon for the AI to find, it should be pretty easy to get the AI to make its homeworlds rather missile resistant.

I don't think it's possible to put planet-wide shields on WP's. I could try to use the Planet - Shield ability, but it's not phased (the phased ability used on facilties is the unit component ability).

However, if Gold 1.67 is like Pre-Gold 1.49, then I think the lowest-hitpoint units on planets tend to get hit first, and before population and facilities, meaning that small WP's with cheap defense components can be used to "protect" most units.

What I should probably do, though, is add a string of planetary shield generator facilities to the standard tech tree (making the ancient tech just out-perform it for a greater investment).

Note too that all of the cultural facilities include phased shield gen to represent the difficulty of destroying these, and the added potential to shelter units on planets with these.

On homeworlds, it takes a pretty large and sustained firepower just to get through the CC "shields".

PvK

[jimbob]

I don't think it's possible to put planet-wide shields on WP's. I could try to use the Planet - Shield ability, but it's not phased (the phased ability used on facilties is the unit component ability).
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">My understanding is that the WP must all be destroyed before damage is applied to any of the facilities. If this is true then any shields on WP are equivalent to planetary shields... I think

[wr8th]

Originally posted by jimbob:
My understanding is that the WP must all be destroyed before damage is applied to any of the facilities. If this is true then any shields on WP are equivalent to planetary shields... I think<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That's been my experience also. I had a tough time once with the AI for this reason... lotsa early research weapons against 12000 points of planet shields derived from WP's... I came back with cruisers loaded with planetary bombs...

There! That'll learn 'em!

[ 10 May 2002, 21:00: Message edited by: wr8th ]

[RabidFan]

Problem with a WP with just shields would be that most likely the ground combat units would be killed first. If I am attacking a homeworld, I want the facilities intact....If only Planet Shileds could be in a component then defenses could be purchased without sacraficing facility space....

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by PvK:
What I should probably do, though, is add a string of planetary shield generator facilities to the standard tech tree (making the ancient tech just out-perform it for a greater investment).

PvK<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Heh, that's basically what I did. I have 8 levels of shields, 4 need Massive Planetary Shields to acquire, and I arranged the roman numerals for them so the regular planetary shields will upgrade to the appropriate level for the massive planetary shields. (Massive Planetary Shield Generator I shows up as V, essentially.)

[Phoenix-D]

"I arranged the roman numerals for them so the regular planetary shields will upgrade to the appropriate level for the massive planetary shields."

FYI you don't have to order the facilities by roman numeral.. it's a cosmetic thing. Order in the file is all that counts.

Phoenix-D

[oleg]

My first idea that AI uses PD beams exclusively because it is the latest entry in components.txt was completely wrong. After I interchanged places of PD beams and PDC, AI still stick to PDB (sadly, it is not Protein Data Bank). I think AI uses the component with required ability (PD in this case) that is smalest in size. Thus, it may require some drastic changes in PD weapons to make AI have more or less credible PD defence.

[oleg]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
"I arranged the roman numerals for them so the regular planetary shields will upgrade to the appropriate level for the massive planetary shields."

FYI you don't have to order the facilities by roman numeral.. it's a cosmetic thing. Order in the file is all that counts.

Phoenix-D<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It does work this way for upgrades, but it can run havoc with AI. Remember, long time ago there was a HUGE problem with AI always using ionic drives even if much better drives were discovered. The reason was that than every drive class started with roman numerical I instead of continuing older drive numbers. IMHO, the accurate numbering is extremely important as a profilactic measure for AI.

[Phoenix-D]

I just tested the Krill with inaccurate Plasma Missile numbering..they still used the correct missile.

[PvK]

If it were picking the smallest PD component, then it would use Self-Defense Cannon, which is smaller than the PD Beam. If someone figures out what's determining the choice, let me know. I'm sure there's a way to do it though, and will figure it out if no one does first.

As for planetary shield platforms, one nice thing about the really tough troops is that they tend to get destroyed after weapon platforms. If you made a really strong shield plaform with phased shield component, though, it might just be the Last thing to go before population and facilities, but would not protect weaker units, such as platforms with weapons, units based at the planet, infantry, etc.

PvK

[oleg]

Why not ask MM directly about this apperently very confusing issue ? He should know a bit how the hell the hard-coded AI algorythm works !

I would ask myself but I suspect that more respected members of our community might have better chances for prompt response

[PvK]

I thought it'd be easy but ya, it's lookin' more mysterious after a test. I tried offering it a weapon with a higher to-hit, a lower listing position, and a higher Roman numeral, but nope, it just really likes the PD Beam. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I'll ask MM.

PvK

[oleg]

Can be a higher research cost for PDB be a clue ? At least it has 2 tech requirements compared to 1 for PDC.

May be constraction cost is a final factor ? I think it was the root of "ion engine bug"

[ 11 May 2002, 00:44: Message edited by: oleg ]

[PvK]

I just tested construction cost - nope. Haven't tried research requirements. It may be a combination of things. I'm sure it's doable - just have to find the trick.

[PvK]

I found a way to do this over the weekend. Apparently, for some components and facilities (e.g. Point Defense, Organics Generation, Life Support), the AI chooses between them based on their tech level requirements.

By listing some of the same tech requirements twice or thrice, the desirability of those components of facilities can be emphasized, without changing the actual requirements. Pretty spiffy, although it doesn't work for everything (e.g. ECM and Sensors seem to get the AI to actually look for the highest rating).

PvK

[TerranC]

Originally posted by PvK:
I found a way to do this over the weekend. Apparently, for some components and facilities (e.g. Point Defense, Organics Generation, Life Support), the AI chooses between them based on their tech level requirements.

By listing some of the same tech requirements twice or thrice, the desirability of those components of facilities can be emphasized, without changing the actual requirements. Pretty spiffy, although it doesn't work for everything (e.g. ECM and Sensors seem to get the AI to actually look for the highest rating).<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">An A.I. that doesn't care if it's "Crew" is dead or suffocated but care enough to fit the ship with the highest sensor pack that the empire has to offer.

I guess that's going to be included in the next Version?

[PvK]

In 2.2, the AI uses life support as they become available. First normal life support, then basic life support, then hardenned life support. It also chooses the highest-rated electronic warfare components it can.

In 2.3, I currently have it so that once it develops basic life support, it stays with that, because going to all hardenned means its ships all become very expensive. I see this as pretty reasonable and efficient, but if people really want to see the AI doing different things with life support ... let me know. The electronic warfare choices aren't going to change. AI modders should simply have the AI stop researching at the desired level of insanity. The only issue is with High (all) tech games, which would take a lot of work to make the AI any good at anyway, for a number of reasons.

PvK

[oleg]

In another thread, Alpha Kodiak posted this observation:

-------------------------------------------------
Ok, here is the complete scoop on Ionic Dispersers, at least as run from the simulator. There is no carryover of damage from shot to shot, even in the same volley. I set up a group of 5 sats armed only with a single Ionic Disperser II each. Brought a target ship up close and let fly. No matter how many hits, there was no damage done. I switched to Ionic Disperser IVs which do 30 points of damage per hit. In the first volley, there were three hits. That should have caused 90 damage, enough to destroy 4 engines. However, only three engines were destroyed, one per hit. I then switched to Ionic Disperser Vs which do 40 per hit. As expected, each hit destroyed two engines.

My final conclusion, which causes me severe grief in trying to build my latest AI, is that it is a total waste to put unmodded level I or II Ionic Dispersers on destroyer or smaller ships, as well as small satellites. That is tricky enough, but it also means that it is a waste to put Ionic Dispersers that individually do anything other than even multiples of 20 damage when modified by their mounts. Getting the AI to recognize that will be just about impossible.
--------------------------------------------------

I think it has some serious repercussions for Ionic shield. As it is now, even IS 1 can not be destroyed by Ionic dispersors no matter what ! Well, except for largest base mounts. SE usually choose the biggest components to be hit first. That means that IS can soak infinite amound of damage from ID without even a scratch with only occasional hits been registered to engines.
There might be some balansing problems with IS.

[PvK]

The point is that ionic disruptors are way too poweful without a countermeasure - especially with the increased importance of supplies in Proportions, and in the latest Gold Version (no supplies means no weapons or shields). Also, leaving enemy derelicts that have to be maintained is even more damaging in Proportions, because resources are much harder to mass-produce with quick colony development.

I have tested the Ionic Shields in Proportions and was pretty happy with how they work. They work about like Proportions standard armor, but only against ionic weapons. You may have a hard time destroying the Ionic Shield with Ionic weapons, but well, that's what the Ionic Shield is for. Meanwhile, you will still sometimes destroy engines despite the shield, and of course ignoring all shields and armor that the ship may have, so ionic weapons do not become useless. Ionic shields have their disadvantages, too - they count as an engine, so a ship with an ionic shield has reduced engine design capacity, and of course they take a fair amount of component space, are just like expensive armor against non-ionic weapons, and they can be taken out by non-ionic weapon hits.

So, I think they're serving their intended purpose well. It provides a much-needed mostly-effective countermeasure to ionic weapons, which has its own important trade-offs and limitations.

Unless I'm missing something. They may still need tweaking.

Thanks for the alert though! All feedback is helpful.

PvK

[PvK]

Oh, and with ionic shields around, Massive Engine Destroying Weapons are suddenly more interesting than just researching your own and piling them up.

Actually, a good tweak now might be to extend the engine-destroying weapons trees, to allow more of an arms race between them and ionic shields.

PvK

[oleg]

PvK, I have some problems with Religious tallisman:
I want to make a deeply religios AI (hmmm, what if I really succeed in this .... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif ) but SE IV swears whenever I put either "weapons always hit" or "sector - sensor interference" (not sure if I spelled them correctly, but I'm absolutely sure there are no mistakes in my design.txt file) as a misc. abillity

SE gives an error "uknown ability value" when processing turn. I checked Norak AI and it does not produce this mistake, BUT it does not put Religious talisman on ships either when I tried Max.tech start (I did adjust AI_settings to design big ships from start).

[PvK]

It can be done. If you don't have a typo with "Sector - Sensor Interference" (Talisman), then it is probably just that your design doesn't have room by the time the AI gets to that Misc ability. Here, though, is an example of a ship that does use a Talisman:

Name := Attack Light Cruiser
Design Type := Attack Ship
Vehicle Type := Ship
Default Strategy := Maximum Weapons Range
Size Minimum Tonnage := 425
Size Maximum Tonnage := 475
Num Must Have At Least 1 Ability := 1
Must Have Ability 1 := Weapon
Minimum Speed := 6
Desired Speed := 500
Majority Weapon Family Pick 1 := 1
Majority Weapon Family Pick 2 := 3
Majority Weapon Family Pick 3 := 2
Majority Weapon Family Pick 4 := 25
Majority Weapon Family Pick 5 := 0
Secondary Weapon Family Pick 1 := 12
Secondary Weapon Family Pick 2 := 11
Secondary Weapon Family Pick 3 := 22
Secondary Weapon Family Pick 4 := 0
Secondary Weapon Family Pick 5 := 0
Shields Spaces Per One := 450
Armor Spaces Per One := 0
Majority Comp Spaces Per One := 1200
Majority Comp Ability := Weapon
Secondary Comp Spaces Per One := 0
Secondary Comp Ability :=
Num Misc Abilities := 10
Misc Ability 1 Name := Point-Defense
Misc Ability 1 Spaces Per One := 200
Misc Ability 2 Name := Planet - Shield Generation
Misc Ability 2 Spaces Per One := 10000
Misc Ability 3 Name := Combat To Hit Defense Plus
Misc Ability 3 Spaces Per One := 10000
Misc Ability 4 Name := Combat To Hit Offense Plus
Misc Ability 4 Spaces Per One := 10000
Misc Ability 5 Name := Sector - Sensor Interference
Misc Ability 5 Spaces Per One := 10000
Misc Ability 6 Name := Supply Storage
Misc Ability 6 Spaces Per One := 200
Misc Ability 7 Name := Shield Regeneration
Misc Ability 7 Spaces Per One := 800
Misc Ability 8 Name := Planet - Shield Generation
Misc Ability 8 Spaces Per One := 90
Misc Ability 9 Name := Planet - Shield Generation
Misc Ability 9 Spaces Per One := 10000
Misc Ability 10 Name := Scanner Jammer
Misc Ability 10 Spaces Per One := 10000

[oleg]

Thanks, it was indeed a problem with space,
RT 1 takes 100 K http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif More like Pyramids, I should say !

[PDF]

PvK,
In Proportions it's a hassle to have an effective StarLiner fleet to move population, and changing settings data raise new problems..

So here's a crossbreeding mod idea from B5 mod : in B5 there are special "Corporate" and "Civilian" bridges components : they give 70 and 90% reduction in ship maintenance, but with awful combat penalties.
Won't they fit neatly in your mod ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif They would allow to have larger Liner fleets while keeping the desired proportions ...

In fact since some days I sought a way to have private ships (Liners should be, unless a Soviet Empire playing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) but didn't have any good idea of how to do this, then I stumbled upon them in B5 ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ May 17, 2002, 16:47: Message edited by: PDF ]

[PvK]

There is already something like this, that I'm not sure if you've noticed yet or not. The small starliner with standard bridge is the low-tech model for transporting population, and is slow and expensive and so on. With research into ship construction and/or cargo and/or starliner modules, however, you can use the "Basic Bridge," "Basic Life Support," and "Starliner Module" components, and also transport hulls will about 30% maintenance reduction, to reduce costs of pop transports. Higher levels of research allow more population to be stuffed onto ships of different sizes, too. It does take some time to develop this technology, of course.

Or did you already know about all that, and think there should be more to reduce the maintenance costs?

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by oleg:
Thanks, it was indeed a problem with space,
RT 1 takes 100 K http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif More like Pyramids, I should say !<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Are you whining about divine gifts? That's not very pious of you! You've also written incorrectly:

Religious Talisman I is actually 50 kT. It only provides +10 to-hit, but this stacks (in SE4's mathematically exaggerated way) with all other modifiers, and thus gives a major advantage - the equivalent of a 1250-racial-point investment in Aggressiveness, so it's actually pretty awesome, especially since it's just the beginning.

Religious Talisman VI is 100 kT, and is the first one that allows the mega-powerful "always hits" ability.

PvK

[oleg]

Yep, I should be more careful when writing.
I like what you made with RT. It makes more sense than standard SE IV "all or nothing" effect.

[oleg]

PvK, could you please assign some bogus ability to minor cultural facilities, like megapolies. I want to make AI gradually build colonies by building and upgrading cultural facilities but can not call them in sonstuction.txt file, AI likes to build cultural centers (for obvious reason) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[PvK]

Yes. I'm adding:

Component Destroyed On Use means Best Cultural facility besides Cultural Center

for 2.3. You can go ahead and add it in for testing, and it'll be the same in 2.3.

PvK

[PvK]

A group that has been playing Proportions multi-player LAN games on weekends has suggested removing the ability to put shipyards on medium (or larger) transport hulls, because it with the ~30% maintenance reduction, it makes a really powerful and economical mine/satellite layer in Proportions.

I also noticed that it is kind of irritating to build units on orbital shipyards, and have them appear on the base and have to be manually transferred down to the planet.

I was thinking what I would do, to respond to this without breaking existing games, would be to increase the cost and/or maintenance cost of shipyards with cargo capacity, and add a new shipyard type which will simply be like the old one, with no cargo and thus unable to be loaded on transport hulls. This will mainly have the effect of increasing the cost of transport-hull spaceyard ships so they are nearly as expensive as maintaining a cruiser-hull spaceyard ship.

The main side-effect for existing games would be that existing spaceyard components would become more expensive and ones not on transport hulls would want to be upgraded to non-cargo Versions.

I want to know if anyone will be miffed or sees any problems with this, particularly anyone currently playing in my Proportions game on PBW.

PvK

[Baron Munchausen]

I used to have both base space yards and space yard ships in the AI design files include cargo. But the AI was too stupid to remove the units it built from either type of vehicle so it ended up with wasted units that were never used clogging the base space yards and space yard ships. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif Have you noticed the AI in Proportions do this? If it's smart enough to actually find the units in the cargo of space yard bases and ships now then I'd keep the cargo space. It's very useful to include the space to hold units you have contructed in the same vehicle.

And I don't think it's unbalancing in itself to have a ship or base able to build and launch units. A BSY with mine/satellite laying bays is an excellent thing to put on a warp point. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[oleg]

PvK, can you assign some bogus ability to battle scanners ? The reason is once AI discovers Fire controls, it tries to put it on all Weapon Platforms. Due to excessive size of Fire control, WP end up without any "to hit plus" components.

Thank's for cultural facilities bogus ability, in Last game my experimental Pequeninos AI build up colony with 10 minor cities end then upgraded them ! It took more than 100 turns (no AI bonus, it was my race on autopilot) , but I was still impressed.

[PvK]

The Proportions AI is currently occasionally storing a few units on BSY's. It only happens when a BSY itself builds units, which only happens when it builds from the construction_vehicles file, which usually uses BSY's to build ships and bases rather than units. It happens sometimes, and is OK for storing units for example for satellite carriers to pick up, since they can't be launched from the BSY. However the AI already seems to keep enough sats and mines sitting on planets somewhere for a layer/launcher to come get.

In general though since they can't launch, and since non-domed planets have huge unit capacities in Proportions, I think it's best the AI not do this. Also, if such a design is wanted, you can just add cargo compartments.

I saw an interesting thing with the Phong ships - in one game, several of them were carrying a few infantry units each in the 1 kT space given to their supply bays! It might be possible to get an AI to frequently capture small colonies this way... at least, ungarissoned ones. Though, they might equally often just get themselves sawed in half by weapon platforms.

The reported inbalance was coming from Proportions' ~30% maintenance reduction for transports, and the availability of medium transports two tech levels before cruisers, so relatively early, human players were making SY ships on med transport hulls as minelayers, able to build 5 mines per turn. The typical low-tech design that I came up with has speed 4, range 23 one-way, costs around 6500 resources, but only about base 900 to maintain, and is an easy target. I don't see a similar warship-hull design until battlecruiser hulls, at least that can both build and lay mines in one ship (though you could do the same thing with a little more speed using a cruiser and an escort, but it would be more expensive).

Compared to conventional minelayer designs, let's see, a "fast-laying" low-tech med transport which stores and lays 30 mines per turn, range 34 one-way, costs about 4200 resources, 580 to maintain, but of course can't build anything (neither does it need to stay in the target sector for .6 years to lay 30 mines, though.

I think the main observation was that it allows construction far away from the homeworld (combined with resupply ships and supply outPosts). In Proportions, the homeworld tends to be where most of the unit construction goes on, and economical long-range transports are slow, so although the conventional minelayer looks better in the above case, the SYS looks better the farther away you are from a construction center.

Actually though, having looked at those examples, it's not seeming bad to me. Mainly I think they were worried that the AI won't do this, but the AI has always been at a disadvantage with minelaying (and lots of other areas).

I think though that mines in general may be a little more annoying/powerful than in the unmodded game, because the mid-game stage tends to have a more limited budget and efficient minesweepers are slow and cost a fair amount.

PvK

[PvK]

Cool, Oleg - glad it's working. I have been finding that the AI can develop some reasonable colonies if you tweak their files enough and give them 100 turns or so &lt;g&gt;.

Yes, good suggestion about base and platform scanners. Yesterday I also added a bogus ability to certain ECM levels, so the AI will use efficient ones and can finally stop trying to use engines instead of ECM (if you set your design file to use "Planet - Change Ground Defense" instead of "Combat To Hit Defense Plus" (just do a global search and replace in AI_DesignCreation.txt).

PvK

[NAV]

see above comments

[ May 21, 2002, 20:50: Message edited by: NAV ]

[NAV]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by PvK:
[QB]A group that has been playing Proportions multi-player LAN games on weekends has suggested removing the ability to put shipyards on medium (or larger) transport hulls, because it with the ~30% maintenance reduction, it makes a really powerful and economical mine/satellite layer in Proportions.

~ Regarding Space Yards on cheap transports, in itself is fine, even though the AI does not make good/same use as Humans do.

But us crafty human players put a sat or mine Launching bay on it and bring it to our warp point, in 2 turns we build enough mines to stop any Incursion probe, in 3 more turns we have enough built and launched to probably stop the AIs entire Incursion. 5 more turns-we have enough mines from that Mine Fabricator built and launched, to stop the AIs Attack State sending it Back to infrastructure State to rebuild and try again. In all that (if) the AI_Settings file is on (Ships don't move through minefields := false) he will never be able to re attack because those replacement ships will be piecemealed through our craftfuly built mine field, until/If the AI completes the tree to Mine tech to get Sweepers... And in the mean time we are building our strike force to purge the AI before he gets those now valued mine sweepers... and the AI is foolishly wasting his ships, if the settings were not right; go ahead check your race_AI_Settings.

Also the Mine/Sat Ship yard fabricator launcher can go to far away systems and stop atop a warp point and build 100 mines in 20 turns and for (Low tech Sats)in less then 34 turns it will build you 100 sats.
Now with 20000 units, gee why, wonder why the AI is totaly stupid and cant compete.

Normally if it was just a Mine or Sat layer it would have to go back to a planet to refill, for example: A medium transport that carries 30 mines or 12 Sats with a speed of 4 and traveled 3 systems away it would take about 8.5 turns from the planet to the warp point then 8.5 turns back for a refill that's about 17 turns for one round trip so for a standard Launcher, it would take more then 50 turns to get that 100 mines and 141 turns to place 100 sats. Also considering that a planet now is tied up making 100 sats or mines, that's a lot of planet production even for a Human Player. A tanker also has to accompany the launcher and how about that long term escort commitment ????????? I doubt this would get done casually, however a ship yard launcher with a cargo hold on a cheap transport can do this in multiple locations with only a few, with devestating results. This is fine for an all Human and Neutral game, but the AI Player can't compete with this. I suggest removeing cargo capacity from yards for the above reasons. Not to say you can't do this with a large capital ship, but this gets expensive.

I like the way Proportions now has AI Sat and Mine Layers on transport hulls as well as a host of other hull designs that modders are designing to Benifit the AI.

[ May 21, 2002, 21:07: Message edited by: NAV ]

[oleg]

Pvk,
I noticed weird design minister behaivor:
In my design file, Fighters have small meson bLaster as #1 choice and small DUC as a second option. Now, if I know sDUC but no sMB, AI designs fighter without _any_ weapon but with small shield, which is not in the design at all !
(shield per kt=0). I suspect this is because sMB weapon family number 102 is duplicated by light missile system weapon family number.

[PvK]

That's weird. I'm really swamped at present - if you have time and inclination to test it, please try changing the sMB weapon family number to something else in components.txt, and see if this changes the design.

PvK

[PDF]

Originally posted by PvK:
There is already something like this, that I'm not sure if you've noticed yet or not. The small starliner with standard bridge is the low-tech model for transporting population, and is slow and expensive and so on. With research into ship construction and/or cargo and/or starliner modules, however, you can use the "Basic Bridge," "Basic Life Support," and "Starliner Module" components, and also transport hulls will about 30% maintenance reduction, to reduce costs of pop transports. Higher levels of research allow more population to be stuffed onto ships of different sizes, too. It does take some time to develop this technology, of course.

Or did you already know about all that, and think there should be more to reduce the maintenance costs?

PvK<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thks PvK, indeed I didn't know - I play a PBW Proportion 2.1 game but never dived into 2.2 ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Anyway my idea was to generally reduce costs of Liners even without any high tech just to see faster colony development, and those low maint/combat unable comps looked right, and simpler than the "module" system. But I have to experience it more before talking again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[oleg]

Originally posted by PvK:
That's weird. I'm really swamped at present - if you have time and inclination to test it, please try changing the sMB weapon family number to something else in components.txt, and see if this changes the design.

PvK<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, it is an overlap in weapon family numbers that drives AI crazy.

[oleg]

PvK,

Add "Ancient Ruins" and "Planet - Change Ground Defense" to small scaners and ECM, AI makes fighters with extra engines.

[PDF]

PvK - and Derek too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
I've found that developing Research and Intel is real sloooow in your mods (more than production): the Research and Intel Centers are indeed very weak, at 100 Research/200 Intel ea.
In addition lvl II and III just add a paltry 20% each... Who wants level III research center at 140 RPs ?? Ridiculous...

So we have either to waste precious facility space with that junk, or go for "general" facilities (cities...) that just produce a few Research and Intel too !

Why not boost the Centers by at least x2 or x5 (or make small/medium/large ones), adjusting costs accordingly ?
Waddaya think ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Facilities are a

[Derek]

Been thinking about that, as I have also noticed research is incedibly slow. Probably will be changed in next release, but not drastically so.

Derek

[PvK]

Originally posted by oleg:
PvK,

Add "Ancient Ruins" and "Planet - Change Ground Defense" to small scaners and ECM, AI makes fighters with extra engines.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Oh ya I remember that now - will do, thanks.

[PvK]

Originally posted by oleg:
Yes, it is an overlap in weapon family numbers that drives AI crazy.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thanks Oleg - will fix!

[PvK]

PDF, Proportions is designed to try to be realistically slow, and to make research and colony development take so long that they require long-term strategic thinking.

For research speed, I am also trying to address what I see as two major issues with the standard set:

1) Research is way too fast in the standard set, which tends to reduce the usefulness of a large part of the tech tree. Low and intermediate tech levels are often not used by humans because it only takes a very short time to max out a tech, and so on. In Proportions, for most of the techs, you aren't even really expected to reach the highest level of very many of them in the course of an entire game. That way, in theory and hopefully in practive, research remains interesting and varied throughout the game.

2) The basic system where research labs ADD progress directly, and where an empire can focus ALL of its research on any project from month to month, is not at all accurate. Also, adding some research facilities on colony worlds just isn't going to multiply the rate of a civilization's tech progress. It may give it an important advantage, but it's not going to multiply it. This is why Proportions research facilities only produce small amounts of additive speed (per turn) compared to the entire homeworld.

While I think the pace is pretty close to realistic, it does also make the game advance pretty slowly, and there are some ways to change the pace of play without breaking the desired effects.

More powerful and expensive research facilities are probably in order. Foundations mod had those, but I took them out for simplicity and because they had interesting new tech requirements which weren't completely developed enough to add for Proportions. I'll look at adding something back in.

For faster-progressing games without breaking the basic Proportions model, I recommend:

1) Go to settings.txt and multiple the planet and homeworld value lines by up to 2.5 (the max that currently works for Homeworlds). i.e.:

Planet Value High Percent := 250
...
Plr Planet Value Low := 150
Plr Planet Value Medium Percent := 200
Plr Planet Value High Percent := 250

(this will only affect newly-started quadrants)

2) Set research cost to Low in game settings.

Those are a couple of easy ways. You can also of course also do multiple-homeworld starts, which directly multiplies the production and research rate, of course, but is also kind of weird having so many homeworlds.

PvK

[Tenryu]

PVK,
You could ask MM to add an EVENT Type or Types such as: "Research - Complete project" or "Research - Add Points" or "Research - Multiply(labs) by n" ,then scatter a few of these around the Events file with different values. That might well simulate sudden unexpected breakthroughs and such.

[oleg]

PvK, drones need some balancing.

As it is now, large drone is completely and utterly useless ! With max. speed 7 it can not catch up with same tech level cruiser !!!

Why not make 2,3 and 4 engines for small, medium and large drones ? They will have the same speed.
In normal SE IV, drones are fastest space ships and I do not see any reason why it should be different in Proportions. If you think it is way too much, add at least one engine to large drone. Right now I can see no reasons whatsoever to build even medium drones.

-----------------------------------------

Regarding to research, I think the best way is to add one or two levels to research facilities. And may be increas a little the output of RC-2 and RC-3. But not too much of course, or it will spoil the whole idea of Proportions mod.

[PDF]

PvK,
In fact I have two issues :
* While slow progress is perhaps more realistic it is also just plain boring ... 100 turns ahead research progress some 20%, while research costs rise fourfold, so tech goes slower and slower. I just NEED something to go faster
* But the main point is "facility space usage" in Proportions. My colonies often have only 5 to 10 spaces, my HW are full of CC since start, so what can I do ? I just cannot specialize any planet in anything : either I put "general purpose" settlements/cities etc that produce a little of everything, and the specialized ones are pure crap, even 10 of them doesn't produce much !

Additionnaly the facilities limit comes weird : I can put only 5 small research labs, but (supposing I can produce them) 5 Col CC on the same world will take the same space !

So I really think that bigger specialized facilities, for colonies as well as HW. These should be on an "upgradable" path to the smaller ones to speed up the process (and let AI handle them).
/rant http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

One idea :I'm thinking of using "multiplier" facilities for "cultural" simulation (CCs): what about some expensive facilities that would set production, research or Intel to 200-500% instead of producing a (big) flat resource output ? That would give a comparable result (HW will produce much more than colonies for long) but be simpler to handle for AI (no need of bogus abilitie !), and closer to original SEIV design as well.

[oleg]

PvK, another problem with drones:

Drone launcher cargo capacity is broken.
It is completely wrong to have 3(!!!) drone launchers to accomodate 1 drone.

Even if you think that default drone launchers
are most efficient cargo bays in the game, take into account its research cost:
DL-1 cost 10K and only marginaly better than CB-2 (6K). Yes, DL-3 is the best cargo bay available, but it is rather late discovery.
May be it is nesseccary to increase DL size to 40K, but please restore capacity to 100,140 and 180 for small, medium and large DL.

Right now (take into account the broken speed of drones) Proportions is completely drone free
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[Tenryu]

POOR PVK!
NEVER-THE-Less, Nice work!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[jimbob]

PVK: Don't ya just hate it when people drone on and on and on..?

(Oleg: I'm totally joking... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

[PvK]

Originally posted by Tenryu:
PVK,
You could ask MM to add an EVENT Type or Types such as: "Research - Complete project" or "Research - Add Points" or "Research - Multiply(labs) by n" ,then scatter a few of these around the Events file with different values. That might well simulate sudden unexpected breakthroughs and such.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You can ask them - malfador@malfador.com - although I agree this would be a neat thing to add, and it has been mentioned before in the context of the "derelict" picture in the events folder, I don't think I'd put it very high up the list of other suggestions in terms of ease of implementation for MM and urgency compared to other features.

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by PDF:
PvK,
In fact I have two issues :
* While slow progress is perhaps more realistic it is also just plain boring ... 100 turns ahead research progress some 20%, while research costs rise fourfold, so tech goes slower and slower. I just NEED something to go faster
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I feel your pain. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif But seriously, I know what you mean. Use Low research cost, and/or mod the research facility abilities. I think I will add some more facs though.


* But the main point is "facility space usage" in Proportions. My colonies often have only 5 to 10 spaces, my HW are full of CC since start, so what can I do ? I just cannot specialize any planet in anything : either I put "general purpose" settlements/cities etc that produce a little of everything, and the specialized ones are pure crap, even 10 of them doesn't produce much !
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, the specialized ones don't produce much compared to entire freaking continental space age civilizations, not surprisingly, to me anyway. I would submit that the proportion there is about right, give or take. However compared to the standard game, the total amount of production for a mid-to-late game empire is a lot smaller. That, though, can be changed by editing settings.txt planet values, and you can change the relative values of homeworlds compared to colony worlds there too. Malfador means to change the 250% limit on homeworld values, too.

I am thinking though that the production facilities should probably all be jacked up so that building a facility provides more that you can do with it. I would increase the cultural center amounts by essentially the same factor, though.


Additionnaly the facilities limit comes weird : I can put only 5 small research labs, but (supposing I can produce them) 5 Col CC on the same world will take the same space !
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well the SE4 model of facility space isn't something I can change. However notice that a cultural facility is generally the equivalent of several ordinary facilities at once - it's not that it "takes the same space" - it's that space is NOT the limiting factor. Planetary development, and the limits of what can be done with just building labs on a planet without any infrastructure, are the limiting factors. Don't take the facility "space" literally.


So I really think that bigger specialized facilities, for colonies as well as HW. These should be on an "upgradable" path to the smaller ones to speed up the process (and let AI handle them).
/rant http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ya, I'll look into adding something like that.


One idea :I'm thinking of using "multiplier" facilities for "cultural" simulation (CCs): what about some expensive facilities that would set production, research or Intel to 200-500% instead of producing a (big) flat resource output ? That would give a comparable result (HW will produce much more than colonies for long) but be simpler to handle for AI (no need of bogus abilitie !), and closer to original SEIV design as well.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes I've been thinking of trying this again too, but it will take some thought and work to do right. I believe that only the highest planetary production multiplier applies, so it becomes a problem trying to do something like this to a meaningful degree without also making all of the high-tech facilities that do this obsolete or pointless.

Of course, what you can do is use a homeworld slot for something that multiplies production of a particular kind.

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by oleg:
PvK, drones need some balancing.

As it is now, large drone is completely and utterly useless ! With max. speed 7 it can not catch up with same tech level cruiser !!!
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">These are exaggerations. A large drone can inflict 4200 points of damage to ships, or 7000 points of damage to planets, so it's not useless. A speed 7 cruiser is maxed out for speed and will be expensive and either very short-ranged or require space for supply storage (point being, not all cruisers go as fast as they can be designed for). Exaggeration aside, it's a good observation.


Why not make 2,3 and 4 engines for small, medium and large drones ? They will have the same speed.
In normal SE IV, drones are fastest space ships and I do not see any reason why it should be different in Proportions. If you think it is way too much, add at least one engine to large drone. Right now I can see no reasons whatsoever to build even medium drones.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Good suggestion to increase the engines to 2,3,4... I think I had intended to do that originally, but forgot. The thing I don't like about standard drones is they get a "materials" speed increase that makes no sense to me and makes the smaller ones truly obsolete.

So, good suggestion/catch and I will put it in. I disagree though that there is no reason to use larger drones with 2 engines compared to smaller ones. Speed is not everything, and the extra 80kT allows things that are impossible on a small drone, such as dumping Stealth/Scattering armor and ECM on, to make them very hard to shoot down - a slow but very-hard-to-kill drone is better than a fast but easily-shot-down drone, in many cases.


-----------------------------------------

Regarding to research, I think the best way is to add one or two levels to research facilities. And may be increas a little the output of RC-2 and RC-3. But not too much of course, or it will spoil the whole idea of Proportions mod.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I will look into it.

In my 2000-pt one-planet Low research cost test game, though, I was pretty happy with the AI's progress by turn 120-130. It seemed to still have good techs it could get in a few turns, and had good mid-game type techs (cruisers, fighters, CT engines, shields + regenerators, EW III, CSM V, etc).

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by oleg:
PvK, another problem with drones:

Drone launcher cargo capacity is broken.
It is completely wrong to have 3(!!!) drone launchers to accomodate 1 drone.

Even if you think that default drone launchers
are most efficient cargo bays in the game, take into account its research cost:
DL-1 cost 10K and only marginaly better than CB-2 (6K). Yes, DL-3 is the best cargo bay available, but it is rather late discovery.
May be it is nesseccary to increase DL size to 40K, but please restore capacity to 100,140 and 180 for small, medium and large DL.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Why does a drone launcher have to be able to also store a whole drone? Just add a cargo bay. Well, I guess I can add the equivalent amount of size to provide cargo to carry one drone per launcher - that would make sense, but it won't take into account current cargo tech levels unless I made a whole heap of variants - this may tend to penalize empires that research advanced cargo tech. I guess I could do two types of drone launcher - one that is just the launcher, and one that includes enough space to hold a drone of the corresponding tech level, but is the appropriate size. I don't want to make the drone launcher the best cargo/size ratio component or there will be weenies using them to haul population around, and so on.


Right now (take into account the broken speed of drones) Proportions is completely drone free
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Aw come on. Your suggestions are good but you're exaggerating. As I said before, even a slow large drone can be more effective than a faster smaller one. The cargo change to launchers isn't going to make much practical difference because you can already use cargo on drone launchers, and after the change it will probably still be a good idea. And finally, drones can be very decisive in Proportions as is, because they have no maintenance cost, and maintenance is much more important in this mod. Consider the cargo capacity of an undomed colony in Proportions (rather large). Consider that an enemy's fleet is seriously limited by maintenance costs. Hmm... there is some potential there.

PvK

[oleg]

PvK,

I am convinced that restoring original DL cargo but raising its size to 40K is the best solution. It will make DL-3 roughly equivalent to CB-3.
Yes, it is possible to make drone carriers by combining DL/CB, but did you try it ? It is just a different and unnessary layer of micromanagement. Besides, it is _very_ difficult to instruct AI to make any sort of usefull drone carrier now. I personally gave up. 40K size will not unbalance cargo and should decrease micromanagemnt considerably.

Drones are a tricky subject and MM obviously spend a lot of time balancing them. They do the same incrediable amount of damage in normal SE IV, but cost a lot of resources and are destroyed in battle. In strategic combat even lowly scout can trigger launch of hunderds of drones for immense lost of resources. I do not consider restoring the speed of large drones as unbalancing. You argue that larger drones make small one obsolete, but, hey, that is the whole point of investing thousands and thousands points into research ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Drones do not have extra defence bonus as in standard SE IV. Besides, proportions ECM jammers go up to 31K in size, compared to flat 10K in unmoded game.

[ May 25, 2002, 04:47: Message edited by: oleg ]

[oleg]

Speaking about cargo:

Please assign "star - unstable" to higher levels of Cargo bays. I remember what you told about optimising AI conservation of resources, but population transports are not the only ones using cargo bays. Mine layers, satelite layers, carriers, troop transports, etc all use cargo bays. It is practically impossible to make AI designs using "cargo" ability because of the variable size of starline modules. If AI will underutilize space on transports with CB 2/3 - so be it, no big deal.

[PvK]

Originally posted by oleg:
PvK,

I am convinced that restoring original DL cargo but raising its size to 40K is the best solution. It will make DL-3 roughly equivalent to CB-3.
Yes, it is possible to make drone carriers by combining DL/CB, but did you try it ? It is just a different and unnessary layer of micromanagement. Besides, it is _very_ difficult to instruct AI to make any sort of usefull drone carrier now. I personally gave up. 40K size will not unbalance cargo and should decrease micromanagemnt considerably.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes I've made drone carriers using cargo, even with the AI. I don't consider it essential for carriers or drone carriers to be able to launch all of their drones in one combat turn, though, or to get an exact multiple so as not to have slightly too much space, so it's not hard for me at all. Just put Star-Unstable as a misc ability with a low setting. It's not very difficult, IMO. I don't know what difficulty you're experiencing.

I don't know that I agree though that drone launchers should be 40kT with 100-180kT of storage. 40kT for 100 storage is the same ratio as a cargo bay, plus the ability to launch drones. 2 x Cargo III would match the capacity of one Drone Launcher II, and Drone Launcher III would now be a more efficient spacewise cargo component than the current best cargo bay, which currently costs four times the original cost of a drone launcher, per space. Drones and Cargo tech not being linked, this provides a weenie way to get a better cargo ratio than is possible with Cargo tech, without even researching cargo tech. Players would start abusing drone launchers to cram more people on population transports.

My current Versions are pro-rated based on Cargo Bay I with a very slight advantage per tech level. Mainly, these are for convenience - drone tech is drone tech, not cargo tech:

DL I - 160 mins, size 54kT, storage 100 kT.
DL II - 195 mins, size 68kT, storage 140 kT.
DL III - 230 mins, size 82kT, storage 180 kT.


Drones are a tricky subject and MM obviously spend a lot of time balancing them. They do the same incrediable amount of damage in normal SE IV, but cost a lot of resources and are destroyed in battle. In strategic combat even lowly scout can trigger launch of hunderds of drones for immense lost of resources. I do not consider restoring the speed of large drones as unbalancing. You argue that larger drones make small one obsolete, but, hey, that is the whole point of investing thousands and thousands points into research ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I find the speed bonus from large drone hulls not so much unbalancing as inexplicable (from "advanced materials" - huh?) and uninteresting (techs that make other techs obsolete are less interesting than techs that offer advantages but leave some trade-offs for consideration). I would much rather have research add the possibility of components which could boost drone speed.


Drones do not have extra defence bonus as in standard SE IV. Besides, proportions ECM jammers go up to 31K in size, compared to flat 10K in unmoded game.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Unmodded drones are all -50 to hit, while Proportions drones have different to-hit bonuses per size. I don't really follow why you mentioned this, though. The increase in size of larger sensors/ECM in Proportions is another advantage to larger drones.

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by oleg:
Speaking about cargo:

Please assign "star - unstable" to higher levels of Cargo bays. I remember what you told about optimising AI conservation of resources, but population transports are not the only ones using cargo bays. Mine layers, satelite layers, carriers, troop transports, etc all use cargo bays. It is practically impossible to make AI designs using "cargo" ability because of the variable size of starline modules. If AI will underutilize space on transports with CB 2/3 - so be it, no big deal.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'll have to think about it. In general, the AI's hard coding isn't good enough to actually load any cargo-using ship (except pop transports) to the brim anyway, as far as I've seen. Since Proportions has an important trade-off of cargo bays between cost and capacity, and the gain isn't all that much for the more expensive ones, it's really best for human design artists - I think the AI would mostly (or entirely) waste its resources on it. Also, since cargo tech includes supply storage, and high-tech supply storage is something the AI can really use, it can't be fairly limited by having AI's choose through research.

PvK

[oleg]

I had the following dificulty making AI drone carriers: When drone increases in size, I need more cargo bays per drone launcher, when I progress in cargo, I need less cargo bays per launcher. Thus it is impossible to make AI design drone carrier which will utilize space effectively. But it is a moot point now after you made 1 drone per 1 launcher http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

----------------
I was thinking mostly about drone carriers when I suggested "star unstable" throught. However, effective troop transport should use cargo bays instead of starline modules because of much higher damage resistance and lack of defence bonus. Extra space of cargo bays 3 will come very handy for troop transports !

"Sorry Sir, we can not load any more tanks, Ministry of Defence contracted to use cheap cargo bays only"

---------------------------

I mentioned size of ECM because its higher size takes over the space of two engines, thus making Proportions' drone less effective than standard.

If I am not mistaking, you are going to make max. drone engines 2,3 and 4, as it was intended, right ? Drones are fun to play with ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by PvK:
I find the speed bonus from large drone hulls not so much unbalancing as inexplicable (from "advanced materials" - huh?) and uninteresting (techs that make other techs obsolete are less interesting than techs that offer advantages but leave some trade-offs for consideration). I would much rather have research add the possibility of components which could boost drone speed.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, the arbitrary bonus just for 'materials' is odd. I've created special drone engines and changed the 'engines (movement points) per move' rating to give drones a speed advantage without using 'bonus' movement. They are smaller than ships, after all and could logically be faster for the same engine power. I've considered giving the larger drones some 'inherent' supply capacity as well so they would have longer range. That would certainly make sense for a larger vehicle.

I'd like to know if anyone has tried 'special damage' warheads of any sort. Especially plague or neutron (population only) against planets, but also engine damaging or anything else against ships. SE4 combat doesn't seem to use spcial damage types when the warhead is a seperate component inside a vehicle. It seems it has to be a weapon that makes contact with the target outside the vehicle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

[ May 25, 2002, 19:22: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by oleg:
...
I was thinking mostly about drone carriers when I suggested "star unstable" throught. However, effective troop transport should use cargo bays instead of starline modules because of much higher damage resistance and lack of defence bonus. Extra space of cargo bays 3 will come very handy for troop transports !

"Sorry Sir, we can not load any more tanks, Ministry of Defence contracted to use cheap cargo bays only"
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That sort of thing is said almost all the time in the actual military. The army with the fanciest uniforms usually loses. Going cheap also tends to win wars (see Sherman tank, etc.).

I understand the theory but in practice I don't think it applies, because the AI is not good at loading up troops or fighters (or I assume, drones). So in practice, it is better for the AI to waste 20 resources on a 50kT empty cargo bay, than to waste 200 resources on an empty 70kT cargo bay. Even if it would use the extra space sometimes, it's not really worth spending 10 times as much for cargo storage unless you are a smart human player who is really going to take advantage of it.

I could add a different tag though for "high-tech cargo storage".


I mentioned size of ECM because its higher size takes over the space of two engines, thus making Proportions' drone less effective than standard.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Oh, I see. That's true in theory, but that's only for mega-high-tech components, which are expensive as well as large and hard to research. I have put AI hints in 2.3 that allow it to choose efficient models in terms of size and price.

On the advantage side for Proportions drone effectiveness, having only 2-4 engines instead of 6 also makes them longer-ranged, especially smaller ones. You could also put efficient engines on them to get longer-ranged (but slower) and cheaper drones.


If I am not mistaking, you are going to make max. drone engines 2,3 and 4, as it was intended, right ? Drones are fun to play with ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, that's correct.

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
...
I've created special drone engines and changed the 'engines (movement points) per move' rating to give drones a speed advantage without using 'bonus' movement. They are smaller than ships, after all and could logically be faster for the same engine power. I've considered giving the larger drones some 'inherent' supply capacity as well so they would have longer range. That would certainly make sense for a larger vehicle.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yep, the QNP in Proportions has similar effects using the standard engines. The drone hull has a lower Engines Per Move rating based on mass, so they require fewer engines for the same speed, which means lower supply use as well.

PvK

[ May 26, 2002, 04:05: Message edited by: PvK ]

[oleg]

Well, I don't think it is neccessary to complicate your mod any farther. Extra flag for high-level cargo would be nice but not that important. It is just pitty that right now AI will _never_ever_ use cargo bays II and III, it is a completely lost tech for it.
-----------

Unrelated issue: I think it is a typo in standard (and every other SE IV mod ! ) systemtypes.txt file, but tri-star system II, one that is without any planets, should have a flag "empires can start in " false instead of true. Otherwise it is quite odd to have a homeworld in supposedly planet-free system. It happened to me just right now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[PvK]

Is it really a pity the AI won't build Cargo 2/3, if it isn't smart enough to do anything but lose resources by doing so?

This, though, is the sort of thing that makes me really want MM to make it possible to add an unlimited number of ability tags with whatever names the modder wants. It would be really nice to be able to put in the design file "Cost-efficient cargo" instead of "Star - Unstable", and to not worry about side-effects or running out of usable tags.

As for system tags, yes, I think there may be a couple of funky ones allowed for home systems - I should review that. Meanwhile, enjoy the novelty. Too bad you probably didn't take Crystalline tech.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK