Modders, Race Creators and TDM-creators

[Taera]

OK.
Time for me to ramble and complain a little.

OK, all of you have done great work at making the AI interesting enemy to play. But all, or at least most of you, have missed an important part of the game. Fun.

All, i stress, _ALL_ races with no racial technology, and those too, use only CSM, PPB and NSP. All of them.

Where is the fun? I would realy like to see the races using variety of weapons, including torpedoes, plasma missiles, High-Energy weapons, tractors and repulsers, engine damaging, gravitational and warp weapons.

None of all the races use these weapons. At least i've never seen any race using torpedoes or gravitational weapons.

TDM-mod is nice. The races are in fact much more intilligent, but this is not any fun to see 30 races all using PPB/NSP weapons.

This is just a request to think about something more original. I realy ask the TDM autors to redo their races and make their weapons more interesting.

[TerranC]

Maybe copy data files from the Amon'krie race files? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif They seem to use torpedoes and graviton hellbores a lot.

[Alpha Kodiak]

Originally posted by Taera:
OK.
Time for me to ramble and complain a little.

OK, all of you have done great work at making the AI interesting enemy to play. But all, or at least most of you, have missed an important part of the game. Fun.

All, i stress, _ALL_ races with no racial technology, and those too, use only CSM, PPB and NSP. All of them.

Where is the fun? I would realy like to see the races using variety of weapons, including torpedoes, plasma missiles, High-Energy weapons, tractors and repulsers, engine damaging, gravitational and warp weapons.

None of all the races use these weapons. At least i've never seen any race using torpedoes or gravitational weapons.

TDM-mod is nice. The races are in fact much more intilligent, but this is not any fun to see 30 races all using PPB/NSP weapons.

This is just a request to think about something more original. I realy ask the TDM autors to redo their races and make their weapons more interesting.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I agree with wanting variety. I want to try some different things when I get back to a normal race. Trouble is, I am making the rounds through all of the racial techs first. I'm about to release a Psychic race, then I'm going to put together a Temporal race. After that I have a Crystaline race to do by request.

The reason that you see such weapon similarity is because it is the best weapon combination you can give an AI. We didn't coordinate at all. Each person set out to create the most effective AI they could, and all identified basically the same weapons approach independently.

Understand that we are doing this for fun as well. Going back and redoing a race because there are similar races out there would not be fun, at least not for me. I want to build new AIs, while tweaking the old ones once in a while to bring them up to standard.

If you want variety, try out some of the different AIs I have put together, and I think you will find plenty of variety.

Rage
Vaxin
Star Empire of Romii
Angelican Regency
Neo-Canadian Empire
Vandron
Hevordah
Tylmai

As best I remember, four of those races use PPBs, two use APBs and two use organic weapons. One of the PPB races also mixes in crystalline weapons.

Remember also that there is much more to an AI than what weapons they use. How they interact politically, whether they use troops, how much stellar manipulation they use, and many other decisions go into the creation of an AI.

As I said earlier, I want to see variety. I also want to build AIs that are effective. Building a pushover AI would not be fun. I will experiment with other weapon combos (the Psychic race about to come out uses Psychic weapons and engine killers.) Just don't expect a new normal race from me for a while, as I have too many other irons in the fire. And, no, I will not be going back to rearchitect an existing race. They all work pretty well as they are.

[Taera]

hmm, i see your point Alpha Kodiak.
But still.
In my Last game i put in 6 TDM races, one my own AI and one for myself.
OK, so i got in a war with EA which realy uses PPB and then goes straight to the highest levels of APB.
I've switched to my AI (Taera) and looked at their enemy designs. What do i find?
*Jraenar that use PPB and then NSP
(Umm... i have to fix myself, they research high-energy weapons late on)
*Praetorian who use PPB and then NSP
*Toron that too first use PPB heavily and then start with APB

Observed similar cases in most of my games.
I realy would like to see races that go straight away to torpedoe or gravity weapons. Then again their AI just might not be as great as those Big Evil AIs that use PPB with NSP, but the single-played game will be tonns more interesting then.

Tell me, is the situation is the same on PBW games? Do all the players go straight away to PPB and NSP?

[oleg]

Once MM balance PPB, there will be more interesting designs. That is for sure. I'm myself itching to make some interesting races. But what for ? They will be dead meat against optimized AI races and there will be *****ing from people arond how putiful and clueless is the race creator !

[Taera]

oleg: yes, but still - did MM ever say they actually will balance the PPB?

If you ever create any AI that uses "unconventional" weapons, please let me know - i'll be more than happy to play with them

Only i dont have gold...

[Mephisto]

Don't just count the main weapons. The EA will use shield depleters, the Torons will use allegiance subverters. If you want a somewhat competitive race you just have to use some weapons. There is no point using missiles in late game for example. Temporal weapons are quite good but I do not have a temporal race. Psychic weapons are quite weak unfortunately. The Narn use the talisman so they have to use "maximum weapons range" so they have to use APBs. What would you suggest?

[Taera]

Still, many races could use different weapons for their ships. And psychic is not weak, is one of the strongest tech trees in the game IMO. or at least in the beginning and middle game.

[Alpha Kodiak]

Check out my newly posted Azorani and see what you think. They might give you a little variety.

[Deathstalker]

Check out some AI's I did awhile back (for non-gold). Most reside at Kuat Drive Yards but some can be found on the PBW site as well as others.

StarWars Empire I (sw-emp1): Meason BLasters and CSM moving to Plasma Missiles and High Energy weapons

Y'Gathian FreeStates: Combination Organic/Crystalline weapons.

EEEvil Empire: DUC's, Ripper Beams, Wave Motion Guns, Kamakazie ships,

StarWars Empire II (sw-emp2): Meason BLasters, Wormhole Guns.

Rebels (sw-reb): Meason BLasters and Anti-matter/Quantum Torps,

Sw-Emp3 (Thrawn): Meason/Torps.

Red Gauntlets Merc Unit: DUC's, HighEnergy Discharge.

Nostropholo: Combo of Organic/Crystalline wpns.

Cephalopeian Kingdom: Psychic/Organic combo.

Also check out Atraikius's Orks, they use Torps, missiles, duc's and a host of other stuff, as well as earlier Versions of his Zorians which have almost every ship doubling as a carrier http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif . The Angelic Regency is also good, relying almost totally on DUC's, and the Vikings are also quite varied in their ship designs.

There are some damn fine 'different' AI's out there. The Rage just started the cycle of PPB ruling the roost. Then the Aquilaeians came along and Ionic weapons ruled the day (along with the Pyrochette). To be honest I too miss the days of facing the Krill/Jraenar/Terrans coming at me with massive missile fleets.

[raynor]

I don't really expect MM to ever balance the weapons. I think they have many, many more pressing issues. For example, didn't I see that they are just now beta-testing a fix that will let the AI use troops or somesuch?

I think it is up to the modders out there to sit down and completely re-design the tech tree. I think everyone agrees that it has even more gaping holes in it than the AI. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif But while it is a lot of fun to design your own races, re-designing the tech tree is a pretty daunting task.

I have an idea for a program that will let you compare the ships of different races at particular points in time so that you can evaluate what changes to the research order and ship designs will have vs. another AI.

The biggest problem with completely re-designing the tech tree is going back in an play-balancing everything. If it were possible to make one change to a weapon and then "predict" its effect on several different races, then this task would be much, much easier.

Writing such a tool would be a lot of fun--but not more fun than sleeping. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

BTW, whose idea to allow 100 ships instead of 30?!? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[God Emperor]

The problem that most modders have identified I believe is that the AI cannot effectively utilise a combination of weapons, and also will immediately use the level 1 Version of a weapon over a previous (say) level 5 type. This encourages the choice of a limited number of weapons with similar (long ranges) - ie PPB, NSP, APB, CSM. Other special weapons such as engine overloaders and shield depleters can be useful and interesting secondary weapons but thats about it.
I have found modding to be a process of determining the weapon, ship design etc that AI can best use under all circumstances (because it is incapable of paper-rock, scissors-paper, rock-scissors reactions).

In ship design, the best example of this is that all of my races include minesweeping components and their minesweepers are armed. A human would most likely have a dedicated fleet of minesweepers but the AI's poor use of its ship types leads to the design of ships that can do a bit of everything - ie so that when the AI encounters a given circumstance, all of its warships have some ability to contribute to a solution.

As a result, I do not intend to make radical changes in my races with regard to weapon use - the PPB's, NSP's, APB's and CSM's are the best all round weapons that a non organic/temporal/ psychic AI can use effectively (IMHO).

I would be interested though to hear if anyone can get the AI to effectively use other weapon types or combinations.

Regards,
GE

[Alpha Kodiak]

Originally posted by raynor:
I don't really expect MM to ever balance the weapons. I think they have many, many more pressing issues. For example, didn't I see that they are just now beta-testing a fix that will let the AI use troops or somesuch?
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, the AI has been able to use troops well for a while. There were some intermediate issues with troops that needed clean up between Beta patches. They are not release issues, as far as I am aware.

[God Emperor]

Taera,
Thanks for your thoughts on the weapons mod issue.
Further to my earlier post, the main problem I have found is finding a way of getting the AI to use different weapons types to their best effect.
Natty weapons combinations that a human would use to interesting effect are generally poorly used by the AI. Hence, the reason why modders have tended to settle on certain weapons types and combinations.
Regards,

GE

[Taera]

The way i design ships for my own racestyles (not too many though) is go to the game, pick some powerful race, look at it's designs. Then design a counter design to it. Then to modify the DesignCreation. Then to modify the research tech tree to optimize the speed at which the AI reaches the tech.
This way i was the first one to actually find out the power of ID against most ships. My first Taera Versions never were too popular and then the Aquilane (sp?) racestyle came out utilizing the tech to its full.

Same way was the poorly managed TechnoLogic. Their designs are in fact just great, just the overall AI is lacking.

Also given the ability of SEIVG to specify the exact type of the ship to create, combinations of various designs could be created in appropiate numbers.

Anyway, hope you see my point.

Andrey.

[Alpha Kodiak]

Originally posted by Taera:
Also given the ability of SEIVG to specify the exact type of the ship to create, combinations of various designs could be created in appropiate numbers.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Very good point. I tried to use this some with the Azorani, with fairly good results. Though the numbers of individual types you specify don't seem to come out as intended. I'm still trying to figure out when they will produce how many of which attack ship design. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif But that is ok, at least I am getting some kind of a mix.

[capnq]

I don't really expect MM to ever balance the weapons. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't expect anyone to balance the weapons in a way that a majority of players will agree is the "right" balance.

[Master Belisarius]

Andrey: when did the scripts for Pyrochette/Aquilaeian, to be original was not my main objective: I just wanted to create an AI that maybe could create some kind of challenge. When I have started them, my knowledge about SE4 was not big... and this is the only reason because I have used Temporal and Organics for them! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[jimbob]

I don't expect anyone to balance the weapons in a way that a majority of players will agree is the "right" balance.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Very true. Heck, I still think that the DUC damage level should go down a slight bit, but have the advantage of skipping shields altogether (because they have mass, rather than most of the other weapons, which are actually energy weapons. Even missiles are actually energy weapons, because it's the radiation from the explosion that does the damage) or atleast do quad damage. This would sure lengthen the life-span of the DUC in game play too. Oh, but I'd increase the supply use per shot.

Just my undervalued, inflation-bitten, softwood-tariffed .02 $Cdn. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ May 28, 2002, 00:26: Message edited by: jimbob ]

[Taera]

First sorry but i've been misunderstood. I did not mean to criticize all the AI races out there all the way you reached the PPB and NSP combinations.
I just said that the thing is becoming abused and 80% of all the newest races i hear of are using those weapons, which makes no fun games.
Im just telling my opinion which is that the game would become a little better if each race had its own _unique_ weapons combinations.

There are different weapons that the AI can use quite effectively, most importantly the heavier weapons like torpedoes and gravitational guns.
The point is that the AI tends to build a lot of ships and the better AIs group them in large fleets of 10+.
In my latest game i went to the gravity weapons road and found out an interesting thing: while the weapon is extremly weak on its own, when massed it is one of the best weapons out there.

Religious races also could benefit from torpedoes much more than from just energy guns they use now (most of the races i've seen use APB or PPB or MB or whatever).

Wormhole beam could make a useful addition to any heavy gear gun - NSP, WMG, Mental Singularity and so on. Shoot, warp 'em away and untill you meet again your weapons will be ready to fire once again.

And so on. With a little of thinking of the matter, every single gun in the game could find its use - and effective use. I've noticed it a while ago back in SE3, my destroyers with MB and torpedoes were breaking havoc while those weapons were considered to be the less effective.

[Atraikius]

Teara - I thought the PPB - Nsw combination was overused too, so I have tried to avoid it as much as possible. The Orks and Krill stick to DUC's and APB's, with CSM's as a secondary weapon throughout the Game with the Orks having a few ships using Warp Weapons late in the game just to be different (and also to try to carry over the WH40K Mekboys use of odd weapons). The Zorians use DUC's, Torps, HED, APB's, and CSM along with useing both carriers and warships that also carry fighters. The Mirak (AKA Kzinti - should be posting later today) use APB's and CSM's only.