Proportions.... [Archive] - .com.unity Forums

dogscoff

January 20th, 2003, 06:14 PM

and I'm still trying to figure out what to do.
ahhh.. I love Proportions mod.

I find it impossible to worry about things like gaining an advantage over my opponents because I just love building all those little cities and agrarian centres and things. Playing to maximum efficiency I could fill all planets with mineral megaplexes and stuff and probably slaughter the AI, but then where would all my ppl live?

In my current vsAI game in Proportions the Drushocka glassed one of my worlds and its moon: total casualties were a half-dozen ships, and about 9 million pop. I didn't even have a completed facility there. Not much of a loss in standard se4, but I was so FURIOUS- http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif I really build up a relationship with my empire in Proportions.

All the military stuff becomes a bit of a sideline for me. I guess really I'm a sim-city guy at heart. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

mottlee

January 20th, 2003, 07:17 PM

Originally posted by couslee:
you starting to talk me into trying this mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Great Mod....also try Dereks mod too has this one in it and more http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Ed Kolis

January 20th, 2003, 11:15 PM

Maybe SE4 by Committee should have been a Proportions game, to enhance the realism feel of it... nah, it's slow enough as it is! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

PvK

January 21st, 2003, 12:05 PM

Originally posted by MacLeod:
Fighter have WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY too much defense, it's nearly impossible to hit 'em even with PDC.
I could kill a small squad of LCs easier than a stack of ten of them things.If fighters are deployed early in the game, they can be fairly hard to hit with typical ships. They can still be hit with other fighters, or small ships with PDC and sensors and training, or weapon platforms or bases with Fire Control Centers. As Fryon said, energy pulse weapons combined with PD tech gives you some effective PS beam weapons against them too.

Typical anti-ship ships, especially larger ships, may have a hard time snagging fighters. That's intentional. However, there are several effective options for combatting them, besides other fighters. The smaller ships get to-hit bonuses, and there are Small and PD mounts, and lots of levels of sensors, and weapons with to-hit bonuses, etc etc.

If I get time to do 3.0, I may expand the fighter tech tree a bit, though, and adjust things a bit, so it takes more research to get the better fighters, and add other toys.

PvK

PvK

January 21st, 2003, 12:10 PM

Originally posted by MacLeod:
And why is it set so AI's won't surrender except against the most absolutely absurd odds (10000 to 1). Means there nothing left to do with them but destroy them and that's just a boring waste http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif Because the hard-coded AI logic would otherwise have intact homeworlds surrendering to aliens who did something like:

1) Blockade their homeworld
2) Build many large ships, even unarmed colony ships, causing the score to tip extremely, even though the high-score empire doesn't really pose a particular threat to the AI.
3) or other silliness

Also, an AI surrender of an intact homeworld, particularly to a human player, is a major game event with major effects in Proportions. It also allows both homeworlds to directly add their research, multiplying research rate, which is something the rest of the mod tries to tone down.

So, the idea is if you want that massive prize, you may have to actually earn it and not take advantage of AI foolishness.

PvK

PvK

January 21st, 2003, 12:11 PM

Oh, and of course, you can also try capturing the planet via invasion.

PsychoTechFreak

January 21st, 2003, 01:33 PM

Originally posted by PvK:

If I get time to do 3.0, I may expand the fighter tech tree a bit, though, and adjust things a bit, so it takes more research to get the better fighters, and add other toys.

PvKRace specific techs, like small organic armor, small talismen engines?

oleg

January 21st, 2003, 05:21 PM

I like how fighters are handled in Proportions.

They are tough to hit by regular weapons (even PDC) and you must build dedicated anti-fighters ships. Even better way is to use fighters against fighters ! They have equal attack bonus !

I also like how PvK design fighter weapons. In short, there are two Groups: high accuracy, low damage weapons like small APB, DUC. They are optimal for interceptors but not very efficient against ships. Second group are less accurate, high damage anti-ship weapons like small rocket pods or antimatter torpedos. It really forces you to build both fighters and bombers, not just generic SE fighter !

In fact, fighters are my second most favorite aspect of Proportions after planet development.

PvK

January 21st, 2003, 11:58 PM

Thanks oleg.

PTF, yes to racial fighter toys, and probably something for Religious - I don't know exactly what a "talisman engine" would be.

Mainly I'd probably flesh out the fighter tech tree more, giving less capable early fighters, and requiring research into specific abilities. I'd probably add some anti-fighter seekers and some countermeasure components. I'd probably make engine variants too which more closely associate speed and maneuverability with defensive and offensive bonuses. Also might revisit the to-hit advantages for the heavy weapons, damage done by PD, and damage resistance of fighters, to further accentuate the differences between anti-fighter, anti-ship, and PD weapons.

I do think it seems to work pretty well as is, though. In Fryon's Adamant PBW game, I have been having some fun massive multi-turn battles with the Druschocka involving fighters and a wide range of ship sizes on both sides, and lots of missile boats slowly wearing through PDC.

PvK

Puke

January 22nd, 2003, 12:41 AM

i think a talisman engine runs on a prayer. sort of like a chevy nova.

Graeme Dice

January 22nd, 2003, 03:42 AM

Originally posted by oleg:
I also like how PvK design fighter weapons. In short, there are two Groups: high accuracy, low damage weapons like small APB, DUC. They are optimal for interceptors but not very efficient against ships.This Last statement depends on how many you happen to have built. If you are using Fyron's Quadrant Mod, the abundance of asteroids makes it easy to afford thousands of fighters, which make even low damage weapons very scary.

PvK

January 22nd, 2003, 09:39 AM

Sure, but a couple thousand fighters still require over a million resources, and corresponding construction time, and ships to move them between systems. I can think of lots of things for that investment that are also scary.

PvK

oleg

January 22nd, 2003, 11:32 AM

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by oleg:
I also like how PvK design fighter weapons. In short, there are two Groups: high accuracy, low damage weapons like small APB, DUC. They are optimal for interceptors but not very efficient against ships.This Last statement depends on how many you happen to have built. If you are using Fyron's Quadrant Mod, the abundance of asteroids makes it easy to afford thousands of fighters, which make even low damage weapons very scary.<hr /></blockquote>But Prpoprtions has very effective emissive armour (high level armour plating, IIRC).
That or 4-5 CA makes ship almost immune to average sized fighter stack, say 10, if fighters use damage 4 weapons.

PvK

January 22nd, 2003, 09:00 PM

True. However, you can get much larger stacks if you launch during strategic movement, particularly from planets. This deployment method has similar effects to deploying heavy anti-ship weapons, but less efficiently. That is, these mobs become more effective against ships than other fighters, because while they can concentrate fire to bLast through heavy armor plating, if they fight other fighters which are deployed in smaller Groups, they will tend to waste shots, since they can only target one enemy fighter group at a time, while the fighters in smaller Groups will never waste firepower firing into a huge stack of fighters.

Also remember that it's not hard to make ships with lots of structure and/or shields in Proportions, using armored structure, which at lower tech levels is very cheap (20/40/80 mins for 60/90/120 structure in a 10kT component). I think there are several designs and methods which can deal efficiently with fighters, without making them at all obsolete. Fleets that are unprepared for fighters though can get completely smashed by them, though. This is exactly what you see in a lot of sci-fi, btw. That is, practically any sci-fi which includes fighters, makes them quite dangerous to ships, especially if they lack their own fighters or other countermeasures.

PvK

oleg

January 23rd, 2003, 04:20 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
This is exactly what you see in a lot of sci-fi, btw. That is, practically any sci-fi which includes fighters, makes them quite dangerous to ships, especially if they lack their own fighters or other countermeasures.

PvKExactly. "In Death Ground" by S.White&D.Weber is a very good example. Actually, so far that book is a best story writen about SEIV game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

PsychoTechFreak

January 23rd, 2003, 08:24 PM

PvK, your 1kT troops bring up another idea, maybe this is possible:

What if you could create 1kT Fighters which in fact are 1-man invasion troops with a backpack jet propulsion (I am not sure about the term)?

That would be a nice one. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

PvK

January 25th, 2003, 07:45 AM

PTF, are you talking about planetary fighters, a variety of "troops" that help capture planets?

PvK

MacLeod

January 25th, 2003, 08:14 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by MacLeod:
And why is it set so AI's won't surrender except against the most absolutely absurd odds (10000 to 1). Means there nothing left to do with them but destroy them and that's just a boring waste http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif Because the hard-coded AI logic would otherwise have intact homeworlds surrendering to aliens who did something like:

1) Blockade their homeworld
2) Build many large ships, even unarmed colony ships, causing the score to tip extremely, even though the high-score empire doesn't really pose a particular threat to the AI.
3) or other silliness

Also, an AI surrender of an intact homeworld, particularly to a human player, is a major game event with major effects in Proportions. It also allows both homeworlds to directly add their research, multiplying research rate, which is something the rest of the mod tries to tone down.

So, the idea is if you want that massive prize, you may have to actually earn it and not take advantage of AI foolishness.

PvK<hr /></blockquote>Aye, but as it is, the AI is basically unable to surrender as it would require at minimum 40,000 points.
Surrender, I'm pretty sure, it disablable in the game settings, so it's kind of redundant and removes the choice.

PTF, you mean a fighter that can invade a planet? As long as fighters can hold cargo that should be doable, give them one cargo so they can hold a single troop. However, chances are fighters can't http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

PvK

January 25th, 2003, 09:17 PM

Originally posted by MacLeod:
Aye, but as it is, the AI is basically unable to surrender as it would require at minimum 40,000 points.
Surrender, I'm pretty sure, it disablable in the game settings, so it's kind of redundant and removes the choice.

PTF, you mean a fighter that can invade a planet? As long as fighters can hold cargo that should be doable, give them one cargo so they can hold a single troop. However, chances are fighters can't http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Isn't AI surrender based on score ratio? I'm not sure where you get the 40,000 point figure. The problem is, that any empire with an intact homeworld probably has good reason not to surrender, and the AI's current method of scoring and therefore determining whether it will surrender is hopelessly broken by Proportions' large non-combattant (Starliners and Colony Ships) ship sizes and the ability to blockade homeworlds.

If there were a way to disable surrender by default in settings.txt, I might set that for Proportions, but relying on players to find and read instructions in my readme file to get their games to work correctly would result in many players having the wrong settings.

Fighters can't invade planets, and no units can carry other units (unless they're really Ships pretending to be units).

PvK

(edit fixed parentheses)

[ January 25, 2003, 19:18: Message edited by: PvK ]

PsychoTechFreak

January 25th, 2003, 11:35 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
PTF, are you talking about planetary fighters, a variety of "troops" that help capture planets?

PvKWell, it came from brainstorming, but I think it should be more a kind of rocket-man who acts like a very small fighter just in ship to ship combats. Hard to be hit. But I guess it could be a problem if too many units are involved, there is a limited number of units for the combat screen? I am going to setup a small test...

PTF

PvK

January 25th, 2003, 11:51 PM

Oh, I see - space infantry, represented by tiny fighters.

Hmmm. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Let us know how your tests go.

PvK

leo1434

January 26th, 2003, 10:20 AM

Proportions Mod is Great!! SE 4 is a great game, too! I recently discovered it and I'm completely hooked!
i would like to see a new Version of proportions soon! It would be a very welcome addition to expand fighter components. I added by myself some fighter weapons: i.e. a fighter gun-pod, representing an external mounted gatling gun (it takes less space than the DUC, 2 kt, but does less damage, the range is the same) and dogfighting missiles (not much damage capacity each one, but beware when they are fired in salvos by Groups of fighters agains ships. Ships without PD don�t Last against this seekers. They make a damge of 10-12-15 (depending on its Mk Number or tech level) and medium range (7-9 units).

As I said I would like to see new ideas about improving fighter tech. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

PsychoTechFreak

January 26th, 2003, 08:20 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
Oh, I see - space infantry, represented by tiny fighters.

Hmmm. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Let us know how your tests go.

PvKHmmm, also. Better not:
20,000 units in space, launched by 50 per square, took about 2-3 minutes in strategic combat (1.3 GHz, AMD). It looks a bit funny, like two bee swarms. The problem, as far as I have got it, if 400 grid fields are filled with units, it is hard to find a possible way through the friendly units, both swarms need a lot of time to reach the foes. Launching is a small problem also, because of the grid limits around the launching stations. The rocketeers had a few shots, about a quarter of them, but it would take more than 30 turns (I assume about 80) to finish the battle.

PTF http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

dogscoff

January 27th, 2003, 12:27 AM

are we doing proportions wish lists? OK, here's mine for the next Version:

-Hive cities/ hive cultural centres/ hive components, as previously suggested.

-Planet,SW & RW creation techs should require tech level 7,8 & 9 respectively in planet utilisation. Just to make those technologies even more of an overpriced ego trip=-)

-The larger cities (metropolis and above) should require research in psychology - that tech area is currently only good for the urban pacification centre. It makes sense to flesh it out a little, and urban planning does require understanding of psychology.

-More city/ settlement types! How about a college/ universtity/campus facility family? They could have high research output, some intel and maybe a little resource production. They could also have a (very limited) ship/ fleet training ability and perhaps some effects on population growth/ happiness. The first level would be immediately available but subsequent facilities would require the Research & urban development tech trees.

-Convert the religious shrines into families of city-like facilities: for example the fate shrine would be a bit like a colonial community or minor city but with the fate shrine ability attached to it, representing a whole religious community. Then you could upgrade it to a fate temple, fate monastary (or something), and the same for the other shrines.

[ January 26, 2003, 22:34: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

PvK

January 27th, 2003, 06:05 AM

PTF, LOL, thanks for testing that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

leo1434, thanks! If you like (you or anyone), email me your suggested components or other changes, and I will consider adding something like them.

For fighters, I think I will add some more "stuff" (missiles, PD, etc) eventually when time allows, however the main change I would make for the next major Version would be for them to start out like crummy SE3 fighters - slow, weak, easy to kill, and unable to move out of the sector they are launched in. The other abilities would still be available, but would require specific research to get fast, hard-to-hit, powerful, able-to-zoom-around-a-system-for-months Versions. The engines would be the source of most of the combat bonuses, and would probably come in different sizes as well, so fast fighters would be the hard ones to hit. They would all take even less damage to kill than currently, and anti-fighter weapons would do less damage, while fighter-against-ship weapons would mostly be too inaccurate to hit other fighters. (i.e., like it is now, but more extreme, and requiring much more specific research).

dogscoff, your suggestions are mostly in line with my Foundations mod design, and some can appear in 3.0, though not in 2.5.x because folks like Fryon don't want the tech tree to change.

This weekend I more or less finished 2.5.3, although I am tempted to add an anonymous ship tech area (builds ships using the generic shipset, so enemies can't easily tell the origin of gifted ships) and maybe some fun eccentric nonsense like World Ships (oh, and maybe some other evil cloaking components) before release, and I haven't really tested it much. Also I haven't done 2.5.2, which will be 2.5.3 minus the fixes to remote mining, so existing games using lots of remote mining won't be unbalanced.

So, 2.5.3 is a stab at a Last Version to be compatible with existing games, and then 3.0 would (when I get time) come stomp on the nonsense that is creeping in from trying to keep things compatible, and do some larger revisions and changes.

Here's the preview feature list:

Version 2.5.3:

--------------------------
Remote Mining Adjustments:
--------------------------
* Added restriction on remote miner components per unit to two, halved
structure, and doubled size of ship/base Versions. This prevents
massively productive mining bases, which were possible before but
were unintentionally overproductive. It also presents interesting
choices between ship, base and satellite miner designs. Pre-existing
bases in upgraded games will retain their former abilities (except
structure).

Version 2.5.2:

-------------------------------------------------------------
Changes for smoother upgrades for existing games using 2.4.2:
-------------------------------------------------------------
* The Fighter Carriers tech added in 2.5 now costs more, is expanded in
both directions to five levels (using the Tiny and Massive carrier images
from the SE4 Image Neo-Standard) and provides improved classes compared
to the standard carriers. Existing carriers have their costs and to-hit
penalties somewhat increased. The five new carrier classes are Escort
Carrier, Advanced Light Carrier, Advanced Carrier, Advanced Heavy Carrier,
and Super-Heavy Carrier.
* Pre-existing special armors downgraded to compensate for their
ability compared to the new armors that require specialized research, and
to compensate for changes to Emissive Armor from Gold patch Version 1.78.
Unlike 2.5 & 2.5.1, they can now continue to be deployed, and may be good
choices for large ships (since they don't use Scale mounts and so will be
smaller on large ships).
---------
Gameplay:
---------
* Added six levels to the new Stealth Armor tech area, allowing eventual
(expensive) blocking of all Active and Passive EM scans.
------
Fixes:
------
* Fixed crippling Sergetti design bug - thanks to Oleg again!
---------
Cosmetic:
---------
* Changed the Large Starliner to use the "Barge" image from the SE4 Image
Neo-Standard, if it is provided.
* Fixed minor typo in to-hit description of some ships (said "base").

PvK

PsychoTechFreak

January 27th, 2003, 10:39 AM

Starliners, I mostly do not use them unless I have not researched medium transports because of maintenance costs, to be hit chances and speed. Maybe I am missing something about them, but do they need to be balanced? Similar thoughts about starliner modules compared with the respective cargo components.

Fighters, I am still thinking about some smaller Versions, maybe 5kT or 10kT drone-like types. Anyone reading P.F.Hamiltons Armageddon series? I like the idea of combat wasps.

Facility upgrade button in production queue is a problem. I know, we should be careful about it, savegame before.Is it possible to do some fine tuning about the facility families? E.g. I would like to strictly build Distribution Centers or just a space port at some planets, but with the use of the upgrade button it changes often to something else during building, like spaceport+resupply or such. Maybe you could put all of the really different things into different families?

Just some thoughts to one of my favorite mods,
PTF

PvK

January 27th, 2003, 11:30 AM

Small Starliners are just there to provide the ability to move population without researching up to Med Transport. Since Med Transport is fairly quick to get, this may make them too inefficient to be a worthwhile choice, with no way to retrofit them into something efficient. In a way this makes sense, but it would be more interesting if they could be retrofit into something more efficient, although I haven't found an easy way to do so when I thought about it before. There's probably something, though.

What are you thinking about Starliner Modules? They are intended to allow the maximum population capacity per ship, as was requested by players. They're especially good in those situations where you need to get the maximum number of people off a planet in a relatively short time. They're supposed to be attractive choices for population transports, and unattractive for other transport types.

As for the auto-upgrade button, I think it's a hopeless cause, because of how inflexible upgrades are in SE4. I've chosen to use them to make it possible to do some logical transformation of facilities, as requested by some players, for expensive facilities, allowing planetary development without so much scrapping. Because there are some interesting choices involved, it will almost never make sense to issue empire-wide "upgrade facilities" orders. Even in unmodded SE4, I almost always find that button to be more of a booby trap than a help. As for morphing projects in progress, I've only ever seen that when somehow the ministers seize control of the empire, through deliberate or forgetful player minister settings. I don't think the "Upgrade All Facilities" button will do that - will it?

PvK

steveh11

January 27th, 2003, 11:57 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
<CUT>
As for the auto-upgrade button, I think it's a hopeless cause, because of how inflexible upgrades are in SE4. I've chosen to use them to make it possible to do some logical transformation of facilities, as requested by some players, for expensive facilities, allowing planetary development without so much scrapping. Because there are some interesting choices involved, it will almost never make sense to issue empire-wide "upgrade facilities" orders. Even in unmodded SE4, I almost always find that button to be more of a booby trap than a help.
PvKWell, YMMV (and it obviously does) but I always used to use the empire-wide "upgrade facilities" button in vanilla SE4, and miss it's use in Proportions. Not enough to stop playing Proportions mind, but I do wonder why you can't upgrade smoothly from one type of facility to the next.

Steve.

steveh11

January 27th, 2003, 03:52 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Not enough to stop playing Proportions mind, but I do wonder why you can't upgrade smoothly from one type of facility to the next.Because you're only allowed to upgrade to the Last Version of the facility you've researched.
His point is that you will not always want to do that in proportions, and it may even be a bad move.<hr /></blockquote>Why shouldn't I be able to promote my Research Centres, eventually, into Research Megaplexes? Instead I have to knock down the Centres, build Complexes, promote those, then knockthem down to build Megaplexes. It's this kind of thing that feels counter-intuitive, and it's the one big thing in Proportions that I don't like.

Steve

PsychoTechFreak

January 27th, 2003, 05:48 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
What are you thinking about Starliner Modules? Compared with a stack of cargo I components the overall costs are slightly higher, as far as I recall from here. The organics are more expensive, the minerals go down a bit, but overall you have to pay more. Plus, the medium transports with sl modules get a malus in defense. Because of the over-proportional higher costs, I rarely use the higher cargo II+III also, but that's another story.

Originally posted by PvK:
I don't think the "Upgrade All Facilities" button will do that - will it?

I am not quite sure what your question is about. With the upgrade all Facilities button all of the Facilities in progress (which could be many years/centuries in Proportions) upgrade to the highest facilities available. I often use this (maybe I am kind of cheating by doing this?) and start building nature shrine II and in parallel I research shrines III and then I press upgrade all facilities so this entry changes to nature shrine III. But on the other hand this procedure also creates a mess in almost everyone of the space port, cities, resupply and similar facilities.

PTF

PvK

January 27th, 2003, 07:31 PM

Originally posted by steveh11:
Why shouldn't I be able to promote my Research Centres, eventually, into Research Megaplexes? Instead I have to knock down the Centres, build Complexes, promote those, then knockthem down to build Megaplexes. It's this kind of thing that feels counter-intuitive, and it's the one big thing in Proportions that I don't like.Because you are playing with an old Version of Proportions? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif In 2.5.1, you can do this.

PvK

oleg

January 27th, 2003, 07:46 PM

OK, does anybody check Proportions with the newest SE patch ? I'm still at work and cannot do myself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Crimson

January 27th, 2003, 07:48 PM

So the new ? is how is the new patch going to effect your MOD and it's release time table.

PvK

January 27th, 2003, 07:48 PM

Originally posted by PsychoTechFreak:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by PvK:
What are you thinking about Starliner Modules? Compared with a stack of cargo I components the overall costs are slightly higher, as far as I recall from here. The organics are more expensive, the minerals go down a bit, but overall you have to pay more. Plus, the medium transports with sl modules get a malus in defense. Because of the over-proportional higher costs, I rarely use the higher cargo II+III also, but that's another story.
<hr /></blockquote>If I recall correctly, Starliner Modules, and high-tech Cargo Bays are both intentionally more expensive than their counterparts, because they represent attempts to do what some players asked for - the ability to use high technology to stuff as much cargo into a design as possible. The Starliner Modules help for mass exodus in minimum time (reduces build costs by distributing resource types used) and in some cases for more cost-effective population transports (both by spending orgs, and by increasing capacity per ship, which divides down the other non-cargo costs of the ship). The high-tech cargo bays are good when you want a more capacious transport of other types. Cargo Bay I remains the cheapest component for simply transporting some units, when your design has enough space that you don't feel like maximizing capacity with expensive tech.

There's a similar situation with armor - you have to decide whether you want to max out structure or save some resources to buy something else as well.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by PvK:
I don't think the "Upgrade All Facilities" button will do that - will it?

I am not quite sure what your question is about. With the upgrade all Facilities button all of the Facilities in progress (which could be many years/centuries in Proportions) upgrade to the highest facilities available. I often use this (maybe I am kind of cheating by doing this?) and start building nature shrine II and in parallel I research shrines III and then I press upgrade all facilities so this entry changes to nature shrine III. But on the other hand this procedure also creates a mess in almost everyone of the space port, cities, resupply and similar facilities.
<hr /></blockquote>That's what I was asking... sigh. I didn't realize it would change facilities in progress. Unfortunately, this adds another tradeoff where players who want to spend time fighting the interface can get better performance. I guess it has the trade-off that you often won't want to upgrade everything, so often it will do more damage than it gains.

One reason it would be hard to make all upgrades always desirable (if I wanted to) is that there is a big difference in Proportions between construction rates of small colonies versus developed worlds. A high-tech homeworld can upgrade Research Center I to Research Megaplex III in 0.4 turns, on average. But a new colony would take much longer, and will get much better results in terms of time and in terms of cost and in terms of output, by building a bunch of Research Center I's.

Another reason is that I added trade-offs of investment - expensive long-term performance versus cheap short-term performance. In the middle of a war, it often makes more sense to build weapons and fast/cheap facilities rather than expensive terraforming and infrastructure development.

PvK

PvK

January 27th, 2003, 07:52 PM

Mainly the new patch is going to make 3.0 possible, since I have been meaning to add and change weapons to take advantage of the new damage types now that they work correctly.

I think I'll hope that this week you guys test and find any issues, and make any brilliant Last-minute suggestions. Maybe I'll post a beta 2.5.3 tonight so you guys can test that and give feedback, and then I'll try to post the final 2.5.2 and 2.5.3 this weekend, if time allows.

PvK

PvK

January 27th, 2003, 08:05 PM

Ok, I made a quick beta Version for you folks. 2.5.3BETA is available at: THIS LINK (http://www.latibulum.com/pvk/proportions/Proportions2.5.3BETA.zip). It includes the modded 3rd party races and everything, so it's about 4 megabytes.

Let me know what's broken. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

Suicide Junkie

January 28th, 2003, 02:30 AM

Not enough to stop playing Proportions mind, but I do wonder why you can't upgrade smoothly from one type of facility to the next.Because you're only allowed to upgrade to the Last Version of the facility you've researched.
His point is that you will not always want to do that in proportions, and it may even be a bad move.

PsychoTechFreak

January 28th, 2003, 10:40 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
If I recall correctly, Starliner Modules, and high-tech Cargo Bays are both intentionally more expensive than their counterparts, because they represent attempts to do what some players asked for - the ability to use high technology to stuff as much cargo into a design as possible. The Starliner Modules help for mass exodus in minimum time (reduces build costs by distributing resource types used) and in some cases for more cost-effective population transports (both by spending orgs, and by increasing capacity per ship, which divides down the other non-cargo costs of the ship). The high-tech cargo bays are good when you want a more capacious transport of other types. Cargo Bay I remains the cheapest component for simply transporting some units, when your design has enough space that you don't feel like maximizing capacity with expensive tech.

There's a similar situation with armor - you have to decide whether you want to max out structure or save some resources to buy something else as well.

Ah, I understand, and that's now ok with me. I often use a mix of higher tech cargos with cargo I to achieve 2kT or 3kT. Maybe my small starliner module problem is because I always do not know (yet) where to spend all of the minerals to not exceed the stock limits. Mostly I start with producing fighters/mines which make up a nice defense barrier in Proportions. But when I am going to max out the ship fleets, I expect to reconsider the sl modules to save minerals from about midgame on.

PTF

[ January 28, 2003, 08:45: Message edited by: PsychoTechFreak ]

Fyron

January 28th, 2003, 10:55 AM

SE3 fighters - slow, weak, easy to kill, and unable to move out of the sector they are launched in.That doesn't work. Fighters get 1 MP even if they have no strategic movement generating engines. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

dogscoff, your suggestions are mostly in line with my Foundations mod design, and some can appear in 3.0, though not in 2.5.x because folks like Fryon don't want the tech tree to change.Its just bad form to force changes like that on games in progress. I really did not relish having to have all of my ship designs suddenly made obselete and having to research a whole lot of new technologies to build them agian in order to get a few bugs fixed.

PvK

January 28th, 2003, 11:09 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />SE3 fighters - slow, weak, easy to kill, and unable to move out of the sector they are launched in.That doesn't work. Fighters get 1 MP even if they have no strategic movement generating engines. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
<hr /></blockquote>Ah right, well that's too bad, but 1 MP is slow enough to make the point, and doubly so if they don't have a lot of supply storage, since fighters use supplies each turn. I might increase that monthly rate of use too, which will also help reduce their efficiency as warp point defenses. It would realistically take a specialized design to allow fighters to deploy without carriers for months, especially if they have biological crews. The suggested drone fighters could offer an alternative to address that particular issue.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />dogscoff, your suggestions are mostly in line with my Foundations mod design, and some can appear in 3.0, though not in 2.5.x because folks like Fryon don't want the tech tree to change.Its just bad form to force changes like that on games in progress. I really did not relish having to have all of my ship designs suddenly made obselete and having to research a whole lot of new technologies to build them agian in order to get a few bugs fixed.<hr /></blockquote>Ya, I remember. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I hope you enjoy the return of the "legacy techs" in 2.5.2+, and the special 2.5.2 which will refrain from changing remote mining, so the remote mining games in progress can continue to be savage. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

PsychoTechFreak

January 28th, 2003, 12:52 PM

What's that story about fighter supplies, something I might have missed? Fighters use supplies every turn, even without doing anything, like Drones? Or is this just a matter of your Mod?
What I have also seen is, if you put fighters into a fleet together with ships, the ship supplies will get halved with the next turn (just the attempt has to get punished). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

oleg

January 28th, 2003, 04:47 PM

The new SE patch has an interesting feature that can have a direct effect on Proportions: weapon platform will be destroyed first, before troops. No more brave infantry covering missile silos with their bodies ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Krsqk

January 28th, 2003, 07:48 PM

I thought that a previous patch had eliminated supply sharing between fighters and ships. It used to be that you could launch fighters (which started with full supply) and fleet them with your ship; next turn, your fleet's resupplied, and you'd load up your fighters and move on along.

PvK

January 28th, 2003, 10:16 PM

Originally posted by PsychoTechFreak:
What's that story about fighter supplies, something I might have missed? Fighters use supplies every turn, even without doing anything, like Drones? Or is this just a matter of your Mod?
What I have also seen is, if you put fighters into a fleet together with ships, the ship supplies will get halved with the next turn (just the attempt has to get punished). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Krsqk is correct - the fighter fleeting supply effect was removed in the previous Gold patch (1.78). You can fleet fighters with ships (which is great for escorting them) but they will track supplies independently, which is good.

Fighters also now use supplies per turn as of the previous Gold patch (1.78). The default for the unmodded game is:

Fighter Supply Usage Per Turn := 5

(See Settings.txt)

PvK

Phoenix-D

January 28th, 2003, 11:48 PM

You can fleet fighters with ships (which is great for escorting them) but they will track supplies independently, which is good."

Even better would be if bases worked the same way..

Phoenix-D

PvK

January 29th, 2003, 02:04 AM

I suppose, to get the fleet training, although bases already get to-hit bonuses from mounts (or fire control centers, in Proportions), and currently you can retain the old base resupply technique, if you like it, by changing settings.txt to allow fleeting with bases. If bases worked the same way as fighters do now, and it wasn't optional, then it would be impossible to do that.

PvK

PsychoTechFreak

January 29th, 2003, 10:04 AM

So then it appears to be a bug, because ship supplies are extremely effected (in 1.78) by a combinated fleet with fighter.
In my testing scenarios, the ship supplies have been cutted by 50% !

PvK

January 30th, 2003, 08:28 AM

Weird - maybe it splits supplies, but the fighters don't get their share? Sigh.

Has anyone tested this in 1.84 yet?

[ January 30, 2003, 06:29: Message edited by: PvK ]

PsychoTechFreak

January 30th, 2003, 10:19 AM

I have not yet updated, but there is another issue (well, two things, but one of them would be just an exploit bug for non-simultaneous games) I have seen with 1.78 and fighter supplies. I have moved several fighter stacks from a WP to a resupply depot, and they are not resupplied correctly. One of the fighter stacks (the bottom one) has been as low as before.

steveh11

January 30th, 2003, 04:56 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by steveh11:
Why shouldn't I be able to promote my Research Centres, eventually, into Research Megaplexes? Instead I have to knock down the Centres, build Complexes, promote those, then knockthem down to build Megaplexes. It's this kind of thing that feels counter-intuitive, and it's the one big thing in Proportions that I don't like.Because you are playing with an old Version of Proportions? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif In 2.5.1, you can do this.

PvK<hr /></blockquote>Oops my bad http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
Now that 1.84 is out, I'll upgrade both main game and Proportions as soon as you get the next Version out, I promise! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Steve.

BadAxe

January 30th, 2003, 07:26 PM

I just started a new Proportions with the 2.5.3 Beta, and I chose the 80% capacity option.

My home planet has a population number of 4000M/3200M.

Is this a Proportions bug or a SEIV bug?

PvK

January 30th, 2003, 11:40 PM

It's the way SE4 works, with no way to change it (except not including a disadvantage like that) and I don't particularly think it's a problem. It's just some compensation for that otherwise very large disadvantage.

A thing I dislike more is that you won't be able to build any facilities on a Tiny domed colony (if you have that disadvantage).

But, it's not disastrous. I've played a couple of successful games using that disadvantage.

PvK

Fyron

January 31st, 2003, 02:43 AM

Make the domed planets have more slots then. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

PvK

January 31st, 2003, 05:32 AM

Yeah, I think I will, for 3.0 but not for 2.x.

NAV

January 31st, 2003, 03:31 PM

PVK: Has anyone tested this in 1.84 yet?

I don't like the way the AI sends Pop Transports to the CLOSEST planet (Domed or not) now in v1.84 that fills the Population to 300m Plus befor moving on. Not consedering any longer is it breathable. At least befor, the Breathable planets had priority and they would benefit more from the pop bonus with the added facility slots. Too bad there could not be more logic since Population is a important equation for increased production and construction. Even if they only droped of 100m then moved on. Better if the AI could be programed to treat breathables with a seperate logic then domed all togeather.

JLS

[ January 31, 2003, 13:39: Message edited by: NAV ]

javaslinger

January 31st, 2003, 07:07 PM

Does proportions work with 1.84?

Is it usable for single player?

Thanks,

Ken

oleg

January 31st, 2003, 07:11 PM

Originally posted by javaslinger:
Does proportions work with 1.84?

Is it usable for single player?

Thanks,

KenYes and yes.

oleg

February 1st, 2003, 03:23 AM

Originally posted by NAV:
PVK: Has anyone tested this in 1.84 yet?

I don't like the way the AI sends Pop Transports to the CLOSEST planet (Domed or not) now in v1.84 that fills the Population to 300m Plus befor moving on. Not consedering any longer is it breathable. At least befor, the Breathable planets had priority and they would benefit more from the pop bonus with the added facility slots. Too bad there could not be more logic since Population is a important equation for increased production and construction. Even if they only droped of 100m then moved on. Better if the AI could be programed to treat breathables with a seperate logic then domed all togeather.

JLSYes, indeed it is an undocumented 1.84 feature http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Well, it could a good thing if there would be a way to mod how many people minister moves before shifting to another planet. Now AI in proportions is royally screwed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

NAV

February 1st, 2003, 08:50 PM

Oleg: Yes, indeed it is an undocumented 1.84 feature http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Well, it could a good thing if there would be a way to mod how many people minister moves before shifting to another planet. Now AI in proportions is royally screwed.
---------------------------------------------
It was better in 1.78 when the AI only sent them to breathables. It could be better for se4 base and most Mods if the AI would fill the planet to 100m and then fill the next to 100m. Etc.

[ February 01, 2003, 18:55: Message edited by: NAV ]

PvK

February 1st, 2003, 09:38 PM

Very good points NAV. Better might be a setting in the AI files, so different AI's could fill to different levels. Or, the AI could look at the population brackets in settings.txt to determine which planets could benefit from moving population...

PvK

oleg

February 2nd, 2003, 01:55 AM

It is possible to get around this nuissance, but it will require a major work by PvK: We can restore population mass and reproduction check to default SE values and scale up population modifiers AND planetary capacity by 10 times. Basically we will have the same Proportions but population unit will be 10 times smaller. Now, it will take reasonable amount of time before AI decides to switch from one planet to another.

minipol

February 2nd, 2003, 03:34 AM

Hi,
i have a small question about the proportions mod. Does it change the AI too like TDM?

minipol

February 2nd, 2003, 04:08 AM

I found the site of the mod so i found the answer to my question.

PvK

February 2nd, 2003, 06:05 AM

Am I misundestanding your suggestion, Oleg? It seems to me this won't do what you say.

For one thing, Proportions population mass is 200 times greater than in the standard game, not 10 times.

For another, if you divide mass by the same amount you multiply capacity, it's not going to have much effect at all on the time it takes to fill up a planet, which I guess is what the AI is now trying to do? (Note the AI stopping at 100 is just a player suggestion - I thought people were saying the 1.84 behavior is to try to fill planets completely. No?)

Also, reproduction rate and mass are two different things. I don't see why making every planet generate population ten times as quickly (more, considering compound effects) would make any more sense. Sure it would mean planets would fully populate more quickly, but it would also mean going back to unrealistic reproduction rates.

Originally posted by oleg:
It is possible to get around this nuissance, but it will require a major work by PvK: We can restore population mass and reproduction check to default SE values and scale up population modifiers AND planetary capacity by 10 times. Basically we will have the same Proportions but population unit will be 10 times smaller. Now, it will take reasonable amount of time before AI decides to switch from one planet to another.

oleg

February 2nd, 2003, 04:44 PM

AI is trying to fill planet till it gets 300 population units, AFAIK. my idea is to make 300 pop. units a small amount. I suggest to increase pop. capacity of all planets 10 times, decrease pop. mass 10 times and scale up all population modifiers 10 times in settings.txt. Pop. check should stay same - I made a mistake. Basically it will be the same game, but 1 pop.unit will represent 10 times less people. It is of course remains to be seen how population minister will behave.

oleg

February 2nd, 2003, 06:59 PM

Hurra !! It works ! I increased planet population 10 times (Earth will have 20 billion instead of 2), scaled up population modifiers and decreased pop. mass. Now, SE IV ships 500 (not 300) to a planet than shifts to another ! New 500 is exactly 50 in "unmodded" Proportions. Funny thing happens in Planet with moons. After filling planet, SE ships 500 million people to a moon before going to another planet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif . Anyway, it works and works much better than in 1.78 IMHO.
I can post modded data files if you like.

NAV

February 2nd, 2003, 07:11 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by PvK:
[QB] (Note the AI stopping at 100 is just a player suggestion - I thought people were saying the 1.84 behavior is to try to fill planets completely. No?)

I was not suggesting any change to Proportion settings, wich are currantly great. I was remarking that in v1.78 the AI sent the Star Liners (Pop Transports) too only the closest breathable colony, after that colony was filled to about 300m it would move on to the next breathable colony and so on. NOW in v1.84 the AI sends it to the closest planet to its Home World, fills it up to about 300m and works out from there. This could be a breathable or worse a domed moon. To me the return overall was much higher whan the AI sent the transports to breathables only.

PvK

February 2nd, 2003, 09:14 PM

I'm with you NAV. I also think it'd be best if the AI's population transport could be specified in the files for each AI, so we could customize it per AI, and to work best with mods that change what makes sense to do.

oleg, I see now, that sounds like it works well, with the only real casualty being that now you can move population with a ship having only 100 kT cargo space, not 1000 kT, which I liked because it kind of made population a different Category from other unit transport. This also of course wouldn't be upgradable for existing games, because their effective population would go down 90%. I'd probably want to add another nine population effect brackets on the low end, to make moving less than ten units to a new colony pretty weak, and I'd want to adjust things like random and intel events, and maybe look at what it does to militia and planetary bombardment.

Since it would be for new games, I think I might actually keep population mass at 1000kT, and then make starliners ten or more times cheaper, and/or maybe slower but more capacious... this might make small starliners useful later into the game, and slow enough that people wouldn't be tempted to use them for invasion transports or carriers etc. Hmm. It will take some more thought. I have the feeling 3.0 will look a lot different from 2.5.3 (if I can find time to figure it all out and complete it).

PvK

oleg

February 3rd, 2003, 02:00 AM

Common, we have cars and busses, Cesna and Boeng-747 to carry people. There should be no reson why we can move 1M but not 100K ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Anyway, starliner modules are still most effective components for transports and that means transports should be huge. Incidently, increasing population ten times takes care of the integer number artifact - no longer 1M colony will jump to 2M in one year, it will be 10M to 11 M !

PvK

February 3rd, 2003, 02:30 AM

But, can you take a ship designed to deploy a single drone or a single satellite or some mines, and use it to transport 100,000 people and all of their possessions and necessities, for several months through space, and keep them alive, without serious amounts of life support equipment? No.

Realistically speaking, cargo should not be completely interchangeable based on equal mass. At the least, units should include the mass and cost required to keep them intact for a long space voyage. Unfortunately, SE4 lacks SE3's restrictions on cargo type. The only way I see to mod in some distinction using SE4, is to make the population units so large that there becomes an incentive to build specialized ships which wouldn't be efficient to use for mundane transport. That is, starliners. If we do as you suggest, except keep the pop mass at 1000kT, then with some changes to starliners and their modules, maybe we can have starliners carrying about 10x as many population units, but remaining relatively slow, so unit transports would more efficiently be built on faster lower-capacity transport hulls, while population transport would more efficiently use starliners.

PvK

oleg

February 3rd, 2003, 04:59 PM

Well, single drone weights 15 000 tons. Obviously the ship capable to carry, service and launch such a device should be able to carry few people instead. Or look at small troop transport. It carries enough troops to conquier whole planet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Besides, why are we talking about 2m tall, 70 kg weighting aliens ? Last time I saw UFO crew on TV (in "Taken" I think) were very punny. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ February 03, 2003, 15:02: Message edited by: oleg ]

PvK

February 3rd, 2003, 10:12 PM

Originally posted by oleg:
Well, single drone weights 15 000 tons. Obviously the ship capable to carry, service and launch such a device should be able to carry few people instead. Or look at small troop transport. It carries enough troops to conquier whole planet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif
I don't take the masses entirely literally, if I did, and I did my math right, I would see the smallest drone is 100 kT = 100,000 TONS. I think this is probably ridiculous for a minimum ship or drone mass, so I consider kT an abstract unit subject to imaginitive interpretation.

I will grant that a drone is very large, and yes you could pack in some civilians and supplies and stuff for them in the same space, maybe, although when you start talking about hundreds of thousands of them, for months, I think you would need major life support systems etc, which would not be present by default on a cargo ship.

Besides, why are we talking about 2m tall, 70 kg weighting aliens ? Last time I saw UFO crew on TV (in "Taken" I think) were very punny. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Well, if I were designing the game system, this might be something you could specify during race design. It's still mostly irrelevant, however. The point is, that large populations and their survival requisites are not generally very interchangable for space transport purposes with machines.

This is also a design goal of the mod. It is supposed to require investment in special transport to move populations around, and those transports are supposed to be relatively slow and vulnerable, so that the concept of escorting infrastructure ships is introduced, and colonizing distant worlds in contested space becomes an interesting challenge, and not something that can be accomplished by single full-speed general-purpose ships in a few turns, as in the unmodded game.

I realize there are degrees, and yeah it would still be quite different from the unmodded game even if population only weighs 100 kT. It's just a question of degree, design goals, and personal taste, and of course people can adjust the settings as they please. I'll test out your suggestion in practice and deliberate more. If/when 3.0 comes out, I think it will be different from 2.x in several ways...

PvK

oleg

February 4th, 2003, 03:36 AM

There is always a possibility that when it comes to space travel, we won't send living humans to stars. The obvious and well explored in S.F. literature suggestion is to send people in cryogenic form. But we can also send just fertilized cells with growth media and equipment programmed to grow humans upon delivery. On the second thought, cells are not necessary either. What we need is just CD with genetic information and some sort of futuristic "incubator". But then, we don't need CD either, just an antenna to receive all the data from Earth...

PvK

February 4th, 2003, 03:49 AM

Well, the unmodded game allows you to replicate a whole homeworld in a year or two, so if you want to play that kind of SF, it's quite easy.

Proportions is about dealing with problems, not hand-waving them with "tech I don't even have to research or build will evaporate the problem". All the things you describe would require major research, and then, if SE4 would let me mod it in, actually constructing the technology. The problem is, SE4 doesn't give me many options for how to include cryogenic storage, that would be any different from the high-tech starliner modules I already have. As for growing clones from CD's and goo, well, I could give organic manipulation's replicant facilities to everyone, though I would say it would be a very high tech, and would also require tech that could raise and educate these people, and probably some population control facilities to control the anger that you want to replace them with clones and robots.

PvK

Graeme Dice

February 4th, 2003, 04:33 AM

The technology level that PvK has assumed the races to have at the beginning of a Proportions game is one that is pretty much where we will be in 50 years, with the caveat that FTL travel is possible in his universe. This is why the mod almost completely lacks high-tech solutions to most problems.

Krsqk

February 4th, 2003, 05:57 PM

"Well, if I were designing the game system, [race size] might be something you could specify during race design."

This would actually be really cool! Spend points to decrease your race's size, which could decrease the number (or more likely, size) of B/LS/CQ comps for your ship. Would also affect the space needed for population. Not a bad idea for SE5.

Phoenix-D

February 4th, 2003, 11:55 PM

Can be sort of done right now, with racial traits. Simply make a racial area that gives the reduced-size components (with the same family as the regular ones) and nothing else. Space can't be affected except by Advanced Storage techniques and the like, so you'd need two traits.

It'd be really difficult to make a "larger" race like that though..

Phoenix-D

PvK

February 5th, 2003, 12:48 AM

Hmm, yeah, you could only really do it with a facilities trait (or, a whole range of them - in SE3, wasn't "Advanced Storage Techniques" called "Tiny Race"?), and a mount or racial tech tree that would allow some component size changes.

PvK

Sinapus

February 5th, 2003, 01:43 AM

Pvk: Did you ever experiment with using the "default population" size for colonies in the settings.txt file? (Don't have the game in front of me, but I think you can set a population for when a ship colonizes a planet.)
I've been experimenting with incorporating proportions-like settings into my own personal mod, though in a way that the AI can use w/o massive alterations. (Like creating "city" type Versions of various resource-producing facilities and making them available at higher levels of extraction so it becomes worth researching those techs past level 3.)

Basically, I've had troubles giving the colony modules higher cargo capacities than the standard cargo modules. Currently, 1M pop is set at 50kT, w/the cargo modules having multiples of that number in capacity. Would rather it be 500kT (did I mention I'm calling this Proportions-Lite? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) with growth every 5 turns. Just about ready to set colony module capacity to 0, set that settings.txt flag to 1M (unrealistic, I know) and making the cargo bay capacities divisible into 500.

PvK

February 5th, 2003, 05:15 AM

Well, the automatic colony population setting in settings.txt does work. I just don't use it because it creates population from nothing, and I'm trying to make population a valuable resource which is difficult to build up.

I'm confused though why you'd have problems increasing the capacity of colony modules. As you can see in Proportions, it works fine.

PvK

PsychoTechFreak

February 5th, 2003, 11:23 PM

I guess this is not a proportions issue, but I have captured an abbidon med. transporter with 7 engines, although just 6 are allowed?

PvK

February 6th, 2003, 02:23 AM

It is sort of a Proportions issue. It is probably because the Abbidon haven't researched ECM fast enough to get an ECM device which gives a better bonus than their best engines. So when the SE4 AI makes a design that calls for a defensive device, it thinks the best one is an engine, and adds that, even though it won't add any defense because it already has engines of the same type, so the effect won't stack. I would rate this as a very minor advantage to the AI, which doesn't compensate for the AI's lack of ability to optimize engine type mixes the way micromanaging perfectionist humans can. Not a big deal.

A side issue for perfectionist AI modders: When making AI files, it's often not worthwhile to put ECM on transports.

PvK

oleg

February 6th, 2003, 03:29 PM

Well, at least with my AIs this is not a problem. I always use the assigned phony ability for ECM scanners in Design.txt file. Otheres should do the same http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

PvK

February 6th, 2003, 10:39 PM

In general, yes. I think all mine do. John Sullivan did (a generally excellent job on) the Proportions Abbidon AI. I like having a mix of AI authors (oleg, PvK, John Sullivan, so far) as it adds more variety.

PvK

JLS

February 7th, 2003, 04:21 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
In general, yes. I think all mine do. John Sullivan did (a generally excellent job on) the Proportions Abbidon AI. I like having a mix of AI authors (oleg, PvK, John Sullivan, so far) as it adds more variety.

PvKAhh, are we talking about my Abbidon Support Ship...

I also used PvKs Call tags for ECM and Sensors... Some how I got an extra engine http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Actually, I think my Support ship is very creative. Take a look�

Support Ship:
AI has 5+ Launches of 5 fighters per turn with a capacity of 26 small Fighters.
Has a Repair Component that repairs with the entire fleet.
Has been seen carrying troops and Assaulting when the Capture Planet fleet ordered.
Has one shield.
Equips with a Psychic Sensor.
Will equip armor until it Loads the Sensor.
Moves 6 with contra Engines.
Has the modified maintenance benefit of being a Medium Transport.
In addition, best of all the AI fleets her so she can repair and defend the fleet; which is her (The Support Ships) primary duty assignment.
Alas, I should have made room for Self � Destruct. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
Patent is pending on this design. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I wanted some of the AIs to use Peters New (at that time) traits.
The challenge was to make My Abbi AI do well with the Slow Builders, from general file � The fact that they can build and maintain starships has left many a scholar puzzled�.
While another choice could have been unlucky as per its race description �However, a devastating asteroid strike changed their minds. With half of their home world�s population decimated�. However, we were not sure MM had that fixed it at that time.

There description also has Abbidon is latently psychic, and that is why I started them off with Phased - Polaron Beam which actually works very well with there Racial Weapons.

If you noticed in the research file they will go into Rock Colonizer, Computers etc. Early if they are not in AI; Attack or Defend Long Term STATES�

Have trust, that I put a lot of thought into this race and tested this AI extensively� Never the less, it can be better.

The Abbidon can hold its own, especially when it gets ROCK Colonization�.

John L. Sullivan

[ February 08, 2003, 11:13: Message edited by: JLS ]

Aloofi

February 7th, 2003, 10:13 PM

One question, how can i make the small DUC to target CSM?
By the way, I love the Proportions mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

PvK

February 7th, 2003, 10:58 PM

Thanks Aloofim!

Small DUC target Capital Ship Missiles? Only point-defense weapons can target seekers, so self-defense cannons, better Versions of which are available from Military Science, the Point-Defense Weapons.

PvK

oleg

February 15th, 2003, 09:58 PM

Well, here is my Proportion 2.5.3 fix for Population Minister problem. If anybody forgot, there is a SE IV feature - AI tries to send 500 population units to one planet, then swith to the next planet. Before 1.84 patch, AI send population to breathable atmosp. planet only. Which was OK since breath. planets are most important in Proportions. But since 1.84, as first reported by NAV, thanks!, AI simply send people to any closest planet. 500 pop. is a HUGE number in Proportions and sometimes AI spend whole game trying to fill one stupid moon http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

My temporal fix is to scale up population and population modifiers by 10 times. Now, the same 500 units correspond to old 50 and AI spread population quite nicely. The gameplay is identical to unmodified Proportions as long as you remember that 10M can be transported by old 1M transport and are 10 times less productive.

1045337937.ZIP (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1045337937.ZIP)

! WARNING ! It is for new games only. The existing games will be basically ruined. Although you can imagine that there was a cosmic cataclism that killed 90% of your people and surviors are trying to rebuild empire http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

PvK

February 17th, 2003, 02:01 AM

Is the AI trying to achieve 500M population per planet, or 300M? (I thought I rememebed 300M from a previous message - but then, it is 4AM here... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

PvK

oleg

February 17th, 2003, 02:50 AM

500, i checked it again.

oleg

February 21st, 2003, 05:55 PM

There is another reason why my adjusting of population size is very beneficial for AI:

I'm working on new AI that mass-produces units. Now, if planet is full but there is any ship with cargo in the sector, new units are transfered to that ship regardless of its class. AI never unload wrong types of cargo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif For example if you get troops on mine layer, this mine layer will always carry these troops around http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

With new patch, AI moves population to any tiny domed planets with limited cargo. Very soon I found my population transports completely loaded with assorted selection of troops, fighters, mines, etc. If 1 population unit occupies whole transport, this phenomena ruines them completely. I even tried to add extra cargo but it only pospone the problem. However, if population is made 10 times smaller, transports can still move reduced number of people. Stupid SE AI drives me nuts ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

[ February 21, 2003, 21:02: Message edited by: oleg ]