Eclipse Mod

[Ed Kolis]

Ah yes, the engineering departments... I like the way you did those... and the gas giants which are HUNDREDS of times bigger than other planets, that's just incredible! Not to mention all the new graphics for this mod......

[Kevin Arisa]

I went and made a few adjustments:

1. ALL organic and botanical technologies except for Scale Plating and Photosynthesis Armor have a regeneration rate of 1. Regenerative armor has had it's regeneration rate reduced to 1. There is now a Regeneration Core component that's only purpose is to provide regeneration to Bio-Engineering races.

2. Components that generate shields from damage have had their effectiveness increased. The smaller amounts seemed inneffective.

3. The Engineering Prowess trait has been reworked and no longer effects maintenance. It is now the better of two Supply Reduction traits.

4. Thrusters for fighters, more levels to remote mining, regeneration on the Hydro-Density Armor has been removed and it's emmissive ability enhanced, trait cost increases, a few image adjustments, and changes to the system disruption technologies.

I'll keep adjusting the mod as problems and suggestions come in.

[ June 08, 2004, 21:31: Message edited by: Kevin Arisa ]

[Kevin Arisa]

Regarding the Gas Giants, I cannot take credit for that idea. That was from the Starscape mod which I also got the planet and warp point images from.

[Makinus]

I was analizing your mod and it appears to me that the Racial Traits are a little unbalanced/redundant...

One example would be the Racial Traiot that reduces maintenance, that leaves completely pointless to change the Maintenance Reduction characteristic, adn also, the Racial Trait try to reduce maintenance to -25, reducing it to 0%, what is impossible, since the game is hardcoded to have at least a maintenace of 5% (could be reduced only through ship components)...

Other thing that i found too excessive is the use of armor regeneration in nearly all components, if you do this you would be negating one of the principal bonuses of the organic races...

I found interesting however the Fighter bonus in Racial traits, that would increase the effectivenes of fightes, that, in the unmodded games, become completely obsolete from mid-game onward...

The Ship bonus i find a little excessive (50%), since it would be the equivalent of a Talisman (religious race) in every ship.... maybe you can reduce the bonus a little, or make the Trait more expensive, or even make 2 traits, one with a lower bonus and other with a higher bonus, with corresponding differences in prices...

I found interesting your use of technology, but i think you give too much traits to the AIs, making them somewhat generic, maybe if you limit the Racial Techs to 1 racial tech for each Ai it would add some flavor to the game...

If you really want, i can try to design AIs for your mod (basing them in the TDM AIs), but i would like to know first what "flavor" you wish to give to each AI...

I found very interesting the concept of giving different tech trees and components to each empire, because it would add an additional "flavor" to the AI empires...

One major decision you must make is if your mod will be more based in Multiplayer or if you wish to concentrate in solo player too, the reason for this is because in solo player you must consider if the AI will use effectively all the componentts and techs you are giving them, or if the components and techs can only be effectively used by the human players, because there is a limit in what can be modded in the Ai, and what is hard-coded and can´t be changed...

I have some suggestions in how to increase the option of your mod, but first lets try to balance it a little more and mod the AI to use the new techs and components effectivelly...

If you want my help, of course...

[Kevin Arisa]

Thank you, Makinus. I would be eternally grateful for your assistance. For information on the races you can look at the empire files that came with the mod. Just in case you need more info I will get to work on a text file with all the information. Thanks again!

[Makinus]

ok, i´ll take a look at them this weekend....

[Makinus]

Kevin, if you wish me to mod the AIs, can you make a brief description of each one, including prefered traits, and strenghts and weaknesses of everyone (the star wars and star trek races i have a fair idea, but the other ones i don´t know what characterization you want to give)...

With this i can mod them so they effectively use the different technologies that the Racial techs gave them...

Other thing: there are several technologies that the AI is unable to use because of hard-coded issues (like Remote Mining just to point an example), and i wish to know if you wnat to maintain them in the mod, and, if the answer is yes, if you wish to give the AIs some advantages to compensate, like exclusive AI techs (like in the AIC mod, but less severe).

The ideal would be to designate 2000 points AI, that is the most common used setting in single-player (and multiplayer) games, but i will designate 3000 adn 5000 points too, and i will mod them so you don´t need to add the AI manually...

Just to add some ideas: what about the different races have different costs for ship hulls? Like an organic Race having a heavy cost in organics in the hulls but a low mineral costs, etc...

I´m in absolute love with your mod, and i really wish to help it to grow and become a complex and balanced mod, and i would like that the mod eventually present a good chalenge in single player, adapting the TDM AIs to the unique tech tree of each race....

If you want my help, mainly with the AI modding, just ask....