[Raapys]

Since it appeared that AI combats were being limited to the same 8x max speed that is offered to the player, I went about seeing if it was possible to do something about it; if it was possible to get the AI to get through its battles quicker then that would greatly speed up turn processing, since combats are the main slowdown.

So, to make a short story even shorter: it worked.

What you'll find in the download is 4 files. There is one modified VehicleSizes.txt, one modified Components.txt, and there is a copy of the original set.

This is, basically, what has been done:
Everything related to combat, time and speed has been either multiplied or divided with a factor of 4. That is, ships/units fly and turn 4 times as fast, weapons fire 4 times where they'd normally fire once, seekers are 4 times faster, shield/organic regeneration is 4 times faster, projectiles fly 4 times as fast, beams last 1/4 the time, etc., etc.

The result:
On a 3ghz P4, there is a an average of 60~% decrease in all combat times. AI battles( and player battles on 8x) that earlier took 20 seconds now takes 8-9 seconds.

So what's the bad news?

Human players will have to turn the speed down to 1/4 to have what was previously '1x'.
Other than that, it will probably take some time to get used to frigates that have 50+ combat movement speed.

Fortunately, this change doesn't actually appear to have affected combat outcomes any. But you will notice the topic says 'test', so that's what I'd like others to help find out, i.e. if there are any ill-effects from this change. I've been playing for several hours and had a few dozen combats without encountering problems, so hopefully there are none.

This should work for both faster and slower CPUs. And note that system speed has not been changed at all. This only changes combat speeds.

To install just put the rar archive inside your balance mod's Data folder and extract. To uninstall just rename the backups that were extracted ( VehicleSizes Original.txt Components Original.txt).

Advice that Space Combat Maximum Time be set down to 120 seconds, and Space Combat Map Radius be set up to either 3000 or 3500.