Ultimate Mod from spaceempires.org

[disabled]

In all honesty, I never found a use for retrofitting ships. I guess I prefer to buy ships new instead of rebuilding them.

[ June 13, 2003, 06:20: Message edited by: General Talashar ]

[TacticDragon]

Thank you all for your comments.

1) Hadrian, when will the next Version be realeased btw? I keep checking your website but it is still the old Version...

2) That's funny, cause I kind of like the Pacean. I was thinking of the population/leader picture of the House of Aleksander, for example, which seems 'out of context'.

3) I'm not really concerned about the power of the machine gun. My concern was when the AI uses them extensively. A fleet of 25 BCs with 50 some machine guns each for example, is a nightmare in a tactic combat. Literally, I can go cook my dinner when it is the AI's turn, even with fast movement option switched on. Even strategic combats take much longer to resolve. This spoils the game.

4) I understand the logic of the 50% rule, and I think although it is sometimes a pain, it is the best possible solution given the current design of the game. Again, my biggest concern was in the Ultimate Mod. Why are some captured enemy ships SO cheap to maintain: 241/0/0 for a BC? This must be a bug??? Unless they can be analyzed for tech, these ships are only good for scrapping, and then only give a very meager amount of resources...

5) I guess retroseries are fine after all: you get what you want, fast and all, but you pay for it. Sounds good. I wish the 50% rule would be clearer though: is it 50% of the original cost? If for example design1 costs 100, what is the maximum cost of design2? 150? It doesn't seem to work that way, and each time I end up finding design2 by trial and error.

6) On game challenge: the idea of having AIs surrender to each other is interesting. I wish they would do this without me having to tell them. However, before that, I wish there was a way to prevent the AI from doing stupid things, like:
- sending ships into known minefields without minesweepers;
- sending unprotected colony ships into my territory: if I can't capture them, I let them pass, and then follow them with a loaded troop transport This is cool early in the game especially if the enemy can colonize planets that I cannot. Plus I get population that usually breathes something else...
- sending tons of ships into black holes
- destroying colonies instead of invading them with troops (even colonies I just took from them, so they kill their own race...)
- not using master computers to counter allegiance subverters... Btw, I think the self-destruct component should have a chance to work against allegiance subverters (is this possible to implement?)
- etc.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

5) I guess retroseries are fine after all: you get what you want, fast and all, but you pay for it. Sounds good. I wish the 50% rule would be clearer though: is it 50% of the original cost? If for example design1 costs 100, what is the maximum cost of design2? 150? It doesn't seem to work that way, and each time I end up finding design2 by trial and error.

---

Design K+1 must have a total cost less than 150% of Design K.
Open up "calc.exe", and sum up mineral cost + organic cost + radioactives cost (of Design K). Multiply by 1.45 (to be safe). Then make Design K+1 with a total cost close to that value.

Or, working backwards, multiply by 0.7 and remove components from Design K+1 to get Design K.

Repeat until you have the price low enough to build in a reasonable time, or high enough to retrofit to the final design (depending on which way you're working).

Key points:
- Less than 1.5x, or more than 0.667x the cost.
- Sum over all three resources to get the cost.
- Use the prices listed in the "edit" view of the ship design menu.

[TacticDragon]

5) Somehow I must have neglected the cost in organics and radioactives

This explains it! Thanks.

[Fyron]

In regard to those extremely cheap AI ships, they use this "weapon mount" on their components:

quote:

---

Long Name := DieCast Mounting
Short Name := Harden Mount
Description := A weapons mount that adds more support to the equipment
Code := D
Cost Percent := 0
Tonnage Percent := 100
Tonnage Structure Percent := 400
Damage Percent := 75
Supply Percent := 100
Range Modifier := 0
Weapon To Hit Modifier := -10
Vehicle Size Minimum := 0
Weapon Type Requirement := None
Vehicle Type := Ship

---

Any component with this mount costs ZERO resources to build and maintain. Personally, I don't like this and have changed the mount.

[disabled]

Hadrian! Don't ever loose your touch! This mod is great!

[ June 13, 2003, 06:18: Message edited by: General Talashar ]

[Menschenfresser]

On the Ultimate mod.

I must be playing with an older Version of the mod after you mentioned that the maintanence bug on the die-cast mount has been fixed...so if this is also out of date then just disregard.

Further on the Die-cast mount...I must say that it is probably the single most interesting change of the mod that I have seen so far. The reason being the fact that it makes nearly half of a ships components (and sometimes all) quite hard to destroy. Most battles now take more than one go-round to have one side eliminated...even in a one on one. I can see that maybe later in the game once weapons can become quite powerful due to mounts, this will be partially negated. I am not sure, but I would think that in the fix of this feature...some extra cost should have been added given that in the Version I am playing armor under the die-cast mount is worth 120k of damage. Personally I would add only cost in resources and not a larger size as the draw backs of this mount. I find that as it is, there are no draw backs to this mount...every ship gets it...making the strategy of chosing non-existent.

Overall, the greatest asset of the diecast is the lenght and realism it gives to combat. I now engage the enemy...both sides lose a few ships and then if I see I cannot win I retreat...or now...try to draw out the conflict until reinforcements arrive.

Good work on this. I will d/l the mod again and see what has changed, but over all I think it is a great addition to the game.

I agree with the previous post about the smaller weapons in that they make combat too long. Personally I don't use them...and I really don't see the benefit in using them...other than the fun of having space machine guns.

I love the stars having abilities, but I would suggest if possible attempting to reduce the percentage of those that have abilities. In my present game, of the say 15 systems I have explored almost half make shields useless. That makes shields a nearly useless component.

Just some thoughts. But overall, I like the completely different feel....good work.