Balance Mod to become Stock SEV Petition

[Docwho]

Personlly wail I like the Balance mod. In most of the things it dose. I perfered the higher levels of tech under the stock setup. I could take a smaller ship and win 9 times out of 10 in the stock. And I will also say I have not had time to look at the balance mod.

There are things I would like to see in there but since we have not gotten all the information to add them in yet.

One of the things I saw in one of the other mods for SE4 was Planets was them having some random ablitly. Such as could hold more cargo. act as storages for other stuff also. Which is not in the balance mod.

There are other things That I will think about and ask The captain about when I have more time.

But for the most part I think it should be add as a stander mod that is updated with SE5 and in the patches for now.....

[AAshbery76]

Docwho said:
I perfered the higher levels of tech under the stock setup. I could take a smaller ship and win 9 times out of 10 in the stock.

This is one of the main problems with stock and why I will never play it.

[Suicide Junkie]

Current stock is basically an Unbalance mod to Kwokstock.

I think we need this to be included in the next patch.
I also think it would be best to also have the current stock stick around.

Having two selections by default can only help to encourage people to download more.

[frightlever]

Captain Kwok said:
If both are included then what does it matter about the name? Both would be available for the user to choose from when starting a new game.

Let Kwok do his thing unhindered or burdened by the "offical line". It's not like it's going to be difficult to incorporate the Balance Mod into other mods. You start making CK's mod the "offical" AI and now he has a heap of pressure on him. Unfair.

[President_Elect_Shang]

Captain Kwok said:
...let me assure you the BM still has some ways to go...

Be sure to check the tp before you start! Nothing worse than running out of tp in the middle of a good bm!

[Shadowstar]

The only problem here is that most serious modders will want to use Balance as the basis for thier mods. This works until Balance gets updated, at which point there is no clean and easy way to update the new mod's files accordingly. There is also the fact that most mods will be replicating Balance mod files with thier intalls, which wastes disk space. This would not be a problem if Balance was Stock.

If Kwok doesn't want Balance to become Stock, maybe there is a way to make the process of updating mods based on Balance easier? Perhaps make Balance mod something like the old Imagemod, and have it replace Stock files, but still be optional. After all, people who play Balance mod rarely ever go back to Stock. But there's no reason there can't be a way to uninstall Balance just in case.

EDIT: It occurs to me that Balance mod could be included in the new "Community Bonus Pack" or whatever that is being worked on as the SE5 equivalent of Imagemod.

[Santiago]

It should be included with SEV but not as a replacement. I play both.

[Devnullicus]

Shadowstar said:
The only problem here is that most serious modders will want to use Balance as the basis for thier mods. This works until Balance gets updated, at which point there is no clean and easy way to update the new mod's files accordingly.

This is what CVS and other source control is made for... I used it extensively in the original devnullmod and if you want to use a dynamic mod as a basis for your own mod, I would highly suggest learning to use a source control system. WinCVS is free and easy to learn...

[Suicide Junkie]

Once you've gotten started on your mod, you are very very unlikely to start over from scratch/stock again.

You will either add the new change a s a good idea, or more likely ignore it since it dosen't apply because of the changes you've made already.

[Shadowstar]

I have used WinCVS in my work on the ChaosUT2 mod, so I know how useful it can be. I hadn't actually considered using it with SE5 modding but it's a good idea.

SJ has a point too, however as my mod (Starscape) tends to be episodic, I often will make major changes to it between episodes. During SE4, I would incorporate new changes in the Imagemod into Starscape during the inter-episode interims, and remember as several patches for SE4 were released throughout Starscape's two most recent episodes (S6 and S7). Originally, Starscape used some data from various SE4 mods as a starting point. This worked well for the most part but also muddled the modding environment. As a newbie, I let it slide as part of the "learning experience".

This time around, I would very much like to dev Starscape from scratch, but as I don't like the Stock files, I feel I don't have much choice but to base it off Balance mod.

However, this is all very tentative as I have not actually begun development of Starscape:SE5 and do not intend to until SE5 is patched a bit further and I see what kinds of things come out of the community in the coming month(s). This will also give me some time to experiment with sandbox mods and get more accustomed to the way SE5 works before committing myself to what I know will be a large project.

So, that said, I am interested in this issue but I suppose I don't quite lean one way or the other on it yet.