Painter448 wrote:

Scan mode seems to break with any mods enabled, I think only Amplitude can fix this.

Ok thanks man. Good to know I'm not daft. At least not for this reason.

Change logs:

V.1
Engine Evasion Bonuses reduced to eliminate a scenario where your ship was virtually invincible
Removed evasion bonus from Shield upgrades and replaced it with recharge bonus
Beam weapons can now fire from medium range
Missiles can now fire up close
Small ships have 5% evasion bonus
Adamantian Jammer gives 2% evasion bonus
V.2
Added critical hit chance to early Kinetic weapons and slightly boosted some mid and late game variants to make Kinetic more balanced with Laser
V.3
Boosted the evasion bonus from engines to level between what it was before launch. Also added evasion bonus for the two lower level engines.
Increased evasion on jammer from 2% to 5%
Increased the evasion bonus for small ships from 5% to 10%
The above evasion changes were made because I discovered a .6 modifier to evasion that was either nija'd in or I just hadn't noticed it before. This means that my prior evasion reductions were too severe and the adjustments above are meant to reflect that.
Energy and projectile enhancers now reduce your evasion. The theory behind this is that you are diverting a certain amount of energy from your engines to increase the weapon power. This slows you down making you less elusive to enemies. Prior to this there were no downsides to using these enhancers.
Increased accuracy of beam weapons to 60% at medium range.
Slightly increased the crew killed per shot for beam and missile weapons.
Updated mod files to reflect changes made in last few core game patches that didn't pertain to my changes but were not available to the user because my mod files overwrite the updated files. Those changes are now available to you (these were just a couple of changes that appear to be minor)

SlightConfusion wrote:

About the time the galaxy reached midgame I encountered various glitches and I think it could be linked to the mod:

(I never had this in any of my regular games)

• I had an AI attack my scoutship as if we were in cold war even though we had made peace one turn earlier (diplo showed cold war afterwards but the scorescreen still had the peace symbol)
• some unclickable fleet icon remained around a system even tho the fleet moved away already
• sometimes loading a save from a running session would freeze the loading screen,
  but restarting the game /going to the main menu + turning on the mod (i have it locally installed to play offline) allowed me to load the save

Sorry to hear about your troubles but these are more likely linked to the game itself or the recent patch than this mod. The reason is that the mod is very simple. It introduces no new files and simply edits existing ones. There's only like 6 files editing as well and those edits are mostly value changes..

About the time the galaxy reached midgame I encountered various glitches and I think it could be linked to the mod:

(I never had this in any of my regular games)

• I had an AI attack my scoutship as if we were in cold war even though we had made peace one turn earlier (diplo showed cold war afterwards but the scorescreen still had the peace symbol)
• some unclickable fleet icon remained around a system even tho the fleet moved away already
• sometimes loading a save from a running session would freeze the loading screen,
  but restarting the game /going to the main menu + turning on the mod (i have it locally installed to play offline) allowed me to load the save

yea like Painter448 mentioned scanmode during a battle doesnt seem to function properly anymore ^^

Oh well..

Very cool. thx!

I was looking around here because this is exactly what I wanted to try and learn how to mod myself (the issue with the beam weapons). 

Now I will try this out in my new game and see how the AI and my fleets do ^^

Perhaps you could include a bit more detailed info about the new range efficeny in the mods description.

Something like this:

Would be a bit easier for the steam users to understand what the mod is actually changing.

ps: im not sure if I agree that missiles are so effective in short range (it would be much easier to shoot them down before they have time to accellerate). but lets see :p

I've released the mod on Steam for everyone to try out if you like:

Range Realignment Mod

There are mentions of weapons for statistics. Maybe a shot in the dark.

<!-- Add the effective Beam damage to the attacking ship for statistics -->
<BattleEffectApplicationContext>
<TargetFilter>
<EntityFilter EntityRole="Owner">
</EntityFilter>
<ParentEntityFilter EntityType="Flotilla">
</ParentEntityFilter>
</TargetFilter>
<BattleEffectReference Name="AttackingFlotilla_UpdateDamageAppliedByBeamFromSalvo"/>
</BattleEffectApplicationContext>
<BattleEffectApplicationContext>
<InterpreterPrerequisite Flags="Prerequisite" Inverted="false">Path(Initiator, @'ClassSalvo,CriticalHit')</InterpreterPrerequisite>
<TargetFilter>
<EntityFilter EntityRole="Owner">
</EntityFilter>
<ParentEntityFilter EntityType="Flotilla">
</ParentEntityFilter>
</TargetFilter>
<BattleEffectReference Name="AttackingFlotilla_UpdateDamageAppliedByBeamCriticalFromSalvo"/>
</BattleEffectApplicationContext>
</BattleAction>

Kryptic57 wrote:

Painter448 wrote:

Scan mode seems to break with any mods enabled, I think only Amplitude can fix this.

That's pretty disappointing that you can't mod weapons without breaking a game feature. Did anyone look into the BattleActionDefinitions.xlm and make sure the entries are reflected there?

I didn't but I'll look at that tonight. I don't think that would have an effect though since all I did in my mod was just change the values for 3 numbers.

Painter448 wrote:

Scan mode seems to break with any mods enabled, I think only Amplitude can fix this.

That's pretty disappointing that you can't mod weapons without breaking a game feature. Did anyone look into the BattleActionDefinitions.xlm and make sure the entries are reflected there?

Scan mode seems to break with any mods enabled, I think only Amplitude can fix this.

I can confirm that the beam weapon is now firing at all ranges...hooray! Now I need a way to change the color and such :)

I'd LOVE to create a spinal mount weapon, but I haven't seen anything close as of yet.

I haven't effectively seen any bonus or detriment to crew as of yet, only a tooltip that said that 100% crew gives 20% damage bonus.

Kryptic57 wrote:

The actual values are contained in the XML "SimulationDescriptors[ModuleWeapon]" where you will find damage values as well as the range penalties. 0 appears as 100% accuracy and 1 appears to not fire the weapon. Let me know if you are successful I'm also interested in changing these as well. The AIBattleSituations appears to be AI logic which weights the AI empires actually equipping using those weapons and is not related to them being used in combat.

<!-- ******************** -->
<!-- **Beam Weapon Class** -->
<!-- ******************** -->
<SimulationDescriptor Name="ClassModuleWeaponBeam"  Type="ClassModuleWeapon">

<Modifier TargetProperty="WeaponTypeEnergy"             Operation="Addition"        Value="1"          Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>

<Modifier TargetProperty="Cooldown"                     Operation="Addition"        Value="6.8"        Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>
<Modifier TargetProperty="PreparationDuration"          Operation="Addition"        Value="3.5"        Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>
<Modifier TargetProperty="PreparationDurationFactorMin" Operation="Multiplication"  Value="0.5"        Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>
<Modifier TargetProperty="PreparationDurationFactorMax" Operation="Multiplication"  Value="1.5"        Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>
<Modifier TargetProperty="ShootingDuration"             Operation="Addition"        Value="1.2"        Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>
<Modifier TargetProperty="ShotsCountPerSalvo"           Operation="Addition"        Value="1"          Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>
<Modifier TargetProperty="ProjectileSpeed"              Operation="Addition"        Value="-1"         Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>

<Modifier TargetProperty="CriticalHitChance"            Operation="Addition"        Value="0.1"        Path="ClassModuleWeapon"/>
<Modifier TargetProperty="ShieldPenetrationFactor"      Operation="Addition"        Value="0.1"        Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>
<Modifier TargetProperty="HullPlatingPenetrationFactor" Operation="Addition"        Value="0.9"        Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>

<Modifier TargetProperty="LongRangePenalty"             Operation="Addition"        Value="1"          Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>
<Modifier TargetProperty="MediumRangePenalty"           Operation="Addition"        Value="1"          Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>
<Modifier TargetProperty="ShortRangePenalty"            Operation="Addition"        Value="0"          Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>
<Modifier TargetProperty="DeadZoneRangePenalty"         Operation="Addition"        Value="1"          Path="ClassModuleWeapon" TooltipHidden="true"/>

<!--Every time a module is installed, the upkeep grows-->
<Modifier TargetProperty="GarrisonMoneyUpkeep"          Operation="Addition" Value="$(UpkeepFromModules)"    Path="../ClassShip"/>

<Modifier TargetProperty="DamagePerSecondBeam"          Operation="Addition" Value="$(DamagePerSecond)"      Path="../ClassShip"/>

</SimulationDescriptor>

Knyghtefall is right. You need to make sure that:

        <AvailableRange RangeName="Medium" PenaltyPropertyName="MediumRangePenalty"/>
        <AvailableRange RangeName="Long" PenaltyPropertyName="LongRangePenalty"/>

is there for the beam weapon if you want it to fire at medium and long ranges. Just changing the accuracy alone didn't do it. I had to add those lines to the beam weapon and then they started firing. The AI in this case is not just the computer but also your ships I believe since your ships are actually AI controlled.

Different topic: Does anyone know what the bonus/detriments are for having less than 100% crew? I found some references in the files but it wasn't clear. I know the devs said they added a mechanic where having less than 100% crew leads to lesser performance but I'm not sure what factors specifically they refer to.

Relevant XmL

    <WeaponModule Name="ModuleWeaponBeam1" Type="Beam" Family="BeamBase" Level="1">
        <Cost ResourceName="SystemProduction">20</Cost>
        <!-- ** START AI DATA ** -->
        <!-- Weapons types -->
        <AIBattleSituations Situation="EnergyWeapon" Mode="Use" Value="1"/>
        <!-- Armor types -->
        <AIBattleSituations Situation="EnergyDefense" Mode="Against" Value="-1"/>
        <AIBattleSituations Situation="ProjectileDefense" Mode="Against" Value="1"/>
        <!-- Specific weapons -->
                <AIBattleSituations Situation="Beam" Mode="Use" Value="1"/>
                <AIBattleSituations Situation="Kinetic" Mode="Against" Value="1"/>
                <AIBattleSituations Situation="Missile" Mode="Against" Value="-1"/>
                <AIBattleSituations Situation="Laser" Mode="Against" Value="-0.75"/>
                <!-- Ranges -->
                <AIBattleSituations Situation="Short" Mode="Use" Value="1"/>
                <AIBattleSituations Situation="Medium" Mode="Use" Value="1"/>
                <AIBattleSituations Situation="Long" Mode="Use" Value="1"/>
                <AIBattleSituations Situation="Short" Mode="Against" Value="1"/>
                <AIBattleSituations Situation="Medium" Mode="Against" Value="0.75"/>
                <AIBattleSituations Situation="Long" Mode="Against" Value="0.75"/>
        <!-- ** END AI DATA ** -->
        <PathPrerequisite Flags="Edition" Inverted="true">ClassShip,CannotHaveWeapon</PathPrerequisite>
        <PathPrerequisite Flags="ShipHasDestructionModule,Edition,Disable" Inverted="true">ClassShip/ClassSection/ClassModuleDestruction</PathPrerequisite>
        <SimulationDescriptorReference Name="ClassModuleWeapon"/>
        <CategorizedSimulationDescriptors Category="CategoryBaseWeapon">
            <SimulationDescriptorReference Name="ModuleWeaponBeam1"/>
        </CategorizedSimulationDescriptors>
        <CategorizedSimulationDescriptors Category="CategoryModuleWeaponBeam">
            <SimulationDescriptorReference Name="ClassModuleWeaponBeam"/>
        </CategorizedSimulationDescriptors>
        <BattleActionReference Name="Weapon_Initialize"/>
        <BattleActionReference Name="Weapon_SalvoHitFlotillaShield"/>
        <BattleActionReference Name="Weapon_SalvoHitShipShield"/>
        <BattleActionReference Name="Weapon_SalvoApplyShieldDamage"/>
        <BattleActionReference Name="Weapon_SalvoLaunched"/>
        <BattleActionReference Name="Weapon_SalvoPrepareHitTarget"/>
        <BattleActionReference Name="Weapon_SalvoHitTarget"/>
        <BattleActionReference Name="Weapon_SalvoPostHitTarget"/>
        <BattleActionReference Name="Weapon_SalvoPostHitTarget_StatisticsRecording"/>
        <BattleActionReference Name="WeaponBeam_SalvoPostHitTarget_StatisticsRecording"/>
        <BattleActionReference Name="Weapon_UpdateAccuracyAfterMiss"/>
        <SalvoReference Name="SalvoBeam1"/>
        <AvailableRange RangeName="Short" PenaltyPropertyName="ShortRangePenalty"/>
        <AvailableRange RangeName="Medium" PenaltyPropertyName="MediumRangePenalty"/>
        <AvailableRange RangeName="Long" PenaltyPropertyName="LongRangePenalty"/>
        <TargetSortingCriterion Name="Type">
            <ScoreModifier Name="Ship">1</ScoreModifier>
        </TargetSortingCriterion>
        <TargetSortingCriterion_PropertyMultiplier Name="PropertyMultiplier">
            <ScoreModifier Name="OffensiveMilitaryPowerIfWeakestTargeting">-1</ScoreModifier>
        </TargetSortingCriterion_PropertyMultiplier>
        <TargetSortingCriterion Name="Role" ScoreModifiersDefaultValue="1" IgnoredWhenCheckingTargetValidity="true"/>
        <TargetSortingCriterion_PropertyMultiplier Name="PropertyMultiplier">
            <ScoreModifier Name="TargetersCount">-1</ScoreModifier>
            <ScoreModifier Name="TargetingWeightBonus">1</ScoreModifier>
        </TargetSortingCriterion_PropertyMultiplier>
    </WeaponModule>

So, I've been trying something along these lines. I've modded the Beam data and while the game accepts the values, not everything is working as expected. In the UI, it shows the percentage values I've chosen for Medium and Long ranges, but during battles, the beam weapon never fires at long or medium range. This despite the fact that I've updated the lines in the xml for the weapon module that I think point to using the beam weapon at those ranges.