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[Mod] Endless Moons

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7 years ago
Jul 3, 2018, 9:32:50 AM

Hey all, I've got an update mostly done.

A number of typos and bugs are getting fixed, as well as some balance tweaks. I'm also adding some additional features and upgrades to temples. (And added a new temple, as well.)

For gameplay, I'm moving both temple restoration and moon exploration a tech tier earlier, and adjusting the costs of developing moons and restoring temples.

In the case of exploration, this allows the choice of teching to exploration viable in the early game - opening up more interesting gameplay choices.

For restoration, this allows temples to become more prominent in the mid-game, and additionally, temples now have additional upgrades and things that can be further unlocked with a tier 4 tech.
Without getting into spoilers, every temple comes with some other benefit such as allowing a new building, specialization, reduction, etc. And typically open up some new interesting gameplay choices either from the temple benefits or the new item.
I’ve tried to make the new things potentially matter, but without really breaking the game. Besides, temples are generally rare and you can't specifically account on getting one (let alone a specific one) in any particular game. But so far, it's pretty fun when you find one and then try to figure out how best to utilize it.

I've also added a new Vodyani improvement to give some interaction with temples, since they can't normally restore them at all. In this case, they can get benefits from owned but undiscovered temples. (And I think I've justified this lore-wise.)

I've also increased the resource cost of developing a moon, and added industry cost to both development and temple exploration. (Though both still retain a minimum number of turns.)

I've seen some push-pack on the set turn aspect, but so far there's been no elaboration on what the objection is, or which way the objection leans. (It's not clear if they mean the set turns leads to building them too quickly or too slowly)

At any rate, my thought process behind the cost is three-fold:
1) Moon development is more akin to system development in theme, so fixed turns makes sense in this regard.
2) It makes some moons viable as an early colony development options, since exploration only takes a turn regardless of industry. This opens up more gameplay options and choices.
3) Introduced new industry costs so as not to make restoration and development over-powered on new colonies.

At the moment, the largest bug is (embarrassingly) that the WorldSettingDefinition table wasn't getting loaded properly, leading to moons and temples generally being rarer than they should have been.
Fixing this, however, has implications for compatibility with other mods that also use WorldSettingDefinition.

Currently testing the changes, so thoughts and comments are certainly welcome before release!

Updated 7 years ago.
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7 years ago
Jul 3, 2018, 10:57:03 AM

Your mod sounds very interesting. In hundreds of hours of playtime I never understood the reason to research moons. I saw effects such as +1 population slot yet researching moons never seemed to do anything (maybe its really pointless in the vanilla game?). I would like to try out the mod but I fear raising the amount of anomalies in general messes with the balance of the game. Does your mod raise the amount of anomalies generated, or does it just make moons show up more often? If the latter is the case I will install the mod right away! 

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7 years ago
Jul 3, 2018, 8:28:58 PM

Version 1.0 currently on the steam workshop here doesn't change the number of anomalies, but that's a bug as WorldSettings isn't loading properly.

This upcoming update raises the number of initially visible anomalies, (but not curisoties.) And at the same time makes moons occour more often as a visible anomaly.

Moons count as an anomally, so yes, there are more anomalies generated, but it doesn't feel game unbalancing to me.

The goal is to make at most systems have at least one moon. (It's about 60% right now.) And doing this with the default number isn't really possible without making regular anomalies fairly rare, which didn't feel right.

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7 years ago
Jul 4, 2018, 6:06:11 PM

The reason im concerned about balance is because of laws or effects that interact with number of anomalies. As a Horatio player, anomalies have a huge impact on my FIDSI output (since every anomaly boosts FIDSI by 10% (as dictatorship) and 5% as Federation. If you increase the number of anomalies, factions which make use of per anomaly effects will get stronger. Nevertheless I will give your mod a shot!

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7 years ago
Jul 4, 2018, 7:59:10 PM

I guess it's possile to make moons not count as anomalies, but that might cause some confusion.

Still, I'll keep an eye on balance in this regard.

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7 years ago
Jul 4, 2018, 11:19:56 PM

It might help if there's a way to replace the anomaly icon for moons, for visual clarity.


I feel like there should be, but I haven't found it yet.

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7 years ago
Jul 5, 2018, 9:57:58 AM

Hey Tychonoir, 


It is unfortunately impossible to replace this icon, as it is not set using a GuiElement or anything, simply in the Prefab in Unity.

Updated 7 years ago.
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7 years ago
Jul 5, 2018, 8:25:05 PM

Ah well. What about color? Can I change that?

Anyway, then the real question, is whether it's better to keep moons as anomalies realizing that this increases the number of overall anomalies, or if it's better to make moons not count as anomalies realizing that this might cause confusion when looking at the system view.

Updated 7 years ago.
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7 years ago
Jul 6, 2018, 8:18:07 AM

The color of the icon is defined in the GuiElement CategoryAnomalyQuality<Quality>.

Since CategoryAnomalyQualityMoon has its own GuiElement, you should be able to change its color!

Updated 7 years ago.
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7 years ago
Jul 7, 2018, 9:31:57 AM

Thanks!

Ok, so I'm trying with anomalies in a new color that don't count towards typical anomaly totals.

The way the numbers work out, on average, is that you'll see about the same number traditional anomalies, with more moons on top of that.


On thing to note, however, is the ratio of star systems to visible anomalies isn't consistant across galaxy sizes in the vanilla game. I've adjusted anomaly frequency so the new ratio is consistant, with the middle galaxy size closest to the original average.

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7 years ago
Jul 9, 2018, 5:10:40 AM

Ok, here's the thing.

I can re-color Moon type anomalies, but eventually, moons can become completely developed. As this point, they become Positive type anomalies which has a different color.

This leads to a problem if I want to keep moons in their own color:
If the final element in the chain of moon reductions retains the Moon type, it will leave the reduction button active with no reduction in the list.

To hide the button, it needs to be Positive, and then I can't keep the color consistant.

Unless I can create a new quality type. I didn't immediatly see a way to do this; is this possible?


Updated 7 years ago.
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7 years ago
Jul 9, 2018, 8:22:43 AM

Unfortunately, the anomaly qualities are an enum listed in the code and you can't create new ones.

The button always appears if the quality is "Moon"? That's not what I expected...

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7 years ago
Jul 9, 2018, 10:45:22 AM

Yes.


If if the tech to reduce isn't researched, the button is greyed out, but still present.

If there isn't reduction, the button is fully active but with an empty list.

I'm pretty sure this applies to Moon, Mixed, and Negative qualities.

I might be able to create a dummy reduction with a requirement that is never fullfilled, thus keeping the button greyed out. But I don't have a good way to suppress the inevitable tooltip trying to show the requirement, leading to confusion.

Is something like TooltipHidden or TooltipOverride available for tech or path prequisities?

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7 years ago
Jul 9, 2018, 1:28:54 PM

I'm afraid not!

This would have to be coded, I'll put it on my modding post it (which is now too big and requires a second post it...)

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7 years ago
Jul 9, 2018, 9:19:57 PM

My current workaround is a fake reductioin that contains a path that always evaluates to false.


This keeps the button greyed out, and shows %FailurePrerequisiteDescription in the tooltip instead of a tech requirement.

It didn't have a localization string, which I've now added to say, "No anomaly reductions available."


Seems to work ok.

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