Foraven wrote:
What do you mean by jailbroke? Some mean to see what they are really doing?

If you haven't used this technique you really should.

http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/showthread.php?2131-!!-able-to-rejoin-game-as-any-ai-player-!!

Foraven wrote:


I believe the problem is it takes a lot longer for new colonies to develop early on as they don't have the pop to make use of the per pop bonuses. Also, the AI tend to convert all it's colonies to farms when they are not filled thus lose a lot of production and money it needs to do other things. As a player i did reinforce my new colonies with colonizers thus made the new systems grow much faster; the AI don't seem to do that. Also, i didn't wait my colonies to be filled to change their focus, when they have more than half population on them i start converting them to other purposes, something the AI don't seem to do (at least from what i can see from the governors).

You are right.

The shift towards even more pop-dependency further increases the efficiency of the technique to move people around in colony-ships.

I also have to admit I didn't really take this possibility into account.

Since I can't change the AI-behaviour about how they handle that, the only thing, I can think of to change that is having a scaling-cost of colony-ships so it becomes less attractive to build them on well-populated worlds.

(My old Civ-3-Modding approach comes through here: If I can't get the AI to do something that is effective: make it ineffective enough so doing it is no longer advantageous).



About the governors and the AIs always making food till the system is filled up:

I personally realized that change back then as many agreed that was a pretty solid approach and noone actually provided a better approach.



I think that this issue might well be reevaluated.

As in changing the point where they switch from full-pop to half-pop like you suggest.

Planets with food-production-bonus could stay on food until the system is full, of course.

It's pretty tricky to realize that behaviour exactly as you want but it's doable for sure.

you can just make colony ships can only settle in uncolonised planet?

Don't know if it's possible to mod it that way.

I've found you can do almost everything that includes changing values of something but changing the actual game-mechanics doesn't seem to be possible in most cases.

These are limitations of the AI, even without reinforcing my systems the AI at some point eventually lose =/

Dementophobic wrote:
These are limitations of the AI, even without reinforcing my systems the AI at some point eventually lose =/

There are other known issues about the AI:



For example the very lackluster hero-management or the amassing of too many ships early on which results in weaker infrastructure, increased taxes and thus lower productivity and growth.



It would definitely be helpful if you could point out exactly what you think makes the AI fail.



Some things actually can be addressed via modding. Build orders, tech-orders, ship-design-templates to name a few.

Ail wrote:
There are other known issues about the AI:



For example the very lackluster hero-management or the amassing of too many ships early on which results in weaker infrastructure, increased taxes and thus lower productivity and growth.



It would definitely be helpful if you could point out exactly what you think makes the AI fail.



Some things actually can be addressed via modding. Build orders, tech-orders, ship-design-templates to name a few.

For one, even if the AI has 100k military power and everyone else has 20k, it will only send 1/4 attack power to defend systems and fight another empire at war. Most AI's try to ally you too easily. AI doesn't really counter your weapons (IMO they should immediately retrofit to build defenses according to whatever weapons you have), just to name a few.

Dementophobic wrote:
AI doesn't really counter your weapons (IMO they should immediately retrofit to build defenses according to whatever weapons you have), just to name a few.

Well, you can't expect the AI to automatically bankrupt itself to make perfect counter to your fleets all the time (the cost climb rather quickly if you do that). Also, the AI has to have ships to fight/defend against other empires as well.

Also the "trying to ally too easy" isn't in this Mod since it is based on the AggressiveAI-Mod.

Ail wrote:
Also the "trying to ally too easy" isn't in this Mod since it is based on the AggressiveAI-Mod.

Must have been thinking about the default AIs, I was using the mod mostly with friends.



Thanks for the work put into this, hopefully Amplitude looks at it since I can't see any bad changes. I haven't really used the new AIS but it looks okay so far. Now to wait for Amplitude to release the MP patch fixing desyncs and crashes lol

I've been playing with a few friends some more and these are my thoughts.



The AIS seems a bit too powerful, I think 30% from 35% would be better. It feels pretty easy to get it too since it's not out of the way and it comes with the +extra tonnage empire improvement; I do like the change from the old AIS though.



For the admin, I think a flat bonus for the first ind admin ability would have worked better, because as it stands now, there is no reason to ever get the +10% ind ability early, it is actually better to just level up to director 3 and get the +20% ind ability before going for the lower one. This means that either the skill tree should be changed a bit (+20% ind should come directly after the +10% ind then), or making the +10% ind into +10 ind flat.



I feel that the crop geneticist comes a bit too early still, have it require director 2 and I think the hero will be fine (on even ground with corporate).



The sci building nerf was appropriate but the industry cost should be reduced somewhat (it gives relatively little science early on and even later on it's only roughly as good as the old sci building on most systems). Either that or maybe have it give a base +5sci? Probably simpler to just reduce the ind cost.

Maybe better is change hero ability +10% to industry on +5 to industry.



Its good resolve in early phase of game +5 to industry (in home system stack with COLONY-BASE industry (changed in this mod from +2 on +5), and still is better than +10% to industry (its good for high value of system industry in end a game) .

Ail, you mod interceded changes from 1.0.60?

like:

Changed defense depending on influence zone:

- neutral: 30 per population -> 10 per population

- under enemy: 24 per population -> 5 per population

Foraven oh trust me I dont forget that. Thats one of the reasons food is so strong. In fact that is how i play most of my games, if I dont have a good investment then a low pop system will build a colony ship (fast growth bucket) and settle it on a high pop system for a net profit in food. But imho balance should not be about making things feel worse, it should be about having more interesting choices.



By the way we are developing a fansite for endless space and other turnbased games on strategicturn.com. We are not yet ready to launch (end of february) but one of the things I am working on is a return of investment calculator. You can find a demo of this here:



http://www.strategicturn.com/ccs_files/endless_space/roi/3d_replication_plants.html

http://www.strategicturn.com/ccs_files/endless_space/roi/epigenetic_crop_seeding.html

http://www.strategicturn.com/ccs_files/endless_space/roi/geo_industrial_plants.html

http://www.strategicturn.com/ccs_files/endless_space/roi/heavy_isotope_refineries.html

http://www.strategicturn.com/ccs_files/endless_space/roi/hyperscale_farms.html

http://www.strategicturn.com/ccs_files/endless_space/roi/Inorganic_cultivation.html

http://www.strategicturn.com/ccs_files/endless_space/roi/Intensive_cultivation_logistics.html

http://www.strategicturn.com/ccs_files/endless_space/roi/interplanetary_transport_network.html

http://www.strategicturn.com/ccs_files/endless_space/roi/sustainable_farms.html

http://www.strategicturn.com/ccs_files/endless_space/roi/wasteless_supply_chain.html



The design is not yet ready, but the calculations should be correct. Most things can be calculated, and for the few things left out i have added a custom % for FIDS and also custom baseline production for FIDS so you can pretty much calculate anything with it. Among much other things I am doing a full guide for every single star system improvement. (I allready have it written but we need to reformat it and make it fit into the calculator for return of investment.) This is going to be part of an article series called return on investment.

Ail wrote:


1. Food

The food-ressource, as it is, loses all of its value at the moment when a system reaches its population-maximum.

I don't really like that because it devalues food too much.

The solution to that problem already exists and is called Adaptive Industrial Systems.

However, I feel that it a) comees far too late in the game to have much impact and b) is far too powerful in what it does, as the potential food-production of a system is much higher than it's potential industry-production.

So the plan is to make it available much earlier but also reduce its effectiveness by a big chunk.

Typically a surplus of food was the changing point in human history that allowed us to go from farmers into empire builders.



The same could apply into space with the surplus giving a massive boost to industry, trade or dust generation.



But I like the idea of boosting trade the most, allowing a few fully developed trading systems to really start raking in some money.

2. Flat-Boni

There's a number of buildings that give an instant flat bonus to a system. What those have in common is: Everyone always queues them first and they alone make getting every system worth having no matter how bad it actually is.

I feel this gives too much incentive to colonize everything you can without even considering the drawbacks of such behaviour.

A change to a pop- or percentage-based effects is what I intend here.

As Eysteinh pointed out making such a change to the Heavy-Isotope-Refinery would also change the pacing of the early-game a lot.

That's why I'd like to have some more feedback on it.

There's some solutions I can think of:

a) leave it as it is; Advantage: pacing will not change Disadvantage: defeats the purpose of making it not mandatory

b) giving the colony-base a higher production-flat-bonus; Advantage: pacing will only change slightly Disadvantage: Even getting a colony will boost an empires productivity

c) making all of the very early buildings cheaper to build; Advantage: fullfills purpose of disencouraging too rapid-expansion Disadavantage: noticable change to the pacing



Of course the replacement of flat-boni would also apply to the admin-hero.

Could the admin bonuses be like the +1 per opulation: ones? encouraging their use in taller systems.



and If anything, remove the food bonus and replace it with a bonus to producing civilian modules in the system would be my choice.



(Could certain improvements only give a flat bonus if there is a hero of a certain type in the system? like giving +20 science if there is a corporate hero in the system?)

3. Obsolete Buildings

Some buildings become obsolete by terraforming because they only give boni to certain planet-types. Having to memorize them in order to raze them or continue paying for their maintainance feels rather tedious. I intend on giving them a small extra-something that remains usefull even when their primary effect becomes meaningless due to terraforming.

Overall, the improvements that no longer give a bonus could have have like a +2% bnus in their field, that way by late game they all still contribute to the larger systems, and even the smaller one give a slight bonus.

1 and 3 yes.



2, I feel that changing all the +10 ind specifically will slow down the pace of the game too much. It is crucial in making a system viable (without the admin hero), making it per pop won't change the fact that it's a mandatory improvement because of the nature of how important industry is in ES (it can be converted to science and dust, so you will always want industry).



The only other flat bonus building that heavily weighs on how the game is played is the +40sci building, which I don't know if it still needs changing due to how vulnerable outer systems now are with the new defensive values of 2. For the record, I do feel that it'd be better to have less extreme nerfs to no-influence defensive values and simply nerf the +40sci building and admin hero instead (both of which, are still too good to pass up).



The admin hero I think has more flavour if he retains flat bonuses but nerfed somewhat. It is mainly a problem with the admin hero, because I really see no problem with the corporate hero's +10sci ability or +10dust ability. The admin hero is a combination of having early flat bonuses, extremely high number for said bonuses, AND having the bonuses on the most important colony creating resources. If the bonuses weren't so high and didn't come so early I think he'd be fine.



For example he could have his crop geneticist placed after Motivational Leader (the +20% food, which in itself needs director 2) and be nerfed to +10/15 food (or whatever numbers are good, though somewhere in this range I think is fine). That would make it come later and have it much less effective. The ministry of propaganda is another one of his skills which is too powerful and could use lower numbers (maybe 20/30). Civil engineering too is another one that is slightly too powerful.

I agreed with all three points. But second one will be the start of totall rebalancing and it is a big job, so may be better to start from 1 and 2, and only than touch fundamental things. BTW I find this topic by "food" – I intresting is there are someone who suggest to make food overproduction more usefull. For me the best way – internal trade, when you can sell food to you own colony... but I think it is inpossiable to done it by mod.



(Excuse my poor English)

GRAHHHH no internal trade!

Ail wrote:


1. Food

The food-ressource, as it is, loses all of its value at the moment when a system reaches its population-maximum.

I don't really like that because it devalues food too much.

The solution to that problem already exists and is called Adaptive Industrial Systems.

However, I feel that it a) comees far too late in the game to have much impact and b) is far too powerful in what it does, as the potential food-production of a system is much higher than it's potential industry-production.

So the plan is to make it available much earlier but also reduce its effectiveness by a big chunk.

yes, food loses value when you reach max pop. but on most systems reaching max pop is no easy task, so food will be relevant til very late game. also, be careful on this food conversion idea, because if it comes too early it would make food trait bonuses even better than they already are.

2. Flat-Boni

There's a number of buildings that give an instant flat bonus to a system. What those have in common is: Everyone always queues them first and they alone make getting every system worth having no matter how bad it actually is.

I feel this gives too much incentive to colonize everything you can without even considering the drawbacks of such behaviour.

A change to a pop- or percentage-based effects is what I intend here.

As Eysteinh pointed out making such a change to the Heavy-Isotope-Refinery would also change the pacing of the early-game a lot.

That's why I'd like to have some more feedback on it.

There's some solutions I can think of:

a) leave it as it is; Advantage: pacing will not change Disadvantage: defeats the purpose of making it not mandatory

b) giving the colony-base a higher production-flat-bonus; Advantage: pacing will only change slightly Disadvantage: Even getting a colony will boost an empires productivity

c) making all of the very early buildings cheaper to build; Advantage: fullfills purpose of disencouraging too rapid-expansion Disadavantage: noticable change to the pacing



Of course the replacement of flat-boni would also apply to the admin-hero.

I don't see a problem with the +10 heavy isotope refinery. Since it costs 75 it is like an investment, and it gives new systems a way to start up without being a large bonus late game. It also gives the player an opportunity to utilize dust. But, like you said, the hero admin should not have flat bonuses. The admins should improve upon a systems own food and industry outputs based on what is there, you know, like an actual administrator that improves worker efficiency. The admin should not come with 20 farms and 15 factories on his ship that can travel at the speed of light around your empire (then takes 6 turns to refuel?). Make them all % or per pop based.



the +40 nonbaryonic particles is another beast altogether.....it lets you get a disgusting amount of science way too fast, and anyone who doesn't get it fast will be way behind. This is the definition of overpowered, there is no alternative strategy or tech that can compete. Compared to other science producing upgrades, it just dwarfs them all. Even compare to the +6 on all fids upgrade, which comes 2 or 3 tiers later down the line. 24 fids compared to 40 science that comes way sooner in the game? not cool. so yeah, nerf the balls off this one. Make it t4 or t5 in the science tree, cost more industry, basically what you were planning to do. be rid of it!

Dementophobic wrote:


The only other flat bonus building that heavily weighs on how the game is played is the +40sci building, which I don't know if it still needs changing due to how vulnerable outer systems now are with the new defensive values of 2. For the record, I do feel that it'd be better to have less extreme nerfs to no-influence defensive values and simply nerf the +40sci building and admin hero instead (both of which, are still too good to pass up).

The actual game is planned to have outposts with 10 def per pop, down from 30. Defending outer bases will be harder, but +40 will still be broken.



The reason you see no problem with the corporate hero is that the corporate hero doesn't help with development of a system. The +10 dust and +10 science doesn't matter what system it's on, since those are empire wide resources, but the admin's flat bonuses are more powerful because you can move them around to where they are needed most.

The reason you see no problem with the corporate hero is that the corporate hero doesn't help with development of a system. The +10 dust and +10 science doesn't matter what system it's on, since those are empire wide resources, but the admin's flat bonuses are more powerful because you can move them around to where they are needed most.

Well there's that and the fact that the bonuses aren't that big. If it was +100 science and +100 dust everyone would rush to start with the corporate hero, despite it being empire wide resources. I'm just saying that admin might be able to keep flat bonuses if it is nerfed enough to appropriate levels, especially since he already has a food% bonus (which to me is very similar to a per pop bonus).



Halving flat food bonuses (10/15) and moving them after motivational leader (meaning it requires 2 levels more to acquire if you go directly for it, and it'd be much weaker than now) and slightly nerfing propaganda and civil engineering would be enough to make the admin much less powerful, yet still retaining some of his original use.



The +40 science building when I think about it more I agree should be changed to per pop definitely, or split up into a small flat bonus and a medium per pop bonus (+5sci +2sci/pop or something).