Grrr. My mod has just become too big for the forum to upload to. Tried to split the files but my added Icons just take too much space by themselves. I have to look for a host now. If anyone has easy to use file hosting sites to suggest, go ahead.

Foraven wrote:
If anyone has easy to use file hosting sites to suggest, go ahead.

Foraven, I strongly recommend Mediafire for hosting your mod. Reliable; no wait-timer for downloads; fast speed; conspicuous lack of BS & annoyances.

Thanks. Strangely enough i already had an account there, completely forgot about it.

Uploaded new version (1.20). Lots of fixes, improvements and changes (read the logs). This version requires a new game, old saves will be corrupted if you attempt it. My mod grew too large and now i moved to MediaFire for hosting; and i should have done so long ago, it's less hassle than uploading it here. Anyway, Enjoy the new version!

Rather, use dropbox.

It means you can use the same link all the time, for added benefit.

Alright, here's the plan for next update; assuming no major bug is found in the current build, i will add 3 new cards covering some aspects of combat that are not already covered by other cards. Two are defense cards and will work in the same spirit of "Guidance Disruption" (vanilla Weapon Disruption) and cover the other 2 weapon type and aim at reducing damage from those weapons without buffing defenses. The Third one will be a thrump card that affect critical damage and destined to "counter attack" if the enemy is using an offense card (usually because they have the upper hand). They should be rather easy to add, the artwork may be the most time consuming aspect of it (not sure what i will use yet). In the mean time though i will test my current build by playing a full game .

So far so good, seem this version is my most balanced up to date. In my current game all the AI seem to keep up, at least none has massively soared forward or lagged behind by much; all 8 players in the match have roughtly about the same score, just not in the same area. My changes to the heroes seem to have put the last nail in the coffin of needing powerful admins at the start of the game; now that they add a % rather than a flat number, they don't give massive boost to fledging systems anymore thus new systems do take longer to get up to speed. Not to say they won't help, but using them right won't give a massive lead quickly. All in all i'm pleased with my balance changes. Now they need a real test; competitive players that are much more aggressive in play than i am.



Btw, the AI do play their part now; the Hisshos have declared war to me because i was getting ahead of them, now we have to see if they can carry that war (but they already have a massive fleet, time for me to defend my turf).

Hum... While everything seem fine in my test game, i notice that the AI don't seem to put much efforts into researching new colonisation tech. Also, i should buff their willingness to colonize, still a bit too slow...

Well, trying a run.

I'll be blunt, please don't take it as an attack to your work, i'm probably the person who most appreciates it :'D

Hissho bushido standard MP build, disk-4. Normal difficulty, expect to steamroll.

Yes, this means i had a custom race.

First reaction: Oh-my-god 8 turns for a colony ship with Jungle+Mineral Rich starting planet?



I'll start with the good news.

- Weapon balance seems great. Well, more or less: Armor% is overpowered, but i had Strong Alloys. And strong alloys is overpowered even in vanilla.

- Whatever the reports under, the improvements upon vanilla are just, just great.



On combat balance:

Armor is overpowered, and that's in Vanilla, too. Gets even worse here, and has been made EVEN worse by the Tactics change. If your entire defense is armor-based,



Bug Reports:

Crop Genetis 1 is +1000% food. I guess you wanted +10%, and ended up with a *100 instead of a % on it. Completely gamebreaking.

Missiles can kill retreating opponent. This is HUGE.

Two resources mean two monopoly bonuses. "Elite" Weapons can be cheaper than budget versions.

Offensive Retreat is bugged (Damage rounds aren't unopposed)



Balance notes:

Optimist trait was already overpowered, now it's flat-out required.

Corporate hero was obviously overbuffed, and is now about five thousand times better than administrator. What's a +10% industry bonus doing on top of the +20% sci on industry-academic partnerships?

Disclaimer: I still need to see the full trees for both, but in early game, (Especially considering early-game dust/sci gen is all on capital), corporate is just over the top.

(Funny note: Corporate hero is still better than the administrator, even if the admin gives +2500% food.)

Armor % bonuses out of control. Too easy to double base hp, even on destroyers.

Public Private Partnerships and Sustainable Farms are still waiting their buffs. Currently useless compared to the other two.

Two resources means two monopoly bonuses. Keep that in mind.

Careful Sweeping was buffed, but i'd cut the +10% dust on star system and keep it at the +2/pop on systems with a moon. It's plenty.

Intensive Cultivation Logistics hasn't been buffed: I'd change it to +2food/pop on systems with a moon, in line with Careful Sweeping.



AI Notes:

Fleet consolidating still out of whack. Out of your possibilities to fix, we need to go and bug meedoc about it.

"Which defense should i build" is also completely out of whack. Also hardcoded. Imho, AI should just stick to armor in all cases unless we can get that fixed.



I'm on normal, on a fast-expand track (Not real fast expand sophons, but still a pretty espandy thing) And AI keeps up with me, it seems. On normal. /Clap (On score)

Neighbor Hissho rushed the ♥♥♥♥ out of me. Proceeded to more-or-less easily crush him, he fend off my first wave, though.

Still does not expand fast enough, but it's improved TREMENDOUSLY over vanilla.

It colonized a Kessler Syndrome Arid before a titanium Tundra. Do anomalies even factor in the ai's colonization preferences?

Sophons didn't have a single weapon tech at turn 74. They had cruisers with 128 weapon MP, while i was rocking 1000+.



Expansion notes:

I'd cut the nerfs to colony module, and go straight for another method.

Normal colonies give a very, very low ED. Outpost one is CRIPPLING. Like, 15 for outpost, empire-wide.

That way, you're forced to have one or two outposts up.



That said, i don't think expansion-rushing is bad. Space is an IMPORTANT resource. You shouldn't be able to play without expanding more than you should be able to play without researching.

"Tall" empire comes from having few cities control a lot of territory: not from having little territory. (Well, apart of civ5. Civ5 is a mess, and the tall thing is bullshit)



Last edit: Finished, was a steamroll. No strange tactics were employed, no defense modules were ever built. Will

Aureon wrote:
Well, trying a run.

Hissho bushido standard MP build, disk-4. Normal difficulty, expect to steamroll.

First reaction: Oh-my-god 8 turns for a colony ship with Jungle+Mineral Rich starting planet?

Lol, yeah: you have to build up a bit before you can crank them up :P.

Bug Reports:

Crop Genetis 1 is +1000% food. I guess you wanted +10%, and ended up with a *100 instead of a % on it. Completely gamebreaking.

Will fix that.

Missiles can kill retreating opponent. This is HUGE.

Not that much. I changed how many round per phase we have, now 8 rounds per phase. Retreating mean you receive only one missile instead of 2. Weapons do the dame damage as before, but health is doubled.

Ion torpedoes require both Hyperium and Anti-Matter. This means they can benefit from both monopolies.

I think you can't get more than 30% rebate no matter how many ressource you have, doesn't break anything to have 2 or more ressource for any weapon. However, having more than one requirement also mean you have to secure those ressource...

Optimist trait was already overpowered, now it's flat-out required.

Will nerf it.

Corporate hero was obviously overbuffed, and is now about five thousand times better than administrator.

Will lower some of the buffs.

Note about armor removed (Forgot about round change). I'd keep the "%" attribute to "Elite" version only.

Will think about that.

Public Private Partnerships and Sustainable Farms are still waiting their buffs. Currently useless compared to the other two.

Will look into that.

AI Notes:

I'm on normal, on a fast-expand track (Not real fast expand sophons, but still a pretty espandy thing) And AI keeps up with me, it seems. On normal. /Clap (On score)

Neighbor Hissho rushed the ♥♥♥♥ out of me. We'll see how that ends, not too well for him i fear.

Still does not expand fast enough.

Yeah, i'm still tweaking the AI. It does better, but some of the AI still struggle with colonising their systems. Will post an update later tonight.

Truckloads of edits made while game was ongoing, recheck ;p

Can confirm multiple rebate happens.

Aureon wrote:
Truckloads of edits made while game was ongoing, recheck ;p

Can confirm multiple rebate happens.

But does the total rebates goes beyond 30% of total cost of the ship? I doubt the devs would have left such a loophole in.

Aureon wrote:
Well, trying a run.

I'll be blunt, please don't take it as an attack to your work, i'm probably the person who most appreciates it :'D

Nah, i wasn't taking it bad .

I'll start with the good news.

- Weapon balance seems great. Well, more or less: Armor% is overpowered, but i had Strong Alloys. And strong alloys is overpowered even in vanilla.

- Whatever the reports under, the improvements upon vanilla are just, just great.

Nice . I may consider nerfing the armor traits, will look into that. However, they are in line with damage buffs so i'm on the fense there.

On combat balance:

Armor is overpowered, and that's in Vanilla, too. Gets even worse here, and has been made EVEN worse by the Tactics change. If your entire defense is armor-based,

Hum... With all the changes i made, i think it's pretty hard to not take damage in my mod. Did you have any instance where you had so much armor the AI could not even kill one ship?

Offensive Retreat is bugged (Damage rounds aren't unopposed)

Moved that to Hit and Run. Offensive retreat is now a Fighting retreat card.

Disclaimer: I still need to see the full trees for both, but in early game, (Especially considering early-game dust/sci gen is all on capital), corporate is just over the top.

Already working on that; will tie a lot of the skills to base attributes, that way we don't get ultra powerful buffs just by picking a skills, you need to back it up with base attributes. Some skills will use more than one attribute so class combos will matter.

Armor % bonuses out of control. Too easy to double base hp, even on destroyers.

And that is a bad thing? Self repair and repair modules have been nerfed, a lot harder to make indestructible ships. Unless you actually managed to do just that...

Public Private Partnerships and Sustainable Farms are still waiting their buffs. Currently useless compared to the other two.

ok.

Two resources means two monopoly bonuses. Keep that in mind.

Alright. Adjusted cost according to how many ressource are required. Should fix the issue.

Careful Sweeping was buffed, but i'd cut the +10% dust on star system and keep it at the +2/pop on systems with a moon. It's plenty.

Wanted to have early game dust improvements, that was the reasoning of the buff.

Intensive Cultivation Logistics hasn't been buffed: I'd change it to +2food/pop on systems with a moon, in line with Careful Sweeping.

Will check that.

AI Notes:

Fleet consolidating still out of whack. Out of your possibilities to fix, we need to go and bug meedoc about it.

"Which defense should i build" is also completely out of whack. Also hardcoded. Imho, AI should just stick to armor in all cases unless we can get that fixed.

Can you be more clear about what you mean there? I can mod a great deal about what the AI put on their ships as well as ratio of weapons, armor and defense. If there is issues with their designs, i can fix that. If it's ratios in fleets, i can also alter that. In fact i will tweak a few things in that regard.

It colonized a Kessler Syndrome Arid before a titanium Tundra. Do anomalies even factor in the ai's colonization preferences?

Not yet. The AI only consider the planet type and colonization cost, not it's anomalies (unfortunately).

Sophons didn't have a single weapon tech at turn 74. They had cruisers with 128 weapon MP, while i was rocking 1000+.

Strange bug. Will look into that.

Normal colonies give a very, very low ED. Outpost one is CRIPPLING. Like, 15 for outpost, empire-wide.

That way, you're forced to have one or two outposts up.

So you like that change? That also fit with how fast the AI colonize new systems so the AI don't need any extra coding to cope with that.

That said, i don't think expansion-rushing is bad. Space is an IMPORTANT resource. You shouldn't be able to play without expanding more than you should be able to play without researching.

I don't think it's bad either, but you have to pick your systems instead of taking everything in sight. You can also safely expand in systems that are in your influence, so if you expand strategically, you can grab lots of systems that way.

Last edit: Finished, was a steamroll. No strange tactics were employed, no defense modules were ever built. Will

Well, thanks for the report. Will work on my next version now.

Update is up (1.21). Should have fixed most issues with previous version. This require a new game, but the improvements should be worth it. Enjoy!

Am I fine just downloading it or do I need previous versions?

stasik28 wrote:
Am I fine just downloading it or do I need previous versions?

Nah, you just download this one. I just removed the mod link though, i found a few things i forgot to add (some modules don't have their requirements). But i'm too tired right now, will upload it when i get up. Sorry for the delay, but better than a release filled with bugs and mistakes.

Foraven wrote:
Nah, you just download this one. I just removed the mod link though, i found a few things i forgot to add (some modules don't have their requirements). But i'm too tired right now, will upload it when i get up. Sorry for the delay, but better than a release filled with bugs and mistakes.

Legends of Pegasus

Sword of the Stars 2

Simcity 2013

uh... Other EA games? :P



So yes, it is better

Multiple rebate stacks multiplicatively:

1 -> 30% (0.7)

2 -> 51% (0.7*0.7)

3 -> 36% (0.7*0.7*.0.7)



About hp/repair: Perhaps you're right, % repair has been probably nerfed enough. Perhaps it should be completely removed during combat, though.

Thing is: Strong Alloys is +40% hp, and applies to both armor modules and base hp.

By contrast, Optimal Defense provides just +15% defense, which is only on modules.

(Strong Alloys is 20pt, Optimal Defense is 15pt, the difference is hardly justified).

Perhaps it could be an idea to reduce hp over the board, making defenses more important. The reduction in repair greatly helps the whole thing, since an armor fleet will usually die to waves, while a defense-built one wouldn't.

Probably Ail is right, and the "flat modifier" defense is a mess, and we should move to %-based. It'd be much easier to balance, and would give a place to both armor and defenses.

We must remember that defense is a hard counter: When a ship built with armor+weapon meets a fleet built with the exact defense needed, the counter-fleet should win handily. Very handily.





Fleet consolidation: Often, the AI will charge you with 2mp fleets in sequence, rather than wait having a full fleet.

Defense: The problem is type. They do react to what you build, but they don't do that fast enough, and do not use multiple designs for multiple fronts: They simply say "Hey, my ships died of (Still can't understand if they scout) 70% missiles 30% beams, i'll spend my defense budget on 70% flak 30% missile".

But that average is too long-running, they don't refit enough (perhaps at all!) which means you usually encounter fleets with all 3 types.

Aureon wrote:
About hp/repair: Perhaps you're right, % repair has been probably nerfed enough. Perhaps it should be completely removed during combat, though.

HP repair in combat is way lower than after it, and i made sure you could not easily stack repair modules with ship spam. My new version is ready, we will see.

Thing is: Strong Alloys is +40% hp, and applies to both armor modules and base hp.

By contrast, Optimal Defense provides just +15% defense, which is only on modules.

(Strong Alloys is 20pt, Optimal Defense is 15pt, the difference is hardly justified).

Did nerf both, now in line with the negative ones. As far as i can tell from the code, the HP buff (debuff) apply to base hull HP, not modules. The only difference is the %.

Perhaps it could be an idea to reduce hp over the board, making defenses more important. The reduction in repair greatly helps the whole thing, since an armor fleet will usually die to waves, while a defense-built one wouldn't.

Removed the % increase from armor, and increased cost of armor plates. Should fix the issue for good.

Probably Ail is right, and the "flat modifier" defense is a mess, and we should move to %-based. It'd be much easier to balance, and would give a place to both armor and defenses.

Would have to rewrite a lot of things to do so, not ready for that, had enough for now .

We must remember that defense is a hard counter: When a ship built with armor+weapon meets a fleet built with the exact defense needed, the counter-fleet should win handily. Very handily.

Well, you'll tell me how it goes for the new 1.21.

Fleet consolidation: Often, the AI will charge you with 2mp fleets in sequence, rather than wait having a full fleet.

I remember having read something about it somewhere, but can't remember right now... Something about reinforcement...

Defense: The problem is type. They do react to what you build, but they don't do that fast enough, and do not use multiple designs for multiple fronts: They simply say "Hey, my ships died of (Still can't understand if they scout) 70% missiles 30% beams, i'll spend my defense budget on 70% flak 30% missile".

But that average is too long-running, they don't refit enough (perhaps at all!) which means you usually encounter fleets with all 3 types.

According to the code, they do refit, but that is tied to how much dust they have to do it; if they are perpetually broke, they can't do it. Problem is ensuring they don't overspend their dust in upkeep or buying off improvements.



Anyway, sending new version now.

Update 1.21 is back online, fixed all issues with it. Download and Enjoy .



Edit: Oh and just updated logs, now it has all i fixed in 1.21.