[WIP] "Fair Fight" combat re-balance mod.

VIPiblise

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4 000g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 18, 2013, 3:58:01 PM

What exactly is it suppose to look like?

Bridger

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Bridger

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21 700g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 18, 2013, 5:21:04 PM

I have to be honest: I'm a bit overwhelmed by the number of battle cards now. They don't seem to be in order (offense/defense/engineering/etc.), so it's hard to find the card I want if I'm looking for it quickly. There also seem to be a number of cards which basically do the same thing, but only slightly differently. Consider removing cards that fill similar roles and tighten up the overall number; or at least don't add any more >_<

Or perhaps have newly unlocked combat cards replace earlier ones? Not sure if that's possible with modding.

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

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12 years ago

Mar 18, 2013, 9:21:32 PM

iblise wrote:
What exactly is it suppose to look like?

That's easy, more missiles should be fired than without the card (ie if the design has 10 missiles, 5 more should show up when using the Missile Barrage Card).

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

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12 years ago

Mar 18, 2013, 9:31:06 PM

Bridger wrote:
I have to be honest: I'm a bit overwhelmed by the number of battle cards now. They don't seem to be in order (offense/defense/engineering/etc.), so it's hard to find the card I want if I'm looking for it quickly. There also seem to be a number of cards which basically do the same thing, but only slightly differently. Consider removing cards that fill similar roles and tighten up the overall number; or at least don't add any more >_<

Or perhaps have newly unlocked combat cards replace earlier ones? Not sure if that's possible with modding.

Hum... I'm not sure i can do anything about the order cards show up, i admit i find it a problem too. As for cards doing a similar job, there is a limit of the parameters they can alter, and many of them boost one while reducing something else (thus have optimal circumstances where they are useful, others where they are a poor choice, help predicting what the other side might pick). It would be nice if cards that affect certain weapons/defense would not show up when those modules are not present though. There is also what each cards counter, not all offense card counter Tactics for example...

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

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12 years ago

Mar 19, 2013, 2:24:32 PM

Working on the next version, and it goes well. Did some tweak to the AI's personality settings and working on a replacement to the missile barrage card. While the MB card works, it doesn't show visually and that is a big let down. In fact it's true to all other modules or Cards that increase shot count instead of damage; the effect is there but we don't see it (but since the end effect is pretty much the same, i leave it be). I will also bundle Rheems Player's color mod as i find the new color easier to distingish than what we have in vanilla, less chance to confuse who i'm going against.

VIPiblise

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VIPiblise

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4 000g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 19, 2013, 3:19:55 PM

Using $(count) should increase the visual gfx no? Unless you exceed the max visual display that each ship can generate.

Oh and feel free to include the colorationlocales.xml / moon temple coloration images (trying to promote those two)

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

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12 years ago

Mar 19, 2013, 5:14:05 PM

iblise wrote:
Using $(count) should increase the visual gfx no? Unless you exceed the max visual display that each ship can generate.

Oh and feel free to include the colorationlocales.xml / moon temple coloration images (trying to promote those two)

I'll check that out. Currently i'm trying to re-order battlecards, but for some obscure reason it doesn't work even after Meedoc told me how. Maybe something isn't loading properly...

Edit: All is loaded, made sure of it, but strangely all the original cards always load in the same order regardless of how i mod them. Only my new cards show in the order i set them... Not everything is overriden in mods it seems.

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

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12 years ago

Mar 19, 2013, 7:01:13 PM

Finally managed to re-order the cards! Was a lot of hassle but i found why it wasn't working. I can't prevent the original cards from being loaded, but i can make sure they won't show up in my mod; i have to load cloned ones in the mod though. But at least they will show in the order i want them

Hister

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Hister

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13 200g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 19, 2013, 9:46:54 PM

Great news Foraven!

About the missile barrage - were you told by the devs how it can be fixed if at all?

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

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12 years ago

Mar 20, 2013, 2:40:01 AM

Hister wrote:
Great news Foraven!

About the missile barrage - were you told by the devs how it can be fixed if at all?

Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any working workaround (even the one suggested by Meedoc didn't work). The devs are reluctant to change how their GFX engine works thus there may never be a fix for it in the future either. The battlecard works, it just lack the Awsomeness(tm) i meant it to have.

I'm almost done for the next version, i'm just making sure everything i put in works and that my card order fix don't screw things.

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 20, 2013, 3:28:22 AM

iblise wrote:
Oh and feel free to include the colorationlocales.xml / moon temple coloration images (trying to promote those two)

I did a quick search for them but found nothing. Where are they located and what they do?

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 20, 2013, 4:41:06 AM

New version up. Several fixes, a few tweaks to the AI/governors, bundled a few mods, added French translation and re-ordered and colored combat cards for easier reference. Hopefully, this come without bugs (cross fingers :detection

. Enjoy!

Hister

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Hister

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13 200g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 20, 2013, 11:54:13 AM

That's splendid!

VIPiblise

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VIPiblise

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4 000g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 20, 2013, 4:13:43 PM

I bundled them with the battle dmg mod (easiest way to find) but basically rather than displaying a generic moon temple gfx it now displays with the apporiate color if it boost industry (orange) approval (pink) food (green) etc

The colorization mod was built off lum's work but expanded to include faction traits and includes proper #revert# tagging so it is clean. I cannot remember but I additionally gave many techs colorization too, keeping with the schemes, but I might have commented most of it out and kept the basics of faction traits colours only

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 20, 2013, 8:14:14 PM

iblise wrote:
I bundled them with the battle dmg mod (easiest way to find) but basically rather than displaying a generic moon temple gfx it now displays with the apporiate color if it boost industry (orange) approval (pink) food (green) etc

The colorization mod was built off lum's work but expanded to include faction traits and includes proper #revert# tagging so it is clean. I cannot remember but I additionally gave many techs colorization too, keeping with the schemes, but I might have commented most of it out and kept the basics of faction traits colours only

I will take a look at this in the next few days, i had more than enough bug hunting and testing with the last few features i added to my mod so i'm taking a break.

I learned yesterday that i don't need to use whole files; vanilla stuff is fully loaded and the mod only "paste over". That mean i can remove all the non-modded stuff from my mod and keep what i did change. The drawback is i need to be creative if i *don't* want to use vanilla code, like when i tried to re-order the cards. Heck, even learned the hard way that custom icons would sometimes not load just because i used vanilla file names, even if they were in different directories; now i change the name to make sure they load.

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

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12 years ago

Mar 21, 2013, 1:21:04 PM

I am greatly interested in knowing how well my changes to the AI/Governors improve how well the AI perform. Anyone has any comment about that?

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

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12 years ago

Mar 22, 2013, 3:47:48 AM

Not sure if there is a bug or there is some other requirements i'm not aware, but my governors seem eager to colonize one planet, but reluctant to colonize the next one even if all requirements are met (tech, population etc). I expected the governor to pick and try to fill the next planet, but for some reason it doesn't and build other stuff or do conversion instead. Not sure if it is normal or definitely a bug... Oh well, have to sleep on that, hope someone can answer this before i get back to it.

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

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12 years ago

Mar 23, 2013, 5:39:42 AM

I finally figured out why my governors were so lazy and did not colonize planets like they should. In the end the problem was with the AI, not the governor; Changed the values each AI put in certain planets and that seem to have fixed the issue. I removed the superfluous conditions i had added, they just bugged down the system.

Now that's out of the way, i'm working on making the governor build trade improvements only when they need them. Strangely though, the code don't seem to make a difference between trade routes empire wide en trade routes for a given system; even though we can see how many upgrades we need, i just can't make the conditions works. It's either there is or there isn't, so that mean the governor either build none or it build them all even if we end up with useless extras. Not that it is a critical issue though.

The major bug i'm struggling with is the retreat bug; can't tell if it's due to my mod or it's a vanilla game issue. The only common trend i seen with that bug is that it prevent escaping system if an enemy fleet guard a system with a wormhole; even if the fleet stop guarding, the trapped fleet still cannot leave. I find it a major annoyance and want it gone, though i can't find what is the cause. I would greatly appreciate anyone who know anything about that problem to tell me, i'm getting mad trying to figure it out...

VIPForaven

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VIPForaven

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 23, 2013, 2:08:54 PM

New version up. Lots of fixes, tweaks to the AI and removal of potential risk of bugs. Enjoy!

I'm still annoyed by the retreat bug, but that seem to be something i can't mod away, it's in the hands of the devs. The changes i made to the AI this time around should make it expand better and not neglect good planets they can colonize easily. I removed several unneeded entries from the files in my mod so it will be easier to merge it with other mods and also reduce the file comparing time when new patches comes.

Hister

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Hister

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13 200g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 23, 2013, 2:20:14 PM

So good - even when you say you had it enough you are still churning out those new versions! Great!