Tiax's Anomaly Overhaul



Version Note: Updates are available for Disharmony--check the version history to get the right one for you. I will continue to update the mod for vanilla and disharmony in parallel. I DO NOT have the Vaulter faction, but I can still edit them to include the new changes, so keep an eye on them for issues.



Intro: I got bored and somewhat disenchanted with the current anomaly reductions being Adaptive Colonies and Soil Revivification. Many anomalies mention using certain technologies (or something similar to them) that a faction may not have even researched yet. I figured, "Why put all of the anomaly reductions on two little areas? Wouldn't High-Energy Magnetics or maybe Hypermagnetics be more suited to unlock the fix for Strong Magnetic Fields?"



What this mod does: The original game has 51 anomalies. This mod brings the total up to 115 with several tiers of upgrades for most anomalies. Only 2 anomalies have no upgrades, and one of those anomalies is an end-point for other anomaly upgrades. Reductions no longer come from only Adaptive Colonies/Soil Revivification (though there are many still used by these techs). Hovering over individual techs will show a list of their reductions.



Adds 60 new anomalies to the game. Every anomaly (old and new) has been re-worked to unlock their respective "reductions" at appropriate technology levels. The unlocks can be quite cheap (for reductions opened at Xenology for example) or expensive for higher level techs. 97% of the anomalies have been rewritten to have multiple 'reductions'--for example, rich soil has four different unlocks now, each boosting the planet's food production as more food-centric technology is unlocked.



Some anomalies were given a boost; as an example, Strong Magnetic Field has a reduction that gives a defense bonus to the star system. Some anomalies were made as prior steps to others, such as Unfriendly Locals and Neutral Locals upgrading into Friendly Locals (and beyond).



NOTE ON GALAXY CREATION--I upped the number of star systems on Huge to 120. This shouldn't bring too much slowdown on your loading unless you like a lot of warp lanes.



Loading Huge maps with max planets (something that can be easily modded) can take 5-10 minutes to load depending on your computer. Having so many planets with anomalies seems to bog the loading down a bit. If you enhance your galaxygeneration like I do and add maps with 160-240 stars, it will take around the same time as normal to load them (10-20 minutes). Afterwards, there is no slowdown to the game, nor when loading or saving. The biggest loading issue normally is the game testing each warp lane and wormhole against every single other one to make sure there is consistency; second is planet generation, and third is anomaly and wonder placement.



This mod requires a new galaxy, obviously. :-)



Anomaly Color Guide:

Red: No current benefits, all effects are negative.

Orange: Negative effects and positive effects.

Green: All effects are beneficial.

White: No effect until appropriate reduction is applied.

Grey (v1.0.4): Highest-tier reduction, no effects (ex: Cleared Radiation).

Purple: Highest-tier reduction, cannot be further reduced.



Planet Expansion

Planet expansion improvements allow you to terraform your planets (and asteroid fields) up to the next size. Very simple, very straightforward.



Adds the planet expansion terraformations to the following techs:

Advanced Warp Gravitics (Tiny to Small)

Exotic Thermodynamics (Small to Medium)

Negative Mass Mechanics (Medium to Large)

Sustainable Supercities (Large to Huge)



Anomaly Traits: Added several new anomaly traits so you can begin your game with one of the new anomalies (or an old one that wasn't available until now). Just a side note, if you choose Garden of Eden, it will allow you to pick another anomaly. DON'T pick more than one in that case. It's the only weird little exception that I haven't quite figured out, but it doesn't hurt anything.



I did NOT add ALL of the anomalies to the trait list--some of them just don't make any sense for a home planet, while some are either too good to start with or too horrible. However, if anyone speaks up and says they want them, I'll add them!







v.1.0.0: (TiaxPlanetEXAnomalyOH)

Initial release of this set.



v1.0.1: (named changed to TiaxModv1.0.1)

Adds Orbital Techs from Imperium Aeterna and their system improvements

Adds Asteroid Field-to-Barren Improvement from Imperium Aerterna to the following tech:

Deuyivan Construction

Note--if you load a prior save and have ALREADY researched Deuyivan Construction, you WILL NOT unlock the ability to change asteroid fields to barren. If you load a save where you haven't researched it yet, it WILL unlock the transformation when you do.



v1.0.2:

Adds 17 additional anomalies and 4 that have the same name, but different end results through reductions. So far, counting all the possible anomalies, this brings the game up to 119.

Edited files to actually allow the most recent anomalies from Amplitude (Hostile Dust, Endless Trouble, and Humeris Insidentes). They have not been edited but will be in a future update.

Changed coloration of anomaly names to be brighter and edited some of the previously added anomalies to include prefabs from the three recent Amplitude anomalies.

Numerous little bugs fixed where I simply missed some reductions on the tech trees.



v1.0.3:

Fixed multiple incorrectly placed or forgotten anomaly reductions that were not applied to race-specific technologies.

Added AI Parameters to all anomaly reductions from 55-114 (which includes a big chunk of the original anomalies in 1.0.0). Now, your AI opponents will be much more prepared to face these anomalies.

Added AI Parameters to Imperium Aeterna's orbital stations. I set the parameters low for the military outpost, planetary rings, and dyson sphere--these take so long to create that I did not want the AI focusing on them when they need low-cost improvements.

I have NOT added AI Parameters for planetary expansion (sizes) or creation (asteroids to barren), simply because the AI shouldn't be spending most of their time on them. I may add them later but give them low weights like the upper-tier orbital stations.

Fixed a massive amount of missing reductions. I'm surprised I haven't caught them yet, but I also realized I don't play certain factions at all, so I haven't noticed their issues until now.

ower:Added compatibility for Disharmony (TiaxModDisharmonyV1.0.3).



v1.0.4

Added a ton of new anomaly custom faction traits, including a super-awesome one (you'll know when you see it). NOTE: Picking Garden of Eden will not grey-out the others; don't pick more than one in that case. It's a harmless issue that I haven't figured out, but it won't cause any issues, so long as you don't pick another anomaly. Plus, you're just throwing away faction points if you do.

ower:Added compatibility for Disharmony (TiaxModDisharmonyV1.0.4).

Fix--fixed a couple anomalies I bungled up in the tech trees. Thanks to InFlamesWeTrust for the catch!





Future Plans?

Racial reductions: How about turning those "Friendly Locals" into "Juicy Morsels" for the craver faction? How about United Empire turning the same locals into "Enslaved Populace," and then having the Pilgrims come along and turn them back into friendly locals? It's all possible, just takes some time to code. In particular, the Harmony could really use some focus--it's easy to have their reductions destroy the dust, but not the other benefits (and yes, it would be permanent)!

Some proper reductions on the three last vanilla anomalies (Hostile Dust, Endless Trouble, and Humeris Insideres).

More unique planets--seeing how Auriga works, I could potentially make some more unique planets. Mecatol Rex, anyone? I'm considering putting Event Horizon on a unique planet, considering it's final reduction is fairly powerful.

More wonders are easy to make. Just don't have any really good ideas yet.

And, of course, more anomalies. I have another 8 lined up--I like to put them when I get 20 ready, or when a couple of weeks pass.







To Quote davea:

I wish everybody who used the forum attachment system would add these instructions. If you cannot download:

1. Log out of the forum and log back in again.

2. Try a different browser (firefox vs IE, etc)

3. Clear your browser cookies

This looks very interesting! I guess the game reason for putting anomaly reduction into two techs in the south tree was "focus": you could also argue that it would make sense to spread out the colonization unlocks and terraform unlocks into all the other three trees also. But then the tech tree loses focus, and you cannot simply say, "I need more/better planets, let me focus on the south tree for a while".

I was playing with the idea of adding anomalies to planets--easy to do, but I can't find any sort of reason that would make sense to add an anomaly. I mean, I could just say "SCIENCE!" but that seems cheap.



That could be a decent addition to the bottom tree--'adding anomalies' on the expansion tree. Or even massive structures; it is just as easy to set up a 'wonder production'. For example, build an anomaly on a planet without one that extends all system influence by 25%. The anomaly could take quite a lot of production to build, and could have several tiers to it. I don't know just how far the game can be pushed on 'reductions' yet, but it handles up to 4 just fine.



I might be able to add anomalies that could only be placed on planets with moons--say, for example, "Terran Moon" +1Food +1Dust +1MaxPop, or "Military Moonbase" -10%shipcost, +1Ind, +10%influence/detection. Something like that would probably be easy.

Interesting... I'll give it a try. Be right back with feedback.



Hmmm... I like it a lot. It seems a little complex in the beginning but I'll figure it out.



Thank you for a great mod.

@Azhrey--I added the colored exploitations/planets/warnings you inadvertently asked for. :-)

Thank you very much... You are a god among modders... at least in my book.



Thank you again.



Can someone explain to me what should I do so that I can play Endless Space with both Imperium Aeterna mod and Tiax's Anomaly Overhaul???



Thank you.

Haha, well, I could, but it would take quite a few edits. If you'll have some patience, as soon as EvilTactician gives me the go ahead, I'll simply release the version I play with. Also, I added my Planet Expansion mod to this one--check the original post.

I would really appreciate it if you could combine both mods.



In my opinion 2 of the best mods for Endless Space.



I hope EvilTactician agrees.

Well, if he doesn't, I suppose I'll just pull it down. Here ya go.



--Removed, corrected, replaced on original post--

Thank you again... I hope it's not to many thanks.



Respect.



I'll go try it out.



EDIT: A question: Should it take at least 5 minutes to generate a map??? And it didn't generate it yet.



Usually for my PC it didn't take more than 2 minutes to generate the biggest galaxy.



Yep so it took 10 minutes to generate the biggest map possible.



Yet another edit: After playing the mod for 30 minutes I have to say that I like it. It's way more interesting with all the new anomalies and the modified ones. Much more diversity.

Somehow I cannot download combined mod - forum says:

You are not logged in or you do not have permission to access this page.



However, I can download TiaxAnomalyOverhaulv1.0.2.zip‎. That is very strange.

To Quote davea:

I wish everybody who used the forum attachment system would add these instructions. If you cannot download:

1. Log out of the forum and log back in again.

2. Try a different browser (firefox vs IE, etc)

3. Clear your browser cookies

This is all I know to help unfortunately. I'm not savvy enough with forum attachments to know more, but I can download it fine. :-\

Hmmm... I bumped into an error.



This is the error message:

Alright, what anomaly was on the planet? I thought I caught all of those... *sigh* Oh well. Just describe the system to me and I should be able to fix it.

I can do more than that. I will upload a screenshot with the system in a sec.



At the moment I am generating another galaxy.



I remember that the planet was Tiny Ice Planet with Ice 10 Anomaly...









If you need more info about the error I will keep a backup save.

Well that's... weird, I tried to recreate this and couldn't (yet). Can you upload a save?



Also, what Affinity are you using? That might make a difference.

Excellent! If you have any problems at all, note them in this thread. I haven't done extensive testing on the mod, but I have loaded each anomaly individually and upgraded them exclusively.

Here it is:





EDIT: I tried to start another game and I found another error.









SPARTAN EMPIRE - Error.zip



I will try to change the affinity of my custom faction. Maybe that's the problem.
AutoSave 764.zip

And I have found something weird. This is the first time I have noticed it. I didn't know an Asteroid Belt can have a Moon.







Has anyone else discovered something like this?



EDIT: Upon further examination I have found at least 6 systems with asteroid belts that have Moons.



Another EDIT: I have found at least 40 asteroid belts that have moons. Definetly weird.