Hey again (again) Tolmekian.  Sorry it took me a week to respond, but better a wall of text later than never, right?  First off, let me just start by saying that I am totally, 100%, completely naked right now.  Second, I think I forgot to mention before how much I love this friggin mod!  It’s like playing a whole new game!  I think it’s what ToA was SUPPOSED to have been all this time, instead of the broken turd they left in a flaming bag on our doorstep.  It’s just too bad that players had to fix it instead of the devs themselves.  So, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for all your hard work in making this game the very best it’s ever been!  Seriously, I dunno if you play City of Heroes or not, but if you’re ever in Paragon City, drop me a line (@Plug Nickel) and I’ll hook you up with the goods.

 

Anyway, dig this…

 

 

Minors.  I went back and checked my save game and I really don’t see what I was talking about with regard to majors making treaties with minors.  All the treaties are accounted for except the Korx and everyone’s at war with them (including me).  Also, I never even realized that you could get different reports on the civ you’re trading with just by using that little menu window!  I dunno how many hundreds of hours I’ve spent playing this game over the years, but I’m still amazed when I find something like this that I’ve never seen before.

 

Offensive Meditation.  Yeah I do indeed play with tech brokering disabled.  I actually wasn’t sure what the hell tech brokering was.  I’d thought that maybe it was like when one of the minor races swipes all the techs from a major race and then wants to sell the hubcaps – but I really had no idea.  It sounded scary though, so I turned it off.  What exactly is tech brokering then?  Does it just mean that I can only get unique techs from the civs that start with them, and not through third parties?

 

Random Team.  Haven’t done the campaign, and I never mess with the relations setting, so I dunno where that team came from.  Maybe a virus I picked up from fatsweatyknockers.com.  Who knows?

 

Spies.  You guys are likely right about why they were swarming me.  It sure was a lot different than the ToA espionage that I was used to though (but not in a bad way).  I did notice that you tacked on an espionage bonus to Counter Espionage and I thought this was great!  I can’t think of another tech that gives an espionage bonus in the Terran tech tree, so it was welcome.  I also noticed the +10% loyalty bonus in the Secret Police Headquarters tech, and thought that was damn cool as well.  Unfortunately, the Secret Police Headquarters sucks balls and I would never ever research this tech (unless I’m missing something, it looks like a clone of Restaurant of Eternity, with the added bonus that I can have one of these turds on each of my planets – oh happy day!).  If it gave a bit of an espionage bonus in addition to the loyalty bonus, it might be more attractive to me, but loyalty by itself isn’t very useful (in my games anyway).

 

Tech Tree.  Glad to see that Warp Bubbles and Electric Tulan Cappuccino Whisks are making a comeback!  Unfortunately, because of how expensive weapon techs are (and I know this has nothing to do with your mod) coupled with my very slow research setting, the good/bad guys of the galaxy aren’t likely to see the fruits of their alignment until long after the game is over now that good/evil civ bonus techs are way down at the end of the tech tree.  But screw them, I say.  Screw them straight to hell.

 

Galactic Achievements.  You said that your mod only fixed Galactic Stock Exchange, Galactic Monument, and Hyper Distribution Center (all awesome by the way), but I thought I saw a few more in there that I’d never seen before.  What about U.P. Headquarters?  That was a new one.  And I think there were some others in there as well, but they were from alien techs like the Shrine of Mithrilar andMercenaryAcademy (which I’d never noticed in a normal game of ToA).  Of course they might have been there since v1.1, but they’re all new compared to the dev’s version of ToA, which is what I’m used to. (I only played a few games with your 1.1 mod and could only recall that it fixed the AIs and made them playable again).  Oh and with regards to Eyes of the Universe, please don’t take any nerfing glances at this galactic achievement on MY account – I’d hate to be the guy who screwed up everybody’s favorite wonder and risk getting beaten up.  Besides, I guess I can just change the value for myself in the xml right?  It just friggin bothered me because you have to research all these Sensor techs and then you build this one achievement and suddenly there’s no need to even put sensors on any of your ships ever again!  Crud.

 

Trade.  Hey thanks for letting me tweak stuff!  Your trade numbers were likely great for the majority of players though.  I’m just a bastard, and I’m no good.  Actually, since I’ve been granted carte blanche to dick with stuff, I was thinking of messing with the civ customization points system to make it more uniform.  It always bothered me that there were “efficiency plateaus” that made certain point-spending habits more economical.  For instance, spending 2 points on Economy gives you a +10% bonus, but the NEXT 10% bonus only costs HALF as much (1 extra point, so +20% costs a total of 3 points).  I’d like to standardize these values according to how many points you spend.  Do you think this would break anything?

 

 

And here’s a couple more thoughts…

 

Starbase modules.  Since you got rid of the cost of starbase modules, doesn’t that sorta give a middle finger to the evil races, since free starbase modules used to be one of their perks?  And since they don’t get their big guns until so late in the game, might they now be unjustly boned?

 

Missing dialogue. I remember reading about a mod a few years ago that reintroduced a crapload of lost dialogue that was in the game but never got used because of a bug or something.  Even though I never downloaded it, it sounded like a damn fine thing.  If this is what qrtxian is talking about, I really do hope that you can bundle his mod with yours!  That would friggin rock!  I dunno why they put junk in the game that people will never ever see.  This game is like a haunted tomb filled with secret doors, and every time you open one, a bunch of treasure that had been there for centuries comes spilling out.  Anyhow, THANK YOU QRTXIAN, and THANK YOU TOLMEKIAN if you include his mod with yours!

 

 

OK I guess that’s it.  Sorry again for all the text.

 

 

(Disclaimer:  fatsweatyknockers.com is a fictitious website and does not exist.  Believe me, I checked.)

Pretty much what Gaunathor said.  I would add that tech brokering actually does affect the event in which a minor steals another race's technology.  If you disable tech brokering, the minor race won't be able to trade any of the stolen techs.  All that said, I always play with tech brokering off.  If you play with tech brokering on, the AI normally engages in such vigorous trading and retrading of techs that it's like you vs every AI combined in the tech race.

And the good news is that qrtxian sent me the conversation fixes and they'll be in the v2.1 release.  I just need to finish up a playtest and maybe do a bit of polishing, then I'll release it.

Edit to add:

I share this concern.  I haven't put any starbase module costs back in, but you may be right about evil losing out.  I'm not sure any fixes will make the 2.1 release, but I'm open to ideas about how to handle the evil weapons - and while at it, the good defenses.

What if there were evil weapons at the end of every tier?  Say they did better damage, but retained the size and cost of the previous weapon?  It would essentially be equivalent to the top weapon of the next tier, giving evil a fast-track to more powerful weapons without being game breaking.  The same could be done for defenses.

Gaunathar & Tolmekian,

(Sorry, I don’t know how to do that multi-quote thing, but check this out…)

 

Regarding the Secret Police Headquarters – I mistakenly compared it to the Restaurant of Eternity (which is, in fact, awesome).  What I meant to compare it to was the Galactic Resort (which I feel is pretty lame).  It looks like the Secret Police Headquarters actually gives less of a morale bonus than the Resort, though you do get the +10% Loyalty bonus that comes with the SPH tech itself.  And I didn’t mean to knock loyalty (I think it’s great), just that a mere +10% (which is about all I’m likely to squeeze out), isn’t of much use in the games I play.  I never expect to flip Yor planets because I’m pretty sure they’ve got some crazy racial loyalty bonus of like +100% or something.  I’d LOVE to have that bonus – but am not likely to bother with just +10% unless I’ve got nothing else to research.  Anyway, I still think both SPH and Galactic Resort are crummy.

As for the “alien” galactic achievements, I’m sure they were always there, but as you said, I just never saw them because the computer couldn’t pull them out of its tech trees.  But since I’d never seen them before, they were certainly “new” to me, and I was just saying how cool it was that this mod introduced so many wonders I’d never seen before.

As far as tweaking the customization numbers, I was wondering how the computer players pick their abilities.  I mean, if you play with the values, will they still end up with the same bonuses?  I was just worried that they’d try to buy the same stuff they were supposed to have and the totals might not add up.

Evil Weapons (and Good Defenses) – Tolmekian, that idea sounds great to me.  So it would just be an extra weapon tech at the end of each tier, right?  That’s simple, and they’ll get their bonuses in stages, which always gives them something to look forward to.  Plus they’ll STILL have the biggest guns on the block at the end of the line, like you had it before.

 

Anyway, glad Qrtxian’s conversation fixes are making it in!  Can’t wait for v2.1!

I do mean good defenses, of course.

My observation was that the AI either doesn't use it's customization points, or uses them oddly.  Changing the number of points won't mess them up, but you should just assign the bonuses yourself instead of letting the AI do it.

I thought the evil/good thing sounded decent.  It's not actually that much work, so it'll probably make it into v2.1.

I'm not going back to review the tape, but either way I didn't plan on putting them back in.  In v2.1 I removed the ModuleRequirement for pretty much every module, with a few exceptions.  Weapon, defense, and assist modules all require either Battle Stations I or Starbase Defenses I.  Otherwise, the only stepwise lines I left in were Battle Stations and Starbase Defenses (2 requires 1, 3 requires 2, etc) and the culture modules.  I still don't like the idea of having to pay for them, but I realized that only needing 2 constructors for 100% bonus and 3 for 160% was going to get out of hand pretty fast.

I'll need to think about it.  Many of the culture modules ended up "below the line", ie the AI can't use them.  So, cost is only an issue to the player.  I haven't tested to see just how obscene culture starbase spamming can become without a cost.

Input?

 

It sure would! There are other bonuses that don't show up, like the planet quality change from Biosphere Modulator/Weather Control Center/Hyperion Matrix.


You're welcome!



Okay. I just wanted to make sure I didn't made another mistake.


Sounds reasonable.


I'm not really qualified to answer this, as I rarely use influence starbases, but maybe an accountant-approach can provide some food for thought:

1. Using the Terran tech tree (or something similar) you need 12 constructors to build a fully maximized influence starbase (one for the starbase, eleven for the culture modules)

2. Each constructor takes several turns to build and, once finished, has a maintenance cost of 10+bc per turn

3. You need four starbases to fully maximize the influence output in a sector, so you need at least 48 constructors

4. Therefore you have to pay at least 480bc per turn until the constructors have arrived at their destination

5. After the starbases are finished you still pay 20bc maintenance for them (5bc for each)

6. Dependent on the foreign influence, it may take several turns and several more starbases in adjacent sectors until the planets finally flip

7. After a certain point, each new starbase will incur an ever increasing cost, no matter how high your logistics bonus is

8. This cost can quickly reach several hundred to several thousand bc per new starbase constructed

9. The only way to reduce the cost is to reduce the amount of starbases you have

10. The AI can't do that itself, only by the "help" of enemy ships destroying the starbases

Why not? It won't specifically seek them out, but it can certainly capture them.

I had to use a common ground for my extrapolation. If I had used the values from my own mod, we couldn't really talk about it, as the overall balance is quite different.


Only if you build them on planets with good industrial output, but those may not always be close to were you want to build the starbases.


You're the expert here, so I trust your word. Not everybody has that knowledge, though. I certainly don't. My guess would still be, that to flip a sector full of high influence planets from a high influence race (higher than your own), you need more starbases.


Depends on map size and speed of the constructor. Even with fewer constructors the maintenance over time will still be pretty high.


Yes, but until then the starbase maintenance accumulates quite a cost. Especially if you use lots of them.


Only if you go Evil. Good and Neutral don't have that option and you can't rely on the AI to build it for you.


You mean, if I have a logistics ability of 100+ I don't have to pay anything for new starbases, no matter how many I have?


Of course not, but what is faster: to use several starbases to capture several sectors at once or to use a few starbases to capture one sector after the other?


The AI has to build them first, though, and you can't rely on it doing that even if you give it Expert Logistics.


Yes and no. AIP 11 does it occasionally. I have seen it adding some modules to influence starbases in my test games, but never as many as it could. Most of the time though, it doesn't has the will or time to do it. Just spamming starbases all over the place and that is the problem.


Overall, this was an attempt to provide the basis for a cost/benefit analysis (I haven't done that in quite a long time). Using influence starbases should be viable, but it shouldn't be a total no-brainer for non-experts, because there is no cost involved.

Also, has anyone tried this so far? It wouldn't be perfect - the AI wouldn't know how to use a "command ship" and so would likely build tons of these things - but it seems worth a try.

And as far as the discussion of hull modules goes, I'm not clear on whether HP modules were also removed or not, but the AI very definitely uses these, and they should stay accessible. It's only the offensive/defensive/FWB that give it trouble.

Precisely.  However, given that your own Logistics System plus all techs (and assuming a starting value of 6) takes you to 57, you need another 43, which means capturing 7 Logistics Systems, although that still only places you at 99.


Faster is only relevant if your economy can support it. 

My intent was to point out that the costs of constructing more SBs will almost always outweigh all the other costs-modules, maintenance, constructors-combined, and by a fair margin.  And aside from tweaking the tech trees to allow for 100+ logistics, that's not something we can change.

What this means, precisely, I can't say-I don't really have an opinion here, and it could be taken as an argument either for or against module fees.  But I'm fairly positive it's relevant information.

How does that make the Yor better?

With, say, 30 starbases (is this an unrealistic number?), the last one will cost 13,650 to build with 57 logistics (first 10 are free, although if memory serves the free quantity may change based on galaxy size-that's a Gigantic number, for reference).

30 influence SBs might be a bit much, but when you consider that this counts economic SBs, military SBs, and even mining SBs, it's not that many.  Actually, mining SBs are counted for determining your next SB build cost, but they don't cost anything themselves.

At a rough estimate, based on DA's economics bonuses, even with four stock markets per planet and an economic boom at 20B population per, it would take ~750 turns (over 15 years) in order for a single planet to repay 100 fold.  TA has the potential for somewhat higher bonuses, even without the MCC, reducing it to just under 12 years.

Any game that goes on that long (with the exception of when I found myself 531 million bc in debt due to a bug back in DA 1.7) is already won.  I suppose in TA with Very Slow research one could make an argument for 12 years, but 15 or 16 is still unrealistic.

A more accurate number might be 10-fold, as that's only a bit over a year to a year and a half, per planet per starbase.

I'm beginning to suspect that SBs would work much better if logistics were to reach 100 via the tech tree, and simply have the costs tied up either in modules or the constructor module.  Of course, logistics for hull sizes would need to be rebalanced...

That's interesting.  How did you manage that, out of curiosity?

In any case, that's for a 1:1 ratio of influence SBs to target planets.  Even I suggested it might take two.  How's 24 years sound to you?

So I'll stand by my estimate of closer to 10x than 100x.  Which still suggests that logistics may need a change.

 

Allowing the Yor to field even more ships in a fleet would put them in permanent control, because of their ability to produce lots of ships in a short time. In my mod the Yor are currently the most powerful race and that by a looooooooooong margin. Of 90+ AI vs. AI test games, in the last two weeks, they lost only one and that just because of bad luck. They started out right next to the Thalans in a corner of the map, which hindered their colonizing attempts. The Yor eventually conquered the Thalans and managed to put up a good fight, but lost in the end against the Drath/Iconian-Alliance (the only ones left). The usual outcome of a test game with the Yor against nine major races on a large map is the Yor wiping everyone out.
The most troubling part is, that I have no idea how that happened. A few weeks ago the power structure of my AIP 8 races was this:
1. Terrans (aggression 50)
2. Yor (aggression 50)
3. Drengin (aggression 100) and Thalan (aggression 80)
4. Arcean (aggression 70).
The Arcean were actually second last place of all races (the Korath, still on AIP 7, are last). I made an attempt to improve the Arcean, who, despite my removal of their speed penalty, had trouble with the colony rush. The only changes I made were to tweak some values in TechTree.xml and Arcean_TechTree.xml. This improved the Arceans somewhat, they actually manage to put up a fight now and then, but it turned the Yor into the galactic dominator somehow.
I have yet to test how the Yor manage against a human opponent and, to be honest, I'm to scared to try it. 


I usually play Immense-size and there are the first 12 starbases free, so you remember correctly.


"Slight" exaggeration on my part. I also was thinking in different terms: Dependent on map settings used and the sector, you can flip more than one planet with the starbases. Each planet pays back the cost for the starbases through its income and by the (small) increase in tourism. In addition, each planet increases your manufacturing and research potential, while decreasing the economy, research, manufacturing and influence of the other race. Eventually, your influence will reach a point were no starbases are needed anymore to flip other planets. At least in that cluster.


Depends somewhat on play style. I like to draw out my games for as long as I can. 12+ years are the rule for me, not the exception.


Possibly. Maybe I have to try it after all.